FedEx Kinkos Won’t Print Our Christmas Card

[Danee]

This is from a blogger whose family are obviously naturists.  The blog is about tech and he is an authority on that. You can follow him at http://www.cringely.com

You can read the one comment below it, which is positive.  Their friends all love the cards and that speaks for the quality of their friendships.

FedEx Kinkos Won’t Print Our Christmas Card

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Update — Good news!  Reader Scott Hall, who owns a card printing web site called Babyshere.com, offered to print our Christmas cards for less than FedEx-Kinkos would have charged.  Only a few hours later my cards are now literally in the mail.  Thanks, Scott!

Tonight I walked into the Fedex Kinkos store on Calhoun Street here in Charleston, SC to print our Christmas cards, only to have the clerk, Tammy Johnson, reject my order as obscene.

We Cringelys are known for our Christmas cards, I admit, because we make them ourselves and we’re naked. The tradition began by accident and now our cards are so popular friends remind us to send them.  Making naked Christmas cards that are tasteful isn’t easy, either, but we do it.  With three little boys you can only go  so long until they begin to realize they are, well, naked.  That leads in our family not so much to protestations of modesty as to demands for bribes. The price of this year’s photo session was $2 worth of sour gummy worms per kid. Yum.

This is the second year in a row we’ve been rejected by Kinkos. “I remember you,” said Ms. Johnson, handing back my USB drive with a look of disdain. It was hard for me to tell whether this was a different look of disdain from the one I got when Ms. Johnson had to put down her cellphone to serve me in the first place.

I appealed last year’s rejection to the store manager, a man. After all Kinkos — the very same Kinkos — had happily printed our cards the previous four years. We were posing last year in a fishing boat, wearing life vests, strategic shadows, and nothing else. “I see something there, ” said the manager, pointing at what would have been the groin of my six year-old if it hadn’t been well-hidden behind a light on the boat.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“You know,” he said.

“It’s a navigation light,” I said.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s green,” I said. “It’s a green navigation light.”

Our cards show nothing. They are just for fun. Summer vacation photos that families print at the same store show more — lots more — than our cards ever do.

When we were rejected last year I was working two days per week in San Francisco, so I had the cards printed there at another Kinkos, South of Market. I told the whole rejection/obscenity story to the pierced and tattooed San Francisco Kinkos counterman, who found it hilarious. He threw-in a few extra cards for free.

The U. S. Supreme Court allowed years ago that obscenity standards could vary based on “local values,” but such values have to be uniformly applied. If a Fedex Kinkos in Charleston will print a picture of a girl in a bikini or a boy with his shirt off, then they should print my Christmas cards.

I’ll be calling Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, in the morning. If enough of you tell your friends about this column before then, maybe Fred will be expecting my call.

Here’s the picture. What do you think?



From: http://www.cringely.com/2009/12/fedex-kinkos-wont-print-our-christmas-card/

[leedee]

I had read about this before and thought it sucked because the picture is awesome.

[Wolfboy]

I do not understand why Ms. Johnson of FedEx Kinkos doesn't want to print this Christmas card... 
This is one of the most beautiful and happy Christmas cards i have ever seen

[Fitz1980]

Wolfboy - that's because here in the US lots of people equate nudity with sex & child nudity with child pornography, which can land someone in jail for quite a long time.

Every 6 months or so I hear about about a case somewhere in the US where some overzealous Wal-Mart clerk in the photo department calls the cops because there's some pics of a naked 3 year old running through the sprinkler or taking "baby's first bath."  Sometimes the cops even take the kids into "protective custody" for 3 or 4 or 7 days while the parents have to get a lawyer and sort everything out.

I say avoid FedEx Kinkos if you can anyway.  Support locally owned and operated businesses; not large conglomerations. 

[Wolfboy]

Every 6 months or so I hear about about a case somewhere in the US where some overzealous Wal-Mart clerk in the photo department calls the cops because there's some pics of a naked 3 year old running through the sprinkler or taking "baby's first bath."  Sometimes the cops even take the kids into "protective custody" for 3 or 4 or 7 days while the parents have to get a lawyer and sort everything out.

