Today The Hour provided two editorials that inspired deep thoughts by Jack Handey moments. The first, wraps a contradiction inside of the enema that must have inspired this line:
The authority has major projects ahead, including the redecking of the Haviland Street lot, a project that will undoubtedly cause disruption and pain for SoNo businesses. They don’t need a spin on that,just give them the facts.
So how does the esteemed editorial board of The Hour think that the public will get facts from the Parking Authority? Smoke signals? Already there are questions about how the Haviland Deck repair will impact area residents and businesses. The public too will be affected, its not just the parochial Norwalker that will be impacted. People from outside Norwalk come to SoNo to enjoy the area too.
For some reason, the editorial board thinks a PR person just is about spin. Hrrmm. Wonder why that is. Must be that 1950’s thinking. Modern PR is all about wide and constant communication, which involves far more than typing up a 500 word press release and getting some journalist to run it unchanged.
And then, right next to this anti-communication screed, is a Chris Powell column about crime and presumably spinning and pinning for some repeat offender law. Normally I like what Powell has to say on most topics, but he trots out a few canards that rankle.
When a young unmarried and unskilled woman gets pregnant, there is no shunning her as in the benighted olden days, when such women disappeared to secluded motherhood hostels and quick adoptions followed. Often today there are not even abortions. No, today such women are aggressively shielded against any judgment, moral or practical, and instead are affirmed officially by schools, social workers, and such. They are given food, medical insurance and housing subsidies in the name of helping the children. And nothing is demanded of the fathers.
Must be the women belong back in the kitchen hour at the Hour. They must’ve been sitting around the editorial fires –”Gosh darn, we really yearn for the good old days where we puritan manly men could stone our women who were unskilled and preggers. ”
Just look at the picture Powell is trying to give you, that somehow all the dynamics of life can be swept away so that the “They”, not to be confused with “Them” which involved giant ants, were giving away food, medical insurance and housing subsidies. What’s he implying? That charity, that good old Christian value is a bad thing? Yep, because you can’t paint yourself into the corner of government doing charitable work is a bad thing without tarring the private religious or non-denominational charity work too. And that’s the path Powell took. The Hour agrees, calling our the graf in bold, because, well, it fit in with today’s editorial philosophy, oh-so-well.
The rip roaring canard continues because once you accept that unmarried mothers are getting charity (government no less arm yourself against taxes and flee), you will accept that they must be also be unmarried mothers who are unfit. Which leads you right down to the path of– because father’s weren’t involved, according to Powell; “those children, who are raised in a fatherless poverty that leaves them abused or neglected and eventually crushes their mothers.”
Somehow all those single fathers out there, who raise children in motherless poverty don’t have abused or neglected children. Somehow. Somehow its all about the women here, as Powell continues, “Many girls born into this cycle go on to have their own children outside marriage. And without a father in the home to discipline them, many boys born into this cycle grow up wild and criminal.” Well there you have it. Women just can’t be trusted to raise children alone. With that out of the way, Powell then turns to what the premise of his column was supposed to be about, repeat offenders and the criminal justice system.
Nah, he touches on that briefly, he really wants you to buy into his argument that children should be removed from unfit mothers. Never mind how and who gets to judge the fitness. Never mind that plenty of criminals come from nice upstanding two parent families. Never mind that there’s plenty of unfit fathers out there. Never mind that there are way more unfit two parent households out there. Nope, its all about removing kids from single mothers to “break the vicious cycle.”
Here’s a different picture. One that has schools that actually educate instead of prop up endless testing and bilking tax dollars on bureacracy. One that has communities focus on the resources to provides childcare to working families and single parents of both genders. One that provides basic health care to all families. And roads without potholes. One that values three hots for children more than three hots for the incarcerated. One that accepts that its okay to offer vocational education to children who need job skills.
It’s this last point that is really the issue here. Our cookie cutter society keeps operating on the belief that everyone needs the same type of education. So we try to create an endless school bureaucracy instead of accepting that some children would be better advantaged if they could pursue the training and skills they need to find work in the job market. For some that means an academic path. For others that means a vocational path. We put computers in classrooms, but we don’t offer computer repair vocational training. Focusing on breaking the cycle isn’t about socio-economic status as much as it’s about choices and opportunity. Reducing the broader issue to one exclusively about women and poverty, like Powell has essentially done, doesn’t advance the discussion. It’s just another plank on that retro platform.
Why do we have criminals? Some people just are. Others succumb to the opportunity. There’s no one size fits all solution to the problem of repeat offenders. To blame it all on unmarried women, without any scientific evidence to support any of the arguments is specious.
source: The Hour, Parking agency doesn’t need its own spin doctor, Editorial, April 6, 2008
source: The Hour, Break the vicious cycle — take the kids away, By Chris Powell, April 6, 2008
