SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

I’m considering requiring people to either register for the site in order to comment, or to at least provide a verified e-mail address.

Why? The tone of the comments has changed significantly over the past few months, especially as we’ve grown and attracted new readers. For the most part, things are good and I’m very proud of the discussions that have emerged between civil and thoughtful readers of the site. However, I’ve noticed a few, er, disorderly personalities leaving rude and distasteful comments.

The common characteristic of these readers appears to be their use of one-time handles and fake e-mail addresses. Having registration or requiring, at the least, a verified e-mail address seems like an effective way of combating that without needing to moderate every comment.

So – your thoughts? I’ll be making my decision by next Monday.

I believe reader nolastname wanted to “bitch.” So, please, the floor is yours, nolastname.

Shame on WPIX 11 and News 12. Both of these stations called me, admitted to me that they discovered the story about the new sex shop, KamaSutra, on Sheepshead Bites.  They told me, “Oh, we love your site. You do such a good job covering the neighborhood…”

Blah, blah, blah…

If you follow Sheepshead Bites on Facebook, you know exactly where this post is going.

Both channels wanted to use my photos, presumably the one of the kids looking into the store’s window. So after flattering me, and telling me how great my work is, and how they used it to find this amazing story – they told me how great it would be,  how beneficial to me, if I gave them my work for free.

Screw that, and screw you local television news. If the Daily News or New York Post needs one of my photos, they’ll pay me for it. You, though, have been stealing content from everyone else for as long as I can remember. Where you used to take the front page stories from the city papers, without attribution, you now steal the content of every blogger in this borough, and never- NEVER – let viewers know where the story came from, or where they can find out more.

Don’t go and tell me about all the fantastic exposure I’m going to get from a “source” line under a photo flashed for a second. You’re profiting off my work in very direct ways, and all I asked was to be paid a fair freelancer’s rate.

I can’t just blame you, though, local news. I have to blame the bloggers, too. So eager to be recognized for their work, many of them forget that for some of us it’s our business and our lifeblood. So they keep handing over photo and info to you for nothing. They’re undercutting those of use who are trying to get paid fairly for our work.

So here’s the part to other bloggers: stop it. Stop giving these leeches what they want. Their reporters get paid, their cameramen get paid, their anchors get paid – and if any of them didn’t, they’d be upset. The owners of these companies are mega-corporations, many of global scope. They ain’t shakin’ a tin can.

But every photo you give them for free emboldens them to rip off the rest of us, the ones trying to make an honest living off of our websites. The ones trying to get paid for our hard work.

As a community, us bloggers need to collectively put our foot down and say no more. We will not allow large companies to profit from our work without compensation.

That’s  my Monday morning rant.

I had a long and interesting conversation about some of the neighborhood’s news outlets yesterday. I don’t want to get into specifics, but we got to talking about the various elements that go into creating successful news media.

That kind of conversation is always good to have; it sparks the development of Sheepshead Bites as I incorporate those thoughts into future coverage.

In a way, we’ve already been discussing this on Sheepshead Bites. When a commenter dives in and criticizes my reporting of one thing over another, or including or excluding some information, I’m happy to have that conversation. Reporting isn’t a perfect science, and I try to be as transparent as possible so that you’ll understand the decisions I make and the processes behind the work.

But let’s take a moment to have that conversation more explicitly. What do you think makes a good news outlet?

Got any questions for me?

I didn’t care much for the final game of the World Cup yesterday. I mean, I went to a bar and watched it – so I cared more than some of you. But I did it begrudgingly.

You see, I didn’t want the Europeans to be in the finals. I wanted to see all teams from the developing world dominate Europe. And that comes not from any interest in the sport, but that it’s a better narrative. I like underdog stories.

So yeah, I was rooting for countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Ghana. Because the colonial countries defeating their former rulers in the midst of a paradigm shifting economic collapse in those countries… I was salivating at the inevitable New Yorker post-Cup analyses.

Latin America and Africa all the way, baby.

Sitting in the 12th Street Ale House in Manhattan yesterday, clearly I knew my dream was dashed long before it started. Instead of South America and Africa I got Spain and Netherlands – the countries that dominated those continents.

So I had a hard time deciding which slave-trading imperialist nation to root for. Eventually I went with the Netherlands because, well, their abbreviation is NED. I’ve been rooting for Ned for years already (a true underdog story, by the way), so it seemed like a natural extension.

