Expressing Opinions

Today I was reading the New York Times, After Suicide, Blog Insults Are Debated, which is about a person who committed suicide because of an ad agency blog’s postings. Oh please… if a 40 year old man allows a blog postings to push him over the edge (literally he jumped from an upper floor of the Fairmont Chicago hotel) of a 37 story hotel, then other questions should be asked besides what was posted about him on a blog?

I know some people take to heart what others think or say about them, but really why don’t people consider the source of these accusations. I have been called many things over the years, some intended to be very mean and hurtful, some meant to solicit a negative response, and some were attempts of character assassination. After all the sh*t they said, I never thought about suicide. I may have thought about how I could make the demise of these individuals making these attacks look like a suicide. But in the end I believe in what goes around comes around and they will get theirs in the end. I do sometimes hope their end will come soon.

However, until their demise, one of the behaviors I employ is I refuse to engage in such petty bullshit. Really!! Most of it is petty bullshit, which does not deserve a response. When you consider the reasons and sources of the vial comments you begin to understand most of it originates from intellectually challenged posterior orifices with low or no self esteem. Most of these orifices, whether they are family, friends, co-workers, bosses or employers all want to generate a response or manipulate you into seeing or doing something their way. I do not play well with others, so I refuse to play. Instead I do not validate those people, thus it pisses them off more. By doing so I maintain my sanity with internal joy and a big f*ck you grin.

Thank you for visiting Expressing Opinions.

I have been around the Internet long before there was a www (WorldWideWeb) and I must admit I have seen some pretty good spoof sites like DHMO.org and heard some wonderful legends. So today when I came across this story, I thought it was kind of strange and possibly one of those Internet Legends.

It was a story about a Ford Mustang owners club who wanted to produce a calendar featuring their cars. The headline was from a story on BoingBoing and it stated, “Ford: Car owners are pirates if they distribute pictures of their own cars.” But as I dug around on the web I came up with a little more info from the club.

On the BMC web site they had a posting from Lisa stating:

I got some more info from the folks at cafepress and according to them, a law firm representing Ford contacted them saying that our calendar pics (and our club’s event logos - anything with one of our cars in it) infringes on Ford’s trademarks which include the use of images of THEIR vehicles. Also, Ford claims that all the images, logos and designs OUR graphics team made for the BMC events using Danni are theirs as well. Funny, I thought Danni’s title had my name on it … and I thought you guys owned your cars … and, well … I’m not even going to get into how wrong and unfair I feel this whole thing is as I’d be typing for hours, but I wholeheartedly echo everything you guys have been saying all afternoon. I’m not letting this go un-addressed and I’ll keep you guys posted as I get to work on this.

I’m sorry, but at this point we will not be producing the 2008 BMC Calendar, featuring our 2007 Members of the Month, solely due to Ford Motor Company’s claim that THEY own all rights to the photos YOU take of YOUR car. I hope to resolve this soon, and be able to provide the calendar and other BMC merchandise that you guys want and deserve! This thread will remain open for you to comment however you wish, and I’ll update it as needed.

Thanks for all your support of the BMC!!

Is this real or is the BMC pissed at Ford and decided to give them some bad publicity? If it is not real then they are doing a good job of setting themselves up for legal issues. If it is real, I can understand copyrights and infringing on someone else’s work. But is Ford and their attorneys really that anal? Oh please! And they wonder why sales are going down?