What'll You Have? Pabst Blue Ribbon!

The latest trend in raising funds is called crowdsourcing.

You put together a crowd, ask them for donations for your project, and then you go do your project.

Michael Migliozzi II and Brian William Flatow thought that crowdsourcing was the perfect solution to their heady dreams of owning Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

The old staple of your grandfather's era is very trendy these days, the hipster's choice of non-hip brews. The brand's owner was ready to sell.

The partners went out into the world and found a mob of people who were willing to contribute an accumulated $200 million in pledges. In return, the donors would get a stylish certificate of ownership and the value of their donation in beer.

All in all, it was a good deal for everyone.

Except for the SEC, however. The Feds cracked down on the crowdsourcing because Mr. Migliozzi and Mr. Flatow failed to register their offering as old-fashioned securities.

And because they didn't go through proper regulatory steps, the SEC made the gentlemen abandon their fundraising effort, take down their website, and stop asking for donations on Facebook or Twitter.

There are times when you have to agree with the Republicans when they lambaste the stifling restrictions that government bureaucracy places on start-up businesses.

With the crowdsource crowd blocked in their effort, Pabst Blue Ribbon was recently purchased by C. Dean Metropoulos for the amusement of his sons.

The young Metropoulos has immediately begun to reposition the blue-collar brew as the drink of the trendy and famous, the direct opposite of its promotion by the executives who brought the brand back from the brink of extinction.

Those same executives, some of whom were shown the door by young Mr. Metropoulos, are calling on PBR drinkers to boycott the beverage, to express their outrage.

That wouldn't be happening if a pair of social-media savvy PBR lovers had been able to acquire Pabst through the very modern mode of crowdsourcing.

The SEC has killed PBR as we know it.

The New Urban Farmer

As long as you have a piece of land, you won't go hungry.

But unless you're a committed vegan, the plant material you grow isn't enough.

Vegetable gardens are growing in popularity. Whether it's to avoid E. coli infection, to avoid chemicals, or simply to taste the freshest possible produce, people everywhere are putting in gardens.

The new urban farmer wants to take that grow-it-yourself philosophy one step further.

The time has come, they believe, to ban the ban on chickens in urban locations. You have your vegetable plot. You need a chicken coop.

In Wilmette, Illinois, a well-heeled suburb of Chicago, local resident Diane Schaffner is pushing local authorities to change the laws so that Wilmettians can grow their own poultry.

It's allowed in the even wealthier enclave of Winnetka, just north of Wilmette, so why not make it equal? The Village President isn't quite so amenable to the change, by all appearances. There doesn't seem to be a groundswell of support, either, to allow chickens (or cows for that matter, and wouldn't fresh cream for your coffee be awesome) in residential areas.

Ms. Schaffner, being an organic gardener, sees the control she could have over what she eats, since she would have control over what her potential chickens would eat.

And she's not asking for a flock.

Chances are, the anti-chicken coop folks are afraid of an onslaught of rooster crowing, day in and day out. Ms. Schaffner might help her cause by educating the public, who are not new urban farmers and assume that there'll be no eggs without a rooster in the barn yard.

That hen in your back yard will give you a fresh egg every 26 hours without male companionship.

Hasn't the time come for us to practice more self-sufficiency? Now, about that milk cow...

Preying On A Writer's Dreams

Writers dream of getting their work published. They imagine their novel or collection of short stories or non-fiction labor of love on the shelf at the local bookstore.

And there is always a con artist waiting just around the corner to prey on those dreams, for a profit.

Landing a publishing contract with a major publishing house is next to impossible, and not many have the stamina to keep on trying, writing book after book and editing countless times, in the hope that their story will be the one that a publisher is looking for.

Many writers go for the do-it-yourself option, but they know they don't have the skill or connections needed to generate buzz and drive sales. They often fall victim to someone's siren song that promises printing, shipping, publicity and all the rest, for a price.

The writer, with head in clouds, signs the check, when they should have gone to Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss's most excellent website and vetted the publisher first.

