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[page 10, column 3:]
MR. WOODBERRY has done more than any earlier biographer to clear up certain mythical points in the career of Poe; but he has not done so much as he might, and, no doubt, would have done, if he had known which of the authorities that he relied on were to be trusted, and which were to be received with extreme caution. The space allotted to each volume in the series for which his monograph was written may also have had something to do with his apparent want of knowledge in a few particulars hereinafter to be noted. It was my misfortune to be an early worker in the field which has yielded him such an abundant harvest, and I was at least eight years in reaping the obloquy that grew out of that good-natured action. My garners were heaped with forage which was hardly fit for army horses in times of famine. My first cause of offense was an article on Poe in the September number of Harper's Magazine for 1872. My second cause was an enlargement of this article for an English edition of Poe, of which Messrs. George Routledge & Sons were the publishers. My third cause was a restatement of all that I had learned or collected at a later period for a Household Edition of Poe, of which Mr. W. J. Widdleton was, in 1880, the publisher.
"The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more."
But my misfortune dates further back than the time I have indicated — dates back to the volume of Poe's Works that contained Griswold's Memoir, (Volume I., 1850) and that embraced a portion of some lines of mine that appeared in the New York Tribune within a few days after the death of Poe, and were rather foolishly praised in the memoir by Mrs. Osgood, who was so soon to follow the poet whom she admired. Mr. James Hannay, a warm-hearted Scotchman, edited an edition of Poe's Poetical Works, in 1852, in which he demolished me as a pious scribbler, and by asking whether there was no law in America similar to that that obtains at the gates of Turkish cemeteries — Dogs not admitted here? When I sat down to write the article that I have mentioned for Harper's Magazine, I relied in the main upon the facts and fancies which Griswold had embalmed in his much-abused memoir. It was the most accurate (with all its inaccuracies) that had appeared down to that time. But I did not rely upon that alone; for in the Spring of 1871, I placed myself, through a common friend, in communication with Poe's cousin, Mr. Neilson Poe, of Baltimore, and embodied the substance of the information received from him, through this common friend, in the paper I proposed to write. Not having the Harper's paper within reach, I copy a few lines from the note upon which a portion of it was based. It bears the date of Baltimore, April 26th, 1871: "Neilson found Edgar in a state of insensibility on Thursday, the 4th of October, 1849 — the day after a hotly-contested election. He carried him to a Hospital, now the 'Church Home,' on Broadway, north of Baltimore Street, on Loudenslager's Hill, east of the city. Here he was attended by Dr. Moran. He was insensible from intoxication, or possible drugging. (There was a horrible suspicion that some political 'ward managers' had voted him over the city the day before; he was found in the back room of a 'Headquarters,' and had probably been 'cooped'.) He remained insensible until Sunday morning, October 7th. The Doctor and a nurse were with him when he first showed consciousness. He asked: 'Where am I?' Dr. Moran answered: 'You are cared for by your best friends.' Poe replied, after a pause, in which he appears to have recalled events, and realized his situation: 'My best friend would be the man who would [column 4:] blow out my brains.' Within ten minutes he was dead." Mr. John H. Ingram followed the line laid down in this personal letter to me in 1871, in the earliest of his publications after September 1872, and he has never since quitted it. It is possible that he discovered it for himself, but I beg leave to doubt it. For in Edgar Allan Poe, His Life, Letters, and Opinions, which was passing through a London printing-house while my insignificant memoir was passing through a New York printing-house, and which did not reach this city until I had finished reading the proof of my memoirlet — for in his two volumes, I say, he merely repeats my original statement. Concerning this painful, final episode in the career of Poe, Mr. Woodberry quotes a letter from a printer to Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, in which a gentleman rather the worse for wear, and going under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, is mentioned as being in great distress, at Ryan's Fourth Ward Polls, and as in need of immediate assistance; and he adds, on his own account, the following brief paragraph: "Dr. Snodgrass called at Ryan's, and had Poe taken to the Washington Hospital, where he was admitted, unconscious, at 5 P. M.; his relatives in the city were notified of his condition, and gave him such attention as was possible. He remained, except for a brief interval, in an alarming delirium, and on Sunday, about five o'clock, he died."
Griswold's account of the last days and hours of Poe, albeit somewhat inaccurate, is to the same general effect. Taking up the thread of his final journey at Baltimore, he says: "Here he met acquaintances who invited him to drink; all his resolutions and duties were soon forgotten; in a few hours he was in such a state as is commonly induced only by long-continued intoxication; after a night of insanity and exposure, he was carried to a hospital; and there, on the evening of Sunday, the seventh of October, he died, at the age of thirty-eight years." All the biographers of Poe agreed substantially in regard to the facts of his death; wherein they did not agree, until after the publication of the memoir in the Routledge edition of his poems, was in regard to the place of his birth, which had hitherto been declared to be Baltimore, but which was then stated to be Boston — a fact which no one has since disputed. I contrived while writing the Harper paper, to gather a few particulars about the theatrical antecedents of Poe's parents; writing at a later period, Mr. Ingram contrived to gather a few more; and writing last, Mr. Woodberry has contrived to gather all, or nearly all, that remained to be known about the parentage of Poe's mother and father; about their antecedents before they met, about their early married life, the places they visited, the parts they played, their vicissitudes, the birth of their children, and, last scene of all in this strange, eventful history, the death in poverty of the wife and mother, and the adoption of her three little orphans. This melancholy story never need be re-told, so thoroughly has it been told by Mr. Woodberry. He has ransacked old newspapers, periodicals, and theatrical records, and left very little unexamined. Whether the game was worth the candle his readers will determine for themselves. He knows less, or probably cares less, than I do about Poe's elder brother, William Henry Leonard, or his sister Rosalie. Of the former I wrote in the Harper paper (on the authority of Mr. Neilson Poe) that he was a man of singular personal beauty, who died about ten years before his brother Edgar; and that he was a man of genius who had left in the hands of some one unpublished effusions, said to be indicative of a genius equal to Edgar's. I learned at a later period, May 24th, 1873 (still on the authority of Mr. Neilson Poe), that he poetized in the Minerva, a small weekly paper published in Baltimore; that he was a clerk in a lottery office, handsome, attractive and intemperate; that he was engaged to be married for some years, and at last discarded, and finally that he went to sea, and got into some sailor's scrape, out of which probably grew the story of his brother Edgar's adventure in St. Petersburg. Mr. Ingram pronounces this last allusion an entire legend, and declares it to be a fair sample [page 11, column 1:] of the fabrications about Poe with which Griswold and his copyists were chargeable; and Mr. Woodberry, if I remember rightly, ignores William Henry Leonard altogether. Nor does Rosalie Poe fare much better at the hands of the latter, who merely mentions her name thrice. Mr. lngram claimed to know something about this poor lady, and did; but the substance of his knowledge was conveyed boldly from the memoir in the Routledge edition of Poe. It was sent to me in a letter from Richmond under the date of October 9th, 1872, and verbally was as follows: "The name of the gentleman who adopted Rosalie was McKenzie, a native of Scotland, and a merchant who was ruined by the sudden peace after the battle of Waterloo. His maiden sister, a most accomplished lady, opened a school in Richmond, which met with great success. All the young ladies of my day (myself included) finished their education under her charge, and here Rosalie had the same advantages, but she was always so hopelessly dull that she could never attain proficiency in anything but writing, this being purely mechanical." Mr. Ingram reproduced this in 1880, no doubt by inspiration. He was not inspired, however, to reproduce a passage from the same letter bearing upon the conduct of Poe after his return to the house of Mr. Allan from the University of Virginia "When he returned home from the University under a cloud, my sister-in-law was at Mrs. Allan's one day, when Mrs. A. remarked to a friend: 'Mr. Gilliet, what do you think of Edgar? His father (so she spoke of Mr. Allan) has just paid an enormous sum for his debts in Charlotteville, and now here is a bill for quantities of champagne and seventeen broadcloth coats which he has gambled away!' 'Yes,' (said Edgar,) 'I went to college to see how much of the old man's money I could spend, and I have done it.' My sister heard the whole conversation." Of this little episode in the early life of Poe, Mr. Woodberry says nothing. Neither does Mr. Woodberry (nor for that matter Mr. Ingram) say anything about an earlier episode of Edgar's school days, which was first related by Griswold, and of the truth of which the late Mr. John R. Thompson, who was a man of strict veracity, and not in the least credulous, had satisfied himself. "An eminent and most estimable gentleman of Richmond has written to me," Griswold wrote in 1850, "that when Poe was only six or seven years of age he went to a school kept by a widow of excellent character, to whom was committed the instruction of the children of some of the principal families in the city. A portion of the grounds was used for the cultivation of vegetables, and its invasion by her pupils strictly forbidden. A trespasser, if discovered, was commonly made to wear, during school hours, a turnip, or carrot, or something of the sort, attached to his neck as a sign of disgrace. On one occasion Poe, having violated the rules, was decorated with the promised badge, which he wore in sullenness until the dismissal of the boys, when, that the full extent of his wrong might be understood by his patron, of whose sympathy he was confident, he eluded the notice of the school-mistress, who would have relieved him of his esculent, and made the best of his way home, with it dangling at his neck. Mr. Allan's anger was aroused, and he proceeded instantly to the school-room, and after lecturing the astonished dame upon the enormity of such an insult to his son and to himself, demanded his account, determined that the child should not again be subjected to such tyranny. Who can estimate the effect of this puerile triumph upon the growth of that morbid self-esteem which characterized the author in after-life:" I do not admire this minute way of writing biography; but it is the fashion now, and if we do not like the fashion the best way to abolish it is to cultivate it to excess, and so make it ridiculous. I have read several such trifling anecdotes about young Master Henry Wadsworth since the death of Longfellow, and one or two of the like order will be found, I think, in Mr. Lathrop's Study of Hawthorne. If the child be the father of the man, we must look for the man in the child.