It's not that much different in Belgium, but cops taking kids in "protective custody" for an innocent picture made by the parents is goïng really far...

[Cabding]

People just get on a power trip with a title and think they are god. Kinko's may not care, but this girl might be thinking she made it to management so she doesn't have to serve the customer or the company anymore. The picture isn't bad. Everyone seems happy enough, and simple fact, no vulgarity or "private" parts are showing. She just caused a problem where there was none.

[Historybuff83]

I think that picture is very cute.  Hmmm are Christmas cards like that in my family's future lol.  Question is does anyone actually take the pictures for them?  And two, they said the tradition of naked holiday cards started as an accident.  Would love to see that accident!  "Oh hun, I forgot to get dressed for the Christmas card picture I've been planning for since September!"

[Fitz1980]

Kinko's may not care, but this girl might be thinking she made it to management so she doesn't have to serve the customer or the company anymore.

It's usually the other way around.  Corporations beat it into your head that you have to do certain things or lose your job if it ever gets to the higher ups that you didn't.  I used to work with a girl who had worked for a major pharmacy & she told me that their policy on nudity was that bare body parts was fine, sexual contact between said parts was not.  I was a nudist at the time, but still very much 'in the closet' with most people so I never could figure out how to ask her about pics with naked children in them.  I couldn't figure out a way to ask it without sounding like a pervert since I wasn't ready to disclose to her that I was a nudist.

I did get some naked pics developed at Costco.  I went straight to the woman at the photo counter and told her that I had a role of film that contained nudity.  I told her that it was nonsexual shots of friends goofing around.  She told me it would be no problem and within a few days I had the pics.

[Cabding]

And how digital cameras changed everything.

[Fitz1980]

Digital cameras and Polaroids are a nudist's best friend for taking pics.  But many of us don't have high quality photo printers & sometimes you just want that physical picture, rather than a digital file.  Perhaps you want a nice big version of the pic to frame and hang up or in the case of this woman you want several dozen Christmas cards to mail to family & friends.

I say that the best way to handle such things are to go to a "mom & pop" copy/print shop and just say "we're a nudist family & we've got some pictures that we would like printed which do contain non-sexual family nudity; can you print them for us."

[brandon]

Color inkjet photoprinters are often under $50 after rebates. Even color laser printers are within the range of most households these days. That's probably the same technology Kinko's uses.

It seems to me that a family that is happy to share a picture like this with their friends and relatives wouldn't be uncomfortable sending out a truly nude family card without aprons and careful positioning to cover penises. While some recipients might choose not to put such a card on their mantle piece, I would like to think that a family could send a nude family card without raising too many eyebrows or legal concerns. I suppose recipients who were new to their mailing list might be a bit shocked.

[Historybuff83]

Sure this article has been passed around this forum already, but found it to be appropriate for this thread

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39899002/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/

[RD]

These people are getting hung about nudity way too easily. Nothing is actually showing, as that is not the point of their photos. The point is to show their family enjoying Christmas together and being happy, that should be all they worry about. And as the mother says, other photos printed at the store are much more explicit

Just another example of society being so screwed up over something so simple...

[Stuart]

Digital cameras and Polaroids are a nudist's best friend for taking pics.  But many of us don't have high quality photo printers & sometimes you just want that physical picture, rather than a digital file.  Perhaps you want a nice big version of the pic to frame and hang up or in the case of this woman you want several dozen Christmas cards to mail to family & friends.

I say that the best way to handle such things are to go to a "mom & pop" copy/print shop and just say "we're a nudist family & we've got some pictures that we would like printed which do contain non-sexual family nudity; can you print them for us."

We still use medium format film - it produces slide images (not negatives) at 6cm x 6cm resolution. Last time we sent off about 25 films, and Karla and I were naked in every shot. Judging by the speedy turn around time, I think they're getting to know us and rush to develop anything from us as soon as it arrives!

[NudistJosh]

I love this picture, it seems to natural and funny at the same time. I think it would make a good December picture for a nudist calendar