While the ladies who blog might not have heard about Peter Campbell-Copp's clever little scam to make money off unsuspecting writers, their site is a treasure trove of advice that fits Historical Pages and its modus operandi.

Mr. Campbell-Copp followed a scam-honored tradition of offering to publish for a price, the sort of thing that Ms. Crispin and Ms. Strauss continually warn about. By perusing their archives, a writer could come to understand how the cruel game is played, and avoid becoming an open wallet for Mr. Campbell-Copp.

The would-be publisher has been charged with both felony and misdemeanor counts. In keeping with the glib excuses typically given by a thief, Mr Campbell-Copp has rationalized his poor performance and offered promises to make good. In the future. When the financing comes through.

The Hinesburg, Vermont, police look on that as part of a Ponzi scheme, with new authors being bilked to produce something to show the early victims that their fears are unfounded.. They stop complaining, more authors sign on, and eventually the house of cards crumbles.

If you're keen to publish your work yourself, you can hire an editor and use any number of legitimate, no charge venues. Amazon's CreateSpace allows you to upload your manuscript, design your cover, etc., etc., and you don't have to pay a thing.

Hire a publicist. There are plenty of them around.

There is no easy way into getting a book published. There are no short-cuts. People like Peter Campbell-Copp are out there because they know it, and they rely on authors who don't know it to fall into their trap.

Hot Diggity Dog

Forget the sauerkraut, the chili and the catsup. A true Chicago-style hot dog is the perfect, complete meal in a bun.

And you don't have a real Chicago dog unless your bun is encasing a Vienna meat product.

Or could you substitute a Red Hot Chicago product and never know the difference?

Would that be legal? According to Vienna Beef, long-time maker of the quintessential Chicago-style tube steak, a grandson of one of the company's founders is either guilty of stealing the family recipe, or he's lying to the public about his Red Hot Chicago dogs.

Recipes being proprietary assets, there are laws to forbid Scott D. Ladany from lifting the ancestral recipe and moving it away from Vienna Beef.

Once the Ladany clan sold their interests, they were supposed to erase the hot dog recipe from their memories.

How easy would that be for Mr. Ladany, who was raised in an atmosphere of ground meats, casings and savory smoke. Perhaps he wanted to keep up the family's traditions. Perhaps he wasn't happy with the direction Vienna Beef's quality took after he left.

Red Hot Chicago has not been in existence for 118 years, but the website's banner trumpets the age of this "family tradition' which happens to match that of the original Vienna Beef. To Jim Bodman of Vienna Beef, that's misleading, it's misappropriating the Vienna name, and it's grounds for a lawsuit.

If you were looking for something to do this weekend, why not get a group of friends together. Chop some onion, slice some tomato, lay in a supply of bright green relish, and run a little taste test.

Is it the same recipe? Or is Mr. Ladany just trying to cut into Vienna's market share by suggesting that his product is more true to the Vienna Beef of Granddad's day than anything rolling out of Vienna Beef's factory today?

Under The Eyes Of The World

For decades, Irish women were locked away in Church-run laundries, where they were forced to work for no pay until the nuns decided that the inmate had completed an adequate penance.

The crime was typically being pregnant outside of marriage, but there were those who were incarcerated because they had been impregnated as a result of rape. Or because they were pretty enough to foster impure thoughts in the male mind.

As for the rapist? You already know the answer to that. They suffered about as much as the pedophile priests. Sometimes the rapist was a priest.

The story is brilliantly told by Katie Hanrahan in The Leaven of the Pharisees.

Since 1996, when the story burst into public view, the Irish State and the Catholic Church have been dithering about how to handle the situation they created. Not only are the women psychologically shattered, but they are now in financial straits because the religious congregations who reaped the benefit of their slave labor never paid into a pension scheme. The Maggies, as they are called, are elderly and without the old-age stipend required by law.

The UN Committee Against Torture, at the urging of Justice for Magdalenes, has reviewed the evidence that the Irish Government would like to sweep under the rug, and called for an investigation.

Their findings? Perpetrators should be prosecuted. All victims have a right to redress and full compensation.