Mr. Woodberry may claim the credit of [column 2:] entirely clearing up one myth in the life of Poe, and of completing the work begun by Mr. Ingram in clearing up another. When Poe collected his Poetical Writings in 1845, he included in the little volume that contained them what he called "Poems Written in Youth," which he professed to reprint verbatim, without alteration from the original edition. That they were not so reprinted has long been known. There were two original editions of these poems, if the bull may be allowed, the first being "Tamerlane and Other Poems;" by a Bostonian (Boston: Calvin F. S. Thomas, 1827); the second, "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems," by Edgar A. Poe (Baltimore; Hatch & Dunning, 1829). Prefixed to "Tamerlane," in the second of these pamphlets, there was an advertisement which informed the reader that it was printed in Boston two years before; but suppressed through circumstances of a private nature. That such was the case — that there was really an earlier Boston edition of "Tamerlane and Other Poems," no one believed previous to the publication of a paper on "The Unknown Poetry of Poe," by Mr. Ingram, in Belgravia for June 1876. He described this booklet, quoted from it, and declared that it was suppressed, as Poe pretended. Mr. Woodberry now comes forward and proves that it was not suppressed; but, on the contrary, advertised by the acknowledgment of its receipt in two leading periodicals — the United States Review and Literary Gazette, for Angust, 1827, and the North American Review, for October, 1827, and was sufficiently known two years later to be mentioned in Kettell's "Specimens of American Poetry." What was Poe doing in Boston in the Summer of 1827? Mr. Woodberry says that he was placed by Mr. Allan in his counting-room after his return to Richmond from the University of Virginia, in December, 1826, and that he soon broke from this confinement, and, going out to seek his fortune in the world, made his way towards Boston, where, in the following Spring, he tried to make a start by publishing his youthful verses. He persuaded Calvin F. S. Thomas, a poor youth of nineteen, who had just set up a shop in Washington Street, to undertake the job. It is not likely, Mr. Woodberry thinks, that young Thomas knew the name of the customer who patronized him, and not at all likely, I think, that he ever saw the color of his customer's money. He removed shortly afterward to New York. "Neither in his stay in that city nor during his later life in Buffalo, N. Y., and Springfield, Mo., did Thomas, who lived until 1876, ever mention to his own family or, so far as is known, to his friends or associates, that his first venture in the booktrade was Poe's verses. In view of this fact, in connection with the general publication of reminiscences by all who were ever well acquainted with Poe, and the special interest of this obscure portion of his life, it may be safely inferred that Thomas never identified the first author he knew with the famous poet who wrote 'The Raven.' The obvious conclusion is that Poe lived in Boston under an assumed name." The next episode in the life of Poe, which was first referred to by Griswold on what he believed to be good authority, and which has ever since been regarded as a myth, is proved by Mr. Woodberry to be a substantial verity. Griswold's only error was in regard to the date, not in regard to the fact. He traced the career of Poe down to the publication of his second volume of verse in Baltimore, in 1829, and his supposititious attempts to earn money by writing for the newspapers, and of added: "His contributions to the journals attracted little attention, and his hopes of gaining a living in this way being disappointed, he enlisted in the army as a private soldier. How long he remained in the service, I have not been able to ascertain. He was recognized by officers who had know him at West Point, and efforts were made, privately, but with prospects of success, to obtain for him a commission, when it was discovered by his friends that he had deserted." Griswold's inaccuracy was in thinking that this episode occurred after and not before Poe went to West Point, and that it ended in desertion. What were the facts as discovered by Mr. Woodberry? They were that Master Edgar Allan Poe had exhausted every resource in [column 3:] the Spring of 1828, and was without means of support. "In this extremity he took the readiest way out of his difficulties, and on May 26th enlisted at Boston in the army of the United States as a private soldier, under the name of Edgar A. Perry. He stated that he was born at Boston, and was by occupation a clerk; and, although minors were then accepted into the service, he gave his age at twenty-two years. He had, says the record, gray eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion, and was five feet eight inches in hight [[height]]. He was at once assigned to Battery H, of the First Artillery, then serving in the harbor at Fort Independence; on October 31st, the battery was ordered to Fort Moultrie, Charleston, S. C., and exactly one year later was again transferred to Fortress Monroe, Va. The character of Poe's life during this period can now be but imperfectly made out, since the officers under whom he served are. dead; but from papers presently to be given, it appears that he discharged his duties as company clerk and assistant in the commissariat department so as to win the good will of his superiors, and was in all respects a faithful and efficient soldier. On January 1st, 1829, he was appointed Sergeant-Major, a promotion which, by the invariable custom of the army, was made only for merit." Mr. Woodberry then proceeds to give the papers to which he alludes, which were written at different times, by different officers at Fortress Monroe, and which resulted in the discharge, by substitute, on April 15th, 1829, of Sergeant-Major Edgar A. Perry. I shall not quote them, as I am not writing the life of that young person, and I refer to them only to express my admiration of the skill by which they were unearthed in the archives of the War Department, where they had lain moldering for more than half a century. They bridge over nearly a year which has hitherto remained a blank, and they indicate the circumstances under which Poe was probably sent to West Point. There was a curious resemblance between his enlistment in his nineteenth year and the enlistment of Coleridge in his twenty-second year; and it was doubtless the recollection of this resemblance which gave Mr. Woodberry the clew, whereby he discovered the missing Bostonian. Both enlisted under fictitious names, in which the initials of their real names were retained — Samuel Taylor Coleridge becoming Silas Tompkins Comberbach and Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar A. Perry.
