Been living under a rock and are not sure what Wave is? Check this out.

Oddly enough, the worst part in all this wasn’t finding out she lied. Yes, it was disturbing.  After all, before this, I followed Nic myself, and liked her sense of humor. I respected her.

Yet worse than discovering she lied was discovering how sadly apathetic the blogosphere could be.

People twittered saying she fucked up, leave it alone, why does anyone care?

Blog With Integrity, whose badge she displayed on her blog (no small irony there), posted a statement taking no stand at all.

Other bloggers blogged, many with no real opinion either.

It has actually gotten to the point that those of us choosing to voice our opinions are being called out, at times rather rudely.

This is truly disturbing beyond words to me that people actually think this doesn’t and shouldn’t affect them.

The blogosphere is at it’s heart a community. An incredibly diverse, rather disjointed and often dysfunctional family of sorts consisting of those who enjoy writing and sharing their lives and opinions with the world. There are relationships among bloggers, and between writers and readers that on some very basic level must contain an element of trust to be maintained. Writers must trust those they link to to be accurate, and readers must trust the content they are consuming and the emotional relationship they develop with the writer are what they are represented to be.

Trust which is shattered when a blogger chooses to lie to their audience and to their fellow bloggers. That breech of trust makes everyone question whether anyone they read or know online can be believed, and in the end that affects how the blogging community is perceived as a whole.

While one can argue a few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the barrel, I point to the Blogging With Integrity movement itself as a case in point. Clearly many ARE worried that the ethical lapses of a few could spoil it for us all for the pledge to even exist.

Bloggers are at a disadvantage to begin with in terms of credibility. Traditional journalists are assumed by their title to be strictly reporters, with no bias, and with all the resources and skills to fact-check everything before they put a piece to press. That they are human and naturally will be biased, and that many news pieces have been printed and retracted due to errors or untruths is of no consequence. At the end of the day, bloggers are people behind a screen, and are not considered reliable. (A fact I’ve seen many a blogger rail about.) One of the biggest difference between bloggers and journalists comes down to accountability. A reporter fucks up on their facts, they can get fired.

Who is the blogger accountable to?

In my opinion, we are all accountable to each other. The blogosphere is and should continue to be a self-policing entity. That doesn’t mean letting bad behavior go without comment for the sake of peace or ‘respect’. It means doing as we have for the most part always done, and calling out those who do things to damage the reputation of all of us involved- those who fabricate, those who plagiarize, those who attempt to take advantage of the community for their own personal gain.

That’s not to say this should be abused. There has been behavior this weekend that clearly crossed boundaries. It’s one thing to call someone out on your blog, it’s something else to potentially put someone in danger by posting things like their home address online. There is a difference between policing and vigilantism.

At the end of the day, all bloggers have are their reputations, both on their own and as part of the community they participate in. When one part of the structure becomes unstable, it throws off the balance for all the parts, not just those closest to the weak link.

The only way we can maintain our integrity as a whole is to be willing to take a stand, and not sweep things under the rug after we’ve shot the messenger. It is not just the wrong-doer’s reputation at stake here, it’s yours as well.

This morning’s light however, showed a different story. A very, VERY different story.

Not to take this sitting down, TSA responded to the firestorm with the security footage of the Atlanta airport that morning. Footage that quite clearly shows that the incident detailed on her Twitter stream and blog never actually occurred.

Yes, she and her son were there. Yes, they were briefly detained and she was searched, but the mysterious phone call she made when the agents weren’t looking, the separation of mother and son..None of it is seen on the camera footage.

Footage which is clearly dated and timestamped, without any more than a second or two’s jump as they show film from the next camera when she moves.

Footage which ends with her clearly walking away with her son after she is searched with no lapse at all in time.

The best explanation she seems capable of offering in her response refers to things that supposedly aren’t shown (bolding for emphasis)-

in the video, it looks as though my son is playing happily in his stroller while i am being searched with a wand. obviously this is the big discrepancy with my story, since he was not in my sight at that time, and one that i too am thoroughly looking into. neither of the two phone calls i placed while seated in security are in the video either. what is shown in the video is incomplete as it leaves out when the security agent took my son to a separate area and out of my sight. this matter is one that is being handled between my family and the TSA.

In short, she seems to be accusing TSA of doctoring the footage. An extremely serious charge.

So what’s the real story? If TSA was covering this up, why? It’s not like they haven’t fucked up and had to apologize for things before. More likely, what motivation would she have for lying?

I have seen it mentioned several times now that some believe that she truly believed this happened, and that her anxiety caused her to hallucinate.

