The Truth About Ruth - Part 4

[ljohnson2006]

Yikes. Why would someone go to all that trouble?

[stonefruit]

FTR, my question was because jojo linked to a specific comment and I couldn't figure out why that comment was problematic.

[mebeforee]

Stumbled across this earlier and meant to share it here. It always weirds me out a little when I suddenly see something on a website I frequent that seems to mirror an issue I've been thinking about from elsewhere. Like the internet is reading my mind...

ETA the link :lol: : http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-y ... ad-online/

[Coconut Flan]

I saw this earlier.

She's just lost me. I am NOT donating online. I can't believe that the blog has gone down this route.

For all we know, this could be ANOTHER PM/RR scam.

I agree. I think that is absolutely the wrong way to go. I don't donate online and don't plan to ever change that policy. I would hate to see the Truth About Ruth diluted with other scams or worse pretend to be a clearing house to approve or disapprove of internet stories.

OK, redact the previous, she has edited the post and reversed her position.

[Whipple]

RR scamming again. Who knows! There are better ways to donate than online. I like the idea of using a dental school. And dental schools do NOT charge the same or near the same as dentists as the scammer states. Another option is a reputable dentist in Mexico. I had dental work done in a major city in Mexico following a dental emergency and the care was first rate and was VERY inexpensive.

There are agencies that support people in need and I'm starting to think that it is better to donate to those agencies on behalf of a person or family than to a person directly.

[Coconut Flan]

I do most of my donating locally and for two of the organizations I know the people making decisions on where the funding goes. I know decisions are being made carefully.

[OkToBeTakei]

I saw this earlier.

She's just lost me. I am NOT donating online. I can't believe that the blog has gone down this route.

For all we know, this could be ANOTHER PM/RR scam.

The blog in general seems bizarre to me. But hey.. what ever floats your boat.

I was done with RR is a fake, look IP's.

Teeth eh :D

[Artemis]

I checked out what she had to say because I was intrigued by the mindset of anyone who can committ such an elaborate fraud.

My bad. You touch pitch, it soils you. I've only just really started back commenting on here after taking a break because I was so up to my ears in work. Now I'm questioning myself about why.

[Oddeverything]

Y'all are are correct. This really was the worst way to go. I had an idea that this could be a chance to be a counterbalance to the bad **** has done, and it was utterly insensitive. And stupid. I put my integrity and the integrity of the blog in harm's way in a half-baked, "Oh, let's try to get something good out of the RR scam!" Had I thought it through, I would have known that people who had been taken by one scammer would not want to read about someone else raising money.

At best it was naive, middling it was stupid, and at worst it was insensitive to people who had been exploited.

I can't apologize enough and I hope that I can regain trust. I don't delete entries but I am going to strip links out of her entry. But I hope that readers who remain after this completely idiotic idea can forgive my lack of sensitivity and will stick around to see that this is not anything that will ever happen again and that TAR is not involved in any scams, nor will the site ever again promote any sort of online fund-raising.

I can't say it enough - mea culpa and I am so sorry.

[Arete]

I'm sorry, but that woman is lying through her teeth when she says that a dental school is charging nearly the same prices as the regular dentists in her area. When I was in college I had to get some fairly complicated work done, and the dental school was ridiculously cheap. Like, I think they were only making their supply money back cheap. For things too complicated for the students, a licensed dentist teaching at the school would take over, as happened in my particular case.

Sorry, this chick is pinging my scamdar. She may be doing good work, but the amount of money she needs because the dental school is priced the same as the local dentists or the work is too complicated sounds fishy. Very fishy.

Edit-Started post before Odds put her post up.

[church_of_dog]

It always weirds me out a little when I suddenly see something on a website I frequent that seems to mirror an issue I've been thinking about from elsewhere. Like the internet is reading my mind...

It's called Baader-Meinhof. An awkward name for a pretty common (at least I think so) phenomenon: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baad ... henomenon/

But what just really weirded me out was that the reason I know the name of this phenomenon is because I just looked it up a week or so ago because of some other situation that fit. So now I'm in a vicious spiral of meta-Baader-Meinhoffing! :shifty:

[OkToBeTakei]

I'm sorry, but that woman is lying through her teeth when she says that a dental school is charging nearly the same prices as the regular dentists in her area. When I was in college I had to get some fairly complicated work done, and the dental school was ridiculously cheap. Like, I think they were only making their supply money back cheap. For things too complicated for the students, a licensed dentist teaching at the school would take over, as happened in my particular case.

Sorry, this chick is pinging my scamdar. She may be doing good work, but the amount of money she needs because the dental school is priced the same as the local dentists or the work is too complicated sounds fishy. Very fishy.

Edit-Started post before Odds put her post up.

You crack me up :lol:

[OkToBeTakei]

I checked out what she had to say because I was intrigued by the mindset of anyone who can committ such an elaborate fraud.

My bad. You touch pitch, it soils you. I've only just really started back commenting on here after taking a break because I was so up to my ears in work. Now I'm questioning myself about why.

Well it's good to see your posts. Most days I question posting. Then I learn something new, about the world..or myself.

[Palimpsest]

Y'all are are correct. This really was the worst way to go. I had an idea that this could be a chance to be a counterbalance to the bad Chris has done, and it was utterly insensitive. And stupid. I put my integrity and the integrity of the blog in harm's way in a half-baked, "Oh, let's try to get something good out of the RR scam!" Had I thought it through, I would have known that people who had been taken by one scammer would not want to read about someone else raising money.

At best it was naive, middling it was stupid, and at worst it was insensitive to people who had been exploited.

