Today I received this unsettling, but wise, email. Others might do well to heed it.
From: The American Blogging AssociationWell, that’s it for me. I shall not risk the wrath of the ABA.
To: Gerard van der Leun, americandigest.org,
CC:David Winer, scriptingnudes.comSubject: This Is Your Final Warning
Sirs,
Over the past few years, we're happy that you've been able to put the new "Blogging" phenomena to good use (well, in Mr. Winer's case, "happy" is stretching the point a bit).While American Digest has served as an illuminating and sometime humorous signpost in today's media, other Blogs have served to keep nattering Jr. Naderites like Joi Ito off the street and out of the mainstream of society. Illumination, humor, and keeping the Joi Ito’s of the world either in their room or ruining all-you-can-eat restaurants are noble goals and we endorse them.
However, after receiving thousands of complaints both by email, letter bomb, and one person who actually set himself on fire in our reception area, we must insist the both of you cease and desist a writing a species of posts which are apparently driving millions of Web users right off their feed and right round the bend.
No, Mr. Winer, it's not your inane little habit of posting about every 12 lines of code you've written, each cigarette you didn't smoke, your TMI little medical details, or even your RSS feed of information on your bowel movements. And No, it's not your endless proclamations that you invented RSS, or blogging, or the internet, or four-day lithium holidays.
It's that both of you just won't leave the pathetic lame duck candidates alone!
Mr. van der Leun, PLEASE stop posting about Howard Dean. No more posts, no more songs, no more photo-shopped photos. Just stop it, now.
And Mr. Winer, STOP defending him, and, while you're at it, stop posting about internet democracy, "Vote Blog", and anything even vaguely inferring that your silly little blog has any more influence on the election than the color of your stools. Oh, wait, we take that back. New tracking data shows that 84% of Dean's supporters read your site, and were so distraught that you were supporting him and might receive an appointment if he were elected that they are switching their support to Ralph Nader.
In both of your cases, this is your final warning. We have friends in the browser business, and it would be very easy for your sites to become "invisible", or, worse yet, point to each others, in the near future.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I hereby declare that American Digest will now be a “Howard Dean Free Zone” from now until the last ding-dong of Doom. The name “Howard Dean” will henceforth not appear on this site. This is the last time you will read the words “Howard Dean.”
Set your search engines to “Howard the Duck.”
Old Candidate (Left) New Candidate (Right)
