Posted on 06/18/2003 7:29:28 AM PDT by presidio9
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:42:47 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Stop. You've found it. This is the place. Americana HQ. Patriotism in a giant tin bucket. This is where souls recoil, children wail, dreams die.
This is Wal-Mart. The glorious consumer mecca, the epic wonderland/wasteland of prefab landfill merch, not only the world's largest and most powerful retailer and the most aggressive snarling frightening happy-place marketer and quite possibly the most hideously overlit soul-draining monster empire you will ever know in your entire lifetime, but also the very multibillion-dollar pseudo-Christian kingdom that censors their offerings and refuses to sell certain music CDs and bans "risqu
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
And Wal-Mart just recently decided to cover up the covers of other, less garish but apparently equally "naughty" women's mags like Elle and Cosmo (which, BTW, is owned by Hearst, as is SFGate) and Mademoiselle due to racy or suggestive images --
For one thing, Elle does not have sexually explicit cover blurbs on its magazines. Cosmopolitan, Glamour and (recent issues of) Redbook do. For another, Mademoiselle ceased publication last year.
Except the groups that complain about the mags are often the same ones that cheer Wal-Mart's censorship decisions
Actually, it is a business decision to either cover up or not sell certain magazines. And just because Maxim and Stuff may be available at Wal-Mart no longer, does not mean you cannot get it anywhere else. In fact, where I live, there are two other places where I could find them: A convenience store and a Barnes & Noble. So the censorship angle is a strawman.
Of course, they also sell guns. Did we mention the guns? Oh yes. How's that for a message -- hey kids, don't look at the impossibly pretty half-naked Photoshopped model on the cover of Elle because your undereducated little mind might get corrupted and you're just not ready for the word "sex" in bold 48-point Helvetica. But here, have a nice Remington .22. Now scamper off and go kill something, sweetie.
In other words, Wal-Mart sells firearms to minors. This is outright libel.
Some years ago, Sheryl Crow did the very same thing in a song from her second album. Fortunately for Crow, instead of taking her to court, Wal-Mart simply chose not to sell her CD in the stores (another business decision). And, of course, you had clowns like Morford here crying, "censorship." Apparently someone forgot to tell them slander and libel are not protected by the First Amendment.
It might be when you change the words entirely, and pretend you're a lawyer.
Obviously you are not aware of Burnett v. National Enquirer.
Of course, it does go back before your time, but feel free to do a Yahoo search.
You seem to make up laws, and now court rulings, whenever you need to sound authoritative on a thread. Did you flunk out of law school, or what is it with that?
I'll Dowd this for you to further emphasize the San Francisco-ness of the article, okay?
"uptight...hard..."
Target was one of the first stores to go "politically correct" by stopping the sale of cigarettes in their stores (mid '90s or so?).
Yeah, Mr. Ms. It Morford, we get it. You don't like our President and you don't like Christians.
Thank goodness this is just its written word. I definitely don't want to hear its voice!
Yeah, named Blaine.
Certainly.
Carol Burnett sued the National Enquirer for libel because it implied she had engaged in drunken behavior.
She won.
Now look at the relevant paragraph:
Of course, they also sell guns. Did we mention the guns? Oh yes. How's that for a message -- hey kids, don't look at the impossibly pretty half-naked Photoshopped model on the cover of Elle because your undereducated little mind might get corrupted and you're just not ready for the word "sex" in bold 48-point Helvetica. But here, have a nice Remington .22. Now scamper off and go kill something, sweetie.
Here, Morford implies he is speaking for Wal-Mart, and then says (in simpler terms), "We won't let you see sex, but we will give you a gun."
He does not have to say it outright for it to be libel, as the above referenced case shows. He just has to imply it, which he is clearly doing.
But why do I have to tell you this, anyway? You claim to be a lawyer, and yet you did not know this? Then what the hell is your specialty? Tax law?
And by the way, if you are going to respond with, "Oh, he really did not say that," don't bother. I am not stupid and have an excellent comprehension of what I am reading.
Which is why when you do say that, we will both know you are being completely full of crap and just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.
But he doesn't, does he? We already know why; the "turn the other cheek" requirement Christians are to abide by makes it "safe" for this "author" to denigrate believers like me. Consider the following phrases from the article:
multibillion-dollar pseudo-Christian kingdom
prosaic Bible-lickin' censorship
the good falsely sanctimonious citizen
desperately hyper-Christian anti-choice anti-gay anti-porn asexual pseudo-ethical groups
hollow and deeply frightening Christian-values
Surely this screed is not simply about Mark Morford's disdain for a particular store chain. This whole Wal*Mart diatribe is really a not-so-clever analogy used to clothe Mark Morford's particular brand of hate and intolerance.
Mr. Morford, what have I, or my brothers and sisters, as Christians, done to frighten you so, to cause you such angst? Has God not given you the free will to live the life you have chosen for yourself? Are you deprived any of your cherished amoral pursuits here in America?
The only thing deprived of Mr. Morford is tacit acceptance of and acquiescence to his own deeply held personal set of values. The only evidence of massive, reeling intolerance is the version Mr. Morford choses to display via his Notes & Errata column. To coin his own phrase, the only shockingly uptight whims and intolerant perspectives aggressively working every single day to drain out any semblance of voice or personality or alternative viewpoint are the ones of his manufacture.
Poor Mark Morford. He went to Journalism School wanting to learn how to manipulate the culture. After putting all those years and effort into journalism, he finds that a retail store is doing a better job at manipulation than he is.
I can understand why he feels so panicked.
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