Award-winning TV reporter Tom Burlington, who is white, is claiming that racism is the basis of Philadelphia’s Fox 29 failure to renew his contract in 2007.
What Burlington says happened is that during a June 23, 2007 discussion about a possible story regarding a mock funeral of the word “nigger” by the Philadelphia Youth Council of the NAACP, Burlington said “nigger.”
Burlington was to co-anchor the show that night with Joyce Evans, who did not attend the meeting. It came back to Ms. Evans, who is black, what he said. She made a complaint the next day to the station’s Assistant News Director, Leslie Tyler, who is also black.
We kind of doubt that Joyce Evans understands what it’s like to be called a “nigger” at least by a white person.
Burlington claims that Ms. Evans told him “Because you’re white you can never understand what it’s like to be called a nigger and … you cannot use the word nigger”
Burlington says Ms. Evans then encouraged fellow employees to denounce him to management.
He said he was forced to meet with the station’s Department of Human Resources, Ameena Ali, who is black. She asked him to give his side of the story. He did verbatim. “Tom, you’re still saying that word; why are you doing that?” said said according to court papers.
Burlington was suspended.
We have no doubt that Tom Burlinton understands what Franz Kafka was getting at when he wrote The Trial.
Burlington says he apologized to the station’s black employees, was given a stern warning in writing, and made to undergo racial-sensitivity training.
It wasn’t enough. The station told Burlington on July 12, 2007, after 20 years his contract would not be renewed.
Ms. Evans remains the anchor of the weekend “Fox 29 News at Six.”
Hopefully, Burlington takes these gutless fools and bigots for everything they have. While it is sign of immaturity and low intelligence to be pointlessly offensive — which Tom Burlington by all accounts wasn’t — it is a sign of evil to be merciless.
Speech codes and political correctness have no place in true journalism, which the establishment media has long since stopped practicing. It is time to start destroying them. Speech codes and political correctness, that is. The old media is doing just a fine job destroying itself. Enjoy your vacation Brian Williams. What are the odds comedian Jon Stewart replaces him?
Joanne Yurchak has informed us that the Pennsylvania House Education Committee will hold a hearing regarding standards and testing — the underlying subject being Common Core — 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., tomorrow, Feb. 12.
It will be in Room G-50 in the Irvis Office Building, 450 Commonwealth Ave., Harrisburg, Pa 17120.
Scheduled to testify include representatives from the Pennsylvania School Board Association, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the very pro Common Core Pennsylvania Business Council, the State Superintendent’s Association, the Department of Education, and the State Board of Education, along with Common Core opponents Anita Hoge, Cheryl Boise and Ryan Bannister.
We found an old CD called Springfield Station Last Chance at the Church of the Redeemer Thrift Shop in Springfield, Pa. and we bought it as a gag gift for the price of a $1.
Then we listened to it. It was country music as good you can get.
All the songs but one were copyrighted 1999 by Lois K.T. Skiles, the group’s singer. The third in the lineup, Wrong Time, poignantly concerned a singer who had been living on the road for years playing to small crowds in small places and contained the lyrics:
People said I’d make it big, my name would be in lights
all I had to do was hit the time and place right
. . . but I guess it’s not meant to be.
So I’ll spend another year on the road
Where this story ends, nobody knows
How long must I wait?
Is it already too late
for the right time, right place?
The album inspired us to search the web and we could not find one mention of Springfield Station as it related to the group nor of the album Last Chance.
The only mention found of Lois K.T. Skiles concerned the 2011 supervisor race for Eden (Pa.) Township Supervisor which she lost to David G. Rineer, 58 votes to 49. Maybe that was her. The photo on the CD cover was of a steam locomotive from the Strasburg Railroad.
Anyway, Lois, where ever you are, you have at least one fan.
Marimba Coldplay Viva la Vida — For your pleasure here is a marimba version Coldplay’s Viva la Vida as performed by Maikel van den Boomen who was 15 when this was uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 2, 2010.
Camille Raccourse, an expert at hangings, bone breaking, and other forms of death was the official executioner in Lyon, France from 1760 to 1770. All during that period she masqueraded as a man.
Jeffrey Epstein. His atheist friends are standing by him.
Rutgers University biologist Robert Trivers has come out in support of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is the notorious uber-rich Democrat donor and friend of Bill Clinton who ducked serious child molestation charges in 2008 after pleading guilty to a single instance of prostitution but is now in the limelight after a woman has accused him of forcing her as a teenager to have sex with Prince Andrew and others.
“By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous,” Trivers told Reuters news agency.
Trivers received $40,000 from Epstein to study the link between knee symmetry and sprinting ability.
Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss also is standing by Epstein.
eMarketerDaily.com reports that an Edison Research study showed that those under 18 listen to internet music streaming platforms such as Pandora and Spotify 64 minutes per day vs. 53 minutes per day of broadcast radio and online streams of AM/FM stations.
AM/FM led by a “significant margin” among all other age groups.
It appears, though, the radio star is finally about to get killed but not by video.
