Glenn Canady, will you be my valentine?

Well Dear Reader, Mr. Canady and I are at it again.  "Will the saga ever end?" you ask.  I don't really think so for 2 reasons: the first being "karma" and the second being Google's permanent cache of crawled web pages. 

You see, I have given Mr. Canady more leeway than any other person with whom I have ever had intellectual property rights and trademark infringement conversations.  I think that is where I went wrong.  I should have never acquiesced to his emotional appeals- I let him sweet talk me into being a big ol' softy which, as Mr. Canady later points out, is certainly incongruous with the Clint Eastwood picture at the top of my blog and this whole "I'm the new sheriff out to hang him" thing he says I have going on.

OK, I will admit right up front though that despite reaching an uneasy truce with Glenn Canady prior to my original blog post and his Voodoo Hex of the Moment, the following all really started because I screwed up and forgot to disable the post from auto-posting at a later date.  "Mia culpa, mia culpa, mea maxima culpa."

Let's discuss Karma, briefly.  In Hindu belief, where the term originated, it is the idea that the good and evil a person does will return either in this life or in a later one; it's similar to the saying "what goes around, comes around". Karma can be either good or bad. What you do in this life will determine whether you are rewarded or punished.   

A couple of weeks ago Earl, from the television show My Name is Earl, said something to the effect that he would not be karma's bitch but in the end he found that he could not escape its reach. 

How ironic though that it would be search engine optimization that would eventually precipitate the following email thread, after all, hasn't Glenn Canady been described as a preeminent SE expert fallen from Google's grace?

Glenn Canady even states in his article The Ten commandments of Linking, "But you might just get banned on Google and that’s almost worse than going to hell!"  (Ouch!)

As you will see, I did warn Glenn that this would all become fodder for my blog ahead of time but undeterred, he has a point to make.  Hence you are here today Dear Reader, embroiled in a drama so compelling that even now, I find myself thinking of Glenn Canady wondering what will happen next.  I must write to him but only to cherish this moment and the feelings I have for him. 

Breathless anticipation... will he accept this valentine?  Will he be happy that I have created this heart-felt epistle if only to honor this man and the glory that is his name?

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From: Glenn Canady [mailto:glenn@glcventures.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 3:40 PM
To: lscottharrell@bellsouth.net
Subject: why?

Scott,

Why did you find it necessary to go on a rampage like this?
http://www.elscottharrell.com/

I thought we had worked things out like men.  I just don't understand why you had to to put all this time into something like this after you told me that everything was ok. 

Glenn

Glenn Canady
GLC Ventures Inc.

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Actually, for a brief moment I felt badly.  But I realized that he probably did not understand the entirety of the situation, so I explained my situation and threw in an extra heaping of wit.  I know that it's not much of a consolation to him but it was the best I had in me at the time:

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From: L. Scott Harrell [mailto:lscottharrell@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 9:54 AM
To: 'Glenn Canady'
Subject: RE: why?

I’ve been contemplating a response to your question, “Why?” and I was kind of vacillating between two replies:

A)  As the title of my blog would suggest- “Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”  How very appropriate.

Or…

B)  In the heyday of piracy, British colonies used to hang pirates, or those suspected of being one, from the gallows that lined the wharfs in what was more than likely a less than subtle warning to others, “Be a pirate… end up like this guy.”  Again, how very appropriate.

Then, I considered your use of the word “rampage” and chuckled- actually, this email exchange would be great material on my blog as a follow up too!  The post has very little in the way of anger or rage; from where I sit its really pretty funny.  I’m sorry that you do not see the satire there; a “voodoo hex” is funny and you should have been honored to receive one.  Instead, you are so sensitive that it almost pains me.  I’m not the cry baby here, Glenn.

In the end, the reason the post ended up on the blog boils down to a simple mistake, I wrote the blog entry while contemplating the sum of my experiences with you on Thursday evening and rather than posting it right away, I set the entry to publish the following Monday- intending to reconsider putting it up at all.  I got busy over the weekend and forgot about it.  Once I realized that it was up I thought I would just go ahead and leave it up.  It seemed to fit and I could really care less if you were going to be happy about it or not- its an accurate representation of the situation and how I feel about it. 

