Some oxen are off-limits for goring - the rest are fair game - the powerful write up the separate lists
Hey Folks -
In the posting directly below, I shared my disgusted letter to the Dispatch over its biased, sensationalized series "ABCs of betrayal."
I received the letter below (in blue) from editor Ben Marrison. Obviously I was being condescendingly and hypocritically conned.
My response follows Mr. Marrison's letter.
- Uke Man
Mr. Harker,
Thanks for writing. Your hyperbole does not serve your arguments well.
There are times when you make some good points, but your recent letters have become something of a rant. I would encourage you return to your more thoughtful, and civil, discourse. They have a better chance of being read and seriously considered.
The series exposed a problem, and did so thoughtfully. Neither of the reporters is or were members of a teachers union, nor have they managed one. They bring no bias or agenda to the table other than to expose a problem. They are two journalists explaining to readers that a problem exists – and the legislature and the governor thought enough of their investigative report to change state law.
Hacks don’t get laws changed.
Have a good day.
Respectfully,
Ben Marrison
Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
Mr. Marrison,
You make me smile.
Since when has the Dispatch resisted publishing rants? Below, after your letter to me, I have included two of the paper's recently published letters to the editor. Reading these examples, it seems that hyperbole, uncivil discourse, even bigotry and racism can be and have been regularly published on your pages. Indeed, as a long-time reader I can safely say that, for at least the last fifty years, the Dispatch has seemed to relish printing such letters. If you are dubious, I'm sure Mr. Sheller can find hundreds - if not thousands - of other examples in your archives.
The evidence indicates quite clearly that my point of view rather than my recent "style" is the problem. You suggest I pursue "more thoughtful and civil discourse" but the paper regularly publishes bigoted, sarcastic, inaccurate, name-calling rants which have the advantage of supporting the paper's editorial agenda.
As I said, you make me smile.
Regarding the “good points” I have made, if anyone there has noticed them, I haven’t discovered any effect they may have had – either in the seemingly interminable ABCs episodes or in the few and extremely laconic personal responses I’ve received.
Moreover, I doubt that my delivery of these points had much to do with how they were received. I have pointed out, numerous times, the problem with the presentation of misleading statistics. Not only has no one responded, but the slanted statistics have been repeated at almost every opportunity – that is until the recent “physical abuse” piece in which the thesis was better supported by a different manipulation of the numbers.
Given your paper’s clear and long-standing animosity to public schools and teachers’ unions (not to mention unions in general), I don’t think I’m out of line to suspect political motivation. Still, it is possible that what ended up being presented over and over again in your series simply resulted from a faulty understanding of statistics, or simply from shoddy journalism. Whatever reason, it is nothing to be proud of.
You say the “series exposed a problem.” That has never been the issue. The issue is that the problem exposed is not the problem that exists. The problem “exposed” is rampant pedophilia (and now “physical abuse”) that is overwhelmingly being ignored, allowed to flourish, and supported by teachers’ unions. The actual problem is something else.
The problem you exposed inflated the numbers of criminals (you still haven’t made clear exactly how many of those 1,700 disciplined teachers were pedophiles). You also inflated the numbers who escaped losing their licenses (throughout the series the implication was that sixty-six percent of the criminals kept their licenses – now, when it serves your argument, you report that only twenty percent escaped with their licenses intact.
The problem you exposed clearly stimulated overblown fear in many and hysteria in some. The real problem could have been addressed more appropriately – perhaps, dare I say, in a more thoughtful and civil way; in a way that would not lead one of your letter-writers to teach her child to fear everyone, a way that would not be so destructive to an important democratic institution (albeit one which your editorial board doesn’t seem to like much), a way that didn’t take gratuitous potshots at unions (another favorite target of your editorial board).
Yes, there was a real problem, but what you exposed was the paper’s biases and its inability or unwillingness to separate those biases from its reporting.
Your suggestion that since your reporters have never been either union members or managers dealing with a union, they have no biases made me smile again.
Perhaps we are simply arguing over semantics here. I’ve heard that Hemingway claimed “bias” was based on experience,and “prejudice” referred to views without any basis. If that is the case, I stand corrected, and henceforth will describe your reporters’ tendency to hold certain unsubstantiated negative beliefs as “prejudice.”
