Should Have Read The Fine Print

While I was puking my guts up from poison-by-peanut-butter, I wasn’t taking my meds. I didn’t figure there was much point.

Discontinuation of Treatment with Cymbalta:

Discontinuation symptoms have been systematically evaluated in patients taking Cymbalta. Following abrupt discontinuation in MDD placebo-controlled clinical trials of up to 9-weeks duration, the following symptoms occurred at a rate greater than or equal to 2% and at a significantly higher rate in Cymbalta-treated patients compared to those discontinuing from placebo: dizziness; nausea; headache; paresthesia; vomiting; irritability; and nightmare.

During marketing of other SSRIs and SNRIs (serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors), ther have been spontaneous reports of adverse events occurring upon discontinuation of these drugs, particularly when abrupt, including the following: dysphoric mood, irritability, agitation, dizziness, sensory disturbances (e.g., paresthesias such as electric shock sensations), anxiety, confusion, headache, lethargy, emotional lability, insomnia, hypomania, tinnitus, and seizures. Although these events are generally self-limiting, some have been reported to be severe.

Patients should be monitored for these symptoms when discontinuing treatment with Cymbalta. A gradual reduction in the dose rather than abrupt cessation is recommended whenever possible… blah blah blah.

Y’think?

I started taking the meds again. I hope I feel better soon. My family knows where I sleep.

This Is Why I Had Kids

So I could stress over their schoolwork, and so they could bring me home all sorts of wonderful stomach viri.

And the little carpet lice refuse to see you the way you tell them to, which is just annoying.  They actually see your flaws.

Now if I could just get them to beat me with a hammer, I’d be in Heaven.

The Big Meeting

is tomorrow.  11:30.

Me, the VP, and all four core teachers.

I’m not nervous or anything.  If anything, I’m a little worried that I don’t have the fire still burning hot enough in my belly to make my case vehemently enough.

For once in my life I’m bummed because I’m not pissed enough.

I hate being pissed.  Believe it or not, it’s just not me.

I’m like Mr. LaidBackHippy.

Believe it or not.

WordPress Staff Visits Elizabeth Wood’s Blog

Dr. Mike and Toni, apparently from WordPress’ staff are at least answering Elizabeth Wood, which is more courtesy than we’ve received thus far.

Elizabeth asks questions similar to our own and has (as yet) not been de-listed.

Please stop by and add your voice to this conversation about WordPress, censorship, and community.

The Effect Of WordPress’ Censorship

I was pretty happy with 40 page views a day here.

When I started bitching about the censorship policy of WordPress, you can see where the numbers went.

People were interested, they were reading, they wanted the content I was providing.

In case you thought the de-listing might be a minor issue, look very closely at the effect of de-listing on my stats.

The WordPress Community was listening, and The McCarthy Censorship Comittee had to silence me.

Censorship, plain and simple.

I Have Now Been De-Listed

The heavy hand of Mark, the head of the McCarthy Censorship Board at WordPress has now silenced me, too.

Not for objectionable content, there is none on my blog, but for speaking up for the girls.

I have been de-listed.

Mark is obviously on a power-trip. Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

On a brighter note, he’s stopped blocking the girls on the friend surfer.

I’m happy for them, but it’s a small victory.

Digg This 

WordPress Censors The Erotica Tag

Janie was just checking, and all the posts have now disappeared from the erotica tag (only two very recent ones are there, apparently added after the purge by Mark and WordPress’ McCarthy Censorship Board).

We can now only assume that Mark has suddenly decided to go on a Holy Crusade against erotic literature on all blogs, and we are apparently the cause because we mentioned the tag when we were bitching about being blacklisted.

For that, we are truly sorry.

But please, don’t just stop writing it, don’t roll over and just accept his whimsical crusade.

Do everything you can to stop the WordPress Purge.

Post the graphics, make your own, blog about it, comment about it on other blogs, email WordPress Support and tell them how unhappy you are about these McCarthy era tactics of censorship in 2007.

Do not allow WordPress to continue censoring our blogs.

This must stop now.

Joseph McCarthy Also Protests WordPress’ Censorship

Over at Censor This, Joseph McCarthy further protests the censoring of UDreamOfJanie and KissingCorporalKate with his own graphic. (Don’t sweat the url – there’s no child porn, it’s a protest statement.)

