Editor’s Note: This was written during a series of puppy health crises in April, earlier this year. I almost deleted it when Flower rallied at that point, but sadly, I knew someday, I would need it. She crossed the bridge on August 13, 2014.
A Rose had many children.
Four girls and a boy.
But she only had one Flower,
Who was her pride and joy.
Fifteen years later,
Her Flower is feeling old.
It’s finally changing from Winter,
But it’s still a little cold.
The air is filled with pollen,
All the birds begin to sing.
A sad thing to discover,
Sometimes Flowers die in Spring.
I’m the President of the Board of Directors of Agape Broadcasting Foundation, Inc – which most people around here would know as KNON 89.3 FM – the Voice of the People. You can listen online at http://www.knon.org if you’re not in the DFW area. (You can also pledge online, and we’re in the middle of pledge drive. Yes, again.)
However, we’ve pretty much tapped out our core listener base, and we love them, and they are quite generous, but we need new pledgers. This is very difficult to accomplish – especially when there are two PBS stations down the dial with a lot more money to chase money.
It pains me that we have to have a budget to raise money. In the perfect world, people would simply fund us because they believe in the mission of the station (The mission of KNON is to be the Voice of The People in the Dallas area. We provide unique programming to reflect the diversity of the entire Metroplex community.), or they like one of our formats or DJs, or they’re just good people.
This is not a perfect world.
So, this pledge drive, we’re trying two new ideas.
First, we need the de-icers on our tower replaced – when the tower froze last winter (yes, it gets cold in Dallas), we were off the air – our power was so limited, our transmission area was severely compromised. So, I’m running a campaign outside pledge drive to raise money for that specific project – http://www.gofundme.com/warm-tower – and we’re trying to see if people will actually donate just because it sounds like a good cause.
So far, almost all the donations have been from our volunteers. So, the concept of raising hundreds or thousands of dollars instantly may be overblown, or it may be people care about strangers who need a new kidney or a special night out but they don’t really care about a community radio station.
The irony of that campaign – which hit me after I created it – is that people outside Dallas who contribute could listen over the Internet and so they wouldn’t be impacted if the tower froze over. So it goes. Still, we’re a small operation, we’ll take anyone’s money.
The other new technology is Pledge By Text – since everyone has a cell phone these days (it seems), let them pledge with it.
Text “KNON” to 56512 from your mobile phone, and you’ll get a link back to let you pledge. Choose your favorite show, your favorite DJ or just send it to the general fund.
Why are people so annoying? Seriously, what has happened to us? Where are our morals?
Annoying is actually not a strong enough word. Both of these items that really annoyed me involve petty theft. Why do we have people who think stealing someone else’s resources is a reasonable thing to do?
Spam Users
I created a new website called Cruiseaholics – my wife and I are addicted to cruises (Latitudes Platinum on Norwegian), so I thought it was a cute name. I’d like to have people join and discuss their cruise preferences and experiences. Now, I’m not planning to be CruiseCritic (although some of their restrictions are just annoying and some of their users tend to be very argumentative), but I thought it would be a nice alternative for what I assumed would be a very limited group.
This morning, I had over 200 users registered for my site. 200! Wow! You know what they all had in common? They were all spam users. Not a valid one in the bunch. While this should not surprise me (I’ve had web sites since the dawn of the World Wide Web), it still pisses me off. Why are you wasting time registering fake accounts on somebody’s website? I suppose the only hope is that the default user limit is set to “contributor”, so they can try to sell shoes or Viagra or whatever.
I turned off user registration on the site this morning. So, I’m not building a community any longer. If somebody wants an account, they will have to email me. It’s sad, but I just don’t have the time to weed out all the real users from the crap. If it were a money-making site, then, perhaps, but for a hobby, it’s just not worth the time.
Warnings That Shouldn’t Be
I learned about a self-service library system this weekend from a neighbor. It’s called Little Free Library. Basically, you have a large bird house (go look at their site – it’s the first thing that came to mind) full of books on your front lawn, and anyone can take a book or leave a book. I see this as a way to build community – if I had one in my lawn, most of the books would come from neighbors on the cul-de-sac. Also, I don’t think people would drive to one, so you will have foot traffic, which means people are walking in the neighborhood.
Here’s the issue – the first thing someone mentioned was preventing people from clearing out the library and going to Half-Price Books for some quick cash. (Having sold an obsolete record collection and then an obsolete VCR tape collection, I can tell any potential thief that it’s barely worth the time.)
It distresses me that something that should share the joy of reading and build community would have to protect itself against theft. I know there are bad people everywhere, but this also pisses me off.
Both of these cases involve community and how easily that community can be broken by someone taking advantage of openness. Seriously, can’t we just have good in the world without having to worry about someone taking advantage of us?
A lot of companies spend lots of money trying to get people to join their online community. To some, a community is a Facebook page (“Like us!”), or a Twitter feed (“Follow us!”) or an Instagram account (“Look at us!”)
When I moved demobox.org (an old domain I’ve had forever) off my Domino server at home and onto GoDaddy’s hosting, I put WordPress up so I could play with it. (I love wordpress.com but it’s not like you are in charge.)
I have four members.
WTF?
I’m still trying to determine how a backwater site with no apparent value or content has managed to get four members. So far.
I can’t wait to see if they try to post.
Maybe I should change my title to “Marketing Consultant.”
Sad Update (9 August 2014)
Well, it’s very easy to get multiple members, apparently. They’re all spam members. So, I’ve turned membership off on all my WordPress sites until I can get better protection from idiots. This may be impossible.
Editor’s Note: I’m going to start republishing some (very) old works by BJE, as I find them – just so they’re all collected in one place. This is from 1997, so that’s pretty old. Seriously, who remembers Palm Pilots?
Southbound from Chicago
With my baby by my side
She don’t know that she’s my baby
I should tell her – haven’t tried
Flying First while wrapped in love
Is a magical place to be
Free drinks, cashews and pretzels
Yet she still won’t notice me.
We haven’t really spoken
Since the preboard at O’Hare
She’s just sittin’ reading magazines
While pretending not to care.
At last my angel turns to speak
In her heavenly tone of voice…
She asked ‘Is that a Pilot?’
I stammered, ‘But, of course.’
Being a geek finally worked!
Since she has one too, it seems.
Alas, the moment’s already passed
And she’s back to magazines.
Gently touching down in Dallas
will finally end our lover’s game.
Should have nicked her boarding pass
So at least I’d know her name.
Another broken-hearted Friday night
Hailing airport taxis in the rain.
I’ve lost my faith in AAdvantage Gold
Next time, I’ll take the train!
ORD-DFW 16 May 1997 AA 2359 – What was her name, anyway?
Unfiltered Thoughts 