I find it more interesting that this is never the case when other bloggers online have been ousted as frauds. As Paul said in a comment on his post about this today, had this been a man who posted a story like this, he’d have been ripped to shreds by the blogging community, no questions asked. I’ve actually been a bit surprised at the huge number of people who have been quite adamant that this should be swept under the rug and allowed to blow over without comment.

I understand compassion, I understand wanting to protect your own, but I also understand the damage done to the credibility of the blogging community by bullshit publicity stunts like this.

I’m not trying to imply anything, but when you want to be taken seriously, you might not aught to be posting stuff like this on the internet less than 24 hours after the incident…

You wouldn’t want to look like you were…I dunno, trying to make money off something that caused you, in your own words, to have an anxiety attack and horribly traumatized you…

It has dawned on me as I write this that it should be simple enough for Nic to prove at least part of her story is true, if she so choses- posting a picture of her call log would prove the calls she claims are missing from the security footage. I’m raising the suggestion, but I doubt it will be taken up.

Insanity indeed.

After pacing the floor and cursing for weeks waiting patiently for my Google Wave invite to get here, I woke up this morning to the beautiful site of an invitation from Google in my inbox! Whoohoo!

I added Paul to the list first thing because he has been waiting for this too, but then realized I had seven invitations left, and there are a lot of people still waiting.

Short and simple- leave a comment here (be sure to use a valid email address!) letting me know you still need an invite. If by Friday we only have seven, those people will get them. If there are more, I will pick seven at random. Nothing fancy, no crazy hoops

Looking forward to seeing everyone on the Wave!

I wrote last week about getting a very nice email back from Mark’s work regarding the nasty messages he was leaving on my blog from their internet.

I thought for sure that would be the end of it.

A week later I get this comment…

“You ought to be careful, you don’t want to be charged with harassing him at work, and lose everything you own or might own. How did it go on your big day in court? Did you screw his brother too?”

Aside from using his signature ‘screwyou@’ email (this time spelled backwards for a little variety I suppose) his IP address traced right back to his neighborhood.

I couldn’t believe he would be stupid enough to pull this crap again. Why? What is the payoff for this? I emailed him with the copy of the comment and this-

So please explain to me Mark, what is the point of this crap? Why do you continue bothering me after you have been told repeatedly to stop, over a situation you have nothing to do with? Do you think doing stuff like this is going to help Ian in court, or are you just that desperate for the attention you get from being shown as the stalker you are on my website? This is what you call Christian behavior? Somehow I doubt God would approve. Sara

This is where it gets interesting. Or crazy. You decide. His reply-

DO NOT CONTACT ME ANYMORE. Not by email, not by phone, not through a family member, not through a fellow employee, not by mail, NOT BY ANY MEANS. If You contact me again, you had better hone your lawyering skills because I WILL get a restraining order, and if that does not stop you, I will drag your butt into court and sue you for harassment. Signed, MARK W. JXXXXXX

I’m sorry, did I miss something here?

So let me get this straight..The man with a documented history of contacting me (and other bloggers!) through my website, who I have had to report him to his job because of it, is now threatening to take me to court for ‘harassing’ him, because I responded when HE initiated contact?

Sounds like someone needs some serious help. And a meeting with one of those ‘lawyering’ people to explain to him what harassment exactly is, and why he needs to stop it before his ass gets thrown in jail.

Hello Sara,

I would like to follow up with you regarding your email dated September 16, 2009, in which you complained about receiving unwelcome messages from one of our employees who was using our IT system. We do appreciate you bringing your concerns to our attention and allowing us the opportunity to address them.

We discussed this matter with Mark ******* and made it clear to him that he is not to use our computer system or internet connection for personal communications, including blog or website postings. We believe that should prevent a recurrence. I do ask that you let me know if you receive any further communications from our IP address or from our IT system.

Thank you again for your email.

With best regards,

M****** *****
Office, HR Manager

I sent them an email back thanking them for their help in all of this. Despite what he and my ex seem to think, just because a blog is readable by anyone, does NOT give you the right to send verbally abusive messages to the site owner just because you get a bug up your ass.

JetBlue

JetBlue airline recently launched an ‘All You Can Jet’ pass giving customers the opportunity for unlimited travel to any JetBlue destination for a month for only $599. Not useful for me, but very useful for those who were able to take advantage of such an unheard-of deal.

Why does this make me smile? JetBlue’s twitter crew started retweeting links to blogs people have set up to chronicle their month-long travel adventures. Just some of the examples-

The two friends traveling for 31 days, spending only 12 hours in each city.

The couple traveling for new culinary adventures.

The girl doing an 8 city photo-journey.

