presents the
Ashlandia Gazette
T.G. Buckley-Dockter – Founder; Publisher; Editor-in-Chief; Distribution Manager; Intrepid Reporter; IT Guy; Coffee Girl
MOTTO: Presenting our Truth with a capital ‘T.’ Whether it is pretty or not.
All editorial All social commentary All for the common good
Issue Number 17
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Growing up, whenever I expressed a dissenting viewpoint my mother would say:
“You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
I usually responded:
“Who wants to catch flies. They’re pests!”
To which she replied:
“You’re missing the point.”
Later, in high school biology I learned flies vomit on people’s skin before attempting to feast on it. I was pretty sure I had not missed the point about flies.
In civics class I learned that the honey-vinegar saying was not invented by my mother. It had appeared in a 1744 issue of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack. I imagined everyone in Colonial America called the guy “Poor Richard” because he was obsessed with catching flies. (That couldn’t be the answer to living the good life, could it?)
Much later, I ran into St. Pickleas at a New Year’s Eve Party. For those not familiar with him (like me at the time), he’s the cerebral younger brother of St. Nicholas. While St. Nicholas is known for being jolly, St. Pickleas is the witty one.
Originally big brother St. Nicholas’ operation began as a mission to deliver presents to humankind for being nice–and nothing for being naughty. But that tradition mutated into gifts for everyone–no matter how big a scoundrel someone was–due to a need to spend more and acquire more stuff. (That couldn’t be the answer to living the good life, could it?)
Conversely, St. Pickleas has remained steadfast for centuries trying to end the massive consumerism associated with Yuletide festivities. Instead of gifts, St. Pick bestows two prizes–one an honor and the other a dishonor.
1. The Honey Pot for quality behavior.
2. The Sour Pickle for bad behavior.
While St. Nick uses a herd of reindeer pulling a sled filled with gifts, St. Pick employs a Bee Brigade–buzzy little workers (like Izzy, Tizzy, Bizzy and Lizzy) who help assemble the awards and fly across the universe delivering them to the proper recipients.
Pick’s purpose is not to enrich the human race with material goods, but with principled goods.
I asked Pick to explain the whole “catch more flies with honey than vinegar” concept. He said the “flies” are a metaphor for what you want. For instance, if you want to get your way, you’re more likely to achieve that goal through affability (“honey”) rather than aggression (“vinegar). He said the idiom (coined in the 1570s during the Commedia dell’arte in Italy–not in Philadelphia) has gone through many iterations of favorability throughout the ages. Pick thinks that due to the socio-political conditions in today’s world, it’s best to speak your mind assertively and worry about popularity later. (Now that could be an answer to living the good life!)
In addition to being a hoot–get him to tell you the story of the dancing bees he sent to Pootin’s bedroom one night–
Pick is an old-school stand-up guy: chivalrous, conscientious, and scrupulous. Even though we drank a lot of mead at that party, I believed him when he said he taught Sir Lancelot, Galileo, George Washington, and James Bond everything they knew.
Pick also graciously agreed to assist the Ashlandia Gazette with its first rendition of the Honey Pot and Sour Pickle Awards. Here they are for 2018:
Winners of the Honey Pot Trophy:
Christine Blasey Ford – for displaying courage and grace while under personal attack of her integrity by really creepy, old-thinking, scary-looking, self-serving, sexist white men.
Journalists – who risk life and limb to present the Truth to the world. So valued. So vital. Thank you.
Michele Dauber – for dogged determination to rid the California judicial system of a bad apple with biased views toward a rape victim and favoritism toward a male Stanford athlete. And continuing the good fight this year. “Enough is Enough” indeed.
ACES – Ashland Citizens for Economic Sustainability – for keeping Ashlanders apprised of the dismal financial state of the City and keeping City Hall accountable.
Robert Mueller – Go get ’em! Sooner rather than later would be preferable. Let us know if you need any help.
The Women of the 2018 Congressional election and the #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #WomensMarch Movements – The future is female!
Chris Honoré – a year’s worth of superb writing in the Daily Tidings. More, please.
The Ashland Chronicle – a well-written, truthful, progressive on-line newspaper. More, please.
Mick LaSalle and Scott Ostler – The San Francisco Chronicle’s dynamic writing duo. They tell it like it is and make us laugh in the process. “Ask Mick LaSalle” (about life in general and the movies) and “Cheap Shots & Bon Mots” (about life in general and sports) are the best reason to crawl out of bed on a Sunday morning and schlep to the newsstand in your jammies to buy the paper. Best $3.00 you will ever spend. More, please.
Writers everywhere – Write On!
Winners of the Sour Pickle Award:
Jay Ambrose – for the worst column printed in the Daily Tidings: “Oh, the horror of red Christmas trees.” Slammed by Sally Schoolmarm, tenth grade English teacher for the last 100 years; calling it a “failure of a teen-age boy’s hormonal attempt to court favor with a pretty girl.” From the Gazette Editorial staff: “Slamming women does not augment your argument; only your douchebaggery factor.”
