oyuki

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Suffer The Innocent

Before I could adequately comment on this news story, I had to re-acquaint myself with the definition of what makes an essay an essay. Judging by what is presented on this web-site, there is no definition of a fictional essay.

The mother should be taken out to the public square and locked in the stockade for a day while her neighbors throw all their rotten vegetables at her. As for the daughter, good grief where is her real father and not the fictional one that was invented to be killed in Iraq to win free concert tickets to Hannah Montana, four tickets at that. Who was going to use the other tickets or was the mother going to sell them and then pass the winners off as family? Frankly judging by the mother's lack of character and willingness to lie to win the tickets, I bet she would have tried.

The mother had an opportunity to back out gracefully when Club Libby Lu asked for the name of the deceased father. Instead of trying something like this essay is dedicated to all of the fallen in Iraq or actually admitting her daughter's essay was made up of falsehoods, she gave them a name that Club Libby Lu checked with the Department of Defense on and found there had been no soldier killed by that name in Iraq. So instead of being a minor footnote in TV contest fraud history, it is a story being carried by the likes of CNN. So now everyone in the world knows who Priscilla Ceballos is and where she lives.

To Club Libby Lu, kudos for being deliberative in your handling of this matter and for revoking the tickets. Lies with the intent to defraud should never have any reward. Which now means any entry to any essay contest will have to be vetted for truthfulness before any award can be given, all because Priscilla Ceballos decided to "We did whatever we could do to win."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

BUT...BUT...BUT Anna, That's the American way

Anna said...

You mean the Un-american way because honesty and integrity no longer matter, all that matters is getting what one wants. Which is a presciption for hedonism along with more recent historical parallels. :)

So I am reminded of a book called 'They Wouldn't Hurt a Fly' written by a Yugoslavian writer about the genocides in the Balkans describing Communism in Tito's Slavic Communist Paradise. In a nutshell, in their world view to lie meant to get ahead. To speak the truth was wrong and possibly lethal.

Priscilla needs to be pillaried like a pinata for awhile.

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

I truly worry about the values, or lack thereof, that are not being instilled into the next generation. I don't want government to tell parents how to be parents, but seriously....there's a lot of parents out there whose parenting skills quite frankly are in the gutter.

I hope Priscilla Ceballos is shamed by society until she realizes how unethical this all was.

Anna said...

Wordsmith, it would be nice if she was shamed. Perhaps run a few billboards in Garland with her picture witht he word LIAR underneath might do the trick. But the PC crowd and moral relativism will scream and bray about someone being a hateful judgemental Christian on a withhunt vendetta while trying to shove under the carpet that Priscilla is a liar.

Bring back the Roundheads! That would cool the PC crowd's ardor, like ice water. If we do not want the government to stick it's camel nose into the family tent, then the family and extended family need to step in and tell Priscilla she is flat off her rocker. Shaming/shunning were such good ways of enforcing some norms of behavior and far less violent than honor killing.