When No One Can Hear You Shouting

The Rom Houben story is getting lots of attention. Sadly, the skeptics who see this as another example of the MSM swallowing whole the discredited practice of "facilitated communication" just aren't getting the same coverage. Damned ironic, isn't it. A man who supposedly has been conscious, but unable to be heard for more than 20 years is now the focus of skeptics, scientists and the medical community, and those who challenge the "happy story" of consciousness restored are themselves unable to be heard.

This brings me to my own story of being silenced this past Veteran's Day. The closest "big city daily newspaper", the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail, in its annual efforts to assuage its guilt over not hiring veterans in any substantial numbers, let alone having many (any?) as reporters, editors, etc. goes out of its way to cover any veteran's event within an hour's drive of their offices. It's the usual coverage - every two bit small town local paper does it.

But nobody does it as bad as the AIM. Because the AIM doesn't know the difference between a soldier mounted on a horse and the place where Jesus, according to Christian history, was crucified.

Yes, the AIM, it's reporters and editors, are so fucking ignorant they cannot get these simple facts clear in their apparently anally inserted heads - The Army has Cavalry Units and Divisions, and Jesus died at Calvary. Over and over again, the pinheads at the AIM write stories of veterans who served with the 1st Calvary Division, or the 7th Calvary. News stories, obits, it makes no difference. The pinheads cannot for the life of them understand its CAVALRY.

And they don't want to be corrected, either. I had occasion to criticize the AIM over a policy change about a year ago, and my Letter to the Editor, while it conformed to their petty and arbitrary rules, was never acknowledged or published. So when this recent wave of journalistic nausea swept over the paper around Veteran's Day, with Calvary this and Calvary that, I spoke up, futile as it might be.

First, I twice called the number listed where, at least in theory, the pinhead powers that be at the AIM will listen and correct errors of fact published in their fish wrap. Silly me. My past experience with the AIM's inability to graciously accept tactfully offered criticism was again unacknowledged and ignored.

OK, let's try another tack - the online edition of the AIM, where one can attach comments to news stories.

Well, guess what. That's right. The pinheads at the AIM didn't take kindly to seeing their hard work criticized by a mere customer on their own website. My entire post, attached to an article where they twice referred to a person as having served in the CALVARY during the Vietnam War was scrubbed/removed/flushed down the memory hole.

Wonder why newspapers are dying? Look no further than the Anderson Independent Mail for the answer. Wrapping a fish in the AIM should be considered animal abuse. Placing it in the bottom of the cage of a large bird suffering from diarrhea is the only possible, responsible use for the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail.