Book Review: 82 Sins of the Church

Book Review: 82 Sins of the Church

Author: Cobus Van Der Merwe

Date: 1995

Publisher: Jacobus Van Der Merwe

ISBN: 978-1494432362

Length: 230 pages

Quote: “Children with good manners are always pleasing to every­one.”

Jacobus Van Der Merwe was a Boer, or South African of Dutch descent, who spent his old age in Kingsport, Tennessee. His English was fluent, but irregular. His understanding of the Bible was likewise…not so much irregular as foreign. Although he joined a charismatic church in Kingsport, his Dutch Reformed background comes out in the form of unusual attitudes.

Although it’s meant to provoke discussions among Christians in any country, 82 Sins of the Church was recognizably shaped by Kingsport. I think this book is part of Kingsport’s history and should be preserved as such. Kingsport has attracted some very distinguished engineers and inventors from all over the world, and Van Der Merwe was one of them.

For devotional use, the value of 82 Sins of the Church may actually be negative. There’s politically incorrect, and then there’s…well…

I’m put off by the sexism on pages 108-109: “A couple should never get married if they cannot make do on the man’s income. The main reason for the job shortage in the world we live in today, is directly ascribed to the greedy women, taking away men’s jobs…God’s Word says clearly that the man is the breadwinner.” Actually, the Bible mentions women musicians, scholars, builders, merchants, and “prophets.” When a Bible writer describes the ideal wife, in Proverbs 31, he spends as many words praising her business acumen as her religious devotion. The perfect wife doesn’t just weave; she has a home textile business that employs several “maidens,” delivers finished products to the merchants, and expands her business by investing in real estate: “She considers a field, and buys it.” Sociologists have generally ascribed the job shortage to technological development, laborers being displaced by machines.

There is much to recommend the idea that being the mother of small children is a full-time job, in and of itself, and should provide the same kind of automatic recess from a corporate “career” that military service does…but “women shouldn’t take away men’s jobs” thinking doesn’t even work out well for young mothers. Some families preserve the biblical family-as-business model, using their home as their business base and integrating their children into the business. But the 1950s TV family structure, where childless wives stayed home all the time and made dusting and polishing into a job, was not an approach that ever served many people well. Nor was it biblical.

The Bible writers don’t prescribe one particular pattern for family life. The economic pattern they describe is the one where both parents lived and worked at home. Everyone was a “breadwinner.” Even small children were “known by their work” as soon as they were able to do any. Even disabled old ladies, like Dorcas, wove and sewed. The lady described in Proverbs 31 was an especially desirable wife because her weaving skills were good enough to earn money as well as saving money. When Paul wrote, “I would have the younger widows (re)marry (or) keep house,” he was telling the early church that his use of the masculine form in “If anyone will not work, neither let him eat” was applicable to able-bodied people of both sexes.

More confusion is to come. Van Der Merwe cites a letter from a friend in South Africa: “What the outside world (that’s you) does not real­ize, is that we do not have to do with civilized people, but barbarians—a sub-race that can never reach the standard of the [W]hite Christian race.” The writer of this letter complains that Nelson Mandela, like every other person who had a complaint against a non-Marxist government during the twentieth century, received some support from the Communist Party. He overlooks the fact that the Communist Party in its heyday treated it as their duty to try to support, and co-opt, every dissident on Earth; what people did with this support was up to them.

More disturbingly, he also overlooks the fact that Mandela was mentored by the nonviolent, non-Communist, committed Christian Albert Luthuli…and greed-blinded “Afrikaners” managed to ignore Chief Luthuli. The Christian magazine Van Der Merwe’s friend addressed had ignored his letter because Christians around the world felt that, when people refused to hear a message of peace from a man of God, those people invited a twisted version from the Evil Principle. Many were surprised and grateful that Mandela emerged as a left-wing Humanist leader rather than a violent, vengeful Communist Party dictator. Van Der Merwe complained that Christians in the United States had no right to denounce Bill Clinton unless they prayed for him. He does not write as if he spent much time praying for Nelson Mandela.

And what exactly was “sub-race” supposed to mean? The proper meaning of "distinct group within a race" fits the use in this book. Because the Republic of South Africa incorporated several pre-existing ethnic groups who had weakened themselves by wars with one another, it’s possible that Van Der Merwe understood Lane Sherman, as quoted on page 192, to be expressing resentment of the Zulu “sub-race,” or ethnic group, as distinct from the Venda “sub-race,” of which Van Der Merwe wrote with less resentment earlier in this book. However, one can hardly blame uneducated readers for hearing in “sub-race” an echo of “subject race.” Like “niggardly,” “sub-race” is not a term of racist hate but it is almost always an ill-chosen word.

Feminists are supposed to oppose “patriarchal” social structures, so I’ve always taken some contrarian pleasure in expressing love and pride about the patriarchs in my family. I know what Van Der Merwe has in mind when he writes about “Sin #49: Husbands Are Not Always Real Men” and praises the Real Man who “opens God’s Word at the breakfast and supper table…tells the truth at all times, regardless of the cost or consequences…provides for his family even if he has to do without…can give some leadership at home and work and is always prepared to listen to good advice” (pages 120-121), “rises early enough, works hard enough to provide enough…can apologize for any mistake…sets the example…visits the sick and bereaved and provides for the needy” (page 198).

Opposing patriarchal systems does not imply failing to appreciate that sort of men when we find them. What we oppose is the idea that a Y-shaped chromosome is enough to make any man a patriarch. In the Bible, Abraham travelled around with his flocks and herds and his extended family, apparently opposing cults that practiced human sacrifice. Kings called on Abraham for help and advice, yet he never called himself a king. Abraham listened respectfully to the advice of his wife and foster son, although they were both younger and less enlightened than he. When other people were around, his wife Sarah enjoyed basking in his glory by calling him “milord.” Privately, Sarah was a nagger (her name changed from “Quarrelsome” to “Princess” as her social status rose) whose demands reduced Abraham to tears. A patriarch never demands respect. He earns it—but, even so, he does not always get it. As C.S. Lewis once put it, he wears two crowns, but one is made of paper and the other of thorns.

