Dan in doghouse again, Dagnabit!

Dan, you are such a B-A-D dog!

Plainfield blog Plaintalker II received the following anonymous comment and forwarded same to me for 'a clarification or an apology -- or [gasp!] both'. The comment was in response to a post on Plaintalker II that mentioned the name of a legendary music service in its title (see the post here).

Here is the comment --

This comment came in regarding my post on the music at a local supermarket:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Not Exactly Muzak":

For the record, The music service could not have been Muzak. Although Muzak has over 2.5 million songs in its library, it has for 75 years remained true to its business objective which is to provide music solutions for business. One of its core capabilities is screening songs and lyrics for lyric content. No other music provider offers this. Although some people may not be affended by use of the F Bomb, some will. This is reflected in this short comment string. As a main street business owner, I am not willing to offend even one customer. At one time Muzak was considered expensive, but today they are less expensive that all the other providers. This business owner would be wise to consider Muzak.

I did not say it was Muzak, you did in your teaser. How about a clarification or apology - or both??

The reference is to the CLIPS from Monday, November 14 (see post here), in which the Plaintalker II post of the day is summarized by hapless Dan with the erroneous use of the famous music service's trademarked name -- not once, but twice: in the headline and in the paragraph summarizing what bloggers have posted for the day, incorrectly suggesting Plaintalker II had experienced music from this illustrious music service. (This constitutes the requested CLARIFICATION.)

Having long ago learned not to refer to the famous (formerly cellophane and now plastic) adhesive tape by its trademarked name and ditto for the corporation whose name became a verb AND a noun to denote a photocopied document, I shudder to think of having fallen into this casual error yet once again and regret the lapse. (This is an admission of CULPABILITY.)

The Plaintalker II post makes it perfectly clear -- both in its title and its content -- that it is NOT talking about the famed music service, but presumably some other music service with insufficiently high content standards. (This is an EXCULPATION of Plaintalker II.)

However, since I received no similar communication at CLIPS concerning the company's name, I suspect the algorithm (was it a Google Alert) that led to the anonymous comment only turned up the Plaintalker II headline -- hence the comment.

A PROPOSED REMEDY: I propose we bring back the public stocks, and that anyone caught violating trademarks should be locked up therein for a few hours in the town square (the Park Madison Plaza would suffice) with a placard detailing the offense, to be subjected to the jeers, spittle and other abuse of passersby and thereafter to wear a scarlet letter denoting the offense on their clothing in perpetuity. I volunteer to be the first to suffer the punishment.

As for an APOLOGY, I have forwarded same to the Courier News for publication on their 'apologies' page.

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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