Chuck wrote in message . 4...

http://www.aspentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040101/COLUMN/31231017

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/2754374/detail.html

ASPEN, Colo. -- An Aspen Times columnist has been fired from her
job as a snowboard instructor at Snowmass after mocking her students
and their parents in a recent column.

In her Jan. 1 column, Alison Berkley described one student as a
"fat retarded kid" and "whale boy," and said students'
"ultrawealthy" parents "think I'm a miracle worker because their
brain-dead kid actually got excited about something besides video
games for the first time since the day she turned 13."


Just read her comments from the aspentimes link. Her attitude reinforces
the the negative snowboarder stereotype. She probably should never have
been teaching if she really did talk to/about her students that way. If
she were teaching my kids and spoke to them the way she brags about in
the article, I'd have reported her to the management at the very least.

satire - noun
1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or
scorn
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice
or folly

Did anyone bother to read her OTHER articles? If you did I think you
would see a trend. In one, she says she would like to be a trophy wife
who does nothing but attend to her husband (in return for material
possessions and financial backing). It's pretty obvious that she is be
subversive in her article... ok may not *obvious* since a lot of
people don't realize she is not seriously in what she's saying, she is
actually condeming this mindset by "satirizing" it... kind of like
Gulliver Travel's... ok, I guess not everyone realizes that's a satire
(check out http://www.godsoframen.com/lisa/gulliver.html). Errr...
George Orwell, like 1984 or Animal Farm... right? I apologize for my
poor memory as it's been a while since high school English.

I think people are showing a knee jerk reaction to what upon a quick
glance appears to be an inflammatory article. However, if you actually
look more closely, you see that it is very careful in it's use of
slang such as "I don't gots to" and other such terms since the article
overall has proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. So either she is
a well-educated sk8ter girl that has an editor to proofread, or she is
doing this intentionally and if you actually read some of her articles
before passing judgment you would realize no one could possibly be
this outrageous.

So anyways... I don't think she should have been fired, but I can see
how a company afraid to stand behind a low-level employee would not
want to support her, even thought she isn't in the wrong because they
get bad "incorrect" press and that's bad for them. It's just like how
some companies fire whistlerblowers because they make too much noise
and attract unwanted bad publicity (even though it's for the common
good). I'm not saying that EVERY person and EVERY companies is like
this, just that it happens sometimes.

--Arvin