The lawyer meeting online friends in 11 cities in 23 days(and job-hunting).

The baseball tour- 13 games in 10 stadiums.

Everyday Love Stories

This site has been so much fun to work on, and I had a new story go up today of a man who met and married his wife within 5 weeks, and the two have have been married for 26 years.

There will be a couple more great ones going up this week, so be sure to subscribe in your feed reader, or follow Everyday Love Stories on Twitter.

DailyShite

This has been a great weekend for posts on DailyShite, but my favorite by far was this morning’s post with the baby laughing hysterically at his own reflection. No way you can watch that one without breaking into a grin!

So what has made you smile on this rainy Monday morning?

When you know who is sending them, it stops being a joke, and starts to get a little scary.

I received two emails today from the comment form on a new site I have in the works, Everyday Love Stories. For those that haven’t checked it out yet, the site showcases ‘How We Met’ type stories from the average couple. I built this site for a variety of reasons, but mostly because the stories are all beautiful to read, and who doesn’t need something to smile about? I certainly do!

So imagine my shock then I get two comments to be moderated from that site that are not only personal in nature, but quite nasty. It took me a minute to look at the name and realize Ian’s brother had struck again, despite previous emails saying he would not be contacting me any more.

(Click on the images to see them full size)

I did an IP trace, which brought up this-

Company name is blacked out, but the comments have now been traced back to where Mark works.

Clearly he missed the day in Stalker School where they discussed not doing this shit on company time.

I have for the most part previously ignored these messages from him, but I decided after him saying it would stop that this needed to be addressed immediately, and sent him this, which I also copied to Ian, his parents, and Mark’s wife(who for the record is a VERY nice woman and I am certain had no idea he was sending them, likely his parent’s didn’t either)-

I was told back in December these nasty, semi-anonymous emails that I had been getting for a nearly a year would stop. Ian has said he would talk to him, and Mark himself said it would stop. I just received two more today, so clearly that has not happened.

Mark, I have no idea what your obsession with me is about, but it needs to end, NOW. Your IP traced back to (company name removed) here in Mobile, and I have the screenshots to prove it.

I have no choice at that point but to contact your employer and ask they they step in, since this is being done on their time and their internet connection.

If there are any more incidents I will be forced to pursue criminal harassment charges.

I hope for the sake of your own well being you realize you have a serious problem and get some help for it. This divorce was filed 18 months ago and I am doing my best to move on with my own life. I wish you would too.

Stalking people this way is NOT healthy.
Sara

I then sent this to the company he works for. What, you thought it was an idle threat?

I am currently having a problem with one of your (company name removed) employees sending me nasty and harassing emails from your intranet. The two I received this morning came in at 9:26am and 9:27am as comments through a website form on one of the sites I run.

I am enclosing screenshots from the two emails, as well as a screenshot from the IP lookup which links that IP address to your company.
The person sending them is Mark (middle and last names removed), he is an employee of (company name removed) here in Mobile, AL and serves as the (long boring job title removed). I am currently going through a difficult custody battle with his brother, which is I suspect why he keeps sending these messages. I have previously attempted to address this matter with him when the messages were coming from his home internet, and he admitted to sending them, and claimed it would cease.

Clearly it did not stop, and it is now happening on your company time and via your internet.

I am copying Mr. (last name) in on this email so he is fully aware it has been brought to your attention.

I would like someone to please contact me and let me know when and how the company plans to deal with this, because I plan to pursue criminal harassment charges against him if there are any more incidents, and if the incidents continue to occur from the (company name removed) network, (company name removed) will then become involved as well.

If any further information is needed such as copies of the actual emails or the website used to trace the IP I will be more than happy to provide them.

Thank you so much in advance for your assistance in this matter.

Sara (full contact info)

I almost hated doing it, but this clearly isn’t going to stop unless I do something. I have sat back and taken all the mud that has been slung at me, feeling like I deserved it, because let’s face it, I did have an affair. I have never tried to play that down, or act like it didn’t happen.

I do however believe that after a solid 18 months of harassment, I have served my time. I have had to put up the written and verbal barrage of sheer shit that I have gotten from both Ian and Mark, and quite frankly I’m fucking DONE with it.

At some point they both need to get over it, grow up and move on.

I’m not taking this lying down any more.

It hurts even typing that out.

When the order was originally put in place, my then-lawyer assured me that this was only until we got my hospital records, and then everything would go back to how it was. 3 weeks of back and forth with the hospital to get my records, only to be told they didn’t use the specific wording he thought we needed to be done with this in one go. Nothing wrong with what was said, but he wanted specific phrases before he would even try to get this in front of a judge. Fuck me.

