Edelman: Professor of the Internet batting down pop-ups between tirades on Small Biz

Yesterday, Boston.com broke an important story in the ongoing saga of American class warfare, found here.  In a disheartening show of douche -baggery, Harvard Professor Ben “I’m a Twit” Edelman decided he should use all his “high learning” to deliver a course in “Ben-Ed”; that is, teach a simple bar manager, Ran Duan (whose immigrant parents founded Sichuan Garden Chinese Restaurant in Boston) a big lesson in false advertising.

The short story is this:  Edelman ordered what he thought was about 53 bucks of food but to his utter shock, found he paid something like $57 upon examining the receipt.  The culprit: out-of-date menu prices on the website.  The pedantic and punctilious Edelman (some kind of Professor of the Internet, according to his bio) then engaged in a testy back and forth via e-mail with Messr. Duan wherein he demanded 3x damages ($12) for the inconvenience.

The e-mail exchange, posted in the article, is priceless and reveals Edelman to be a dunderheaded butt-sag.  Duan held a high tone throughout and proved himself a man who knows how to handle difficulties in real business situations with aplomb.  Something Edelman, who looks like he’s never done a day of physical labor (or spent an hour in the gym) in his life, could learn from.  After several exchanges loaded with the scholar’s pompous legal threats, comes Duan’s astute riposte: “Like I said, I apologize for the confusion, you seem like a smart man, But is this really worth your time?”

Edelman is now trying to defend his actions and in a statement to Business Insider had this to say:

“If you look at my other work…you’ll see I’ve been pretty diligent in holding large companies accountable for their false statements of price and other attempts to overcharge…. Should all small businesses get a free pass? Some people seem to think so, I wonder if that really makes sense.”

That’s great, Ben. We suggest you keep up the good fight against corporate malfeasance. The rest of us appreciate you taking up the noble cause of price-checking dim-sum on our behalf, but think we can handle it ourselves, without all the bully tactics.