In the current decade, as my generation find ourselves in the positions of patriarchs or matriarchs, I think we appreciate those of our elders who filled those roles well more than we ever did before. I haaate being the eldest surviving member of the direct line in my family. I want my Mommy, I want my Daddy! Almost every day! And of course I want due appreciation for coping with the burden of living without them! That said, we still need to beware of the tendency to take for granted that age, gender, or birth order makes people fit to hold authority over others. The oldest generation of a family have lived longer, and ought to have learned more, than the young. In many families the husband's seniority and wider experience are still among the assets for which his wife chose him, too. But in some families the elders are greedy, bossy narcissists, or drug-dependent old fools, and in the United States our Founding Fathers did well to strip them of legal authority to ruin the lives of the young. Elders should be honored in every way possible. In the natural order of things that means that they will have legitimate authority that the young will recognize and appreciate. In some situations it means that the young have to care for them as patiently and respectfully as possible, while working around the fact that they may, like King Saul in the Bible, be barking mad; this is no easy task and we're much better off for not having formal legal impediments to dealing with situations as they are.

Of course, many of the 82 Sins are theological rather than interpersonal issues. Van Der Merwe rebukes churches that are non-charismatic, that “do not seek or expect miracles, do not teach and practice demon exorcism.” He believes in “mandatory forgiveness”; some Christians believe that it is possible to talk about “forgiving” people who are still actively sinning. He thinks special liturgical interest should be given to Psalms 113 through 118. He objects to historical reading of the Bible when “the New Testament is not recognized as being directed to the church at all times.” He has an interpretation of the prophecies in the Bible, and thinks churches need to give more attention to this interpretation.

Others of the 82 Sins are social and political. Van Der Merwe identifies with those who seem to believe that “resistance” to abortion is a matter of political agitation, rather than personal ministry. He rebukes Christians for suing each other in court. He rebukes both the churches that “do not teach against divorce” and the ones that “condemn divorced people.” He complains, in his charmingly eccentric use of English, that “Pastors are fearful, muzzled, proud, greedy and affirmative.” (It takes him three pages to explain what he means by this, but he does have a point.) He thinks children need to participate in formal, audible prayers at school. He has been active in prison ministries, and thinks more Christians need to be. He thinks secular commentary, at least jokes and sports stories, have no place in the sanctuary and should not be used to liven up sermons.

Other “sins” are matters of church subculture. Kingsport is more heterogeneous than some of the towns around it, less dominated by First Families, more open to immigration. Cultural differences among its churches reflect the economic status as well as the temperaments of the congregations. So many of Kingsport’s churches do stress greeting rituals and eye contact that I suspect Van Der Merwe’s complaints here come from his having chosen a church where he seemed to “fit in” economically, and then realized that affluent Anglo-Americans look down on the folksy Dutch cultural customs Van Der Merwe wanted to bring with him.

Intensive eye contact is typical of mainstream Anglo-American culture. Apparently it’s also typical of mainstream Dutch or Boer culture, since Van Der Merwe fails to recognize it among the “bad manners” with which he reproaches “Ugly Americans”; much of the world would place our shameless eyeballing behavior high on the list of obnoxious American manners. Some cultures have rules that a modest person never holds eye contact with a member of the opposite sex, other than the person’s own wife or husband, for longer than a moment; or that younger people, or subordinates, never hold eye contact with senior or superordinate people; or that eye contact is optional, usually used for emphasis after a conversation has begun. Van Der Merwe places great emotional emphasis on people’s being able to “look you square in the eye.” He seems not to realize that when some people, even in the United States, might have started to form such a habit we were asked "Why are you staring? What's wrong?"

His list of 82 Sins is random, as his short reflections on these practices occurred to him, rather than categorical. There are sequences where one thought seems to have led to the next, and sequences where he seems to have put down his list for a few days and come back to it on a whole new train of thought. I’ve discussed the list in a more organized way than Van Der Merwe presents it.

So, this is not a book to share with non-Christians or with very young people. It is a book mature Christians can appreciate as historical commemoration of a distinguished resident of Kingsport. It could even be used by groups of mature Christians as a starting point for study and discussion—Bible and otherwise. It should never be used in such a way as to give Christian-phobics the idea that Van Der Merwe ever spoke for any substantial number of American Christians.

82 Sins of the Church ceased to be a Fair Trade Book last winter. I sold the copy I physically owned before that. Prices for this privately published book are already rising. At the time of writing I can offer it, should you want to buy it here, for $10 per book + $5 per package. But Van Der Merwe no longer needs $1.50, so if you don’t need this one to complete a collection of Kingsport history…there are better devotional books in the world, even at this web site.

Posted on September 27, 2015 Categories Book, ChristianTags charismatic church, Dutch Reformed Church

Stand Your Ground, Kingsport

This post is a response to Eli Bray's letter printed on September 8, 2022, page A4, which was a response to the August 31 article "Everybody Wants to Move to Kingsport."

In that letter, Eli Bray asked, "Who would want to move into one of the worst cities or crime int he entire state and possibly the nation (for a city of its size)?" and says, "Kingsport used to be a wonderful place to live, go shopping and go to eat  Kingsport is losing business left and right as well  Why? The crime rate..." of , "According to neighborhoodscout.com...5a per one thousand residents...One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 20."

This is true. Two primary factors contributed to the precipitous decline in the quality of life in the northeast section of Kingsport.

One was inevitable: The residents of the neighborhood called Upper Sevier Terrace, or Snob Hill, were mostly retired people. Active, healthy, and loyal to their own, they kept walking through their neighborhood and using their pool and tennis club into their eighties or nineties. Still, many of them didn't live to see the coronavirus panic.

The other factor was a bad decision made by the city for the sake of federal funding. The nice little downscale shopping plaza that was built to serve paper mill and press employees, on Sullivan, was replaced with apartment towers designated "low-income housing" and stocked with the hardest cases from the welfare rolls of other cities--the people those cities most wanted to get rid of. As these people moved in, those who bought or inherited houses in Upper Sevier Terrace began to move out.

My mother always wanted to retire in Upper Sevier Terrace. While she lived there I visited that section of Kingsport often. I didn't care for the factory emissions in the air,but other than that, it was really a "Model City" with the tiers of increasingly luxurious houses as you go uphill, the easy walks to the Super Wal-Mart or the schools or the hospitals or almost anything else you can think of, the charming Greenbelt Park with its waterfowl once including a pelican, the fine selection of new and old books Mr. Bartlett, Mrs. Liu, and staff maintained in the library, and generally everything a nice city neighborhood ought to have.