If the reader of this hasty sketch will look at the brief passage which I have quoted from Mr. Woodberry, he cannot fail, I think, to note one fact — a fact which runs through everything that Poe ever said or wrote, or assisted others to say or write, about himself — mendacity. It peeps out in the little notes which he wrote to Griswold when he was desirous of misinforming him, and which may still be read in the Preface to Griswold's Memoir; in the note dated New York, January 10th, 1845, in which he said that he was born in 1811, and, in a later note, without date, but certainly written at Fordham in the last year of his life, in which he wrote: "It is a point of no great importance; but in one of your editions, you have given my sister's age instead of mine. I was born in December, 1813; my sister, January, 1811." It was hidden in his declaration to the officer under whom he recruited, and to whom he stated his age as twenty-two, when it was not twenty, "although minors were then accepted into the service." It was carefully concealed when he went to West Point. "Poe's attainment of his majority was not regarded as an insuperable obstacle. It was as easy to grow two years younger now as it had been to grow four years older when he enlisted, and he had already made up his mind to this rejuvenation some months before, when he wrote to John Neal that he was 'not yet twenty.' "
A stronger instance of his unveracity, and the unveracity of others under his influence, has been recovered by Mr. Woodberry. It concerned his second and public marriage to his cousin Virginia Eliza, who had nearly attained the matronly age of fourteen, he having already passed his twenty-seventh birthday. "On May 16th, 1836, having secured one Thomas W. Cleland as his surety, he gave a marriage [column 4:] bond as the law required; and Cleland was further obliging enough to take oath before the deputy clerk, Charles Howard, that 'Virginia E. Clemm is of the full age of twenty-one years; and a resident of the said city.' The ceremony was performed on the evening of the same day at the boarding-house of the family, by the Rev. Amassa Converse, a Presbyterian Minister, then editor of the Southern Religious Telegraph. Mrs. Clemm, whom the minister remembered as 'being polished, dignified, and agreeable in her bearing,' was present, and gave her consent freely; the bride, too, had a pleasing manner, but seemed to him very young. Virginia was in fact slightly under fourteen. Poe was twenty-seven." It was not the calumnious Griswold who wrote that paragraph in 1850, nor the still more calumnious Stoddard, in the Summer of 1880, but the careful, the painstaking Woodberrry, in the Summer of 1884. It is not my cue to defend Griswold, between whom and Poe no love was lost; but he had his good points, nevertheless, as my old friend Derby has noted, in his "Fifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers," where, writing about Mrs. J. S. Redfield, he remarks: "It was also through Dr. Griswold that he was induced to undertake the publication of Poe's works, now one of the most popular authors of the day. Dr. Griswold had offered the works to nearly all the leading publishers, who declined to undertake the publication. He finally persuaded Mr. Redfield to try the experiment of issuing two volumes first, which were published and had as fair sale — then the third, and finally the fourth volume were added to complete the works, The sale reached about fifteen hundred sets each year." (There is a slip of the pen in the next sentence; but it corrects itself.) "The copyright was paid at first to Mr. Poe (sic), and after his death to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm, who received the copyright on several editions." So far Mr. Derby, who adds, in a later passage, this extract from a letter recently received by him from Mr. Redfield: "Griswold never received a cent for his labors. "
The want of truth which attached to Poe has since attached to nearly every human being who ever came in contact with him, or with those who knew him, or who ever talked or wrote about him or his. If I make any exception to this rule, of late years, it is on behalf of Mr. Woodberry and myself. Let me state here, and finally, a particular in regard to the (supposed) literary remains of Poe, apropos to those in his lost trunk, which Mrs. Clemm is alleged to have received. My Baltimore correspondent, representing Mr. Neilson Poe, on May 24th, 1873, wrote as follows: "Mr. Poe has them; has gone through them, expecting, but disappointed. He says they are singularly wanting in anything of interest is relation to Edgar A. He will, however, go over them a second time, and whatever may show itself shall be at your disposal." Per contra. Dr. J. J. Moran wrote to Mr. Manton Marble, editor of the World, under the date of Falls Church, Fairfax County, Va., January 17th, 1875: "I have ten single pages already of facts in detail, as committed to me by the dying Poe; his mother-in-law's letters after his death. I had his trunk, with his papers and manuscripts, in my possession." Did you, indeed, Dr. Moran? And what became of the trunks and the papers? Did you try to sell them to Griswold, or Neal, or Hannay, or Briggs, or English, or Stoddard, or Ingram, or Woodberry? Failing with the World, you sold them to the Herald.
Mr. Woodberry has easily beaten the rest of us, from Griswold down; yet, he has merely produced a memoir pour servir.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 10, column 3:]
* EDGAR ALLAN POE. By GEORGE WOODBERRY. ("American Men of Letters.") Pp. 335. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885. (Copyright, 1885, by R. H. Stoddard.)
The French phrase memoir pour servir means, literally, "memoir to serve." A more idiomatic translation might be "a serviceable memoir."
Typical of Stoddard's articles on Poe, there are repeated attempts to cast Griswold's memoir of Poe in something other than the unfavorable light it justly deserves. In stating, for example, that Griswold's only error in regard to Poe's military service was about the dates, and "not the fact," Stoddard is pulling a bit of slight-of-hand. When Stoddard later provides an excerpt from Woddberry's biography of Poe, and notes that Griswold was wrong about the order of service and of there having been a desertion at all, Stoddard neglects to observe that he has just effectively discarded nearly all of Griswold's account, leaving only the fact that Poe did have a military career.
[S:0 - IND, 1885] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Edgar A. Poe (R. H. Stoddard, 1885)


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Phoenix weekend road construction July 9th-10th
After taking the 4th of July weekend off, road construction will be ramped up this weekend and there are closures and lane restrictions you should know about before heading out.
After taking the 4th of July weekend off, road construction will be ramped up this weekend and there are closures and lane restrictions you should know about before heading out.
One of the most viewed creators on YouTube is being sued by her husband and former collaborator, and his lawsuit may have confirmed widespread suspicions about her content.
"This video is so sentimental yet funny to me..."
GiveMeTheVIN is auctioning 23 classic cars, including several low-mileage Corvette models like a 1990 ZR1 with merely 25 miles.
Through five weeks of the college football season, the national championship picture feels wide open.
Cousins would like to have this one back.
Bryce Harper lit up umpire Ángel Hernández after he was called out on a checked swing Thursday.
"What did you do before you could look something up?"
The AL West title is up for grabs on Sunday.
TikTokers swear by this trick whenever someone takes their photo from the side.
Struggling with who to drop for your waiver adds? Jennifer Eakins has some names to consider cutting ahead of Week 4.
"This genuinely is making me want to cry ... There was so much misinformation back then."
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff Round of 12 shifts to the unpredictable high banks of Talladega this weekend.
I'm now a convert.
Anya Taylor-Joy has sparked discussion after footage showed her speaking Spanish to Jenna Ortega and Rosalía. The post 'Don't let other people tell you what you are and what you're not': Anya Taylor-Joy speaking Spanish stirs discussion on TikTok appeared first on In The Know.
Alvarez routed Jermell Charlo to retain the undisputed super middleweight title Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But does it make sense to have him face Crawford, the undisputed welterweight champion, in his next outing?
The United Auto Workers will walk off the job at an additional plant at General Motors and at Ford, UAW President Shawn Fain said on Friday.
"On my first day of prison, the officer was like, 'Raise your hand if anybody has contacts in their eyes.'"
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"Who cares how white she looks to you. At the end of the day, her father is still Filipino, which makes her half Filipino." The post Filipino American creator weighs in on conversation about Olivia Rodrigo's ethnicity: 'Have y'all just never seen a Wasian before?' appeared first on In The Know.
The former first-round pick criticized teammates and said he could beat LeBron James 1-on-1, among other things.


text:
Trust in the Lord – 19 x 14 inches – Wooden Wall Plaque – Sage – Black
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text:
How can we prevent another Enron, or worse?
By Don Moore
Remember the adage that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it? Unfortunately, history lessons don't seem to appeal much to the corporate world, even the firms tasked with making sure companies' books are on the up and up: the auditors.
Take the case, for example, of Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four audit firms. E&Y also operates a lobbying firm that also works with its audit clients, including companies like Amgen (AMGN), Verizon (VZ), and yes, Groupon (GRPN). Groupon stock is now trading around $8 per share, down from a February high of over $24. In March, the startup revised its profit numbers downward and E&Y voiced concerns about the company's accounting systems. Wasn't E&Y required to voice such concerns before Groupon's November 2011 IPO? No, it turns out that audit regulation applies to public companies, not to companies planning to go public. Nor does the law require Groupon to disclose what other services E&Y has provided the tech company.
Although Ernst & Young has argued that its work complied with the rules, we think the rules may be the problem. Just think back a few years to when Arthur Andersen was auditing Enron's books. While that auditing firm was approving the company's misleading financial statements, it was also collecting some $27 million in consulting fees from Enron. Arthur Andersen also argued that its arrangement didn't violate auditor independence rules.
The problem is not compliance with the rules. No, the problem is the rules themselves, which permit conflicts of interest and ultimately undermine auditor independence.
Auditor independence is a cornerstone of our capital markets. It means that auditors should be able to objectively assess whether publicly traded companies are telling the truth about their finances. And this independence is threatened by cozy, long-term partnerships that develop between firms and their auditors.
So, then, what can we do to make sure we don't have to face yet another (and another) Enron, or worse?
Enter the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to oversee the auditing profession. Make no mistake, they have a difficult task ahead of them as they consider regulatory reform -- a task made all the more difficult since it's being done without the benefit of the kind of public anger that immediately follows a scandal. Reforms born from that sort of post-mortem pressure, however, typically close the barn door after the horse has been stolen. This time, the PCAOB has anticipated a likely cause of future scandals and is considering closing the door before it's too late.
Speaking at a meeting of the PCAOB last spring, we identified three core threats to independence, all of which focus on the incentives auditors have to keep their clients happy. First is the desire to retain the audit client. Auditor rotation is a useful response to this threat. We also noted that selling other services like consulting or lobbying undermines independence. Finally, auditors taking jobs in the firms they audit also leads to conflicts. All these should be under careful scrutiny by the PCAOB.
