The Stupid 365 Project, Day 34: Crook’s Source
November 4th, 2010
My day is never complete unless I get an opportunity to express a certain amount of umbrage. So my thanks to Bonnie Riley for calling to my attention something that is freeing up umbrage all over the Internet.
There’s a magazine called COOK’S SOURCE that is edited by an appallingly arrogant, appallingly ignorant semi-human named Judith Griggs. If you doubt that she deserves all that censure, and more, read on.
Seems a writer/cooking expert named Monica Gaudio put up a historical piece, with recipe, about apple pies/tarts on a site called Gode Cookery and was surprised, as well she might have been, to see it appear, almost word for word, on the site of Cook’s Source, which I will not dignify with a link. She wrote the editor of Cook’s Source, an appallingly arrogant, etc. semi-human named Judith Griggs, to complain. When Judith Griggs briefly peered down through the clouds veiling Olympus to ask what Monica Gaudio wanted to make things square, Monica asked for a printed apology and a donation of $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism.
To anyone with any sense of moral pitch, the donation request would have been a dead giveaway that Monica Gaudio was a good person, uninterested in profit or personal aggrandizement. Judith Griggs, however is morally tone-deaf. This is the reply she sent to Monica Gaudio:
But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”
Just to boil it down, all writing on the Web actually belongs to this piece of tattered gristle who goes by the name of Judith Griggs, and anyone who is fortunate enough to be ripped off by Judith Griggs should send money to her — the tattered gristle called Judith Griggs — to pay for her divine editing touch.
By the way, whatever happened to the notion that women, when they gained power, would run things differently? Well, maybe Judith Griggs is a man.
This has not gone down well on the Internet. In one of the moments that actually gives me hope for the 21st century, thousands of people are putting on their heaviest boots and jumping up and down on Judith Griggs and Cook’s Source. And, the Internet being what it is, someone immediately found other pieces on Cook’s Source that were simply cut-and-pasted from other sites.
If you’d like to express a little umbrage of your own, here’s what you do: Go to the Facebook page of Cook’s Source, friend them, leave a message, and then unfriend them. If you’ve been missing lately that feeling of being absolutely, morally in the right, here’s your chance to regain it.
On the plus side, this little flare-up has given me the first lines and a title for my new book. The opening: ” It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” And I’ll call it A Tale of Two Large Urban Areas.
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15 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 34: Crook’s Source” -
Lil Gluckstern Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
At the risk of being serious, I think this is a period in history where winning is everything, and how you do it-by lying, spending, cheating, and being supercondescending-doesn’t matter.
There are exceptions-your readers, and bloggers, most of the voters in California, and my beloved San Francisco Giants, who are the most diverse collections of characters that were still good enough to win the World Series. But in my everyday life, supercilious, nasty folks are winning, and I find it very disturbing. I will try to slam Cook’s source on
FB-my turn to be nasty.
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Maria Yolanda Aguayo Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Judith Griggs seems to have her minions prowl the internet for content for her magazine. Is that what she is suppose to do? Why not contact the author of the original article and pay a fee. Isn’t that the usual way it works.
I’m ignorant. But clearly, her snotty remark deserves my umbrage.
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Phil Hanson Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Tim, the opening of your new book should be revised to reflect the reality of the times: “It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.” Update the names and the scenery and you’ve got a bestseller on your hands. You probably won’t even have to worry about the copyright infringement issue; surely Dickens’ classic tale is in the public domain by now.
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Suzanna Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Judith Griggs, aka, Tattered Gristle, is begging for a smackdown.
She definitely needs to go to good old fashioned Hades, no Heck for her.
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EverettK Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Unfortunately, when things become easier, they become easier for EVERYONE, crooks included (JG above, Nigeria, etc).
Fortunately, things have become easier for the good-guys, too. They can discover these things that are stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe, alert everyone else, and then holy Hell (to link into yesterday’s blog…) can rain down on them.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty much a zero-sum game. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Thanks, everybody, for responding. This one is almost too easy. Since I put this up, Judith Griggs has deleted her personal website, and apparently most of the magazine’s advertisers have announced that they’re pulling their ads.
I hope this doesn’t negatively affect the people who had the misfortune to work under Ms. Gristle. It would be terrible if a bunch of blameless peons lost their jobs because of this imperious twit.
Tomorrow I’ll go positive, maybe. And, Phil, I do like the new opening. “It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.” I can do something with that.
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Gary Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
“Recalled to life.” Well, this particular issue has certainly invigorated your blog, hasn’t it? And a blazing strange issue it is, too.
But is it so blazing strange after all? The rise of the internet is coupled with the demise of sub-editors: anybody can write anything, as ungrammatically as they like, and it doesn’t matter.
If you doubt me, try wading through the hundreds of badly written comments on news stories. I mean, who reads all this stuff?
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Gary, how did you do that boldface? Can you do italics, too?
Few things are more depressing than reading the comments on the Huffington Post, and it’s all the more distressing because many of the comment-writers more or less agree with me about things.
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fairyhedgehog Says:
November 5th, 2010 at 4:21 am
I’ve rarely seen such arrogance on public display. “You should thank me for stealing your work”? It’s mind-boggling.
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Bonnie Says:
November 5th, 2010 at 5:28 am
The ignorance of copyright could have been forgiven; it was the world-weary condescending tone of the response that gave everyone so much satisfaction in bashing her. I hope a bunch of schoolteachers are jumping on this opportunity to explain the concept to the generation that is growing up on Facebook.
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EverettK Says:
November 5th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Tim said: Gary, how did you do that boldface? Can you do italics, too?
Sheesh, I hate the inflectionlessness (there’s a blog entry for you, Tim, how much you hate the butchering of the English language…) of this written medium. I can almost never tell when you’re being sarcastic and when you just have a flea infestation in your shorts.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 5th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Ms. Griggs is actually too easy. If I do another full frontal attack, it’ll be on someone whom some of you might defend.
To pick up on some responses:
Everett, very impressive with the French. But you’re right in that the Internet has probably given rise to more scams than it’s exposed. And as to your second post, I don’t find this medium inflectionless, just a challenge to rite a little better. (Quick, get Judith Griggs in here to improve that.)
FHH and Bonnie, I agree — the copyright violation was bad, but the tone was literally insufferable. And she’s paying heavily for it.
There must be a moral lesson here somewhere.
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Bonnie Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Here is a follow-up–not to call it an apology exactly: http://www.cookssource.com/index.html
As Sarah tweets: “This is still a big What Not to Do. Avoiding the issues of theft, copyright, and “internet=public domain” with whining is not apology.”
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 9th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
It’s better than nothing but I notice it makes no mention of the tone of the response and also doesn’t name Judith Griggs, which leads me to believe JG wrote the apology and Cook’s Source may be a one-woman show,
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Bonnie Says:
November 10th, 2010 at 7:38 am
http://tinyurl.com/23xen3w A funny take on the “apology” by a well known food blogger.
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