“Go get a psych evaluation done” he tells me, so off I go to be questioned and analyzed. The result? Same thing we knew all along- I was under extreme stress from my divorce, and made an impulsive decision that the psychiatrist does not feel I will repeat.

Great! Let’s take this back to court!

“Too close” he tells me, “Wait until the divorce hearing in a couple of weeks. This will all be over then.”

Frustration, anger, confusion. I just want my kids back home.

Then the day before court, he takes himself off my case. A solid year of telling me ‘do not go back to work’, a year of me pushing him to get the Status Quo order enforced (and him not doing it), and he drops me because I can’t pay him. There is some kind of serious irony there I think.

The day he is notified I have no lawyer, the ex files to have me kicked out of our house, and a hearing date is set for that. Job-hunting proves unsuccessful, and it very quickly becomes obvious a new lawyer is out of the question and I am going to have to defend myself.

Which I did, successfully.

Months of emails from the ex telling me that I was a shitty mother, calling me an unfit parent, and threatening to not let me see the kids for whatever reason he felt like that day had taken their toll on my confidence, but it was that small victory that made me realize that I wasn’t as helpless as I felt in all this.

A couple of weeks ago, with the help and support of Paul, I went to the courthouse and filed two motions with the court. One asking the temporary custody order be dissolved, the other asking the ex be held in contempt for his refusal to follow the Status Quo order that had been put in place a year before.

A solid year I have been locked out of the bank accounts, had no access to the credit cards, and since he moved out of the house, have been given only money for gas, $20 a week in personal spending, and $30 a week for groceries, which has to cover all meals, cleaning supplies and personal items like razors and tampons. Let’s not forget the extra meals for 3 kids and a supervisor 2 days every other week as well, which also has to come out of my $30 a week. No extra money for that.

For all my previous lawyer’s hemming and hawing and talking about how he was ‘trying to get a court date’ for months, within two weeks I heard back from the court with a date.

On October 2nd we go back to court, specifically for the purpose of dealing with these two issues. With any luck at all, my kids will be back with me when it’s over.

The last bit of advice my previous lawyer gave me when I left his office was not to do this on my own, under any circumstances. The person who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Maybe I’m wrong, but all things considered I have a lot more faith in my therapist, who says I’ve come a long way in learning to take control and stand up for myself.

This clearly isn’t going to change unless I take action, and if looking foolish is the worst that can happen I’ll gladly take that risk to have my kids back with me where they belong.

If Meme is going for simplicity, they hit the nail on the head. You can’t get a more basic micro-blogging service. You have the option to post a snippet of text, a picture, music or video. Like most services you have the option to subscribe to other users Memes, and each user has an RSS feed so you can subscribe in a reader, stream though a lifestream, or whatever else.

While Yahoo Meme has been compared to Twitter due to it’s ‘repost’ feature, this is really more along the lines of Tumblr, or a stripped-down version of Posterous. In fact, it’s this lack of features that makes the service so very unimpressive.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the service is the incredibly insular feel it has. There are no options to share content to other places, which means content is simply posted and then reposted within the service to other members. I understand Yahoo wants to focus on keeping traffic within the site, but in the end it really starts to feel like nothing but a Yahoo member circle-jerk.

You’d think with this ‘content in, not out’ mentality, they would make it easier to post things to the site, but not so. Videos cannot be uploaded, only shared via links, and only from Youtube and Vimeo. Sorry Seesmic, Metacafe, and all the rest! Most remarkably, you cannot even share video from Yahoo’s own Yahoo Video service. Whaaaat? Music is just as awkward, requiring a link instead of direct upload.

With all the hoops to jump through to post there, at least they make it somewhat easy to use by giving you a bookmarklet or browser button to post media directly to your account from your browser, right?…Right?

*Crickets*

That would be a no. Items can only be posted directly via the Yahoo Meme dashboard.

I have gone over this site pretty thoroughly, which given the lack of features, didn’t take long. Yahoo Meme could maybe be recommended if all you wanted was a basic microblog service that you don’t expect anyone else to actually read. Until some of the most basic features are added for social bookmarking and sharing, and Yahoo makes it easier to post via uploads and bookmarklets, don’t waste your time.

Yahoo Meme’s attempt to recreate the microblog fail to impress, and in this case feel more like other services’ leftovers re-plated and served cold.

