Meditating on "Postie" ethics.

For Sale t-shirt by webcarve
Get this template driven custom shirt at Zazzle
and put YOUR reputation up for bid!

There is another side to the Google Spanking story. I stumbled across the exact sort of blogger that I'd consider to be a problem, and his response to being considered the problem.

From the small biz blog.

It's true. I guess my blog just isn't good enough for them.

WordPress told me to get out of Dodge; that they didn't want my scummy blog soiling their servers.

According to them, a blog that promotes online businesses, products and information is against their terms of service, labeling all blogs of this sort "Get Rich Quick" blogs. Exactly how is WordPress doing business? Online, isn't it? Pot, kettle, black.

Take your biz and shove it, WordPress!

Anyone else had any bad experiences to report with WordPress?

Regards,

Tony

My first thought was, "what part of terms and services did you not understand?" I've looked into Wordpress. It's a teense fascist in some ways. Blogger is a lot looser in letting you do your thing. What you want to do should dictate the services you use, especially if you aren't paying for the services. The idea is to perform a service of value in order to get paid, not to get paid for creating nothing of value using stolen bandwidth. (This is why Blogger gets the top bar on my site. Bind not the mouth of the kine that treadeth the grain.)

I use Blogger because I like the interface and because I write controversial things from time to time - and have suffered DNS and hack jobs as a result. I'm not an IT guy, and Google has some of the smartest people in the world making and interface that allows even an idiot to create a professional-looking blog.

And clearly they do. See above. WordPress - and this is just an impression, folks - seems to think of it's users as an unfortunate necessity, and certainly a resource that needs weeding. Well, I can understand both viewpoints.

And frankly, were it my servers, I would have done the same. The "small business blog" above is not just spam. It is "make money fast spam." Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam... and it is embarrassing to me that they are a "featured blog" on Pay Per Post today. That is a problem. If they are featured, people think I'm doing what they do. Worse yet, potential advertisers will look at the featured site - and run like hell!

You see, I approach a paid post as being content, first and foremost. I'm attaching my name to it, after all, and my credibility is simply not for sale. At least, not that cheaply.

But I do have to consider the fact that in choosing to take paid posts, people will assume that I do it in the same way and for the same reasons. Worse yet, I have a feeling that this "postie" gets the juicy offers while I'm down in the five to ten dollar range, after the massive Google Spank.

Well, if this is a typical example of a "Good Postie" - spank us again. But I think a more targeted approach would be a good idea.

This "small business blog" is simply a scam to get paid posts into engines, essentially getting free advertising. And it is blatantly using a free blog service (once wordpress, now Blogger) to do that. It's theft of services, plain and simple - even more so with Blogger, since that's a Google service, and Google owns Adwords and, of course, Google.

Me, I strive to produce content that's worth indexing. Most businesses suck at bragging about themselves - hell, sometimes it's hard to discern what it is they do. They often overlook the better aspects of their products and services, as well as entire demographics that might like what they have to offer. Well, that's the sort of post I do, if I take the post at all.

Just do a site search for "payperpost" and you can review what I've done for yourself.

But there is one thing I refuse to do, and that is pretend that I'm passing on the good word from the goodness of my heart. My readers deserve that very important piece of information, and I'm not going to lie either by commission or omission.

So, even though often advertisers say "No in-post disclosure" - meaning no obvious indication that it is a paid post, I often cheerfully ignore it - although, to be frank, I'm far more likely to just snort and pass on by. You want me to write a positive article on your business, a hundred words, and give no indication that this turd landed in my feed for a princely five bucks? No. I also want something worth writing about, and your offer tells me that you GOT nothin'.

Look, you clearly get what you pay for. And clearly, a slot on sites like "the small business blog" is going to generate what those of us who learned some of the webmaster trade in the Adult industry refer to as "crap traffic."