I'm glad Mother didn't live to see what that neighborhood has become now. It's trashy, with homeless or just drugged-out people squatting everywhere--and I do mean squatting--and surly staff in the few big-chain businesses that have stayed open. One reason why the staff are surly may be the well documented fact that the crowd roaming those streets now are so mean, they steal the shoes and socks off homeless people's feet while they sleep. The "crime" rate still consists more of shoplifting, trespassing, littering, and public (let's stick with "squatting") rather than rape and murder, but it's certainly unpleasant. Walk on those streets on a wet day and your shoes are ruined forever.

I no longer walk into Kingsport. When I join a car pool from Gate City to Wal-Mart, more often than not we find allegedly homeless people begging outside the store. Once, surprised by the age of a couple of panhandlers, we checked them out and found that they really were homeless as the result of a fire.

In Gate City we now have a problem parallel to Kingsport's problem. Northeast Kingsport has a problem with "White flight." It's not that Kingsport's White yuppies are racists. They got along well with their neighbors, Asian doctors and Black business owners and Hispanic storekeepers, for all these years. They recommended these people to me and other visitors or newcomers to their neighborhood. The "blackandhispanic" social problems culled from the slums of Chattanooga are something altogether different. I think that, for the first time in their lives, Kingsport's White yuppies are learning what race prejudice used to be about.

Anyway, we now have a problem with Kingsport's "White flight" people wanting to move to Gate City. This puts us in the awkward position of having to say to friends and even relatives, "No, don't move in here. Don't pay the sucker prices, inflate property values, and start a process of yuppification here!" Although Gate City could certainly use a cash infusion, that cash infusion does not need to take the form of inflated taxes that would jeopardize local business and property owners. Although some Kingsporters are truly nice people and good neighbors, the solution is not for them to let themselves be herded into Gate City and try to create yuppified "boutique" neighborhoods here.

Gate City is a low-rent town, and should remain that way. We have luxurious Victorian houses, decent-looking four-rooms-and-basement houses, and trailer houses, in the same block. That is a valuable quality we should maintain at all costs. Any Kingsporters who do move in need to be committed to resist the temptation to stratify and yuppify. They need to understand fully that what makes nice neighborhoods, including Upper Sevier Terrace, is not "property values" that automatically exclude people who do certain kinds of jobs, which is un-American and morally obscene, but small communities of people who know, respect, and trust one another.

In a nice neighborhood everyone is not everyone else's close friend; in fact people may not speak to each other often, but when there is any reason to speak they are cordial and respectful. People support one another's businesses or employers. One of the nicest things about Upper Sevier Terrace was the way, when a neighbor who was still working became disabled and lost his job, people paid him to do odd jobs and bought what he had to sell off, keeping him in his home as long as possible. When a neighbor's daughter lost her home and children in a divorce, they found part-time work for her maintaining the club facilities. Such things showed that, though well paid even in retirement, the neighbors really were nice. In order to re-create that sort of niceness in a different neighborhood, however, they would need to accept and respect the fact that equally nice people may have lower incomes and may not have or want an "upscale" neighborhood. Kingsport was specifically planned to be a big enough city to have rows of "upscale" and "downscale" stores. Gate City is not so big and, whatever a certain immigrant from Tennessee on our town council may think, we cannot afford the stratification. We need to keep the hardware stores, consignment shops, and "dollar stores" right beside the tourist-trap gift shops and upscale boutiques. If there are people in Gate City who don't want to go into stores where they might meet tobacco farmers, disability pensioners, or even coal miners, we need to keep Jackson Street the sort of place where those people won't want to shop at all.

Yes, we have different personality types and different income levels and different circles of close friends. However, a nice neighborhood has to remain a place where people who are not close friends don't have to talk to one another, but do mingle. In Kingsport the space available made it feasible to build literal tiers of houses and shops that people literally moved up as they progressed from entry-level jobs to management jobs to retirement. In Gate City we don't have that much space, and some of the most "downscale" houses and businesses are and should remain next door to some of the poshest, and if you can't deal with that you need to stay in Kingsport.

What's happening to Upper Sevier Terrace is horrible and tragic. I do understand how the people who had just started redecorating their nice houses, on the tiers higher than Wal-Mart, feel about their neighborhood now. I don't know whether to cry or to be sick as I look at what used to be such a pretty section of town, either.

Kingsport never really had a bad neighborhood, in the sense that Washington or Baltimore, Richmond or Chattanooga, understand the phrase. That's rare for an American city. Kingsport had rows of endearingly shabby little houses near its factories, but they were separate houses, clean, green, well kept. It had a section "redlined" for Black residents, but there again, the houses were small but well kept, the residents had jobs, there seemed a clear intention to attract people who wanted to have a Black cultural atmosphere rather than to confine Black people in a ghetto, and in fact Black people lived in other parts of Kingsport too. Kingsport had a few low-rise apartment buildings, but most of the apartments advertised for rent were either above stores or in the attics or basements of houses; there wasn't even room for potential slums to develop. All of Kingsport was and still is too close to factories for any neighborhood to be considered really good or healthy, but as factory towns go, all of Kingsport was surprisingly decent.

I hate that "Snob Hill" was chosen to be put in danger of becoming Kingsport's first really bad neighborhood.

In 2015 I blogged about being harassed by two teenaged boys, in Lynn Garden near the Virginia border. A relative who wouldn't have stopped if he'd seen me walking peacefully home stopped to ask what was going on, and the boys fled. But the last time I joined a car pool into Kingsport I saw the same boys, now young men. I wonder if they're still claiming Lynn Garden Drive as their drug business zone, still harassing responsible adults who walk along that neighborhood's only real street.

There is a way Kingsporters can fight this. It's not easy but I have seen it work, and when it works, it is tremendous fun. It worked for Takoma Park, Maryland, for a long time; it worked for the part of Pittsburgh where I stayed during the Gulf War. Washington and Pittsburgh are big enough cities to have seriously bad neighborhoods, but there are also neighborhoods where people decided to stand their ground and keep their neighborhoods decent.

Sam Abbott, Mayor of Takoma Park for much of the twentieth century, was a distant relative of Mother's. On national issues he might have been called a left-wingnut. On issues facing a suburb-town his thinking was practical and rational; I think I learned from studying his policies what Kingsport needs to know, and do.

1. Welcome diversity. As a factory town Kingsport has always been diverse, less ingrown than most towns of its size or smaller.. Accept this. Despite the tiers of cheaper and posher houses, rich and poor Kingsporters have shopped in the same stores, sent their children to the same schools, and attended the same churches. Embrace this.

