Dental Spam Response Part 2: "I understand you have an opinion, but I am respectfully asking that you . . ."

You can see Part 1 of this here.
The original post about the spam is here.

The first response to the post from the dentist was a threat of legal action. I sent a response to the threat [in Part 1] via email Tuesday night - a week ago.  Wednesday morning there was an 8:04am email waiting for me. 

Steve,
I am proactively looking into why this happened in the first place as I was not aware that the SEO company that we work with was doing this. The internet, though, is a free market and what they did is completely legal. If it was a problem that you didnt want this comment on your log, it would have been as simple as to call my office and request that we take it down or like your website states“Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. . . Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers(my call) will be deleted.” It seems that you are going completely out of your way to make calls to the local paper and have a reporter check into it and waste your time. The first line of your blog states that "..I have better things to do than this, but I can't help it." but it doesnt seem that way. I appreciate that you are educating people about this matter but I do not want my practice specifically mentioned as your comments about sleezy dentist and XXXXXX Dental Arts can be easily misconstrued by any patient or potential patient of mine. I understand you have an opinion, but I am respectfully asking that you take the  XXXXXXX Dental Arts name out of your blog.

"It started out as a snarky post about a tacky dentist. Now I'm not sure how tacky the dentist is..." -This negative opinion has no baring and is not helpful and doesn't compare at all to your example of diagnosing a cavity
"They are a tacky, factory dental clinic that will do whatever it takes to get customers." -All of this information is deduced from from one comment on one blog?
"I still think there are signs of tackiness here on the dentist's part - the long hours, the heavy push on SEO, including a staff member who knows the term, and the multiple offices in the area." We have long hours as to accommodate patients at all times due to the patient population that we see. We are one of only 3 medicaid providers in the greater XXXXXXX area. There are about 140 dentists in the area that do not take insurance or only take a few of the best insurances. I pride myself and my practice on the ability to see all of these lower middle class and low income families that nobody else wants see because of the very low insurance reimbursement. This is in no way tacky. Also, my marketing team is very familiar with the term SEO as they should be considering that is what their job entails...marketing. And Im not sure what multiple offices in the area means either since this is my only practice.
These are just a few of the things that are offensive and untrue. I do not want them associated with any names at my practice or the name of my practice. Otherwise, say what you want but I hope this is a lesson to you that things aren't always what they seem.

XXXXX  XXXXXXX

I took some time to think about it.  I'd like to think I'm not into win-lose type competition.  Most situations can be imagined in new ways that allow everyone to come out ok, if not well.  What did he want?  What did I want?  Most of what I wanted had already happened.  We'd moved from "Take this down or I'll sue" to "I'm respectfully asking . . ."

But underlying that, and even more important, we went from trying to use power to get one's way to using reason and persuasion to work out an acceptable solution for us both. 

I don't agree with everything said in the email.  I didn't make statements as much as speculate possibilities, for example.  But I don't need to quibble with him about the details. [Readers can read the original post and then Part 1 of this post to see for themselves.] 

And he made some good points.  Do I have an invalid stereotype about chain dentists just being out to make money? I even said "factory dentists."  But if one moves from the professional model of dentistry to the business model, then one moves from the polite to the rough and tumble, including occasional bad reviews.  But dentists always had to run a business as well as care for their patients.  And I certainly think assisting medicaid patients is a good thing but it's not without risks. I heard many tales from my mother who worked in a doctor's office about how medicaid (and medicare) often didn't cover the doctor's expenses and how easy it is to get in trouble over paperwork mistakes.

Am I biased because all my life I've only gone to small private dental offices that got patients through word of mouth, not a marketing team?  Does that mean that there aren't other legitimate models?  I don't need a fight with a  Dental Center in the Eastern time zone.  I made my point that businesses should be careful about hiring sleazy SEO operations.  (BTW, the original post collected two more dental spam comments and I had to delete two comments from an airport taxi service.) There's no real need to have a particular dentist's name in the post. (The one dentist whose spam/comment to this post I left as an example, put his own name there.)

I sent the new email to my attorney and proposed that I would delete references to the specific dentist office and town, but add the follow up emails.  I didn't hear from my attorney. [I just found his quick Wednesday response in my spam folder.] I did see him at the film festival though on Monday.

I told him the dentist had called me that morning (I wish East Coast people would check time zones before calling Alaska.)  We had a pleasant conversation and I spelled out my proposal and he was agreeable as long as his name was left out of things.

So, we each got what we wanted through civil rational discussion.  Neither of us will have to pay for an expensive legal battle.  Both of us are satisfied with the resolution. 