"Crap traffic" is traffic that may be overwhelming, but has a conversion rate of under half a percent. Or in other words, all they want is something for nothing. And this traffic is helpfully generated by a class of entrepreneurs (to be kind) that also want something for nothing. Free traffic, or money from you in return for a lot of nothing worth having. Some of those entrepreneurs do sites like this, others deluge your inbox with offers to "optimize your site."

Caveat Emptor always applies. And this applies to advertisers, to bloggers, and of course to readers. "What's in it for you, that I believe this?"

A lot of the time, I click through on an offer only to find some useless eye-bleeding monstrosity that sells overpriced crap to stupid people. I don't take those opportunities, because I absolutely do not want my site linked to that site. I don't use "nofollow" on these posts, because if I'm willing to write about it, I DO wish to be associated with it in the Google Index.

For myself, I hope that you think well enough of me that you would not assume I'd waste your time and mine for trivial sums. What's in it for me is a great post on a topic I probably would not have come across any other way. In other words, it's just like Alternet or Media Matters in a very real sense, but with a kicker: You think well enough of yourself or your product to pay me an honorarium for the time it takes to do the background and the post.

That's an important thing to know. And I think it's important for my readers to know as well - especially when you leave what is said up to me. I'm perfectly willing to take your money and tell you that you have a bad site or a crappy idea. That sort of feedback may be less welcome, but it's cheap at the price. And I STILL get a good post that attracts traffic organically.

But I may be in a distinct minority. That saddens me. I confess I'm not a very social being, so checking out "the community" didn't much interest or appeal to me. If I had, I may well have thought twice before joining - but it is an idea of such potential value to me and potentially of general value to the web - that I think I would have ultimately come down on the side of doing it right. The web really cannot exist without a commercial aspect to it, but in order for that to be properly realized, we have to figure out ways of doing it that are not simply newspaper ads that blink.

In fact - and I learned this creating ads for a local newspaper with knife and wax, while mildly high from the developer solution from the optical typesetter - that the best ads were informative ones. Those were the ones that became regular accounts. Those ads were content that readers who were familiar with a business would actually want.

IZEA has taken a good deal of crap for the fallout and disappointment, some of it quite justified, but I think some of it was simply the fact that they overlooked the necessity to have a much stronger imposed code of ethics. For instance - the two or three post a day limit means little if you have seven blogs, all of them mostly spam.

And I think in part that is due to the fact that in order to make more than beer money, with blogs of average rank, you have to really grind them out, do the minimum, crank out a minimal interstitial about your cat and then grind out another, Rinse, repeat.

Now, I personally want to be able to make money blogging. I want it to be what I do for my career. But I don't intend to change what I talk about or the way I talk - because that is essential to my ambitions and the thing that makes a post from me distinct in it's own right.

Advertisers need to be both willing and able to reward those of us who go the extra mile, and to consider us as individuals with individual perspectives. Further, I think a greater recognition for the value of a post over time is required.

I mean, I don't know if some bloggers go back and strip out paid posts. I don't, but I could see some advantages to it, I suppose, in terms of maintaining page rank. And it's not exactly dishonest...

But then, there's that ethics thing, again. I give full measure, pressed down and running over as a policy. As a result, my PPP posts are approved automatically, and payouts are quick. Once I got into a groove, I haven't had a single post rejected. And in some ways I'm a little miffed, because some of the posts I have written for money get higher traffic than my own, "far more important" content.

But, however they get here, they are here, and I get a chance at putting one of my little ethics bugs in their brains.

I can't do that if I cheat to do it. I do not want someone clicking on a google entry from my blog and going "Oh, crap. Scammed again." And I think that is ultimately the attitude that will separate the wheat from the chaff. And I think that IZEA's "SocialSpark" network will be the forum in which the means to do that will be sorted out.

And no, this was not a paid post. If you like it, buy a t-shirt or something. :P

Today At Zazzle

Obama is my hotkey Single-sided by webcarve

Yeah. He's no Kucinich, but he'll do.

