Have you noticed that my posts are getting longer, and longer, and longer? I mean, they’re barely posts anymore, they’re friggin’ chapters… and there’s no sign of relief today, either.
First, something rather disturbing. Through Babes in Blogland, I came across this story about how some users of Orkut (a social networking site similar to Facebook or MySpace, but owned by Google) are “stealing” images of kids from Flickr to create fake user profiles. You can read about it on SaraSmiles’ Flickr account (over 1200 comments in three days… at least people are paying attention!) While I find this distasteful and kinda gross, I’m not going to be pulling my photos off of Flickr anytime soon. I will be following the story, though, and I thought you might like to know about this, too.
On a lighter note, I have to tell you that I scored a victory for slacker snack moms everywhere last week. We had “meet the teacher” night at Tristan’s school, and all the junior and senior kindergarten parents were brought together for an information session. They gave an overview of the curriculum, spoke briefly about some new procedures, and then brought up a few “housekeeping” items. One of them was a plea – really, that’s the right word – from one of the teachers to please, please send simpler snacks for the kids. “When they have three or four items to choose from, they get overwhelmed,” she said. “We really only plan for 15 or 20 minutes at snack time, and we’re only here for a short time. The kids are bringing these multi-course snacks and it takes them half the afternoon just to eat them.” Yes!! Slacker moms unite, we have scored one small victory in our inherent laziness.
And finally, this is way cool. As you know, I’ve long been a huge fan of Cooper and Emily from Been There, and the BlogHers Act initiative, and The Motherhood. Head over to Been There to read about how yesterday, Emily was not only live-blogging the Clinton Global Initiative, but she got to ask a question – to Angelina Jolie!! Click on over to Been There to read Emily’s great question about what mothers can do, and the terrific response she got.
I may be saving the world from overenthusiastic snack moms, but Emily’s content to just save the world. Isn’t she lovely?
Edited to add: Wow, issues with photos are everywhere today. Dutch at Sweet Juniper blogged today about the inappropriate use – okay, theft – of a photo of his daughter by the online magazine Babble, and daysgoby pointed out a a post at Joy Unexpected about how her photo was used to sell a product – without her knowledge or permission. Maybe it’s time to start at least watermarking my photos?
Go you on the snacks! Paving the way ahead for those of slackers to follow.
All hail the power of the apple slices in a ziploc (or eco-friendly reusuable container. Ahem.)
It is amazing what gets sent along with the kids. My son eats almost nothing because he just wants to play and doesn’t want to waste time sitting and eating. Yeah slacker moms and their equally slacking kids!
see…that whole Flickr thing is the reason sssssooooo many of my friends w/kids just want nothing to do with the internet. it kind of makes me not want to post either. but thanks for bring it to our attention.
A little off topic, but Y from Joy Unexpected just had her kids picture used to promote a product (without her permission)
http://www.joyunexpected.com/archives/002254.php
Ok, I wanna watermark my photos too. But how?
And yay on the snack front!
I confess – also a slacker-snacker mom! But this year I thought I would get creative – and I got major complaints from wonderboy – Mom, we don’t have enough time for ALL THOSE SNACKS! And so much for the rest of my lunch ingenuity – apparently all he wants for lunch is a boring old sandwich. So more lazy lunches from me in the future.
That is scary about the blog photos – that’s one thing I find neat is to keep this online journal and go all braggity bragging about my kids. I guess I should consider watermarking in case at some point I get a larger readership.
The photo thing is scary. What people feel entitled to do with other people’s things just boggles my mind.
I love this post. These poor teachers – such major problems. I’m also a slacker-snacker mom (“Mom, you forgot my snack again…), of the neglectful kind. I love those days when we (the losers -me anyway) are in the right and all those over-the-top-look-what-a-great-mom-I-am – mom’s get their reality check – even the little checks.
OK, now I gotta follow-up with Dutch b/c that whole Orkut thing gave me the wiggins.
Yes, try watermarking your photos, right across the whole image, if you choose to post them on your blog or a photo-sharing website. There is also some way to disable the right-mouse-click function so people can’t just copy them, I’ve heard.
The copying of photos has long been a problem for parents with twins, and especially higher order multiples. There have been quite a few cases of weird people faking an identity as a mom of triplets or more, and posting on discussion forums to elicit attention and sympathy. Many parents of multiples have chosen not to post photos for this reason, and not to use their real names or locations to avoid stalkers. Sad, isn’t it?
To follow-up on Sheila’s comment, there are javascripts that you can use which disables the right-mouse-click “save as.” However, it’s still possible for people to copy the image. (It just makes them go through and additional few steps to get them.)