It’s all about that goofy Abunga bookstore nonsense — I love how a couple of paragraphs and a few hundred comments can make the zealots swoon.
There are lots of comments there, too, most seem to either dislike Abunga’s model, or are defending it on false pretenses: “we MUST maintain the integrity of our free enterprise system”!!! It seems to me that having a swarm of people using their rating system exactly as they designed it is perfectly fair and a fine example of free enterprise in action.
Most of those defending Abunga’s policy can’t seem to make the distinction between censoring ideas and allowing children unfettered access to pornography. *sigh* A fundie’s life truly is ruled by fear and ignorance.
And would you look at that! 4 comments into that thread and already one religious nutter has made my point for me.
Posted by the1stocean on January 24, 2008 at 9:39 a.m.
“Way to take a stand Abunga.com!! Ashame more businesses out there don’t follow your example. Thank you and may the Lord bless you!!”
Yes, that’s just what we need. More businesses to follow this model. It’s almost like it would be mob rule… No that’s just silly.
I doubt many of the defenders would make the same argument about ‘standing up for decency’ if it were the Nazi book-burning.
So I went to abunga.com and clicked on the “Report non-family books” button, and over to the right there’s a list of “recently blocked books”. EVERY ONE is a Christian book of one kind or another, INCLUDING the King James Bible!
Methinks some people are being mischievous.
Cool!
Let’s start a bookstore where the bible is unavailable (along with any other religious book) and see if they say the same thing about it.
Brownian,
Perhaps not, but only because of the name Nazi being attached. When I was a kid in the late 70’s I got dragged along to a good old fashioned record burning done in the name of decency. These are some crazy folk
So just wondering… When we did the mass banning how many people used their actual email addresses? Hehe I got an email a few days later about the “attack” we did on them. Will have to look it up.
One wonders. If enough people were to sign up, buy something, and block the Bible, etc. from their account, would they stick to their “principals”?.
While I would not prevent my child from reading anything and everything that exists, the Bible would be on the same list as Mein Kampf, etc that I would want to read *with* my child so that I can help them to analyze it critically.
Perhaps not, but only because of the name Nazi being attached
That’s why I had to be a little sneaky (and somewhat historically inaccurate) when I posted the following comment on the Knox news site:
Yeah, I saw that one Brownian, and laughed so hard I scared my cat.
Hm. So the books are censored socially? I wonder if someone could write a computer program that would automatically censor the books for them?
Let me see.
C: censorbooks /violence
– examining list
– one book found “Bible” – Delete (Y/N)?
Hmmm… I’ll try again
C: censorbooks /sex
– examining list
– one book found “Bible” – Delete (Y/N)?
uh… maybe this time
C: censorbooks /intolerance
– examining list
– one book found “Bible” – Delete (Y/N)?
Well, that’s not working. The book censoring software keeps rejecting the Bible. How odd.
You’re just in it for the orgies and bags of money.
Preacher to choir:
B.b.b.b.but they’re banning the *wrong* books!
Comeuppance is a major pain when it takes a huge bite out of your ass!
@1 (H.Humbert) re: A fundie’s life truly is ruled by fear and ignorance.
You may not realize how accurate that statement is.
Here’s a very short quiz based on personal experience that can help detect a fundie:
1. Woman home alone (married or single doesn’t matter) and there’s a knock at the door. What do they do?
A. Stay quiet and hope they go away.
B. Answer the door.
C. Run and hide in the bedroom closet and hope they go away.
If they answered C then there’s your Fundie.
2. Woman walking after dark 50 yards on a sidewalk along a major urban street in a very nice neighborhood to the house next door .
A. Walk like a normal human being.
B. Consider the dark and take a flashlight and walk like a human being.
C. Run hell bent for leather in case the rapists attack.
If they answered C then there she is!
3. Family brings their children home and it’s after dark.
A. Family exits the vehicle and goes inside.
B. Parent casually checks the entry door for obvious signs of a break-in and the family goes inside.
C. Parents lock children in the car then proceed to check every closet, under every bed, behind every shower curtain for child rapists then return outside to let the children inside.
C would be your Fundie again.
They live in a world all their own. As a general rule (this rule is broken when they ‘minister’ in ‘bad’ places but they never leave their local sponsor’s side) they only listen to approved music with others of their kind. They only eat dinner with their kind. They only eat where their kind eat. They only listen to that crap music that isn’t Christian or Rock – it’s called “sucking at music”, people! ;)
Their world is sad, demented, deranged, closed, and scary (even to them with their, “As I walk through the valley of death” nonsense).
Over the years I’ve learned to actually feel sorry for them. Besides, it isn’t polite to kick the retarded.
However, when they want the remaining sane ones of us to join them I say no frickin’ way.
