Shortly after my previous posting, last weekend, I received an
email back from WordPress in answer to my further email on pulling the plug on
those creeps who copy other folks' blogs and hide behind them in order to
advertise, and/or harvest email addresses to send out more spam and, I assume,
viruses. You'll recall I've been hit at least twice this way, and both times left
a firm comment at the scum-site alerting any readers to the theft, and warning
them to stay away from the links provided.
In his reply, the WordPress fellow
clarified something I'd misunderstood:
Sent: Monday, August
06, 2007 12:02 PM
I
re-read my original reply and realized that I had a typo. That should
have read that the blog in question is NOT hosted at WordPress.com, although
they are using the WordPress.org software. Anyone can use the
WordPress.org software and we have no control over what they do with it.
I
apologize for the confusion, completely my mistake in describing the situation.
Well, okay; that's that, then. I'll
simply deal with it, and accept the sour taste of not being able to protect
readers out there… and even the security of my own e-published words, such as
they are.
And I'm not going to crab, either,
that John Smith's washing his hands of responsibility (on behalf of the
provider) in this issue is analogous to a gun dealer shrugging and saying,
"Look, pal – I just sell these-here Glocks; what people do with 'em is up
to them." Software is as readily a tool for good, as it can be a means to
theft and other crimes. So is a hammer. Or a sickle.
A fellow I can only identify as
"ET" commented on my posting:
I have
the same problem with Book NN. It annoys me to no end. I'm right
there with you and would gladly support and assist in anything you wanted to
do. They've stolen three posts from me so far.
ET also blogs via WordPress, with a
slant on teaching as well as some military (retired) and family issues. I gave
his blog a peek, and thought one or the other of my readers might want to have
a look at it themselves, so I sent him a quick note back, asking permission to
put up his blog URL. But I haven't heard back from him, and so we'll have to
lay that one to rest (at least for now), too.
Earlier in my previous posting, I
was also ranting about a particularly unsavory anti-Semitic site on WordPress,
and the fact that we have to accept (though not necessarily tolerate for long)
this other kind of scum within the arena of protected free speech. I still
don't like it.
Blue Dog
caught my posting, and commented:
Norman Horowitz had some interesting thoughts on those sort of hate sites. I
tend not to try to oppose them on their own sites, because they control the
content of the speech. And well, they don't respond well to logic. We do have
some tactics for places like Myspace (in addition to simply notifying the
powers that be). I'll email them to you at some point.
He almost seems a bit more
dismissive of low-grade anti-Semitism than I am… although I've never been on
the receiving end of such day-in, day-out garbage, and every such incident is
more of an outrage to me. I gather, also, that Horowitz lives by the sound
edict of choosing one's own battles, and thus can ignore the basic ignorants,
such as a random jerk loudly coughing under his breath a certain word that
rhymes with "bike".
Well, I'll let those jerks that
Horowitz can ignore… be the jerks they are, and console myself once again with
the words of George Bernard Shaw: "Forgive him, Theodotus: he is a
barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of
nature." (Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901)
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