Reform will not come easily. There are entrenched interests lined up to oppose any change that disturbs the convenient and lucrative status quo. That is what happened with Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002. As drafted, the act included audit firm rotation, but thanks to heavy lobbying by accounting firms, it was watered down to require only the rotation of the manager from the audit firm overseeing the audit. When we testified before the PCAOB, one of the corporations speaking against reform had been with its accounting firm for 129 years. Teaching new auditors about their financial systems every 10 years, it argued, would lead to increased costs and reduced flexibility. We think that's a small price to pay for honest audits.
The benefits of a system that delivers true auditor independence are enormous. Equity markets depend on the truthful and reliable public disclosure of information about public companies. If reforming our system could reduce the probability of another Enron or WorldCom, even by a little bit, we should be willing to endure costly and disruptive change to do it.
Trouble is, most of the investors who would benefit from this reform do not show up at PCAOB panels. They do not know about the potential for audit fraud at the companies whose stock they own, and so cannot calculate how much they would benefit from mandatory auditor rotation. And while the discussions drag on far away from the public eye, interested industries work with regulators to figure out how to soften the edges of legal constraints and work around regulations.
Conflicts of interest in auditing are a blight on the integrity of our economic system. It's time for the PCAOB to act.
From FORTUNE -- By Don Moore and Max Bazerman


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A version of this post first appeared at The SymCenter Blog. This is part one of a two part post.
In a recent article about success in the sharing economy, Van Jones explained the degree to which sharing, crowdfunding, and other similar concepts are fundamentally transforming the economy as we know it. He turned to examples like Zipcar, Solar Mosaic, AirBnB, and Couchsurfing to show this transformation happening on the ground. For the few who don't know, Jones founded Green For All, one of the central organizations within the growing green economy movement. His tremendously poignant article makes one wonder to what extent this sharing economy is similar to the green economy and how are we to understand their relatedness theoretically and organizationally? One could certainly say they have much in common, from the role the above-mentioned firms play in helping protect the environment by crowdfunding solar panels or reducing people's need to own their own car. It's one thing to see what ideas or outcomes they have in common. For the broader purposes of looking towards our collective potential to fundamentally transform the economy, it's also important to look at how they relate to one another organizationally. This two-part series attempts to do just that. The first part looks at the green economy movement theoretically and organizationally, while the second part looks at the sharing economy, solidarity economy, and new economy to make the case for a New Economy Coalition acting to unite them all.
Even though the green economy has been growing in the U.S. for decades, its birth into mainstream social consciousness very much began with the push for a Green New Deal as an immediate solution to a collapsing economy in late 2008. We saw the potential for job creation through public investment with the Green Jobs Act prior to the collapse and the subsequent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (1) The hope behind the push for a Green New Deal is based upon FDR's New Deal legislation in the 1930s and the works of economist John Maynard Keynes. The focus is a massive reinvestment by the government into the economy. With a Green New Deal that investment would be focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, improvements to the electrical grid, and other carbon-reducing strategies for job creation.
The Great Recession was caused by a combination of two major factors, with the center of it being the overall failure of the decades long strategy of neoliberalism. More specifically, the collapse of the economy was caused by a long process of what French economists Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy call, "the quest for high income, financialization, and globalization." This quest refers to the efforts of the 1% to increase incomes via profits, capital gains, bonuses, stock options, and wages, while using that vast wealth to push for the deregulation (especially of the financial sector) and the expansion of increasingly unwieldy financial instruments. This growing and already colossal financial sector also became an increasingly global movement to expand the so-called "free market," to deregulate the global economy under the guise of globalization.
The second major factor in their analysis of the cause of The Great Recession is "the macro trajectory of the U.S. Economy." In this factor they identified three main aspects: the "low and declining [capital] accumulation rates, the trade deficit, and the growing dependency on financing from the rest of the world and domestic indebtedness." This neoliberal strategy failed to correct a decades long trend of declining capital accumulation rates by corporations. The movement of corporations abroad greatly worsened the trade deficit and, when coupled with the concerted effort of the 1% to enhance their wealth at the expense of the other 99%, forced the vast majority into substantial debt. This unsustainable situation triggered a collapse in the housing market, causing the rapid decline of the entire economy in its wake. It is, in turn, this overall failure of the neoliberal strategy that's beginning to lead to something transformative, new, and green. (1) It began with a push for a Green New Deal and is now finding its home within diverse movements under different labels including green economy, sharing economy, solidarity economy, new economy, and others.
Keynes believed that in instances of economic crisis significant governmental or public investment was required in order to jumpstart the economy. By investing a considerable amount of money into the economy, he believed the government could offset the overall decline in demand. In doing so, the government could thereby create jobs, rebuild the tax base, and make its investment back without increasing the long-term deficit. The idea behind the Green New Deal has been simple: instead of a New Deal like with FDR back in the 1930s, this would invest in renewable energy, public transportation, energy efficiency, improvements to the electricity grid, etc. This is what makes it a Green New Deal. Unfortunately, even with the funding through ARRA and smaller governmental stimulus measures, the amount of funding has thus fallen far short of levels necessary to jumpstart the economy. (2) On top of that, the lack of adequate funding leaves us far behind on global targets to cap atmospheric carbon levels as well. (3)
Still, Green New Deal policies are a massive shift from the neoliberal orthodoxy of the last few decades. Just like the Republican Party's almost unanimous support for destructive trade agreements, most Republicans oppose Green New Deal types of policies as well. It doesn't matter that their opposition is based on flawed or even outright fabricated 'analyses.' Their opposition is based on the interests of who pays for their political campaigns. The oil and gas industry alone spent almost $64 Million in the 2012 election cycle, 90% of which went to members of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, clean energy and low-carbon companies are growing and building a political force of their own. This is growing and will, over time, provide a counterforce to the oil and gas industry and their stranglehold on Capitol Hill. The American Council on Renewable Energy represents many of those clean energy companies and their trade associations. Similarly, the push for an energy efficient economy is finding a new political voice in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. In many ways the green economy movement is at the forefront of the push to fundamentally transform the economy with other similar movements trailing close behind.
What's perhaps the most exciting and promising aspect of the movement for a green economy and a Green New Deal is that it's bringing together a host of different organizations representing communities and constituencies that haven't often come together over the years. The movement for a green economy and a Green New Deal came to prominence in 2009-2010, as so-called Cap & Trade policies and others were on the verge of passage. The Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit organization with Al Gore as its board chair, was leading the charge by acting as a coordinating entity of sorts with numerous member organizations helping provide a degree of direction to the movement in general. Now called The Climate Reality Project, its focus has shifted more towards general public education around climate change. This is likely a result of the inability to pass comprehensive climate change legislation during President Obama's first term and the drastic decline in public belief around the role of human activity in causing climate change. It seems few expected such a drastic assault by the extreme right in spreading disinformation like the manufactured "Climate Gate" scandal.
Labor unions, manufacturers, and environmental organizations are coming together through organizations like the Apollo Alliance and the Blue-Green Alliance (recently merged). They are made up of both public and private labor unions like the United Steelworkers Union, environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, and even manufacturers of all sizes. Small and medium-sized businesses are part of this movement through the Advanced Energy Economy. Local chambers of commerce have even joined the fight through Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy. Ceres is bringing together a wide variety of companies and investors small and large to address climate change and build a green economy. Broad umbrella organizations have emerged representing all types of community-based local organizations. 1Sky is the biggest of these organizations and recently merged with 350.org under the 350.org name to create a large advocacy organization made up of hundreds of thousands of members in the U.S. and a still larger global movement. It tackles many of the traditional environmental issues, while also advocating for Green New Deal policies. The Green Economy Coalition recently emerged as a global network to strategically support the expansion of the green economy at a global level in advance of the UN's Summit on the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit this past June of 2012.
Low-income communities and communities of color are part in this movement too. Green For All has been pioneering the creation of green jobs, career-track jobs that pay a living wage, have benefits, and address environmental issues at the same time. They lobby Congress on environmental and Green New Deal policies, develop innovative policy research, while assisting coalitions of organizations in cities to implement green job creation strategies and helping green businesses grow. Providing empowering opportunities for traditionally marginalized communities is a vital aspect of this growing movement, which is why Green For All and others similarly working to create and expand opportunities low-income communities, communities of color, and others who have traditionally been passed by when economic opportunities arise.