I will quibble on one point.  I simply called a reporter in his area to find out if this dental center had a reputation or not since I had no local connections I could check with.  I wasn't trying to stir up trouble.  

On the blogging side, yes, we have the First Amendment that allows us to say quite a bit.  But just because we have the right doesn't mean we should always use it.  We should be mindful of the unnecessary harm we can cause others.  There should be a good reason for inconveniencing (or worse) others in our exercise of free speech.  And there are also times when we need to hold our ground.  I respect a dentist willing to care for this medically under served population and I have no reason to disbelieve what he says.

Thanks, Dr. XXX for engaging me civilly.  I learned something through this, and I hope that you've  taken something positive from this as well. 

And other bloggers, you might want to consider joining a blogging association if only to get some coverage for unanticipated legal expenses. [I tried getting a link to the Media Bloggers website, but I got "Forbidden" messages.]

AIFF 2011: Total Drama's Chris McLean Alter Ego Christian Potenza Talks About Moon Point

 Walking out of The Wedding Party  I ran into Christian Potenza.  How could I miss him with his wild hat and goggles?  It turns out this Canadian from Toronto is the host Chris McLean on the Canadian online animated reality show Total Drama.  

Image from Total Drama

He's in Anchorage for the showing of the film Moon Point,  which he co-produced. He also acts in it.    But let him tell you himself in the video.  Director Sean Cisterna is also in the video.  He also has some nice words for The Wedding Party which we'd just seen.





Moon Point plays at the Bear Tooth Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 8pm. Followed by the Canadian Consulate's reception.  It plays again Wednesday Dec. 7 at Out North at 7pm.

For more information check Moon Point's official website.

AIFF 2011: Tibet, A Polish Hedghog, And An Australian "Greencard" Wedding

We saw Mila's Journey - Dutch Woman hitchhikes to India with her boyfriend and his super 8 camera about 1968.  They film a three month trek across Tibet.  They break up. He keeps half the film and she keeps the other half.  40 some years later his wife contacts her that he's dying.  She takes all the film (which no one has looked at) and gets it digitized and shows him as he's dying.  Then she retraces some of the journey in Tibet.

The film is her recounting all this - using the old footage and new.  I didn't connect with the  Mila, so that didn't help.  I also was around for many of the events - visited Amsterdam a few times while a student in Germany 1964-65, went to Monterrey Pop in 1967, then after Peace Corps Thailand spent ten days in Kathmandu.  Mainly I was thinking, if I'm this boring no wonder my kids don't want to hear about all this.

I don't know that others agreed with my feelings. 

We stuck our heads into George the Hedgehog, the feature length Polish animation which the AIFF website describes this way:

George is a skateboarding hedgehog who likes to drink beer and fondle women. However, he finds it difficult to pursue his passions when he's being tormented by neo-Nazi skinheads, mad scientist and the drooling, flatulent clone of himself.

From the ten minutes I saw of it, I'm not sure why this didn't get into the competition among the animated films.   It appeared to be a fairly potent social commentary in an uncouth South Park irreverence.  This could have been one of the best films at the Festival, but maybe ten minutes is the perfect amount to watch.  It plays again Saturday at 8:30pm at the Alaska Experience Theater. 

Amanda Jane begins Q&A as credits role

But we rushed off to the Bear Tooth to watch Amanda Jane's The Wedding Party which got an enthusiastic reception from the almost full house.  Guy needs money to pay debts so he can marry his true love.  Gets opportunity to make the money - by marrying a gorgeous young Russian woman so she can get her immigration settled.   People laughed at all the right places and there was loud applause at the end.  Film maker Amanda Jane was clearly, and rightfully, happy at the end when she did her Q&A.  It was a fairly complicated film, structurally, with separate sub-narratives for all of the members of the wedding party  - Robert Altman like.  She pulled it off well. 

My only problem was a personal one in which I'm clearly an outlier in terms of what people consider funny.  I prefer self-deprecating humor or humor used by people who have no other way to stand up to the powerful.  Here the biggest laughs seemed to be at people who were struggling as human beings, often in awkward sexual situations.  I felt sympathy for them in their unsuccessful attempts to connect with their mates.  One could counter argue that the audience was laughing at themselves as portrayed by the characters.   Maybe I had too much exposure to what bullying looks like lately when Brent Scarpo was in town.

I was impressed with the solid acting - every character was, as an audience member said, spot on.  The movie was well paced.  This is certainly as good or better than a lot of the films that make money in the US these days.  No one needs to be charitable to this film as a 'festival indie' film.  It stands on its own merits as a well made AND entertaining movie.  And it has great audience appeal.  It has a good chance for an audience award. It's not listed as 'in competition.'  I need to check on whether it was a special selection.

