Thoughts Aloud

The combination of high doses of pain relievers and the general lack of anything new on the political front has kept me quiet for a while. Yet, I’m recovering from my recent surgeries (in spite of myself) and I simply MUST rant about something.

The recent alleged “debate” would have been an apt subject in other days but this continued battle between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dummer leaves me mentally numb.

But, I did manage to find something worthy of my attention. Returning from a recent trip to Austin, we tuned into a local talk radio program. At the point where we tuned in, the topic was the firing of a female guidance counselor named Tiffany Webb by a New York high school.

It seems that Ms. Webb was highly regarded in her job. However, it evidently came to the attention of the authorities that 17 years earlier, well before becoming a teacher, Ms. Webb worked as a lingerie/bikini model and that some photos of her work are still extant – including on the Internet.

The school authorities decided that those photos rendered Ms. Webb unqualified to work with the young. (Kindly note there was nothing remotely illegal or even improper in her modeling work.)

This raises several very clear and very troubling questions about the current state of our society and its attitudes.

Before exploring the questions, I would take your attention back a century and a half or so ago, in our own country, to those days of the “wild west”, the “gold rushes” and such. At that time and place, it was by no means uncommon for a comely young lass to go west and accumulate a “grub stake” by renting out her body in prostitution. After a few years, perhaps when the beauty of youth began to fade, she might marry, start a family and become an asset to her community (as if, in her prior profession, she was not also an asset).

Somehow, the communities affected were not destroyed by virtue (or lack of same) of her prior employment. Indeed, it was just another example of people getting by on whatever they had to offer, of making the best with what they had. Whether any of these newly arisen “fallen ladies” became school teachers is not known to me but I would not be the least surprised to find it so.

Back to the case at hand. Part of the strange reasoning against Ms. Webb is that she presents a less than desirable role model for the young people she worked with. Let us examine this charge:

→ At the time of the modeling experience, Ms. Webb leveraged an asset (her looks) into a source of income – at no cost or detriment to the state or to her fellow citizens.

→ Ms. Webb went forward to obtain educational credentials sufficient to qualify for employment in a major school system.

→ Ms. Webb was, by all accounts,very capable and effective in a field that, unfortunately, all too often attracts more than its share of the marginally competent.

→ To my knowledge, Ms. Webb has no illegitimate children, no police record or other such social demerits.

Now I ask you, which of these attributes might you find harmful in regard to your own young?

Perhaps that of trading on her physical attributes? If so, mustn’t we then condemn all professional athletes? How about the established fact that tall, lean men are far more likely to be chosen for positions of leadership than short dumpy beings like myself? Then, what of those who leverage some other natural ability for profit? For many years, I profited from a natural inclination to think analytically. Does this make me somehow obscene or a poor role model for my children and grandchildren (or for yours)?

Obviously, something other than rationality is afoot here.

Now to those questions:

First, and most mysterious to me is how a society can determine that one of nature’s finest works of natural beauty, that of a well formed, well proportioned female body can, at the same time be considered obscene. Worst yet, how can seeing such a female body performing one of its intended functions, that of breast feeding an infant, also be considered, if not outright obscene, at the very least highly distasteful and a thing totally unfit to be done in public?

Second, how did our society come to determine that procreation itself is obscene? Barely two generations ago, most young people regularly witnessed both the breeding and the birthing/hatching of farm animals – all the while knowing that humans are also animals, ergo subject to similar behavior. And, they did this without being themselves turned into violent psychopaths in the process.

I am not certain of the exact answers to these questions but I sense that they must be answered if we are to ever again anchor ourselves and our society in some bedrock of reality. Because, without that firm attachment to reality, how can we ever come to deal with life in a rational way? How can we ever achieve true freedom – the freedom that can come only to minds that are not shackled to the unreality of progressive-ism, religion and the false reality made possible by our technology.

Think about it.

Troy L Robinson

For additional info, visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/tiffani-webb-new-york-hig_n_1947277.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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