Well, it was a tie (they said) between pets and "allergies". "Allerglies" had 56% of the popular vote.

The pets are getting their own publication and goodies. The "allergies" are going to be stuck in sections of 3 preexisting publications.

Whoever said it was rigged was right!! I'm not paying for THREE mags where I have to throw out 95% of it.

A TIE MY A$$......I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. It's all about the bucks. (Grrrr, I better stop now)

Why in the heck did she even ask us to vote when she picked the pet idea!
I just lost a lot of respect for Martha and I will never buy her magazine again!!
I really am amazed at how she weaseled out of it.

56% tie - huh??

Unless I'm really stupid, if both got 56%, that would be 112% and that would mean that none of the others got ANY votes. That's just ridiculous, pure crap.

Omg does she just think we are stupid. I knew it wasnt going to matter. I am going to email her when i calm down some and tell her how i feel about her bogos tie. Im sure her dtr had a say in all this to.

paula

It makes me mad that they even asked us for votes and asked what we want when Allergies got the popular vote but "everybody has pets" so she'll sell more...I think it's ridiculous....I won't be buying all of Martha's magazines just to see when they decide they want to put a special recipie or article in there. This goes to show that Martha doesn't really care about what her fans want she cares about making more money...as if she needs more..

The thing that kills me, is she said that the Allergy magazine won the popular vote but the pet magazine and the allergy magazine tied. So I want to know who was voting if it wasn't by the popular vote. Now we know why they took down the percentages. I really am shocked that she would do this. If she didn't want us to vote, then why did she.
And I still think that it is a bad business decision, if you are going against the popular vote. Unless she did market research and it told her otherwise, but then again, why did she even bother to have a popular vote at all.

I guess we had our hopes up for nothing. I agree with everyone else, I am NOT buying 3 magazines so I can get 1 or two recipes (which I probably would not even use). Pbbbbtttttt on Martha!!!


-Jessica

No way on God's green earth could that have been a tie. I knew this was going to happen when they took the results off the screen.

Yep, my thoughts too when the results were gone -- maybe we all need to send more comments and express our disappointment. If only I could find the pictures I took of Martha in the 70s when she operated the Swifts Turkey Hotline!

As much as this angers me, we have to take a business like approach. An angry e-mail will just further harden our goal.

My husband always says that "you catch more flies with honey". If anyone plans to contact the "Stewart Machine" I would recommend that it be done rationally, logically and approach this issue in a business-like manner.

Our numbers and statistics should be used and they speak for themselves. Numbers and money talk.

Don't forget there's a chance that the multiple votes per day ended up not counting.

Martha must have failed her math class.

I don’t love Martha as a person, but do subscribe to her magazine. Please don’t think I am one of those home decorating mavens walking around with paint chips and matching Fiesta ware platters when I say the following:

I am disappointed too, but I understand how it could happen just like she said it did. The voting software they had captures the IP address of each PC that votes. So while we kept voting multiple times per day, and the counter was going up, it probably only counted the first one in the backend DB. So we could very well have won the popular vote but not won the contest. There are actually 2 counts of votes – by IP address (unique and only counted once) and raw counts (all votes counted equally regardless of what PC they came from).

I’ll take the gluten-free recipes in an existing publication. Maybe they’ll be in the magazine that I already subscribe to! And now that we are on the Martha radar screen, maybe sometime in the future we will get a new magazine like hers with gluten-free recipes. I don't think the passion with which people voted went un-noticed.

I know people will call me a Pollyanna, but I really think this is a small victory. If even one person thought about Celiac for the first time in the course of the whole exercise it will be worth it. I know I am opening myself up for all kinds of potshots by saying this. I don't love Martha. I don't wear sensible shoes or sweatersets or have a staff that comes up with good ideas for me. Please be gentle.

Colleen--I think you make a lot of good, valid points.

I'm still disappointed, though

I always hated Martha Stewart. I just was not going to broadcast it, now I can! No way would I buy that magazine!

Ditto, i was just hoping she would of done the right thing here and then maybe i would have at least tolerated that lady lol.

colleen,
I can see your point but i dont think there was there many of us that were voting from more then one puter, so i dotn think it would have made that big of a difference in the popular votes.

paula

I'm very disappointed. I have to say that I think she's making a mistake. There are already so many good pet magazines out there (I subscribe to one that is very much in the Martha Stewart style already!). And it could only help her to have the gluten-free group hooked on her label. It seems like we're all very brand-loyal!

my thoughts exactly, maybe she would be tolerable but I guess not.

