The Media-Dangerous Allies of Evil

The Media-Dangerous Allies of Evil

Our era of political correctness has erased all sense of common sense.  We appear to want to cleanse our past by pretending that it didn't exist and that our personal and shared history is not what taught us lessons but that somehow we collectively became better people by pure grace.  This pretense is a very dangerous thing and is somehow reminiscent of the Soviet Union where people could disappear from history books and photographs because having to admit what they stood for was not convenient to the new political forces.

It is an unsavory reality that we were a slave nation. Not only did portions of our nation embrace and relish slavery but those same factions were willing to fight a war to defend that practice, disguised as a war to defend state's rights. History has engraved the results of this reality with more than a century of consequences including discrimination, abuse, murder, resentment, social inequity, poverty, crime, stigma and struggle. The revolution that was the Civil War caused an evolution within our society ... one that is STILL in the process transforming us.We are all living with evolving standards whether we choose to recognize it or not. The most recent victim of this charade of pretense is Paula Deen.

I do not know Paula Deen other than through her presence within the media as a chef and a proponent of cooking with ingredients that are shunned in today's search for healthy alternatives. When I have seen her in public she has been witty and lighthearted. Using the "n" word is ugly and demeaning but it's use alone qualifies one for the title of insensitive but not necessarily a racist.

Most of the deposition has to do with the reality of running a business with a family member, of the jealousies and nit-picking that occur in any organization, common behaviors that when put under a microscope appear very damning but are an everyday part of learning to live in community. We have all done or said things we are not particularly proud of but our character is defined by how we act and react to the lessons those moments teach us.  And one of the most important lessons we should have learned by now is to get the facts before we jump to conclusions.  I have no idea if the accusations made against Paula Deen Enterprises, her person and her brother are correct. I do know that the lawsuit and the deposition are two different things and that if we are to judge the veracity of the lawsuit by the treatment being afforded the deposition we must proceed with great caution.

The deposition itself is quite long, 145 pages of actual discussion...most media pundits probably wager that not many people are going to invest time in reading the whole thing and will be perfectly happy to accept their choice of excerpts as gospel and a trustworthy reflection of Paula Deen's statements and character. Well, I read it and frankly, I find the lawyer's behavior and the media's handling of the report more reprehensible than what she admits to saying. Click here to read it yourself... Paula Deen Deposition. I can faithfully say that the lawyers were trying very hard to entrap her and that the media has done a bang up job of misrepresenting the facts.  The maelstrom of inaccuracies and unjust consequences of those inaccuracies should be a lesson to us all on how dangerous the media has become. No matter what side of the debate they decide to attack, once the media decides to embrace showmanship rather than truth they become dangerous allies of evil.  And to those who wish to refer to the accusations made against her which are not reflected in the deposition but are the basis of the law suit, please be reminded that those are accusations.  The accusations are what the party demanding $1.5 million in damages alleges.  Remember the adage, "Innocent until proven guilty?"  That is what is supposed to happen in a court of law, not on television.

Regarding her use of the "n" word...very little, if any, coverage has been given to the following excerpt: (Page 23)
PD:  "But that's just not a word that we use as time has gone on. Things have changed since the '60s in the south. And my children and my brother object to that word being used in any cruel or mean behavior" (Emphasis mine)


Or this excerpt when asked if using racial slurs constitutes harassment:

(At the bottom of page 81)

PD    …. If you were doing it against a Jewish person and constantly talking about – bad mouthing Jews or lesbians or homosexuals or Mexicans or blacks, if you continually beat up on a certain group, I would think that that would be some kind of  harassment.

Lawyer:  Okay

PD          I don’t know.  We don’t do that--I don’t know.

And the whole issue of the Plantation style wedding...oh please!  The lawyers gave the whole thing the 'slave' connotation, not Paula Deen.  What she said was that she had really respected the level of  professionalism provided by a staff of waiters at a Southern restaurant she and her husband had eaten that recreated a by-gone era. I surmise that she was referencing the famous Southern gentility.  The lawyer then went on to create the analogy and the impression that what she was after was to glorify slavery.