Some time this week, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter is expected to issue the government's official response, but if it's anything like Sean Aylward's testimony before the UN Committee, it will be more of the same.

Many of the victims are no longer with us, Mr. Aylward said. If the State dithers long enough, they'll all be dead, and no one will have to come up with the money needed to provide redress and compensation and pay for the legal costs of prosecuting the Catholic Church.

The Maggies have been getting the run-around for decades. Now the world has been notified of their plight.

Under such scrutiny, can the religious congregations and the Department of Justice keep right on dithering? Or will something finally be done, before the forgotten women who toiled at hard labor, without a penny of salary being paid, succumb to the Government's scheme to wait out their demise, when the need for compensation will become moot.

Consistency In A Character

As a first-time writer, you have a story knocking around in your head. You want your characters to get from A to B, all loose ends tied and red herrings put to rest.

While the imaginary people in your novel carry on their quest, however, you have to maintain a certain consistency in their actions.

Someone you've shown to be a wimp can't suddenly do something out of character. The female protagonist can't be hating her male counterpart one minute and then be madly in love for no reason given.

What if you had a character who was wealthy? Let's say his parents were entrepreneurs who made their fortune in the Tupperware-styled home sales party industry.

You'd be writing about Ryan LeVin, a young man who was drag racing a Porsche 911 Turbo on a Fort Lauderdale street, only to jump the curb and strike two visiting British tourists. Both men died of their injuries.

When your character is driving a car that costs $120,000, you're showing, and not telling, your readers that there's plenty of money to go around. Once you've established that aspect, what's the next part of the story?

Keep in mind that Mr. LeVin had racked up numerous traffic citations in the Chicago area, and at the time of the Florida crash, he was on probation for a cocaine possession charge. His time served in prison was minimal. How would you have this character deal with the sudden tragedy entering his life, knowing that you must maintain consistency?

Mr. LeVin denied that he was driving the Porsche in question. He tried to pin the blame on his buddy who was drag racing next to him.

You've painted your character as a spoiled rich kid grown up.

As an author, you'd want him to have some sort of epiphany, to realize the error of his ways and thus find salvation. You'd have him walk into the courtroom and take his punishment like a man. In the end, he might serve some time, or he might dedicate himself and his millions to community service.

In real life, Mr. LeVin intends to remain consistent in his behavior and throw money at his problem to make it go away. Facing a sentence of 20 -45 years in jail, he figures he can give money to the widows and orphans of the two men he killed, and then bargain down for ten years with time off for good behavior.

His attorneys put together a settlement for the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the survivors, and wouldn't you know it but that settlement is dependent on Mr. LeVin not being in jail. He can only get the money if he's working. His family and their Jewels by Park Lane can't (or won't) cover the expense.

Consistency in action is a must for a believable character. But in fiction, the readers are often looking for an uplifting conclusion or a somewhat happy ending. Real life isn't fiction. Don't make your novel too realistic.

Hack Into The Bookstore

Hackers are an ongoing problem for computer users everywhere. We've all erected firewalls and spam filters around our equipment. All that's missing is an electronic moat with digital alligators.

As if things aren't already going badly for Google these days, there's more bad news.

Google e-books hasn't exactly taken the market by storm. In fact, they're lagging well behind Amazon and Apple. Not what a money-making entity is looking for when it hopes to drive eyeballs to the paid advertising on its site.

It's recently been discovered that hackers have phished g-mail and stolen passwords. Not all bad, if the invading hordes download a quantity of free books from the Google bookstore and push the numbers up a few ticks.

Google believes that the hackers are based in China, and the g-mail accounts they went after belong to government officials, Chinese dissidents, and journalists.

By gaining control of the accounts, the hackers could forward messages to themselves, which of course would be ideal for the Chinese who so love to spy on their enemies.

The question is, what sort of intelligent government official would use a free g-mail account for anything? No one considers Google's service to be secure.

In most cases, the g-mail account is used for contacts that might likely become spam magnets. Use them and throw them away, start with a new account. It's all free.

China cannot allow its people to become educated about the outside world, as it leads to dissatisfaction and agitation. Google has all those free books that no one seems to be paying attention to, and we all know how dangerous a book can be.

