Susie Madrak, blogger at Crooks & Liars, shares a personal anecdote about a story I've been meaning to write about….the Nadya Suleman, octuplets, story….
I was at a party this weekend, and this seemed to be all people wanted to talk about. At first I listened politely, but I finally said, "You know, the people who have screwed up this country would much rather we were angry at this woman than at them. And even if taxpayers paid every dime for these kids for the next 20 years, it wouldn't even be a speck of sand compared to the money these people have cost us – and our grandchildren."
One woman gave me a blank look, then: "Oh. You're right. They keep showing this on TV so we're not thinking about all that other stuff!" Right!
Ms. Suleman's publicists, Joann Killeen and husband Mike Furtney, working for free, have been receiving kind and loving phone calls and e-mails like this….
Soon after the births, the couple began representing Suleman for free, and almost immediately started receiving threatening e-mails and phone calls from people enraged over the octuplets saga, she said.
"They hope I die, they hope my business goes under, they want to rip her uterus out," Killeen said. "They say I should be anesthetized and put down like a dog." Link
Ahhh….America…
After creating a website for Suleman on Tuesday, Killeen said, she received 55,000 e-mails, most of them negative, and she has stacks of angry mail.
On Friday, they contacted the Los Angeles Police Department, and officers told them that the threats were the worst they had seen since the O.J. Simpson case, Killeen said.
"The American public have just lashed out," she said. "I think it has to do with the economy, healthcare — there's not a lot of jobs, people are unemployed and are trying to take care of their families."
NBC's Ann Curry conducted an interview with Ms. Suleman when the story first "broke". At the :45 mark, Ann Curry puts on her best scolding-nun outfit and, I think, makes an ass out of herself…..
The question I have for Nun Ann Curry is: Who in the hell made you America's designated scold and hand wringer? Who in the hell placed you as chairman over the invitro reproduction ethics board of America? The same Ann Curry who would suck the chrome off a trailer hitch for eight years if it helped polish George W. Bush's legacy…..now scolds and self-righteously criticizes and doubts the powerless citizen, Nadya Suleman. Heckuva job…Nun Annie.
Ann Curry, just look at her best scold-face, piously and with a complete lack of self-awareness confronts the powerless Suleman…
"People feel like you're being completely irresponsible…. The world outside is saying, 'what are you doing?'"
Are we? Really? Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that I feel that Ann Curry was acting like a self-righteous, irresponsible and misguided bitch…..and that the world outside is asking of Ann Curry, why are you acting like such a self-righteous, irresponsible and misguided bitch? But that's just the way The Reverend, you know, rolls.
The Reverend's number one rule while critiquing is this….
PICK ON THE POWERFUL, NOT THE POWERLESS
Most often we criticize, second guess, and point our scolding fingers at the wrong people…. family members, our waitresses, the store clerk,….well….you know what I mean……the powerless. Why do we do that? Because we're either too lazy or too timid to take on the powerful. The powerless stand in, as it were, for the powerful, whom we're usually intimidated by. The powerless are an easy target…..and just look…..they're everywhere.
In this specific situation….Nadya Suleman is the powerless person and Ann Curry (and others like her) represents the powerful. Sure, there is mutual exploitation going on in this story…..but is that any justification for Ann Curry's sickening, sanctimonious, knuckle-frapping, scold routine?
The reproductive choices of a single mother are none of our goddamn business. The End.
