Madly off-topic, I know…

but I’ve really got to have a rant — followed by some truly useful links, I promise! — about the Vile Pond Scum known as Scrapers.

Scraper blogs are those ad-splattered automated blogs that steal content from the RSS feeds of hard-working real human bloggers, slap on some Google Adsense ads, and churn it back out again with flagrant disregard for law or ethics. They’ll even hijack your illustrations — so you pay for the hosting space and bandwidth, the Pond Scum Scrapers flash your pretty pictures to make their blogs look deceptively genuine…

Yep, those scraper blogs have finally ticked off the mild-mannered Domestik Goddess enough to make me drop the oven mitts and fight back.

They’ve cost me money, created confusion, sucked up my high quality crafting and gardening time, and (worst of all) spoiled much of the idle socializing that I’d had planned for this past sunny spring weekend.  

Where’s the Beef?

(Why are scrapers a problem?)

Let’s say you’re an independent artist… *analogy alert* … with a studio full of stunning collages, all beautifully framed.

You put hours into creating these works — thinking up fresh new original ideas, collecting the precious raw materials, arranging the elements to match your vision, putting on the final polish, selecting the frames, assembling the finished piece…

But that’s not the end of your Labour of Love.

Those paintings aren’t going to get up and go out and sell themselves to he art-loving public who’ll treasure them forever!

No, you still have to tote your portfolio around to galleries and Arts Council meetings, trying to negotiate with agents and curators to look at your work, get a toes in the door and just pray that they’ll take an interest.

But there’s a lot of competition out there…

And one day, you waltz yourself into a brand-new gallery with a brand-new original collage under your arm, full of optimism, chin held high. You’re sure that today’s the day you’ll break through into the big-time art world… but shock! The gallery walls are already covered, top to bottom, with perfect copies of your original work!

“Why would I want to offer your collages to the public?” asks the gallery owner, “when this charming fresh new artist, Admin from Indonesia, has given me exactly the same thing?

“Sure, according to long-standing international copyright agreements, what’s protected in one country is protected through most of the civilized world.

“And true, even in the US (now the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has been enacted) any original work — whether it’s in pictures, music, writing, anything; yes, even blogs — is automatically copyrighted as soon as it’s created.

“Sure, we all know that stealing is just plain wrong…”

Don’t relax just yet!

“Tell you what,” the gallery owner says, “if you think this guy might be copying your original work and passing it off as his own, all you’ve got to do is prove it — and I’ll be happy to stop selling his work (eventually). Of course, there’ll still be copies floating around on the market for years to come… but hey, it’s only art, right?

“And if you want to make a living, forget that creative stuff! Why not join the 21st century, get yourself a couple of nice scraper blogs…

“Oh, that reminds me — here’s Admin’s bill. You’re hosting them, so you’ve got to pay the price of getting his pictures up on my gallery wall.

“You have a nice day, now!”

Whatcha Gonna Do?

So I’ve been wasting far too much of a lovely sunny weekend here:

• tracking down that ubiquitous Pond Scum Scraper named admin
• writing the required “Cease and Desist” letters, asking Pond Scum sooooo politely to please stop stealing my stuff, pretty please, if it’s not tooo much trouble?
  and
• filling out DMCA forms to get web hosts and domain registrars to take action against the scrapers they serve, not to mention the advertising folks who make a Pond Scum Scraper’s life worth spending the 3 whole minutes it takes to set up yet another fake blog…

Because I’d hate for you to have the same degree of sunshine-wasting hassle, if the scrapers hit your blog — here are some handy resources to help you squish the bottom-feeding scraper-blog operators like the repulsive cockroaches they are:

• Who is the owner of the scraper domain? Look here: whois.domaintools.com
• What company is hosting the scraper site? Look here: whoishostingthis.com
• • How to file a copyright complaint with Hostgator
  • How to file a copyright complaint with GoDaddy
  • Other hosts’ requirements will be similar. Search the hosting company’s name and ‘copyright infringement’ for details.
• Here’s how to tell Google that you’ve been violated by a site they’re listing: http://www.google.com/dmca.html and here:
  http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html
• And here’s a really top-knotch post from SEO Logic that explains in simple terms what you can do about Internet copyright infringement; See also how to file a copyright infringement complaint with the major directories and search engines for step-by-step instructions to make life a whole lot less profit-rich for content thieves.

And if all else fails, you can always go straight to advertisers. I’ll bet these big reputable companies would prefer not to have their corporate brands used to pad the pockets of Pond Scum content theives, if it were only brought to their attention.

