Whew!  I have been sick lately and am just this week catching up on a lot of projects.  I haven’t posted much this month at all.

I finished reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin this week.  I had never read it in school and got interested in it after watching a TV show, Black. White., on FX last year.  The story details the real experiences of the author who used medication, sun lamps, and dye to experience life as a black American.  In the South.  In 1959.  Before the Civil Rights Act.  Before desegregation.  It’s the rare kind of book that not only examines history carefully, but actually made history while it was being written and again after it was published.  It’s fortunate that Griffin is so capable of articulating his thoughts and feelings as both spectator and participant during the month he spent on his project and the months and years later during his subsequent role in the civil rights scene.

It’s awful to think of how recent segregation was and how far we’ve come along, yet how far we still have to go.  Although I’ve certainly thought about race relations and civil rights as we know them today, I had never really given significant time to study them in the past outside of the classroom.  And even in the classroom, I was too young to comprehend how recent and painful some of the things that occurred as recently as the 1960’s.  To me as a young man, even the disco era was deep past.  Now that I’m older and my circle of friends has expanded to include some guys who had graduated high school years before this book was even written, I have a greater appreciation for how recent these times were.  And Griffin helps to explain how tragic the problem is.  I won’t go into some of my thoughts on the issues Griffin raises because I think his book does it best; however, there was one particular section that caught my attention and I wanted to share:

"I thought of Maritain’s conclusion that the only solution to the problems of man is the return of charity (in the old embracing sense of caritas, not in the stingy literal sense it has assumed in our language and in our days) and metaphysics.  Or, more simply, the maxim of St. Augustine: ‘Love, and then do what you will.’ To live in a world where men do not love, where they cheat and are callous, is to sink into a preoccupation with death, and to see the futility of anything except virtue.”
John Howard Griffin from Black Like Me

Some of the things I would like to talk about and what I do have an opinion on, was how this book made me feel.  First off, I felt ashamed and embarassed that I never really thought too deeply about how things were.  I mean, I knew there were bathrooms and water fountains for “Whites Only,” but I never gave much thought to what that really meant.  I guess I just figured everywhere there were two bathrooms and two water fountains, one for whites and one for blacks.  Maybe if it was a busy place, they’d have four bathrooms: men and women of both races.  Kind of like how I figured it was when they the forced blacks in the South to sit on the back of the bus; they just divided the bus in two and everyone got a ride.  What could I have been thinking if anything at all?

Griffin details what it was like when the only bathrooms available were for whites only.  Whenever black folks went out they would have to always know where all the closest bathrooms were and even then they’d have to walk miles to get to one.  Even stores where blacks were welcome to patronize would turn people away.  A family could spend all their money in a store but still not be able to get a a drink or sandwich at its lunch counter.  How hard it must have been for mothers to take their children out and not have a place for them to go.  How humiliating and demeaning it must have been for a grown man to be always told when and where he can use the toilet, a right Griffin accurately identifies as something people readily gave their livestock or pets.  Griffin even details a stop-over on a long distance bus ride where the driver won’t let the black passengers off the bus at all.  It’s a despicable act by a cruel man, but more despicable is that it was considered acceptable by-and-large.  It’s embarrassing to think how petty and small people could have been.  Racism doesn’t just demean the intended target, but it demans the offender.

I’m glad some things have improved.  I hope they continue to do so.  Hopefully some day, along with chapters like this civil rights era, all of racism is considered history.

"The players in this drama of frustration and indignity are not commas or semicolons in a legislative thesis; they are people, human beings, citizens of the United States of America.”
Roy Wilkins

In the past I’ve talked about some good digital photography sites like Picture-history.com.  Here’s another great source of digital photographs, the New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery.  The gallery offers a wide assortment including scanned images of photographs, drawings, manuscripts, maps, and rare illustrated books.  Particularly interesting is the American Revolution Section.

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/

When I first setup this blog, I programmed in Google’s AdSense.  I never had expectations of earning any money from the ads, but I thought they added some weight to the site, particularly in my first days of blogging.  Besides, they were unobtrusive and I definitely understand the need for companies to be able to target consumers.  A lot of great technologies failed or have struggled due to poor marketing or an inability to reach the market.  My father bought a couple BetaMax recorders (and video camera) and I personally have bought several Syquest drives and still run my ReplayTV.

Yesterday, I received an email from Google AdSense informing me that something was amiss.  According to the email, “invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on the Google ads on your site.” I had no idea what this meant and reviewed the terms and policies referenced, but aside from some very shocking verbiage about Google’s censoring policies, I couldn’t find much info on what it was that Google AdSense wanted me to do.  So I sent them an email.

Mon 10/2/2006 8:32 PM
From: Deezle.com
To: Google AdSense

Hello,
I was distressed to see this email.  Although I don’t yet have the volume to make AdSense a financial reward (I haven’t generated any money yet), I subscribed because I like the idea of targeted advertisements to my readers and I appreciate Google’s wonderful offerings of which I’ve written several times in my Blog.  I would be upset to lose the Google Ads for this reason.  Since I am not the culprit that is using these ads incorrectly, can you provide more information such as a specific IP address or range of addresses I could block from abusing Google AdSense?  What steps can I take?  Any help or information you could provide would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Paul McMahon

I thought this was simple, explained my case, and was more than gracious in offering to take any action necessary to correct whatever it is that Google AdSense was demanding.  However, while waiting for a response, I started to do a little more digging on my own and didn’t like what I found.

