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More Articles
2003-02-09:
Buying Dispensation
Continuing the ancient-history theme of last month's article, here's a little fable from long, long ago...
Into a small village in medieval Europe rode a monk on an ass. The village's shop keepers gathered around him.
"Friar..." they cried, "Will you lead us out of our poverty?"
"Absolution," he said. You require absolution from the sins that have darkened your path." ...
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The Smell of Profit...
by Bob West
January 8, 2003
Here's a fun tidbit I dug up...
I've recently gotten several pieces of UCE from a new "offers" marketer, so I decided to pay their website a visit. All in all, it's the typical minimal site using what appear to be generic stock images, with the usual sales pitch about email marketing, and pages for subscribing and unsubscribing.
On the unsub page, though, the stock image is that of an ancient Roman coin.
This started me thinking, so I Gargled for info. This particular coin turns out to be a silver denarius struck in 75 A.D., during the reign of Emperor Vespasian.
Coincidentally, I'd recently seen a TV documentary that talked about Vespasian. Interesting guy. I Gargled for a little more info on this particular Caesar, found some pages, and read this text...
From:
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedagogy/har/har6.html
[ 577 ] Vespasianus reprehendenti filio Tito, quod etiam urinae vectigal commentus esset, Pecuniam ex prima pensione admovit ad nares, sciscitans num odore offenderetur, et illo negante, atqui, inquit, e lotio est. Hinc illud, Bonus odor lucri ex re qualibet.
[Translation:]
[ 577 ] When his son Titus was taking him to task over having devised a tax even on the latrines, Vespasian waved money from the first payment under his nose, asking him whether he found the smell offensive. When he said he didn't, Vespasian replied, "And yet it comes from urine." Hence the saying, "The smell of profit is good no matter what the source."
I almost fell out of my chair! How could there possibly be a more perfect quote to represent the attitude of spammers toward making money?!
(Did this offers marketer know about this when they added the image? Who knows...?)
So, I hereby declare CM mascot Spammy the Clown's(TM) motto to henceforth be:
"Atqui, inquit, e lotio est!"...
"And yet, it comes from urine!"
(Hey, maybe I should also change Spammy the Clown to "Emperor Vespamian(TM)"...)
...Bob
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