2. Do not accept poverty as a reason for bad citizenship. Expect your new poor neighbors to behave as decently as your familiar poor neighbors always have done.

3. Deal with people as individuals. This is hard when the undesirable people have been shipped in, if not by bus loads, at least in quick succession, but it's necessary. Recognize which new neighbors are merely poor people, just like some of you only without the supportive families, and which ones are truly undesirable people. Don't tolerate the bad ones in the belief that it will make the ones who are merely poor feel better about themselves. Black people may have been socialized to stick together in the presence of White people they don't know well, but they do not enjoy having their property stolen or their yards squatted in by other Black people, When individuals are dopey and incontinent, put them in rehab, and when they are aggressive, put them in jail, whatever they look like and however long they've been there. This policy will make it easier to recognize the chronically poor but decent human beings among your new neighbors.

4. Help and encourage poor people to improve their income and thus their lifestyle. This is not done with yuppie rules about how low everyone needs to keep their grass or how much income every renter needs to have above the cost of rent. It's done by discarding yuppie rules. Fling wide the gates to whatever legitimate products or services poor people can offer to earn quick cash. Buy those products and services. Understand that welfare programs do nothing whatsoever to help people improve their situations, that big grants don't come along every day, and that poor people who work their way into the middle class do so with one little cash sale at a time. Ban all restrictions on yard sales, flea markets, rent parties, and door-to-door peddling. If you catch yourself thinking or saying anything like "Why would I want any of the cheap junk X makes," do penance, thusly: Bite your tongue. Find out how much it would cost someone who's been making cheap frilled-paper ornaments to make something you consider more "upscale." Buy as much of the person's existing wares as the person says it would take to pay for the cost of making them, the time of selling them, a week's groceries, and the posher art supplies. Then, once you know for sure that the person can afford it, describe exactly what you'd prefer to buy and commission the person to make it.

5. Keep rent rates and property values reasonable relative to the incomes of neighborhood residents. Accept trailer houses as a fact of life--they're more comfortable for most people than the "tiny houses" fad. Neither of the two traditional objections to trailer houses is valid: (1) You want to support local construction businesses by letting people pay to replace all the cheap tacky surfaces in a trailer house; and (2) once trailer houses are set up as permanent residences with their own utilities, there's no reason why they should not be taxed as the small, cheap houses they are. Do not allow prejudice against trailer houses to herd people off land that then sits vacant until it's bought up by some sort of really undesirable outside interests.

6. Resist the temptation to plead, "Oh, but with higher taxes local government could do so much more for people!" With higher taxes local government can become more bureaucratic and annoying to the taxpayers. With lower taxes people can do more for themselves. You want to focus on lower taxes. Anyone campaigning for office needs to be able to display the overall budget cuts person has made.

7. Stop thinking of "needs" and think in terms of "worth." Socialists have had a hundred years to yammer about "needs," and what is the effect on the actual poor people? They are sick and tired of it. Don't dare think of a human being as some pathetic bundle of useless, worthless "needs." Before you presume to make eye contact with a person, think of what that person has to offer you and how that person may be able to meet your "needs." In this way, if you want to help the person begging for money to buy food outside Wal-Mart, you will not be tempted to start prescribing what food they ought to buy. Learn to say "I'll pay X amount for the product or service Y" and trust the person to know what to do with the money. Some people do need to be supervised through a rehabilitation program in which they can't spend their own money as they see fit, but most working parents, retirees with medical bills, and disabled people who have not been awarded pensions yet, just need more cash flow. If their priorities seem different from yours, you might respectfully ask them what you need to know about living on their kind of income, bt it's really none of your business.

Which brings us back to step one: Welcome diversity. So there we are.

By taking these short, simple steps Kingsport has a chance to reclaim Upper Sevier Terrace. And never doubt that everyone in Gate City hopes youall can do it.

Yelp Outs Self as Rubbish That Will Raise Your Blood Pressure

This web site has never actually endorsed Yelp.

For those who may wonder, Yelp is not a site that pays people to rave about their favorite local businesses, the way Associated Content did or the way Chatabout did. Yelp does advertise a "cash back" system (where Yelp writers get cash off their actual purchases at stores they write about) and some form of social rewards for those nominated as "evangelists for Yelp," which seems pretty tacky in view of the site's high-flown self-promotion. However, Yelp's actual mode of operation seems to work like this:

1. While writing for some other site, person looks up current web site for business person wants to recommend.

2. Google displays the (promoted) Yelp page for the business at the top left, the business's own site at the top right, so person may actually see the Yelp page first. Or person may be provoked by a preposterously unreal Yelp review--which is likely to draw the most traffic to Yelp, as writers' attention spans are probably long enough that we all remember to look for the business's own URL rather than Yelp's.

3. Person goes to Yelp and writes a review to provide some balance and get person's own blood pressure back down. Blood pressure surges occur when Googlers recognize, for example, raves about the cleanliness and fabulous bargains, from an alleged customer with a name like "Katie B.," at Yelp's page for what we know to be a stinking, price-gouging, salmonella-ridden store mismanaged by a lunatic with a name like "Katie B." Or we see rants from some alleged one-time visitor about the "rude staff" at a family business where the consistently kind, courteous, cosmopolitan owners, pillars of the church, etc., etc., have been known to employ a troubled 25-year-old foster child who apparently, shudder quake, said a swearword. Or, as yesterday, somebody posts what may or may not be a very unusual experience, or just an outright lie, about a business that has served a lot of people well for a long time.

4. This generates some traffic at Yelp, which encourages people to post reviews with pop-up lines like "With so few reviews, yours could be huge." A person might, as I did once many years ago, decide to devote a half-hour or an hour to reviewing every local business listed on the site.

5. Yelp used at least to display replies to the reviews that truly make visitors wonder whether some Yelpers are thinking about the right store. (Yesterday I stumbled across one that was showing for a chain store outlet in Tennessee, where a Yelper who claimed to live in California burbled "I like this store because it's so close to my home." Say whaaaat? How hard is it to change your address on Yelp if you have, in fact, moved?) A few stores generated some rant-and-rave exchanges. However, Yelp has decided to replace this feature with one that allows only the listed owner of the business to reply to reviews. How nice, considering Yelp's admitted goal of making big-chain stores look better than local independent ones. When unhappy small-town storekeepers (like one who's actually listed his store for sale by now) see only one review, some of them are likely to get all emotionally involved with blaming the person who gave them four stars instead of five...and they can't see any exchanges in which the writers of bad reviews admit, e.g., "I think I was actually thinking of a different store."

