Daily PUMA Column - Commentary by Alessandro Machi

Showing posts with label Judge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judge. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2009

One of My Favorite DailyPUMA ARTICLES of 2009 Reprinted Below.

Remember the woman who called 911 because McDonalds STOLE her money and WOULD NOT give it back?

McDonalds had run out of Chicken McNuggets and their solution was to give her a substitute meal of equal or greater value, but under no circumstances was Latreasa Davis or any other customer ever to get a refund. DailyPUMA wrote about it last month... (Latreasa Davis is a Hero, not a Zero.)
Latreasa Davis had the guts to demand her actual money back from a McDonalds that was planning on giving her a substitute meal she did not want. Davis was ridiculed by the media for calling 911 when in reality she was a heroic consumer advocate who wouldn't sit at the back of the bus after McDonald's refused to refund her money for a meal they could not produce. Davis's reward was to be charged with a crime for calling 911 while the media laughed at her.

It was not newsworthy for the media to report McDonalds stealing customers money and then giving the customer whatever McDonald's wanted to give, but it was newsworthy to taunt and ridicule Latreasa Davis for standing up and saying, "enough is enough".

This weeks female media victim is Nicole Word.
Nicole Word, the Poster Woman for Repeat Domestic Abuse who so far had survived numerous alleged stalking attacks by her ex boyfriend, has now been dropped from her own story so the media could glorify the judge "who saved her". Not only did Nicole Word have to survive repeated alleged threats against her life from her estranged "boyfriend", but just as she was testifying against him, IN COURT, he attacked her AGAIN! Click Above to see the RARE news story version in which Nicole Word is actually featured in the story along with the heroic judge. Or click here to see the article and the video. Sadly, the only reason this story even made the headlines was because of the video inside the courtroom.

There would have never even been a story about the repeated domestic abuse attempts if the abuser hadn't then done it in court! So you would think that Nicole Word would be featured front and center. Nope. Instead, the story makes news across the county because of the "heroic" actions of the Broward County Judge, Ian Richards.

My question is, who is the real hero in this situation? Is Judge Ian Richards the hero for stopping an assault in his own courtroom, or is it Nicole Word, who fended off several alleged death threats and had to face her tormetor in court and then survive a beating by him in court? According to the media, the judge is the hero, and Nicole is just a footnote. I base this conclusion on the following. I did several google searches. It was not until I put Nicole Word's actual name in that was I able to find a video that showed her being interviewed.

In all other cases, the videos were all about The judges heroics in jumping over his own bench to save the female in distress from an attacker. GASP. KCAL in Los Angeles ran the original video seen above, but has not archived this story in their own internet video library so after it ran on the air, it basically disappeared forever.

To glorify the judge without knowing about or hearing from the victim is just wrong. If you didn't already know the name of the female victim, odds are you wouldn't find the very scant coverage that included her own words about what happened. The media has gotten adept at being wrong when it comes to how they view Women who are champions.

Ridiculing Latreasa Davis, Ignoring Nicole Word, Oblivious to unfair voting schemes that went against Hillary Clinton, or wrongfully championing Caroline Kennedy for a legislative position without her ever having even won a popular vote in her adult life, are all signs that our media is not able to repeat an original story without dumbing it down, especially when it involves courageous women in the news.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Domestic Abuse is out of Control. Nicole Word is Attacked in Court by Ex-boyfriend during her testimony. Judge Stops Attack, Media Idolizes Judge.

Remember the woman who called 911 because McDonalds STOLE her money and WOULD NOT give it back? McDonalds had run out of Chicken McNuggets and their solution was to give her a substitute meal of equal or greater value, but under no circumstances was Latreasa Davis or any other customer ever to get a refund. DailyPUMA wrote about it last month... ( Latreasa Davis is a Hero, not a Zero.)

Latreasa Davis had the guts to demand her actual money back from a McDonalds that was planning on giving her a substitute meal she did not want.

Davis was ridiculed by the media for calling 911 when in reality she was a heroic consumer advocate who wouldn't sit at the back of the bus after McDonald's refused to refund her money for a meal they could not produce. Davis's reward was to be charged with a crime for calling 911 while the media laughed at her.

It was not newsworthy for the media to report McDonalds stealing customers money and then giving the customer whatever McDonald's wanted to give, but it was newsworthy to taunt and ridicule Latreasa Davis for standing up and saying, "enough is enough".

This weeks female media victim is Nicole Word.
Nicole Word, the Poster Woman for Repeat Domestic Abuse who so far had survived numerous alleged stalking attacks by her ex boyfriend, has now been dropped from her own story so the media could glorify the judge "who saved her".

Not only did Nicole Word have to survive repeated alleged threats against her life from her estranged "boyfriend", but just as she was testifying against him, IN COURT, he attacked her
AGAIN! Click Above to see the RARE news story version in which Nicole Word is actually featured in the story along with the heroic judge.

