[I didn’t tell him I was going to post it on my blog! And here we come to a significant Paradigm Shift of the Information Age. When Mark Twain advised people not to pick a fight with people who buy their ink by the barrel, only Newspaper Editors had that kind of Firepower to make threats with. Today even a two-bit pajama blogger like me has at least the Theoretical Possibility of experiencing a readership that the Gloucester Times might envy. To put it another way, Ray now has to, at least to a minute degree, be equally wary about picking fights with the likes of me! I can’t help but think that the formerly All Powerful Media Moguls deeply resent their loss of power to Spit and not be Spat upon as much or more than they resent the loss of their power to control WHAT "the public has a right to know/think."]
"Half a day’s reflection on your reply to my Complaint about your paper’s coverage of the Teen Pregnancy Cabal prompts me to point out, however futilely, a few more of the Facts one would reasonably expect a Journalist to be interested in.
The first is the interesting idea that you, apparently, chose to regard an, admittedly, vitriolic, letter of CONSUMER COMPLAINT, as the rant of a Deliverance Redneck Cracker Peckerwood. This I infer from "pathetic" and "people like you." Again, a rational, unbiased, objective, observer might cogently conclude this says more about your prejudices than mine.
For instance, I had every reasonable expectation of receiving Silence, either disdainful or chagrined, from you. Since you went to the trouble of a reply, one would think you would have used the opportunity to "put me in my place" by correcting my misapprehensions and marketing your product in a more positive light. Telling me, for instance, that I was mistaken and that you were doing ABC and that your reasons were DEF in order to "protect the children" and "we are doing all we can and it is unfortunate that others have GHI out of context" etc. would have taken this conversation in a totally different direction, captured the moral high ground for the GT and prompted an abject letter of apology from me.
Again, the fact you chose not to is suggestive.
The second, and I intend to point this out to Fox, is that the Coverage of the GT, and Fox’s apparent willingness to let that sleeping dog lie, is in stark contrast to the General Media Coverage, and Fox’s in particular, of the Fundamentalist Later Day Saint Polygamy Cult.
I present the following particulars in similarity. 1. A pattern of Underage Pregnancies. 2. A pattern of Cultural and Group Coercion. 3. De Facto and De Jure abuse by Adult Males. 4. A Community Cloak of silence.
Of course the LDS Fundies made ‘em get married first. The Gloucester Cult apparently does not hold that.
In the Texas case, the outrage, even in the face of unsubstantiated rumor, innuendo, and speculation, was positively frothy. In the case of The Gloucester Cult, and your coverage, the outrage was....well where IS the outrage?
Mine is apparently offensive to you.
Let me also point out that what we have here, in part, is a CRIMINAL Conspiracy. Whoever INSTIGATED the intercourse with a minor, male or female, in each case, was guilty of Statutory Rape. If any of the partners, one thinks of the "24 year old homeless man", were Adults EACH and EVERYONE of them is guilty of Statutory Rape.
One could have reasonably expected that a Gang whose initiation ritual included Rape, especially Rape of a Minor would have generated a bit more Fury in Gloucester.
But more than that, Ray, can’t one reasonably speculate that if this Gang had been practicing animal sacrifice as its bonding ritual, or engaging in the bullying, harassment or even exclusion of a minority or handicapped classmate as its initiation, the GT, and you, would have been all over it like White on Rice?! That your toleration factor would have been minimal? What if their Gang colors were the Confederate Flag, or a noose, would THAT have gotten their names in the Paper?
What is the underlying Cultural Ethos that holds this little initiation ritual or bonding act somehow different?
The underlying Principle in the FLDS case is that bringing a child into that environment was De Facto ABUSE, and mothers were forcibly separated from their children under that principle. A reasonable person might cogently argue that a teenager intentionally bringing a child into the world, without two parents, without a job, dependent on the State, is also DE FACTO child abuse.
Again, based on your coverage, what caused outrage and State intervention in Texas in the FLDS case, is met in Gloucester with, at best, complacent laissez faire indifference, at worst, active cover-up and complicity after the fact.
That’s what it looks like based on the Fox interview and your web site, to an outside observer, Ray. And the way you handled my complaints about that does nothing to make me regret the harshness, I would even admit to viciousness, of my language in that complaint.
Ya’ll got WAY bigger problems then "people who think like me."
The big mick