Tag: galactically-stupid

Apple caught doing the flip-flop: the iSealClub story

It’s been a while since Apple’s made a gaffe I’ve felt like writing about. Of course, that changed when this little gem popped in front of my eyes.

Techcrunch recently published a story about an iPhone game that didn’t pass Apple’s review team. Not that it’s exactly news anymore that Apple is completely arbitrary and capricious with which iPhone apps are officially allowed to be sold and which aren’t, but this sets what I believe to be a new low.

The game in question is iSealClub, a game based on the Canadian Seal Hunt. The core of the game is clubbing seals to death, which may well make a few people uncomfortable.

From the article:

[iSealClub developer Matthew] Smyth emailed Apple before ever writing the app to see if they would find it questionable, and they responded that they didn’t pre-approve apps. So Smyth built it. And yes, it was rejected on the grounds that it contains “content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable.”

How objectionable is violence? So objectionable that Apple has in the past approved many more games for the iPhone that are at least as violent than iSealClub, such as Turkey Hunt, Deer Hunter 3D, Pocket God, and Grand Theft Auto.

This is Apple at its most egregiously hypocritical. This epitomizes everything that is wrong with Apple’s iron-fist rule of the iPhone platform. If Apple itself does not want to sell these under an App Store labeled with its own company name, that’s fine. But in the interest of defending free expression, these should be available from third parties without having to play with fire by jailbreaking one’s iPhone.

I challenge Apple’s PR people to come out and say in as many words that Apple as a company actually does not support free expression when it comes to the iPhone. Apple’s actions already say this; why would they not put their money where their mouth is?

Van Morrison’s folly

The show of course has been over for days, but the issues here will probably persist for some time.

A recent post to the Houston Press Rocks Off blog details Van Morrison’s rather unusually conditioned visit to the greater Houston area (Mitchell Pavillion in The Woodlands). While it is Van’s right to attach as much fine print to his performances as his heart allows, I feel it equally my right (if not my duty) to expose the flaws in his logic.

Point number one:

Rocks Off was informed earlier today that “The Man” is not allowing reviewers or photographers at his shows unless he is in an especially good mood, and let’s just say we’re less than hopeful about that.

This is just crazy. A performer with any confidence in his or her talent should take no issue of this sort with either reviewers or photographers. Are they going to run every ticket holder’s name through the major Web search engines and have everyone sign declarations under penalty of perjury that they will not blog about the show?

Point number two:

A couple of hours ago now, one Van Morrison ticketholder forwarded Rocks Off an email she and other subscribers got in an email blast from the Pavilion with a list of dos and don’ts for Saturday night’s show. Then she posted it on the Internet, releasing it into the public domain.

Besides the stuff that we already knew, like that Morrison will go on at 8 p.m. sharp with no opener, among the other “unique items” the Pavilion informed ticketholders about Saturday’s show is that no “alcohol-related beverages” will be served during Morrison’s performance. The Pavilion will suspend alcohol sales at 7:50 p.m., the same time that Morrison has “requested” that all ticketholders be in their seats.

Translation: “Thank you, Mitchell Pavillion, for letting me, the Great Overlord Van Morrison, perform here. I plan to start my world dom-, er, performance, at 8 o’clock post meridien by official Great Overlord local time, and nobody should be buying beer while I take over the w-, I mean, perform, as that’s a luxury reserved only for Great Overlords like myself. And you mortals need to be in your seats 10 minutes early, because that’s how Great Overlords like myself roll.”

Sheesh. I mean, I admit it, I have a bit of an ego. Humility never came naturally to me and I have always felt like being truly humble was not being myself. But there’s having an ego, and then there’s REALLY HAVING AN EGO. And from the looks of these requests, Van Morrison REALLY HAS AN EGO. Honestly, this is not only needless egotism, but this turns me off to Van Morrison as a fan. It’s enough of an ego to make stars like Madonna look humble, and that’s a lot. I’m not easily offended by ego, but this egregious display of ego does offend me a bit.

So, my dear readers, I ask you: Did anyone go to this show? Does anyone know why he made these bizarre, egotistical requests? Is this something he did only for Houston/The Woodlands? Because the offensiveness of this is eclipsed only by its mysteriousness.

Out of hand: a radio station’s attack on a community leader

Okay, a bit of an intro here. I am not a fan of hip-hop (rap), I don’t follow the scene. During normal radio listening, I only have my radio tuned to 97.9 briefly while I’m switching stations from, say, 106.9 or 107.5 to something on the other side of the dial. Nevertheless, my pet peeves include community exclusion, censorship, and stupidity (particularly on the part of large corporations). This story appears to contain all three of these elements.

I apologize for any apparent misspellings, but they aren’t; this is really how those in rap/hip-hop spell their respective names.