Some of my very favorite Tweets about this during and after the speech:

Was that a subversive healthcare message in his “wash your hands” message? @FairlyOddMother

“All young people deserve a safe place to learn” = Commie speak for “no guns”. #tcotinterpretation @Glennia

I would have liked the president to have at least admited that wood shop is a waste of time in school and it is OK to skip that class. @Neilochka

I thought Obama was gonna talk about brain washing, not hand washing.@mamaspohr

Now that the speech is over, I’m contemplating what to do with my newly indoctrinated self.@natthedem

To all who kept your kid out of school today. They missed a good speech. And since they got to stay home, Obama is now their hero.@JDCrowetoons

the circuits are busy. trying to get through because the brainwashing didn’t work and i’d like to try again.@rockdrool

Glenn Beck is now playing Obama’s speech backwards to listen for the satanic message.@Fairlyoddmother

Fine. You kept your cross eyed kid home today. But keep him off the street. Dumbass is standing in traffic again. #tcot #ocra@politicalbaron

Either way I was catching up on my Twitter feed when Fiona posted about a New York Times piece describing the new campaign by a program called “Smart Choices”. Smart Choices describes their goal as “designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.”  They work with the food and beverage industry and award green checkmark labels to foods that meet certain standards based on federal dietary guidelines.

Sounds pretty innocuous, right?

It would be, right up until you see the actual food lists.

Froot Loops is a ‘Smart Choice’.

Cocoa Puffs are a ‘Smart Choice’.

Pretty much all of the Kid Cuisine frozen meals are a ‘Smart Choice’.

Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise (not the low-fat stuff, the real kind) is a ‘Smart Choice’.

I’m sorry, but..what the fuck planet are these people living on again?

Quite simply, the planet with the money.

A short perusal of their website turns up the fact that half of their Board of Directors are executives for major food and beverage companies, such as Kelloggs and Kraft. Since when does turning out junk food make them qualified to judge the merits of healthy foods?

And while the programs is advertised as non-profit, the companies pay a percentage of sales of those products bearing the logo to the Smart Choices program, up to $100,000 per year. With 10 of the largest companies signed up so far, including Kelloggs, Pepsico, and Unilever, you have to wonder where that first million dollars is going to go.

The money issue aside, I truly wonder about the ethics of the ‘doctors’ endorsing this program. Dr. Eileen Kennedy was quoted in the article as explaining that between a donut and Froot Loops, Froot Loops is the better choice because it has artificially added  vitamins, she fails to explain the logic behind promoting ‘better’ junk food as opposed to actual healthy foods. A banana is both cheaper and healthier than cereal that contains 44% sugar (no, that’s not a typo), so why are they not after promoting things like fruits (as opposed to ‘froots’) and vegetables?

The ‘it’s better than…’ logic just doesn’t work for me. I mean for all that, giving your kids candy for breakfast is better than giving them rat poison, but I don’t consider either of them a viable breakfast option. Giving your kids whiskey is certainly better than giving them bleach, but are either something that you’d consider pouring into their juice cups?

It’s sad to me that by using this ‘it’s better than’ shtick the people behind this program are clearly preying on the poor and uneducated, trying to make them feel like they’ve made a smarter choice, when in reality all this program is doing is lining some already-fat pockets at the expense of our children’s health.

This past weekend was supposed to be my weekend with the kids. Still under supervised visitation, my friend Ashley came and spent the day with us Saturday. Ashley has an adorable 2 year old daughter named Alexis that Damian took quite a liking to, and a good time was had by all. I hadn’t been able to get someone for Sunday, so Ashley, bless this woman, volunteered to spend the day with us Sunday as well. (Have I mentioned I have amazingly wonderful friends? I do, and they have seriously been awesome through all of this.)

Sunday morning I am getting ready for Ashley to get here, and during this am back and forth over email with Ian about my pet rats. He freaked out when I got them, threatening to deny my visitation with the kids, because he seems to think domestic rats who have spent their entire lives indoor in a cage are the same danger to people as wild rats. Umm, yeah, that’s why they sell them in pet stores, because they are so dangerous, right? Whatever dude. Anyhow, we are back and forth over it, and he is once again telling me he will refuse to let me have the kids if the rat cage is in any room the kids have access to. (He insists the rats need to be taken to a vet and certified disease-free, but refuses to pay for said unnecessary vet visits. Maybe I would have the $300 to do that if he’d pony up the $700 in car repairs he owes me among other things…) Total control issue, and I just wasn’t in the mood for his games.

It was at the end of this back and forth email exchange I looked up and realized it was getting close to 8am and Ashley hadn’t gotten there yet. Damnit! I went to get my phone out of the bedroom and saw she had texted me saying she’d picked up her daughter from her mom’s and the poor thing was sick, apparently puking everywhere. She wouldn’t be able to make it.

I was pretty upset at not being able to see my own kids, but hers was sick, and I understood. I called and explained to the kids what was going on.