There are other organizations and efforts within this larger movement for a Green New Deal. The Smart Growth Alliance is pioneering a new national opposition to sprawl and support for public transportation at the same time. There are even signs that working to rebuild our urban cores around public transportation and the remediation of brownfields can be done in ways that empower traditionally marginalized communities. (4) Numerous other organizations are starting sustainability initiatives aimed at involving themselves in one way or another in this movement for a green economy and a Green New Deal. ICLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability, is a network of local governments from around the world focused on the best ways for governments to leverage their resources to best build the green economy.
Outside of the public policy arena, organizations and institutions all across the country are launching sustainability initiatives as part of a truly massive movement. Colleges and universities and joining this movement through the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education. Countless think tanks have emerged to focus on renewable energy and clean tech to workforce development, bio-based alternatives to petroleum-based chemicals, and much more.
This movement isn't the only game in town when it comes to transforming the economy. Alongside the push for a green economy are a few other movements with the goal of fundamentally transforming the economy in one way or another. The green economy movement is much more expansive though, but aside from the work of groups like Green For All, it's very much a "double bottom line movement." Unlike traditional economic approaches that stand firmly on the belief that profit should be pursued above all else, that considerations of externalities like the environment only hinder profitability, the green economy movement is based on the belief that profitability and environmental sustainability can go hand in hand. As will be discussed in a subsequent article, the sharing economy, solidarity economy, and new economy take the goals of the green economy one step further, emphasizing a "triple bottom line" of people, planet, and profits. Just like the recognition that environmental sustainability and profit aren't mutual exclusive, these other movements stress that the well being of communities can go hand in hand with environmental sustainability and the well being of the economy overall.
When the green economy movement first came on the scene with the ascendency of Van Jones to become President Obama's green jobs advisor, some claimed it was part of a Communist conspiracy. Despite the irrational rantings of Glenn Beck and others, there is a strong push within this movement to more fundamentally transform the economic system as a whole. It just doesn't have anything to do with traditional or "actually-existing" forms of Communism.
Given the frightening reality of climate change, the manipulative push-back from powerful corporate interests, and the longer-term economic stagnation that stands before us, it is likely that the green economy movement will increasingly take on the task of a more fundamental and structural transformation of the economy. The structural imbalances of power continue to thwart attempts to transform the economy on Capitol Hill. Examples like the Citizens United decision and the corporate assault on our democracy will likely force the green economy movement to fight for a more fundamental transformation of the dominant values and institutions in the U.S. This includes the nature and structure of major corporations as well as the nature of the political system overall. This is why an increasing unity between the green economy movement and other efforts to transform the economy are so important. The broader triple bottom line framework and transformational focus of efforts around sharing, solidarity, and a new economy must increasingly creep into the green economy movement; finding greater ideological and organizational unity.
We can already see the rise of a considerable mistrust of the entire notion of a green economy, evidenced by terms like 'green washing' and the decline in belief regarding climate change. A poignant example of this mistrust can be found with criticisms of the recent "Rio +20 Summit." The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development was meant to produce a renewed transformational focus on revamping the global economy for the planet and its poor. It showed little signs of achievement though. What's more, this mistrust was codified into an alternative summit hosted as the "People's Summit Rio+20." It concluded that the green economy movement was fundamentally broken. As noted in one of their concluding documents, only by redirecting efforts towards the original goals of an Earth Summit, transforming the global economy into something that benefits the planet and its poorest, could the green economy find salvation.
From the perspective of the planet's poorest and the organizations working with them, the green economy doesn't represent opportunity. It represents a friendlier face of a global capitalist economy that has exploited them and their natural resources for decades. And just as the Alliance for Climate Protection became The Climate Reality Project in the face of public mistrust and disbelief in the realities of climate change, if the green economy movement wishes to win the hearts and minds of the American people, it has to not just educate but to create tangible and immediate solutions for individuals and communities struggling in the wake of our broken economy. This is why the other diverse movements to transform the economy have such a vital role to play. Each of them provide unique lessons for creating solutions today.
The green economy has been growing in the U.S. for decades, but if its going to go to the next level to transform the overall economy during these delicate beginning years of the 21st Century, it needs a mass movement behind it. The only way that's possible, the only way the movement for a green economy becomes an impassioned charge from communities all across the country, the world for that matter, is for it to place the well being of those same communities into the forefront of it's goals. When the movement to build a green economy transforms itself from a double bottom line to a triple bottom line movement, finding ways equitably support and interact with even the most marginalized communities, it's firmly on the path to victory.
(1) Gerard Dumineil & Dominique Levy, The Crisis of Neoliberalism, (MA, Harvard University Press, 2011), P. 35-40.
(2) For a detailed description for how a Green New Deal could lead to substantial economic development, see Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth, (DC: EarthScan, 2009). P. 113.
(3) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN)." Abu Dhabi, May 9th, 2011.
(4) Carlton C. Eley. "Equitable Development: Untangling the Web of Urban Development through Collaborative Problem Solving." Sustain: A Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Issues. Issue 21, Fall/Winter 2010.


text: Any honest consideration of marriage must think about children, the hope of our future. For millennia, people of every generation and of every culture have understood that the marriage of a man and a woman is the central pro-child social institution and the rock of the natural family. Marriage has never been about the relationship of just any two adults. Marriage brings together a man and a woman who unite as husband and wife to form a unique relationship open to welcoming and caring for new life. As the union of husband and wife, marriage is a union open from within to the blessing of fruitfulness. Children are born "from the very heart" of marriage, from the mutual self-giving between husband and wife (CCC, no. 2366). They are the "supreme gift" of marriage and its "ultimate crown" (GS, nos. 50, 48). "Made for Life," the second video in the Marriage: Unique for a Reason series, discusses the gift of children and the unique love that fathers and mothers give to children. "Made for Life" is the perfect sequel to "Made for Each Other," which explores why sexual difference matters for marriage. Only a man and a woman can authentically speak the language of married love, because only a man and a woman can engage in the act which, by its nature, is designed for bringing new life into the world. This is the awesome call to participate with God in the incredible adventure of creating a new human being, welcoming that child into the world, and forming him or her on the cornerstone of marriage. Sexual difference is vital for the conception of a child, but its importance doesn't end there. The difference makes a difference throughout a child's life. There is a consistency to God's design: just as it is a fact of nature that every child has a father and a mother, so a child needs a father and a mother for the optimal environment for healthy growth in every other way – emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, morally, spiritually. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. They each bring unique gifts to the common mission of parenting, that is, fathering and mothering. The presence of a father and a mother – not merely two adults – teaches children about the beauty of sexual difference and what it means to be a boy or girl, a man or woman.


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Wikipedia's constant pleading for money is annoying, especially the latest round of "A Personal Appeal From Jimmy Wales". It would honestly be less annoying if they just stuck real text ads there that I already know how to ignore without feeling guilty about it. And given the amount of traffic that goes to Wikipedia --- especially the monetizable sort of traffic of people investigating things --- I can only assume they'd haul in a huge amount of cash. Are they afraid of that, or what?
Thursday, 1 January 2009
23 comments:
- Damian1 January 2009 at 02:44
If I was Wikipedia I'd be afraid of putting in adverts (I can't immediately think of any other ways to monetize Wikipedia).ReplyDelete
Wikipedia has in many respects become the bastion of general knowledge on the Internet. While it has bias and errors all over the place, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that other encyclopedia's do quantifiably better with the considerably less information they have.
So with this level of respect from many people, it would be a hard pill to swallow to start seeing "BUY Spice Girl's Album CD's" on some article about 90s pop music or "Download Google Chrome" on an article about web browsers.
- Robert O'Callahan1 January 2009 at 03:28
We accept ads on TV and in newspapers. Is Wikipedia so much more respected than, say, the New York Times? I don't even see what "level of respect" has to do with ads, frankly. I can tell you that constant heart-tugging appeals for my cash are definitely lowering my respect level.ReplyDelete
That's where Adblock Plus comes in so handy: once a webpage gets too annoying, it allows to just filter out those bits (try: wikipedia.org##.siteNoticeBig ).ReplyDelete
- Damian1 January 2009 at 05:19
The only trusted new source I have on T.V is the BBC which doesn't have adverts, so maybe my view on things are a little skewed with that particular example.ReplyDelete
But there's at least a couple of qualitative difference between the examples you've given and Wikipedia and other sources of information which don't have adverts, I don't know if they're important or not though.
T.V and Newspapers throw information at you, I expect ads in them as well as Radio, Billboards and other such forms of media. I don't expect adverts when I trying to find references in a scientific journal or a mathematics book. I don't expect adverts when I flip through Encyclopedia Britannica or the Oxford English Dictionary. So yeah, the forms of information gathering, as apposed to information receiving, I only tend to respect advertless ones there.
