Cpl. White,
We’ve received your revised letter to the editor and have reviewed it. We still find one sentence that remains troublesome with respect to libel and that’s the section in which you say “…so they can stick a needle in their arm and fall into a coma in the woods behind my house…” We’d like to remove that particular remark so that the sentence would end with “…frightful vagabonds, skulking and begging for change.”
Making the aforementioned change would satisfy our concerns regarding the libel issue and bring the letter to the bare minimum level of civility, although in general it still remains unnecessarily hostile and, quite frankly, repugnant to us personally, as we imagine it will be to many of our readers. We will print it, however, since everyone, regardless of background or circumstances, is equal in the eyes of the editorial board of this newspaper, provided they maintain certain standards of respect toward their fellow human beings. This means that, to us, the people you call “bums” have the exact same rights as you do and are most definitely held in the same regard as taxpaying citizens. That, Cpl. White, is what journalism really is. Incidentally, it also happens to be the fundamental principle on which the country you say you love was founded.
We appreciate your efforts in revising the letter and, with the aforementioned change made, we plan to run it in our upcoming edition of June 17.
Thank you.
NAME REMOVED
GM, Southern Dutchess News/Beacon Free Press
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Revised more "PC" Cpl. Clifford White Retaliation on The "Homeless Individual" Rufus King
I eat at a delightful local family diner for breakfast regularly, two eggs sunny side up, side of hash browns, and a black coffee. Not many things can ruin such a meal. This Wednesday though, The Beacon Free Press made me lose my appetite. Trust me Editor, I am not one with a weak stomach. I licked the rations from my cold knife in Korea. I ate a bologna sandwich, watching my wife give birth to our first born in the bed of our ’67 pick up truck. This is about Blue Collar, and Blue Collar ethics. Something I thought this paper stood for until you outraged me beyond repair. I stormed out of this delightful local family diner without paying and had to return later that afternoon once my bearings returned to me. I don’t understand where this paper finds the gall to run a letter penned by a bum, or a person without a home or whatever is politically correct these days. How does this dispossessed individual even get access to a computer? Should I be concerned that our children are using the same public library that this dispossessed individual is somehow finagling his way into? I haven’t been this livid since Carter came into office. Now this bum demands an apology from me? In my own town?! A town that I pay taxes in. Each callous on my hands is a callous I got from pouring sweat and blood into my paycheck. I deserved these calluses. Not like this individual who gets his blisters scraping the waste from the bottom of my garbage can.
These people are a serious problem. In a time when Beacon is undergoing a major revamping, it is hard to restore an attractive image, when our streets are spilling with frightful vagabonds, skulking, begging for change so they can stick a needle in their arm and fall into a coma in the woods behind my house. I’ve had enough. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
They hover outside all of our shops waiting to pick from the crumbs that fall from our laps as we wipe them off after a meal on Main Street. They flock around me like pigeons as I walk down Main. I say we rent some vans and fill them with all the dispossessed individuals that are littered across the streets of this town and leave them somewhere far from our children, our homes, and our cars. I’m sure we can at least dump them near that art gallery that’s down there by the river. I can’t distinguish the people who flock there from the homeless of our city. The installments therein of mangled car parts and broken glass promote what I believe to be death obsessed images that promote sloth and promiscuity, which is what I believe may be at the heart of a lot of the homeless peoples problems. But that’s just me, one simple man’s opinion. I didn’t get to go to school, since I enlisted for the war, so maybe I missed the meaning of these images in the classrooms I never sat in as I spent that time kneeling in the thick bloodied mud and dirt overseas.
Now let me speak on this person Rufus; my friend at the local family diner calls him by a derogatory name that rhymes with Rufus, he can’t be serious. You don’t plant an apple seed and expect to eat from it in the next season. Something like that takes years to happen. He wouldn’t know that because he is too busy being a dispossessed individual.
I’m not taking any more guff from these people. We as a people need to rally together and deliver these people of the street back to the womb that rejected them. My wife tells me that these people came on hard times and that in the Bible the prophets were also dispossessed individuals on the streets of Jerusalem, but that biblical jargon doesn’t hold up in the 21st century. I saw that stuff die, under the path of the Sherman’s that we used to intimidate the Koreans with. It is time to clean up these streets and wipe away these beggars. I will not stand for this behavior. And if the Beacon Free Press decides to run another story by a dispossessed individual I will see to it that this paper will lose my audience and that of many of my likeminded friends who share a common love for an America without a homeless person Epidemic. We are not Russia and I fought to keep it that way. I understand everyone has a right to be heard, but that right goes out the window the second these people decide to lay down, on America’s watch, and use our streets as a hammock as we all work extraordinarily hard to put food on the table. The Beacon Free Press owes it’s tax paying, god fearing citizens a sincere and public apology.