For those who may not know, our blogs have been de-listed from WordPress’ internal listing, which means we no longer appear in the category pages, we no longer appear in the tag surfer, and we no longer appear in the friend surfer (a WP service where bloggers have to enter the URL of blogs they want to see there – 100% opt-in).

The vague reason we have been given by Mark, apparently the head of the McCarthy Censorship Board at WordPress is that our blogs “contain material which we determine is of a Mature nature will be removed from our tagging system.”

Meanwhile, the adults surfing the sex tag (or any other tag for that matter) who are looking for content like ours can find piles of it, just not ours.

There is no set of rules, no list of guidelines, and no specific item mentioned which put us over this arbitrary and invisible line.

We have been censored at the whim of one person, we were not notified before or after the de-listing, and we have been given no recourse or appeal.

Interestingly, the de-listing seems to have occured just after the posting of The Itch, Part The Last and before the posting of Sugasm 64. Other blogs continue to post material that is highly sexual in nature, so I can only assume that Mark’s issue is with our portrayal of a priest as a sexual submissive.

We are apparently not permitted to speak about the church that way without reprisal.

WordPress claims that is strongly in favor of the freedom to publish, yet that is apparently only so as long as you don’t say something Mark doesn’t like. Their own Terms Of Service states:

The Website may contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors.

While we haven’t been deleted (yet), we have been censored from the WordPress community’s eyes.

Please add your voice to the growing chorus of protest against this practice of arbitrary and secretive censorship.

If Mark can censor UDreamOfJanie and KissingCorporalKate for what we say, he can censor (and even delete) your blog without notice for something you say which he personally finds objectionable.

Have you posted a picture that might have been too risque? Are you sure?

Have you divulged just a little too much about your sex life? How do you know?

Have you used language that offends Mark’s delicate sensibilities? Do you even know what words you can’t use?

Add one of these graphics to your blog, your myspace, whatever. Blog about this, comment about it, email your displeasure to mark at support@wordpress.com and demand that WordPress stop censoring blogs.

Stop Censoring Our Blogs!

<a href="http://childporn.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/wordpress-saves-us-all-from-smut/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"><img src="https://childporn.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/wordpress_censors.jpg?w=780" alt="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"></img></a><br /><a href="http://childporn.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/wordpress-saves-us-all-from-smut/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!">Stop Censoring Our Blogs!</a>

Stop Censoring Our Blogs!

<a href="http://childporn.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/wordpress-saves-us-all-from-smut/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"><img src="https://childporn.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/wordpress_censors.jpg?w=780" alt="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"></img></a><br /><a href="http://childporn.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/wordpress-saves-us-all-from-smut/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!">Stop Censoring Our Blogs!</a>

(Guest Post by JanieBelle of UDreamOfJanie – Censored by WordPress)

Tell WordPress To Stop Censoring Our Blogs!

If you are as upset as we are about these shenanigans, please express your dissatisfaction with WordPress’ arbitrary and selective censorship with this graphic.

Post about it on your own blog, comment about it on other blogs, put this graphic at the top of your sidebar.

What have you said lately that might get your blog shut down? Did you post a risque graphic? Write something Mark McCarthy might find offensive or too sexy? Drop the “F-Bomb” because you were pissed at your boss?

If Mark can de-list U Dream Of Janie and Kissing Corporal Kate, he can de-list you. He can even delete your entire blog without notice, destroying forever all the months of work, posts, and comments that you have created.

Tell WordPress that you will not accept this.

Show them we will not lie below.

Stop Censoring Our Blogs!

<a href="http://udoj.wordpress.com/wall-of-shame/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/i143.photobucket.com/albums/r154/janiebellemcknight/censoredbywp.jpg" alt="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!"></img></a><br /><a href="http://udoj.wordpress.com/wall-of-shame/" title="Stop Censoring Our Blogs!">Stop Censoring Our Blogs!</a>

The Latest Bologna From WordPress Censors

Well at least we have his attention. Apparently only long enough for one EMail full of shitty vagueness again, however:

Hi,
You are not violating the ToS.
If you were, the blog would have been removed.

All we have done is removed your blog from our tagging system to protect users who may inadvertently visit and see content which is mature in nature. We have many users here of all ages and all views but we have chosen – because of a lot of feedback – to have this label. It is there to protect other users, to protect your blog from complaints and to provide a safe environment for those casually browsing blogs here.
The ToS does cover the action I took.

We have not restricted your blog from search engines. Google has a much wider audience than we do and it has unfettered access.
–
Mark

You didn’t answer my questions, Mark. So I ask them again.

