Over a month ago, I read this article at one of my favorite blogs, Stay Free! Daily:
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/07/blog_analysis.html
I love this post, especially the last paragraph (which is, uh, probably not suitable for children, BTW), but sort of tangentially it made me worry a little about what this blog, with its long lists of products and services I like on the righthand side of the page and its shorter list of totally unrelated blogs that I like on the left, plus my occasional raving about different retailers or things like specific brands of coffee and shoes, might look like to people who don't know me. In order to reassure you of this site's strictly personal subjectivity, there are a couple of things I'd like you to notice about it.
There is no sponsor. There are no ads.
There will never be either.*
Though I naturally hope that all our efforts to communicate our experiences as amputees will result in some small part in ever more smart, brave, compassionate humans living happy, loving, meaningful lives, not to mention a constantly improving range of available products and services for amputees around the world -- whether it's because suits and 'bots have surreptitiously gleaned data from any of these efforts or not -- this particular effort is neither research nor advertising project, just the proverbial "labor" of love. (I don't really put enough consistent effort into this to call it labor of any kind, really, but that's how the expression goes, so...) I create and maintain this blog on my own time, from my own studio in my own home, not while I am at work anywhere else. I pay the $8.95 monthly fee to TypePad for hosting out of my own pocket, and no thanks, I don't want help with that. I don't even want a tax break.
This project is about being honest with each other about what works and what doesn't, trying to share real resources, ideas, and experiences of real amputees who are getting on with their lives -- or trying to. Everything I rave about here is something I genuinely love. Everything I rant about is something I genuinely loathe. If your experience with any given product, technique, service provider, etc., that I mention here matches or contradicts mine -- or if you simply have other genuine ideas, resources and experiences you'd like to throw in the mix -- I repeat what I have said before, that I hope you will share freely. My experience as an amputee is limited to just that -- my experience. Kinda limited in scope and potential usefulness, right? Especially since there are so many of us, with so many unique stories.
Now that TypePad has added in the option, I have begun and will continue to screen all comments and trackbacks. I try to give people the benefit of a doubt, but I will not allow spam, unintelligible nonsense, abuse, or creepiness, period. If you've got something real to say about this whole amputation trip, though, something constructive, useful and true, I want to hear it, and I want to share it with others. You won't have to worry about stepping on anybody's toes. I've only got five, and they're the only ones here.
I hope this is clear. If you have any questions, though, please fire away.
(Whew. Glad to get that off my chest. On to better topics.)
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* 10-01-05: Uh... There will never be sponsors or ads -- except on results pages if you use the free search engine for this site provided by FreeFind.com. There's a lot of information on this site, and I thought I'd better put in a search box, but I can't afford to buy an ad-free one just this minute. Of course, I do not choose what shows up at the top of the search results; it's totally third-party-robot-run. Next paycheck, I will buy an annual ad-free subscription to FreeFind, and there will be no more ads, period. Sorry for the temporary obnoxity.
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09-24-07: Oh, okay. I put a link to my Etsy store, with pictures, in the left sidebar. Sorry; they made it so easy, I just couldn't resist. Besides, a girl's gotta eat, and an art girl's gotta sell art to eat. Besides, it's better than an Amazon store because I actually made everything in it, and almost all the money you spend at my store goes directly to me. I still refuse to accept third-party advertising or outside sponsorship for this blog, though, and my plan is for that to always be so.
Also, you may notice that I never did take the ads off the FreeFind results pages. Sorry; it costs more than I have to do that. Oh, well. Welcome to my own petty heck of situational ethics.
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