My introduction to this squabble began when I read a posting to the Houston Press Rocks Off blog about an open letter from Matt Sonzala to radio station KBXX (97.9). This controversy centers around Trae the Truth, some derogatory comments made against him after a shooting following Trae’s community event on 2009 July 22, as covered on mtv.com. The following is a statement sent by Trae’s publicist as published in the story:

“Tragically, a community-driven event that took the collaboration of so many people, and personally cost Trae thousands of dollars to put together, was spoiled by one rotten apple,” said a statement sent to MTV News. “We are truly saddened by the fact that despite thousands of children receiving free immunizations and school supplies, and everyone from government officials to senior citizens thoroughly enjoying the day, which drew an estimated 10,000 people, what will be remembered is this one violent act. … Despite everything, we hope that Trae’s efforts to reach out to and give back to those in the community whose needs are often not addressed will continue to be recognized and supported.”

Matt’s open letter makes reference to the KBXX interview the morning after:

The next morning, KBXX conducted an interview with Trae. On air personality Nnete made some off color comments that from all accounts I have received, implied that a situation like this would of course happen at an event produced by Trae Tha Truth. Basically she said that these are the kinds of people that he and his music attract.

Bun B phoned in to the station immediately after hearing that and told them that they were wrong for what they said.

Then of course, it gets a little more out of hand (still quoting Matt’s open letter):

Trae of course took offense to the statements made against him and on his next mix CD, mentioned Nnete on two songs. The rhymes were insulting, but not threatening.

Finally, the return salvo from KBXX was to ban any mention, let alone actual airplay, of Trae from the station and its online properties (and if Trae’s Myspace blog entry is correct, this actually includes all Radio One stations, among which one-time rival Majic 102 is also included):

URGENT: – Effective Immediately: DO NOT AIR: “Trae tha Truth” on our station. No interviews, no calls, no comments, no posts on our website, no station twitter, no station facebook, no songs in mix show no verses on remixes, or songs in regular rotation. No exceptions. The current online postings will be removed shortly. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors. Thank u. Have a great weekend!

My take on this, so far, is that it’s damned hollow and quite to “wish him all the best in his future endeavors” and yet issue this kind of an edict. Especially since it appears the bad blood between Trae and the station came from Nnete’s unwarranted comments. (I’m still looking for a recording of the interview; if anyone has a copy or knows who to ask, please do let me know.)

Fast forward a bit, and we have a few incidents where KBXX suspends
or fires station personnel for associating with Trae, to wit:

  • DJ GT suspended for responding to a Twitter post questioning his involvement in the ban;
  • DJ Baby Jae of the Kracker Nuttz suspended for making a mixtape with Trae, completely outside the work environment (something that frankly is not KBXX’s concern); and
  • Three tenured DJs at KBXX (collectively known as The Kracker Nuttz) fired for playing a Chamillionaire song with a guest verse by Trae.

And that brings us to today: Tuesday, 2010 April 27, and this post to the Houston Press Rocks Off blog, which I quote in part:

Not surprisingly, [KBXX program director Terri] Thomas said that company policy prohibited her from making any comment on the situation, which flared up again late last week when former local hip-hop promoter Matt Sonzala published an open letter to the station on his Austin Surreal blog…

“Company policy prohibits that,” Thomas told Rocks Off. Traditionally one of the top-rated stations in the Houston-Galveston radio market, The Box is owned by Radio One, the Lanham, Md.-based company that also owns and operates Houston radio stations Majic 102 and Praise 92.1.

(I’m not igoring the bit about Radio One owning both major urban-format stations; I’ll likely cover this in a future entry, as this is a bit disturbing in and of itself.)

And again:

Rocks Off: Are you familiar with the letter that Matt…

Terri Thomas: Like I said, I’m not at liberty to comment.

This already doesn’t look too good for KBXX. You’d think as much attention as this is going to get, that someone in the position of program director at a radio station would keep up to date on what is being said. The “not at liberty to comment” is an ostrich move; stick one’s head in the sand, and hope it all blows over.

The management of KBXX has done a lot to divide and destroy community here. Maybe they think they can get away with it because one of their on-air personalities said something questionable and Trae decided not to just sit there and take it. But the ramifications go far beyond just one hip-hop personality not being played or even mentioned on the flagship station of the format in his hometown. Consider the following (quoting from Matt Sonsala’s open letter/blog post):

… In the days following the tragic earthquake in Haiti, Bun B put together a benefit concert with a lot of Houston hip-hop artists to raise money for the impoverished nation. Trae, being a popular artist and a man of the community was of course invited to be a part of it.

The event organizers were informed that KBXX would not support it at all, if Trae was a part of it. Trae decided to back out of the show so that it could be advertised and promoted on Houston’s main urban radio outlet – but still showed up in support of the cause.