I call bullshit.

Look through the sex tag for 5 minutes and you will find a ton of sites like mine listed. In fact, if you’re so concerned about adult content, why is there a sex tag in the first place? Why an erotica tag?

Kate and I are not the only ones writing adult material, but we seem to be the only ones being quashed.

Why? And why not explain your exact reasoning in public, in the thread set up specifically for that?

What specific violations of what specific rules brought you to your decision? Or was it just an arbitrary whim, as I and everyone else suspects?

Why was I not notified before being de-listed, or even after?

Why are none of the other adult blogs being de-listed?

Again, I call Bullshit.

JanieBelle.

But I have apparently been returned to the ignore list.

(From UDoJ)

For The Girls Censored By WordPress – Cross Posted from UDoJ

A blogger has started a new blog in our defense already.

He goes by the name of Joseph McCarthy and has started a blog called “Censor This” with an address of http://childporn.wordpress.com. (No, there is no child porn there, he’s making a statement with that url.)

Thank you, Mr. McCarthy, for coming to our rescue. A very long peek above our garters to you.

His very first post is entitled WordPress Censors Erotic Literature and Discussion.

He takes a good look at the Terms Of Service at WordPress, and shows that we have violated no rules therein.

WordPress has censored at least two blogs—UDreamOfJanie and Kissing Corporal Kate—containing writing of an adult nature. However, they contain no libelous content, no graphic nudity, no misleading tags or categories.

 

The WordPress Terms of Service offer little insight as to why.

 

You must not describe or assign keywords to your blog in a misleading or unlawful manner, including in a manner intended to trade on the name or reputation of others, and Automattic may change or remove any description or keyword that it considers inappropriate or unlawful, or otherwise likely to cause Automattic liability.

Well, the blogs aren’t named in a misleading or unlawful manner.

 

…the Content is not obscene or libelous, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party…

Is the content obscene? Last I checked, people wrote and sold erotic literature all the time. We’re not talking mothers vivisecting their newborn babies here.

 

The Website may contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors.

It seems that Automattic acknowledge that they are and will continue to host potentially offensive content.

Yet we have been removed from WordPress’ category pages on a whim.

Please stand up for us, we can’t even stand up for ourselves at WordPress, because no one can see our posts in the category pages or the Friend Surfer, an explicitly opt in service of WordPress.

We are being silenced for no reason, and we need you to make WordPress stop.

Please email Mark at support@wordpress.com. Tell him you disagree. Tell him to re-list our blogs.

Janie Asks Mark To Respond

Janie has EMailed Mark and asked for a public discussion of why she and Kate are being censored by WordPress. This would get interesting, but I doubt he’ll show up.

WordPress is unlikely to actually even have a specific criteria for who gets censored and who doesn’t. It’s probably just dependant on whether Mark got laid last night or not.

Arbitrary censorship should frighten us all. It’s not a big step from UDoJ to WhoreChurch (I’d be equally pissed if they went after Kevin) or any one of thousands of other blogs.

What have you said lately that might get you shut down?

WordPress Has Censored Janie And Kate

UDreamOfJanie and KissingCorporalKate have been censored by WordPress. Apparently not for sexual content, but because they wrote a sexual story involving a priest.

Janie has the story here and here.

The long and the short of it is that the girls noticed a precipitous drop in spam, the cause of which turned out to be that all of their posts have been removed from the category pages at WordPress.

When investigating, Janie noticed that the removal seems to have taken place between the time she posted The Itch, Part The Last and the time she posted Sugasm 64.

By that reasoning, Sugasm 64 could not have been the issue, and since there had been quite a few non-sexual posts since The Itch, Part The Fourth, it would certainly follow that the cause was The Itch, Part The Last. Since many blogs appearing in the Sex category are rife with sexuality, and since both she and Kate have written on sexual themes many times before without incident, the only logical conclusion is that the blacklisting occured because of her depiction of a priest as a submissive in a sexual situation.

In an EMail to Janie, Matt (from WordPress’ support staff) denied that she was singled out, and made the following statement:

I am sorry you feel this way but this is something that has been considered and used for some time.
There is no McCarthyism here – we believe strongly in the freedom to publish but we do have to consider the wider community and their feedback over time about what they generally find acceptable.

Janie has responded with the following EMail (in its entirety):

Hi Mark,

I really appreciate your quick attention to this. I see where you’re coming from about trouble at work, but if that’s an issue for someone’s place of employment, why are they trolling the sex tag in the first place?

