Entries Tagged 'Followup' ↓

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Remember back in November, when we brought you this story about Kurt Greenbaum, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who had a school employee fired over a comment on his newspaper’s blog?

Well, Mr. Greenbaum is back, and he seems to think that the Internet has a short memory, as he simply tries to return to his blog and Twitter account after a six-week hiatus with no mention of the incident or an apology for what he did.

Unfortunately, for Mr. Greenbaum, the Internet met his return yesterday with an overwhelmingly negative response on Twitter and other social media sites - so much so that it overwhelmed his server and took his Web site off-line for several hours.  Although Greenbaum does not seem to be allowing comments on his blog entries, the jabs against him on Twitter and social news aggregator Reddit were coming fast and furious in the late afternoon and evening.

Greenbaum seems clueless about the hate that his actions have stirred up on the Internet.  In fact, in a move that reeks of hubris, his most recent blog post outlines the job loss trends in the St. Louis area - does he not realize that HE IS RESPONSIBLE for one of those job losses?

Feel like telling Greenbaum and his bosses what you think about this?

Let the publisher know:
Kevin Mowbray - Publisher, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Phone: 314-340-8970
E-mail: kmowbray@post-dispatch.com

It’s been a month-and-a-half  since the ‘1984′ brouhaha when electronic copies of Orwell’s tome were removed from Amazon’s Kindle readers without their owner’s permission.  Now, it looks like Amazon is ready to properly apologize for their transgression with the following e-mail:

Hello,

On July 23, 2009, Jeff Bezos, our Founder and CEO, made the following apology to our customers:

“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com”

As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made. You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $30.

Please email Kindle customer support at kindle-response@amazon.com to indicate your preference. If you prefer to receive a check, please also provide your mailing address.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Kindle Team

Time will only tell if the apology (and the 30 bucks) will placate the enraged Kindle users.

The Domino’s Pizza incident we told you about yesterday?  Here’s an update:

Not only have the two wokers pictured in the video been fired from the Conover, NC restaurant - they will likely face criminal charges for their shenannigans.

It also appears that the female in the videos, Kristy Lynn Hammonds, is a registered sex offender in North Carolina.  Check out her details at the NC Sex Offender Registry.

Hammonds also sent this e-mail to Domino’s corporate office:

“I am sorry about all of this! It was all a prank and me nor Michael expected to have this much attention from the videos that were uploaded! No food was ever sent out to any customer. We would never put something like that on you tube if it were real!! It was fake and I wish that everyone knew that!!!! Michael never would do that to any customer, EVER!! I AM SOO SORRY! You see all the time of the pranks that people upload and the pranks need to seem real in order to get a laugh out of people but this prank was very very immature and I am sorry for the embarrassment that I have caused your company!”

Morgan Brown, the 12-year-old Missouri girl who had been kicked out of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on a registration technicality has now been reinstated. Read our original story.

The Spelling Bee’s director, Paige Kimble, released the following statement earlier this evening:

After further consideration, we have determined that Morgan Brown is eligible to compete in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

The bee has a reputation for fairness and inclusiveness that rests squarely on the integrity of the rules that govern the competition. However, we believe after a thorough review that there is sufficient ambiguity in the North Platte enrollment to justify accepting Morgan’s certification as the champion of the St. Joseph News-Press Qualifying Regional Spelling Bee.

Good for Scripps! They finally came to their senses. Well, at least they did when they saw that denying Morgan the chance to compete in the contest that she worked so hard for was turning into a PR nightmare for them.

At any rate, we’re glad to see Morgan back in the game. Hopefully next year, the Bee’s organizers will make those forms a little easier for the schools to understand and fill out.

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District has announced that it will honor 15-year-old Amanda Rouse, the girl who took action and stopped the school bus she was riding on when the driver fell from her seat. (Read the original story)

School officials said today that they would honor Rouse, but did not say if they would drop the punishment against her.

“Due to student privacy rights under State and Federal law, the district is unable to disclose all of the information in its possession regarding this incident,” a written statement said.

Rouse is scheduled to appear on “Good Morning America,” and a Fox Network morning show on Tuesday morning.

Read the full text of the school district’s release here - (PDF).

While we’re very glad to hear that the district will be formally honoring her actions, it is unfortunate that they still have not lifted the punishment for “skipping school” that was originally levied against her. One step at a time, it seems.

Contact information for the Marina School district is here. Let them know if you think the punishment should be lifted.