Rejoice, readers. You have been preserved from the evil machinations of my chatty little blog by the combined efforts of Amazon and the local New Age shop. You are now safe and protected! You are no longer subject to the intrigue and conspiracy, the plotting and scheming, present in these talkative little posts. Aren’t you grateful? What more could you ask? (Other than to be adults permitted to make up your own minds, that is.)
You see, a short while ago I decided to update my “Beckett Shiona” profile on Amazon. (That “Shiona”, by the way, references the name I give to each of my computers, as they die and are replaced. After all, the PC is doing a lot of the work as I write—it deserves recognition!) In any case, Beckett Shiona is the name under which I write my many, many book reviews – about 600 of them, to date. Not that I have any followers; as someone who eschews the giant of Facebook, not to mention Twitter, or runners-up in the social media world such as Goodreads—well, those of us who circle the worlds in a slightly more subdued manner are a bit like those alien installations on the dark side of the moon: we don’t exist. Nevertheless, my non-existent self maintains an Amazon profile just so that the authors, be they lambasted or praised, may look upon a photo and read just a tad about the person who spoke, nastily or nicely, about their books.
So I updated the blurb that describes who I am and why I write reviews, and changed my profile photo.
And this, it seems, triggered a review by some Amazonian Minion. (I would have said jackass, but that would be rude.)
You see, there’s a place provided on the profile to note one’s website. And, as I pay considerably extra to WordPress for the possession of an actual web address, I had always noted that address in my Amazon profile. After all, being retired, my occupation was listed as “Blogger”, so including the blog address seemed like a reasonable action. Or so I thought for the nearly two years it had been listed.
Obviously not.
A chastising and sternly-worded e-mail landed in my in-box in about the space of time it took to turn around thrice shouting, “Evil! Bad! Wrong!” By including the web address in my profile, I had, it seems, violated “community standards”. Despite the fact that my non-monetized, garrulous little blog is neither a product nor a service, and said web address has been sitting there in plain view on my profile for nearly two years, it was now utterly forbidden. Noting it in my profile was verboten. To “protect” the public.
To say that this ticked me off mightily would be the equivalent of saying that Hurricane Katrina was a wee bit of a storm–especially since I’d just gone through a very similar erasure process at the local New Age shop.
Again, because I eschew most social media, shortly after beginning this blog I’d created a few “blog announcement” business cards. 
They provided just the blog title, motto, and web address. Whenever I gave tips to servers (and I am a good tipper), I handed them out along with the money. I hung the cards on any bulletin board I came across, too, and had actually gained a few followers thereby.
So the local New Age shop bulletin board seemed a logical place to pin a few cards. After all, the flyers and business cards already on the board encompassed everything from roofing to retreats. But, ever mindful of courtesy, I asked the checkout clerks if I might hang a few of the blog announcement cards there among the businesses and lost pet flyers. (And let me just say that I don’t honestly believe that anyone else EVER asked before pinning up flyers or cards; they just did so.)
The clerks said they would run this past their supervisor, and I smilingly acquiesced. A week or two later, seeing no cards on the board, I asked if the request had been approved. They hadn’t had a chance to find out, the clerks told me. I waited another week, and checked again. No, not yet, they replied.
This song and dance continued for over two months—at which time I was diagnosed with a serious illness, and having my blog announcement cards on the bulletin board receded into unimportance in the face of other, more vital matters—like saving my own life. My blog cards never appeared on the bulletin board, and were never returned to me, either. I suppose they went into the trash.
A year went by and, healed and refreshed, I printed a new batch of blog announcement cards. This time, though, I knew better than to ask. I stuck a half-dozen of them right up there on the bulletin board in the midst of all the other effluvia.
Where they were promptly removed by management within the week—again, I presume, to the trash can.
And so there you have it, folks: The Saga of Your Protection From the Utter Evil of My Chatty Little Blog. Be my weekly subject humor—or introspection—or spirituality—or merely observation—you are SAFE. You are PROTECTED. You are NOT EXPOSED to the sheer, awful reality of my maunderings.
The Jackasses of Power have seen to that.
By the way, New Age shop–I really want my expensive blog announcement cards back.
Speaking to the Heart of Many Matters 