Ban all the books at Abunga. That is the free enterprise system at work in all its glory.
Search for “Intervarsity Press”.
Ban-ban-ban-ban-ban!
It’s easy!
It looks like Dembski has a lot of books available for blocking at Abunga. I’m not suggesting anything, just pointing out that they are still for sale at Abunga.
I love that their search function includes a “search for books to block feature”.
‘Dembski’->select all->BLOCK!
Take the hard intellectual work out of book-banning!
Hah, I love this comment in the knoxnews article…
Yes, we absolutely will accuse you of not thinking for yourself, because you still haven’t. You just passed the buck off to your 5 year old.
It’s amusing though, how all of the sudden it’s *not* Ok to give kids equal access to both “theories” (of what good reading material is) and let them decide.
(3):I doubt many of the defenders would make the same argument about ‘standing up for decency’ if it were the Nazi book-burning.
That would all depend on what Rush “Barack the Magic Negro” Limbaugh tells them to think and do about it, doesn’t it?
I just signed on (not using my real name of course) and blocked all of Sandra Lee’s cookbooks. I recommend everyone else do the same. Sandra Lee is a horrible, satanic scourge on the kitchens of America, and must be expunged. Seriously.
Now that I’m home from a long day out scavenging books from thrift stores to list on Amazon, I will say that I have absolutely no objections to book burnings.
Creates more scarcity and increases the value of the remaining titles. And publishers can keep producing more than you can burn.
What, you think they don’t mean to censor ideas too?
They have a “hacker safe” symbol on the Abunga site but it’s dated July 29. I would not give those folks any of your personal information.
About Lee Martin:
Martin, a co-founder of the defunct Oak Ridge imaging company Ipix Corp. who left the company in the late 1990s, teamed up on Abunga.com with the Slack family, owners of the 12-store Family Book Outlet chain and the Christian book wholesalers SAS & Associates.
[…]
Slack said the family’s book-selling business was doing about $800,000 a year in sales on Amazon, but “the more we became intimately involved with Amazon, the more we realized what we were supporting.” After discussions with family friend Martin, who has advised several local technology companies, the Abunga.com team began developing the site last year.
[…]
Abunga.com is launching solely as a bookstore, but Martin said the site could expand to other media “if the marketplace embraces our message.” The site’s founders plan to donate 5 percent of each sale to “favored nonprofits,” which include East Tennessee Children’s Hospital and Knox Area Rescue Ministries.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/nov/28/abungacom-delivers-a-good-clean-read/
Martin also tried to run for a school board and lost:
H. LEE MARTIN
Martin, 50, an engineer and entrepreneur, said he never considered running for the school board until he received a phone call from Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale.
“We’re buddies from college,” said Martin, who met Ragsdale when they were undergraduates at UT. “When he called, I said, ‘Mike, I’m not a politician. I’ve never run for public office. I’ve got to talk to my wife and do a little praying.’ “
With the go-ahead from his wife, Carla, Martin entered the race, and he has earned some high-profile support. His campaign Web site lists endorsements from Ragsdale, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam and Farragut Mayor Eddy Ford.
On the campaign trail, Martin said, voters have the same first question: Why does he send his children to Webb School of Knoxville and Christian Academy of Knoxville?
“It’s the first question I get everywhere I go. And I don’t mind fielding it,” said Martin, a product of the public school system in Murfreesboro. “I’m thankful I’m in a free country. I want a school system that matches my values at home. It’s extremely important to me.”
Also important to Martin is establishing a high school with a math and science academy in the 6th District, with its proximity to Oak Ridge.
“I think it’s an opportunity waiting to happen, and I would really do anything I can to make that happen,” said Martin, who worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory before serving as chief executive of Ipix Corp., which specializes in 360-degree imaging technology.
Martin, who holds more than 20 U.S. patents, has a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in engineering from UT and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University. He is a managing member of Clarity Resources LLC, a technology consulting firm, and he is a former News Sentinel business columnist.
Yet another asshole trying to impose his values on everyone else.
Censorship seems to be a trademark of the abunga blog. I left a bitch load of entertaining, tactful remarks on the “Decency Under Attack” entry and nothing shows. They have zero comments for everything. fuckidy do.
PirateHooker #24: when I left a comment (in “Golden Compass is gone because of your blocking!”) it took a while for it to show up, so don’t be too quick to judgement. And they do have comments for some of the posts.
I think an organized effort to ban one book would be a fun little ‘protest’. I wonder if the system is automated? If it is, then we could do it. Let PZ Pick the book. I suggest “Of Pandas and People.”
