Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Missionary 's Dedication Undaunted by Assassination Attempt Or Resultant Paralysis

Actually, the inspiring story about John Leonard that was originally posted here had to be removed because of the...let's say, protective feelings of the Des Moines Register.

In fact, here is the rather ugly (and sloppily written) missive that came my way from the paper just a couple of days after it was posted...a story, by the way, that gave full credit to the Register and provided compliments on the quality of the story:

It has recently come to the attention of the Des Moines Register that you have improperly posted an article the rights to which are held by the Register. This article is regarding the missionary from Des Moines that was shot in Brazil. As copyright owner of that article, the Register has the exclusive right to its reproduction and distribution. We therefore ask that you immediately remove the posted article fromt [sic] your website and cease any and all further use of the material. Any continued posting or use will be considered willful copyright infringement.

Within 24 hour
[sic] of your receipt of this e-mail, you should reply to this message by confirming that 1) each and every posting of the Des Moines Register material has been taken down and 2) you will not engage in any futther [sic] unauthorized copying the Des Moines Register material.

If you do not take the steps outlined above, this matter will be turned over to our attorneys.

So, by all means, forget about reading the the Des Moines Register's story about John Leonard. In fact, their attitude might turn you off from reading anything from them again. Therefore, if you want to find out a lot more about the Leonard's, keep track of John's progress, and perhaps even make a donation to Baptist Mid-Missions designated to get the Leonard's back to Brazil at this blog site run by Doug Porter.