There probably should have been a warning not to bring the kids.  It plays again Saturday at noon at Out North.  You'll have fun with this one.

Dental Spam Response Part 1: ". . . if nothing is done within 24hrs, I will be forced to take legal action."

Blogging has its hazards.  I put up a post about a spam dental comment on Monday 11/28/11 at 10:52pm.   I got this email [dated 11/29/11 7:52am (Alaska time)]:

To Whom it May Concern,

My name is Dr XXX  XXXXX I am the owner of XXXXX Dental Arts. I was made aware of your blog today and I wanted to know what, exactly, is the purpose of this negativity in your blog? You do not know who I am or what I do in my practice but to say such things is considered defamation of character and is illegal. The way in which I advertise on the internet or increase traffic to my website shouldn't be any concern to yourself. You do not know me, nor do you know anything about me. I ask that you take down your recent post about XXXXXXX Dental Arts. I do not want to escalate this to my attorney but if nothing is done within 24hrs, I will be forced to take legal action.

Thanks,

XXX   XXXX

This happened once before when an attorney for the Alaska International Film Festival sent a longer letter.  In that case, I contacted attorney John McKay who wrote a long response letter.

In this case, this was directly from the dentist, not his attorney.  And he did say, "thanks" at the end.  And he didn't use his title in his signature.  Those are good signs to me.  So I drafted a response and checked with my attorney and then sent it off Tuesday night:

Dr. XXXXXXXXX,

Let me try to address your questions:

1. “I was made aware of your blog today and I wanted to know what, exactly, is the purpose of this negativity in your blog?”

You mention negativity as though talking about something negative is a bad thing.   Surely, when you find that a patient has a cavity, you must raise that negativity with your patient so you can proceed to fix it.

The purpose of the post is to point out the dangers of legitimate businesses hiring SEO firms that use sleazy tactics. Like filling a cavity, I’m trying to help businesses, like your own, protect themselves from sleazy SEO tactics. And like filling a cavity, it might hurt a bit, but I mean you no malice, as you mean your patients no malice.

2. "You do not know who I am or what I do in my practice. . .”

I do not know much about you, nor do you know me. But I do know
something about your marketing practices because an advertisement for your business was posted on my blog. Your SEO came to me, I didn’t go looking for you. My blog has a warning above the comment box that says (in part):

“Comments will be reviewed, not for content (except ads), but for style. . .  Ads disguised as comments, unless closely related to the post and of value to readers (my call) will be deleted.”

Despite this warning, a spam advertisement was left as a comment directing my readers to your dental clinic. The comment had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the blog post. In my mind this is tacky, because it pretends to be a comment, but really is an ad. In this case, there was not even an effort made to find a post about dentistry (I have some) or to even pretend to relate to the post at all. (Some SEO people write things like “This is a very interesting post” before leaving their links. And, in fact, another dentist has left another spam comment, but it talks about dentistry at least on this post which mentions 'dentist' though the main topic is SEO and spam.)

I went to the effort to call your office to check if you knew about the ad. Someone who identified herself as YYYYYY said this must be related to your SEO. I posted that on the blog so that my readers (and you) could see that I had checked  and that your office was not aware.

3. “but to say such things is considered defamation of character and is
illegal.”

I’m a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Alaska  Anchorage. I write carefully and I try to present different possible interpretations rather than state things as fact. The post speculated different possibilities and provided evidence for the different possibilities. As I review it I see nothing that could be considered defamation.

You have not specifically identified what ‘things’ you consider  defamation of character or how it is illegal. If you can do that, I will share your  comments with my attorney, and consider any edits he advises.

I was threatened with legal action once before. That ended abruptly when my attorney responded to their threat. My attorney has represented news media and others engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights for over three decades, and has taught a university course dealing with these subjects for almost as long.

In conclusion, please identify the specific parts of the post that you consider defamation of character or illegal so I can consider making edits if my attorney agrees with your assessment.

Sincerely,

Steve Aufrecht

This all happened about a week ago.  I'll put this up now and Part 2 which includes the dentist's response and mine.

Here's the resolution in Response Part 2.

AIFF 2011: The Wedding Party - Australian Amanda Jane Talks About Her Film

I got to meet Australian director Amanda Jane Saturday night at an Anchorage International Film Festival party at the Spenard Roadhouse. (This was a public party that was free and open to anyone.) Her film, The Wedding Party, shows tonight at 8pm at the Bear Tooth. It also shows on Saturday Dec. 10 at 12pm at Out North.



We've had some great Australian movies at the AIFF. Street Sweeper and Birthday come to mind immediately.