Yellow Elephant Sticker

Kudos to Operation Yellow Elephant!

Obama "Talk" template Sticker

Roll your own handwritten message!

Love it or Leave it Camo Tee


And because we can't do politics ALL the time, we celebrate PMS and
baseball.

WHAT? T-Shirt

There are no tears in baseball Shirt
by

webcarve

Get this custom shirt
at Zazzle

T-Shirtus Interruptus

I did this image in response to a comment suggesting I make this saying of mine into a t-shirt.

Well, of course I did, and I want to brag about it, because it's a damn fine shirt, if I do say so myself. More to the point, it' s really to the point, and it's a great graphic for me - and maybe even other people - to use this month.

Or it would be, if you could link to it at all without being logged in as me. You see, it's not been published yet. It took an unusually long time for this design to be approved, but not as long as might be implied by this belated update. So please take all the bitching below with a grain of salt. The reason why this post has not been completely rewritten is that in doing so that I might lose the point - that zazzle is still the best t-shirt site for bloggers as the graphic is immediately available, whether or not the design is ultimately approved. Yes, you may have to use a screen-shot utility. Even so, it's still faster than photoshop.

Now, I use both approaches. But the fact is, if I need to create a design for a post that I'm half-way through writing, this is still the fastest way to do it.

What Part Of flapflapflap ARRRGHH....
by

webcarve

Get this custom shirt
at Zazzle

One of my biggest reasons for using Zazzle is because I can quickly combine text and stored graphic to create a design that I can then quickly use in a blog post. And usually it works that way. The fact that it's also available as a T-Shirt is not beside the point - but it's at least one click below that point. I've sold very few shirts that were specifically created as blog-post illustrators. But in terms of graphics storage and creating interesting, human illustrations in just a few minutes, nothing could be better. Or, at least, not until yesterday. I had to generate a screenshot of the product and then upload it. This means I could have just done it in photoshop, with better tools, or via flikr, or Picassa or what-have you.

Yes, I am bitching. Zazzle has been particularly slow in approving designs of late; I dunno why, but of course, it's always possible that politics is rearing it's ugly head. Or possibly they are trying to screen out hate speech - though it reportedly took 72 hours to publish an abstract graphic done by Seachild001, another Zazzler, so I don't know. I don't know what could have been the holdup there.

I often recommend Zazzle as a simple way of getting graphics that are specifically relevant to a post on unshakable grounds of fair use. All you have to do is paste the code in, then leave the linked graphic where you want it and move the link text to the bottom of the post as an attribution. It's fair use, and you might even make a 7% referral fee if someone likes the product and it saves a lot of time. You get an appropriate, topical graphic for a blog post, the creator is properly cited, Zazzle gets linkage, and nobody has any reason to feel grumpy or misused.

None of that is affected by this current apparent glitch, but I really much prefer creating my own graphics. It's selfish pride, really; I admit it. But also, it's not all that likely I'm going to find a relevant graphic for one of my posts.

Yes. I know. I'm that strange.

But it means I cannot rely on being able to do a graphic on the fly, and that really annoys me.

Woo. I hadn't realized, but it's tech bubble time!

Here_Comes_Another_Bubble_-_The_Richter_Scales
by kingofdoper

Trolls, Anger, Taking Offense and One-Hit- Wonders

"In which I explore dealing with trolls, anger, taking offense, flaming and reasons to find tolerance, forgiveness and appreciation, even amongst assholes, myself included."

I don't often digg think pieces - at least, not by other people, but in this case I'm digging it and blogging it as a wise reminder, regarding my own impatience with fools. - BK

read more | digg story

Faux Outrage: Ellison under fire for comparing 9/11 to Reichstag fire.

The only thing worse than comparing Bush to Hitler is to point out that history and behavior make those comparisons inevitable and unfavorable to George Bush and Dick Cheney.

