TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE FIVE LAKES HERON (“The Heron”)

AND GENERAL NOTICE OF OPERATING POLICIES


1. RATES: Subscription rates are as published from time to time in The Heron. Subscribers will be charged the prevailing rate as of the date of receipt of check by Publisher, so trying to predate a check to get around the latest rate increase won’t work, and establishes you as an unconscionable cheapskate in any event. 

     Checks of an insufficient amount will be destroyed and the only notice the prospective subscriber will receive is an absence of The Heron in the prospective subscriber’s mailbox. 

     Note that we do not pester subscribers with renewal notices, so subscribers must keep track of their own subscriptions and make timely renewal payments in order to ensure uninterrupted service: 

     We treat our subscribers as adults, and adults are required to take responsibility for their lives, including keeping track of mundane items like when publication subscriptions expire.


2.  CANCELLATION OF SUBSCRIPTION:

A. You may cancel your subscription at any time, for any reason. However, no refunds will be provided for the balance of the subscription. [In case you missed it, the only thing following the word “subscription” is the accepted symbol for “period,” which you might say out loud after reading the sentence just so there is no doubt in your mind as to whether or not there are any exceptions to the rule, which there aren’t.]

B. If a subscriber contacts the Publisher for any reason other than to cancel a subscription, the Publisher reserves the right to immediately cancel the remaining subscription of such subscriber, without notice, and with no refund provided to such subscriber for the balance of the subscription.  Should subscriber try to re-subscribe, the Publisher reserves the right to add a surcharge to any such subscription to allow for any further annoyances the Publisher may

suffer from said subscriber. NOTE WELL: Sending a letter to the editor qualifies as “contact” under the terms and conditions of this paragraph 2.B.  Write if you must, but you have been warned (see paragraph 5. below).


3. DELIVERY: All issues of The Heron are sent via U.S. Postal Service, by whatever means thereof the Publisher deems appropriate, including Fourth Class Bulk Probably Never Gets There if money is tight. 

     The Publisher is not responsible for any issues that fail to arrive. 

     Contacting the Publisher to report a missing issue qualifies as “contact” under the terms and conditions of paragraph 2.B. above. Note that per paragraph 4. below, there is no such thing as an issue arriving late, so don’t waste your time or ours complaining about that impossible event.


4. FREQUENCY OF PUBLICATION: The Heron is published when, as and if the Publisher decides to do so.  Subscriptions are for the period of time indicated only and do not imply that any number of issues greater than zero will be produced and/or delivered to subscriber in any one year, lifetime, or other subscription period.


5. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

     A. Letters to the editor are highly discouraged.  If you insist on sending one anyway, note that letters commenting specifically on a Major Ashpole essay should include “Dear Major Ashpole” in the top address line, and all others should include “To The Editor.” 

     Because of the volume of letters received, yours may not be read very carefully, which is likely to be in your favor anyway. 

     Please also note that, per paragraph 2.B. above, sending letters to the editor may cause your subscription to be cancelled by the Publisher, without notice or refund. 

     B. If you still insist on sending a letter, it should be no more than 10 words, including your name and address.

     Letters for publication must refer to events actually occurring in the real world, not what you heard on Fox News or from your friend who has a friend whose cousin works in the government and knows “what really happens in the White House.”

     C. Letters to the editor should preferably be sent to The New York Times, and not to this publication.

     We do not publish open letters although that does not refer to the practice of opening the envelope to read the letter in the first place, nor do we publish third-party letters or letters obviously written after the writer attended a third party in one evening prior to writing the letter.

      D. Writers of letters selected for publication will be notified via the writer opening the appropriate issue of The Heron to a page that contains letters from readers and seeing it there.

      E. Letters selected for publication may be shortened, lengthened or edited for the specific purpose of embarrassing the writer or for any other purpose, at the sole discretion of the Publisher, without notice to the letter writer, although we rarely consider it worth the time to do any of that, so it will probably run exactly as you wrote it, which means we don’t correct for typos or syntax, either, and you therefore might consider editing it yourself before you send it (see note on adults and responsibility in paragraph 1. above).

  1. F.You must provide your name, address, telephone number, and the names and addresses of any really good restaurants you’ve eaten at lately (please note that establishments such as Red Lobster and Chili’s and any other operations that use beepers to tell customers when their tables are ready do not qualify as “restaurants” and, anyway, receiving maximum carbohydrates and fat for the dollar is not equivalent to “really good” although Denny’s is always worth the trip).


6. REPRINTS: This publication is produced at a loss so the least you can do is honor our copyright and not reprint or otherwise reproduce the contents hereof anywhere for any purpose whatsoever without prior written permission from the Publisher. 

     We’re not even making a living producing this publication, so how about not adding injury to insult by ripping us off. 

     Please note that this is not a monopolistic software company nor a thieving record company, so you really have no excuse for violating our intellectual property rights, such as they are, no matter how you choose to rationalize it. 

     Should you wish to reproduce an article for any reason whatsoever, you must send your request in writing, but please note that any such request shall qualify as “contact” under the terms and conditions of paragraph 2.B. above.


7. MISCELLANEOUS:

      A. Do not submerse electrical products in water unless you have a very specific purpose in mind. 

      B. This publication is produced by a corporation with less than $10,000 in the bank at any one time and no other assets, so suing us for libel will cost you more in legal fees and court costs than you could ever collect, although, frankly, the Publisher would consider it a blessing if you put us out of business, so if you feel even the least bit slighted, go for it. 

      C. The Five Lakes Heron is largely a work of fiction, anyway, so if you do find any errors requiring correction, please send them to the Republican National Committee, which is far and away America’s leading source of fictitious information and is in a better position to edit fiction than any publisher in America (before you say “What about Fox News?” remember that the RNC is that cesspool’s primary information source and vice versa). 

     Alternatively, you can get a life and stop obsessing on every error you find in a publication or your spouse (how would you like it if people wrote letters to you about every mistake you made?).

      D. If you cannot read English, this sentence won’t make sense to you anyway, so never mind. That said: albondigas.

      E. This publication has not been approved for use as a birth control device and will not prevent the transmission of venereal disease unless held firmly in one hand while submersing an electrical device in water (see “A.” above).

     F. All permissions of any kind should be considered denied, including but not limited to the right to substitute tofu for bleu cheese in any salad dressing, whether domestic or foreign, no matter how flavored beforehand.

     G. Canadian and overseas subscribers should count their blessings that they have a health care system that works and be happy that the foreign subscription surcharge is as low as it is, considering what a pain in the neck it is to prepare anything for mailing outside of the United States these days.

      H. Albondigas.

 

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all rights reserved


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Letters attributed to famous persons were not written by them. 

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