Writing has been a tremendous experience: exercise and food for my mind. Thank you for humoring me. Blogs can create an immediate connection -- the magic to socialize with good natured people. I enjoy meeting new friends and the lovely correspondence from very beautiful-minded people, but as much as it is rewarding, it is also heavy to bear.
Believing that people are inherently good, I decided, “Shoot, go for it, blog your heart to space, girl! Why not?!” For reason that by allowing to freely open the heart, the heart is also prey -- dinner for wolves who seek to spoil it. Eyes are so important; they convey so many silent words, providing an instinctual sense of the person you’re staring right into. A blog is tricky because your greatest sense is no longer an advantage, left falling without the security of a parachute, you stammer for ground.
Inspiration stems from family. I try to minimize posting intimate media of our accounts. It’s really hard; this is a family blog after all. The measures taken with watermarks and html codes are safeguards from misuse of personal media; very tedious. Without hesitation, I employ the extra effort to protect my family memories.
Traffic, number of followers, public attention are far from my goals. I do things to be less searchable and most just happen upon my eccentric page; the girl who strays off topic, speaks to herself (a lot), drinks too much caffeine, bikes for her life, sews, crafts and shops way too much on the internet. The treasure I take from blogging is the pleasure of knowing each of you and that in some way we both have a shoulder to rest on, or a hand to hold on to; families who share similar interests (if you’re unlucky to find me ;D). Have I accomplished that? Hmm, I don’t really know. Maybe. Maybe not, but what I do know is, I’ve received it from each of you.
Due to recent events, this blog will be closed to the public. A photo was taken without permission or knowledge. Julian from Totcycle has no regard for my family photos and thinks it is a good service for pirating my property; that I should be grateful for being violated. No apology whatsoever. Is it common practice among fellow bloggers to take what is not theirs? That they have a right to do what they wish with another’s personal material without duty or responsibility? Perish the thought that one would arrogantly plunder their neighbor and paint oneself a good Samaritan.
Tough. Encounters like this are tough -- tough on a parent. How hard your children must have it? Going to school everyday with those who learn bullying from the adults around them, inadvertently learning to have no regard for others.
Glad. Glad, your mind is grounded, glad that as a parent, you possess the power to guide your children so that they may flourish through adversity. Glad to be able to equip them with wisdom, love, support, respect and regard for themselves, elders and peers.
Peace and happiness from the caffeinated cyclist, the girl who never leaves home without lipstick, the sun worshipper, the dog lady, the one who will miss you and always remember you!
Well, as long as you've gone and made this public, with a generous helping of defamation, I suppose I'm obliged to comment.
ReplyDeleteFor those reading, I used a photo of the Yepp Mini sleep pad (without child) in a post of napping solutions parents have found who bike with their kids. The post is here: http://totcycle.com/blog/rideabye-baby.html
Please note the general comment about attributions in paragraph 3:
"We've included images and inspirado from others in "our tribe." Hover for links and credits, big thanks to Mark, Sarah, Henry, Paul, Allan, Katie, and other bikey family flickr friends (BFFFs)."
The photo at the time was not watermarked to high heaven as they are now on this blog. There was no explicit terms of service that I saw on this blog; now, of course, it's hard to miss :)
So I did what I consider generally acceptable practice amongst enthusiastic family bike bloggers. Use the photo, hyperlink it to the original post, and include a text link as well, in this case:
"Hard to top this home-made stunner, though. Crafty and chic." 'This' was hyperlinked as well. If you'd like to see the original, it's here:
http://bit.ly/fNMfXx
True, I did not ask permission before including the photo. And true, I did not use a full text photo credit. To me, there is some reasonable disagreement about what constitutes fair use or proper attribution in the world of non-commercial enthusiast blogging. I may be at one end of the spectrum (all of my images are available for non-commercial use without explicit permission, and for me, image and text hyperlink is sufficient). I will likely move in more of an explicit direction when it comes to attribution, although using print standards in online hyperlinkable media seems excessive.
Myself, I'm delighted if someone with another blog about biking with kids picks up on something I've built and shares it, as long as they link back. And truly, that was the spirit of using the child-free photo: "look at this crafty sleep-pad!" Not quite the same as stealing a photo of your kids and using them in an ad without reference to the original source.