Some of Google’s advertisement policies are:

"Your site must not contain broken links and must be launched, functioning, and easily navigable."

Ok, I get where they’re going here.  Broken links and poor site designs are plaguing the internet.  Google is simply doing its job by trying to enforce a level of standard.  Maybe Google should approve the color choice and logo, too.  There are just too many ugly web sites with black backgrounds.  Have they seen Sibology.com?

But then another rule said:

"Web pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers’ sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the ads. “

Huh?  Am I reading this right?  Don’t encourage your users to click on the ads?  I know I’m not some high-fallooting advertising executive or anything, but I always thought the purpose of advertising was to garner a little attention.  But ok, if Google AdSense doesn’t want me to direct attention to the ads or recommend the advertisers..  In keeping with Google’s wishes, my site policy now requires that you not look at the Google Ads.  Do not click on the Google Ads.  Do not buy any of the products mentioned in the Google Ads.  In fact, it’s best if you don’t associate with anyone who is even thinking about buying one of the products mentioned in the Google Ads.  This is not a limited offer.  Operators are not standing by.  Kids, don’t ask your parents permission.  Let’s just pretend it never happened, ok?

"Ads must not be displayed on any page with content primarily in an unsupported language."

It doesn’t say what qualifies as a supported language.  I hope it’s English.  I speak a little French but I don’t think my posts would be good if limited to rambling discussions about my yellow pencil (le crayon est jaune).  C’est ci bon!  Or maybe they mean programming language.  Is PHP ok?  How about Javascript?  Perl is probably out of the question.  What if I decide to run a Gopher site?

"Clicks on Google ads must not result in a new browser window being launched."

That’s odd.  I always open links up in a new window.  Have I been causing a disturbance on every web site I’ve ever visited by holding down the shift key when clicking?  Is there some other form letter that Google AdSense sends out to these sites reporting: “Once again one of your users has opened one of our sites in its own browser window.  We hate that.  We have no other choice than to post that embarrassing photo of you that we took when our Google Maps satellite passed over your house.  Did you really think we would hesitate?  Mu-hahahaha!  Bloggers everywhere will be linking to a surprisingly detailed satellite image of you tripping over the garden hose and falling into the rhododendrums.  Please cease this activity at once or next it’s the photo of you in the hot tub while your wife was out of town.”

"It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct traffic to pages that contain your AdSense code."

Ok, now this one sounds a little ominous.  If some other site or ad network directs traffic to my pages it’s my responsibility to track them down and stop them?  Wow!  I’m like an internet deputy or something.  Can I issue warrants?  Can I have a gun?  While I’m at it, I might as well cleanup all the spam that’s floating around.  It’s just a nuisance.

"We do not permit Google ads… on web pages that also contain what could be considered competing ads."

Well, I don’t have any other ads, but I wonder what qualifies as a competing ad.  I usually write about things I like and include links to web sites where you can read more and sometimes make a purchase.  I wonder if that could be considered a competing ad?  I am bringing attention to these products and I already learned that Google AdSense doesn’t like that.

"These prohibited methods include… autosurf."

Aha!  I might have something here.  I subscribe to blogging engines like BlogExplosion, BlogSoldiers, and BlogMad.  Recently a user suggested Autosurfmonster.  Could this be it?  Is this what Google AdSense is defending against?  Bloggers advertising their web sites?  Maybe by wanting people to find my web site, I have become the ubiquitous “competing ad.” Fortunately, Google sent another email.  Hopefully this email will shed more light on the matter:

Tue 10/3/2006 4:29 PM
From: Google AdSense
To: Deezle.com

As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click and impression activity very seriously. Due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account. However, we can assure you that we have thoroughly re-reviewed your account, and have confirmed that your account violated our program’s Terms and Conditions.

Well that’s not very helpful.  We can’t tell you what we found or how we found it, but trust us: something’s fishy. They even re-reviewed my account.  How many times is that?  At this point I thought I should re-rereview my Google AdSense account statistics.  Last month I had 1,261 page impressions and no clicks.  None.  Nada.  Clearly the edict not to click on the ads is paying off.  In fact, since I’ve setup my blog, my Google AdSense account has earned just $3.33.  Since I have to wait until the amount reaches $100 for a payout, I should get this check around the time I collect my first social security check.  I’ll be eating lobster that month!

Without further information and lacking any real incentive to continue debating the issue of whether I would allow Google’s advertisers to appear on my site, I decided to compose another email:

Tue 10/3/2006 11:39PM
From: Deezle.com
To:

Since this offers no actual information on what I’m supposed to do, I have resolved the problem by electing to remove Google’s AdSense advertisements from my Blog.  Although I don’t understand how Google is served by this, I nonetheless have nothing to gain from arguing the point.  Please cancel my AdSense account immediately.

Thank you,
Paul McMahon

If I’m anything, I’m a man of my word.