Whatever one calls it, one need not have experienced unions, or anything else, to own prejudices. When it comes to unions, much of the upper class and upper class “wannabe’s” inherit their prejudice from their parents. I don’t know where Jill and Jen got it, and it’s possible that they truly aren’t prejudiced, but only suffer – like the proverbial Marie Antoinette - from a naïve, simplistic misunderstanding of both what they have observed and their responsibility in dealing with what they found.
I smiled again at your notion that the series is vindicated by the legislature and governor’s having taken action. The legislature is controlled by Republicans who share your paper’s disdain for public schools and unions. Getting them to take action on these matters is about as difficult as talking Neo-cons into invading Iraq. That is to say that you didn’t goad the legislature into anything; you greased their wheels.
As for the governor, what sane person would say he had any choice in the matter, given the situation?
As for the comment that “Hacks don’t get laws changed,” does the name “Spanish American War” mean anything to you? I guess if yellow journalism can get us into a foreign war, it shouldn’t be too hard to get Ohio’s legislature to pass laws aimed at public schools. (Now, if you could just get them to follow the state constitution by obeying the lawful decrees of our elected Supreme Court, you might have something to be proud of.)
Finally, I would like to say that, while you may find what I’ve said to be objectionable, it has certainly been civil and thoughtful. I have made some good points; and, while you may think some things I’ve said sting and, therefore, constitute a “rant” or fail the civility test, I must point out that the truth hurts. Being truthful, however, does not constitute a rant or – in my opinion – incivility.
Someone – perhaps Oscar Wilde - did warn, however: "If you are going to tell people the truth, be funny or they will kill you."
Somehow, I don’t think you are laughing.
Have a good day.
Yours respectfully,
Tom Harker
Don't put government in charge of health care
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Government-run health care? What a concept!
There are so many times I think how great it would be if only the government ran our health-care system, as has been suggested by some people.
Every time I fly, which is about a flight a week, I watch the Transportation Security Administration strip-search some 85-year-old grandma while a cadre of Middle Eastern men with 4-foot turbans and 3-inch-thick sandals pass through security unmolested, and I think to myself, "Man, I wish the government ran the health-care industry."
I sit in a 4-mile parking lot in Chicago called the Dan Ryan Expressway while five lanes of traffic try to pass through a single open lane so eight guys can patch a pothole, and think, "If only the government ran hospitals and told doctors what to do."
I look at the Veterans Affairs hospitals and think, "All health care should be just like this."
I consider the nearly bankrupt Social Security system, which pays a pittance to our elderly but still is on life support itself, and think, "Wow, man, if only Al Gore could put our health care in a lockbox, too! Hot dang!"
I admire our Democrat-controlled Congress with its 11 percent approval rating (now making even President Bush look like a popular overachiever) and I think wistfully, "Why can't the Congress of these United States personally conduct all of my transactions around and concerning my health?"
Like jolly old England, where the average wait for an MRI is somewhere between 10 months and a decade or two. And where 70,000 people last year alone got tired of waiting for (or scared thinking about) a visit to a local hospital and flew to Spain, Morocco, India or elsewhere. This number is expected to be about 210,000 by the year 2010.
Like Canada, where they pay twice as much in taxes in order to face the startling reality that you are twice as likely to heal naturally before seeing a specialist for nearly anything.
Yeah, I want one of those six good old Mideastern terrorists who posed as doctors in the UK so they could plot a bombing on innocent civilians taking my pulse and giving me a stress test. England is desperate for doctors, because of the lack of interest in the profession among the Brits.
If the point of health care is to be cheaper for those who use it most, then government health care is your cup of tea.
If the point, however, is to be healed by trained and motivated medical personnel who have a personal, professional stake in your wellness and who likely will see you immediately for emergencies, with or without insurance, and in a few days for scheduled visits, then you may want to think about how we can improve on, not throw out, the system we have.
DAVE GUSTIN
Leesburg
Some restrictions should apply to right to vote
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Just as the freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms can be restricted by reasonable laws, so the right to vote should have reasonable restrictions.