I can't apologize enough and I hope that I can regain trust. I don't delete entries but I am going to strip links out of her entry. But I hope that readers who remain after this completely idiotic idea can forgive my lack of sensitivity and will stick around to see that this is not anything that will ever happen again and that TAR is not involved in any scams, nor will the site ever again promote any sort of online fund-raising.

I can't say it enough - mea culpa and I am so sorry.

I can definitely see what you were trying to do re. being a counterbalance to Ruth's poison, but I have to admit that I saw that post and gulped! It just felt wrong -- and I never donated a cent to RR or any of her incarnations.

I took a few minutes to think about how to tell you it was a mistake -- and your mea culpa went up before I wrote a post or email. Thanks. I think you just made a well-meaning mistake. (BTW, do you have 28 blogs? I thought that was someone else? )

It is OK. Everyone screws up sometimes. Keep up the good work on RR/PM.

[mebeforee]

It's called Baader-Meinhof. An awkward name for a pretty common (at least I think so) phenomenon: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baad ... henomenon/

But what just really weirded me out was that the reason I know the name of this phenomenon is because I just looked it up a week or so ago because of some other situation that fit. So now I'm in a vicious spiral of meta-Baader-Meinhoffing! :shifty:

This may be offensive to some here, lmao, but at a recent point in time I was very stoned and became convinced that I was somehow controlling the contents of my livejournal feed. Everything I saw there seemed directly related to things I had recently posted/read about! I had some profound revelation about the human condition that night but now I don't remember what it was.

[Oddeverything]

I can definitely see what you were trying to do re. being a counterbalance to Ruth's poison, but I have to admit that I saw that post and gulped! It just felt wrong -- and I never donated a cent to RR or any of her incarnations.

I took a few minutes to think about how to tell you it was a mistake -- and your mea culpa went up before I wrote a post or email. Thanks. I think you just made a well-meaning mistake. (BTW, do you have 28 blogs? I thought that was someone else? )

It is OK. Everyone screws up sometimes. Keep up the good work on RR/PM.

That commenter is Franklinator over on another site and she's making the same claims over there. I have four blogs - TAR, my book blog, my conspiracy theory blog and a defunct LiveJournal that hasn't been updated in months. I've asked her to clarify but I think what she means is that I am Ruth and therefore I have 28 blogs. She's insinuating it heavily on another site so that's all I can come up with.

[Patsy]

Blisterine, who posted the "Truth about Oprah" thread very shortly (a week?) after RR went down, said she had 28 blogs.

[Coconut Flan]

Someone should keep an eye on that.

[Whipple]

I'm sorry, but that woman is lying through her teeth when she says that a dental school is charging nearly the same prices as the regular dentists in her area. When I was in college I had to get some fairly complicated work done, and the dental school was ridiculously cheap. Like, I think they were only making their supply money back cheap. For things too complicated for the students, a licensed dentist teaching at the school would take over, as happened in my particular case.

Sorry, this chick is pinging my scamdar. She may be doing good work, but the amount of money she needs because the dental school is priced the same as the local dentists or the work is too complicated sounds fishy. Very fishy.

Edit-Started post before Odds put her post up.

Yes this pinged my radar too. Also a lot of dentists and dermatologists will do work for free, trade, or will work out easy payment plan. My friend had terrible acne and a dermatologist took pity on him. When my friend tried to pay him back years later, the doctor refused. You often hear about dentists or doctors offering to help. People have services that they can barter if they want to keep their dignity. I'm really getting sick of this. We are a community that feels strongly about the rights of women and for that were played. I liked it when we helped that family out during the holidays but that mommy blogger didn't ask. It was our idea.

[Coconut Flan]

The USC dental school generally turns out excellent dentists IMO and they charge about 1/3 of the usual rate of private practice dentists. Their faculty rates are comparable to private rates in the LA area. The entry workup is $88 inclusive of x-rays.

USC is a private school and I expect state schools might even be a better deal.

[thekate]

The USC dental school generally turns out excellent dentists IMO and they charge about 1/3 of the usual rate of private practice dentists. Their faculty rates are comparable to private rates in the LA area. The entry workup is $88 inclusive of x-rays.

USC is a private school and I expect state schools might even be a better deal.

The state dental school here is about half price of private dentists, but the catch is you have to be there pretty much ALL DAY because groups of students will come and examine you, prepare a scope of work proposal, get it approved, do the work, and then have their work looked over by the attending. Not so easy if you have a job but no benefits, which is probably why you're using the dental school to begin with!

[marmalade]

Go Trojans! :mrgreen:

I pretty much ignored the deets of the "Annie" post, but read the concluding paragraphs explaining what was supposed to be happening, but being so turned off by the Ruth reveal, all the red flags went up.

I'm only donating to causes that are well promoted on the news (like a scholarship fund for a child whose parents were killed, for example). I feel better writing a check and putting it in the mail than giving $$$ online, and I worked at a bank and opening accounts saw just about every way one could forge a check!

[Oddeverything]

Blisterine, who posted the "Truth about Oprah" thread very shortly (a week?) after RR went down, said she had 28 blogs.

Okay, well then it appears the person who brought up the number of blogs on TAR and GOMI is accusing me of being Ruth, if I understand her correctly.

Sigh... It was bound to happen, I guess.

I'm gonna go fold laundry or something that doesn't require a screen.

ETA: Or is she accusing me of being Oprah? It is a mystery...

[nelliebelle1197]

I read her posts on GOMI and she is not a nice person. She used to post here and hates FJ with a passion....

[Oddeverything]

I read her posts on GOMI and she is not a nice person. She used to post here and hates FJ with a passion....

I don't get the site vs site stuff. It's weird to me. But she and I just had a meeting of the minds, hopefully.

But mostly I need to get a pair of big-girl drama-proof panties and pull them up.