Blogger sacked for sounding off

Waterstone's says bookseller brought firm into disrepute

Patrick Barkham
Wednesday January 12, 2005
The Guardian


Former Waterstone's employee Joe Gordon. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
 

A bookseller has become the first blogger in Britain to be sacked from his job because he kept an online diary in which he occasionally mentioned bad days at work and satirised his "sandal-wearing" boss.

Mr Gordon joined Waterstone's while a student in 1993, a year after he began a satirical newsletter which evolved into his blog, called the Woolamaloo Gazette.

Named after Monty Python's fictional University of Woolloomooloo, the blog contains the typical musings of online diarists across the world, linking to interesting websites and sounding off about current affairs and favourite films. There is much to please Waterstone's: most of the blog is devoted to extolling the virtues of reading and Mr Gordon's favourite science fiction and graphic novels.

In the past two months, the bookseller, who helped set up a branch of Waterstone's, ran bookclubs and appeared on radio and TV for his company, mentioned his work twice.

On one occasion, he ranted about his "sandal-wearing" manager he nicknamed "Evil Boss", which he said was a caricature like the "Pointy Haired Boss" in the Dilbert cartoons. In another posting, Mr Gordon joked about "Bastardstone's".

After he was suspended pending an investigation into his blog, he was called before a formal disciplinary meeting and sacked last week.

"The book trade can only exist with freedom of speech and information," he said last night. "It is a big personal blow to me to lose my job and it also has grave implications beyond that - for anybody who works for any company and blogs, which is thousands of people."

The move has also alarmed the global internet community. Mr Gordon has received dozens of emails from other bloggers who have heard about his plight, with some pledging to boycott Waterstone's.

While Boris Johnson wrote about his sacking from the Tory frontbench on his blog, it is believed to be the first time in Britain a blogger has been dismissed for what they published on the web.

In the US, Ellen Simonetti was sacked from her job as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines after her bosses saw pictures of her posing in her uniform on her website, which recounted the adventures of an anonymous flight attendant who worked for "Anonymous Airline".

Jessica Cutler, a 24-year-old secretary at a senator's office who wrote about selling sex to officials in Washington under the online name of Washingtonienne, was outed on the internet and sacked from her job.

The literary world has also spoken out against the sacking. Richard Morgan, the science fiction author, has written a letter of protest to Waterstone's.

"This bears comparison with taking disciplinary action based on private conversations overheard in a pub, and raises some disturbing issues of freedom of speech," he said.

"Waterstone's is, after all, a bookseller, whose stock in trade is the purveying of opinion, not all of it palatable to those concerned. The action that has been taken so far bears more resemblance to the behaviour of an American fast-food chain than a company who deal in intellectual freedoms and the concerns of a pluralist liberal society."

Five years ago, an award-winning advertising campaign for Waterstone's focused on the importance of freedom of speech. One image featured a burned book with the slogan: "Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot & Mao Tse-Tung were right about one thing. The Power of Books."

A spokeswoman for Waterstone's confirmed Mr Gordon had been sacked. "At this stage we can't comment on it," she said. "He has two opportunities to appeal after he receives his letter of dismissal through the post."

The Retail Books Association, which represents 6,000 people working in the book trade, said it would help Mr Gordon appeal against his dismissal. If an appeal with a regional area manager is rejected, the blogger could take the matter to an employment tribunal.

According to the RBA, Waterstone's should introduce guidelines determining what its employers can say online about their work.

"We are hopeful we can get him reinstated," said David Pickles, president of the RBA. "We feel it was heavy-handed and they have overreacted. The company has no guidelines to say 'please don't' [write about work on a weblog]. They shouldn't use a hammer to crack a nut.

"Some of the products they sell that are on open view to the public upset people far more. If MPs can slag each other off in parliament and the press, then surely Joe having a bad day and putting it down on the website should be allowed.

"As long as there is no one being discriminating or offensive, if it is just fun and opinion, then I can't see it being a problem. It's just how he felt on the day."

Adventures with Evil Boss

Monday, Dec 13 2004

On the way home from a dreadful day at work (I should really have phoned in sick but couldn't face the hassle this causes), I walked rather than catching the bus to get the blood flowing a little. Not far from my flat is a new bakery/pastry store, The Old Bakehouse, which also has an art gallery in the basement. Delicious pastries and artwork? Now how cool is that? Groovy.

Tuesday, Nov 16

Bad things recently. Having to pay Edinburgh bastard moneygrubbing council's tax, may they choke on every penny. Return to shift working as Evil Boss decrees even those now in stockroom must do late and early shifts, which is a waste of time for that post.