I wonder if they carry “Descent of Man”? :)
Fellow book blockers, don’t forget the Left Behind series :)
I signed on and blocked a bunch of religion books aimed at kids, some Bibles, every Dembski product I found, products by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, C.S. Lewis, and for good measure, Bill O’Reilly. Oh, and I took out all the creationist books and vids. Didn’t see “Of Pandas and People”. That’ll be a good place to start tomorrow, along with the “Left Behind” series, and maybe Rush Limbaugh. To look like a legit customer, I put a couple books on my booklist. When I looked at “The Golden Compass”, it didn’t say it was blocked, banned or unavailable–?? There were several options, plus they had “His Dark Materials” too. There’s a whole atheist line.
Me too!
Random thoughts:
Let me put my whiny old man Andy Rooney hat on: You ever notice how rightwingers object to leftwing-instigated boycotts as “anti-free market” when boycotts are the ultimate expression of the free market priciple, via voting with your dollars?
Wow, that hat pinches. Next thought, rating books at one store, or even not selling them through one store, is not banning books or burning books.
And last, the golden oldie from the philosopher George Harrison: “They’ve gotta buy ’em before they can burn ’em”.
#22- don’t give those hackers any ideas now, heh, heh, heh. I’m hoping that “Anonymous”, who hacked the Scientology site, now has some free time on their hands…
Abunga has a right to conduct its’ business as it chooses, and I have a right not to patronise them.
And I have a right to continually point out how businesses such as these hurt free inquiry and if they had their way would leave your right to not patronize them next to meaningless.
I used my throwaway email address. Here’s the mass mailout about the fight being on. What a gasbag with delusions of grandeur. I wonder what would happen if someone were to post them on reddit and/or digg…just saying:
Friends:
I need your help – please take 1 minute to read this.
As you know, Abunga.com is a company dedicated to family-friendly retailing and the support of worthy charities. Entering into this effort, we knew that we would be engaging in a spiritual battle as we sought to bring decency into the marketplace. We even embraced the motto – empowering decency. We set out to eliminate pornographic and other objectionable materials from our retail offerings, unlike the name-brand bookstores that sell anything to anybody without bounds. We also set out to serve with great prices and giving to selected worthy charities.
Up until this point, Abunga.com has simply been a business endeavor with the typical challenges of any startup – getting the staff together, creating a competitive service, marketing that service to customers, fulfilling our commitments.
All has now changed – the battle has now begun. We are being assailed for our actions to empower a segment of the marketplace to have a voice for decency. It has been said that your convictions are never made real until they are tested. Abunga, and its small band of brothers, is now being put to the test. For an example of what the world is saying simply Google “Abunga” or take a look at:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/no_way_to_run_a_bookstore.php
I need your help. First and foremost, I ask for your prayers for Abunga, for the encouragement and protection of its staff and its vision. More times than I would like to admit, ours feels like a lone voice in the wilderness crying out for goodness to overcome evil. Secondly, would you take a concrete action – pass on this email, write an entry on a blog, call a friend, visit our site. It is time for warriors to rise up for the common good – we are seeking to give you a voice, but we cannot do it alone. Abunga.com will only succeed with the support of the Lord as its business model makes no earthly sense – reduce inventory to protect families (basically turning away certain customers) and giving 5% of revenue to charities that support good works in communities across the nation. These are not the business practices taught at Harvard.
Thank you for your time to read this and your heart to take action.
Lee Martin, Chairman
Abunga.com
Empowering decency
[email protected]
http://blog.abunga.com
Well, that was fun. I blocked 1006 books on the scriptures and gospels. For educational purposes, I also submitted 35 emails to customer service describing Daleks in great detail. :)
If you start at abunga.com, then click the link on the left to “Report Non-Family Products,” on that page it will show you, on the right side, books that have been recently blocked. I’ve looked several times today, and all I’ve seen get blocked are your stereotypical Christian titles: CS Lewis, Rick Warren, Ken Ham, plus forgettable stuff like Bible Puzzles and Bible stories for Children. I haven’t seen a single one blocked that would be the result of a non-prankster.
That guy says his “business model” doesn’t make sense? What the hell is he on? It’s a fucking great business model, with free publicity and zealot support and all. And like most great business models, you have to be a fucking weasel to actually apply it. Coming from another country, and not having much money myself, I think that in this country, it’s rather easy to make a significant amount of money if you are willing to be a fucking weasel.
H. Lee Martin continues to sell his own book on Amazon. The guy’s a hypocrite.
I suggest that we gang up and attempt to ban the book written by the owner of Abunga:
Techonomics: The Theory of Industrial Evolution
If he doesn’t ban it, his web site becomes nothing but a lie.
I was searching Abunga for books to block, and I found a series of books that you have to see.