So what if I leave you swinging in the breeze?  I think of you as a bit of a pirate- hijacking mail servers to send pornography, spamming newsgroups, getting your website banned from Google for nefarious reasons, infringing on the intellectual property of others, etc, etc, in pursuit of dollars.

I received some life-changing (but very very good) news yesterday which has put me in a great mood today, so I am going to concede the post just so that I do not have to hear from you again or mess up this very good place I find myself. 

We really do not need to communicate with each other any longer; I would hate to have any additional material with which to work.

Warmest Regards,

L. Scott Harrell
CompassPoint Investigations
In Relentless Pursuit of your Success!
www.CompassPointPI.com
Ofc:  (877) 363-4887
Fax:  (877) 761-8264

Florida * Texas * Alabama * Mississippi * Tennessee
Texas PI # A-9853
Florida PI # A 2500251
Mississippi MPIA (1998)
Tennessee Act 40-11-401 Compliant

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I edited the post, shortened it considerably, and removed Mr. Canady's name entirely from the text of the post.  I was truly proud of myself though- because I had included this picture in the revised post.  It's an image of a pirate hanging in a manner I described to him.  Call it an inside joke; an intended jab in perpetuity and no one would be any the wiser.  Consider yourself fortunate Dear Reader, today you have been let in on this little secret and you too get to understand that which was originally only meant for Mr. Canady.

Sadly, I believed that again we had an accord and that the Gorilla Marketer would not have occasion to email me again- but apparently he just felt the need to reach out to me one more time.  Perhaps he was feeling lonely... or maybe he just needed to feel some more love from EL Scott Harrell, I'm not really sure but I've been told that I have this effect on people.

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From: Glenn Canady [mailto:glenn@glcventures.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 1:27 PM
To: L. Scott Harrell
Subject: Re: post

I thought you were going to take this down?

http://www.elscottharrell.com/2006/01/glenn_canady_ca.html

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Here is where the fun and irony came into it for me.  I Googled "Glenn Canady" (without quotes) and found that (as of this writing) my original blog post had actually made it all the way up to #10 and a first page search result as well! 

Either I am an SEO genius or someone at Google really has it out for this guy.  Little ol' me managed to hop-scotch 121,000 other search results for the self described king of search engine optimization in only 14 days.

How did I do it you might ask?  Well I can teach others about my own prowess in SEO but that is best left to another book I may write in the future.  You can read an article I wrote about writing for search engines in the meantime.  I am going to use this blog post and its search engine success as a case study in my forthcoming book- it will be an interesting read and maybe I'll have over 25,000 happy customers just like Mr. Canady!

Anyway.  I tried to explain to Glenn that I had changed the post (as described herein) but that I could not change the name of the file that my blog software assigned the original post; it happened to have his name embedded.  I certainly could not help the fact that Google had crawled and cached the post within 3 days of publishing it; it appeared that the lengthy chronicle that is "El Scott Harrell: Glenn Canady Called Me a Cry Baby- Now That's Funny" would live forever.

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From: L. Scott Harrell
To: 'Glenn Canady'
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 5:46 PM
Subject: RE: post

The story as originally written has changed; the file name, 2006/01/glenn_canady_ca.html, is unfortunate and will not change.  Perhaps, you should read the post and you will notice that I removed your name completely from the “meat” of the article. 

Warmest Regards,

L. Scott Harrell
CompassPoint Investigations
In Relentless Pursuit of your Success!
www.CompassPointPI.com
Ofc:  (877) 363-4887
Fax:  (877) 761-8264

Florida * Texas * Alabama * Mississippi * Tennessee
Texas PI # A-9853
Florida PI # A 2500251
Mississippi MPIA (1998)
Tennessee Act 40-11-401 Compliant

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To which he has made his last reply more personal.  He obviously thinks that my blog should be titled "El Glenn Canady" and quite frankly I am writing so much about him right now I am beginning to think it should be too.  Alas, the truth is never a simple matter to report.