When they cannot argue the facts or reasonable conclusions drawn from the facts, Faux Noise targets the messenger.

clipped from www.foxnews.com

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, is defending himself Monday after comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler and leaving the impression the administration may have rigged the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Speaking to an atheist group on July 8, Ellison said that the president acted much the way Hitler did when the Reichstag, or German Parliament building, was burned in 1933 ahead of elections that pitted Hitler's Nazi Party against others, including the Communists. Hitler, who was suspected of ordering the fire, declared emergency powers that helped him launch his dictatorial and murderous reign.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Ellison told the group, according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

Faux is actually quoting a favorable article in The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

On comparing Sept. 11 to the burning of the Reichstag building in Nazi Germany: "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box -- dismiss you." [emphasis mine]

Note that Ellison is refusing to say anything abut 9/11 or government involvement in it. If you are left with the "impression" he did, read what he said again. What he's speaking of is something in the realm of facts on record - the behavior of the Bush Administration in response to 9/11. He wasn't trying to leave the impression that the administration may have planned 9/11, but he was and is directly stating that the Administration took the opportunity presented to militarize, gut the Constitution, concentrate power within a "Unitary Executive," attack a foreign enemy, silence dissent and, yes, set various groups of Citizen against one another.

Muslims, for example, are not unreasonably concerned that they might be targeted by thugs, literally, or as above, figuratively.

Now, I happen to believe that Administration behavior tends to lend some credibility to the idea that there was some sort of foreknowledge of the attack, especially given a wide variety of disturbing gaps in the record and unexplained issues. But an unexplained issue is just that - unexplained. When I see a UFO, I do not leap to the conclusion that it is an intergalactic spacecraft. The "U" stands for "Unidentified."

I can be pretty sure I wouldn't like the facts being hidden from us, that they would not reflect well on Bush or Cheney, there integrety oor capacity for leadership, without going out on a limb and saying "They PLANNED 9/11." In many ways, it doesn't matter, so why confuse the issue? There are plenty of perfectly respectable facts in evidence to work with that, in my humble opinion, should lead to both men breaking rocks at Levenworth after a fair and speedy trial.

Rep. Ellison was careful to limit his comments to what is and pointedly avoid what might be, apparently in response to a direct question, Faux was reduced to one of the oldest tactics of propaganda, which is to attempt to discredit the messenger.

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, is defending himself...

Let us suppose I were writing a similar article, say, about something Sen. Lieberman had said regarding the Middle East situation, and it happened to be an accurate observation that I'd very much like to go unconsidered.

Democratic Senator Lieberman, a Jew with a long history of commitment to Zionist causes, is defending himself...

When you see this phraseology used anywhere, check around to see if whoever it is is actually having to defend himself against anyone other than the writer. Odds are rather good it's either the first shot, or one shot of a pre-arranged volley in an orchestrated smear campaign.

This article really says little against Rep. Keith Ellison, but it speaks volumes about Faux News, and what it doesn't want you to think about. And that, by the by, is the way to read and source Right-Wing propagandists, such as Faux News, "Newsbusters" and Freep. Consider the source and it's intended message along with what any particular message it might have.

That and a good fact-checking will keep your credibility intact when opining upon such matters.

Edit: I found this article at Right Web just after I hit "publish."
"A Great Little Racket": The Neocon Media Machine

Not by any accident, the neoconservatives' time of greatest influence on U.S. foreign policy coincided with the explosive growth of mass media outlets from which they could promote their policies. The omnipresent fluttering American flag on Fox News exemplifies the new über-patriotic packaging through which the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, and the escalation of tensions with Iran are marketed packages.

When asked why the Weekly Standard and Fox News have increased in popularity over the past few years, Matt Labash, a senior writer at the Weekly Standard responded that it was "because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually."

