The U.S. Federal Trade Commission this week announced rules for bloggers who take money and various other forms of booty in exchange for reviewing products. Somehow I missed this business of selling one’s soul. But I think it is a good idea to take a moment and be straight with my readers about the limits of my journalistic ethics in this space.
I don’t take money for reviewing products because I don’t review products. Never have, never will. So don’t send me any products, okay?
Publishers send me early copies of a few books per year, generally hoping I’ll either provide a quote for the book jacket or write a positive column about it. I […]
I have a mouse in my RV. Or as many correspondents have told me I have MICE in my RV, because the concept of a solitary mouse is beyond their considerable experience. This month my wife, three young sons and I (and of course the mice) are in California, mainly touring in our 1996 Winnebago. We tour, we fix, then tour some more. The old Winnie was never built for 107-degree desert temperatures and neither was I. So since we’re broken-down waiting (again) for the fixit man to come, I think this might be a good time to update my readers on a few old projects.
This past weekend marked the 30th anniversary of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. If you are old enough you may remember where you were at that time and what it was like. I remember VERY well because I was on my way to the crippled plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Our President at the time, Jimmy Carter, was also a micro-manager and a former nuclear engineer: he wanted his own eyes and ears on the scene. Our little group eventually coalesced into the Presidental Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, led by Dartmouth College president John Kemeny, who was also the co-author of BASIC.
“Where are the tumbrils?” asks my friend Adam Smith.If, like me, you have no idea what is a tumbril, it is a type of horse cart used during the French Revolution to transport condemned prisoners to the guillotine for beheading.What Adam wonders is how we can get so deep into such a hellacious financial crisis without finding at least a few bad guys to behead?
