poisonwood's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- flood zone If you are ever tempted to buy a house in a flood zone, check out these photos. I grew up in a town that experienced flash floods. We lived on top of a mountain, but I saw plenty of houses several feet under water, which cured any thoughts I might have ever had of living in a flood zone. In some cities, it can't be avoided, but Sea*ttle is not one of those cities. If I were in charge, people would be required to provide clear information about the flood zone status of a house when it was for sale. That is not the case here to my knowledge. 3:58 p.m. - Jan. 12, 2009 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- on letters I wrote a letter to Run*ner's World last fall about an article. On the end of my letter, which was negative, I tacked on some comments about "The Newbie Chronicles," which I'd been enjoying. I thought as long as I'm going to complain, I might as well share what I thought was good as well. To my great surprise, they e-mailed me and told me that my letter had been printed in the Feb issue, which I just received. (I'd written to share my opinion, not in hopes that my letter would be printed. For some reason I figured they received lots of letters and would never print mine.) Here's what I wrote: On a more positive note, I'm really enjoying the new Newbie chronicles. I'm not a newbie; I've been running for more than 15 years. However, I still struggle with motivation, and I love reading about how this guy drags himself outside, and despite how hard it is, keeps going. Keep up the good work with that. Here's what they printed:
I really resent the fact that they changed my words completely. I feel they even changed the meaning slightly, and I don't think I've ever used the expression "fires me up" in my life. It's not a big deal; it's just a silly quote in a running magazine, but the principle of the thing really bothers me. Is it legal for them to attribute words to me that are not mine if the meaning is approximately the same? This is the second time this has happened to me, though the last occasion was less egregious. I sent a letter to the Seat*tle Times and they changed the punctuation and edited it by leaving out some words. (I only noticed this after someone pointed out that the punctuation was WRONG, and I was surprised because I'm usually careful about such things. Sure enough, they had "corrected" my original words.) On all future letters, I will add a postscript: "Reproduce only exactly as written." or something similar. 12:26 p.m. - Jan. 10, 2009 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||