Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Titles are hard
First off, congratulations for finding this blog! There isn't much blogging going on here, so I doubt it ranks highly on Google. But now that you're here...
I don't intend to keep a personal blog. Yet, a joker had the temerity to take out a blog under my name, call it the Unofficial Evren Karpak blog , and post a hodge-podge of my writings and his unflattering commentary peppered with various accusations and smears. This here is what I think of that.
For starters, I am definitely flattered. There is a certain tingle to seeing someone else pore over one's writing and put such an effort into it, even if to make it sound like something's amiss.
But that is not exactly why I am flattered. I am flattered because just as an honorable man's compliments reflect well by association, so does a dishonorable man's smears. It means you must be doing something right.
Who is this joker? He signs all his posts "Sam E. Antar, former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon" so that much is beyond controversy. Sam was the CFO of a consumer electronics chain out of New York owned and run by the Antar family back in the 1980s. It is now remembered for two highly dubious accomplishments:
The punch line of the story is -- the Feds catch up to the Antars, Eddie flees the country, Sam agrees to testify against Eddie and the rest of the family in return for having a lengthy prison sentence reduced to 6 months curfew. Eddie is later apprehended and serves a lengthy sentence.
Cut to today. Sam Antar is now an ostensibly reformed criminal, out to help others avoid being defrauded by con-men such as himself. To that end, he writes a blog called WhiteCollarFraud. A worthy goal and a shining example of a fraudster putting his anti-social tendencies, finally, to good use. Or, so it would seem.
[more to follow]
I don't intend to keep a personal blog. Yet, a joker had the temerity to take out a blog under my name, call it the Unofficial Evren Karpak blog , and post a hodge-podge of my writings and his unflattering commentary peppered with various accusations and smears. This here is what I think of that.
For starters, I am definitely flattered. There is a certain tingle to seeing someone else pore over one's writing and put such an effort into it, even if to make it sound like something's amiss.
But that is not exactly why I am flattered. I am flattered because just as an honorable man's compliments reflect well by association, so does a dishonorable man's smears. It means you must be doing something right.
Who is this joker? He signs all his posts "Sam E. Antar, former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon" so that much is beyond controversy. Sam was the CFO of a consumer electronics chain out of New York owned and run by the Antar family back in the 1980s. It is now remembered for two highly dubious accomplishments:
- It had a catchy TV ad -- "Crazy Eddie, his prices are IN-SAAAANE!"
- It perpetrated large-scale fraud on its investors and on the general public, an operation that involved money laundering, tax and accounting fraud.
The punch line of the story is -- the Feds catch up to the Antars, Eddie flees the country, Sam agrees to testify against Eddie and the rest of the family in return for having a lengthy prison sentence reduced to 6 months curfew. Eddie is later apprehended and serves a lengthy sentence.
Cut to today. Sam Antar is now an ostensibly reformed criminal, out to help others avoid being defrauded by con-men such as himself. To that end, he writes a blog called WhiteCollarFraud. A worthy goal and a shining example of a fraudster putting his anti-social tendencies, finally, to good use. Or, so it would seem.
[more to follow]
Monday, July 30, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)