One of our the current mini-scandals dangled in front of us is the decision by a USA court regarding Isiah Thomas’ sexual harassment of a Knicks employee, Browne Sanders.
According to the court, it’s good that the Knicks organisation should pay out $11.6 million to Sanders, who had to endure being called “a bitch and a hoe” by Thomas.
This is interesting. On this basis I’m owed quite a few bucks.
I’m not in favour of sexual harassment, or any other kind of harassment, but hasn’t it all become rather ridiculous?
A few ideas, which I think are facts:
These little pieces of paper, (commonly called money) represent the power to purchase goods and services, and are actually based on the fact of somebody doing something that is a service or a piece of goods, like driving a truck full of cabbages to market, or growing them in the first place, or building a house. They are useful for the transfer of value, reward or meaning within a complex society.
They are not arbitrary chunks of something with which to beat petty offenders over the head.
Has Ms. Sanders suffered insult, or is it injury, or is there actual loss of goods – had to leave her job for instance?
In the first case, the remedy is an apology. In the case of injury or loss….. How exactly has any such occurred that can be valued at $11.6 million?
Let’s bear in mind that all the world has to endure a daily struggle of being treated like “bitches and hoes,” if not actually being called it. It’s called life, and it usually involves tens of years of study and work, for which very few receive anything near this volume of little permission-papers.
Commencement of frivolity.
But of course Ms. Sanders, not being a hoe, and not liking to be called one, will virtuously keep only a reasonable sum, and return the massive excess, for fear of being in fact a hoe.
Pause for laughter.
End of frivolity
And how much will the lawyer’s fees – two sets, one for each side – be on all this?
And how comes it that The Knicks have to pay this, Isiah Thomas being the offender? Why, they have more money of course.
I once received some training in assessing who is at fault in the event of fires caused by faulty electrical installations. “Look for who’s wearing the most expensive suit,” was the advice, “he’s the one to be sued.”
It’s said that Thomas may loose his job, that is, get the boot from The Knicks. But if no court has found him guilty for his offence worthy of having his pockets picked for - which thus means his offence is an alleged or irrelevant – then surely then he would have a case for loss of income against The Knicks organisation?
“He has offended against morality,” it is being said, “he should set a better example. He should be fired.” Really? He is immoral, is he? In a system where legal theft like this occurs, and money is God, and bad language is normal, along with hypocrisy, and sexual cavortings are our number one entertainment, and sportsmen can be paid enough to feed whole starving third-world villages? He is immoral? Try “we.”
I can’t work this out. I need a fee’d lawyer to help me, but I aren’t rich enough to get a “good” one.
Now enough of all this morality. I think that Thomas should have tried pleading that he was merely trying his hand at rap, but as he didn’t, I’ll have a go. But I’ll leave the basketball alone, as white men can’t jump.
Yo, yo, yo’s a bitch and a hoe
But de jury do’n agree
An they telling me so
An onto them streets ah now has to go
So ah can’t afford
To buy me no blow
Cuz yo, yo, yo’s a bitch and a hoe
Now back to my own artistic whoring. Incidentally, the pairing of my first novel, Wake of the Raven, with The Quickie (don’t ask!) by the well-known James Patterson, appears to be causing a few sales on Amazon, so in a little while I may buy pizza all around.
But this little edit is all that’s coming out of me tonight, because I’m off out for beer, having had a hard day editing my second novel, Zorn.
Good grief, I’m so impressive when I say things like that. People who know me in real life must be terrified.
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