AIFF 2011: Pebble Mine's Rio Tinto Subject of "Locked Out" Tonight 8pm Out North

The Anchorage Film Festival schedule for today is shortened compared to the weekend, starting at 6pm at Out North.  Out North has an 8pm showing of Locked Out  in the main theater that might be of interest to  anyone who wants to know more about the owners of Pebble Mine.  Whether you're pro- or anti- Pebble Mine or still making up your mind, here's a chance to learn more about the operations of one of the owners - Rio Tinto.


Rio Tinto Buys Into Alaska's "Pebble" Project -

Kennecott, through its parent company Rio Tinto, has purchased Galahad Gold Ltd.’s 19.8% share in Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum prospect, making it the largest single individual shareholder.[1] In February 2007, Northern Dynasty Minerals announced it would receive the Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award from the Prospector's and Developer's Association of Canada for discovering the 32 square mile Pebble East deposit.[2]

This was a 2007 article and I wanted to check whether Rio Tinto was still connected to Pebble Mine.  If the Pebble Mine Partnership website lists its owners, I couldn't find it.  But Wikipedia does still list Rio Tinto as a major stockholder of the Northern Dynasty the original owner, as I understand it, of the Pebble Mine project.

Important stockholders in Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited include Kennecott (19.8%) which is a wholly owned affiliate of Rio Tinto, management (13%), and Mitsubishi (9.1%). One non-executive member of the Northern Dynasty board is a Rio Tinto representative. The corporate officers and executive board members of Northern Dynasty Minerals Limited are all, also, executive board members and corporate officers of Hunter Dickinson Corporation. Northern Dynasty is one of ten public mining companies driven by Hunter Dickinson, a Vancouver-based Canadian corporation.^[35]

Like any documentary, this film should be considered a source of information which leads you to ask more questions to determine how complete, accurate, and balanced the film's claims are.  From the Locked Out's website:

This is a compelling story of 560 unionized borax miners in the desert town of Boron, California who faced off against Rio Tinto, a British-Australian multi-billion dollar global corporation, which is the 3rd largest mining company in the world. Boron, population 2000, is home to many miners and their families, and is a close knit community of small businesses, churches, the boy scouts, the little league and many single family homes where workers have lived stable middle class lives for many generations. But their jobs and way of life were threatened when Rio Tinto locked them out of work on January 31st, 2010 and replaced them with scabs. Will the workers' middle class way of life be destroyed? Who will win this David and Goliath struggle?

This is the only time this film is scheduled at the Festival.  It is one of the Documentaries in Competition - meaning it was chosen as one of the best and is eligible for an award.


Mila's Journey - another documentary in competition - begins at 6pm and the adult's only Polish animated film George the Hedgehog is from 7pm - 8pm at Out North before Locked Out.

6:00 PM		Mila's Journey Annie Perkins, Rinku Kalsy 2011 | Documentary, In Competition | 70 min.	Out North Theatre - Main
7:00 PM		George the Hedgehog [Jeż Jerzy] Wojciech Wawszczyk, Jakub Tarkowski, Tomek Lesniak 2011 | Animation, Feature | 80 min.	Out NorthGallery

Also at 8pm at the Bear Tooth is the Australian film The Wedding Party which shows again Saturday at 12pm.  I'll have another post on this film.

AIFF 2011: This Is Not Real Director Hungarian Gergely Wootsch

I caught up with Gergely at the film makers' forum this morning, then at the showing of In The Shadow where I got this brief video. There's more information about his film at my post on the animated films in competition.



We got to see the film Sunday night before The Flood.  The visuals are wonderful.  Here's just one frame, with an audience member silhouetted in front.  Ropi, did you watch the whole video?

AIFF 2011: Busy Sunday

A couple of minutes before The Flood so I'll just put up the pictures with minimum text.

The film maker forum at Out North at 11 am brought together some of the film makers here at the festival. 








 We saw the Stan Lee Story but no pics.  Afterward film maker Yuki Ellias (on the right in front) watched herself as they tested her film before the audience came in.

 The warm 40˚F weather and rain made the Out North parking lot a mess.













Then over to the Alaska Experience theater - Jorge and Nicole are in the upper left to watch their film In the Shadow.

Then for the Q&A.

Then back to Out North to see Apartment in Athens which started out to be the best film I saw today, but there were technical difficulties and the dvd kept stopping.  Here
s the technician trying to fix it.



More later.

Gergely Wootsch

[It's later, The Flood was good, we also got to see Gergely Wootsch's animated short, This is Not Real,  before The Flood.   I was at the Bear Tooth and hadn't eaten since breakfast and they brought my food just as Gergely's film started.  I loved the look, but I need to see it again, uninterrupted.