What boggles my mind is why do we need another pet magazine, go to the Pet Store there are a ton of them. I have a cat and I love him, spoil him, you name it. I just think an allergy magazine would be a benefit to so many. Martha is a twit!

Computer programmers are too smart to let people vote multiple times, at least at big websites like Martha's. I don't think that's what happened. She said the Allergy magazine got 57% of the vote, period. I think she selected from the two most popular. She doesn't have allergies, so she picked the animal one. I think that's a bad business decision myself. But she can afford to have a loss on this if it doesn't go over.

I was always a Martha fan, but I think that if she was going to do the picking, then she should have said so upfront. We'll never know what happened really, but it was a real letdown.
I will never trust her again. Sorry.

Maybe we all need to think about an alternative to her publishing a magazine. There is obviously a need for a mass market consumer magazine that deals with food allergy issues. We would all buy it <G>!

So how do we go about convincing someone to publish one? Do we back Scott, our fourm founder who already publishes the newsletter and updates we get? Do we as a group approach Time-Warner publishing, Amex publishing or another major publisher?

Online petition to Martha?

There are 19,000+ members here as well as other celiac groups which should make an impact on someone?
A paid circulation of 10,000 members would make a lot of magazines happy!

How can we mobilize to get something like this accomplished?

We have numbers and we have strength as a group here. We just need to put it together.

Ken

What are some competitors magazines?? Let them know how she dropped the ball. (I'm still kind of miffed about how she kind of snubbed Alexis (??) this morning for the pampered pup lady). We can back this person and make a #1 mag. We have style, class and shouldn't have to hide in the corner like the dark ages.

great idea!

"Living Well, Living Without", is considered the #1 magazine for living gluten free.

Living Without
Post Office Box 2126
Northbrook, IL 60065

www.LivingWithout.com

I have never seen this magazine, but I understand that others have subscribed.

I never get to Boarders here which is the only place that carries a lot of different magazines.
Maybe we should get Oprah to do it!
Your right that its time to stop hiding and being shy about it. The potential benefit to the vast numbers of undiagnosed is phenomenal as is the possible gluten connection to all the other health problems, especially in children. The only potential problem I would see is that the truly big advertisers are those agribusiness concerns that continue to manufacture the junk food that can cause many problems for us.
Ken

Several thoughts.

The rules were that you could vote once per day. Some people more than abused that and could have very well skewed the percentages. Once the multiple votes were weeded out and eliminated perhaps the final result is not what we were looking at when the percentages were taken down.

We really don't need more recipes. This forum and others are loaded with recipes. What we need is recognition and awareness. A publication by a main-stream media mogul would go a long way toward that goal. Donating our subscribed copy to a doctor's office, restaurant or library would have been a good way to make ourselves more known.

Martha Stewart certainly would not be the first one to miss the boat and turn down the golden opportunity of a lifetime. Somewhere out there is an entrepreneur who will be forever grateful that Martha blew it big time!

[quote name='kenlove' date='Feb 12 2008, 04:13 PM' post='397121'
There are 19,000+ members here as well as other celiac groups which should make an impact on someone?
A paid circulation of 10,000 members would make a lot of magazines happy!
[/quote]

I hate to break it to you but a circulation of 10,000 people doesn't qualify as a magazine for any major publisher.

SCOTT WOULD NOT ALLOW MY THOUGHTS TO BE PUT ON THIS SITE.
AS THEY SAY.........THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE.
I THINK MARTHA RAISED A DAUGHTER JUST LIKE HERSELF. DIDN'T SEE THE SHOW TODAY AND I'M THRILLED I MISSED IT. WILL NEVER WATCH HER AGAIN.......THO I DON'T NOW. SHE WILL NOT GET ANY MORE VOTES OR ATTENTION FROM ME
JUDY

True, but it is a start for a highly specialized first time publication.
In 2005 Martha's magazine paid circulation was 1,907,231 where as AARP was 22,668,583
Maybe what we need to do is try to work together write some stories on our own experiences to get for existing magazines.

If a few of us have stories written that might help to effect change or at least perception, it cant hurt.
Here are a few of the 2005 circulation figures of some magazines we could send "freelance" stories too.
READER'S DIGEST 10,155,054
O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE 2,685,755
REDBOOK 2,384,102
MEN'S HEALTH 1,692,282
SUNSET 1,456,418
HEALTH 1,470,716
and obviously many others.

A slightly differnt take from a magazine but I wonder how one would go about getting backing for public service announcements on Time Warner or any major TV network? Does anyone know of any 'outed' celiacs in the media or acting business that might be contacted for advice? Would there be a way to raise money to create a commercial spot? Anyone here involved in the media?
The poster who said what we really need is to get the word out about celiac this may be a good thing to think about.