If Irving Kristol intended to start a revolution with his writing on the culture wars and U.S. Cold-War foreign policy, he certainly laid the groundwork in academic journals and periodicals. What may never have entered his imagination at the time was the degree of success the second generation of neoconservatives would experience in marketing neoconservative ideas to a mainstream audience. The original network of journals and think tanks has been amplified by a powerful, streamlined media machine. The neoconservative revolution has, quite literally, been televised.

tag: Fox News, Faux Noise, MSM, Smear Tactics, Right-Wing Propaganda, Kieth Ellison, Racism, Religious Intolerance, conservatism, Hate Speech.

Free Ads for your blog or t-shirt site

Would you like an ad this size on a high-traffic website for a year - for free? I don't know about you, but my first reaction is "duh," and the next is "what's the catch?"

Well, as long as you don't mind your ad being shown below the paid ads - there IS no catch. Depending on your keywords, it might not matter a damn whether you pay or not. Full disclosure - I'm getting a bump on the site for blogging about it, but I probably would have done so anyway, as I generally do when something new shows up in my template. And the bump is available to you as well. I mean, how else do they make it a useful resource?

I can use their RSS feed widget to gain links for my site that are highly relevant to my site by keyword. And just incidentally, they have a referral program.

You can reserve your ad for as long as you like - I chose a year. You are able to update it as often as you like. The concept is very similar to the whole "million dollar home page" concept, but its - well, it's bigger, and a lot more flexible, providing what amounts to a visual search engine by keyword.

I honestly have to say - you should be using it, and you should be talking about it, even if you have nothing to "sell" but your own blog. Right now, that's the single most important category, anyhow.

The reason I stumbled upon it is that I was casting about for scripts to start my own pixil page ad site - not so much for pay, as to create a simple way of managing link images for my site - you know, all those damn chicklets, served up with one bit of code. A script is a lot easier to manage than editing html, which is what I have to do right now. And potentially, even something of an art project.

But that's for another day. I got distracted by this, so I'm gonna go play with it some more.

Shiny thing.

Let's take Viral Reality into the so called Real World.

Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You - Free Market News Network

The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.

It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in America.!

Here are some of the things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media for your information:

The author, Dave Lindorff goes on to bullet point ten critical stories you never heard about from the mainstream media. YOU probably know about one or more, but your neighbor probably does NOT know about any of them. Go read them for yourself and then forward this link to every friend you have. Why this link? Well, because I have some terribly subversive ideas.

Now that you know about this, you see, as either a Citizen of the United States or as someone with a legitimate concern about what sort of threat this nation could become in the hands of an overt dictatorship, you have an affirmative duty to do something. Therefore, the question, "but what can I do" arises.

The thing that needs to be done is to get these truths off the net and into the wild, bypassing corporate, mainstream media. It could be as simple as printing out a hundred copies of the original story and pinning it to every bulletin board in town, or stuffing a copy under the door of every neighbor in your apartment complex.

You could do something as simple as wearing a T-Shirt, and being willing and able to answer the questions it provokes. To help with that, you could print out business or index cards with the URLS of reliable news sources on the web. (You might tape said cards to libarary terminals and leave bunches at your local cybercafe.) It's good to wear any relevant T-Shirt, but it's better to make your own for this issue.

Why? Because that's a sneaky way of getting the message out there. The MORE t-shirts out there with the same general keywords, and the more services they appear on, the better. You are addressing a whole group of people online who may not think much about politics in the ordinary run - but if an idea hits the front page of a T-shrt site, some small fraction of them WILL start thinking about it.

The same statistical approach applies to wearing that shirt. Hundreds of people will see it if you live, work and play in an urban area; perhaps even more. And, should you be somehow harassed in a newsworthy way for wearing it, that's pure gold - something like that probably WILL be covered in local and even national media.