Or click here to see the article and the video.

Sadly, the only reason this story even made the headlines was because of the video inside the courtroom. There would have never even been a story about the repeated domestic abuse attempts if the abuser hadn't then done it in court! So you would think that Nicole Word would be featured front and center. Nope. Instead, the story makes news across the county because of the "heroic" actions of the Broward County Judge, Ian Richards.

My question is, who is the real hero in this situation? Is Judge Ian Richards the hero for stopping an assault in his own courtroom, or is it Nicole Word, who fended off several alleged death threats and had to face her tormetor in court and then survive a beating by him in court?

According to the media, the judge is the hero, and Nicole is just a footnote. I base this conclusion on the following. I did several google searches. It was not until I put Nicole Word's actual name in that was I able to find a video that showed her being interviewed. In all other cases, the videos were all about
The judges heroics in jumping over his own bench to save the female in distress from an attacker. GASP.

KCAL in Los Angeles ran the original video seen above, but has not archived this story in their own internet video library so after it ran on the air, it basically disappeared forever.

To glorify the judge without knowing about or hearing from the victim is just wrong. If you didn't already know the name of the female victim, odds are you wouldn't find the very scant coverage that included her own words about what happened.

The media has gotten adept at being wrong when it comes to how they view Women who are champions.

Ridiculing Latreasa Davis, Ignoring Nicole Word, Oblivious to unfair voting schemes that went against Hillary Clinton, or wrongfully championing Caroline Kennedy for a legislative position without her ever having even won a popular vote in her adult life, are all signs that our media is not able to repeat an original story without dumbing it down, especially when it involves courageous women in the news.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Judges Blurring the wrong line regarding Proposition 8.

Excellent Radio discussion on Dec. 15th, 2008 about Prop-8 Protesting Strategies from the John & Ken Show, KFI-640 AM. A MUST LISTEN for anyone involved in Proposition 8.

I think judges are making a mistake by blurring the line between making a donation to a human being, and making a donation to a ballot measure proposition.

Link - Judges rule full donation disclosure is acceptable.

When it comes to donating to a politician, I think donation disclosure makes sense. A donation to a politician can mean an ongoing alliance, so keeping this a secret does not seem ethical. Some political contributors donate to more than one politician, and may have even donated to a politician that didn't become the nominee. These two scenarios help blur the line as to how someone may have voted.

I like blurring the line when it comes to finding out how someone voted simply because our whole voting system is based on the privacy of a voting booth, and frankly, caucus style of voting just doesn't seem to cut it. However, donations made to people should be documentable, it just seems logical to do so.

Regarding donation disclosures and ballot measure propositions, a ballot proposition, once voted on, cannot be approached later on for additional favors. Favors maybe initiated by the people involved in enforcing or spending money as it relates to a proposition, but the proposition itself is not a human being.

Donations made to a proposition is probably going to represent the way that contributor voted on that issue. I've never made a donation to a ballot proposition because after the vote has been tallied, the losing side can try to overturn the result in court. Why would I ever donate money to any proposition ballot measure knowing that the result can be overturned by a judge after the fact, and I don't even get my money back!

I am in favor of voting in the privacy of a voting booth, yet having people know how I voted anyways by how I contributed on a ballot measure seems to supercede the privacy of voting in a voting booth. I've now been given another reason to never donate to any ballot measure in the future.

Prop 8 lost because Gavin Newsome made a short speech in which he stated, "It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not".
That is not the way to win friends and influence people. This quote by Newsome was gleefully played over, and over, and over by the proponents of Prop 8. Newsome was against Proposition 8, yet the Pro 8 side used his quote in their ads. I find it ironic that an opposing side can take someone's comment without mentioning in the ad that Newsome was against Prop-8. I sometimes think that the laws are too lax in certain areas of the law when it comes to political advertising.

I wish people would focus on why Prop 8 lost rather than try and witch hunt people who may have been reacting to Gavin's over the top statement, (see youtube video, plus a news story, of Gavin's famous comment, below).

Prop-8 won because they played what I call the Gavin Newsome commercial several hundred times before the Nov. 4, 2008 elections.

The juxtaposition of Gavin Newsome twice stating "It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not" bookending a boring but scholarly looking middle section was a powerful one two three punch that certainly swayed many people who hadn't decided which way to vote yet.

This news clip explores the quote heard the world... News Clip about "Whether you like it or not". My opinion that Gavin's sound bite was the difference maker is also held by others in the media. This article includes two such links, one to the news clip, and the John and Ken Radio Show link.

Was it ethical to play the clip of Gavin Newsome over and over and over, when the original speech only happened once? This gets into a very sticky area of freedom of speech. I think it is manipulative in a dishhonest way to take one portion of one speech, and literally play it so many times that people can't stand the clip and mistakenly believe that Gavin Newsome is saying it over and over.

Publicizing ballot measure donation disclosures will just make it harder for future ballot measures to get donations.

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