I would like to watch a movie tonight
in which a stranger rides into town
or where someone embarks on a long journey,

I want to watch it lying down
with the bed hitched up to the television
the way they’d hitch up a stagecoach

From The Movies by Billy Collins.

Reading this poem this morning made me think of the pathetic list recently published in Esquire.

How sad.

[Update — 1020 — I heard back from Mike and his references are impecable. He also let me know where else he left his review. It’ll be interesting to see how my fellow bloggers handle this.]

[Update — 0928, 27 April — Mike’s fiancee has posted the story to her blog as well.]

A few weeks ago I created an Open Thread section for readers who wanted to contact me. This morning a comment/restaurant review came in signed by Mike Belsito. The review is not flattering and I expect a longish list of bloggers received the identical comment/email. My initial reaction was to put the review on moderation.

But I changed my mind and decided to let it stand and to post this response. I’m all about the conversation.

I did a quick check and couldn’t find a phone number for a Mike (or Michael) Belsito in Cleveland so I sent the following email to the address associated with the comment.

Shalom Mike,

havecoffeewillwrite.com

I’m sure several others received this same message. How did you handle it? Do you know of or have you contacted Belsito?

As always, I’ll keep y’all in the loop as I find out more.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Captain Hook died from jock itch.

Writing as a blogger who’s been Iagoed by slimy, bottom feeding wastes of human genome, I have to say that feeding on the irrational fears of the clueless is rapidly becoming big business. I’m willing to bet that solitaire presents a much bigger threat to productivity than any million objectionable websites.

From Ars Technica:

ScanSafe’s Monthly “Global Threat Report” for March 2007 says that up to 80 percent of blogs host offensive content, ranging from “adult language” to pornographic images. The company suggests that businesses should be aggressive about preventing users from accessing some or all of this material. And of course, they’d hope that you’d use their products to do so.

One of my jobs is running a computer lab for a supplementary school that includes students in grades K-7. The lab uses a filtering program because adults have an obligation to supervise when and how children are exposed to information. That’s a good thing. But there is absolutely no justification for installing censorware at a business.

Don’t want your employees viewing porn at work? Fire one or two for it and watch it end.

Computer algorithms are grossly imperfect when it comes to filtering. For instance, cruder forms might reject a website that uses the transliteration for the Hebrew word breshit (In the beginning) because it contains the word shit.

Other programs might block fan sites for professional wrestling because of the violence involved.

Adults are capable of and must be allowed to make those decisions. It’s called acting like an adult.

Else we end up with drivel like this:

ScanSafe says that it discovered the “offensive” nature of blogs by analyzing more than 7 billion web requests coming from their corporate customers. In doing so, they apparently learned that the so-called blogosphere is a lot like a George Carlin performance: diverse, sometimes entertaining, and loaded with “bad words”

And those would be: shit, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits?

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society. p. 13.

Sometimes it takes a great tragedy to awaken people to the even deeper threats. Much continues to be written about the psychologica profile of Cho Seung-hui but one frightening angle is the existance of NASPER, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005. Surf over now to I See Invisible People…

And prepare to be out raged. We’re not talking just hard drugs here folks.

Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.

1545 …Surviving An Entire Month Without the Internet

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Welcome To Ficlets.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

HOW THEY SEE THEMSELVES… But here”s the reality (via kottke) that the rest of the World is catching on to. (And you can find the map”s legend here.) [Update – 1054, 19 April – Daily Dish picks up the meme and runs with it.] Keep reading…

WAL-MART”S LIVE BETTER INDEX… Compact fluorescents light bulbs, organic milk, concentrated/reduced-packaging liquid laundry detergents, extended-life paper products and organic baby food. These are the five product categories on which Wal-Mart has hung it”s Live Better Index. Keep reading…

HEATING UP THE ECO WAR WITH COOL LIGHTS… A prime example of why I continue to applaud Wal-Mart”s green efforts popped up on my news screen this morning. Sure, Wal-Mart is doing it for business reasons, but I”m OK with that because the company”s push is changing the market. Keep reading…

WATCHIN” THE BOX… Blooger Tom Sullivan at No Turn On Red has rolled out Big Box Watch, a blog that uses Google maps to track construction of eight big-box retailers, including, of course, Wal-Mart. (The light/dark blue Lowe”s/Wal-Mart difference does make it a little difficult to read.) Keep reading…

AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring demoose1214. Keep reading…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Snow White saw Pinocchio walking through the woods so she ran up behind him, knocked him flat on his back, and then sat on his face crying, “Lie to me! Lie to me!”

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

When storytelling goes bad, the result is decadence. p. 13.

One of the driving themes of all fiction is the interaction with the Other, that which is not ourselves. The Other is the antagonist in the plot; the entity to be feared and destroyed. In our History the Other has been defined by sex, ethnicity, race and sexual orientation. In America today the debate is already growing.

How do we define the Other when the difference is in the mind?

From ABC News:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of him in the governments files on controlled substances. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in computer databases, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

(NOTE: Some readers may have inferred from an earlier edition of this story that the federal government keeps a comprehensive record of all prescriptions. The Drug Enforcement Agency says it does track prescriptions of so-called controlled substances – including some mood-altering medications – but not all prescriptions made in the United States.)

Anybody know where I can get a complete, unedited list of medications on this DEA list? Are you or any members of your family taking any of the medications on the list? How do you feel about that?

(Note, while I don’t normally like anonymous comments, this is one case where I will encourage them.)

Do you live in a state with a medication monitoring program? You might want to check the list.

As of November 2006, 33 states had enacted legislation which required prescription monitoring programs: 25 of those programs are currently operating and 8 are in the start-up phase.

The 33 states with Prescription Monitoring Programs and/or enacted legislation are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Currently, the state of Washington uses their program only for disciplinary purposes, however legislation has been introduced to expand the program statewide.

And folks, there’s no Peter Pan nor Professor Charles Xavier out there to rescue our lost children.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Health Time – Food As Medicine.

Jill emailed me this a few minutes ago: And Further Reflections on the Role of Creative Writing in the Tragedy at Virginia Tech. I’m reading right now and as I do so one of the questions I’m asking myself is this” is the level of discourse too high? Are the people involved operating in an academic echo chamber?

Do they understand a difference that most adults don’t?

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse were in divorce court and the judge said to Mickey, “You say here that your wife is crazy.” Mickey replied, “I didn’t say she was crazy, I said she’s feckin’ Goofy.”

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

Stories are equipment for living. p. 11.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Welcome to Desktop Tower Defense.

CAPT Drew Morton: I have finally succumbed to peer pressure. I am the fourth captain in our B-Hut, and the other three have all posted on The Sandbox. I am the youngest (29), but I have been able to slowly bridge the gap with my older hootch mates by playing Family Guy, American Dad, HALO 2, (early) Dave Mathews, and O.A.R. I want to share a little…