Add to that the ease of communication that is the Internet, and it's easy to see why the Chinese military would want absolute control over the system. They can count on those who don't consider account security when they set up their free g-mail account, who send all sorts of communications without allowing for the fact that you get what you pay for.

When it's free, don't expect firewalls and spam filters...and act accordingly.

Where Is Our James Connolly

Ireland's James Connolly was not in Winnipeg last Saturday, apparently.
The island nation's most famous sons performed in concert, another stop on their massive world tour. Like so many other traveling bands, U2 brought along their film crew to tape the undertaking.

They'll make money on the front end, with concert tickets, and then they'll make even more on the back end with a movie that savvy television network executives will snap up.

But where's the cut of the action for the union men?

Bono et al. brought along the same crew that's been following on their heels, filming the action. As it turns out, they aren't union men. Canada's International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees picketed the Winnipeg concert in protest.

Nothing short of union busting said Matthew D. Loeb of IATSE. Sure, they used union help for all the rest of the business, but it's union busting to bring in so much as one employee who's not in the union.

Sounds like a big fuss over nothing, doesn't it. That's because it is.

Unions were necessary in James Connolly's day, when the workers were slaves. Now the unions are pricing themselves out of business and becoming increasingly irrelevant. Their members are seen as slaves to the union bosses, and workers aren't flocking to sign on these days.

Mr. Loeb is looking for publicity where it's most likely to be found, at a performance by a major rock band. He's trying to drum up outrage, but no one's buying.

The film crew has nothing to do with IATSE. Their function is entirely separate from setting up and knocking down the stage, performing or even switching out guitar strings.

To lodge a claim of union busting in this instance makes Mr. Loeb look silly and a bit childish. It's not the best face to put on the union movement when that movement is hurting.

Pass On The Guacamole

Mexican food doesn't sound so appealing anymore, does it? Not since the USDA released its study on pesticide residue in herbs.

That flavorful cilantro is going to kill you.

According to Samir Assar, you shouldn't be eating that cilantro if you have a compromised immune system. There's been problems with salmonella tainting the leafy little greens.

The USDA has now discovered that pesticides that were never approved for use on cilantro being used on cilantro anyway, and showing up in the plant that people are eating. Makes the salmonella issue seem almost harmless in comparison.

While you might be able to wash away some of the salmonella bacilli, you can't wash away the pesticide residue. It's been going down your gullet for who knows how long, getting taken up by your body's cells and.....what's going to happen in five or ten or twenty years?

Unless you've grown that cilantro in your own personal garden, you might want to reconsider ingesting an herb that may contain chlorpyrifos, diazanon and quintozene in quantities exceeding allowed limits on the food products they can be sprayed on.

Out of 43 pesticide residues not allowed on cilantro, the herb was found to be tainted with 34 of them. The USDA wants to know why cilantro, of all things, is off the charts in terms of non-compliance with allowed pesticide use.

In the meantime, Chris Pappas of the USDA suggests we all grow our own cilantro.

Not a very comforting suggestion, is it?

The Downward Swing

If you're trying to get your writing published, you know what I mean when I describe the emotional pendulum that describes your ever-changing moods.

I'm on the downward swing of that pendulum today. The literary magazine that was considering one of my short pieces since last October finally declined. Sorry it took so long, good luck placing it elsewhere.

No time to look for a different home for that collection of words. With the economy in its present state, I'm running faster every day, just to stay in the same place, and all I need to do is look at my day planner and the pendulum heads a bit further into negative emotional territory. Write every day, an author is often advised. Where's the time to come from?

Then there's the manuscript that has to be prepared for publication. Sorry, Newcastlewest Books. I've had to ignore you and the upgrade to the website. The sales copy for the novel won't write itself, I know, but I'm not having much luck creating something punchy and intriguing to promote the book.

Back to the trenches. One day, unexpectedly, there'll be a glimmer of good news or I'll receive the gift of free time to work on another manuscript. The pendulum will swing back, the emotions will sail higher, and the family will begin to wonder if I've gone bipolar.