The right to vote should be granted to good citizens and should be denied to the following:
• All citizens who do not pay income taxes. Furthermore, all citizens should have to pay their income taxes in a lump sum once a year or, at most, quarterly, so a citizen would know just how much he has to pay to support the government. The idea that a company must confiscate the taxes with each paycheck treats citizens as incompetents. All Social Security taxes should be paid by the employee; the employer should pay the employee both halves, and the employee should pay it all, once a year or quarterly, the same as payroll taxes. Otherwise, the citizens have no idea how much the government is costing them.
• Anyone who has filed bankruptcy should be denied the right to vote until he has been solvent for at least five years, to show he is responsible with his own finances before he is allowed to vote for those who control the finances of the government.
• All citizens on the government dole, including those who receive government tax credits because they do not earn enough to pay income taxes, should be denied the right to vote, as should anyone on welfare, Social Security (after they have collected both halves plus 6 percent interest), Medicare, Medicaid or any other state or federal government handouts. Only those who pay for the government and do not receive government largess should be allowed to vote. Those on the dole are tempted to vote for those politicians who promise more of the same, and such disbursements from the public's purse are leading to the ruination of this country. To be truly free and independent, a citizen should be free and independent of governments.
• A citizen who does not have a basic understanding of history, mathematics, how the government works, the founding of our nation, the knowledge of where the government gets the money it spends and the knowledge needed to balance a checkbook. Citizens must know that it is basic that the government cannot spend more than it takes in, except by deficit spending, and the government cannot simply print more money when it needs it.
• Felons and mental incompetents. If a citizen does not qualify to own a firearm, he should not be allowed to vote. Voting is as important as defending your life. If you cannot be depended on to protect yourself from evil people, you should not be depended on to elect someone to rule over the lives of others.
• Elected government officials and government employees. Only those citizens involved in creation of capital, real wealth, should be allowed to vote. Although government employees pay taxes, they are not involved in creating products; their wages are paid with the taxes taken from the citizens creating products. And besides, there is no reason to allow (civil) servants to vote. The exceptions might be the postal workers and the military, as they are mentioned in the Constitution and do provide needed services.
• Homeless and the elderly housed in group homes who have no regard to the amount of property taxes they are costing the property owners.
This country is fast on the path of becoming the United Socialist Union of America unless we begin to put the brakes on and return it to a capitalistic country.
OSCAR G. SHEPHERD
Columbus
In the posting directly below, I shared my disgusted letter to the Dispatch over its biased, sensationalized series "ABCs of betrayal."
I received the letter below (in blue) from editor Ben Marrison. Obviously I was being condescendingly and hypocritically conned.
My response follows Mr. Marrison's letter.
- Uke Man
Mr. Harker,
Thanks for writing. Your hyperbole does not serve your arguments well.
There are times when you make some good points, but your recent letters have become something of a rant. I would encourage you return to your more thoughtful, and civil, discourse. They have a better chance of being read and seriously considered.
The series exposed a problem, and did so thoughtfully. Neither of the reporters is or were members of a teachers union, nor have they managed one. They bring no bias or agenda to the table other than to expose a problem. They are two journalists explaining to readers that a problem exists – and the legislature and the governor thought enough of their investigative report to change state law.
Hacks don’t get laws changed.
Have a good day.
Respectfully,
Ben Marrison
Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
Mr. Marrison,
You make me smile.
Since when has the Dispatch resisted publishing rants? Below, after your letter to me, I have included two of the paper's recently published letters to the editor. Reading these examples, it seems that hyperbole, uncivil discourse, even bigotry and racism can be and have been regularly published on your pages. Indeed, as a long-time reader I can safely say that, for at least the last fifty years, the Dispatch has seemed to relish printing such letters. If you are dubious, I'm sure Mr. Sheller can find hundreds - if not thousands - of other examples in your archives.
The evidence indicates quite clearly that my point of view rather than my recent "style" is the problem. You suggest I pursue "more thoughtful and civil discourse" but the paper regularly publishes bigoted, sarcastic, inaccurate, name-calling rants which have the advantage of supporting the paper's editorial agenda.
As I said, you make me smile.
Regarding the “good points” I have made, if anyone there has noticed them, I haven’t discovered any effect they may have had – either in the seemingly interminable ABCs episodes or in the few and extremely laconic personal responses I’ve received.