But mea culpa, and once it was clear that B. Anna didn't want my photo on the site, it was gone within minutes. I'll spare your readers the email drama spiral that ensued. What's posted above is sufficient.
As for "Glad that as a parent, you possess the power to guide your children so that they may flourish through adversity" (copyright B. Anna Mendiola 2011) ... I'm a parent too. Accusing me of "violating" and "plundering" you, and then shutting down your blog because some blogger used a photo in a cute babies on bikes post doesn't strike me as healthy way to model dealing with mild adversity. Seriously.
But I am sorry for the obvious distress this has caused you. I truly did not expect another biking parent to feel this way about being included in that post thusly, especially in the small small world of Seattle Dutch-bike-with-front-seat-fans.
PS Your videos are seriously cute, and a great introduction to family cycling. But you are "pirating" commercial music tracks for the soundtracks: http://www.youtube.com/user/bannam
My response to this comment was much too long to post in this comment field, so I've created a new post all on its own. All earlier post will no longer be available to the public as I do not care for people like Julian having access to it.
ReplyDeleteHoly freaking cow, B. Anna. No apology? On behalf of Julian's family, we are sorry that we used your image and linked to your site.
ReplyDeleteYour apology: WE'RE SORRY.
From one "tough cookie" to another: let it go. Rage on, but leave my family alone and focus on yours. And for god's sake, buy some stationary. The internet is a somewhat public forum for someone so private.
Children calling...be well. Bike on.
@Kim, my name is Franklin (B. Anna's husband).
ReplyDelete"Holy freaking cow"? On behalf of B. Anna (not B. Anna's family, because you nor Julian ever mentioned our family, as she never mentioned your family), your insincere apology is not accepted.
Reiterating my wife's sentiment, an apology is not real if it is not sincere. Saying "sorry" just for the sake of saying "sorry" is not really a "sorry" at all, is it? Do you accept this kind of apology from your children? On that note, do you yell "sorry" (saying anything in all caps signifies yelling, if you didn't know) or allow your children to yell "sorry" to others and accept it as a real apology? I certainly hope not.
I can definitely say without a doubt that my wife is a tough cookie. However, you should not tell her to let it go because it is not she who is dragging this on and on. In fact, it is Julian, and now you, who keeps coming back and commenting and sending emails to her. She replies. And then he replies. And then she replies. And then you reply. And now I am replying to you and any of your or your husband's subsequent comments. The point is that you are not going to get the last word in, especially on her blog, even if you tried your very hardest. As a rule, she responds to all comments she gets on her blog. She is not harassing you, therefore you have no basis in telling her to leave your family alone. B. Anna is not coming to you or your husband, but simply replying to him and simultaneously defending herself. I would not come knocking on your door to tell you to leave me alone -- and then come back again and again and again saying the same. Likewise, don't come knocking.
My wife had to disable ratings and reactions from her blog because people who your husband had invited to read her blog are lashing back at her. Not true? How is it that her one post entitled "Tough Cookie" got 53 page views between 9pm and midnight last night -- almost the same amount of traffic all her previous posts received in the timespan of all of last week? Never before has she received a rating below five stars. How is it that she got 7 bad ratings overnight when it always takes a few weeks to get to that number on her other blog posts? How do people know to enter such an obscure term as "via velo bella" or "via velo bella blog", the only search terms entered in Google over the past 18 hours? Do people regularly look for "via velo bella" when they are looking for something general, or are they targeting a specific page they need to get to?
Your comments and your husband's comments are rude and condescending. "Buy some stationary," you say, using the Lord's name in vain. Julian tells her that she's playing a game with her readers, insisting that she is only retiring to solicit love from her readers. He does not know my wife and should not pretend to be privy to her motives. You are telling my wife to stop using the internet if she does not want you or Julian to steal from her. The internet is not a free realm where people should be able to do what they want and take what they want and use what they take for what they want. If there are no rules in place, what does that teach us? Nothing. Or that chaos is the rule of the internet. This is not what we, and I'm sure you, want to teach our children.
I would like you and your husband to sincerely apologize to my wife. Don't apologize for how she feels and don't apologize for how you think she's reacting to it all and don't apologize for the sake of apologizing. Apologize for the wrongs that you've done to her. Say it and mean it. Is that too much to ask? We ask this all the time of our children, but are too proud to live up to our own words (and don't get me wrong, when I say "we", I mean "you").