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From: Glenn Canady [mailto:glenn@glcventures.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 6:47 PM
To: L. Scott Harrell
Subject: Re: post

I don't understand why you have to make a big deal about the issue.  We resolved it, I apologized for calling you a cry baby and you told me that that you were going to remove it because you got some really great news that made you really happy.  That was the last thing you told me until I found out that you weren't being a man of your word because the story was still posted with my name all over it.

To just spread negativity after the issue was resolved serves no purpose. 

To put up a big picture of Clint Eastwood and act like you're the new sherrif in town to hang me for this incredibly heinous act is just a wee bit over the top.  It wasn't even a site that I owned - it was a site that my friend owned and I took care of it for him.

And it wasn't something that was done intentionally to harm your business, the information came from an RSS feed that was pulled into the site automatically.  Nobody found your material and posted it to harm you in any way.

If you can honestly justify harming my reputation permanently on the search engines for this incident after I handled it immediately and apologized to you then I guess that you're just different than I am.  If the roles were reversed and you had taken care of the situation and apologized for calling me a "crybaby" then I would have dropped the issue entirely.  I certainly would not put something on the web that would harm your reputation permanently.

Glenn

Glenn Canady
GLC Ventures Inc.

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Here's the part where I address Glenn directly since I am not going to e-mail him any longer:

I guess I am just different.  I am not harming you, Glenn- I am RESPONDING to you in the manner of my choosing.  I am speaking freely of a well defined set of facts.  Facts by their very definition are neither negative nor are they positive; they just are.  Negativity is the attribute that the reviewer of fact assigns them.  I am exercising my freedom of speech and I am reporting our entire communication which started as my concern over the violation of intellectual property rights.

My blog is a place where I decided that truth would prevail over falsehood waaaaay before you asserted yourself.  The truth is that you called me a name; I reported it and editorialized where I deemed appropriate so that any reasonable reader would be able to understand the basis for the discussion in its entirety.

I've decided to go ahead and repost the original article that started this drama simply because after reviewing the edited version I felt that it did not carry the full weight of the truth.  I did not want my readers to see your name in the page's URL and not understand what part you play in this story.

You exercised your freedom of speech when you called me a cry baby.  You exercised your freedom of choice when you chose to e-mail me, despite the fact that I had requested you not do so.  I did what I could to remove your name from the original post because I agreed to.  Unselfishly, I give you the unfettered ability to explain yourself and your side of the situation even now.

Yet your vanity would not let you leave this alone and again, you have found yourself to be the subject of another blog post.  The shame of this is that you actually believe that I even really cared about you or who you thought you were to begin with.  Instead you called me a name in a manner you thought would remain clandestine among your acquaintances.  Your true colors were laid bare.

I choose to make this conversation public because I have reached a point with you that I feel others now also need to review the facts and make their own judgments based upon our conversation.

Am I over the top?  Absolutely I am but... that is who I was before you came into my life and libeled me.  You did not know me, but to characterize me as a cry baby over a request to have my property removed from a website over which you obviously exert some control does constitute defamation.  If you want to talk about harming reputations let's discuss the legal definition of the term libel; a written defamation, to charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone.

You might want to consider that... I am.  You obviously just don’t get it.  This isn’t about copyrights- they are only an adjunct to the story.  This is about you and my questions about your poor judgment in defaming me only when you thought it would remain your secret.  You used the phrase “like men.”  My father taught me that to be a man, one has to be plain dealing with others- you were not.  You were only polite when you had to be.  You got caught.

Refer back to the topic of my blog.  This is about truth and examination.

P.S. Clint was up long before you were ever mentioned in my blog and you spelled “sheriff” incorrectly.

Have a great Valentine's Day, everyone!

Comments

[Mdbtyhtr]

For the life of me, I can't fathom the defense of an indefensible position. A thief is a thief, all day long by definition. To steal, plagarize, use, benefit of or from without renumertion or even the slightest compliment to the author is theft. low down dirty thiefing, plain and simple. The five year olds excuse of "I didn't know it was yours" speaks cleary to your readers of Mr. C's carachter, or lack of it. Clearly my dear child, you knew it wasn't YOURS!
Please excuse me while I vomit...