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I have no idea what this person is talking about
I recieved this email the other day and I didn’t know what to make of it. It reads:
From: [omitted]@aol.com
To:rick@bentcorner.com
Date: Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Bent CornerRick
I used to enjoy reading Bent Corner and since you changed it I went along and subscribed the articles to Yahoo and then I found I couldn’t read the comments, then I subscribed to the comments then I found I still couldn’t read the articles without subscribing to the email…so I just removed ALL OF IT.
Thanks but no thanks
I’m inferring from this that he is referring to the feed for this blog. I’ve had Feedburner doing the syndication since forever. I haven’t changed it. Anyone know what this person is talking about?
I’m a a sharp-eyed blogger!
At least that is what Sara Dickerman over at Slate says:
The skull can serve as a piratelike threat, but historically it has also symbolized bravado in the face of death—a dual meaning that has made it popular among fighting units around the world. In the United States, special operations units have gravitated toward skull imagery in their insignia. During World War II, the death’s head, or totenkopf, was a hallmark of a number of Nazi SS uniforms—something that Wal-Mart unhappily discovered three years ago when a sharp-eyed blogger noticed that some of the retailer’s trendy skull shirts featured the distinctive grimace of the SS death’s head. Wal-Mart pulled the shirts and apologized, but it shows you that you have to be choosy about your skulls.
Of course Wal-Mart never really pulled the shirts unless that means that they simply continued selling the shirts till they were all gone. That’s what they did. The important thing is that they said they pulled the shirts from the shelves. To most people, that was enough. It didn’t matter that people were still finding the t-shirts on Wal-Mart shelves even 62 weeks after they said the shirts were removed.
The important thing is that I have been identified as a sharp-eyed blogger. Maybe I should add that to me resume.
Federal Trade Commission tells bloggers to stop acting like sleazeballs
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued revisions to guides that cover disclosure rules concerning endorsements, specifically endorsements coming from bloggers. The new guidelines state that if a blogger receives money in exchange for writing a review of a service or product, they must state this fact in the review.
From the FTC website:
The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization.
So what does this mean? It means that if a blogger writes about how much they enjoy website hosting from Go Daddy, but fail to mention that they are receiving a payment from Go Daddy in exchange for the positive word-of-mouth endorsement, they are in violation of the law. In fact, even if they are only receiving free website hosting from Go Daddy and they fail to mention this fact, they are in violation of the law. The FTC guidelines state that bloggers must disclose any “material connection” they have with the product that a normal, regular consumer would not have. That means that if you are reviewing a book on your blog and you received a copy of the book free-of-charge from the publisher, you need to disclose this fact.
I think this is a good thing. Then again, I’m biased. I blog as a hobby. I don’t run advertisements here. If I say I like something and recommend it to others, it’s because that’s what I really think. If I talk about how much I enjoyed a book or a movie, it’s because I went out on my own and procured the book or the movie like anybody else. When I state that I love Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, it’s because I truly love it. It’s not because I’ve been paid by Dunkin’ Donuts or because they’ve plied me with free coffee.
Every opinion I espouse here on this blog is mine and mine alone.
My blog posts are dishonest?
I had a few people leave comments on yesterday’s post about World Soccer Daily going off the air that I felt the need to delete. To say that deleting comments here is a rare occurrence is a huge understatement.
I don’t employ comment moderation and I generally allow people to say what they want in the comment section, as long as they are the ones actually saying it. What I don’t appreciate is when someone simply pastes the words of someone else from another blog or website into my comment section.
I usually delete these comments as spam.
This morning I received an email from one of the people who left comments yesterday that I had to delete. In his message to me, he encouraged me to post his email. I’ve decided to do that as well as reply to it.
Horace Steenblatter wrote:
From: Horace Steenblatter (hsteenblatter@yahoo.co.uk)
To: rick@bentcorner.com
Date: Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 7:19 AM
Subject: Your blog posts are dishonestYou are not deleting “something negative someone on another blog wrote concerning Steven Cohen.” You have repeatedly deleted comments that I’ve left under my own name which consisted of nothing but Cohen’s own words and Chelsea FC’s response to Cohen’s words. If you were actually concerned with disseminating factual information, you would let Cohen’s words speak for themselves rather than posting dishonest information which only contain a partial account of his words. How in the world is a post about Steven Cohen’s words “not the place” for Steven Cohen’s words?
