« Yet another blogger looking into Quixtar | Main | Billy B. Britt involved in scam? »
August 10, 2003
Is Your Church A Market Place?
By QBlog in
Found the note below posted on the Memory Hole Dreambook today:
Don
http://you know the site
Because of a request from the author of the work, I've removed "Is Your Church a Market Place" from my website. His reason for asking me to remove the page is on the frontpage:
The Explanation Page posts this email from Kim Mather:
On August 9, 2003; I received this letter from Kim Mather:name: kim mather
email: (not shown)
subject: is your church a market place
comments: hi don:thank you for so generously hosting this book online. i would like to request that you take it offline so that it no longer appears on the internet. my reason for this request is personal and have nothing to do with anything that you have done.
please honor this request and thank you for all that you have done and all that you are doing to help people that have been misdirected by some mlm program they got caught up in.
keep fighting the battle, and even though this book will no longer be online you have my full hearted support and appreciation for what you are doing.
kim s. mather
In response to his request, I have removed the book from my website.
Well, I have never read this "Church Market" book and probably never would have until I saw the note from Don. One thing that I simultaneously love and hate about the Net is the malleability of the information contained within its digital spaces. Unlike tangible records, those on the Net can disappear, change and mutate in an instant. Without warning or explanation what we saw yesterday may only remain in our memories today. That's not really a bad thing but it can cause problems. As a Web designer I love the fact that my work can be gradually improved almost transparently. So, I understand this aspect of the Net very well and therefore I respect it.
Now, there are ways to retrieve some information but not many. Google is thankfully our most reliable defense against changing or disappearing content on the Net, but it's not foolproof. Because things relating to censorship, access and the Net in general greatly interest me I went on a mission to find the complete book that was removed from Don's site.
I found it and here it is: Is Your Church A Market Place?
I should not that the links in the actual book probably don't work.
Now, why am I posting this on my site? For a couple of reasons:
1. I just finished reading George Orwell's 1984 last week. I was partially motivated to read the book by the clever title of Don Hargraves' MLM site. In the book, information was centrally controlled and either modified or removed at the whim of "Big Brother." I shudder to think that someone can simply delete information out of existence like a newsclipping being dropped down the Memory Hole. I'm doing something to ensure that this information does not vanish from the planet. I'm the "anti-Memory Hole" I guess.
2. I also get angry when people publish things on the Web without understanding what that means. When something gets posted on the Web, it's out there and you no longer control what is done to that information. Sure, you have some rights but what I'm talking about is that once you "release" that content onto the Web, you've set something in motion that is almost impossible to stop. That's what I LOVE about the Web. I've been directly and indirectly involved in situations where large corporations simply didn't understand this very basic concept about the Web. They'd release something and then try to remove it a few days later only to find out that it had been copied onto 15 other sites. That's one of the most beautiful things about the Net. It's still this vast community that nobody can totally control. By posting this book, I guess I'm doing my Web duty to keep perpetuating this fundamental principle of Web life.
I still haven't read the book. I've glanced through it but don't really have any idea what it's about. I also don't really understand why Don took it down. He explained why Kim wanted it removed by not why he complied. I'm not at my home computer so I'll ask Don later.
Anyway, now you've gotten a glimpse of what makes me tick. Believe me, it's only a glimpse. Enjoy the book.
Comments
Please note this is not an add.. i'm not connectid to the internet archive project. I just thought you and your users might find it a usefull tool.
Have you heard of the Internet archive? It has a great acrhive of websites going back to 1996. So u can watch the evolution of a website or See what it was like to suff the web on a particular day in the past.
Here is a qoute form thier website "The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public." Their website is http://www.archive.org/
From one of the ever growing Quixtar IBO's who are trying to make it to platinum withought the system. I used to have a Co-worker who was in a Non-system group. I shall try to re-connect with him and see how his diamonds group is doing and if they are still around.
keep up the good work and I'm glad to hear you are sticking around for atleast another year.
Ifo
if you liked orwell, check out huxley's brave new world
also, read chomsky. he explains how business school is just teaching people how to smile while ripping you off.
Posted by: kap | March 27, 2004 11:19 PM