(Top of Page 130)

PD:  Well, it -- to me, of course I'm old but I ain't that old, I didn't live back in those days but I've seen pictures, and the pictures that I've seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America.

Lawyer:  Okay.

PD:  And I was in the south when I went to this restaurant. It was located in the south.

Lawyer: Okay. What era in America are you referring to?

PD:  Well, I don't know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.

Lawyer: Right. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.

PD:  Well, it was not only black men, it was black women.

Lawyer: Sure. And before the Civil War -before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right?

PD:  Yes, I would say that they were slaves.

Lawyer:  Okay.

PD:  But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying I loved their look and their professionalism.

Throughout our nation there are myriad examples of historical re-enactments...Civil War battles, gunfights in Western Towns, Medieval Jousts, Colonial villages, and yes, Southern Plantations. And here's a news flash!  Those re-enactments pertain to a time when all things were not morally consonant with today's standards. 100 years from now I suspect there will be re-enactments of things we take for granted but that will offend the sensitivities of those of the future."What?  You mean our ancestors actually executed citizens?"

Paula Deen deserves to hear voices of common sense.

      

 

Hype at the IRS

Not a fan of the IRS...let's get that straight right from the beginning.  Like so many law abiding, tax paying citizens I do not trust that the IRS will be fair or just and I do not imagine that job applications to the IRS attempt to measure the compassion and aptitude for caring of its candidates for employment.

That said there is something that is bothering me about the recent scandal involving the IRS and the accusations that employees there had focused on conservatives groups that had applied for tax exempt status.  What bothers me is that there appears to be a significant bias in the manner that the facts are being reported; a bias which skews the facts toward one conclusion.  While the truth is being reported; the manner in which it is being reported may be influencing the interpretation of the truth.  Here are some issues that I heard reported ONCE and have not heard since.

In the years following the 2010 Supreme Court's decision that allowed 501(c)(4) groups to accept unlimited donations from corporate donors without disclosing the donor information there was a dramatic increase in groups applying for recognition as 501(c)(4)s .  So, what is a 501(c)(4)? It is supposed to be an organization dedicated to social, charitable and recreational activities.  It is their character as an organization serving the well-being of the community that allows them to be clasified as TAX EXEMPT. The Internal Revenue Service is not well known for clear language, for making it easy to understand what you can and cannot do with your money, but in the case of these charitable organizations they have outdone themselves for ambiguity!  One part of the code seems to state that the group must be involved exclusively in charitable or social activities while another part of it replaces exclusively with primarily.  That is sort of like comparing "going steady" with "playing the field"!

So I can just imagine the scenario at the Cincinnatti office of the IRS...populated by people whose primary role in life is to catch people who are lying to them; these are people who suspect EVERONE of trying to take advantage of the 'man' when they are suddenly or even gradually confronted with a noticeable uptick in groups wishing to not pay taxes.  Aha!  Anathema to any IRS employee!  Now, let us imagine some numbers because I cannot find any dependable results by asking Google for numbers.  Let us imagine that the office normally received 100 requests for tax exemption.  Then there is a shift and they start receiving 150 requests.  There was probably very little head scratching but an immediate and communal giant light bulb that appeared, fully lit, above the heads of the suspicious IRS career officials.  "Check these new applicants out."  OK, so they have no responsibility for what the percentage of new applications  just happen to be conservative Tea Party groups. If 75% of the groups (again, made up numbers because I am just a normal citizen, not subscribed to high-level research resources) are conservative Tea Party type groups it may seem like they are being targeted, but in fact it is only because the increase in applications were primarily from groups that shared the same traits.  Doesn't that make sense?

The important thing here is to determine just how many of these new applications WERE fraudulent. How many of these groups were engaging in political activism more than 49.9% of the time and were avoiding paying taxes on the funds they received and disbursed?  Personally, I would rather have the IRS vultures circling these goups who are filtering corporate funds in the millions than Harry down the street who may or may not have filed his return with 100% accuracy.  Of course, if they actively avoided investigating any application OTHER than the conservative groups; this is bad.  But if they stuck their hands into a barrel of new applications and it just so happens that all the forms that fit into their hot little hands were Tea Party type groups what's rotten in the barrel isn't what's rotten at the IRS.  
 

