department of homeland stupidity

Edit: Hoaxed, hax0red, whatever. A true shame, in some ways, but the story is a fake. oh well.This is crazy. Absolutely fucking ape-shit. Article here. Summary: A Dartmouth senior requested via Inter Library Loan a Chinese language copy of Mao's Little Red Book for a history class on Communinsm. Upshot: a visit from two agents from Homeland Security, as the student's record included significant time abroad.

Inter Library Loan. Academics, depending upon their institution, have to wheedle and cajole books out of the system, and you're telling me the Feds are farking monitoring it? Maybe they could make the process more effective, instead. And maybe they could not feel threatened by a bloody cultural/historical artifact. Communism falls under their watchlist? That's unbelievably wrong. McCarthy would have loved to have the technology and off-the-constitution powers these guys have. I can't even write a particularly coherent post I'm so shocked. So I'm going to go dig through some boxes and see if I can find the Little Red Lighter that a friend brought me back from China. Of the crack-lighter variety, it plays "Mao's Song" in a tinny electronic voice every time it's used. And then back to my MLA paper.