Not content to accept the fact that this was out of my control, the ex once again he had to try to find SOME way to make me look bad. After all, I suggested he bring the kids over himself so I could see them and that was shot down. But if he let everyone know that, there’s the slightest chance he might look like an asshole for not putting the kids first.

So what does he do?

He actually came over to the house, by himself, and after seeing a bunch of paper cups/plates/napkins in the corner of the kitchen, declares that I am having people over, and that’s why I gave up seeing the kids that day. (And I know damn well he went back and told his family this.) Oh, and apparently took pictures of the stuff, for ‘proof’.

Little problem with this theory? The paper products had been in that same corner of the kitchen since August 21st. How do I know the date? I had them out for a get-together I had with friends here that night.

A get-together where, naturally, there were pictures taken.

(Click on the picture to see the full-sized version.)

It wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t been to the house probably 4 times since then, and was well aware the stuff has been sitting there the whole time. No, he didn’t want to look bad, so why let a little thing like the truth stop him? Too bad I had this and other dated pictures of the stuff sitting in the corner after that to show just how much of a liar he is.

That would have been funny enough on it’s own. The best part is when fate decided to step in.

That stomach bug that Alexis had that Ian is trying to claim I made up?

Damian went home from school sick with it today.

Doh!

Guess I wasn’t making it up after all huh?

I made the final decision this weekend that any future podcasts I do will be hosted here on my own site instead of using BlogTalkRadio or the like, and went ahead and put up a media page for those to keep things tidy. I hate blank pages, so I went ahead and put up some old mommyblogger-type podcasts that I did back in the day with Megan from Velveteen Mind, Jennifer from Playgroups Are No Place For Children and Heather from the Queen of Shake-Shake. Ridiculously silly stuff mostly dealing with breastfeeding I think, but good for a giggle. We were all just starting out in the whole blogging thing, and had no clue as to what we were doing, so feel free to laugh at us in addition to with us

Suburban Oblivion’s Media Page

At first, things go smashingly. Your website gets traffic, and what started as a group blog turns into a podcast, which then sparks other ideas and further content.

Eventually, as always happens, life gets in the way. The excitement dies down, the enthusiasm fades, and possibly so do the relationships of those involved. Gradually the site starts to gather dust, disturbed only by residual traffic from the places it was syndicated.

So what happens if one day one of the content creators decides that for whatever reason, they no longer want that old stuff online?  “Take it down”, they say, “My posts and the audio content I helped create.” No matter what the group dynamics, the question becomes this- who holds the rights to digital content that was created with more than one person involved?

My thought initially was that in the case of one person writing a post for a group blog, that if they decide they want it pulled, it’s their content to pull, right?

Not always. Without a written agreement, the water starts to get a little muddy.

When someone willingly posts to a site, there is no question of consent to the use or syndication of their content. It’s a given that when you post something online, it gets sent out to wherever that feed goes, and it is stored in the great internet memory pretty much forever. To pull the original posts might take them off the first site, but the information will still be held in other places, and so it will not be truly erased by any means. The only real result might be some broken links, which is certainly not a help to anyone involved, especially a site that still sends residual traffic. The point is once it’s out there, it’s out there.

Google forgets nothing.

The same goes with podcasts, only the lines are less blurry. You can’t take one person’s voice out of a podcast, so in theory the podcast belongs to the group as a whole, and in actuality it belongs to whoever owns the space it is hosted on. You can demand something you contributed to be removed, but if you are not the sole owner, it is not actually yours to remove, so long as you consented to being a part of it to begin with.(Clearly recordings done without the other person’s knowledge fall into a different category altogether.)

As we were discussing this today, Paul came up with a great analogy regarding group sites and digital content rights. He described it like a book, written by two co-authors, with a preface by a third. Three years after publication, should one of those authors decide they don’t like what they did, or don’t care for the other co-authors, they can’t come back and demand the book be recalled and their pages removed.

As blogging becomes more prolific and more content is created digitally, people need to become aware of what happens to their collaborative content past the initial creation phase, especially when handing that content over to someone else’s domain.

Once you give content to another site, there is no asking for it back.

So as I’m sure my Twitter friends already know, that root canal I was scheduled for on August 13 got changed to ohhh, this past Tuesday. After 3 days on the antibiotics(and 2 days worth of pain meds that I very smartly halved when I could) I was still in excruciating, can’t eat, just put a fucking gun to my head and make it go away tooth pain. They called me in a day’s worth of pain meds on Monday since the dentist was out, and said come in first thing Tuesday morning. I go in Tuesday morning thinking they are going to look at it and give me a stronger antibiotic, and instead they immediately start prepping me for a root canal. I know the technical definition of a shocker is when someone decides to give it to you up the duff without telling you first, but let me say being told you are about to have a root canal in five minutes is probably about the same, and with the same lack of lube. Fun day I tell ya.