When The Apartment in Athens was shut down (it was a PAL format on the PAL machine at OutNorth, and they got a second disk, but it did the same thing about 15 minutes into the film - it just kept stopping.  So I went to the other screening at Out North and saw the last three in the short Horror program.  I wasn't too impressed until the last one - The Attack of the Killer Mutant Chickens.   Maybe I'm biased because I interviewed the director, but I liked it a lot.  The visuals were great and the story was fun.]

]

AIFF 2011: Rainy, Windy, and Pushing 50 After AIFF2011 Day 2

I saw most of three films today. I already wrote about Andante. Senior Year, a Filipino movie about the last year in a parochial school was a serious, but light take on finishing high school and looking toward college. It might be interesting to have high school students around the world exchange films like this to see how similar things are. But this was clearly a fairly prosperous school and serious problems were in the background. One student's father was taking drugs and beating her mom, and gay issues were touched very superficially. The worst thing that seemed to happen was when the senior class came in second to the junionrs at the school's athletic tournament. Then I finally got to meet up with my wife at the Bear Tooth where we saw a powerful Rwandan film, by Alrick Brown. From his website bio:

Alrick Brown has a MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. A filmmaker and teacher, he has found his calling writing, directing, and producing narrative films and documentaries often focusing on social issues affecting the world at large. It was after visiting the slave castle of Elmina, in Ghana, that he was inspired to attend film school. For over two years he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire. The interactions with the people of his village and his overall experiences in West Africa have informed his creative expression; an expression first fostered by his birth in Kingston, Jamaica and migration to, and upbringing in Plainfield, New Jersey. A fluent French speaker, he graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English and a Masters in Education. Since then he has devoted his energy to changing the world by giving a voice to the voiceless and telling stories that otherwise would not be told.

 Kinyarwanda plays again Sunday December 9 at 10:30pm at Out North.  I highly recommend it.  This is a very different picture from Hotel Rwanda - and one that has a hopeful take on things.

JC and his dad Carl Hoffma

Rand Thornsley, right

Then I went over to the party at Spenard Road House where I met Bartlett High School student JC Hoffman and his dad Carl.  JC has a school assignment to check out the film festival.  He got to meet Tony Sheppard and Rand Thornsley, who is in town for the Festival and said he did have a small role in the programming this year. He was a key player in the last three festivals before moving to Washington State earlier this year.   I'm putting up his picture so his teacher can see he was really there.



It's late and Sunday has a don't miss film makers roundtable at Out North at 11am.

Meanwhile the outdoor thermometer is pushing 50˚F (10˚C) at our house, it's raining, and the side streets and parking lots are turning to ice.  And the wind's blowing.

AIFF 2011: Dream Factory - Strange World Without Dreams in Israeli Film Andante

If Anselm Kiefer were a film maker, I imagine his films might look like this one.  Industrial, dark, wood, and machinery.  I like films that experiment with the idea of what a film can be, that explore beyond the literal story telling of most movies.  And I had read the blurb about the film, so I wasn't completely clueless about what the director had in mind.   Actually, this description, a part of what is on the film's website, is more than the film festival offered:

The men and women of the society in Andante had lost the physiological capability of dreaming in their sleep, and consequently the means of achieving deep and meaningful sleep in itself. At the belly of some sort of a factory, fast asleep in his bed is an old man - the last person who is still dreaming. The technological means were found at the factory to extract the signals produced by his brain in order to then project his dreams onto a screen used for public screenings as a synthetic substitute for the lost privet faculty. The plot takes place during a single night when the old man is expected to pass away, and follows Sarah – a young woman that is found out to have been dreaming again. As a replacement for the dying old "Mr. Coma" is desperately sought after, Sarah is then worked through the various technological and symbolic induction procedures, into the role of eternal sleep.

But it was more a movie for just letting go of preconceptions of movies and just watch the lighting (perhaps darking is more appropriate here), the textures, the sounds.  Such sounds, deep and industrial (there's that word again) that penetrated your body.  This is the kind of movie where audience members who didn't know what to expect, leave somewhere along the line.  I'd guess there were maybe 20 folks in the theater, but I don't think anyone left.

Here's what some audience members thought:   


Reviewer Richard Props who saw Andante at the Indy Film Festival in Indianapolis gave it some credit but said, "Andante is all style without substance."  The Anchorage audience reactions seems to agree - even those who liked it had no clue as to the story line if they hadn't read it in advance.   A film doesn't have to have content, but given the lengthy description of the plot on the Andante website, it would seem that an audience member should not have to read the description before going to the movie.