Confirmando lo que se ha llamado “repetir un rumor falso hasta que por tanto insistir crear la sensación que es algo cierto” quiero referirme al caso del analista financiero Miguel Octavio quien a pesar de haber aclarado decenas de veces no tener nada que ver con el blog venezolano Venepiramides, de vez en cuando reaparece el señalamiento de que es su propietario.
Esta vez su nombre es mencionado en la demanda que el abogado Otto Reich interpuso contra la empresa Derwick y Asociados en el aparte #82 por “haber recibido una carta de la empresa demandada en la que lo amenazan de ejercer acciones legales por ser el autor del blogspot Venepirámides”. En el mismo aparte mencionan, con el mismo fin, a los señores Steve Bodzin, corresponsal de Bloomberg y editor del website settysoutham.wordpress.com y Robert Bottome, presidente de Veneconomía.
Llamo a Miguel Octavio y me aclara: “yo escribo la pagina The Devils Excrement. Ya varias veces he tenido problemas con gente diciendo que escribo Venepiramides un rumor que empezó Coco Capriles en el 2009 y que me ha reaparecido varias veces”.
“A mí Derwick si me mandó una cosa legal, acusándome de ser autor de Venepiramides, contesté que yo escribía The Devil’s Excrement y me hacía responsable de todo en él, pero no tenía nada que ver con Venepiramides. Hasta ahí llego la cosa. La cosa ya me ha ocurrido cuatro veces, tres amenazas legales formales y una que me llego ayer a raíz de lo de Reich.
Dos veces he escrito en mi blog, que no tengo nada que ver con Venepiramides”.
Ésta fue la última:
Writing The Devil Is Enough Of An Occupation
In December 2009, I wrote a post entitled “Disclaimer: Being a devil and a diablo is more than enough” and used the same drawing above. In it, I tried to put to rest rumors that I wrote or helped write not one, but two other blogs about Venezuela.
Today, I have to reiterate the same words, because for reasons that are irrelevant to this post, I have been accused again (twice this time) of writing the blog Venepiramides (I will not even hyperlink to it at this point). Essentially, I was not aware that once again it had become “common knowledge” that I had something to do with that.
Thus, I reiterate here publicly that I, Miguel Octavio, write about Venezuela in this blog alone and do not contribute, write, collaborate, or have anything to do with Venepiramides. I also have an abandoned blog (exdiablo) in which I attempted to translate the contents of this blog and two other halfhearted efforts at showing my orchids and interesting stock charts. All these blogs are now listed on the left as “All Blogs by Miguel Octavio” (descriptions included). Those are my only blogs, the only ones I write or dabble with.
Is that clear enough?
Now, after trying to understand the reasons why people arrive at this conclusion, I have found very little that makes sense. Yes, that other blog runs an RSS Feed of my blog (and eight others), I can’t stop that without stopping all RRS Feed subscriptions (500 or so) to the Devil. I do link to it, that blog wrote about Stanford in its beginnings, a topic that was interesting to me at the time. I will remove this link sometime soon.
But after reviewing everything and having independent people review the facts, the styles, content, I can only reach one conclusion: The person linking me to Venepiramides, is the same one behind that blog, who has created this generalized opinion in order to divert attention from him (her?). There is no other justification for it.
In closing, some random thoughts: First, why would I start a second blog, seven years after starting this fairly successful one, (winner best LA and Caribbean blog ’06, quoted in WSJ, FT, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, invited by the President of the US to talk about blogs), to start another blog, in Spanish (where I had not been successful with exdiablo) and devoted only to Ponzi schemes initially? More importantly why would I want to slow down now in this very successful blog (The Devil), to work on the other one (a post a day), which is much less successful? Second, I have seldom asked favors from my readers, but if you do see some reason to think the two blogs are related or connected (or if you have a good reason to show they are not!), please let me know in the comments. I just don’t see it and want to understand why people actually believe it and go as far as contacting me about it!
Thank You!