You could go to zazzle.com, (link to my store) create a postcard or note-card with all the information you'd like, order ten or so, and start passing them out or mailing them to friends. Each one would have the url so that people could buy more to pass out or send to all the snail-mail addresses they have. (I'll add an example later - but if you have any artistic or writing talent, you should create your own. Once you have, please blog about it and link back to this article)

I've got a small selection of free-for-use images you could grab right away and use to make shirts and I'll be putting together a few more. and linking to them here. The one you see here links to the set and, just incidentally, works pretty well for items like buttons and cards.

If you like, you can find it at my zazzle store.

Misleader in Red by webcarve

Get this custom button at Zazzle

As you can see, it overlays really well, and will probably work a lot better using a grainy, low-contrast image of your own choosing.

At CBS, the Eighth Deadly Word is "gays."

Mass. Lawmakers Block Gay Marriage Vote, Constitutional Amendment Would Have Let Voters Decide Whether To Ban Gay Marriage - CBS News: "Mass. Lawmakers Block Gay Marriage Vote"

Great story and all that, hurrah, triumph for civil liberties... but the REALLY funny part is that CBS is censoring the comments submitted by readers, and one of the words censored is "gays." Now, I was not aware that "gays" was deemed an offensive word. And it does rather make it awkward to write coherently about the right to gay marriage without, you know, THE FUCKING PLURAL FORM!

But I guess that's their objection, that if they DID allow the word "gays," somehow their readers would jump to the conclusion that The Grey Lady was approving of plural gay fucking within the sanctity of marriage.

However, as I pointed out in my own somewhat incoherent comment, designed to determine if self-censorship were at work, or if CBS was being bizarrely prudish.

um. What's this with censoring the words "gay" and "***?" If it's self-censorship, it's silly, if it's CBS, it's freakin' bizarre.

Well, we will see which it is after I punch the send button. Meanwhile, a wry observation that if marrage were to be officially linked to particular sexual practices, I doubt more than ten percent of the population WOULD be legally qualified to marry.

It's both bizarrely prudish and freakin' bizarre, so it's off to Fark and the Rude Pundit to help spread the gleeful mockery.

tag: CBS, prudes, prudery, gay marriage, bluenoses, bluestockings, the grey lady, prunefaces, Ms. Grundy, censorship, the eighth deadly word, blogswarm, blogmock, bizarre, funny, hilarity ensues

These Boobs Were Made For Blogging!

(Update) Because the whole Breastgate scandal fit so well with the point I was trying to make, I somehow overlooked that it happened sometime last year! Oopsie... But it turns out the story itself is not over, and the Right Boob just kept getting more and more conspiciously misshapen.

Althouse: ---- these are flame wars, and what I'm trying to say on the overarching point, is that the left side of the blogosphere is vicious and unfair and nasty to me, and I don't like it, and I'm trying to ask you why that's the way they treat me when I support most of what they're for. Meanwhile, on the right side of the blogosphere, where there's much less overlap, I think, I am treated in a very warm and connecting kind of way. And you're really just kind of undermining my point, uh, by bringing that up like that.

Yep. Just like Michelle Malkin supports the ideals of Martin Luther King.

Anyway, I'm embarrassed, but Althouse's meltdown actually adds to my point - that the noise machine has very little left to make noise about - and is very much upset about not getting the automatic deference it had come to expect from the MSM.

"Let's just array these bloggers... randomly." Ann Althouse

Jon Swift: Putting the Word Breasts in This Title Is a Cheap Ploy To Generate Traffic

I must say, however, after several days of reading Professor Althouse's and Dr. Smith's attacks on Jessica, who admittedly asked for it by dressing and posing provocatively, I began to feel a little sorry for her. I recently saw a report on ABC's Prime Time about something they called "Mean Girl Syndrome." Apparently, teenage girls are using the Internet to transform themselves into cyberbullies. Though they occasionally pick on boys, sometimes with tragic results, they seem more often to aim their poison PDAs against other girls, making fun of their rivals' bodies and spreading vicious rumors about them. The ABC report quoted Madeleine Albright, who said, "I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it were run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like."