Cpl. Clifford A. White
(I decided to use my middle initial to pay tribute to my grandfather Alabaster White, who was a great man of duty, honor, and country. Now that this article might see print in your paper, I'd like him to have this tribute. He is the reason I am Cpl. Clifford White, and not Mr. Clifford White.)
These people are a serious problem. In a time when Beacon is undergoing a major revamping, it is hard to restore an attractive image, when our streets are spilling with frightful vagabonds, skulking, begging for change so they can stick a needle in their arm and fall into a coma in the woods behind my house. I’ve had enough. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
They hover outside all of our shops waiting to pick from the crumbs that fall from our laps as we wipe them off after a meal on Main Street. They flock around me like pigeons as I walk down Main. I say we rent some vans and fill them with all the dispossessed individuals that are littered across the streets of this town and leave them somewhere far from our children, our homes, and our cars. I’m sure we can at least dump them near that art gallery that’s down there by the river. I can’t distinguish the people who flock there from the homeless of our city. The installments therein of mangled car parts and broken glass promote what I believe to be death obsessed images that promote sloth and promiscuity, which is what I believe may be at the heart of a lot of the homeless peoples problems. But that’s just me, one simple man’s opinion. I didn’t get to go to school, since I enlisted for the war, so maybe I missed the meaning of these images in the classrooms I never sat in as I spent that time kneeling in the thick bloodied mud and dirt overseas.
Now let me speak on this person Rufus; my friend at the local family diner calls him by a derogatory name that rhymes with Rufus, he can’t be serious. You don’t plant an apple seed and expect to eat from it in the next season. Something like that takes years to happen. He wouldn’t know that because he is too busy being a dispossessed individual.
I’m not taking any more guff from these people. We as a people need to rally together and deliver these people of the street back to the womb that rejected them. My wife tells me that these people came on hard times and that in the Bible the prophets were also dispossessed individuals on the streets of Jerusalem, but that biblical jargon doesn’t hold up in the 21st century. I saw that stuff die, under the path of the Sherman’s that we used to intimidate the Koreans with. It is time to clean up these streets and wipe away these beggars. I will not stand for this behavior. And if the Beacon Free Press decides to run another story by a dispossessed individual I will see to it that this paper will lose my audience and that of many of my likeminded friends who share a common love for an America without a homeless person Epidemic. We are not Russia and I fought to keep it that way. I understand everyone has a right to be heard, but that right goes out the window the second these people decide to lay down, on America’s watch, and use our streets as a hammock as we all work extraordinarily hard to put food on the table. The Beacon Free Press owes it’s tax paying, god fearing citizens a sincere and public apology.
Cpl. Clifford A. White
(I decided to use my middle initial to pay tribute to my grandfather Alabaster White, who was a great man of duty, honor, and country. Now that this article might see print in your paper, I'd like him to have this tribute. He is the reason I am Cpl. Clifford White, and not Mr. Clifford White.)
Clifford White and The Editor of The Beacon Free Press Spar
First, yes I know I'm taking this to far. But I've DVR'd everything I want to watch from last night and while I'm waiting for someone to come shoot hoops with this is the best I can do.
Note the dear Cpl. White, as opposed to the Mr. White in his last letter to me...
Dear. Cpl. White,
We still cannot publish your letter. I’ll be specific. We cannot run a letter in which you refer to people by derogatory terms – such as “Bum” – “filthy human,” “Women with the posture of jumbo shrimp,” “Dufus,” “Gutter Huggers” etc. We also cannot run a letter in which you say an art gallery “promotes nothing but sloth and promiscuity.” (unless you also provide proof for making such a statement).
You certainly do have the right to be heard by your peers, however, by law we cannot print material that is libelous and contains defamation of character references – such as the name-calling. We are not rejecting your letter. We’re simply asking you to submit it in a form that does not force our newspaper to violate the law.
My response to you has absolutely nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the law. I have been working in the newspaper industry for over 35 years. I know the law.
Thank you.
NAME REMOVED
Beacon Free Press, Northern Dutchess News
Says Cpl. White:
Mr. NAME REMOVED,
I had no idea you and the Beacon Free Press were running such a PC paper. I have to be honest that I'm rather ashamed of the law then, if the law takes from me my right to speak out against people who are doing nothing but using our streets as their front porch.
