No New Boobs On This Blog

An update on the policies Google will implement for Blogger (which hosts Landless):

Google has updated its policies on Blogger, its blogging platform, to preclude new users from hosting adult content. Blogs that are created after March 23 and contain “images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity” may be summarily deleted. Existing blogs will be set to private; the only way to visit them will be for the blog owner to explicitly give permission to individual browsers. 

If that sounds too cumbersome, Google has some other suggestions for administrators of blogs with adult content: they can remove the offending content. Or they can remove the blog. In short, Google no longer wants their business.

Not that I ever posted much adult content (except for that one Friday Flash with the bondage and hot candle wax), but this seems like another step toward the sanitization/Bowdlerization of the web. There will always be plenty of porn on the Internet, but this is a major blogging platform deciding that the presence of adult content on some Blogger sites is a threat to the business position of the entire company.

Sic transit gloria boobs

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Caressing a wax doll

A passage from "Anna Karenina" struck me with particular force today. Before I share it, some introductions and scene-setting are necessary:

The Russians:

Anna Karenina: a noted politician's wife, now living in exile with her lover, Count Vronsky, for whom she has forsaken husband, children, home, and reputation.

Count Vronsky: Anna's lover, who, having given up his army career and society position to be with her, has grown bored with his new life abroad, and who has taken up painting as a way to fill the hours of his empty days.
Golenishtchev: a self-important quasi-intellectual, now settled in this Italian town, perpetually gathering information for a grand treatise, and perpetually on the verge of writing it.
Mihailov: a brilliant artist who has been given the commission of painting Anna Karenina's portrait, and who in consequence has been obliged to listen to Golenishtchev's views and to look at Vronsky's own attempt at a portrait of Anna.

 "Mihailov meanwhile, although Anna's portrait greatly fascinated him, was even more glad than they were when the sittings were over, and he had no longer to listen to Golenishtchev's disquisitions upon art, and could forget about Vronsky's painting. He knew that Vronsky could not be prevented from amusing himself with painting; he knew that he and all dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful to him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky's painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive." - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, Ch 13.

 
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Fifty Shades of Grammar: just how bad WAS the writing?

If you're less into BDSM and more into CMOS, you might be wondering just how well the writing in "Fifty Shades of Grey" conforms to the norms of grammatical construction. From Grammarly comes this analysis of the types of proofreading gaffs you might find in this bestseller. For the record, Grammarly has never run MY book through their analysis, but (for obvious reasons), I'm sure it would pass with flying colors.

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