I began to wonder if Professor Althouse and Dr. Smith weren't engaging in a little cyberbullying themselves. All the while professing to be bored to tears with the whole topic, Professor Althouse spent the weekend writing post after post and leaving comment after comment on her blog, and even making a podcast on the subject. I wondered if it might not be more constructive if she spent that time preparing lesson plans or reading the latest law review articles to hone her fine legal mind. I imagined her sitting in her office drawing beards and mustaches on pictures of Jessica and thought balloons with crude comments coming out of her head like some of the girls in the ABC report.

Combine this absurd little contretemps with the observation by Marc McDonald that The Word "Republican" Has Vanished From The Vocabulary Of Right-Wingers and we may guess why they are suddenly obsessed with non-asexual bloggers who DO have breasticles.

It's not just women being catty to women, or really any feminist issue at all (In my probably inaccurate and certainly male perspective.) My concept of "feminism" has become inextricably bound up in my mind with being a for-sure grownup and still being treated as a child. To me, this is the behavior of the captain of Varsity Cheerleading squad to the formerly invisible but suddenly and unaccountably popular girl with the Rhodes' Scholarship. It is the sudden and bitter realization that it's someone else's turn - and their term will last a great deal longer, and will certainly outlast the affections - and the hair - of the Variety Quarterback.

Yes, folks, this is a clear sign that the Established Fellows of the Noise Machine know that they have Jumped the Shark - and there won't be a new life in syndication, like there was for that other record-breaking soap opera, "The Clintons."




tag: Bill Clinton, liberal bloggers, Ann Althouse, Jessica Valenti, Feministing, breastblog

Internet Liars: Project much, Lee?

Lee Rodgers of KSFO is now a blogger!

Furthermore, he's thrown down the gauntlet to all "lefty bloggers" to see if they can keep up with us. If you were hoping for an apology, or any evident understanding of the not-very-complicated first amendment issues Spocko's interaction with Disney has raised - don't hold your breath.

On the other hand, if Disney was hoping this would all just go away quietly - Don't hold your breath for that, either. The Mouse is gonna end up looking bad and smelling bad for some weeks now, and if EFF and Spocko have grounds for some sort of suit against Disney and the former ISP, ... this could last for YEARS.

"INTERNET LIARS AND OTHER ASSORTED LOW-LIFE": "message: Get used to it, 'cause you ain't heard NOTHIN' yet! I don't roll over and play dead for people whose agenda I'm convinced would destroy this nation. I've travelled the world and learned long ago that, with all its flaws, it works a helluva lot better than most of the world!"

Ok, Lee, here's my problem with that statement. First, the "liberal agenda" you speak of is something you and your colleagues pulled out of your collective asses. Seriously.

I am by no means a liberal. Words have meaning, dude, dude and dudette, so I try and use them as Webster and the Queen would agree. In other words, "liberal" is not the opposite of "right-thinking gun-toting American," any more than Conservative is the opposite of "socialist commie pinko faggot."

Classical Liberalism is in favor of large, interventionist government as a guarantor of social "reform" and propriety.

Liberals (save for the Neocon variety) tend to be well-meaning knowitalls who are reasonably sure that on the whole they know better than most people what's best for them, for the nation, and civilization as a whole.

What they do not know is that five times out of ten, that which is good for the collective is bad for any given individual to some degree. The other thing they do not realize is that "knowing better" is NOT the same as knowing enough to meddle with any expectation of a good outcome.

I don't believe in messing with folks, either 'for their own good' or in order to 'uphold family values.' I don't have the right to mess with YOUR family to uphold idea - although I could make a case for both just by taking you at your own words. Yep, by the things you say, I could make a real good case you are a likely abuser in private - and probably the victim of abues. So I have you coming and going.

Or on the other hand, I could just repect your wish to not deal with your own shit. Hell, as long as you are yelling at a mike instead of me, I'm cool with that. I figure people can choose their own poisons, be it Scotch, bile or Oxycontin. But on the other hand, don't expect me to support your habits either, when your share of the public airwaves could be better used for... oh... poetry reading, classical music or baseball.