Xmas working hours brought in early - first shift now starts at 7.30 bloody am, which is fucking ridiculous.

Evil Boss fucking me off by refusing my requests for a day's holiday on the 31st of December for my birthday and the first week of January off as I have taken for the last few years ...

Evil Boss then has cheek to ask me to work one of the bloody bank holidays in the week he refused me off. Cheeky smegger. Said no.

Noticing he has put me down for one of those days anyway, the sandal-wearing bastard. Words will be exchanged - if he gives me my birthday off I will do his bank holiday day. If not, he can kiss my magnificent Celtic ass, since it is voluntary.

Monday Nov 8

Yes, my day slaving for Bastardstone's was lightened (never an easy task on a Monday) by one of the avalanche of humour books that appear before Xmas, Far From [Dull] and Other Places by Dominic Greyer ...

Amusing myself this week with Rich Hall's excellent biography of his redneck "uncle", Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, and probably pissing everyone in our staffroom out by laughing my arse off.

From Fongster8

WHY I SPELL "COREA" WITH A "C"

The name Korea originates from the French description of this peninsula "Coree" when it was first discovered by the Westerners.

Now, it used to be "Coree" (in French) or "Corea (in other Latin countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc). So, prior to Japanese colonial rule, all foreigners called us Cor'ee or Corea, and the land was also known abroad as such.

Until the 18th century, French was dominant diplomatic language. Prior to and during the Congress of Vienna (1815), there was quite a controversy over the diplomatic hierarchy as to who should enter the conference room (banquet hall, etc) first among kings, queens, ambassadors, etc, because they were all co-equals as head of a land - the so-called sovereignty factor. So, at the end of the Congress, it was agreed that the diplomatic hierarchy (or precedence - not ranking but the order of seating, so to speak) would follow the initial of each country in order of the French language. This practice is still in use at UN and other occasions to eliminate possible displeasure among the participants.

When the Japanese occupied Korea in 1910, Japan changed it into Korea, because C would come before J, but J would come before K, and they did not want ever to follow behind Koreans in any international stage. Not only at meetings, but in any international order, publications, index, flags displays, etc. etc. Subsequently, Japan occupied Korea for 35 years, and of course, the name "Korea" stuck with us ever since.

- Dr. Jung Ha Lee, PhD

http://www.medeasin.com/coreaspelling2.htm

62 YEARS AGO TODAY

Jan 14 1943

Actress Frances Farmer forcefully taken to jail for parole violations with regard to her drunk driving conviction. She states her occupation as "cocksucker", receives a 180 day sentence, and some days later is committed to an insane asylum.

Frances Farmer, known around her home town as the “bad girl of West Seattle” for her spirited, headstrong and magnetic personality, was the stunningly beautiful actress of stage and screen whose all-too-brief career lit up Hollywood and Broadway in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Appearing like a comet out of the Pacific Northwest to make her film debut in 1936 in Too Many Parents, during the next six years she appeared in 18 films, three Broadway plays, thirty major radio shows and seven stock company productions – all by the age of 27. She was soon being compared to Greta Garbo.

     However, while her professional career was exploding, her personal life was disintegrating. Suffering through one failed marriage to actor Leif Erickson, a string of failed relationships and pressured by her career, she had already developed an addiction to amphetamines (benzedrine), taken to help control her weight.

          According to one account, “Drinking heavily, she got into a fight and was arrested. In court the following morning, she was placed into the custody of psychiatrist Thomas H. Leonard. Leonard, with whom Farmer refused to cooperate, soon diagnosed her as “suffering from manic-depressive psychosis – probably the forerunner of a definite dementia praecox,” a diagnosis “which has since been dismissed as meaningless gibberish.” The next day she was transferred to the screen actors’ sanitarium in La Crescenta.

     At the sanitarium, she was subjected to insulin shock treatment, “a brutal psychiatric torture that stuns the body in addition to inflicting extensive brain damage.” Reacting badly to the insulin shock – she received some 90 of these – Farmer was no longer able to concentrate or remember lines.

 Farmer escaped, only to find herself institutionalized again in March 1944, when her mother secretly swore out a complaint against her. At Western Washington State hospital at Steilacoom, psychiatrists immediately embarked upon an extensive course of electroshock treatments in an attempt to break her defiant and rebellious will.

“Hydrotherapy” was added. This consisted of her being stripped naked and thrown into a tub of icy water for six to eight hours at a time. After several more months, she was publicly declared “completely cured.” “I think this case demonstrates just how successfully antisocial behavior can be modified,” said psychiatrist Dr. Donald Nicholson.

