Re: Bob Ryan suspended one month

["Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Pappalardo" <joepappalardo2001@yahoo.com>
To: "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>; <billo@shoreham.net>; "'Sid
Schweiger'" <sid@wrko.com>; <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: Bob Ryan suspended one month


> And once in a while I say about my own son "I'm gonna kill him!".
>
> Does anyone believe that?
>
> Does anyone worry that I am really advocating such?
>
> Does anyone think my legal rights as a father should be taken away from
me?

Now that's different.  You are bringing in the government and your parental
rights.  The Globe is a private organization and Ryan has no right to his
job.  (Then again, maybe he does in Mass., but not in most states.  Someone
brought up the Vanessa Redgrave case here recently.  Maybe Ryan can sue.  He
has a constitutional right to advocate violence against women!)

Ryan's big mistake was not taking Lobel's invitation to make it clear that
he was joking.  If he had backed off, I think the Globe would have, or at
least should have, let him off with after an apology.  I think the fact that
he made the remark as part of a pointed attack on the wife of a basketball
player, made it worse.  Ryan really sounded like he had something against
the women.  If it had been a more off hand remark, the reaction might have
been different.

The whole incident did remind me of something George Carlin said on Imus:
Imus asked him about the OJ Simpson verdict and Carlin said in reference to
the victims, "Did anyone ever consider that they might have had it coming."

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine