ATTENTION!!!

The page that was here since September, 1996 has been replaced upon request of the Hannibal, Missouri Chamber of Commerce as they considered it to be either offensive, non-humorous, and possibly illegal!

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

-Mark Twain from Pudd'nhead Wilson [1984] Puddnhead Wilson's Calendar, ch. 1

It is the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

-Mark Twain, Ibid.

The page that quietly resided here since Sep. 1996 was part of a larger site that was originally used as a humorous presentation to various City Managers in the St. Louis, Missouri area. As a librarian I am strongly predisposed to archiving online resources in their original state. In late 1996 most of the public was still unfamiliar with the Internet, and the Munsonia site demonstrated the possibilities of what could be done using this new fangled thing called the World Wide Web to these Government Officials. For the entire web site of Munsonia, MO see:

http://www.umsl.edu/~muns/city/index.html

Please note that Munsonia's Annual RUNNING OF THE HOGS on the "Goose Downs" Commons is an event that no longer takes place.

The fictitious community of Munsonia, MO ("If you're not living in Munsonia, you're a moron!") utilized web pages from various institutions in the midwest such as the Kansas City Public Library System, North Kansas City School District, the City of Clayton, and the State of Missouri. The skyline of Munsonia also looks suspiciously like that of New York City. In all cases, the original files were modified by using the HTML strikeout feature which looks like this:

This is what striking something out looks like.

You should see a line going through the words "striking something out." The specific page in question consisted of a downloaded business directory from the existing Hannibal, MO web site where all occurences of the word Hannibal were "struck out" (see above) and replaced with the fictional town of Munsonia. E.g.,

Fubar's Fine Dining
(573) 555-1212
PO Box 666
Hannibal Munsonia, MO 63401

The page leading to this directory states"Strangely enough, Munsonia has the SAME businesses as Hannibal, MO."

It's still a mystery to the author as to how all of this could be considered offensive, but since the birthplace of Mark Twain has seen fit to have a humor-ectomy, who am I to stand in the way of their peace and quiet? Rather than validly invoke the coverage of copyright law Fair Use (17 USC Sec. 107) or bother to wrestle with the big-money-publishing-interest inspired Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) I choose to acquiesce to this censorship request by the Hannibal, Missouri Chamber of Commerce. By the way, if you want to compare the similarities to this issue with a similar run-in I had with the Marketing folks of the California Prison Industry Authority, see my essay on the DMCA at:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1315528

For purposes of scholarship, I will direct curious users to a secret and protected web site where the original files (as removed) may be dispassionately examined for their offensive nature. All other inquiries should be directed to either the Hannibal Missouri Chamber of Commerce or the California Prison Industry Authority at:

http://www.pia.ca.gov/piawebdev/index.html

For those of you who are curious, here's the original correspondence from Hannibal, Missouri Chamber of Commerce itself (the original e-mail message has not been edited or corrected in any way)::