Another 14 days and it will be all over. We will have a new mayor. Congratulations to Scott and Jo-Ann. I thought that I would take this opportunity, after receiving varied comments during this campaign, to remind you all that I write opinion--MY opinion--not anyone else's opinion.
When you decide to write a blog, accept the fact, right off the bat, that you will tick off 30% of the people ALL OF THE TIME. In Lake Worth that percentage is probably higher. Patrick Parrish tried to throw me off guard earlier in the year when he scornfully asked, "You think you're a writer?" I have never professed to be a writer in the schooled sense of journalism. I just sit down and write. Writing should be fun and I write the way in which I speak and feel.
There can be barriers to objectivity if you allow it. Everyone is way too sensitive and they get fighting mad, are quick to anger or make a judgment without knowing all of the facts…even sometimes your best friend. No one wants to hear any view unless it agrees with their own standards of what is right or wrong. They even go so far as to talk about your tone of voice?? This is the WRITTEN word folks. So if you have interpreted a tone, look to yourself.
If someone says something less than kind towards someone you don't like or don’t know, you are more apt to accept that comment or rumor as true. I don’t think there are too many exceptions to this. We like our opinions confirmed. People are especially touchy about politics and will do everything within their power to bring you down on any given day.
As I write this blog, I look at everything from my point of view and am subjective unless I have it supported by facts and then I am objective. Intertwining the two is what commentary and opinion is. There is time and research that goes into writing a blog. If you worried about every single written word and that it might be offensive to this or that person, then your pen would never get off the page. It would be phony as a three dollar bill.
I do not take any one political view as gospel and I think all political parties are "full of it." Just dealing with facts or conditions without distortions is almost impossible in the City of
There are some who adamantly believe that Maxwell should be wearing a Klu Klux Klan hood and the biggest racist around because of his stand on illegal aliens and because some law group says that F.A.I.R. is a hate group and they have tied him into that group. Others defend Varela for his association with dolphin trafficking and believe that what he does is a legal enterprise and should not be a campaign issue. Others believe that "character" has everything to do with qualifications and find the act reprehensible. Each thought is sincere and legitimate opinion. All opinions might be spurious and false. It is up to the voter to discern.
No one will ever be 100% on the money, unless you are running for office yourself. Chickens and tomatoes don't bother me as much as getting rid of Greater Bay. Going up another 10 feet in our building heights doesn't bother me that much but building another
It is human nature when someone makes an off the wall statement to think, “What a dumb F#$%^&.” In this city, however, there is often times a lack of civility when people differ from your point of view. We all have a way to communicate opinion. We have the satirist who makes his personal political statement through his cartoons. To some degree, he allows himself to get off the hook by a lack of a written statement and your interpretation of the parody is up to you. How you construe it depends on how you personally feel about that person who is the subject of his satire and often times the subject of belittlement or degradation, right or wrong. Because of the artist's own sense of what "right" is, he wants to make sure that he at least ruins your day--that everyone else agrees with him--you are "in fact" the one who is not really "Ms. Congeniality."
Then there is the political pundit who just likes to cause havoc and divide people—the one who saves e-mails to pit one person against another at an advantageous time. Instead of just thinking the thought that someone can be a dumb F#$%^& on any given day and entitled to a different point of view, they actually scream the worst insults in an e-mail or some other means at their creative disposal. It is always about upping the other guy with the purpose of bringing him down, putting him in his place, marginalizing him and stomping on him for the relish of others but most of all, to please himself. He is angry. He feels good. It is his right.
There are some who take an opposing view as a personal stab in the back. People think nothing about insulting you in your own living room or theirs or across a restaurant table or even when shopping in a downtown store with the owner being rude or using the worst of epitaphs. Or there is the black hearted blogger who just writes hateful stuff all day long on talk boards. Perhaps it is the world in which we live. We have no tolerance, become bullies, and we fail to consider that others may have a different opinion and that we all are entitled to our beliefs. Susan Stanton said that "there are a lot of angry people here." She is right about that but the anger is more noticeable at election time.
So, you have to contend with all these elements when you write opinion. As an activist, I will always stand up for truth and fairness and do not like nor should I tolerate abuse whether it be from a “friend” or foe and I will write based on my experiences, feelings, perceptions and perspectives and be as fair as I can. I always try to separate fact from fiction, unlike our local editors that seem to gloss over or ignore facts when it suits them. I may not be a writer but at least I'm honest, Mr. Parrish and Mr. Schultz.
The right or wrong of it is for someone else to decide.
1 comment:
Lynn
Nice declaration of independence. Cogent and measured. We'll never all agree on everything, but that doesn't make having the conversation any less important. Reflect, but don't be deterred. There is room in my Lake Worth for your voice. Thanks for making it heard.
Post a Comment