Respect – Sunday Word Of The Day Essay

respect |rəˈspekt| noun

• a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements: the director had a lot of respect for Douglas as an actor.
• the state of being admired or respected: his first chance in over fifteen years to regain respect in the business.
• due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others: respect for human rights.
• (respects) a person’s polite greetings: give my respects to your parents.2 a particular aspect, point, or detail: the government’s record in this respect is a mixed one.

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I made a comment on the record at the December 5th Storey County Commissioners meeting about people getting fired for pinching fannies and Pat Whitten stealing taxpayer money to pay his homeboys and not getting fired.

In the December 29th episode of the Comstock Comical, the usually accurate and responsible reporting the community has come to enjoy from Karen Woodmansee went off the rails, careened sideways and landed deep into the weeds. Karen penned a very topical and worthy subject built on the bedrock of a blatantly misquoted statement I made.

There are a number of remarkable things about her tactics here that bear careful consideration.

First and foremost, Karen considers herself a journalist. To her credit, she has done a reasonably good job of reporting on things that happen around the county. Yet, for the record, she did not attend the December 5th meeting in person. She relied on the audio recording she obtained from County Clerk Vanessa Stephens. As such, she has zero excuses for not doing her job by quoting me accurately. She could have typed my statement exactly as uttered and can’t lean on the excuse that I talk too fast.

Instead, she chose to do something both reckless and irresponsible. She tried to project her narrative into what I was thinking when I made my statement without any actual knowledge or proof of my intent. She then lied about what I actually said.

In case you missed it, from her article: “One comment, which actually had nothing to do with the issue at hand, was along the lines of “I think of these poor guys who lose their jobs for pinching a few butts”.” That is so far from “along the lines of” what I said and what I meant, it’s not even funny.

One of the (millions of) reasons that modern news outlets like The Teller are superior to old-school fossilized dinosaur newspaper stuff is the ability to include audio and video content into the articles. You may not be able to wrap fish or light fires with what I write, but you can play audio and video and share facts.

So, here, gentle reader/listener, are the actual lines of what I said. All 2:42 minutes of it.

The kind of elastic you need to sew “along the lines of” my statement to get it to stretch into “along the lines of” what Ms. Woodmansee wrote would need to elasticize around the equator a couple (hundred) times before they squeeze into her narrative.

In order to label me a mysoginistic animal, Karen, you are going to need more than a single (non) data point. 

As I suggested in my latest podcast (which you can hear here), if she wanted to hoist more appropriate examples of disgusting misogynistic animals onto her petard, the county has two guys standing right in front of her. These two charmers, whose well-documented exploits are more likely candidates to focus on when talking about men circulating pictures of their penises.

While I have no first-hand knowledge of his behavior, there is a certain former County Commissioner (still on the County dole) whose reputation precedes itself. According to legend, has tried to tap every ambulatory woman between 18 and 70 in Storey County and has broken up families left and right with a smile. And he’s nicknamed after a fanny.

And then there is one of the good ol’ boys I was looking at during the Commission Meeting when I talked about pinching fannies; County Commissioner Lance Gilman.

Consider the words of our elected representative as he gleefully describes this “wonderful idea” he thinks is “great”:

I ask you, gentle reader, who is more “along the lines of” a misogynist?

Fun Fact: I love and respect the women in my life.

If Ms. Woodmanse has ulterior motives for smearing me in this manner,  I double dog dare her to fess up.

To purposefully misquote me in order to beat me with the ugly stick in her otherwise excellent, on-point piece without any actual examples of this behavior is irresponsible. For her to pass over two guys in the community with years and years and years of in your face priors is mo’ irresponsible.

Shame on you and the dinosaur you rode in on.