As a political blogger I expect my fair share of dissent, hostility and challenges to my notions of the state of the political scene. In many ways I welcome it because the more dissention the greater I feel my message is getting through to those who read my blog. To create community discussion is the goal of any blogger.

What amazes me is the hypocrisy lost in the city’s useful idiots, although it really shouldn’t because by their nature useful idiots do not intellectually think about what they are writing; they, instead, regurgitate what they are told to write.

For those that do not know who Jay Koester is let me refresh your memories a little bit. Koester launched the El Paso Times online blogging platforms that were used by Bob Moore and the horde to protect the Ray Caballero administration from outspoken challenges to Caballero’s attempt to reinvent El Paso under his vision of a utopian paradise devoid of the character that makes El Paso unique.

Jay Koester used the word “crazy” so many times against those daring to challenge the gentrification of El Paso under Ray Caballero that I believe the word “crazy” is now synonymous to him.

However hypocrisy and thief are now new tags that, in my opinion, should now define him, as well.

hy•poc•ri•sy (noun) The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.

On October 19, 2013 Koester wrote a blog titled; “El Paso blogging scene”. On his blog post, Jay wrote that he “will never recommend ‘blogs of personal destruction,’ for example those written by TC or El Paso’s own Sherlock Holmes.” He was referring to the list of local blogs he had created on his blog.

Of course it does not surprise me that his hypocrisy in writing “blogs of personal destruction” is completely lost to him when he not only created the mechanism by which those challenging the status quo were labeled “crazies”, but in fact he coined the use of the word in El Paso when referring to those opposing downtown redevelopment under the Caballero regime.

As a useful idiot I do not expect him to understand such a simple concept.

Therefore his misappropriation of intellectual property is definitely not something he is capable of understanding. Although I don’t expect him to understand it, in fact I expect him to retaliate by doing what useful idiots do best and that is to attack the messenger instead of the message by deflecting away from the message through out-of-context innuendo I nonetheless feel the need to point out the facts.

mis•ap•ply (noun) See theft.

thief (noun) A thief is a person who steals another person’s property.

Theft by Misapplication of Property

Generally, theft by misapplication of property is defined as the use of property for a purpose other than that for which it was intended. It implies a conscious misappropriation of property.

According to online legal sources, a person is guilty of misapplication of property when he knowingly uses the property of another without the consent of the owner.

Intellectual Property (IP)

According to Wikipedia Intellectual Property (IP) is “a legal concept which refers to creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are recognized.[1] Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs.”

Fair Use

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use of intellectual property as a: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report…”

On November 15, 2013, Jay Koester posted a blog post he authored titled; “Subscribing to the El Paso Times: An exercise in futility”. On his post he goes on to describe his frustration trying to subscribe to the local paper.

However in his post he used a graphic I had created for my blog post; “Election Season Starting: Stable of Useful Idiots Increased by One”.

His use of my graphic on his blog has little, if anything, to do with his blog post. In fact Jay writes under the stolen graphic; “’What the heck is this Jay?’ Lol, I know, right? It’s a logo Martin ran over on his blog, I liked it a lot, and because nobody reads that blog, I thought I should put it over here. I love how it equates my power to the El Paso Times and ABC-7. What can I say? I’m bad to the bone. Or Martin’s crazy. I’ll let you decide which is true. There is one way, however, that this blog is similar to the El Paso Times. Neither of us has a circulation department.”

I know the hypocrisy is obviously lost to him however I cannot leave some of his comments unchallenged. He wrote; “I liked it a lot, and because nobody reads that blog, I thought I should put it over here.”

Hmm, at least one thief, if not many others, have at one time, or another rationalized that stealing property is good because no one will see it, or miss it. Just because he “liked it a lot” does not give him the right to misappropriate property that does not belong to him.

The graphic Jay Koester used without my permission is a graphic I created for my blog. By the fact that I created it, under copyright law the graphic is automatically vested with my copyright on it and as such it became my intellectual property. Therefore its use is completely subject to how I want it used.

Hold on a second! Aren’t you misapplying the logos of the El Paso Times and KVIA on your own graphic? Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite as well? Before giving the useful idiots an opportunity to deflect from the message by creating an illusion I’ll address the concept of Fair Use.

I believe that my use of the logos falls under the theory of “fair use” because not only are the logos not a major component of the overall graphic they are also a part of the “criticism” I continually write about the news outlets and it is also a “parody” of their activities.

Jay Koester’s theft of my intellectual property does not “parody” my work because he doesn’t bother to make it a part of the content of the post; in fact, he himself writes that he used it because he “liked it a lot”. Since he “liked” he is obviously not criticizing it.

Ok, so I got that off my chest.

I could easily have him take it down by filing a take-down demand as per the Digital Millennium Act however useful idiots need to be exposed by their own stupidity.

So, Jay, since I know you read my blog, please know that by the simple fact that I did not send your service provider a take-down demand I am tacitly giving you permission to use my graphic after you stole it.

Allowing you to use it gives me the opportunity to easily expose your hypocrisy and for that I appreciate your misuse of my property. Oh, and thank you for liking it a lot especially since you would never recommend my blog to others but I understand, in your mind, it’s ok to steal my property.