Moreover, I doubt that my delivery of these points had much to do with how they were received. I have pointed out, numerous times, the problem with the presentation of misleading statistics. Not only has no one responded, but the slanted statistics have been repeated at almost every opportunity – that is until the recent “physical abuse” piece in which the thesis was better supported by a different manipulation of the numbers.
Given your paper’s clear and long-standing animosity to public schools and teachers’ unions (not to mention unions in general), I don’t think I’m out of line to suspect political motivation. Still, it is possible that what ended up being presented over and over again in your series simply resulted from a faulty understanding of statistics, or simply from shoddy journalism. Whatever reason, it is nothing to be proud of.
You say the “series exposed a problem.” That has never been the issue. The issue is that the problem exposed is not the problem that exists. The problem “exposed” is rampant pedophilia (and now “physical abuse”) that is overwhelmingly being ignored, allowed to flourish, and supported by teachers’ unions. The actual problem is something else.
The problem you exposed inflated the numbers of criminals (you still haven’t made clear exactly how many of those 1,700 disciplined teachers were pedophiles). You also inflated the numbers who escaped losing their licenses (throughout the series the implication was that sixty-six percent of the criminals kept their licenses – now, when it serves your argument, you report that only twenty percent escaped with their licenses intact.
The problem you exposed clearly stimulated overblown fear in many and hysteria in some. The real problem could have been addressed more appropriately – perhaps, dare I say, in a more thoughtful and civil way; in a way that would not lead one of your letter-writers to teach her child to fear everyone, a way that would not be so destructive to an important democratic institution (albeit one which your editorial board doesn’t seem to like much), a way that didn’t take gratuitous potshots at unions (another favorite target of your editorial board).
Yes, there was a real problem, but what you exposed was the paper’s biases and its inability or unwillingness to separate those biases from its reporting.
Your suggestion that since your reporters have never been either union members or managers dealing with a union, they have no biases made me smile again.
Perhaps we are simply arguing over semantics here. I’ve heard that Hemingway claimed “bias” was based on experience,and “prejudice” referred to views without any basis. If that is the case, I stand corrected, and henceforth will describe your reporters’ tendency to hold certain unsubstantiated negative beliefs as “prejudice.”
Whatever one calls it, one need not have experienced unions, or anything else, to own prejudices. When it comes to unions, much of the upper class and upper class “wannabe’s” inherit their prejudice from their parents. I don’t know where Jill and Jen got it, and it’s possible that they truly aren’t prejudiced, but only suffer – like the proverbial Marie Antoinette - from a naïve, simplistic misunderstanding of both what they have observed and their responsibility in dealing with what they found.
I smiled again at your notion that the series is vindicated by the legislature and governor’s having taken action. The legislature is controlled by Republicans who share your paper’s disdain for public schools and unions. Getting them to take action on these matters is about as difficult as talking Neo-cons into invading Iraq. That is to say that you didn’t goad the legislature into anything; you greased their wheels.
As for the governor, what sane person would say he had any choice in the matter, given the situation?
As for the comment that “Hacks don’t get laws changed,” does the name “Spanish American War” mean anything to you? I guess if yellow journalism can get us into a foreign war, it shouldn’t be too hard to get Ohio’s legislature to pass laws aimed at public schools. (Now, if you could just get them to follow the state constitution by obeying the lawful decrees of our elected Supreme Court, you might have something to be proud of.)
Finally, I would like to say that, while you may find what I’ve said to be objectionable, it has certainly been civil and thoughtful. I have made some good points; and, while you may think some things I’ve said sting and, therefore, constitute a “rant” or fail the civility test, I must point out that the truth hurts. Being truthful, however, does not constitute a rant or – in my opinion – incivility.
Someone – perhaps Oscar Wilde - did warn, however: "If you are going to tell people the truth, be funny or they will kill you."
Somehow, I don’t think you are laughing.
Have a good day.
Yours respectfully,
Tom Harker
Don't put government in charge of health care
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Government-run health care? What a concept!
There are so many times I think how great it would be if only the government ran our health-care system, as has been suggested by some people.
Every time I fly, which is about a flight a week, I watch the Transportation Security Administration strip-search some 85-year-old grandma while a cadre of Middle Eastern men with 4-foot turbans and 3-inch-thick sandals pass through security unmolested, and I think to myself, "Man, I wish the government ran the health-care industry."