• In 2011, there were 97,382 501(c)4 organizations (civic leagues, social welfare orgs, etc.)^[8]

NBA Gone Las Vegas

OK.  I am officially old now. This is a confession that those who know me would probably chuckle about as one look at me tends to confirm my chronological status.  But I ascribe to the idea that the clock and the spirit do not run at the same pace. I have always considered myself 'youthful' in attitude and outlook.  I embrace new technology and changing styles in clothes and social structure. At least I thought I did. I have been alarmingly aware of the onset of bahhumbugism in my distaste for pants that barely cling to a young man's bottom, to music which has no melody, to poorly researched and phrased news reports and to the apparent evaporation of the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'.  However, I have steadfastly rejected grunting and saying "That's the problem with today's youth" as my parents frequently spouted over the breakfast table. So what has changed?

Last night I watched the NBA All Star Game. I really love basketball and the idea that all these great players would be pitted against each other fueled my imagination. I was looking forward to a game played with spirit and determination, a great competition that would showcase the highly honed skills of professional athletes. It wasn't a good game, it was lackluster and almost a parody of itself but this isn't about the game...it's about the presentation of the game.

NE-YO performs before the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013, in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

What's with the smoke and the lights and the whole Las Vegas atmosphere? What's with the announcer, sounding like he is opening some pro-wrestler match?  The coaches and the players looked downright embarrassed!  And then came the dancers.  It now seems that choreographers have succumbed to the idea that grabbing one's genitals and generally mimicking the sex act is dance.  I have never been to a strip club, have never seen pole dancers, lap dances or dancers outside of films but I have studied dance and the line between pornography and art is not that hard to identify. Shelley Winters once said, "I think on stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American.  But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience."  Am I merely reflecting that sort of age-reality distorted disconnect? I hope not.  She was being funny but when we have barely clothed women dancers rubbing their vaginas on barely clothed male dancers on stage during prime time ATHLETIC stagings, how long before we have the actual sex act thrust on us with a musical beat behind it so we can call it art?  I am certainly not prudish nor am I in favor of censorship but it seems there IS a gradual decline in our character as a people when we accept and promote the distortion of art to appeal solely to prurient and commercial interests. Dance is a beautiful art form which CAN authentically and artistically capture the magic of the sexual attraction between the sexes, it can present the irresistible magnetic attraction between two people, it can reflect the poetry and the violence that can exist in the act, but it should do so in appropriate venues, before an appropriate audience.  With every presentation that lowers the bar of our expectations we lower our standards for the NEXT event with flashing lights and smoke machines and force our dancers to prostitute their art.

Gun Laws vs Gun Rights

Even as I prepare to compose this entry I can hear weapons being cocked and ready to fire all over the nation.  So, not just as a  matter of self defense but as a means of clarification let me immediately state that I have no desire to promote the destruction of our second amendment rights.  I support the right for all people who are sane and capable to have a gun if they so wish.

However, you will notice that I qualified that statement.  Sane and capable. Yup...if you are crazy, unstable or blind I would rather you take up a different hobby.  But therein lies the rub as Hamlet was wont to say!  The NRA is scared to death of giving the government too much authority over who gets to bear arms and who doesn't. The troubling reality behind that fear, or at least the way it is sold to the public, is that our founding fathers recognized that the only way to keep tyrants from usurping our rights as citizens is if the government (the potential tyrants in this story) recognizes that the people they govern have the means to take the power away from them.  Aha.  The fact that it has been so darn easy for those supporting that argument to sell it means that there are a lot of people out there who don't trust the government one tiny bit and really want to keep their options open when and if a scenario including armed revolution comes into play!