Squeaky wheels, baby, squeaky wheels…

Now, go get ‘em, tiger!

This photo was taken in my yard on Sunday afternoon.
That’s my hand.
And those are a few of my “girls” — did you know all worker honeybees are female?.

This is for someone signing himself “Gary” who emailed me this morning. Gary wanted to tell me that “Chicks are not good with bugs” and therefore he “can not believe” in the existence of my bees, he says…

Uhm.

Who on earth pretends to be a beekeeper?

I mean, it’s not like pretending to be a proctologist when you’re stuck beside a really boring gabber on a long plane flight. It’s not like pretending to be interested in football for the first three weeks of dating a Riders fan. And it’s not at all like pretending you enjoyed your mother’s deep-fried wombat casserole…

Really.

So the question remains. Does “Gary” think that I’m sadly self-deluded, or that I have some mysterious and sinister purpose in claiming membership in the fraternity of apiculture? We’re not sure, and — alas — I can’t ask him directly, because he used a fake email address.

So all I can do is say, “Yes, Gary-whoever-you-are, I do keep bees. See? There they are now.”

And guess what else? —

Chicks are good at whatever we want to be good at!

Oh, what the heck, I’ll throw in a portrait of one of my queen bees getting ready to lay an egg, and another photo of some field bees coming home with saddlebags of bright yellow pollen…

Just to share my joy in the miracles of Nature. And because my little honeymaking girls are pretty darned sweet.

(Click the thumbnails for bigger pics, if you’re interested.)

And if you’ve got the slightest doubt that these are the bees of a Domestik Goddess, check out the lovely retro 1950s ice-cream-parlour green that I’ve custom-mixed and used to paint the bottom boards on all my hives.

My honey-collection boxes (not shown here) are a lovely coordinating retro pink, by the way. True. And I’ve got the photos to prove it.

Commitment. What an old-fashioned word!
I think we all can agree on the definition: a pledge, that’s what it’s supposed to be… a firm undertaking to do something or other.

So, at what point did “if I feel like it, maybe” get added on?

This bit of wondering comes on the heels of a phone call, just now, from the Occupational Therapist at a local nursing home. The person who had committed to visiting the old folks tonight, with her therapy dog, has decided to blow off the old folks and catch a movie with her new boyfriend instead.

Honestly, I’m absolutely floored by this.

Therapy dog visits are scheduled a year in advance, with a reminder email sent out the week before, so it’s not like it comes as a surprise.

And this person has only committed to one nursing-home visit a month. You’d think you could work a date in around that, wouldn’t you?

Especially on a Thursday.
For one hour.

And it’s not like the boyfriend is about to be shipped off overseas in the morning, either — he’s a civil servant, for pete’s sake, and last time I looked they did have weekends off.

Now, usually we travel in teams of three or four dogs and their handlers. In this case, it’s a small nursing home and only one dog is booked in to appear. So, when the scheduled visitor decided to bail at the last minute, she knew there were no other dogs booked in to go instead.

Meanwhile, the old folks always start gathering in their TV lounge a good hour before the appointed dog visit time, peering out the windows and bugging the attendants to dash out into the parking lot and take a look…

Some of the residents have Alzheimers, or other types of dementia, so the poor attendants tend to be asked the same questions every 38 seconds: “Are they here yet? Are the puppies coming?”

You can see why the Occupational Therapist who phoned me was, well, somewhere in that shaky queasy area where distressed meets royally pissed-off!

Want to try explaining to a room full of eager senior dog-lovers that they will have to miss their once-a-month dose of furry love? Watching Jeopardy is no substitute.

So, I’m about to wind up work early for the day, here, and gear up the therapeutic greyhound, and go step up.

It means the end of my hope to do a little late-day gardening, and a quick sandwich instead of the lovely roast chicken supper that I’d planned, and a hour’s round-trip to town that was not planned at all — but in joining the therapy dog program, I made a commitment.

I can do my gardening later; I can see a movie any time; but for those lonely seniors who are longing for the press of a happy wet doggie nose against their thin old hands, time is not unlimited. Each visit, familiar faces are missing from the circle. Each visit, a formerly sharp mind has lost its way in memories…

The commitment, really, is not to a time and place, but to these people.

No, I don’t resent being called to fill in. Because, all too soon, I’m likely to be one of them.

Instead of walking joyfully in the spring sunshine with my dogs, I’ll have my face pressed up to a nursing home window, watching hopefully for someone to bring a furry friend to visit.

But you’ll forgive me, won’t you, if I’m just mean-spirited enough to hope that someone chokes on her movie-theatre popcorn?