Horace, your comments were not the only ones I felt the need to delete yesterday. Not that what you were actually leaving comments. You were simply pasting statements from other blogs and websites dedicated to getting Steven Cohen “fired” from his own radio show because he shared an opinion.
That’s what radio talk show hosts do in this country. They share opinions. Nobody says that you have to agree with it. Nobody says that you have to listen to it. Nobody says you have to like it.
I’ve posted the actual quote that got Steven Cohen in trouble with Liverpool supporters. You or anyone else re-posting it in the comment section is at best, unnecessarily redundant. It’s also not even important. Cohen only voiced his opinion about an historical event. People shouldn’t be shut down or threatened with physical harm because of their opinion.
At least not in the United States of America.
Furthermore, the comment section of my blog is not for you or anyone else to treat as their own personal blog. If you want to re-post content from other blogs or other websites, get your own blog and do it there.
Do not do it here.
I get email
Occasionally people read something I’ve written and feel moved to email me about. Here’s an email someone just sent me:
from: Michael Elmore (elmoremj@googlemail.com)
to: rick@bentcorner.com
date: Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:15 PM
subject: Steve “Scum” CohenWhy do you have so many posts defending Steve Cohen, what he said was clearly out of order and yet you continue to try and justify his statements. You are just as much a scum bag as him and without being blasphemes I have to say you need to find new friends other than the wretched Cohen who spouts evil from his putrid mouth!!!
For the record, I haven’t written a blog post “defending” Steven Cohen since May 2. I’ve since blogged about the controversy, but not to defend Cohen. In fact, my last blog post mentioning Cohen was to criticize him for asking listeners for monetary donations.
And for that I get called a scum bag? Michael Elmore has a point. If you are going to spout evil, you really should do it from a putrid mouth.
I once heard the origin of the term “scum bag.” It was pretty disgusting.
Give that mommy blogger some clunky foam rubber shoes or else
George G. Smith, Social Media Specialist for Crocs, the company that makes those funny looking foam rubber shoes that some people like to wear, recently attended BlogHer ‘09, a blogging conference for woman bloggers, and he was threatened by a mommy blogger with negative coverage on her blog unless he gave her some free shoes.
From Smith’s blog, No Sense of Timing:
“Are you the Crocs guy?” she asks, timidly.
I look up and smile. After all, it’s nice to be recognize and it’s a sign that I’m doing my job right.
“Yes, I am.”
We continue with small talk. She says her name but, while I probably caught it at the time, it slipped out of my memory as the events of the next couple moments transpired. She asked how I was doing at BlogHer. If I was having fun. How it felt to be one of the only men there – all those typical questions that were being asked of me. Then her demeanor changed completely. She mentioned how she didn’t get any shoes at the SocialLuxe lounge. I apologized, saying that we provided what we could but it’s hard because we didn’t know everyone’s shoe size. She nodded but I could tell that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Then she says something that I couldn’t believe.
“Ya know, if you don’t give me shoes – I could totally write something bad about you on my blog.”
“Excuse me?” I asked – hoping she would laugh or give me some indication that she was just joking around. Nope…
“It’s just a pair of shoes. It’s a lot easier to give them to me than deal with the negative press I could make.”
I envy Smith. I have a list of things I want to do or experience before I die. One of the things on my list is to be threatened by a mommy blogger. If I was Smith, I could now cross that off my list.
It’s a shame that Smith doesn’t name the mommy blogger that threatened him, but he didn’t know who she was, which I’m guessing is one of the many reasons his response to her was to laugh and to tell what she could do with her threats.
Because I condone and encourage future cowards
I just got an email from someone complaining about something I blogged about two years ago . It reads:
from: Samuel Saunders
to: rick@bentcorner.com
date: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 7:35 PM
subject: Your Photo of ChoI was doing some research on my Alma Mater, Virginia Tech and found your photo of Cho – it is quite offensive both to me and to hundreds of thousands of people. Have you ever thought that by posting this photo you are condoning his act and ultimately encouraging future cowards that may be considering such a heinous crime? There can be no justification for leaving a photo of such a wicked individual on your site. The fact that you leave it there says a lot about you and your site.