6. Yelp used, also, to hide individuals' reviews based on the claim that they didn't know who the reviewers were or how impartial they were, based only on people's online presence. I got that run-around, years ago when this web site's archive ran to less than a full ream of printed material. My reviews went live again, as best I recall, when Ronia Regal joined Yelp in order to follow me and when, around the same time, I sold the words to a picture book about chickens. Since then I've not visited Yelp within every single year, so don't know whether they've been suppressed and unsuppressed. Nor do I know whether RR ever visited Yelp again. Becket Adams did, and verified Yelp's bias.

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-yelp-protects-corporate-interests.html

This has changed into something...interesting. In a nasty, biased, even cyberbullying sort of way.

Whatever people may think about my social media presence, it is no longer possible for them to doubt that I'm a real live writer. This blog's been presenting a consistent personal narrative for years. I've written other books, guest-posted on other sites, and interacted in real time with thousands of people on social media. I'm read by thousands of people worldwide, wherever English is spoken, and not exclusively in English either. (This bothers me. When I was able to read priscillaking.blogspot.fr it looked weird enough in French; I have no way to imagine how bizarre it looks in Romanian, which, the computer says, is one of the most common ways it's currently being read...I wrote something for a Romanian site recently.) I have enough online presence and clout to annoy the everlovin' daylights out of Bayer, which may well be the last good thing I'll accomplish in this life; in any case I achieved it without investing a single penny or having, when I registered this screen name, a single active e-friend. I'm a real individual and a real American. Those who try to "verify" such things by encroaching on my privacy only make themselves look bad.

So the last few times I visited Yelp, my reviews were showing. Then, as mentioned, one of them annoyed a local character more than I'd intended it to--by having appeared at a particularly bad time for him, he claims. Now, during the month that review of his store was written, the review was suppressed, so I doubt the review contributed anything to the demise of his store. (I won't go into what-all did contribute to the demise of his store. Local readers remember; nobody else cares.) Apparently the man knew nothing of Yelp or of my review until last spring, when his sole Yelp publication consisted of a rant about my review.

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2019/06/status-update-yelp-is-seriously-whacked.html

It wasn't the sort of refutation of facts that Yelp claims to want business owners to post. The man did not deny that his store went out of business and is currently listed for sale. He was just upset that I'd given the store, when it existed, less than full marks, due to a fact that he admitted was true. I posted something that I meant in a conciliatory way. He posted something that showed that he didn't want to be conciliated. Now if he'd disputed my facts, I would have stood by them; if the facts had changed--if, for instance, he'd reopened the store--I would have conceded that. But the fact is that the store has not existed, as a place shoppers could discover, for many years. All the store's Yelp page was doing was bringing up bad memories and raising the blood pressure of a cardiovascular patient. So I pulled down both of my posts on his store's page, and suggested that Yelp purge the whole page. And there I intended my Yelp activity for this year to end.

This was not meant to be.

Someone on Twitter asked for help with a computer problem. I naturally thought of the local computer store that's developed a specialty in "vintage" computers, and has served me well over the years. I Googled their address.

Say whaaat? Yelp was giving this business one star? That's not a matter of personal preference or even business competition. That's insanity. This store has a niche that's not everybody's, but they own that niche; they're very, very good at keeping older computers running.

Yelp makes it possible to see the reviews they've decided to exclude from consideration when down-rating an independent business, so I verified that these were still there:

"
Belinda M., Kingsport, TN, 3.28.19: 5 stars

Charles & I have been using Compu World for computer repair  ~15 years and are very pleased with their work.  They are trustworthy with very reasonable pricing.  Highly recommend.

Priscilla K., Gate City, VA, 12.20.17: 5 stars

Where I go for Christmas! This store has or will find everything...the newest or the oldest, the flashiest or the cheapest, or any gadget in between. I clicked four stars for that, then added the fifth one because they both let me upload files from floppy disks to e-mail *and* chatted up my car pool buddy while upgrading my 1998 desktop. 

Small store, though. Everyone I've seen in there, staff and customers, has seemed the type who would help clear a path for any wheelchair user who came in, but it'd take them a while.
"

And here's what Yelp had decided to present as the only review worth consideration:

"
Vincent S., Kingsport, TN, 11.11.18 (First to Review): 1 star

these people ruined my macbook pro laptop. i had already formatted the hard drive and all i needed was operating system reinstalled. They said they cou!d do it. But after a week they admitted they didnt work on macbooks! finally after much back and forth over a 3.5 week period of me trying to get it back to take to someone that worked on macbooks. they told me that mine was one that had been recalled due to graphics card being bad. which was a LIE according to apple. when I finally did get it back the screws had been removed from back of it as 1 was missing.and another one was cross threaded.  So im guessing the one person that worked there who allegedly had one like mine, switched out guts with his which was more likely the one with messed up graphics or whatever they tried to say was wrong with mine. Not honest people and my job is to alert all  future potential customers about these people. Not only did they charge ,they charge me 100.00 for loading an operating system on it but said I had to use a cooler under it or no graphics will display on screenl.  and charged m,e 30l.00 for IT!!!!!! 
CROOKS!!!!!! I WOULDNT LET THESE PEOPLE WOIRK ON AN  AM TRANSISTOR RADIO.
"

Now I have no way of knowing that Vincent S. may not be a real person. I doubt very much that his guess about what happened to his Macbook Pro laptop is accurate. I'd believe that a mistake could have been made, because even wizards aren't always perfect. What I do know is that Vincent's experience is not typical. How I know this is because this store, Compuworld, is located about fifteen miles from my home. I have walked fifteen miles with a laptop in a case, but I'm not about to try carrying a 1998 desktop through fifteen miles of local whatever-is-least-convenient weather. So I almost always bribe somebody to drive over there with me. I've gone to Compuworld in the company of Grandma Bonnie Peters, Adayahi, Oogesti, Lisiwayu, Adawee, The Goth, and The Grouch: that's seven fellow computer users, and about as diverse a group as you could find. All seven have their own accounts at Compuworld.

And it's not the case that they all leap at any excuse to rush over there at once. They all do say things like "All the way to Colonial Heights? Can we wait another week?", and like "What I want is the new computer in the other store's window. Would you consider going there instead?", and like "The other store's on my side of town." They do not, ever, say anything like "I no longer trust those guys" or "I'm not satisfied with the last job they did." Even when they've said they didn't want to shop for anything electronic, and even though the store is in a row of businesses that include places that have seats and sell snacks, they always come into the crowded little computer store and look around. Frequently they buy something.

This is because, whether they are prim little church ladies like GBP or large hairy characters like The Goth, the wizards always seem to remember them and happen to have stocked more of what they're likely to want. And one of the guys actually chatted up The Grouch. I did not go into this on Yelp, but yes, he was the one the wizards managed to keep in a cheerful mood for two or three hours. You have to be local to realize how hard it is to keep The Grouch in a cheerful mood for two or three minutes, particularly if you are a small business owner and The Grouch isn't buying anything.

For comparison, Google Reviews gives Compuworld an average of four stars, based on the following reviews...Google links ought to work on a Google-hosted site, so I'm leaving them in.

"

Gena Prince

1 review

a year ago

Ron, the owner, is an awesome guy. He has always came when I have called him (which is about 40 minutes away) and have always done an excellent job. He has also went way beyond to fix the problem the office has had with what ever the issue is. We have also bought all of our office equipment from him and the prices are great!!! Would not trust anyone else to touch our computer systems. He is the BEST!!!!

Ben Vogel

4 reviews

a year ago

Went to have a screen replaced on my laptop with the replacement screen already in hand. Shop was quite messy with computers and parts scattered everywhere. After agreeing to do the labor, employee gave an estimate of "a couple days" for labor with no definite finish date. No confirmation or paper assurance or business card was given from this employee to contact him or to confirm the repair. This was on a Wednesday. Come Saturday after 3.5 full days to work on it and the laptop is still not repaired. On Monday, I receive a call saying the laptop is repaired. Was charged for 3 hours of labor, which is fine but could have been completed sooner. Repair was fine except for an issue with the screen not turning off when shut. It was not like this before.

Overall, they did the job I asked them to do for the agreed upon price, but it took longer than stated with no communication and was sketchy with no receipt or contact info after dropping the laptop off. A receipt was given after the repair had been done The repair left an issue that was not there before, which I will have looked at by another specialist.

Deborah Wilson

2 reviews

2 years ago

These guys are trustworthy, honest and do a great job servicing computers. They have helped me out numerous times on different issues. Very affordable too! Highly recommend them!

Janet Leigh

12 reviews · 10 photos

2 years ago

Good computer services. Owned by. Ron. Miller.

Shannon Jones

Local Guide · 2 reviews · 49 photos

a year ago

"

I read this idjit's bad review that was displacing two good reviews...I also looked at Vincent's profile on Yelp. He has only ever posted this one bad review. He has no "friends" on Yelp. He has no noticeable online presence, no link to a web site or social media account. How in blinkin' blue blazes is it possible for his reviews to impress anyone, even a bungled electronic algorithm, as more credible than, well, mine? The only way I can imagine would be through confusion with Vince Staten of the Kingsport Times-News. A bungled algorithm might achieve that level of confusion. Nobody who's read the Times-News would believe that that's the way Vince Staten writes. (For comparison, a link to Vince Staten's last blog post should be over on the right side of the screen somewhere.)

So, word-nerd and Perfect Virginia Lady that I am, I gave Yelp the chance to recognize and correct their egregious mistake. I e-mailed the site's headquarters to say that, if they wanted to suppress all my reviews in the interest of helping an old cardiovascular patient live longer, that was fine by me, but they ought at least to display the other Yelper's recent five-star review of Compuworld. I spelled out that although I'd clicked on a button to flag Vincent's review as "misleading," I wasn't asking them to purge his review, just to display it alongside one of the two reviews that reflect a more typical customer opinion.

This is what I got.

"
Hi Priscilla,

Thanks for writing back. After careful evaluation, we have decided not to remove Vincent S.'s content of Compuworld Systems. When reviewing user content, we look at a number of factors, including potential conflicts of interest, threatening or lewd commentary, and whether content has been posted to the correct business page. If a review falls within the bounds of our tolerance for strong language, appears to meet our guidelines and reflect the user’s personal experience and opinions, it is our policy to let the user stand behind their review.

Business owners can address concerns or misunderstandings via their Business Account by posting a public comment or sending a private message to the reviewer.

For further information on using Yelp, please find answers to frequently asked questions in our Support Center (http://www.yelp-support.com).

Additionally, one of the ways we try to help Yelp users discover local businesses is by using automated software to showcase reliable reviews. This means Yelp doesn’t recommend every review from every user and is automated so that it can apply the same standards to every business and every review. This is very different from other sites that tend to feature every single negative rant and positive rave. The software looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability and activity on Yelp. What is recommended can change over time, and a review that is currently not recommended may be recommended on another day.

Because our recommendation software is automated, the Yelp Support team cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. Our recommendation software is automated precisely so that it can apply the same standards to every business and every review without being overridden by someone's personal preferences.

We hope you'll take the time to watch our video about the Recommendation Software: https://www.yelp-support.com/article/What-is-Yelp-s-recommendation-software?l=en_US and visit our Support Center for more resources: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews.

Regards,
Michael
Yelp Support
San Francisco, California

"

In other words, Yelp's criterion for a review's reliability is "How much of a point lead do this person's reviews, taken together, give to independent businesses over big chains?"

Let's all give Yelp zero stars.

Book Review: She Walks These Hills

A Fair Trade Book



Title: She Walks These Hills

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Author's web site: http://sharynmccrumb.com/

Date: 1994

Publisher: Penguin/Signet

ISBN: none

Length: 444 pages

Quote: “Nora had tried to help this poor wayfaring stranger, but she couldn’t make her hear…When Nora stood close to the path to try to touch her, she wouldn’t be there at all.”

Nora “sees” the ghost of Katie Wyler, kidnapped by Shawnees in 1779. Katie escaped and found her way back to the White settlement, where she was promptly murdered. Katie is, of course, the least dangerous of the people walking around a fictional Smoky Mountains community called Dark Hollow. What Sharyn McCrumb writes are, technically, murder mysteries, though fleshed out with more subplots, history, and character than most murder mysteries have; in She Walks These Hills there’s an escaped murder convict, geriatric and likable but not completely harmless, and there’s a confused young man who thought he was just about ready to hike the Appalachian Trail alone, and somewhere in the hills with them there’s a present-time murderer.