They’ve swiped the font from the Grand Theft Auto series of games, use a similar cartoon style as the game’s packaging, and are clearly designed to appeal the sort of teenage boys who buy those illustrated “Weapons of the World” type books. Because what better way is there to bring young minds to the Prince of Peace than with books like “Bible Wars & Weapons” and “Creepy Creatures & Bizarre Beasts from the Bible”?
My personal favorite is this one, though. Talk about your low-hanging fruit.
#34…now being considered for a Molly…
Since this all is about free enterprise (well, allegedly) — why not have ALL books banned? End of story.
Ha ha ha ha, YES! I’m not much of a fan of Rachel Ray, either. Or the barefoot Contessa.
I like Bobby Flay, but Emril needs the axe. Iron Chef is always great. Guy is great, same with “more butter” Paula Deen.
Alan WCan quoted Lee Martin, “It is time for warriors to rise up for the common good – we are seeking to give you a voice, but we cannot do it alone.”
Emphasis mine.
This is the thing that distrubs me the most. It’s not like they are providing a service for recommendations.
They are asking people to condemn the behavior of others are are willing to abide by the rule of their mob. Self-censorship by popular acclaim.
Asking, suggesting, that the ‘forces of decency’ don’t have a voice in society is absurd. The voice of conformity is so loud that it’s ignored as background noise. All rebellion is against the ‘voice’ that Lee Martin is suggesting needs amplification.
I feel that self-censorship, deciding that there are certain ideas which cannot be thought of, is the most dismal degregation that a person can place themselves in.
This isn’t to say that ideas can’t be considered and rejected. For exacmple, as a community the readers of Pharyngula generally reject the creationist arguments. This isn’t becuase they have censored their thoughts and haven’t considered the arguments. It’s because they have evaluated the creationist arguments that they reject them.
And there are plenty of ideas we don’t consider because they don’t attract our attention. That’s not censorship, that’s a variation of personal interests, and a wonderous thing to behold.
But to avoid thinking about an idea because a teacher, parent, religion, or even a bookstore says that the topic itself is forbidden (for whatever reason) is limiting your own humanity.
As Charles Dicken’s wrote, in “A Christmas Carol”, “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
From the articel: “Abunga.com will only succeed with the support of the Lord as its business model makes no earthly sense – reduce inventory to protect families (basically turning away certain customers) and giving 5% of revenue to charities that support good works in communities across the nation,” Martin wrote. “These are not the business practices taught at Harvard.”
So corporate social responsibility isn’t taught at Harvard and neither is relational/cause-based marketing?
I also love him talking about reducing “inventory” like its a bad thing.
One of the principal advantages of a webstore is the capacity to reduce the amount of capital one has locked up in inventory.
Presumably he’s talking about reducing stock offerings or SKUs, if he genuinely doesn’t understand the difference between that and reducing inventory, he’s fucking clueless.
If it really IS a free market solution, then Abunga.com should require people pay a fee for voting to remove a book, and people should pay a fee to vote for returning the book to the virtual shelves.
This has so many opportunities for going sour, but it IS a free market solution, it FORCES people to choose which books they REALLY don’t want (or do want), and brings cash into the coffers of the company.
Of course, people might not want to pay. If so, then maybe all those fanatical family-oriented people really DON’T want to put their money where their mouth is.
I found an opinion piece by Dr. Martin on the Knoxnews site. He apparently doesn’t like internet porn…..
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jan/13/families-can-fight-internet-porn/
CB @ #45
I love how in that article he talks about the STD infection rate of youth aged 15 to 24.
15-18 I could understand, but after that, you’re hardly a youth anymore.
I see that they’ll supposedly donate 5% of your purchase to the charity of your choice. Not that I want to support these bozos by making a purchase, but the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science could certainly make good use of a few donations. Heh.
This was from the thread goofy Abunga bookstore nonsense from the news story in Knoxville:
*****Posted by JebSandler on January 25, 2008 at 5:22 a.m.*****
*****I don’t need some book to tell me I come from a monkey. If I come from monkey how come there are still monkeys? They shouldn’t just remove them they should hold daily book burnings. May the Lord prevail and burn Myers in a vat of chicken vat along with his heathen demons.
God bless,
Jeb*****
Now that is truly funny! I once had a manager that was in charge of the radiology department in the hospital I worked at that (in all seriousness) made the same comment. What is more amazing is my manager was supposedly educated and the commenter on that thread obviously isn’t. It makes one proud to be an American dunnit? We have more in common with Afghanistan than the ‘A’.
Oh master demon PZ, I’ll bring the noodles. Can you provide carrots?
I love Good Eats, and Dinner: Impossible is fun to watch most of the time. But yeah, Sandra Lee needs to go. She’s a goddamn embarrassment. Compared to Iron Chef, she’s like squirting E-Z Cheez directly into your mouth.
This is great! “Anonymous” needs to hit the fundie sites next.