Taking Care of Business (the Friday report)
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
Has this web site come of age?
It better have, because in the weeks since we last reported its doings to you loyal readers, the site has become the target of pornographic spam.
Not soft-core, either. Out-and-out raunchy stuff, entirely without subtlety, (and, therefore, entirely without erotic appeal; you’d think they’d have figured that out, whoever they are). The photo above, for instance, is tame by comparison.
Why have we been so honored?
Who knows?
The first few entries were from gay porn sites, arousing (perhaps the wrong word to use in this context) the suspicion that it was the several posts about the same-sex marriage issue that got their attention.
(Yeah, “attention,” is the wrong word, as it implies some human reaction and/or decision, which is not what happens. It’s all web site to web site with no human involvement. We anthropamorphize the cyber world as we do the animal world).
But never underestimate the tenacity of kinky heterosexuality. Before long, its sites glommed on also.
None of this ever gets on Vermontnewsguy.com, and you may rest assured that it never will. Your (outwardly) proper proprietor clicks the “spam” option on his site administrator “dashboard” (a realm only he can enter), and “poof!” the porn entries disappear.
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After a draught of several weeks, the News Guy has again received a few donations. Many thanks to the donors, and a subtle hint to those who haven’t gotten around to it yet: You are welcome to do so. It’s right up there near the upper right hand corner under “pages,” just beneath “about me.”
At the outset, this site’s economic aspiration (which will not be called a “business plan” so as not to offend those of you who may have actually created one) was to break even. Not that there is any passionate objection to some actual compensation for time and effort. But that seemed to be asking too much. A simple balance of cash in and cash out would suffice.
Alas, the aspiration has thus far not been satisfied. Indeed, only a little more than half of the initial investment (roughly $1,000 to get the site designed and created) has been recouped. On top of that, going back and forth to Montpelier several times and some office supplies and the like have cost another few hundred bucks, and some other expenses loom over the next several months before this project celebrates its first anniversary in December .
So far, donations are the only source of income. What about advertising? Well, people who know about these matters say there are now enough regular readers of the site to make it worth-while for someone to buy an ad on it. This, however, requires that someone know how to sell an add on it. And there’s nobody here but us chickens, none of whom has the foggiest idea of how to go about such a task.
Talks are going on, however, and in one way or another (we’re not free to divulge all the details yet) you may see advertizing here eventually. But for the foreseeable future, we depend on donations.
The possibility of advertizing, of course, raises an interesting policy question. Should the site accept any and all ads?
Why not? If it’s legal to sell, it should be acceptable to advertise. OK, those pornographic web sites mentioned above, along with their attendant merchandise, would be an exception. But perhaps the only one. The News Guy is not a moralist, and were he, for instance, to refuse advertising for tobacco or alcoholic beverages, he would be acting as both a moralist and a hypocrite, considering that a pre-dinner cocktail (or two) and a post-dinner cigar are not unheard of in this precinct.
The trickier dilemma would be whether to take ads from political candidates or advocacy groups. Would some readers think, “Ha! He’s pulling his punches or shifting his analysis of this issue because he doesn’t want to lose the revenue from the American Society for the Perpetuation of Oak Trees?”
Could be. Suggestions from the greater world will be considered.
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Next week looms as a lively one. On Wednesday and Thursday, committees of the Legislature will hold public hearings on the budget impasse. They are not likely to be even-handed proceedings. The official notification to the state senators from their leader, Peter Shumlin of Putney, said the hearings would deal with Gov. Jim Douglas’s “proposal to lower tax rates for the wealthy and increase Vermonters’ property taxes,” and ” to make devastating cuts to human services and housing and conservation.”
Not neutral language.
The News Guy plans to attend at least one day. There have also been some political shenanigans that need to be discussed.
But, after careful consideration and much meditation, he has decided to take Memorial Day off. One reason really has to do with honoring the day, and the soldiers who are still being killed on our behalf. The News Guy is himself an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Army, and though the closest he got to combat was one fistfight in the barracks during Advanced Infantry Training (nobody won), serving was sufficient to create a lasting sense of solidarity with the folks who wear the uniform.
Besides, you’re all going to sleep late and then spend the day outside. You don’t want to be sitting in front of some computer. See you Tuesday. Time now for one of those cigars.
