riotthill

Last week, Glenn Beck, who hosts both radio (The Glenn Beck Program, broadcast on over 400 stations) and television (Fox News Channel) programs got himself into trouble by mocking the US president’s daughter, Malia. She is 11 years old. It was pretty offensive, suggesting stupidity, poor education, etc., implying all the old stereotypes.

Aside from being immature, hysterical and loony-tunes, Beck is a racist, and misogynist from the far right religious extremists who would do anything, it seems to get rid of President Obama. Apparently the extremists (part of the Republican party, having pushed the centrists off the stage) are grooming him as their next spokesman, taking over from Rush Limbaugh.

Confusing, though… I thought Fox TV, Republicans and religious right extremists were all about family and children. Apparently not. They seem to endorse an adult male abusively bullying in public, an 11 year old child, in an effort to discredit her father.

Oh, there was a public apology from Beck. Too late—the harm has been done. Not convincing either.

Funny thing about the wording, ‘I apologize‘, that Beck used. It’s an arm’s- length sort of ‘get me off the hook‘ statement which is in reality, meaningless, although it meets all the technical criteria.

And that goes back to freedom of the media, free speech, etc., etc. If one insists on free speech, there is a hefty price tag to employ it, paid for with responsibility and ownership of one’s actions, and a willingness to accept consequence.

‘I apologize’ says, technically and/or legally, ‘I’m covering myself; my lawyers, my radio or TV producers will be happy.’

If one says ‘I am sorry’, one is telling the recipient that you regret your behaviour, you own it, you accept full responsibility and thus consequence for your action. Beck’s follow-up apology was none of those things.

One says, ‘oops, gotta cover myself’; the other expresses true remorse.

One offers no conviction that the behaviour or incident won’t happen again tomorrow; the other suggests ‘hey, I made a mistake, I’m trying to change my ways and it won’t occur again.’ You’re left with a feeling that things are changing for the better. Beck certainly didn’t offer that with his wimpy ‘I apologize’.

And how about being too late? Hopefully, young Malia did not hear the nasty portrayal of herself on Beck’s show, at least not directly.

But what about all the other kids that did hear it, or hear their parents’ approval? Glenn Beck’s bullish behaviour tells children by example, two things:

1. Since the incident played out on public airwaves that heavily endorse a political and religious stance, among other things, I guess it’s okay to abuse children, or be a racist, or disrespect girls—all those laws are meaningless; and,
2. I see an adult role model  publicly behaving this way… since I learn best from example, I’m going to bully kids at school, or on the internet, or at church in the back pews….when I grow up, I’ll be a racist, an abuser, a child-hater, a misogynist.

Shame on you Glenn Beck, shame on Fox TV for employing,  and especially the radio affiliates who broadcast, such an abusive bully of a man, shame on the republican extremists for outright hypocrisy. And shame on anyone who continues to follow Glenn Beck, whether it be television or radio, or public appearances. Is this how you want your nation’s future shaped?

Glenn Beck Firestorm 

Cross posted at Red Room

What do calendars mean, anyway? I’ve read that they probably first arose as simple ways to keep track of seasons, as a guide to gathering, early farming and probably some hunting, you know, following the herds, fish runs or nesting birds. I imagine in the earliest clans, it was one of the more important jobs and perhaps had a long training period to learn to ‘read‘ the moon’s cycles, the stars, weather and environment.

Sophisticated sciences today, but for our earliest forbears, not just sophistication was needed to learn, but responsibility as well, as making the right ‘readings‘ would have been a much more literal choice of life and death — of survival itself.

Catastrophe if you arrived, and the nuts, grains or fruits were already dropped, the eggs hatched, the herd moved on, the fish spawned and died.

Nowadays, if the grocery store is closed, it’s a matter of waiting until tomorrow morning. You may be disappointed you couldn’t have that ice cream you hankered for, but you will never be faced with a long slow starvation, not just for yourself, but your family as well.

With all our sophistication, technology, global village market, why do people in some parts of the world still face the same horrifying conditions our ancients did? I do not understand our greed that we should be so indifferent to the suffering of others.

If an ancient clan encountered another that was starving, would they have shared their food stores? Impossible to know, but my inclination is to guess ‘yes, and no‘, or rather, ‘it depends‘.

If it would put your clan at risk of the same fate, however painful, likely you would leave them to starve.

If it involved discomfort, but not the threat of death to your people, you might consider sharing, perhaps after some sort of consensus is reached.

If you had food to spare, my guess is if you were an ancient, where food meant life or death, but not the size of your status in your society, you opened your storage sacks and pits to your neighbours.

In today’s world of greed, the food we produce has to be paid for with coinage, first and foremost to the shareholders. Slow and painful death by starvation doesn’t factor into the equation. Nor does a simple calendar of lunar movements, stars and seasons, unless, of course, you are marking a special event with a grand feast, a birthday, an anniversary, a holiday.

How is it we have come to this, where the same cruel logic applies to health and disease, to housing and shelter, education, technology… Ancient life was harsh and chancy, but ours seems to be a trade off between plenty or compassion, a progression of calendars that mark special events to ‘stuff ourselves silly‘ while others go hungry.

A curious incident yesterday… several of the iBooks I was following on eBay, all listed by one seller, disappeared from my ‘watched’ list when I refreshed the page.

‘What the deuce is going on here,’ I yelled to no one in particular.

I thought in rapid succession:  I’ve done something wrong; eBay has done something wrong; I’ve lost my membership; the world has come to an end.  None was true.

As I came to my senses—a rare occasion indeed—it occurred to me to check out the seller’s page.  Sure enough, the seller was no longer registered at eBay.  Mysterious-er and mysterious-er.

A few minutes later, when I checked my email, a notice of one of the products came to my attention.  Clicking on the link took me back to eBay, to a page where the product was ‘no longer listed’, with helpful advice to ‘check my links or the product number assigned by eBay’, as if I had somehow made a mistake in clicking the link sent by them.

All this happened over the course of an hour or less.  I, the spectator, was left trying to create a story, an explanation of what happened to the seller and his/her products.  I considered all kinds of calamities before finally arriving at an explanation that rattles one’s faith in humanity yet again.

The goods were hot as baked potatoes newly steaming from the oven.

Stolen.  Fenced.  Lifted.  Pawned off on an unsuspecting public.

The seller listed his goods for a week or more, a new iBook offered daily or more often, to the tune of a dozen or more identical items.

A number of people bid, some sales had already concluded.  I can only hope, whatever happened, that those who won the early bids did not lose their money, but it’s likely they did.  As for me, a happy ending:  I had not yet placed any bids, merely lurking in the shadows watching the dollars climb as other eBay-ers offered beyond what I was willing to, or considered a 6-year-old laptop was worth.

As a side-note to this cautionary tale, all of the above took place amidst the hoopla of Apple’s newest entry into the wonderland of electronic doodads, the iPad™.  It’s not likely that anyone noticed besides me and a handful of other bidders who thought they might have a new old laptop.