EllenImpromptu, Series Introduction

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


We've decided to expand the scope of the EllenImpromptu blog series and present this new Introduction to explain the changes.

EllenImpromptu was meant to contain a grab bag of pieces which, for various reasons, do not fit comfortably into the format of Destitute Ivy Leaguer - Will Work For Change, the blog associated with our Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, a broad-based, non-profit, non-partisan venture focused on the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the United States and abroad.

For instance, the first story in the EllenImpromptu series focuses on the rash of anti-Baby Boomer rhetoric - some of it out-and-out hate speech - on the Internet and why we all must unite to stop it.

The second story in the series looks at age-targeted advertising on cable television, a serious blot on that mass medium, which pretty much every viewer detests.

Now, we've decided to expand EllenImpromptu with material from several of my past blogs posted on the Word Press site.

We are doing this for two reasons: First, some of these articles are even more relevant today than when we originally published them a few years ago. We would now like them to reach a larger audience and believe Blogger and Google can help us accomplish that task.

More importantly: Since virtually all of my blogs have a strong political dimension, I believe it is ethically incorrect to "monetize" them. Some others may disagree with this position, but it is the way I feel.

Lately, Word Press has begun to "monetize" my blogs - and everybody else's - with unauthorized advertising. I disapprove of this practice, and I do not wish my blogs to be part of it.

In addition, Word Press has failed to prevent entire blogs - every single word - from being bodily stolen and incorporated into the blogs of unethical, criminal individuals who maintain their own sites at the Word Press venue. Complaints about this content theft fall on deaf ears.

I know of at least three of my articles which have been bodily lifted from my Word Press blogs and posted at sites with which I not only have nothing whatsoever to do, but sites of which I heartily disapprove in a political sense. I wish to prevent this from happening in the future.

While I will allow some of my past blogs to remain at Word Press, I will start revising and reprinting several others at EllenImpromptu and Blogger, beginning this week. Once a blog has been re-published at Blogger, it will be deleted from Word Press and available only here.

Look for the first two of these revised blogs - on Political Centrism and Political Polls - to appear shortly.


Ellen Brandt is Founder of the  Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, which seeks to help the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad.