Mobius Filmstrips, Unforgiven Comments, Annotated Deletions


Ironically, I just deleted a post refuting Jim Puckett's accusation that I had secretly deleted a post he commented on.   I was basically unhappy with it... self-deprecation of the post by calling it a "pissing match" did not seem to raise it above a pissing match.

I simply had not changed a post he had commented on, the google date codes prove that. But this post was boring.  Defending myself is not as interesting as defending my friends.  The analytics were very bad - very low reads.  I kind of heard internet traffic whispering "move along here, nothing to see".   Once Upon a Time in the West, it was not.  

Now, I have a creative new theory.  Jim may have been referring to my post of May 2010: BAN Legacy - Stagnation and Poverty?  In that post I asked BAN questions but never got an answer (it was written the month the Indonesia factory was accused by BAN of being primitive and burning, when it was making affordable PCs for Egyptians).   But one comment was left anonymously, in the first hour, stating that the author (me) was deranged ("too bad", "valid points').  I did continue editing that one (and its first draft was indeed messy).. and followed it with "Boy Needs Therapy".  I wonder now if Jim was the author of that anonymous comment?  If so, it may have left an impression on him that posts do morph around, four letter words get removed, etc.  But it did not happen in the case he claims it did.

Funny... late edits without credits... that's what the Boston Globe did in the murky reporting article a year ago this month.  In an apparent lawsuit which is getting no press at all, the company which was accused of shipping "hazardous waste" to the Indonesia factory reportedly sued BAN.  The Globe somewhat mysteriously rewrote the quote calling the factory in Indonesia "primitive burning" (an outrageous watermelon and fried chicken description) and replaced it with another description - [bracketed in quotation marks].  I had left  a comment on the Globe before they allowed Allen H. to redraft his quote... so I know how Jim feels.  Journalism departments study Orwellian aspects of editing... print ain't what it used to be.


Some of the posts I'm proudest of are read for years, or are given as class assigned reading in environmental studies programs.  I do need to tweak, polish and edit.  It would be really cool if Google could provide an optional tool to allowing editors to provide readers a button to see annotations of previous drafts.  I for one would like the full disclosure of edits I make.  Totally "gearable".

The fact is there is no dialog.  Jim did not comment on this one BAN:  Power and Responsibility.  The organization's reckless accusations are having dramatic effect on internet access in places like North Africa.  


At the rate I publish, now and then I let go of a "William Munny" post.  Those are written in an ill humor that allows Watchdogs to cite the post as a reason not to answer the other more profound posts. 


The question is whether a campaign of pressure can lead to compromise, or whether the BAN "cult of personality" is incapable of compromise.  BAN clearly believes that steady attention and pressure lead to reform.  I've likened this debate to the INFORM vs. NESTLE baby formula wars I wrote about in college, which was only resolved when Nestle VP Geoffrey Fookes coincidentally wound up sitting on a plane next to the Nestle Boycott NGO director. But I tried to show, with the California Compromise, that I can be much more reasonable.   I gave them 2 months of softball blogs last fall, and they never even answered most of my emails begging them to move on the CA Compromise letter.

Then they decorated a saloon with one of my friends.


Like the story of Trail of Tears, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee, this E-waste business is being written in history, and if they allow Egyptian medical schools to have P4s confiscated with their 'hazardous waste' label as an excuse, it's going to haunt them.   They fell in love with their own public "watchdog" image, but the de Tocquevilles will not fall for the poster child the way Terry Gross and Futurama did.  The point of this blog is to chronicle how even environmentalists and fans of social justice can fall into a know-nothing, McCarthy campaign, which clubs Asia, Africa and Latin America techs like baby seals. As the Church has to keep relearning, we are not defined solely by our aspirations and good intentions, and praying for a leapfrog does not undo taking away a computer blood bank in a country where the number one cause of death among women is inefficient blood banks.

BAN wants to comment on the posts they can take credit for - like Lisa Jackson's tour of the Ethiopia factory they apparently take credit for (but never gave a dime to, or exported a PC to - the credit was for blessing the tour)...  The refusal to dialog is very old news.  Le watchdog n'aime pas les watchdog des watchdogs.  

"Once Upon a Time in the West" meets "Once Upon a Time in Mumbai" meets "Unforgiven"... Other People's Money, and Monty Python's Bring out Your Dead.   Reaching for art, or transcendence, exposes the individual to accusations of being a bad communicator... every time I make a reference that goes over someone's head, I'm buying very long term stock.  I like Dennis Miller if he refers to something of quality, not the randomly obscure...   And that's a judgement call which demands re-reads and re-writes, as one post seems to channel Socrates, but in the morning reads more like Ted Kaczynki.  I do edit posts.  Fortunately, I can truthfully say I did not edit a single comma splice in the post Jim Puckett accused me of shamelessly switching.


So, what made me finally take down the blog response to Jim's accusation?  Bad html talent!  I pasted something in and it threw the entire blog into bizarre fonts, careening into the margins.  I tried to delete out in Html and made it unreadable.  That's another reference to Unforgiven - the truth about the gunfights recorded by the writer (profiling English Bob) is often less heroic than people assume.

Little Bill Daggett: Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!

Will Munny: Well, he should have armed himself if he's going to decorate his saloon with my friend.


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