Of course, there are some obvious counter arguments to that. One being that the forms of information I've mentioned there are bought not given away freely and I have to say I have little recourse to that argument at the moment. Another counter argument would be that I information gather through Google, I don't feel this is the same as Google does not provide the article itself, just the service in which I find it so I don't believe that's a valid analogy.
The other thing I'd start to worry about is advertising words. Can you really say an argument on web browser's is not tainted if there's an advert at the top which says:
"Download Mozilla Firefox - it's the fastest"
"Opera - Users agree it's the best"
In an age of context sensitive adverts that respond directly to what information users are gathering, as apposed to educated guesses in newspapers and T.V, I don't see how Wikipedia could honestly defend trying to be non-bias when adverts starting creeping in to pages.
Anyway, some thoughts to much on, I don't disagree too much with your donations point either :/
- Robert O'Callahan1 January 2009 at 05:46
Fine, then they should show ads by default but with a "hide ads" button next to them, for those people who prefer personal appeals from Jimmy Wales.ReplyDelete
- Robert O'Callahan1 January 2009 at 05:47
Hmm, probably 50% of people would never click that button, thus providing enough revenue that the other 50% wouldn't even need to see personal appeals from Jimmy Wales. Everybody wins.ReplyDelete
I don't see how creating a financial conflict of interest that will most easily affect niche articles that lack oversight – currently the set least affected by Wikipedia's own structural problems – could do anything for Wikipedia than sink it.ReplyDelete
That's normal here in the states for public radio and public tv. No license fees and very little direct government support so they run funding drives directly.ReplyDelete
I have to say that I find this post a little bizarre. How constant is Wikipedia's pleading for money? The plea from Jimmy Wales thing was a bit distracting, but most of the time I find their requests for donations to be unobtrusive. I think that text ads on every Wikipedia article would be far more annoying, especially since all the content is coming from the users. And, if you find Wikipedia useful, perhaps you could assuage your guilty feelings by donating some money? :-)ReplyDelete
- miguel1 January 2009 at 08:59
Whether you agree with it or not you have to admire him for sticking to his principles. At one point he refused some Google money to avoid even the slightest taint of corporate bias. Reminds me of Craigslist's Craig, they could be making SOOOO much money. You have to wonder, if there was even the slightest suggestion that Wikipedia was making money off of there contributors would the contributors be as willing to spend the countless hours that they do editing Wikipedia? There's no way to know, but he is guarding what he built jealously, and you can't ask for more from the caretaker of such an invaluable resource. Actually, come to think of it, if Mozilla didn't have the taint of all that Google money maybe there would be more community contributors.ReplyDelete
- Robert O'Callahan1 January 2009 at 10:13
Manu, before the current Jimmy Wales thing I kept noticing other fundraising banners --- "Wikipedia needs your help" and others.ReplyDelete
I don't really get what the financial conflict of interest is with having ads. Is Wikia going to slant the Wikipedia editorial line to favour advertisers? That's absurd if you're talking about content-based syndication like Google Adwords. There's already strong motivation to bias Wikipedia articles, I just don't see how ads make that worse.
Maybe someone should write a Firefox extension that replaces the Wikipedia pleas with Google ads and forwards the revenue to Wikipedia as donations!
Miguel, I do admire people who stick to their principles, but that doesn't make them right about everything. Your point about contributors not contributing if people are making money off their work is worth considering, but honestly I've been surprised how little that seems to affect Mozilla. We have a steady flow of excellent new volunteer contributors; it's hard to prove there'd be more if we were poorer; all I can say is that the incoming rate has been surprisingly steady as our fortunes have waned and waxed. Money has enabled things like speedier reviews (by hiring more full-time staff) and better infrastructure, which definitely make life better for volunteers. Perhaps it would be different if some Mozilla people were getting ultra-rich via IPOs or stockholder dividends, instead of the money being reinvested in the project.
Anyway, what successful open source projects are there that no-one makes money off? Do people stop contributing to Linux or Python because Google makes some much money with them and a few Linux/Python contributor Google employees benefit that? Do people balk at contributing to Mono because Novell makes money off it and Novell employees are paid to work on it?
Are you really thinking that wikipedia could contain Ads ???ReplyDelete
You need to remember two things :
* Current Ads content are dependent on the content of the page based on a relevance algorithm.
* Wikipedia is editable by anyone
Due to the high PageRank of wikipedia it is already hammered by spammers with links and texts. What do you think will become standard for advertisers in the years to come if wikipedia include contextual Ads ?
1. Create an ad linked to a "key phrase" that was nearly never used in your industry
2. Introduce this phrase in the text of the relevant wikipedia articles.
3. Profit!
Non-Contextual ads cause less problems but are still candidates for situations like "Don't let uses list the current financial problems of my company or i remove my ads and stop to pay you" (Where you need good shoulders to be able to just say fuck-off).
Problem with ads is that the value of the ads would be low. No brand wants to be associated with unverified content by anonymous people. It's a liability (just look at brands whose ads appeared on pro-prop 8 blog posts).ReplyDelete
Then there is the legal issues of ads, and the controversy of them. Despite the fact that ad networks like adsense totally abstract the site from the advertiser... most of the public, and media don't know that.
"Brand X is advertising on a wikipedia article for anal sex".
"Wikipedia shows ads promoting stem cell research".
While neither wikipedia or Brand X know about, or have any true involvement... they are both can do nothing but apologize. The climate in the US at least doesn't give them any other options.
Personally, if I were them, I'd be partnering with universities and trying to utilize the human power they have to digitalize knowledge. There's a lot of partnership opportunities there. Wikipedia could be of great service to them as they try to move into the digital era. Open University via the army that is Wikipedia.
As soon as Wikipedia starts taking ad revenue it will become a for-profit company as opposed to non-profit (very similar to what happened to Mozilla which I still have mixed feelings about but that's another story).ReplyDelete
I personally have very little trust in the for-profit media outlets (pretty much all newspapers, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc) since the profit ends up driving the content. This is why NPR being non-profit is so important and I would argue similarly important for Wikipedia to stay that way.
Open source projects aren't really a fair comparison. Besides, just because someone makes money off of a project, doesn't mean they are who is controlling the project itself (back to the profit driving the content thing). Also you could relatively easily fork an open source project to avoid the corporate overlords from getting their fingers on things, but forking Wikipedia doesn't seem as feasible.
I agree that the pleads for donations on Wikipedia are obnoxious (as are the money drives on NPR), but I'm willing to accept them over the potentially biased for-profit business model.
The Jimmy appeal my be extremely annoying, but never before has the Wikimedia Foundation had this much succes with its fundraiser. Details can be observed on http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics and the Wikimedia Foundation blog contains some background on sitenotice selection and effectiveness (http://blog.wikimedia.org/)ReplyDelete
- Simetrical1 January 2009 at 17:09
The fact of the matter is that the community isn't willing to accept ads except as a last resort. Wikimedia doesn't necessarily have the option of doing what it thinks is best, because it depends for all of its content on volunteers. And there's a very strong attitude among Wikipedians that Wikipedia shouldn't accept advertising. In fact, early on in Wikipedia's life, failure to promise never to run ads was a major contributing factor to a fork of the Spanish Wikipedia[1] that still exists to this day. A majority of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is elected by the members of Wikipedia, too, in one fashion or another,[2] and more than a couple of candidates (I can't remember if they won) said in their platform that they would be against ads unless absolutely necessary.ReplyDelete
So they basically have to run beg-a-thons. It's more or less a community decision. If they really can't scrape up the money they need from donations at some point (doubtful), they might be forced to run ads, but until then it's not feasible for them because of the backlash they'd get from their own contributors.
Things are very different for most open-source software projects. For one thing, a fairly large percentage of the contributors to OSS are paid for their trouble, as compared to ideally zero percent of Wikipedia editors (being paid to write articles is a good way to get blocked on Wikipedia). Linux developers aren't going to object to corporate sponsorship if they themselves are corporate-sponsored. Users might, but they aren't going to be able to fork the software, so who cares?
Also, the goal of OSS is usually to produce quality software, whereas the goal of Wikipedia is to produce (among other things) a *neutral* encyclopedia -- a goal that has very serious implications for who you'll accept money from, completely foreign to anything in OSS. If a company is contributing money to an OSS project, they're almost certainly doing it to improve the project, probably because they use it themselves. If they're contributing it to Wikipedia, they're unlikely to have any interest in actually improving Wikipedia, only in improving their own image (which likely conflicts with Wikipedia's goals).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre
[2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#Section_3._Selection.