And I understand that's what several sponsors felt. They didn't feel like having their good names associated with your mouth. That's their right, sir. Spocko didn't say they had to pull their accounts, he asked them if they WISHED to be associated. They did not.

I believe in minding my own business and letting my neighbor mind his - unless and until my neighbor yells for help. That way I avoid the mistake of "one size fits all" solutions, which are generally create more problems than solutions, and cost a lot more than just, say, handing five bucks to a beggar and giving HIM the responsibility for spending it wisely.

At the very worst, I've bought him a beer in a warm place for more than an hour and a reasonable portion of his daily caloric intake. I am choosing to make use of his self-interest to maximise the benefit of my choice to be charitable.

In other words, I'm a Libertarian. I put my faith in the broad ability of well informed and well educated people to take care of themselves most times, take care of each other if given access to resources and trusted with them, and to know when they have to grit their teeth and ask directly for support, either for themselves, or for a cause or a need. (To complain, sir, is to volunteer.)

In this case, my neighbor Spocko yelled for help, and a lot of people came a-runnin,' in support of him, the Constitution of these United States and the "fair use" provision of copyright law. You might consider it to be a first-amendment militia, defending our little electronic villiages against the giant stomping mouse that wishes to tax our "t", copyright our "m", and register "e" as a trademark.

Needless to say, I oppose this giant corporate attempt to preserve the profitablity of talk radio in your market by exploiting the ignorance of your advertisers, whom I assume to be unaware of your slant, and the ignorance of your viewers - who are plainly ignorant of most everything other than that.

For this, I'm sure you'll have some choice words. But then, people who speak truth bluntly, without regard for the tender feelings of those they legitimately criticise are often yelled at.

For expressing my views I've been called a socialist - which is absurd; a liberal, which is ignorant, and an idealist, which causes me to chuckle aloud in a particularly cynical and evil-sounding way.

What I trust is self-interest. Mine first and yours, and everyone else's, knowing that I'll be wrong in some cases - but far less often than not, and I'm not willing to spend money, time or attention on figuring out who deserves this or that. Life is too damn short.

So, why am I blogging about this? Indeed, why am I intruding into Lee's field, as a call in talk show host, Saturdays at 2PM PST (7PM Eastern, if my fingers aren't lying to me)?

Well, it's in MY self-interest. I'd like to be heard, I have got views, and as Lee has proved, you don't have to understand what you are talking about to get a gig as a talker. However, other skills ARE required. For an illustration of how rusty and unpracticed my skills compare with Lees... Click here. Lord have mercy on me, I sucked.

The difference between me and Lee? I understand how to get better, and getting better doesn't require that I choose between my purse or my concience. For Lee to compete, he's gotta lean left, because the Right is sewn up - and losing traffic.

Me, I don't gotta do anything but practice. And I owe a debt to Ira Blue, who's rolling in his grave at the embarrassment of having such a trio of cretins eroding the KGO family reputation.

So, Lee; welcome to the blogosphere. I have to confess that your writing is a lot better than my talking, so I think you have an actual chance. Of course, it's even more fun if you allow comments - that's where the challenge begins - and where the traffic comes from.

Anyway, Lee, I'm after your job, Metaphorically speaking. No way I'm moving to San Francisco; you can't smoke there. But I'll be in a paid radio gig a lot sooner than you replace anyone in the marketplace of ideas, I gotta tell ya. Sorry about that, but you really need to read some books and check out the footnotes.

My call in number - should you care to know - is {646) 652-4834. I'll be at your disposal every Saturday at 2pm, and I'm scheduled for 60 minutes.

tag: ridicule, Lee Kelso, KSFO, hate talkers, hate talk, hate speech, talk radio, fair use, copyright, ABC, Disney, Viacom