Anyhow, I spent the next couple days in an off and on haze of pain, because bless his heart, my dentist who is perfectly ok prescribing Codeine for an infected tooth feels when they actually do surgery to kill the tooth and tear up your gums and bruise your cheeks in the process, good old Motrin will do the trick. Even off the painkillers I still can’t figure that bit of logic out.

Despite my crankiness and all, Paul hung out with me on Skype, reminding me when it was time for my meds and tried to keep me distracted so I wouldn’t think too much about the pain. I maybe probably was not the best company, but he hung in there like a trooper.

During this time we did our usual posting/upkeep/general bullshit on our pet project, Daily Shite. This site has really been fun for us because of the nature of the content, but it’s also been fun watching and trying to predict what will be the next ‘big hit’ so to speak. It’s nearly impossible to tell what will go viral, but it’s fun trying. Normally we keep an eye on our stats, and try to take note of the sort of posts that get more traffic than others. (What have we learned? It’s completely fucking random.)

Naturally with the unexpected buggering surgery we weren’t at the top of our game, and it was more of a ‘just get stuff up on schedule’ kind of week. While Paul and I don’t run our posts by each other normally unless we feel the content is questionable, we do usually share before posting if it’s particularly good. One of the ones he showed me over the weekend before my surgery I remember being kind of “Meh” about, and truthfully just completely brushed it off. It was pretty geeky IMO, and I didn’t see the appeal. That post went up on the Sunday.

A few days later Paul asks me have I looked at the stats? At this point I was post-root canal, and quite frankly the last thing on my mind was website traffic. He hadn’t been checking either, and needless to say we were both surprised to see we had had a huge leap in traffic, the kind not seen since we got hold of the then un-released copy of the Alice in Wonderland trailer.  As in several thousand hits a day. For our little fledgling site, that’s a damn good day, but what had happened?

Paul’s geekiness had paid off, and the Power of the Pentatonic Scale video had been picked up by the music lovers among us, and gone viral. Our stats page showed inbound traffic from a couple of music-based message boards, a lot of Facebook sharing, a Reddit channel for music industry people, and over 400 hits from one Twitter account alone. The name looked familiar, so I went to find out who it was.

Daily Shite had a post retweeted by none other than Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit.

So that my friends is how Daily Shite got it’s first brush with fame.May it be the first of many

Thanks so much to our friend Stephen Spillane (@spiller2) for submitting the post, and Paul for being enough of a geek to see the appeal.

Have you run across a funny news bit, overheard something on Twitter, or found a hilarious video or email you’d like to see shared on Daily Shite? Send it to us, all submissions get full credit and link love!

So this has not been a fabulous week. I got a broken tooth, which very quickly became infected and started giving me the kind of pain one would expect from I dunno, say, having a screwdriver rammed into the gums. Not good. Went to the dentist and was given antibiotics to take before they can do (OMG A FUCKING ROOT CANAL) a repair on the tooth. I hate going to the dentist, so this all had me a little stressed. They did give me painkillers, which they said would keep me from killing anyone comfortable until the antibiotics kick in. I have VERY low tolerance for things like that, so Paul (and I’m sure everyone in my Twitter stream) has been getting a good giggle at my expense.

Aside from the tooth thing, I was not able to find anyone to supervise this weekends visitation with the kids. I have awesome friends who are very quick to help where they can, but it was just a bad combination of people being busy or out of town. It happens, but unfortunately it means I will not be able to see the kids this weekend.

Totally sucks, but Brendan’s birthday is Tuesday, so I figured at least I’ll be able to see them for an hour or so then. I’ll pick up a cake, and it will be just like Gabrielle’s birthday in June, which fell on a Monday. Same story, right?

Apparently not.

When Ian emailed asking what the deal with the weekend was, I told him I wasn’t able to get anyone for this weekend, but asked what the story is with Tuesday. This was his reply-

There is no story
with Tuesday. It is not a visitation day for you, this weekend is. Brendan’s
birthday is close enough to your visitation weekend for you to celebrate it
during your scheduled visitation time. I have no plans on making a special
trip over with them on Tuesday. If your recent behavior was more appropriate
lately I would have considered it, but I am not comfortable spending time
around you with your recent actions.

