Cue the ominously comical headline score: The curtains open to reveal an inconspicuous brownstone silhouted by darnkess, expect for a solitary second story window corner window illuminated and revealing the figure of a man. Dr. Hector Strenleever. Noticeably brooding and undergoing an intense bout of self-introspection, the pathological liar posing as a prominent psychiatrist, struggles to process another day facing a guantlet of trusting patients. However, Strenleever gazing out of the window in contemplation wrestles with the rare and daunting of affliction of believing that he lacks any semblance of a short term memory, fogging an already intolerable situation in recreating an entirely new legend with each day, that does not conflict with his bustling practice. His clients actually believe that the struggle to process information and in a detached and belligerent fashion is actually a radical and cutting-edge technique to address mental health concerns. While he secretly dreams of becoming an investigative newspaper reporter, the prevalence and lucrative base of patients supports a lavish lifestyle, yet also confines his being within a self-deprecating prison of a tedious conundrum.
The music transforms to a jaunty piano baseline as Strenleever imagines thriving in a newsroom cubicle- “The ticker tape cannot outrun the phone, but the press is meant to be. Printing and coniving, the ink runs free as the guys at the water cooler talk and talk, all because of me. They’re called FACTS, spelled F A X, or whatever technology breeds. Truth really does hurt with a piercing thorn beneath the nail, so write story that sets you free. They’re called FACTs, spelled F A X, as I can’t even remember me. Grab a pen and listen to the voices in your head, as in 5-minutes you can achieve immortality.”
The scene at the New York Times is even more insufferable than an Andrew Lloyd Webber script of predictably zany characters on roller skates performing a clear knock-off of “Hair”, but with a serious antithesis to any inclinations of any entertainment value as the tedious environment has every jaw clenched and teeth grinding in a perpetual wince of pain. In the “we just can’t get go of the 2016 election” article and mawkish hard-hitting intellectual critique, climate change is thoroughly examined with a series of well-crafted stagnant talking points interwoven into a missive that challenges the basis of critical thinking skills and common sense.
Apparently, the directive by the Trump administration to backtrack on insidious policy set into place by the Obama cabinet pertaining to the Endangered Species Act is met with deaf ears, or more specifically auditory organs clearly malfunctioning in the wake of a polarizing political environment and the increase of global carbon dioxide levels. The narrative remains static, as phrases such as “big oil”, “extinction”, and “dying oceans” are purposefully thrown together in a clear hit piece that is not labeled as an editorial, yet uses lexicon which humanizes the natural world and fails to tell even half of the story.
Through the obvious aversion to Trump and a case of PSD, the author omits a crucial and baseline part of the entire narrative, while forwarding an agenda. In the aftermath of the Obama administration monkeying around with the ESA in creating stricter legislation and an proportional increase in infrastructure, US citizens and taxpayers as a whole have faced an unnecessary uphill battle in fighting to preserve private property rights in preventing the federal government from practicing eminent domain. Three words define the troubling plight made possible by amendments of conditional justice within the ESA documentation, and of course were absent from the Times story. Dusky Gopher frog. Repeat, Dusky Gopher frog. Or maybe Mississippi Gopher frog. What’s in a name anyway?
A Louisiana logging family has been at the forefront of a nasty legal battle with the future of private property in the balance. Under the Obama cabinet redefinition of threatened and endangered species, regressive verbiage was added to the documentation, which basically gives feds the power to determine that a piece of property can be a suitable habitat for a critter that may not even be endemic to the geographical region. In other words, before attorneys for the family filed an appeal to a circuit court ruling, the government was basically plotting and planning a land grab scheme that would not be confined to the Bayou.
Getting back to the infamous Dusky Gopher frog, the US Fish and Wildlife service deemed the four generations of prime Louisiana timberland a crucial habitat for reptile, even though the species was native to Mississippi and had never existed in within 200 miles of the location. The agency even had the audacity to change the original name of the frog from “Mississippi Gopher frog” to “Dusky Gopher frog” in strengthening the legal case for seizing the family’s land. Fortunately, reasonable legal professionals stepped in and though their appeals were twice defeated within the lower courts, the argument extended all the way to the Supreme Court. The top justices emphatically overruled the wayward 5th circuit court decision and strongly recommended to their judicial inferiors to get their gavels in order or else. But none of this was worthy for the NYT, as the Trump regime continues to battle for the sake of property owners, Constitutional rights, and the elimination of procedural exploitation.
This is where rinse and repeat cycle of disillusionment from the mainstream press pawning off a strategically and furtive editorial piece becomes damaging to the tenets of free speech and innovative thought. As Darwin influenced evolution is a universally excepted concept across the scientific community, the reluctance to employ the theory in media content to explain changes in the environment or the fluctuating population numbers of specific species, can only be viewed as intellectually incredulous. Instead, according to the newsroom hierarchy, the only allowable terms in spawning incendiary rhetoric explaining the foundation of climate change revolve around fossil fuels, clear cutting, the ozone layer, carbon footprint, fracking, and Donald Trump. Any critter or plant life unable to adapt to the modern environment because of genetic deficiencies is not given a ceremonious eulogy celebrating geological eras of existence, but instead lopped in with a political movement spurred by a lucrative industry based on deflection and not evidence. The Dusky Gopher frog is simply a pawn in this egregious game of intrigue and power plays to be utilized as a tool that best fits the framework for increased control on the rights and freedoms of individuals. The extremists of the environmental lobby are noticeably absent in coming to the defense of the Mississippi’s version of the lovable “Kermit” and would rather have a family lose their livelihood in bountiful timber harvests and responsible land management, than adhering to a sensible and enlightened application and basic observations of the natural world. This entirely sordid idealistic of nonsensical propaganda translates to a global scale, as pseudo-journalists alike are intoxicatingly gullible enough to believe that stringent environmental laws applied in the US will actually be echoed in third world war torn terror regimes and famine, where carbon emissions are an afterthought in the struggle for survival. But it the dog mom cozy confines of a culture obsessed by trendiness and driven by emotion and not fact when weighing the merits of a human or a fleeting exotic creature being swapped out by nature for a more efficient specimen, who does the special interest ultimately choose? It must be determined by a day of the week thing or a flip of the coin in explaining the relentless hypocrisy and baleful oversights.
Surely, the esteemed Dr. Strenleever can answer that question as he pursues his Pulitzer dream regardless of the cost to truth, or his patients, a sentiment which echoes throughout the modern news iron curtain conglomerate.
Read the New York Times story here.
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