Sincerely,
Samuel F. Saunders
For the record, the reason I posted the photo of Cho was not to condone or encourage people like him, but to bring attention to the fact that NBC News plastered their logo on his photo.
This is the second complaint I’ve received this month concerning the Virginia Tech massacre. The first one can be read here.
What’s up with these people? Don’t they have anything better to do?
The most obnoxious request I have ever recieved
I got an email last night that ranks right up there with some of the strangest that I’ve received. And that says a lot.
Here it is:
From: Amanda Heckman
To: rick@bentcorner.com
Subject: Google Image Search
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:11:29 -0500Please remove the Virginia Tech tag from your article on Cho. His image is one of the first that pop up when someone wants to find an image for Virginia Tech. It could be as simple as changing the tag to “Virginia Tech Tragedy.” I don’t want people to think of what he did every time they want to look up Virginia Tech.
Sincerely, Mandy
I write a blog post about the Virgina Tech massacre and I tag it with the words “Virgina Tech”. That’s what you are supposed to do when you write a blog post. You are supposed to tag what you’ve written with any applicable keywords. It allows search engines to find what you’ve written. It’s considered good search engine optimization (SEO).
When I first read this early this morning, I thought it was a goof. After having my coffee and reading it a second time, I came to the conclusion that it’s actually legit. This person, Amanda Heckman, evidently thinks that she is within her rights to ask me to edit something I’ve written because she doesn’t like how it’s showing up in search engine results. It’s not even about her, nor is she representing Virginia Tech in any type of official capacity. She sent the above email from an American Online account.
How obnoxious is that?
What happens to your blog when you are dead?
Francis Wood, the Maryland woman who’s husband murdered her and their three children before killing himself had a blog. She maintained the blogspot blog What am I supposed to do now, where she blogged about personal issues including the stress her husband was under with his new job and the fact that she was taking an anti-depressant.
It’s kind of creepy to read.
She recently blogged about one of her children having emergency appendix surgery. It’s somewhat unsettling to read when you realize this young boy who needed surgery only a month ago is now dead, brutally murdered by his own father. Before shooting him with a .25 caliber handgun, he reportedly cut him repeatedly with a knife.
Reading her blog made me think of something I had never thought about before: what happens to your blog when you die?
Since Francis Wood had her blog over on Google’s free blogging service Blogspot, I imagine her blog will be around for quite awhile. Since there are no fees to pay to keep it online, it very well may be floating about the World Wide Internet Web for years to come.
Since I have my blog on AQHost, a paid hosting site, I imagine it would only be around for a month or two after I kick the proverbial bucket and can no longer make the monthly payment. Then again, I pay my monthly hosting fee with an automatic credit card payment. Maybe it would continue taking up Internet space, at least until my card was canceled.
And what happens to your Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook page when you are now longer sucking oxygen? I’m not so sure that I like the idea of my Facebook or Twitter page living longer than me. Maybe there should be some kind of deadman’s switch that requires you to log-on once a week. If you don’t, you will be presumed dead. I don’t want to die and have my fake friends on Twitter and Facebook leaving fake messages about my demise.
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I still hate comment moderation
I blogged once before about how much I hate it when bloggers ask readers to leave a comment and then after the reader takes the time to write a comment, the comment is withheld from being posted until the blogger gets a chance to first “approve” the comment.
It smacks of micromanaging and I hate it.
Early yesterday morning I tried to leave a comment over at Lifehacker. It was concerning a post about using cat litter to de-stink dirty, smelly shoes. Personally I thought it was a stupid piece of advice. If your shoes are smelling badly, I don’t think cat liter will fix the problem. If cat liter was really so magical, why do most cat boxes smell like cat urine and/or cat fices unless you clean them on a very regular basis? Smelly shoes are a sign that your feet have produced a ripe environment for bacteria to flourish.
Cat liter wont fix that problem.
Anyway, I tried to leave a quick comment, but after submitting my comment, I was told that my comment must fist be “approved”. If I had known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have bothered leaving a comment.
And that’s the thing that bothers me the most about blogs that resort to using comment moderation. They tend to keep the fact that someone must fist approve comments before they show up, a secret. The result is that if you read through the comments, you tend to think people are reacting in a way that very well might not be the way most people are reacting.
It’s dishonest.