Unfortunately, I don’t typically follow my own advice or best practices on this website and write blog posts that will generate large numbers of clicks through something known “in the biz” as search engine optimization (SEO). If I did, I could probably generate all kinds of Internet traffic, unique page views and web page hits, just like I did last December when I blogged about the racist soap.

Of course, when you load up your blog posts with lots of keywords, Google could cast a wary eye on you and stop indexing your website. So it’s important when blogging for SEO to make sure your keywords, tags and categories are germane to the topic on which you are blogging.

For example, if I wanted visitors to come to this website exclusively to hire me as a writer/editor, I would make sure my blog posts were always loaded up with “skilled Indianapolis writer/editor,” or something like that. “Skilled Indianapolis writer/editor” would be a keyword phrase I would use in my first sentence, and perhaps even in the title. I would also use that keyword phrase, “skilled Indianapolis writer/editor” in the “excerpt,” which would function as kind of a teaser when the website contents were displayed on sites like LinkedIn or Google.

Blogging for SEO follows a different cadence of writing than say, an essay, because of the need to emphasize keywords at the top end. It’s as though every website post written for SEO is wearing a double-D. Forgive the metaphor, but I’m so plagued here with spam I tend to forget there are people out there interested in topics that have nothing to do with penis enlargement meds or treatments for tinnitus. (Back at you, suckers.)

Why I blog: Blogging functions as a creative outlet as well as a workout for my writing muscles. It’s a place to store things, like my Slow Food Files, which will one day be compiled into a recipe book. On the blog I can rant, though not without consequences, as the silly soap incident taught me. Finally, it’s a calling card. It’s a way of doing what I say I can do and of walking my talk. Darn the cliché, but sometimes the formula fits.

UPDATED: Requirement to register has been removed due to technical difficulties. Comments on this blog will still be “held for moderation” and require administrator approval before they go live. So rules of the road are: no cursing and name calling, and especially, keep it relevant to the discussion.

Fox 59 12-10-2010

Fox 59 12-8-2010

Fox 59 12-9-2010

Soon after my Nov. 24 post on “Racist Soap” went viral and was picked up locally by WXIN Fox 59’s Kim King, WTHR Channel 13’s Mary Milz and Robert Annis at The Indianapolis Star, it began to receive comments. Like Fox 59’s Facebook page and the “conversation” pages of the three news outlets, the comments were mostly inflammatory, just like the topic I covered in the original blog post.

Faceless “someones” were calling me a “fat hooker,” “f***ing slut” and “f***ing crybaby bitch” for standing up against racism and exercising my First Amendment rights to voice my opinion. And since this is my blog and I can write what I want, I could have shot back about what a bunch of p***ies they are. But that’s not what this blog is about.

Besides, there’s no point getting into a pissing contest with a bunch of white supremacists who worship David Duke (“white pride, worldwide!”). It’s not as though they’re equipped with rational arguments and informed opinions. For example, one theme from these commenters is that racist behavior is okay because of “black on white crime.” Sigh.

Sadly, the commentariat apparently is comprised of people who never learned good manners, much less fair play. In their verbal sandbox that makes up the online space, they spew ad hominem for lack of anything substantive to say.

When they do attempt substance, the commentariat play fast and loose with the facts. I was amazed to see that the “Just Cookies” incident has been attributed to me, among other fiction, along with probably the financial meltdown and global warming (except that they probably believe global warming doesn’t exist.)

This whole episode has made me reflect on the comment feature of this blog. I began the blog in early November after a blogging hiatus of more than a year. My previous blog was hosted on Yahoo! 360, a discontinued service that required commenters to be registered users and generated few comments. Initially on this blog, I left commenting open to anyone who supplied a username and email address; however, I’ve modified that to require commenters to register.

The nasty comments I’ve received are way beyond anything I received by email in the 10 years I wrote commentary for The Star. I’m continually amazed at how brazen people will be when anonymity releases them from accountability. Say what you will about my opinion, but I’ve been willing, for more than a decade, to put my name, face and email with what I believe.

So, two more things regarding comments on this blog. At first I was so happy to receive a comment (any comment!) that I approved some spammy SEO stuff that seemed harmless. No more. Unless the comment adds to the conversation, consider it forever “in moderation.” That goes for anything inflammatory or nasty, as well.

As for comments on the “Racist Soap” post, I’m going to approve all but the extremely nasty ones, just for the sake of “the conversation.” I hope any intelligent life out there, if it exists, will counter-post this garbage. There are a lot of not-so-nice people in the world, many of them standing up for a very uncuddly Archie Bunker archetype who believes “This country was founded on racism.” Heaven help us, as we march into 2011, that these attitudes still exist.

While Christmas shopping in Noblesville with my sister-in-law, Karen, I happened upon something shocking and sad. A vendor in Logan Village Mall, a location of about 40 shops on the town square, is selling racist soap.

“Kolored Kids Soap,” “Spook Soap,” “Coon Chicken Soap” — you get the idea. When I brought this issue to the attention of the women at the counter, I was told they “sell a lot of it,” and that the vendor is aware that “some people” find the soap offensive. (But they were glad I nevertheless purchased items from other vendors.)

That such products exist and ostensibly are popular in our so-called “post-racial” racist society is beyond me. If I were black, the message I would take away from a visit to the mall and to Noblesville is: “We serve whites only.”

Under the pretext of “Black Americana,” this stuff is being sold with all the same nostalgia and disregard for humanity as memorabilia about Japanese concentration camps. Unbelievably, you can find a lot of it online. By allowing these products into their midst, the mall owners are culpable, as is the community of Noblesville, for providing legitimacy for racist behavior.