Rounding out this cast are the detective, a policewoman with things to prove to the local policemen, and Hank the Yank, a fictional radio personality who reports on the story as it develops, and the requisite number of victims, witnesses, additional suspects, potential victims, and bystanders a murder mystery needs.

It would be easy to construct a story like She Walks These Hills on stereotypes alone, if you weren’t from a small mountain town, yourself. McCrumb is. If the murderer comes close to being a stereotype, the stereotype he fits is not “hillbilly” so much as “murderer in a mystery novel,” doomed by the rules of the genre.

The more interesting part of the story is of course the sense of place. McCrumb is one of the most topophilic writers alive. When writing novels, she disclosed in Bloodroot, she always puts in a good bit of real historical research (documented in a note at the end of the book), including listening to recordings of old music. The scene of the action is a fictional place readers could almost find in real life; Hamelin, Tennessee, isn’t on the map, but that mall in Johnson City where some of the characters shop is. So is East Tennessee State University, where some of them go to school. Likewise, you can’t tune in to WHTN, where Hank the Yank reads the news, but even from my part of Virginia you can usually pick up a good clear signal from WJCW.

Some local readers enjoy this type of thing; McCrumb’s novels have never been quite as heavily marketed as John Fox’s or Adriana Trigiani’s, but they sell and resell briskly in local stores.

Of course there’ve never really been many murder mysteries in the Southern Appalachian mountains. There’ve been relatively few people; part of the sense of place in McCrumb’s novels is a sense of sparse population, a fundamental expectation that people who walk into the woods alone are normally going to be alone in the woods for as many hours, days, or weeks as they want to be. Of those people, very few have been murderers. Within that micro-minority, nearly all the murderers have been insane, usually as a result of voluntary ingestion of some chemical or other, and easy to prove guilty; the difficulty about a few serial murderers in Appalachian history, like Chief Benge and Kinnie Wagner, was not proving them guilty but doing anything about them. Murderers are not typical of any community but, to the extent that there is such a thing as a typical murderer in the mountains, stoned shooter Lakeem Scott is probably it—not very bright even when sober and far too demented to present a challenge to police detectives.

Some of the details in a McCrumb novel that sound most unlikely are, however, fact-based. The convict and too-obvious prime suspect in She Walks These Hills is called Harm. In his case, McCrumb tells us, “Harm” is a mispronunciation of “Hiram,” but in fact “Harm” was a name actually given to a few little boys in the early twentieth century, like Herman, Armand, and Ormond. And a popular song—was it the Stonemans?—actually began with “Poor Ellen Smith, how she was found, Shot through the heart, lying cold on the ground.”  

And the characters share the concerns of real mountain people. “Seems that…officers…checking out the crime scene…found some sort of crud oozing out of the ground…toxic waste…Industrial chemicals dumped in a poor man’s field…on the day Claib Maggard was murdered, Harm Sorley’s cow died…I’ll bet they find out that Claib Maggard arranged for that dumping, and pocketed the money from whatever company unloaded it,” Hank the Yank reports, in a speech unlikely to have been broadcast even on a strictly local radio station. “The people who settled this land, and loved it too much to leave it, were being pushed back then by the government interests, and the corporations, and the tourists, and the city people with their vacation homes.Thirty years hasn’t changed any of that, either. We’ve got the pollution, and condos…‘When the last moonshiner buys his radio…Something will pass that was American And all the movies will not bring it back.’”

Hank is of course a first-generation immigrant to Tennessee. That may not be as it should be, but it is as reality so often is. People who have always and only lived in the mountains are typically the ones letting their family farms and the lifestyle that goes with them die. Our great-grandparents worked hard, seldom grew rich, didn’t have a lot of things that we enjoy having. If we’ve not lived in other places, and experienced the frustrations of life in Washington or New York, California or Florida, Ireland, France, or Nepal, for ourselves, many of us are prone to imagine that we want to trade the family farm for a chance to live in some place and way that sound richer and more exciting. And some of the prodigal sons and daughters of the Appalachian Mountains even do enjoy living in the places to which they go.

Many, of course, don’t. I’ve not read or carried out a formal survey, but it’s often seemed to me that a majority of the people living in small mountain towns, sometimes especially the ones whose oldfashioned accents sound as if they’d never met an outsider or watched television, have in fact lived in other parts of the world for a few years. Some of us even liked the other places where we lived; I loved Washington, and the easiest way to ease some of my neighbors out of a bad mood is to say something in the language of their favorite foreign country…but those places, however delightful to visit, were not “home.”

“Home” is, well, prickly (I live in an orchard; I’m writing this review at the end of raspberry season.) And hot and humid in summer, damp and chilly in winter, lonesome if you’re out in the woods, crowded if you’re indoors with your ever-loving family all underfoot. And where there aren’t wasps and hornets, there are flies and mosquitoes; where there aren’t black snakes, there are rattlesnakes. And as a teenager you could have sweet age-appropriate dreams about being seen with some attractive, popular person of the opposite sex, but in order for more adult fantasies not to feel icky you have to get away from home. And if you do choose to spend your time and money on radio, TV, telephones, the Internet or anything else that might seem to promise to connect your home with your friends and life somewhere else, most of the time whatever it is won’t work. And “home” is still where you know, with every part of your mind and body, that you’re meant to be. You don’t even need to shorten your time at home with moonshine.

Sharyn McCrumb’s murder mysteries probably aren’t enough to convince the young to hold on to the family farm. But they remind older readers that we’re glad if we did.

You're welcome to use that Amazon photo link to buy a brand-new first edition. That's not what I physically have for sale, nor is it what $5 per book + $5 per package, from which 10% ($1) goes to Sharyn McCrumb or the charity of her choice, will buy from the address at the very bottom of this screen. Other sellers may list random used copies of this book for less than $5 but, since the $5 per package applies to as many of McCrumb's older pocket-size novels (or other books) as we can squeeze into the box, the Fair Trade Book option may be your best deal after all...and it includes $1 per book to each living author we can locate or to that author's favorite charity.

Justice for Jason Byrns (Who Tried to Kill Jamie Lawson)

Not exactly news any more, but since overseas readers didn't see it in the newspaper, this web site officially reacts to the last installment in the Jamie Lawson story.