Considering our only contact in the last two weeks has been in regards to him locking me out of the master bedroom and my subsequent removal of that door, it’s pretty safe to say he’s decided to retaliate by not allowing me to see my son on his birthday. This was driven home to me when I emailed back and said that if he was ‘uncomfortable being around me’ then there should be no problem with me having a supervisor with me and picking up the kids for an hour or so Tuesday night so I could spend part of Brendan’s birthday with him, to which he replied-

You have your scheduled weekends. The schedule of every other weekend has not changed since it was imposed. So you have had more than enough time to plan and arrange for supervision. If you have alienated yourself so much from actual friends and family to the point they are not willing to help you then that is the situation you have created, not me. Have a nice weekend and I would suggest you start arranging now for the next visitation weekend so you can celebrate with Brendan at that time. If you wish to drop off his birthday present from you this weekend I am fine with that as long as I have sufficient advance notice and as long as you understand you would not be staying.

Real sweetheart, ain’t he? Got to love a man who so clearly puts his kids above all else.

Step 2- Attempt to negotiate.

Step 3- When negotiation attempts are ignored, call in a professional.

Step 4- Take proper precautions to make sure problem does not occur again.

Step 5- Sit and smile as you wait for him to read your blog post and realize he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

**Update 7/28/09 7:27pm**

The threatening email from him that I *knew* would come.

Just remember there are and will be consequences for your actions. Anything, and I mean anything turns up missing from my room and you will be held responsible. You will also be responsible for putting things back as they were as well as the costs, financially of what you have done. My lawyer will have a field day with this, so thank you for documenting it so well. Have a nice day.

He is nothing if not a dedicated reader

Done? Cool.

Losing in that hearing put him in a mood. A VERY bad mood. The kind of  “Oh yeah? I’ll show you!” mood that leads him to do stupid things like continue to sue me for the herpes he’s got but I don’t have. This time was no exception.

When shit hit the fan last year, I immediately moved out of the master bedroom. When he was still living here, he slept in that room, and I took to the couch in what used to be the playroom, but is now just my room. After he moved out, I stayed in here instead of taking over the master bedroom. Why? I think mostly because I have a court order saying he is not allowed in my room under any circumstances, and I could see moving into that room and him declaring that that’s not what the court said was safe and all my shit disappearing. Once this hearing was over I put a key lock on my bedroom door and settled in, as our next hearing date isn’t until October.

This isn’t to say the master bedroom sits unused. While he moved most of his stuff out with him, there are still things belonging to both of us in there. We kept most of our books on a large bookshelf in that room, there is a safe in the closet where we keep important papers, all the manuals to the household electronics are in the closet, etc etc.

And then there’s the tub.

One of the few things I love and will miss about this house is the large jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. While I generally stayed out of ‘his’ room after he left, I did start using the tub again. Taking a long bath in a jacuzzi tub is just one of those small pleasures I get anymore, and I enjoyed it.

I’m sure you see where this is going.

A few days ago I went to get a cookbook off of the bookshelf where we keep them in the master bedroom, only to find a surprise- he’d put a lock on the master bedroom door. The kind of lock that requires a key.

WTF?

I immediately shot him an email telling him he had no legal right to lock me out of a room in our house that he no longer lives in and that I expect either the lock to be removed, or a copy of the key handed over. I also said I needed a key to the shed, which he has also kept me locked out of for months now. (Why? I have no idea.)  His reply:

I will move any of your books from my bedroom. After that you would
have no reason to be in that room since it contains my personal effects, not
yours. You moved yours out over a year ago. The house is still my house
also. If you force entry into that room it will be brought up in court. You
have your room with your personal things with a lock on them and I am fine
with that. I do not trust you not to damage, steal or destroy my belongings
and therefore do not want you with access to them. It is still my house and
I am not removing all of my belongings and I have a reasonable right to
privacy for them.
As far as the shed goes, just tell me what basic tools you need
access to and I will have some brought into the house. If you feel you are
capable of needing access to all of them then you are saying you are capable
of maintaining the entire house and you can then do any and all repairs as
well as maintain the yard.

So just to recap, immediately after losing the case to get me kicked out of the house, and FOUR MONTHS after he moves out, and nowhere in that time is his bedroom door locked and nothing has disappeared, he is suddenly concerned I am going to barge in and steal what little crap he has left here.

Hey, I never claimed to understand his logic.

I emailed him back and told him I still have every right to use that tub, and that we still have things belonging to both of us in that bedroom, including a safe with legal documents and some other household items, and he has until Sunday to either remove the lock or hand over a key. His response was to come over, pull some cookbooks off the shelf, and leave them on the kitchen counter, locking the door again behind him.

In short, a great big “fuck you”.

I’m curious how teh interwebs would handle this one.