The Craven, the Crazies, and the Rest of Us

Over the weekend, an Oklahoma newspaper with no online presence printed this as its front page of its weekend edition:

You can hear Rachel Maddow discuss this at this link, if you want.

I have written local journalism for 39 years. My first article was published in 1984. I've written for nearly all of the local publications, including many that no longer exist, and for statewide magazines. I estimated once that I've published over 2 million words in multiple publications.

My editor at The Fincastle Herald always told me if I didn't have someone angry at me, I wasn't doing my job.

Suffice to say, I did my job. Over the years, I have been threatened by various and sundry people, including a sheriff in nearby county. He stopped me as I was entering the courtroom to listen to a board meeting. "How do I know that's water you have in there?" he demanded, nodding toward my ever-present water bottle.

I took a drink and held it out to him. "You're welcome to the rest of it. It's just water."

"I could haul you in right now for having liquor and who'd know different?" he said. He banged his hand against his pistol on his thigh for emphasis.

"Everybody knows I don't drink alcohol," I replied, and I walked past him to my seat. I could feel him glaring at the back of my head.

Later that same night, I nearly wrecked my car on the way home as I drove over Caldwell Mountain and the tire went flat. In the shine of a flashlight, I discovered my tire had been slashed with a knife.

Yes, someone in the next county over had tried to kill me. Caldwell Mountain is a dangerous drive, over twisting, winding roads. My car could have gone off the pavement and down the mountainside, not to be found for possibly years.

That happened about 25 years ago. So, while this is nothing new, the rhetoric now has been taken to a whole other level.

It was not unusual for me to receive phone calls from people complaining about stories I wrote. "I didn't say that" was the usual complaint. I carried a tape recorder and I'd play it back to them, if I had to.

They backed down then.

Sometimes, though, the complaint was not that I wrote what they said, but that I didn't write what they said.

Sometimes people simply sound so stupid to me that I paraphrase or leave it out completely if it's not relevant to the main part of the article. It is my job to tell a story that is truthful, but that doesn't mean I have to use ignorant, racist, homophobic, fascist, or antisemitic language. Paraphrasing is allowed.

But some people want their words - no matter how ignorant they sound - in print. They want their opinions, word for word, stated. That's how sure they are that they're right. That's how sure they are that their closed-minded world view is the one that should rule the day.

So it was that last week I found myself listening to someone rant about how I hadn't printed exactly what this person had said at a supervisors meeting. 

The person threatened me. I hung up on this person, and I called the police and reported the phone call. I also blocked the number.

Twenty years ago, I would not have done that. I'd have ignored the call. But these are different times, and people feel mean and emboldened, and being a bully is now in fashion. 

I was taken aback by the phone call because it was literally over nothing, as far as I was concerned.

These are the times we live in. People feel emboldened in their fascism and narrow-minded thoughts. They have no room in their brains for open-minded thinking. My way or the highway, as my parents used to tell me.

However, we are all adults, not children in need of being sent to our rooms. And if someone can't have an adult conversation with me that doesn't involve threats, screaming, or insults, then that is not someone I care to talk with.

And as for the report above, it just shows how low people can be. To call these people snakes would be an injustice to snakes. The people in the article/photo above are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. They're so low, there is no bottom for them.

I hope they all lose their jobs.