The oft repeated argument that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is certainly true.  But that fact does not invalidate other undeniable facts. Guns were invented to kill people. They were not invented for hunting, they were not invented for collecting or for target practice even though those are all valid uses for guns. Their purpose is to kill. When you have a society that also promotes violence in movies, in video games, in lifestyles, you have created a dangerous combination by also promoting the propagation and veneration of guns. I don't want to abrogate my right or your right to own a gun but I do want SOMEBODY trying to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of crazy people. We let the government determine who can drive a car, who can drink a beer, who can smoke a cigarette, who can...fill in the blank.  But who can have access to a killing machine whose raison d'etre IS TO KILL is off limits. So, for all of those gun toting, potential revolutionaries out there who distrust our government I have a proposal.

Give the responsibility of vetting who gets to become a pistol packing person to...wait for it...the NRA!  We would pass legislation that would make it the responsibility of the National Rifle Association to be the sole grantors of permits to own guns of any type.  If Wahoo Crazy Bob grabs his trusty Bushmaster with a 30 round clip and shoots up a grocery store or a school or a movie house or WHATEVER the NRA will be the responsible party. THEY can get sued for endangerment of the public and for failure to comply with their responsibility.

All of a sudden we might have the NRA promoting seminars on mental health, proposals to provide each and every school in the nation with a trained mental health adviser, suggestions for social programs to educate young adults on the skills of parenting, inaugurating pleas for less violence in movies, video games, and lyrics...the possibilities boggle the mind!

There is one other little thing though.  We'd probably also have to pass legislation that would make their records of who has been granted a permit as sacrosanct as our medical lab results are.

Words, Mere Words!

What an amazing time we live in! All things are possible, the old tried and true challenges have been replaced by spanking new ones including how to interpret the discovery of a life form that replaces phosphorous with arsenic...nothing is as it was before.

Take words, for instance. It used to be that a spill was a definable amount of something that suddenly was somewhere it wasn't supposed to be. But not any longer. But since British Petroleum had that, uh, spill we can now refer to a free flow of an undetermined amount of something as "a spill". (Refer to 6-11-2010 post.)

Now we have a new one. "Leak" The big story this week is the "Leak" of sensitive cables provided by the nefarious Wiki-Leaks website. Most definitions of this widely used word center around the undesired escape of liquid or gas. Only one definition refers to the "anonymous unauthorized disclosure of confidential information." So our new understanding of "leak" can now mean the forewarned release of unauthorized classified information acquired by theft through a publicly accessed media venue and reproduced worldwide by myriad reputable news organizations. Hmmm. That sort of gives it a whole new spin, doesn't it?

The last I heard, the mere unauthorized possession of classified material was a criminal offense. But with this new tendency toward mutant word definitions we can safely assume that it is neither an offense nor criminal to possess, distribute and reproduce classified information.

I really feel sorry for Hillary Rodham Clinton. First she had to live with the redefinition of what "sex" is or is not and now she's having to battle the definition of "leak".

Truly, amazing times we live in!

Can't Believe a Word of It!

Knee jerk reactions, no matter what side of the fence they originate on, continue to be defined primarily by the term "jerk". Years of brainwashing have apparently led many of us to believe that anything that is printed is fact. It used to take a while for the printed word to reach the more credulous of us but thanks to the wonderfully rapid aspects of the Internet truth and falsehood appear with equal speed and indiscriminate respectability. But that same Internet can and does provide the means to filter through the VOLUME and attempt to reach the ESSENCE.

I fear I have angered people I respect and admire for their many contributions to the community they live in; people who don't have the desire to transmit falsehood; people who truly believe they are "doing the right thing" by passing on information which proves that they are correct to take the stand they take on any given subject by pointing out to them that they are contributing to spreading false information in the best of circumstances and outright slander in the worst of the circumstances.

The least dangerous of these cases are the multitudes of emails we collectively receive pleading for us to pass on the picture of the poor little girl or boy who is dying of cancer in a remote hospital and whose parents lack the funds to save the beloved child's life. Of course, Microsoft and AOL have agreed to contribute toward the treatment of the poor child ONLY if they can squeeze a profit out of it and so you are urged to not be cold-hearted and pass the email on to everyone in your address book. It only takes a moment to either spread this urban legend or go to snopes.com and find out that if you do you will be contributing to wasted time, wasted bandwidth and worst of all, the pilfering of empathy and the sincere desire to help someone.

