August 24, 2011

• Credit

  Credit

  No, not Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover, etc. This is the other kind of credit. This credit is public acknowledgment or praise, typically that given or received when a person's responsibility for an action or idea becomes or is made apparent. It's only fair if you consider we're pretty quick on the trigger to bash Xanga when they don't deliver. Seems like a good idea to be just as quick on the trigger when they deserve credit. Remember how I said that Xanga couldn't keep the dogs out? Well, they still can't keep them from coming around leaving nasty little deposits on your lawn, sidewalk, yes sometimes even your porch or living room if you leave the door open. When it's hot like this in the summer we like to leave doors open for our friends to come by and have some iced tea or lemonade and some conversation. Sadly, other things come in those open doors too. Mosquitos, bees, hornets, dogs, and yes, even pigs wander in sometimes while we're out. They never wipe their feet until they get inside though. Then they wipe their feet on your oriental rugs, sofas curtains. They just don't care. Why should they? Their brute beasts, like a bull in a china cabinet or a pig in a poke. One of them got into my Xanga home and ripped around snorting, pawing, rooting and leaving a load of stink in nearly every room. Not wanting my friends to have to step in that crap I cleaned it out. Well, it didn't take long before that herd ran back through depositing their filth everywhere again and again. So, I did what anyone who cares about what his friends step in would do. I closed all the doors and windows to keep the beasts out. That meant my friends had to knock or ring the bell or wonder what had become of me.

  Not having just fallen off the turnip truck, I had enough presence of mind to go have a look at the Xanga Terms of Use. You know, the ones we all agreed to when we started our sites? It's updated from time to time, but it hardly matters anyway because most of us didn't read them when we signed up. We were too anxious to start blogging. Anyway, lo and behold, there was this part in their where we agreed not to be nasty, smelly brute beasts who crapped all over other people and their homes. So, I reported the offender and his/her three sites started within hours of each other with no posts, just comments and only in once place. At my house. Comments is a misnomer. It was pure hate spam. To make a long story longer, Xanga took a couple of days after I reported the sites but they shut them down and thanked me for letting them know. Not what I expected, not what I'd come to expect from Xanga so I was surprised. It was like I actually had someone on the home team who cared and was willing to check it out and enforce the Terms of Use.

  In a perfect world there wouldn't be a need for such things as Terms of Use agreements. Sadly, though this world may be perfect, what populates it often has wires crossed or in one way or another is wrongly connected. Or as my friend, Wil Carter would say, They were not properly socialized to humans when they were young hedgehogs. Whatever the reason may be, they are full of unpleasant manifestations, lack social graces, feel entitled and fail to understand a certain sense of decorum that the more civilized amongst us try to develop and display. Yes, they have many justifications for their rude, crude and socially unacceptable behavior. What do you suppose tops the list? Right, they don't like someone. Someone didn't treat them the way they think they should be treated. Or, that old stand by, my dog ate their homework. Xanga may not be able to keep the dogs out, but they have proved to me that they are willing to take out the trash and for that I am grateful. Thank you, Xanga! I'm actually going to open the doors and air the place out now that I know you've got my back.

  • 2:56 am
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