I sit in a 4-mile parking lot in Chicago called the Dan Ryan Expressway while five lanes of traffic try to pass through a single open lane so eight guys can patch a pothole, and think, "If only the government ran hospitals and told doctors what to do."
I look at the Veterans Affairs hospitals and think, "All health care should be just like this."
I consider the nearly bankrupt Social Security system, which pays a pittance to our elderly but still is on life support itself, and think, "Wow, man, if only Al Gore could put our health care in a lockbox, too! Hot dang!"
I admire our Democrat-controlled Congress with its 11 percent approval rating (now making even President Bush look like a popular overachiever) and I think wistfully, "Why can't the Congress of these United States personally conduct all of my transactions around and concerning my health?"
Like jolly old England, where the average wait for an MRI is somewhere between 10 months and a decade or two. And where 70,000 people last year alone got tired of waiting for (or scared thinking about) a visit to a local hospital and flew to Spain, Morocco, India or elsewhere. This number is expected to be about 210,000 by the year 2010.
Like Canada, where they pay twice as much in taxes in order to face the startling reality that you are twice as likely to heal naturally before seeing a specialist for nearly anything.
Yeah, I want one of those six good old Mideastern terrorists who posed as doctors in the UK so they could plot a bombing on innocent civilians taking my pulse and giving me a stress test. England is desperate for doctors, because of the lack of interest in the profession among the Brits.
If the point of health care is to be cheaper for those who use it most, then government health care is your cup of tea.
If the point, however, is to be healed by trained and motivated medical personnel who have a personal, professional stake in your wellness and who likely will see you immediately for emergencies, with or without insurance, and in a few days for scheduled visits, then you may want to think about how we can improve on, not throw out, the system we have.
DAVE GUSTIN
Leesburg
Some restrictions should apply to right to vote
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Just as the freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms can be restricted by reasonable laws, so the right to vote should have reasonable restrictions.
The right to vote should be granted to good citizens and should be denied to the following:
• All citizens who do not pay income taxes. Furthermore, all citizens should have to pay their income taxes in a lump sum once a year or, at most, quarterly, so a citizen would know just how much he has to pay to support the government. The idea that a company must confiscate the taxes with each paycheck treats citizens as incompetents. All Social Security taxes should be paid by the employee; the employer should pay the employee both halves, and the employee should pay it all, once a year or quarterly, the same as payroll taxes. Otherwise, the citizens have no idea how much the government is costing them.
• Anyone who has filed bankruptcy should be denied the right to vote until he has been solvent for at least five years, to show he is responsible with his own finances before he is allowed to vote for those who control the finances of the government.
• All citizens on the government dole, including those who receive government tax credits because they do not earn enough to pay income taxes, should be denied the right to vote, as should anyone on welfare, Social Security (after they have collected both halves plus 6 percent interest), Medicare, Medicaid or any other state or federal government handouts. Only those who pay for the government and do not receive government largess should be allowed to vote. Those on the dole are tempted to vote for those politicians who promise more of the same, and such disbursements from the public's purse are leading to the ruination of this country. To be truly free and independent, a citizen should be free and independent of governments.
• A citizen who does not have a basic understanding of history, mathematics, how the government works, the founding of our nation, the knowledge of where the government gets the money it spends and the knowledge needed to balance a checkbook. Citizens must know that it is basic that the government cannot spend more than it takes in, except by deficit spending, and the government cannot simply print more money when it needs it.
• Felons and mental incompetents. If a citizen does not qualify to own a firearm, he should not be allowed to vote. Voting is as important as defending your life. If you cannot be depended on to protect yourself from evil people, you should not be depended on to elect someone to rule over the lives of others.
• Elected government officials and government employees. Only those citizens involved in creation of capital, real wealth, should be allowed to vote. Although government employees pay taxes, they are not involved in creating products; their wages are paid with the taxes taken from the citizens creating products. And besides, there is no reason to allow (civil) servants to vote. The exceptions might be the postal workers and the military, as they are mentioned in the Constitution and do provide needed services.
• Homeless and the elderly housed in group homes who have no regard to the amount of property taxes they are costing the property owners.
This country is fast on the path of becoming the United Socialist Union of America unless we begin to put the brakes on and return it to a capitalistic country.
OSCAR G. SHEPHERD
Columbus
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