I respect your 35 years in the industry. Did you ever serve in the military son? For me, this isn't as much name calling as it is journalism. I'm only reacting to the streets that I am scared to walk through as I get up in my years. Since you have been working in the print industry for 35 years, you, much like myself must be a little long in the tooth. Do you not understand the brevity of this issue, and how I feel when my wife goes to the market on Sunday's worried that she may be knocked over by a bum so he can take her money and groceries. I was deeply offended seeing an article by a bum in your paper. Has no one questioned this madman of the streets?
I understand the law. But I also understand that I have a right to say what I feel. How can anyone be charged with libel if these people have no rights themselves? Surely, they are not held in the same regard as us tax paying citizens. So I went through my letter. I replaced the words Bum, filthy human, and other "offensive" remarks with words hopefully you deem fit to run. I added a little to my art gallery feelings, and hopefully you can find it safe enough for your newsroom.
Weeks ago, I saw an article written in your paper, and it was about this very subject. This person was calling what we have in Beacon a Bum crisis, and I could have sworn she used the word bum a few times. Why then am I not allowed? Have you too joined in harmony with these people ever since that one Bum wrote in to the paper?
Are you i cahoots with this man as well? If so, then it is a very sad day in Beacon.
Below is my again, revised, hopefully more PC letter.
I appreciate your reply and respect your stance in the shadow of the thumb of the law.
Unfortunately, you give me no room to be who I am, unadulterated and honest.
I truly hope that this, somewhat revised letter is fine. If not, I'll hack at it some more. But every time I look at this letter I grow angrier and angrier.
Let's open up the free press and have an honest discourse on this most troubling problem.
good day,
Cpl. Clifford White
Note the dear Cpl. White, as opposed to the Mr. White in his last letter to me...
Dear. Cpl. White,
We still cannot publish your letter. I’ll be specific. We cannot run a letter in which you refer to people by derogatory terms – such as “Bum” – “filthy human,” “Women with the posture of jumbo shrimp,” “Dufus,” “Gutter Huggers” etc. We also cannot run a letter in which you say an art gallery “promotes nothing but sloth and promiscuity.” (unless you also provide proof for making such a statement).
You certainly do have the right to be heard by your peers, however, by law we cannot print material that is libelous and contains defamation of character references – such as the name-calling. We are not rejecting your letter. We’re simply asking you to submit it in a form that does not force our newspaper to violate the law.
My response to you has absolutely nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the law. I have been working in the newspaper industry for over 35 years. I know the law.
Thank you.
NAME REMOVED
Beacon Free Press, Northern Dutchess News
Says Cpl. White:
Mr. NAME REMOVED,
I had no idea you and the Beacon Free Press were running such a PC paper. I have to be honest that I'm rather ashamed of the law then, if the law takes from me my right to speak out against people who are doing nothing but using our streets as their front porch.
I respect your 35 years in the industry. Did you ever serve in the military son? For me, this isn't as much name calling as it is journalism. I'm only reacting to the streets that I am scared to walk through as I get up in my years. Since you have been working in the print industry for 35 years, you, much like myself must be a little long in the tooth. Do you not understand the brevity of this issue, and how I feel when my wife goes to the market on Sunday's worried that she may be knocked over by a bum so he can take her money and groceries. I was deeply offended seeing an article by a bum in your paper. Has no one questioned this madman of the streets?
I understand the law. But I also understand that I have a right to say what I feel. How can anyone be charged with libel if these people have no rights themselves? Surely, they are not held in the same regard as us tax paying citizens. So I went through my letter. I replaced the words Bum, filthy human, and other "offensive" remarks with words hopefully you deem fit to run. I added a little to my art gallery feelings, and hopefully you can find it safe enough for your newsroom.
Weeks ago, I saw an article written in your paper, and it was about this very subject. This person was calling what we have in Beacon a Bum crisis, and I could have sworn she used the word bum a few times. Why then am I not allowed? Have you too joined in harmony with these people ever since that one Bum wrote in to the paper?
Are you i cahoots with this man as well? If so, then it is a very sad day in Beacon.
Below is my again, revised, hopefully more PC letter.
I appreciate your reply and respect your stance in the shadow of the thumb of the law.
Unfortunately, you give me no room to be who I am, unadulterated and honest.
I truly hope that this, somewhat revised letter is fine. If not, I'll hack at it some more. But every time I look at this letter I grow angrier and angrier.
Let's open up the free press and have an honest discourse on this most troubling problem.
good day,
Cpl. Clifford White
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