Girl Doing Herp Outreach Meets Perv Lawmaker

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chris_mcmartin
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Girl Doing Herp Outreach Meets Perv Lawmaker

Post by chris_mcmartin »

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Connecticut Lawmaker Tells Teen Girl to Check Out His Snake
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According to audio of the testimony, the girl said: "I am usually a very shy person, and now I am more outgoing. I was able to teach those children about certain things like snakes that we have and the turtles that we have... I want to do something toward that, working with children when I get older."

Hewett responded: "If you're bashful I got a snake sitting under my desk here."
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gbin
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Post by gbin »

Wow.

That news item goes well with one I just read about a UK Amazon Marketplace seller who has been advertising a line of t-shirts that play on England's WWII slogan "Keep Calm and Carry On." This seller's shirts, though, say things such as "Keep Calm and Rape a Lot," "Keep Calm and Knife Her" and "Keep Calm and Grope a Lot."

I prefer to think of these guys as belonging to a different species than our own.

Gerry
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herpseeker1978
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Post by herpseeker1978 »

From what I understand, that comment was taken way out of context. Here is from another story:
"I am usually a very shy person, and now I am more outgoing," [a 17-year old ambassador for the Connecticut Science Center] told the committee. "I was able to teach those children about certain things like snakes that we have and the turtles that we have...

Near the end of her speech, committee co-chairman state Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, smiled at the girl and made a comment about how the teen was no longer shy.

Hewett, 56, recalled Thursday that he then pushed his microphone button to talk and said, "If you are shy, then I have a live snake under this desk."
Sounds like a not well thought out joke to me. I can see how it got taken out of context though.

The article continues:
What the—that's not offensive at all! It's a joke gone wrong because ... look, I don't have to explain why it sounds wrong out of context. The Day's audio of the event reveals that the girl spent quite a lot of time talking about snakes. "I never liked snakes, but I ended up loving them!" she says. "Alex and Austin, and little Myles, they're so much fun!" The paper, for some reason, misquotes the resulting quip—it's "if you're bashful, I got a snake sitting underneath my desk here." It's an overreaction to an errant word since a D.C. bureaucrat said "niggardly" and was chased out of his job by people who didn't know the etymology. Hewitt's being pilloried by fellow Democrats who want to make a point about sexual harrassment more generally.
It's amazing how things can be taken out of context!

Josh
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chris_mcmartin
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Re: Girl Doing Herp Outreach Meets Perv Lawmaker

Post by chris_mcmartin »

herpseeker1978 wrote:From what I understand, that comment was taken way out of context.
Are their state legislative proceedings taped, video or audio, or otherwise transcribed? Because the differing recollections of what was actually said vary quite a bit in their meaning, and it's difficult to ascertain intent without knowing exactly what was said. I don't know what would possess someone to string together that collection of words, especially referring to a snake under one's desk, in a strained attempt at a joke...
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Post by herpseeker1978 »

The article I quoted said there is audio available. I thought I included a link, but didn't. Here it is: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/ ... snake.html I personally don't know what happened, but it really annoys me when all that gets reported is "I've got a snake right here for you!" without any context at all. It sounds like there's a lot more to this than is being reported. But as a news outlet these days, all you have to do is find something that seems controversial and then it hits twitter and facebook and people are none the wiser because it is the only thing they are seeing. I'm just saying that instead of throwing the guy under the bus, investigate. Innocent until proven guilty.

Josh
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gbin
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Post by gbin »

Good advice, Josh.

Unfortunately, I don't see how to investigate this story properly. The article might have mentioned audio being available, but it didn't provide a link to that audio (not that I could find, anyway) - so we're still left taking someone's word for it.

It still seems to me like a very odd comment to make under any circumstance, too. How old is this guy? If it wasn't meant as a highly inappropriate sexual comment to a child, maybe it was just a "senior moment" (which would actually be another good reason to get him out of office, really)? It's hard for me to see a way in which this doesn't make the guy look bad from a voter's perspective, I'm afraid.

Gerry
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Post by herpseeker1978 »

I don't know what to make of it either I just don't like railroading people when I don't have access to the information. It was definitely not a wise comment to make. But they were talking quite a bit about snakes. I think he was just trying tell a joke and we all know that sometimes things come out that are completely different than what we meant to say. It says he's been in politics a while. I don't think he's a rookie, so you can't just chalk it up to a "rookie" mistake. Anyway, my point is don't make a judgement unless you have all the evidence, unfortunately, our media has a hard time with that, on both sides of the aisle.

Josh
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Post by chris_mcmartin »

The more I think about this, the less I'm inclined to believe any misleading done by the journalists involved was an issue of "out-of-context" so much as "misquoting." The problem is, what did the legislator REALLY say? His recollection of what he said, as relayed in the article, may be what he hoped he had said and not what he actually said.

There's always "more to the story." In this case, there might not be much more... :)
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gbin
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Post by gbin »

herpseeker1978 wrote:... Anyway, my point is don't make a judgement unless you have all the evidence, unfortunately, our media has a hard time with that, on both sides of the aisle.
I agree with you on the importance of avoiding a rush to judgment (I doubt you can ever get anywhere near all of the evidence, though ;) ), amigo, but politics is an awfully tough environment in which to survive even a simple bit of honest misspeaking. Whatever this guy actually said and whatever his actual intent in saying it, I suspect he's headed out of office.

Even if unfair, it is at least somewhat understandable that folk's minds go there so readily these days. There are a lot of... well, "sexual predators" is really too kind to the people involved and too harmful by association to predatory animals... out there. Did you ever watch any of those Chris Hansen/Dateline shows where they baited these deviants to a camera-equipped home via internet trolling for them? What really gets to me isn't the fact that such sickos exist, which is certainly bad enough, but that they're apparently so dang abundant. I'm pretty progressive in most respects, but I'm a firm believer in castration as a condition for release from prison for sex crime perpetrators.

Gerry
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Post by FunkyRes »

I suspect it was just a bad attempt at a joke and that while probably still not appropriate, a mountain is being made out of a molehill.
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Post by jonathan »

It really sounds like it was just a stupid joke.

If he had meant it in the "perverted" way at all, I can't imagine how he would have ever said such a thing in public. He'd have nothing to gain and his entire career to lose. Since I get the joke he was trying to see, I'm much more inclined to believe that the perverted meaning never came into his head - otherwise the joke never would have made it out of his mouth.

The "perverted" meaning also makes no sense, because starting with "If you're bashful" wouldn't make any logical sense in leading to a perverted second half of the sentence.
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