Do you have a web site? If
so, you probably get recorded calls that begin, “Hi, I'm Sharon
(sometimes Susan out west) your local Google specialist”.
Since it's a recorded
message, anything (including all the blue language and invective I
hurl back at old Sharon) is just a waste of time and breath (and at
my age I'm increasingly cognizant of the finite amounts we have of
each). Since some of our cordless phones don't have Caller ID, but
even if they do, after stopping whatever I'm doing to walk down the
hall to answer the phone call from Sharon, I feel entitled to a
little psychic relief, and with children no longer running through
the house, I unleash a full and increasingly creative barrage of
invective that would make the devil himself blush. Cathy just smiles
and asks, “Sharon?” and I nod.
Satisfied that I've
created an ever more efficient way of cursing thieves and liars to
eternal damnation, I continue my previous activity psychically
cleansed if karmically damaged.
There is no greater proof
of the impotence and corruption rampant in our federal government
than the flagrant disregard corporations, ranging in size from Bruce
the Window Cleaner to Wall Street banks sniffing out mortgage refi
clients, exhibit by their incessant calling of persons unknown and
unconnected with their enterprises, flagrantly breaking the “No
Call” rules Congress introduced in 2003 as a way to rile up their
contributors who throw bigger bags of money to legislators
when they've been riled.
That these organizations
have banded together with the lobbyists like the Association to Send
Senators Hoards Of Loot Everyday to fight for their God-given right
to behave like petulant jack-asses says more about campaign finance
laws than corporate morality (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one).
Now this “Sharon” (who
might be a shrew of the first order but it's doubtful she's stupid
enough to use her real name) says she's a Google specialist. I've
been using Google without need of a specialist for many years so I
assumed that since Google knows more about me than I know about me,
they simply called my phone number (which they of course already had)
and decided to help me make better use of Boolean parameters when I
did my searches.
Except that skank Sharon
is to Google what I am to RR Donnelly...I've heard of them and know
what business they're in. And that's about it.
It turns out that Sharon
works for a company called Pacific Telecom Communications Group.
Given that they use the word Pacific in their name, I've decided that
they are either located in Southern California (having crawled out
from under a rock in Death Valley) or outside of the US, probably in
one of the Asian nations that sends us some sort of fatal flu each
fall.
I want to believe that no
one is so bored with life that they've actually listened to Sharon's
spiel, but having attained a wizened perspective after all these
years, I've come to revise P. T. Barnum's observation that,”there's
a sucker born every minute.” While perhaps true during the 19th
century when Barnum was milking the suckers, the population of our
country has expanded and to update his maxim, “there are at least
dozens of suckers born every minute” would be more accurate.
But probably somebody ( I
HOPE none of you) has actually forked over money to these cheating
charlatans who promise zillions of clicks on your website but deliver
common, freely available advice on search-engine-optimization (SEO).
(At least that's what a Google search says they're hawking.)
But what's even worse than
that is that it wouldn't even matter if we were all intelligently
cautious and ignored their irritating come-on. While PTCG will
happily take our dollars, they have an even greater revenue stream
that makes our continual harassment inevitable.
PTCG collects
money from telephone companies every time their information is
displayed on your phone when you answer.
So the important thing
isn't that you buy their lousy product or even listen to their
insipid pitch. They're just happy when you pick up the receiver or
press the little green icon, or whatever it is you do to answer your
phone.
Of course the question
becomes why hasn't the might of the Federal Government slaughtered
these vermin? It's certainly not because they're unaware of their
existence. They seem
to know all about them.
Apparently the burden of
dealing with life or death matters like “did the IRS mess with the
Tea Party”, and “what planet is John Boehner really from”,
annoyances that the hoi polloi endure are allowed to fester. Our
letters and emails of complaint pile up in a warehouse or are
routinely scrubbed from Washington DC servers so as not to interfere
with the real business of governance.
So if filling out an FTC
form ratting out these perps makes you feel like you've contributed
to the peace and happiness of future generations, who am I to tell
you that you're wasting your time? As a child of the 60's, I say “If
it feels good, do it.”
Myself, I revel in the
millions of combinations and iterations afforded by the richness of
the American English vernacular and will continue to try to ensure
that no one associated with such shameful deportment has even the
most minute opportunity to enjoy anything but eternal pain and strife
in their afterlife.
Hey, you do your thing and
I'll do mine. I suspect we'll each have an equal level of success in
eliminating this vile harassment, but mine makes my wife laugh.
Check Out This InfoGraphic
From the moment you click on this
you'll get a second by second account about what's being sold in
America in real time. Book sales are shown foremost but sales from
Amazon to Walmart to 7-11 and even coupon savings are shown. Note that
ebooks sell in great volume but the dollars aren't even close to printed
books.
Weighing In on Amazon vs. Hachette
Stephen Colbert has weighed in on the Amazon v. Hachette (his publisher) brouhaha and has asked his legion of fans to purchase Hachette's title Californias online from Portland based Powell's Books, as well as offering free “I Didn't Buy It At Amazon” labels from his website.
Book Expo Attendance Off
Attendance at this year's BookExpo was down
slightly (again) while their one day cheapie tickets (aka Book Con;
take that either way I suppose) sold all 10,000 available tickets in
three minutes. The Comments following the linked article indicate Book Con was not an unmitigated success. See you in Chicago 2016 (follow the link: are Atlanta and Dallas really in the same destination class as prison camps?).
Monopoly vs. Cartel
This business writer assures us the fuss over Amazon and two major publishers is merely a monopoly fighting a cartel. With 2,675 publishers in the US alone,
that's one hell of a big cartel. The writer then admits that as an
author, he's displeased with the publishing industry business model
(surprise!).
Ultra Short Print Runs
I
still work with a lot of new authors/publishers and the question about
how few books can they produce comes up frequently. While Grub Street
Printing shies away from ultra-short runs (less than 100),
LightningSource (a division of Ingram Book Distributing) does very short
runs of digital books and claims that their average print run is between one and two books per order.
Ebooks or Print
Now that the dust is settling, the fact that only 4% of readers exclusively read ebooks means that if you want to reach the broadest reader market, printing conventional books is necessary.
The Almost Lost Art of Craft Bookbinding
When all books were bound by hand, creativity was used to enhance their looks and functionality. This short, non-technical article describes some techniques which are so uncommon now that soon there may not be binders capable of their execution.
Authors Validate Words
Over
the years I've noticed that many in the book industry nurture a
curiosity about word usage and origins. For the budding lexicographers, here is what the printed word has meant to linguistic evolution.
Print Is Still Big
After riding out a tumultuous couple of decades, the world of print may have diminished a bit, but it remains a huge industry with incredible reach.
Letterpress Never Died...
...nor
has it faded away. I bought a $5 book online for scanning, but when it
arrived it was a lovely mid 50's letterpress edition with just-visible
impressions from the type. I really didn't want to take it apart to
scan. Here's more on desktop publishing, circa 1820.
E Bonds, Not eBonds
The sale of US Savings Bonds plummeted in 2012
after the Treasury Department decided to go paperless. Now some
legislators are advocating a reversal of the paperless only bonds (H.
Res. 97), saying the program provided a savings plan for many low income earners.
Final Thought
A
truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it
down, and commence living on its hint.... What I began by reading, I
must finish by acting. Henry David Thoreau