On June 21, the Kingsport Times-News' front-page report of Jason Byrns' trial might have been intended to provoke reactions: "A Tennessee man...failed to have his sentence reduced Friday during a hearing in Scott County (Virginia) court. Jason T. Byrns, 33, of Kingsport, appeared in court after filing a motion to have his 60-year prison sentence reduced on the grounds the punishment was too harsh."

Well, just for the exercise, we could try it the other way round. "Hypothetical J. Doe, of Gate City (Virginia), appeared in the Kingsport court..." Or "H.J. Doe, of Gate City, appeared in the Scott County court..." Or "H.J. Doe, of Kingsport, appeared in the Kingsport court..." Or whatever jurisdictions you care to name. This web site maintains that Byrns was stupid even to bother filing the motion.

We are talking about a drug dealer who was apparently trying to evade arrest, conviction, and most likely a fine and a week or a month in jail when he crossed the Virginia line and found a police roadblock waiting for him there. Apparently guided by some sort of inner demons, Byrns stomped the gas pedal and roared into Scott County as fast as his vehicle would go, deliberately swerving to intimidate pedestrians, fellow motorists, and five other traffic officers. State Trooper Jamie Lawson had been assigned the duty of stopping Byrns, and Byrns rammed Lawson's police car seven times, at speeds estimated to be between 50 and 70 miles per hour (in a residential neighborhood), before he finally shoved the police car into another vehicle parked beside the road. Lawson spent weeks in an expensive specialized hospital unit; the partial disability resulting from damage to his spine is expected to be permanent.

Too harsh, he whined? I know a few Kingsport men who might be persuaded to teach Byrns what "harsh" means...There is no serious dispute that anyone who would rather commit murder than pay a fine should be kept off the streets for as long as there is any chance of his attempting to operate a motor vehicle. Sixty years, starting from age 33, sounds about right. The question is whether the taxpayers can reasonably be asked to feed something like Byrns for sixty years.

On the purely theoretical assumption that, although the Times-News hasn't mentioned it, Byrns may have a relative somewhere who is praying that Byrns may be capable of some sort of spiritual experience, revival, rehabilitation, the development of a human mind that understands why it's better to spend a few weeks in jail than it is to commit murder, the law does require the taxpayers of Virginia to feed Jason Byrns for up to sixty years. There might be some reasonable debate about whether that is "too harsh."

Jamie Lawson was trying to protect people from a homicidal maniac, and he may never "walk free" from pain again. If Jason Byrns never walks out from behind the razor-wire fence again, it appears to me that, to the extent that humans are capable of doing justice, justice has been done.

Targeted Ads Bounce Off the Bull's Eye

It was bad enough two years ago when Yahoo was "targeting" ads by zip codes. Internet dating services pay for constant ad bombardments. I know this may be a surprise to some of the people who operate Internet dating services, but the probability of my paying an Internet dating service to introduce me to one of my cousins is subzero. If I ever did use a personal ad service, the idea would be to "meet" men from some place where all the decent guys were not already related to me.

But now the computer is, as advertised, picking up on words in my e-mail, and possibly on this blog. If so, here's something for local family-owned businesses to know:

I know where Bill Gatton's car lots are. I don't own or want a car, but I worked there in the 1990s. Bill Gatton's has been around long enough, and outlasted enough competition, that they're probably doing something right. I mean, over and above keeping the building sparkly-clean, although that's definitely a step in the right direction. But I'm not more likely to buy a car because they've bought a Yahoo ad. The fact that I receive, and sometimes reply to, a fair amount of e-mail about Bristol and some e-mail containing the word "car" in no way implies that I'm likely to buy a car.

I know where more than one Food City supermarket is. Sometimes I do buy groceries there. Not often, because although they sometimes offer good sale prices on things I buy, they practically never offer a reasonable regular price on anything I buy. But I'm not more likely to buy more groceries because they've bought a Yahoo ad. Even though I do eat, do buy groceries, and sometimes buy groceries from Food City, I don't use my limited online time or ability to stare at a computer screen to read ads. I check the ads in the Kingsport Times-News and Virginia Star. The fact that I not only blog about food but actually eat it in no way implies that I'm likely to let a nuisance graphic tell me what food to buy where.

I know where Gilbert's Gun & Pawn Shop is. I've never bought a gun or pawned anything there, but I used to have a booth in a flea market, and all the local junk dealers know each other and trade junk that seems to fit in somebody else's collection better than in one's own. The Gilberts didn't try to cheat me, nor have I heard of them cheating anybody else. But I'm not more likely to buy a gun or pawn any of the high-end junk they handle because they've bought a Yahoo ad. The fact that I receive, and sometimes reply to, e-mail about firearms rights legislation in no way implies that I'm likely to buy a gun.

I know where most of the local businesses and attractions are, actually. Mr. Clark's Furniture Store. Quillin's Hardware. Mac's Medicine Mart. Broadwater Drugs. Thriftway. Oliver's Loft. The Ivy Cottage. Estilville Bed & Breakfast. Addco. I Love Books. Memory Lane. Circle V. Wallace News. Chris's Department Store. The Haggle Shop. The Hob Nob. Etc., etc., etc. I remember Appco, Nickels, the Corner Copia...yesterday I took a survey about nationally advertised appliances and wasn't sure which brands were still being manufactured, but I remember which year these local businesses ceased to exist.

I know some of the local business owners personally--enough to feel bemused when a yuppie type who's trying to launch a business by overspending recklessly pays for an unnecessary and off-putting ad, and outraged when a nice seventy-something couple both of whom have been in the hospital lately have been slick-talked into paying for an unnecessary and off-putting ad. When Yahoo's "targeted ads" are annoying people who've been your neighbors for longer than Yahoo has existed, those ads are bouncing right off the bull's-eye.

And if you're my neighbors, not that I've gone into the stores discussed above (or any other store) to push this idea, you're more likely to get more business and more loyalty from me if you advertise right here. That would keep the money in the area; if I had more money I probably wouldn't buy more of the things I don't buy, but at least I'd buy more of the things I do buy, so the money would circulate around Gate City, Kingsport, and Bristol and possibly trickle back to your business.

Yahoo's "targeting" ads within the local area may work for newcomers to a big city who want to know where to find things in the neighborhood where they're renting, but in this part of the world, it's a stupid idea. If the people who see your ads are going to be people who already know who, what, and where you are, why annoy them with pop-up ads at all?