     Returning home, Farmer remained terrified at the prospect of being incarcerated again and repeatedly ran away, always gathering press in the process. Stung by publicity that seemed to promote their failure, the psychiatrists contacted her mother and explained that “Frances had, in effect, ‘tricked’ them, that she had merely been ‘acting’ normal. She had obviously needed more ‘treatment’ all along.” On May 5, 1945, her mother had her returned to Steilacoom. She would remain there for the next five years.

     Both criminals and the mentally retarded were crowded together, their meals thrown on the floor to be fought over. Farmer was again subjected to regular and continuous electroshock. In addition, she was prostituted to soldiers from the local military base and raped and abused by the orderlies. “One of the most vivid recollections of some veterans of the institution would be the sight of Frances Farmer being held down by orderlies and raped by drunken gangs of soldiers.”

She was also used as an experimental subject for drugs such as Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril and Prolixin.

Dr. Walter Freeman

     One of her last visitors before again being declared “cured” and released was Dr. Walter Freeman, America’s “foremost psychosurgeon” who developed the transorbital lobotomy (a treatment which only required the lifting of the eye lid and the insertion of an ice pick to tear into the brain). Freeman treated Farmer and she would never be the same again.

      Frances Farmer died at the age of 57, destitute and her spirit broken.

-http://www.cchr.org/art/eng/page34.htm

I miss the comfort in being sad

In her false witness, we hope you're still with us,
To see if they float or drown
Our favorite patient, a display of patience,
Disease-covered Puget Sound
She'll come back as fire, to burn all the liars,
And leave a blanket of ash on the ground.

-Nirvana, Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle

Today is  National Dress Up Your Pet Day

From Annies_Snapshots

Volunteers are to be 'burnt' by scientists to see if faith eases pain. Oxford University scientists will carry out experiments on hundreds of people in a bid to understand how the brain works during states of consciousness.

One aspect of the two-year study will involve followers of both religious and secular beliefs being burnt to see if they can handle more pain than others. Some volunteers will be shown religious symbols such as crucifixes and images of the Virgin Mary during the tests.

Centre deputy director Toby Collins added: "The reason we are using pain is that it is easily standardized but varies greatly between individuals."

Dr Alison Gray, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said "Religious practices such as prayer and meditation release endorphins and would in theory increase the pain threshold."

Inmate Says Graner Laughed During Abuse

Jan 11, 3:32 PM (ET)

By T.A. BADGER

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - A Syrian inmate at Abu Ghraib prison testified in a videotape played for a jury Tuesday that Army Spc. Charles Graner merrily whistled, sang and laughed while brutalizing him and forced him to eat pork and drink alcohol in violation of his Muslim faith.

Amin al-Sheikh, in a deposition played at Graner's court-martial, said Graner threatened more than once to kill him and told him to thank Jesus for keeping him alive. The inmate also said he listened through his cell wall as Graner and other Americans forced a Yemeni prisoner to eat from a toilet.

Graner handcuffed him to his cell door with his arms behind his back for eight hours. Graner also accompanied a U.S. soldier who urinated on him, al-Sheikh said.

Beggars 'pour into aid-rich coasts'
From correspondents in Bangalore
12jan05

BEGGARS from the south Indian technology capital Bangalore have shifted operations to the tsunami-hit coastline where aid cash and supplies is overflowing.

The traditional haunts of Bangalore's beggars - temples, mosques and churches as well as train and bus stations - were virtually deserted.

The Times of India quotes Karnataka state's Beggar Relief Committee as saying, "beggars are an intelligent breed but are lazy."

"They have been trained a lifetime to tell lies. They can survive anywhere and in any season. They are very capable in conning tsunami volunteers."

AFP reporters in Nagapattinam district, which recorded more than 6000 deaths in the December 26 tragedy, have seen villagers who were not affected by the tsunamis lining the roads to beg for relief supplies intended for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Measure your happiness

-Time, January 17, 2005

TSA: Arsonists OK as Hazmat Haulers
Posted: 1/10/2005 1:14:52 PM

The federal government wants to change its current rules to permit convicted arsonists to get special licenses so they can drive gasoline tankers and trucks loaded with explosives and hazardous materials.The government plans to begin issuing the new licenses Jan. 31.

Last May, the agency issued regulations that would have prohibited anyone convicted of arson from driving hazardous material trucks. But on Nov. 24 the TSA announced in the Federal Register that officials had changed their minds and no longer regarded arson as being among the most serious crimes warranting lifetime disqualification.