This, in my opinion, is way out of bounds. Are there people out there in the Houston community (particularly the arts, tech, and marketing/PR crowds) that make me uncomfortable? Of course there are. I’ve been told there are people I make uncomfortable, so I guess it all works out in the end. However, I’m willing to work alongside anyone at charity fundraisers. Sometimes, that’s what building community is about: setting aside personal differences and discomfort to make a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

If there’s a personal rift between Trae and Nnete, that’s one thing. My understanding is that things like this happen in the hip-hop/urban scene from time to time. Heck, they happen everwhere. The reaction of KBXX management to what was (and arguably should have remained) a personal dispute between one of its employees and a local artist is pathetic, unkind, unfair, thoughtless, anti-social, cold, egregiously divisive, and patently devoid of good taste.

In summary, my two points are:

  1. We all can learn from this unfortunate chain of events, regardless of what community(ies) we are/will be part of.
  2. It’s never good to cut someone out of a community for reasons that amount to “because we can.” And I feel that’s what has happened here.

I may follow up on this depending on what happens.

Failing to deliver: a ripoff by AT&T

Mark Brimm recently wrote a blog entry about AT&T and its failure to deliver on purchased search engine advertising:

So here’s the scoop. Basically, this all started back in about July of 2009, when I decided I would give AT&T’s online search a try. It started out kind of innocuously. $75/mo or so for their lowest level of service. And I mean low…I got no traffic whatsoever (unless you count a few clicks while speaking to the account rep on the phone!). Then I decided maybe I was just being cheap, so I slowly inched the account power up a notch little by little until I’m being billed for $300+/mo for a listing at the very top on a page that comes up for a loose group of very targeted local keyword phrases that my account rep assures me is being showered with over 1,000 visits per month.

[…]

Eventually, this became a billing issue. I told them I wanted out. They said that I had agreed to a year contract. I said I didn’t get what was stated in the contract. They said they’d send it to collections and it would then go on my credit report. I told them I’d file with the BBB, tell the world my story, and sue them if they did. They said “that’s fine”.

Maybe the representative didn’t grasp the concept of negative publicity. It’s kind of a sad state of affairs when it is typical for the “peasant level” employees of a company to be able to dismiss three threats (BBB, negative PR, and legal) with a simple “that’s fine.” At the least, a competent phone rep would at least escalate the call at this point. (Though, at some companies it’s policy to immediately disconnect the caller upon a legal threat and only communicate via surface mail from that point on. To be fair about it, at the point where Mark felt this necessary, he wasn’t losing much by this treatment, even if that was policy at AT&T which apparently it is not.)

Either way, AT&T didn’t deliver on the contract, and a contract works both ways. Most contracts involve payment for services rendered: customer pays, company provides services and/or goods. Services or goods are not due if payment is not received, and likewise, payment is not due if the provider fails to provide service/goods. It’s the latter part that companies like AT&T forget rather conveniently.

According to the comments on the post, Mark’s not the only one with trouble with AT&T’s advertising department; others recorded their tales of woe alongside his. This doesn’t bode well for the undoubtedly busy public relations department at AT&T. It also looks bad when Mark’s account representative is difficult to contact, which I will concede may be unintentional. But under the circumstances, it’s still damned suspicious.

The IRS in Sacramento: a lack of common sense about cents

I’m almost at a total loss for words on this one.

KTXL-TV in Sacramento reports on a car wash owner that got a visit from an IRS tax collector.

Aaron Zeff, the owner of a local car wash in Sacramento, California, was informed of the IRS visit by his manager. From the report:

“I looked at the letter and I couldn’t believe what I saw. The number was astonishing. Four cents,” Zeff said.

Coupled with late fees and penalties – coming to a total of $202.35.

“If we knew anything about it, if we received any correspondence we would’ve immediately addressed it,” Zeff’s attorney, Ashley West said.

And further down:

And whether it’s a half-million dollar debt, or a mere nickel, the investigator said… failure to pay, is a failure to pay.

Just about every other business will write off small debts under $1 (or rough equivalents abroad). One of my former car insurance companies even wrote off a back premium payment of nearly $20. It’s far cheaper to simply write off such small sums than collect on them.

More troubling than that is the absolutely ludicrous and insane difference between the principal and the amount after penalties and interest: a factor of over 5,000. Assumably, this is done with the intent of justifying a collection effort. All this really does, though, is anger the taxpayers, the people whom the IRS (and any government agency) is supposed to serve in the end. I am certainly horrified at this egregious misuse of resources, and no amount of trumped up penalties will make it right in my mind because it’s just plain silly to apply over $200 in penalties regarding a debt of less than a dollar.

For tax scofflaws who owe hundreds, thousands, or even millions in taxes and make no attempt to resolve the debt voluntarily, such draconian and ruthless “squeeze the turnip until we get blood” tactics are justified. Those are the people ripping off our government.

The IRS would do well to apply some common sense to these cents-only debts. Do the same thing so many other businesses do: write them off. We have far worse problems in this country than someone who owes taxes in an amount easily payable in coins.