It’s not like someone would accidentally type in http://udoj.wordpress.com or http://kissingcorporalkate.wordpress.com and just happen to stumble into our blogs. Someone finding my blog through a science tag will find a science post. It’s not like I’m posting erotica and labeling it as science. People find sexual material by looking for sexual material.

So again, I fail to see the issue here. I also fail to see why every blog with a sex tag isn’t being blacklisted. What prompted the decision to mark our blogs specifically?

Thanks again for taking the time to address this with me.

JanieBelle

She makes several good points, and she has suddenly stopped receiving communications from Matt.

Please join me, the girls’ friend and author, in calling for an end to selective censorship at WordPress.

This is despicable behavior coming from a blog hosting site that believes “strongly in the freedom to publish”.

More like they believe strongly in the freedom to publish, as long as you don’t offend their delicate sensibilities.

Round IV – VP Becomes A Bit Less Arrogant

It would seem Ms. Whatsherface is a little slower to start slinging crap, though she still misspelled apologize.

I also get the impression that she’s also at least considering the idea that I’m not going to just roll over, and that I’m not just some parent pissed that his son got suspended.

Does it sound like she’s at least beginning to understand I’m not going off for no reason?

Ding Ding Ding – Round III is with the VP

Now the Vice Principal is involved, and automatically jumping to Mr. Dickhead’s defense, albeit poorly.

In what world is it acceptable for a middle school teacher and an administrator to be unable to write a coherent or grammatically correct sentence?

I’m fucking doped out of my mind, and I can do better.  (EDIT: On my pain meds – just to be clear.)

Illiterate, incompetent, insufferable boobs.

West By God

Wild, Wonderful,

West Virginia.

Beautiful state.

Lovely place.

I live my life

in this mountainous haven,

day to day,

watching,

the trees turn in autumn,

the bud in spring,

shroud in summer.

Winter set in some time ago.

October was blustery,

November was wet,

December,

January,

February,

now March.

all the stunning snow.

It fell,

it wafted,

it blew,

it sailed,

it covered,

it melted,

it returned again and again.

I think I’ll move to Florida,

and watch West Virginia on TV.

L.

3/21/96

Who Am I?

i feel like,

i’m not sure.

the words just aren’t there.

.

maybe just an ephemeral spirit

in an etherial plane of quasiexistence

maybe.

.

sort of a plasma

inside a plasma.

.

it’s not so much i’m scattered,

more like fuzzy at the edges.

like a pencil drawing

erased and smeared at the borders.

.

just a few months ago,

i was apathetic.

but vehemently apathetic.

i could scream

i don’t care.

.

now i’m just kind of

apathetically apathetic.

.

i can’t say who i am,

i’m not even sure what i am.

L.

2/13/96

This Morning

Sleepy,

Bleary eyed.

The sun streaming in the window,

Wakes me with its warmth.

I’m dragging,

Unmotivated,

Much to do,

But bored to tears.

My neck is sore,

and my back aches.

The children won’t be here this weekend,

they are snowed in.

I want to be excited,

to feel alive,

so long as there isn’t much effort to it.

Amuse me.

Something happen, please.

My God,

I’ve become lazy,

Fat,

Brain dead.

I think I must have gotten old last night.

L.

2/3/96

Her Emblazoned Mane

I do not know her name,

nor dare I ask it.

I have laid eyes this night

on the most enchanting hue of blaze,

to ever cross man’s field of vision.

These magic, curling locks,

could belong to none

save a Celtic lass

of purest spritely blood.

And I have no doubt

that she is of the race

that so enchanted Odyseus, Hercules,

and Sinbad of lore.

Nor would I swear

that she is not in fact the very one,

the selfsame siren

whose enrapturing spell was cast

so very long ago.

To ask her name,

by legend her most intimate possession,

would be to risk,

to gamble,

perchance to shatter,

the very sorcery

to which I cling.

L.

1/23/96

Stone

Stone.

A stone idol

to the goddess Life.

Hard.  Unforgiving,

Enslaved by a diety

he adores but cannot touch.

She waits for his worship,

Worship he can no longer give.

She yearns for his passion,

Passion he cannot possess.

She longs for his kisses,

Kisses that are but stone.

And she listens for his heartbeat,

But it does not.

In her unnecessary enslavement

of her one true disciple,

She has enslaved

herself.

L.

10/13/95