Judge Kavanawful – for displaying a lying, grandstanding, cry-baby, belligerent tirade of judicial temperament.
Fake Journalists – for destroying American values with lies and distortions.
San Francisco Giants Management – for celebrating cheating by honoring *25 and tainting the great game of Baseball with illegitimate stats.
Charles Johnson (owner of the San Francisco Giants) – for racist, homophobic beliefs thereby debasing the great game of Baseball.
Major League Baseball – for placating Charles Johnson and not getting rid of him.
Jackson County Oregon Planning Department – for issuing a land use permit to a hog farm whose operations can produce toxic waste that can contaminate the soil and groundwater.
DoubleTree Hotel – For not figuring out that bigotry comes from a twisted mind. And throwing a paid guest out of the hotel lobby for making a phone call to his mother while black is INSANE. Not to mention bad for business.
Steven Saslow (publisher) and Gary Nelson (editor) – Daily Tribune – for endorsing Greg Walden for Congress. A more Neanderthalic GOP goonie POTUS suck-up cannot be found. Who’s next: Paul Manafort? By the way, whatever happened to the correction John Darling said he was going to make? You’re forcing a journalist to not be a person of his word? Yowza.
Politicians – A big fat UGH to all who think that the purpose of their election to office is to promote their well-being and not the people they’re supposed to serve.
Ashland Oregon City Council – another year of cronyism; group think; male think; small think; spend think; pat-ourselves-on-the-back think; and dumb think–in particular Rich Rosenthal’s proclamation of “the darkest day” and the fact that the combined brain power of six people cannot balance a budget.
Ashland Oregon City Hall Mucky Mucks – Being a boss doesn’t mean being bossy. City Hall is a civilian organization; not a military one. (Note to Kelly: Stick to your guns and you could win a Honey Pot next year.)
Jefferson Public Radio – hypocrisy of having a mission statement that says it “feeds the human intellectual and creative spirit” and claims to be the voice of the community while on-air host Geoffrey Riley conducts an interview that publicly humiliates self-published writers–agreeing that many of their books should not see the light of day and then laughs at these writers. Conjuring Osborne Cox from “Burn After Reading” (John Malkovich character): “WTF?!”
Jack Gibbs (Fortress Financial/HD Vest) – for being the reason Benjamin Franklin was compelled to write in his almanac (at the urging of Abigail Adams): “Writing letters to a man slamming his spouse will surely makes one’s business evaporate faster than a water droplet on a pancake griddle.”
Oregon Shakespeare Festival demented brain trust of Cynthia Rider, Bill Rauch, and Amanda Dehnert – for unbridled arrogance in failure to apologize for the horrendous ‘sexual assault as comedy’ banquet scene in “Timon of Athens” production–which included shoving the puppet women’s faces into men’s crotches; violent thrusting into the women’s rear ends; ripping the arms and legs off the puppet women; throwing the torsos on the ground and stomping on them; and finally, were the red ribbons pulled from their bodies supposed to be their entrails? Geeez! How many PTSD reactions of survivors did you trigger? How many students at Ashland High School and Southern Oregon University saw this and got the impression that sexual assault is funny? How many patrons fleeing from the theater barfed on the oh-so beautiful and oh-so comfy concrete blocks in the courtyard? How many teachers from schools around the country complained about this production and vowed not to return to OSF? If the puppet women had black faces, would you have staged the scene in the same manner? Are you not aware of sexual assault stats in Oregon (one of the highest in the nation)? How could you not see how ugly and harmful this was to women; the community; society in general? Lastly, another Osborne Cox outburst at having Anthony Heald, lead actor of “Timon,” (who laughed through the sexual assault scene) now teaching Ashland High School kids about drama. Unfortunately, you can’t make this stuff up.
BTW, if you think “creating art” is a veil to hide behind and an excuse to present anything to the public you want, think again.
In conclusion, one more Honey Pot Award to Lindy West (author of Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman) for her column in The New York Times (March 3, 2018) titled “We Got Rid of Some Bad Men. Now Let’s Get Rid of Bad Movies.” Or in this case, bad plays from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Ms. West states:
“Art didn’t invent oppressive gender roles, racial stereotyping or rape culture, but it reflects, polishes and sells them back to us every moment of our waking lives. We make art, and it simultaneously makes us. Shouldn’t it follow, then, that we can change ourselves by changing the art we make.”
You betcha. We can all do better.
Here’s to a better New Year. May it shine for all.
P.S. If you’re still interested in the ‘catching flies’ thing, here’s another old saying to consider: “A shut mouth catches no flies.”
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Thanks for the mention! I really appreciate that.