The list of reasons why Wikipedia won't have ads in the foreseeable future:ReplyDelete
* A large proportion of the volunteer base who write the thing would get up and *leave*.
Personally I have no objection to them, but the above is a strong enough factor for me to realise what a jawdroppingly bad idea they would be.
I'm sorry you're annoyed. We could schedule more downtime, if that would be less annoying than an ad - downtime used to be our most profitable donation solicitor (it's true!), but unfortunately the infrastructure sucks a lot less now because we spent what money we had making it not suck.
A chunk of cash from the Mozilla Foundation would also help. Perhaps you can have a word with someone.
Wait a cotton-pickin' minute. Before we start down this road of "admiring Jimmy Wales for his principles", let's review:ReplyDelete
Then let's reconvene here and talk about the ethics of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia.
- Robert O'Callahan1 January 2009 at 22:10
Wow, this post really touched a nerve!ReplyDelete
OK, if the Wikipedia community just can't tolerate ads, that's the end of the story. I'll just have to put up with it.
Siebrand: good to hear that being obnoxious works, otherwise it would be even sadder.
Jsaon, having revenue does not make an organisation "for-profit", as long as all the revenue is reinvested in the organisation's mission. (As opposed to money being returned to shareholders, as it is for for-profit corporations.)
BTW why don't people worry that Wikipedia will bias towards the sort of people who make donations, e.g., against poor people, for obsequious write-ups of rich people to flatter them into donating?
- Lurker2 January 2009 at 05:41
Well, since they're ALMOST at their intended 6 million USD, the annoying banners will probably disappear soon (In time for the new year!).ReplyDelete
And Mr. Kohs (AKA User:MyWikiBiz) is a well known sockpuppeting troll who was banned for trying to make money by writing articles for businesses.
- Damian3 January 2009 at 02:17
I don't think an advert would necessarily bias the article itself. But a context driven ad would quite probably bias the page or in circumstances could nonsense to the page or even worse it could misinformation to the page.ReplyDelete
Maybe I'm being too idealistic, but I find the concept of wikipedia actually working so wonderful.
In many ways I'd find it hard for articles not to bias the current contributors. Not in such an obvious vanity attempt, but rather these people probably edit lots of pages themselves and with all have a certain level of bias.
Lurker says:ReplyDelete
"And Mr. Kohs (AKA User:MyWikiBiz) is a well known sockpuppeting troll who was banned for trying to make money by writing articles for businesses."
Shows that he knows very little about the actual series of blocks and what amounted to the "permanent ban". I was blocked temporarily for writing paid GFDL content, but once it was established that it would be for publication on my own website, and other independent Wikipedians could scrape it over if they liked, the block was lifted.
No, what led to the outright "ban" from Wikipedia was that I had the nerve to question User:Durova when she said (and failed to produce public evidence) that I "had given misleading information to journalists that was published in the mainstream press". An untruth which, by the way, she eventually redacted. But I remain banned because certain nitwits on Wikipedia have more fun lording over their playground without anyone to call them out publicly on their hypocrisy and lack of ethics.
It figures that an anonymous "Lurker" would defame me here. Show some pride in your work, and sign it. (And he calls ME a "troll".) Too funny. And pathetic.
- bandsxbands8 February 2010 at 22:38
I'm in a love/hate relationship with virtual memory because of how prices are always,and I domean always dropping. I hate buying Micro SD Cards for my R4 / R4i at (what seems to be) a bargain price only to see it become a whole lot more cheaper a few weeks later.(Submitted using QDos for R4i Nintendo DS.)ReplyDelete


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Mysterious Origins of Dark Sunspots Explained
By gazing at the edges of sunspots, astronomers now are pinpointing key details of how these mysterious dark marks form.
Sunspots are blotches on the sun that appear dark because they are cooler than the rest of the solar surface. Astronomers do know they are linked to intense magnetic activity on the sun, which can suppress the flow of hot matter, but much about their structure and behavior remains enigmatic.
The dark heart of a sunspot, called the umbra, is surrounded by a brighter edge known as the penumbra, which is made of numerous dark and light filaments more than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) long. They are relatively thin, at approximately 90 miles (150 km) in width, making it difficult to resolve details that could reveal how they arise.
Now scientists have discovered these columns are rapid downflows and upflows of gas, matching recent theoretical models and computer simulations suggesting these filaments are generated by the movement of hot and cold gases known as convective flow. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Closest Star]
The researchers used the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope to focus on a sunspot on May 23, 2010. They found dark downflows of more than 2,200 miles per hour (3,600 kph) and bright upflows of more than 6,600 miles per hour (10,800 kph). The models suggest that columns of hot gas rise up from the interior of the sunspot, widen, cool and then sink downward while rapidly flowing outward.
"This is what we have been expecting to find, but we were maybe surprised about actually succeeding in seeing these flows," researcher Göran Scharmer, a solar physicist at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Stockholm University in Sweden, told SPACE.com.
In the future, the researchers hope to also measure the magnetic fields linked with these flows to learn more about how they cause such activity.
The scientists detailed their findings in a paper published online June 2 in the journal Science.
This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow SPACE.com contributor Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Visit SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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By Emily Cooke


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A modern update in a soft, heathered knit makes the Breakthru Tank easy to wear for any workout and beyond. Engineered to stretch and move with you, this strategically-perforated top never feels heavy or restricting so you can tackle any obstacle.
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Fabric Breakdown: Breakthru Knit (92% Polyester, 8% Spandex)


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Central African Republic: Hate Speech on Social Media Inflaming Divisions
People queue for food aid distribution delivered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and world food program in the village of Makunzi Wali, Central African Republic, April 27, 2017.
A senior official from the International Committee of the Red Cross warns hate speech promoted on social media in war-torn Central African Republic is inflaming divisions between the Muslim and Christian communities.
Jessica Barry is just back from a six month stint as ICRC Coordinator in Central African Republic. She says the humanitarian situation there is at a critical low and the international community must pay attention to the desperation of the people caught in the never-ending cycle of poverty and violence.
She says no place in the country is secure. She says outbreaks of fighting in urban areas, such as the capital, Bangui, and in Bambari, CAR's commercial center, has forced whole communities to flee and has triggered unrest in other areas.
"Despite the huge efforts to keep communities together, the efforts of all the religious leaders to talk among themselves, to try and talk with the different communities — when I see that this is not working and when I see that there is hate speech arriving and being promoted on social media… the whole country is fragile, and we have to ring the alarm bells," she said.
Barry tells VOA Muslim and Christian communities in Bambari want to live together, but are being driven apart by violence and revenge attacks that trigger other assaults. She says it is much harder to persuade people to live side-by-side again, then to keep them separated.
"There are so many different factors that just then make people frustrated and people join together. And then, yes, the provocations on social media are certainly, I would say a factor. Of course, the network is not so extensive in Central African Republic. It is in main towns. In Bangui. But, then rumors spread, and people talk," she said.
The Red Cross official says efforts to achieve peace in the Central African Republic are made more difficult by the extreme poverty, poor health conditions and low education levels in the country.
(c) 2018 Voice of America


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Sim en Pans (Tom Poes Weekblad, 1947)
Wim G. Lensen was one of the earliest co-workers of Marten Toonder and the Toonder Studios. He joined the studios in 1940, after having worked for the Pätz advertising agency on the Rokin in Amsterdam. He started out working for Toonder's comic productions for Diana Editions and a little later on, he did the inking of the backgrounds in the 'Tom Poes' daily strip. In the second half of the 1940s, he pencilled a couple of episodes of the new 'Panda' strip.
Sim en Pans (Pum Pum, 1957)
For Tom Poes Weekblad, he drew his own strips 'Sim en Pans', 'De Heren Jansen en Tilanus in het Land der Troegels', as well as the puzzle section 'Professor Eureka'. When the magazine folded in 1951, 'Sim en Pans' was continued in Wereldkroniek. Furthermore, Lensen illustrated the 'Doremias Dias' postcards series.
Professor Eureka (Tom Poes Weekblad, 1948)
Lensen's most notable contribution to the Toonder Studios was the coloring of the weekly 'Tom Poes' strip in Revue for several years. Between 1964 and 1974, he also did the coloring of Piet Wijn's 'Puk en Poppedijn' stories for De Spiegel. Tragically, Lensen's original colorings, as well as his structured design of the comics department, were lost during a fire at the castle in Nederhorst ten Berg, where the studios were located, in 1971.