But then they cleat-kicked a Spaniard in the chest. And all the other brutal, yellow-card tactics. I can’t root for bullies.

So Spain won, and like I said, I didn’t give a hoot. It was a totally unfulfilling game enshrouded in a totally unfulfilling storyline.

I’m glad the shenanigans are over for another four years. Next time the only imperialist nation I’ll root for is the good ol’ U.S. of A. And since that team stinks, I’ll get behind my buddies south of the borders.

And that’s my Monday morning rant. Eat it.

Yup, I’m stuck in Washington D.C. with all the guv’ment fat cats.

I spent the weekend here to visit a buddy of mine, and watched the fireworks over the Washington Memorial from his office on the 20th floor of a nearby building. That was pretty amazing.

Then we went down to the mall and viewed the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and the White House all lit up. My favorite is always the Lincoln Memorial; reading those sage words inscribed for the ages never fails to electrify my sense of patriotism.

If you’ve never been to D.C., the trip here is mandatory. No matter how befuddled you may think we are as a nation; no matter how frustrated you may be with our politics; no matter how driven you’ve been to the U.S. Apathy Party – we all need reminders of what it means to care.

Civic involvement and an enlightened populace are the backbone of democracy, but it takes effort and it’s easy not to give a damn when you see little immediate payoff. But strolling among the shrines of those who’ve shaped and protected our nation’s ideals, often giving their lives to it, is an experience that rejuvenates passion for community and country.

It should be a regular pilgrimage for all Americans.

But, when you go, make sure you’ve got a good car. ‘Cause when all is said and done, when you’ve got work the next day and you’re out of money anyway, sitting on the side of the road in Laurel, Maryland, at 4:27 a.m. waiting for AAA just freakin’ sucks. Especially when all the garages are closed for a federal holiday.

Excuse my language, but it needs to be said: fuck the summer. It ain’t that great. You only think it’s great because it’s when you had off of school as a kid.

But when you think past that, and consider your adult life during the summer months, what’s really that magnificent about it? What warrants all the extra attention – the concerts, the magazine features, the travel specials, the… well, everything. Everything is so damn summer-centric.

But you know what? Fuck summer. It’s just as bad as winter, if not worse.

I’m a spring and fall man. Why can’t we make those the seasons with all the outdoor events and the fanfare? They’re way less obnoxious.

On top of all the humidity this past weekend, I’ve had the added agitation of numerous technical glitches. It started last Thursday, thus the weakness of Friday’s posts, and I haven’t quite worked all of them out yet. This is where we in the media like to drop phrases like “It’s a perfect storm.” Because, for me, it is. They all came on at once, and it’s very infuriating. The humidity ain’t helping.

That’s my open thread rant. Deal with it.

Did anyone see the Breaking Bad finale? WTF was that ending? And why did Cablevision lead me to believe it would be a double episode, and then slip in a premiere to some other crap? What the hell, AMC! You’re supposed to be better than that…

Anyway – we may be changing the times that we aim to put our posts up (it’s pretty regular, but occasionally we deviate). It would be a big help to know when you read Sheepshead Bites. First thing in the morning, before work? On your lunch break? When you get home? I mean, you should be checking in every 15 minutes, but around what time do you look at it for the first time during the day?

So I’ve been a little disappointed in the use of these open threads. It seems that unless I ramble on some sort of topic, I don’t get a response. That’s not supposed to be the way these things work; you’re supposed to write whatever you want on whatever topic – Sheepshead Bay-related or not.

Really. Go off in any direction. Blow off some steam. Scream and shout. TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

Or talk about our coverage and what you’d like to see more of. Or the neighborhood and what kind of stores you want to see more of. Or less of.

Maybe point out your hatred of sentences that end in prepositions.

Talk about your school or your job or people on the train. Talk about the rude clerk at the bagel place, or the extremely polite guy at the cell phone shop (both the Boost and the Verizon store owners by the Sheepshead Bay train station gave me a big hand last week).

But, if you need a prompt to think up something to say, then here’s one for this week:

Summer is here, which means a lot of the civic groups we report on go into recess. Which means we have a whole lot less to write about. How should the Sheepshead Bites team fill that gap?