Everyone has some very good ideas. I remember three years ago, no one knew what Celiac Disease was nor ever heard the word and gluten sounded like a school supply. The Celiac community has made tremendous inroads in public awareness. Without the strong lobby from groups such as Celiac Sprue Association, Celiac Disease Foundation, GIG, NFCA and many others, the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2006 would never have happened. Product labeling gluten free would not be happening. Gluten free menus in restaurants would only be a wish. The quality and availability of gluten free products could not be found nor consumable. And, without this site, we would all be walking in circles talking to ourselves.

Contact some of these support organizations and offer a contribution or contribute as a local contact person. Be someone who a newbie can rely upon. Take someone to the grocery store, advise on your local medical community, help others in what to order at local restaurants safely, be a friend, hold a hand or sit down with them and have a Redbridge.

There are a lot of people out there advocating for us. Lets tap into those who do and gain strength as a collective whole. I appreciate their work on my behalf.

I was looking on her "Marhta's " site where you would vote for the magazine and saw this about the winners

– Alexis Givens with her allergy-friendly recipe publication idea and Shara Lasky with her idea for a publication focusing on pets and pet crafts. Their prize is to receive their choice of either one thousand dollars in cash or twelve hundred dollars worth of MSLO stock and the chance to help develop their project for the company. It will be most interesting to see where all this leads. Congratulations to everyone!

So will there even be any magazines at all? I am I reading it wrong?

I don't know what is being said in print but on the show M kind of said how it would be done.

She announced the "tie" even though she did state that Alexis had won the "popular" vote. (Last I recall the pets hadn't even made it to 30%)

In what I call a dull, bored voice and expressionless face she said they could add a column in a preexisting magazine and just kind of left Alexis standing there.

Then she turned to Shara and made a big to do about it IMO. Her voice changed, her expression changed, her body language changed she got all excited about how we are going to have the special magazine, the little seasonal things, the special recipes...

I felt really, really sorry for Alexis standing there. She had a very uncomfortable look (rightfully so!!). IMO it was like one of those teenage mean girls set up where they invite you to a party just to be mean to you -- it looked just like that IMO. My 3 kids were watching it with me and they just looked at me and was asking what was happening!! I was still so upset last night that I told my DH that I was going to boycott Michaels and the company that makes her scrapbooking stuff (major deal in this house!!!!!). I am just so embarrassed.

Love everything you said. I think it is time i get my butt back in gear and try to start an support group here. I think im finally well enough to actually do this now and i feel im educated enough to try.

paula

So in other words she was playing an oprah that kinda just sits there with no emotion when stuff like this is talked about. I was talking to my mom about this stuff yesterday and she was like why dont we try to go threw tyra or i cant rememember who else she said yesterday.

I was even thinking of writing oprah since she is doing that pay it forward thing and see wht can be done there.

paula

That 3 years includes me. I had no idea until I was diagnosed. From seeing the messages on this forum it happens daily to others .
Being a 60's type troublemaker, I still like to stir the pot. We've made some amazing inroads in Hawaii with a lot more to come. When I was first diagnosed there was only one person listed in the support group for the state. Turned out to be a neighbor who's daughter once worked for me at the newspaper. Thats changed and in the last 3 years many celiacs have been diagnosed or moved here. The grocery stores who I have to work with anyway, now have a selection of gluten-free foods that they never stocked before. They all sell very well. As you know I'm working on educating the chefs and restaurants here too and have an appointment with the tourism authority to ask for $ to develop a gluten-free Hawaii guide.

Still I guess I'm frustrated as I want to do more and see the need for more national recognition or our situation.
Acting locally and thinking beyond that can't hurt and I know we have to crawl before we can walk but -- I guess what we really need is some sort of famous spokesperson to really bring this to the media forefront. That and a magazine or some centrally focused source of information that would assist all of us in things we may not get on the forum.

Sorry for running on like this --
Ken

http://www.celiaccentral.org/

Would Heidi Collins of CNN do as a spokesperson? She has done many PSAs, plublic speaking events and aired several report on CNN.

Ken, you do wonderful work. You are a great advocate!

Seems great to have someone. We don't have TV here in the sticks so I've never seen her but every little bit helps.
Thanks for the web site too. Once I found this place I kind of stopped searching for other celiac sites.

Because of our fragile tourist based economy here, I feel it's essential that they pick up on this and develop guides for each Island or for the state.

Would like to see all you guys come to visit for a massive gluten-free potluck!

