This post may require counseling

Fresh Loaf’s Gwynedd Stuart expresses some sympathy for Luis Rivera, the obviously contrite Gwinnett County math teacher forced to resign for crafting some rather ignorant word problems.

Rivera’s 20-question homework assignment used slave beatings and picking cotton to link lessons about ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass to math computation. One of the problems read: “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

Reprehensible, no doubt, and the punishment, though severe, is not unreasonable. That doesn’t excuse the grandstanding by the perpetually indignant, especially when you consider there’s nothing to indicate the teacher, while clearly overmatched, is some Klansman. Last I checked the Triple K wasn’t too fond of guys named Luis Rivera.

Stuart:

A guy named Henry White — who, the AJC pointed out, doesn’t even have kids — called the incident an “egregious act of assault on the minds of a kid by an adult” at a Gwinnett County School Board meeting. And several parents said they wanted the school to make counseling available to their children. I don’t want to say they’re overreacting … but maybe they’re overreacting.

A commenter counters:

Would you feel the same if the homework questions were about the holocaust? I thought so.

It won’t be long before someone demands Stuart attend sensitivity training for her egregious assault on the minds of readers.

The counseling bill is in the mail, Gwynedd.

Piers Morgan promises to be even more overbearing in 2012

You think I’m unctuous now? You ain’t seen nothing yet, warns CNN’s biggest mistake.  

“I think we will be evolving the show into a more structured format, bringing more of my personality into it,” Morgan said over a lunch with a small group of media reporters. …

The goal is to make the program “a bit more mischievous, certainly more humor, more opinionated,” Morgan says.

 

The media’s inflated view of self

I’m pulling for Jon Huntsman, but does anyone really believe an endorsement by the Boston Globe is going to influence Republican primary voters? Apparently the media does, judging by the entourage of reporters following the former Utah governor around in New Hampshire today.

Never confuse Greta Van Scientologist with a journalist

No one should be surprised that Sarah Palin’s chief media mouthpiece and BFF failed to disclose her husband was good friends with Herman Cain before interviewing the candidate’s wife.

Greta Van Susteren is no journalist — never has been, never will be. She’s an annoying media personality and cult member who just happens to score big interviews with political figures advised by her husband.

Opportunistic igmo feuds with overbearing Brit (and the most revealing Piers Morgan quote ever)

Christine O’Donnell, the poor woman’s Sarah Palin, steals a page from her mentor’s playbook to propagate the year’s most irrelevant feud.

Both shameless panderers to attention for its own sake, Christine O’Donnell and Piers Morgan are clearly a match made in heaven. This morning, having slowly walked off Morgan’s CNN show two nights ago, O’Donnell was on the Today show to declare, “I wanted to stop the borderline sexual harassment that was going on.”

Obviously the only winners in this ImbrogliO’Donnell are the people who weren’t watching CNN’s biggest mistake.

And yet I can’t stop myself  from hating on the British Pat O’Brien. Last year, the 1 British “celebrity” who matters least composed a list of the 100 British celebs who matter most.

Of Jude Law, Morgan wrote, “we shared an afternoon of cricket together at Lord’s and he wasn’t any more smug or annoying than me.”

Piers Morgan, insufferable twit

The celebrity navel-gazer claims to have never authorized phone hacking yet, by his own admission, is intimately acquainted with the practice.

“Stories soon emerged that the marriage was in trouble – at one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone. It was heartbreaking. The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back. He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang ‘We Can Work It Out’…”

The cult of conservative conspiracy theories

A recent Arbitron ratings report showed the ratings for Rusty Limbo and Helmethead dipped dramatically from the previous year.

The reason, according to an unnamed “industry leader” quoted by WingNutDaily: “Liberals,” working in consort with the Antichrist Administration, “are falsifying numbers … to kill talk radio.”

I thought that was the Fairness Doctrine’s job. It’s easy to confuse all the conspiracy theories coming from the right.

A master at work

As a veteran fabricator I’m skilled at exposing liars. I like to think of it as a gift.

Observe.

The subject: Cenk Uygur, recently replaced as host of an MSNBC show few watched. I know of Uygur, but not enough to care one way or the other about his television future.

Claim: Speaking on his “Young Turks” show, Uygur said that, though the ratings for his show had been satisfying MSNBC executives, his “tone” had not. According to his version of events, his departure from the network was the culmination of a protracted struggle with MSNBC management who wanted him to be more buttoned down.

Uygur said that, in April, MSNBC president Phil Griffin called him in for a talk. Griffin allegedly told him that “people in Washington” were concerned with his tone on the show.

So Washington powerbrokers are concerned about a show that, at its height, had 665,000 viewers? Really?

Claim: “‘Outsiders are cool, but we’re the establishment,’” Griffin said, according to Uygur, who said he was also told to book more Republicans on the show. He claimed to have been stunned by the conversation, and said he ignored Griffin’s advice.

Interesting how the alleged villain casts Uygur as an “outsider” — I’m sure he didn’t object.

As for the booking advice, I don’t recall seeing many Republicans on Rachel Maddow’s show.

Claim: Though his ratings increased, Uygur said that, a couple of weeks ago, he was informed that he would not be getting the permanent slot at 6 PM, but was instead offered a smaller contributor role for twice the salary. He said he turned it down because, in his words, he did not want to work at a place “that didn’t want to challenge power.”

Once again, Uygur’s version conveniently adheres to a narrative any progressive would embrace: An outsider who makes the establishment nervous, refusing to be silenced, or bribed, setting out on his own to challenge the powers that be. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Corporate Lackey!

The verdict: Did I mention Uygur was replaced by Al Sharpton, the very embodiment of the company man?

A poorly constructed lie, and hardly original (see Olbermann, Keith). For shame, Cenk Uygur!

Related articles

• MSNBC Calls Cenk Uygur’s Version Of Departure ‘Completely Baseless’ (mediaite.com)

You mean ‘lie’ coach?

Former New York Times plagiarist and fabricator Jayson Blair has a new job, according to his Twitter profile.

Jayson Blair

@jaysonblair7 Centreville, Virginia

Managing Partner and Certified Life Coach at Goose Creek Consulting; former reporter for The New York Times; Human Listening Post

I’ve never understood what exactly a life coach does — I’m sure there are some sincere ones. Blair wasn’t even that good of a liar, so what guidance does he have to he offer?

Blame it on Orlando

The Casey Anthony verdict serves as a reminder:  Never give Orlando the benefit of the doubt.

As I write this Dr. Drew is opining on the Casey Anthony verdict. Is there anything he doesn’t know?

I wonder what Dr. Ruth thinks.

There is an upside to all this salaciousness: Nancy Grace‘s head just exploded.

Junior Samples would’ve been 85 this year

The 20th Century’s most overrated figure (she actually touched poor people and once hugged someone with AIDS!) gets the 50th birthday treatment from Newsweek. It’s the UK’s most embarrassing fetish, as illustrated by Newsweek editor Tina Brown’s vacuous profile of the late princess:

“Diana would have been 50 this month,” she writes. “What would she have been like?”

Brown then seeks to answer her own question, saying the former Diana Spencer likely “would have gone the J. Crew and Galliano route a la Michelle Obama, always knowing how to mix the casual with the glam.”

“There is no doubt she would have kept her chin taut with strategic Botox shots and her bare arms buff from the gym,” said Brown, predicting her late friend would have made at least two more trips down the wedding aisle herself, probably “on both sides of the Atlantic.”

How have we survived without her?