One of the studio's few staff comic artists (together with Frits Godhelp and Richard Klokkers), Lensen never mentally recovered from the results of the fire. He was even hospitalized in a mental hospital after suffering from hallucinations. He eventually retired and passed away in 1993.


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At School
The appropriate steps depend on the emergency situation. If you hear a warning signal, listen to local radio or television stations for further information. You will be told what to do, including where to find the nearest shelter if you are away from your "shelter-in-place" location.
Check with the school or day-care center to learn their plans for dealing with a hazardous materials emergency. Their "shelter-in-place" plans should include the following:
- Close the school. Activate the school's emergency plan. Follow reverse evacuation procedures to bring students, faculty and staff indoors.
- If visitors are in the building, provide for their safety by asking them to stay.
- Ideally, have access to the school-wide public address system in the room where the top school official takes shelter.
- Have at least one telephone line under the school's listed telephone number in one of the shelter rooms available for a designated person to answer the calls of concerned parents. If time permits, it is not possible for a person to monitor the telephone and the school has voicemail or an automated attendant, change the recording to indicate that the school is closed and that students and staff are remaining in the building until authorities say it is safe to leave. Classrooms may be used if there are no windows or the windows are sealed and cannot be opened. Large storage closets, utility rooms, or meeting rooms could be used. A gymnasium without exterior windows would also work well. Access to bathrooms is a plus.
- Have all children, staff and visitors take shelter in pre-selected rooms that have phone access and stored disaster supplies kits and, preferably, access to a bathroom. Shut the doors.
- Have all shelter rooms closed. Lock all windows, exterior doors and any other openings to the outside.
- If told there is danger of explosion, make sure window shades, blinds or curtains are closed.
- Turn off heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems. Systems that automatically provide for exchange of inside air with outside air must be turned off, sealed or disabled.
- If instructed by officials, use duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal all cracks around the door(s), windows and vents into the room. As much as possible, reduce the flow of air into the room.
- If children have cell phones, allow them to use them to call a parent or guardian to let them know that they have been asked to remain in school until further notice and that they are safe. This may reduce the potential number of incoming calls. Schools should assign one or two people to collect information on who is in the building when an emergency happens so that first responders can know everyone is be accounted for, if necessary.
- One teacher or staff member in each room should write down the names of everyone in the room and call the school's designated emergency contact to report who is in that room.
- Everyone should stay in the room until school officials, via the public address system, announce that all is safe or say everyone must evacuate.
- Once the word has been given that all is safe, everyone should go outside when the building's ventilation systems are turned back on. Follow any special instructions given by emergency authorities to avoid chemical and radiological contaminants outdoors.


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FlyTrap High Capacity Storage with TPE 3-D Molded High-Grip Inserts makes the HD (Heavy Duty) the go to choice for maximum storage in a waterproof design. The see-through lids and magnetic swing leaf inserts will keep you organized while planning your trip while the Class 3 water resistance and bombproof construction will keep your flies safe on the river.
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- Fracture, clay-shoveler's
- An uncommon breakage of the spine of the vertebrae from the lower neck or upper back as a result of stress. Clay-shoveler's fracture usually occurs in laborers who perform activities involving lifting weights rapidly with the arms extended. Examples of these activities include shoveling soil, rubble or snow up and over the head backwards, using a pickax or scythe, and pulling out roots. The shear force of the muscles (trapezius and rhomboid muscles) pulling on the spine at the base of the neck actually tears off the bone of the spine. Symptoms of clay-shoveler's fracture include burning, "knife-like" pain at the level of the fractured spine between the upper shoulder blades. The pain can sharply increase with repeated activity that strains the muscles of the upper back. The broken spine and nearby muscles are exquisitely tender. Clay-shoveler's fracture is diagnosed by x-ray examination of the spine. While the intense pain gradually subsides in days to weeks, the area can intermittently develop burning pain with certain activities that involve prolonged extending of the arms (like computer work). Most patients require no treatment. Pain medications, physical therapy, and massage can be of help. Occasionally, surgical removal of the tip of the broken spine is performed for those with longstanding pain.
Medical dictionary. 2011.


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Hello Extraordinary Crafters!
Thank you for joining us for our latest challenge. The projects your entered were wonderful and it took us ages to choose our favourites because the details on so many were worth several looks. Thanks for continuing to inspire us and each other.
Hello Extraordinary Crafters!Thank you for joining us for our latest challenge. The projects your entered were wonderful and it took us ages to choose our favourites because the details on so many were worth several looks. Thanks for continuing to inspire us and each other.
For Challenge #31- Book it
the Winner of 3 digi images from
The East Wind shop
chosen by random.org is:
That's you Nannymac
Congratulations !!!
Please take the winner's badge for your blog by right clicking on it to download the PNG file :)
Email Bettina at email@example.com with the links to the store for the 3 single images you have chosen. Be sure to put TEW Winner Challenge 31 in your subject line.
And now it's time for some of our designers to choose their favourite projects from the amazing entries we had.
For being a Designer's Favourite
the Prize is 1 digi of your choice
30% off coupon for TheEastWind shop
valid for 7 days!
After you send the email claiming your prize, the code will be sent back to you along with your chosen digi.
Here are the designers' favourites for TEW Challenge #31 - Book it
Donna chose - #7 Kelly Latevola I absolutely ADORE her rainbow coloring. So fabulous that the card needs nothing else.
Jackie chose - #18 Aurora. Such beautiful colouring it brings the image to life. And pretty flowers made within book pages too!
Vicky also chose - #18 Aurora - I totally adore the layers on this fabulous card. The use of the bookpaper for the flowers is very creative. Jaw dropping GORGEOUS that's all I can say :)
Maureen chose - #2 Lynne Walker - love the image and colouring and fabulous book layout! Love the shape and papers used. A great project
Congratulations to our designer favourites!
Aren't they fabulous!Thank you for sharing your talent with us.
To visit any of the favourites and, perhaps, leave them a little love, click on the name above the project photo to be magically transported to each of their blogs.
Stay tuned for our next challenge which will begin on June 1st.
And remember that you still have until June 17th to enter our Facebook Contest,
We're looking forward to seeing you there, too!


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It appears that Dan Shanoff isn't the only Page 2 writer leaving this week. And though you may or may not think Shanoff's departure is a good thing, we're pretty sure you will be happy about this one.
According to several sources, and now backed up by The Big Lead, this is the final week for everybody's favorite Big Bag of Douche Skip Bayless. He is leaving Page 2 after an ill-considered term there, where his brand of, uh, Contrarian Assholianess never seemed to fit in with jokes about reality shows and "24 College Avenue." No official statement has been made, but don't expe
Alas, Bayless is not leaving the network entirely; he will continue his nasal diatribes at "Cold Pizza," though unless you're the type of person who likes to watch your morning shows at 11 a.m., that shouldn't affect your lives too much.
Bayless schtick, of course, has always been to play a role as "villain," as if taking ridiculous, nonsensical stances on topics and having readers justifiably call him an idiot somehow constituted "debate." We're sure someone will miss him, somewhere. Maybe.
Have We Finally Seen the Last of Skip Bayless on ESPN.com's Page 2? [The Big Lead]


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By now you've probably heard about the fact that Orbitz users accessing the site via Macs are seeing more expensive hotel options when they search. But it seems worth clearing up a couple of fallacies.
First, it's not as if the same hotel room is being offered at a higher prices to Mac users. (So no, using Windows to access Orbitz won't get you a better deal.) Orbitz offers the same search results to Windows and Mac users, but Mac users may see more expensive hotels higher earlier in the search results.
And the reason why this is happening isn't segmentation, as some have claimed. From what I remember of the Orbitz presentation at the R user conference a couple of years ago, all sorts of signals go into the R model to try and predict which hotels a given Orbitz user might be interested in: WebTrends data, search history, purchase history, planned travel dates ... and the user's browser and operating system. It would seem that the browser (perhaps Safari / iOS) and/or the operating system is a strong signal that the user is likely to purchase a higher-priced hotel room. The Orbitz system (as I understand it) is designed to rank search results showing the results the specific user is most likely to be interested in at the top of the list. If Mac users, on average, spend more on hotel rooms than other Orbitz visitors, then it's not surprising that more expensive results would appear at the top of the list.
But it's not as if Mac users being singled out for special treatment. Segmentation is a marketing operation (and a conscious decision), whereas the use of signals like these is part of a predictive analytics operation (driven by data, not people). It's important to understand the distinction.
You can read more about how Orbitz uses R and Hadoop to drive its search at the link below.
Revolutions: How Orbitz uses Hadoop and R to optimize hotel search