Lisa......read your previous post above...........SO AGREE.

There are a lot of people out there advocating for us. Lets tap into those who do and gain strength as a collective whole. I appreciate their work on my behalf.


I had just gone to get the Heidi Collins link and you have it. your fast lady
there were allot of videos on this site created by Alice Blast who i had the pleasure of meeting at a celiac support group.

I met Heidi and saw Alice again at the Philly gluten-free event. I say we keep in touch with these folks who are already working so hard for us. I tried to start a support group in my area with the support of a local health food store but found after I got all the lists called and the word out for about 90 people who were interested in forming this group..............the health food store............got their...........piece of the $$ with all the calls I made and DROPPED THE BALL TO SPONSOR IT... At the time I wasn't well enough to start and run it myself.............

It's sad that $$$$$$$$$$$ yells so loudly but that's the facts so.................I'll support those already in the trenches and working so hard for us. I'm done with begging the Oprahs and Martha's of the world.

I'll work in the 'trenches' and spread the word in the ways listed here.
Celiac.com is the best thing I've found for all resources and has had so much to do with my imporoved health.
judy

HA GUESS WHAT TIMING........JUST WENT TO CK EMAIL AND ...............HERE IS THE LATEST EMAIL NEWSLETTER FROM nfca...........
http://www.celiaccentral.org/Newsletter/Fe...ry_2008/486/#s9

ENJOY...........ALSO LAST NITE OUR LOCAL TV STATION DID A SPECIAL........WILL PUT LINK TO THE VIDEO
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/channel?sectio...&id=5755558

JUDY

I second that!
Don't know what I would have done without finding all of you!

ken

KEN,
I POSTED SOME ADDITIONAL LINKS AFTER YOU POSTED I THINK
YOU ARE REALLY AN INSPIRATION.
I HAVE MY TICKET WILL YOU MET ME A THE AIRPORT...........
MY DREAM TO ONE DAY GET OVER THERE............STAY HEALTHY TILL I GET THERE
JUDY

There is now a video snippet in her blog now. It is cut off before she goes on and on and leaves Alexis standing there.

BARFF............. IT WASN'T THERE IS AM WHEN I CK'D TO SEE IF THERE WAS A VIDEO. WITH ALL THE WHOOP-LA............I THOUGHT THERE MIGHT BE. WONDER IF SHE GOT ANY EMAILS? SHE'S ON MY .$%$#%^^ LIST...............

I hope the vote results even as applied will help raise awareness of celiac - not to mention allergies

However, it does seem that Martha has made a business decision that the pet magazine is a better product for her company

Call me crazy, but with Martha's announcement pre-set for the day of the Westminster Dog Show finals (one of biggest dog shows in US, televised on USA network), perhaps Martha's company had done some consumer testing before the vote even started?? Not to mention, potential ad base $ of pet products is giant vs. gluten-free. With the huge number of votes for the gluten-free/allergy topic, *someone* will notice. And we'll all be there to help make the good gluten-free ideas fly!

Martha may be on the one step forward, two steps back plan - oh well

Outside of March and July, I'll be at the airport!i'll be the guy fighting with the TSA people about pulling up in front to pick you up and being chased away after 23 seconds

I seem to remember her advertising the contest as a "help me decide" thing. She never said that she was going to go with the idea that won the most votes. I was always under the impression that she was just using the voting to gage interest in each of the ideas and would make her own personal selection after seeing how the vote turned out. So while it's disappointing that we won the popular vote and didn't get chosen for the individual magazine, I'm not surprised. She took the top two in the popular vote and worked both of the ideas into her magazine empire. I'm sure if there had been three ideas all around 33% of the popular vote, all three would have been incorporated.

HA WHAT A RIOT................. IT SOUNDS LIKE THE PHILLY AIRPORT...........
IT'S NICE TO KNOW WE HAVE A CONTACT TO TELL US WHERE WE CAN EAT................ONCE...........WE SAVE THE $$ TO GET THERE.

Keep Saving! Bob Dylan once said "Money doesn't talk, it swears!"

Exactly right! I agree. That's when they figured they had to backpedal out of this one. Solution: take down the percentage tables. A "pet" magazine will not last as there are a good number of them, made by real pet organizations and who control the market already. I guess she's looking for a 2-3 year life span of her publicaton (business cycle) and then try to sell it and move onto something else.

I think this little trick (showing food allergies as having highest percentage then pulling the charts off) and switching it to another topic in the end has now made me never interested in anything else she or her group does. Won't buy her magazines nor her products..... from now on Martha Stewart who?