April Fool's Gone Too Far?
Earlier today, we published an April Fool's post with the headline: "Ariba to Announce Definitive Agreement to Acquire Emptoris?" Even though our intention was to make the humor, sarcasm, and a bit of satire -- not to mention the April First mention -- apparent in the first sentence, we have taken down the post as a result of inbound calls. One person who contacted our office also suggested the post had "anti-Semitic" overtones with a reference to a Yiddish phrase. Obviously none of this was our intent and Spend Matters readers should be aware we take accusations like this very seriously. This person asked us to apologize to the Jewish community, which we are happy to do (in fact, part of the team here is Jewish and the owners are active in Jewish charities in the Chicago area -- and yes, we know a few words of Yiddish). We are sorry if we offended anyone through this April Fool's post, including the Jewish community. And especially we would like to apologize to Avner Schneur for attributing a quotation to him which was entirely made up by us. Avner, we are very sorry.
- The Spend Matters Team
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If you find offense in an honest and straightforward attempt at humor, you should probably take a step back and ask yourself if you taking things too seriously and are looking to create controversy.
In short, the post was at worst 'not funny' and at best a welcome break from the otherwise serious topics covered on this blog.
The suggestion was never made that the former CEO of Emptoris would sell his daughter for a shekel. This is a false accusation. I found the original post in an archive and this is exactly what was said: "I shopped this company around like one's only unwed daughter -- and didn't get a Shekel. Now this. Oy gevalt." Accusations of antisemitism are something we should all take seriously. But when the accuser misstates what was said, I call into question his motivations. Jason screwed up with the fake Avner quote. But it was not anti-Semetic, regardless of the fact he has noted he is also Jewish. It it comments like this that serve to discredit the ability to Jews to do anything for themselves. If Israel was a country of whiners who had nothing better to do than point fingers, it would not be here. Believe me.
Look in the mirror and smile. It can do wonders. Or better yet, laugh.
Final point and some context ... the history of Emptoris is one of an unbelievable turnaround from the point at which Ariba had almost killed it through a lawsuit. If anything, this post celebrated this transformation in an april foolish sort of way, as well as the tenacity of the company's founder during its darker days.