Of the same ilk but much more mean spirited are the rash of emails that take a tiny bit of truth as yarn and knit a wildly incongruous and untrue tale that usually pits the fears of one political faction against another.

The clue is to follow to look beyond the obvious. What does the originator of the email want to achieve? What is the agenda of the originator? Don't judge the sender's objective since the sender is probably a victim of Internet Abuse. They may well be your colleague, friend or family member. You hesitate to correct them because you don't want to seem patronizing or create conflict where nothing but friendship resides. But please; find a diplomatic way of having them look beyond the obvious. Send them this blog if you think it will help!

A recent email claimed that the left was proposing banning the American Flag. Research showed that the "truth" was that a school in LA had banned the wearing of clothing sporting the American Flag ONE DAY (5 de Mayo) to avoid conflict. Fox News spun this event into a online survey titled "Should the American Flag Be Banned -- in America?" which was then spun by others to claim that the left was supporting the banning of the American flag. Massive emails went out to ask the conservatives to show the liberals the true tenor of the American people.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/06/american-flag-banned-america/#ixzz16QrIZa2L

The sad reality is that we have become too eager to react without checking facts. Are we too complacent to check our facts or too secure in our own limited collection of knowledge to risk seeing beyond what we currently accept as truth? Knee jerk or just jerks?

Spill, What Spill?

Let's take a look at the word "spill". You spill a glass of water. You spill a pound of sugar. A spill is a specific amount of something that unintentionally and suddenly exits it's vehicle of containment. But, if you forget to turn the faucet off you aren't "spilling" water, right? THAT's a free flow. So how come we have so easily accepted what seems like the deceitful use of 'spill' to define what's going on in the Gulf of Mexico? That ain't no spill, baby.

And since this is an equal opportunity blog be forewarned that there is plenty of criticism to share...the media is doing a sucky job by following somebody's prescribed script. They are in control as far as framing the reality of that copious flow of oil. They have chosen to use the wrong term. They too have chosen to create a scenario that does less to represent the truth of the contributing factors and more to play up the fantasy of the 'bad guys against the good guys', failing to point out that there are 'bad guys' on all sides of the issues.

Of course, the politicians are doing all the de rigeuer hand wringing and swearing to make the guilty pay for their sins. Congressional hearings pretend to demonstrate that our elected officials are actually DOING something when all that is being achieved is an equally prolific 'spill' of verbiage.

BP has willfully lied about the amount of the oil pouring into the ocean and has always seemed more intent on pumping the stuff into a container than containing the gushing stuff. They misspent time, money and the public's goodwill by trying to manipulate the truth of the the volume of the oil and the devastating results of this tragedy.

And then, there is all the lip service being offered to the great god of 'safety'...if we really wanted safe we would not be forcing the oil companies to drill in such deep water where the risk of accidents and the their severity increase with each additional foot. We want the oil but we want getting it to be both aesthetic and cheap. And apparently we have been willing to wink, wink, nudge, nudge where safety regulations are concerned. Those charged with the responsibility overseeing operations have preferred to benefit from a cozy relationship with the very entities they should have been watching.

So all the big players have failed; the media, the government and British Petroleum so Mother Nature and the real people; the hardworking individuals who are just trying to get through the day, get their kids educated, food on the table with enough left over for a six pack are paying the price.

And after all the wailing and finger pointing, nothing changes. The oil still gushes, the media still calls it a 'spill', BP still chants mea culpa unconvincingly and an entire way of life undergoes a slow death. If we learn anything from this mess can it not be to train ourselves to the truth? Oil companies would still make money, media sources would still report the drama and the government would still get votes, but the truth ; that ever elusive truth, would allow the context to be one of reality and response both rapid and relevant.

But when we can't tell the difference between a spill and cascade the oil drenched birds and poisoned oysters are the least of our worries.