Friday, August 20, 2010

Tea-Baggin' Football Coach Gets Sacked

Bryan Glover got fired. See, he was a 26-year old middle school football coach with mediocre aspirations as a singer/songwriter. So when he wrote a song about how Obama was awful and Republicans will take back the country in November and fix it all (so short their memories), he did what every sane person would do: send it to every person on your "personal email list." This included parents of kids he coached. D'oh!

Now, as with most shoddy right wing "journalism," none of the relevant questions were being addressed: Was he using his school account? Were the contacts in his personal list procured as a professional? Does anybody with any sense or knowledge of etiquette really do that (sorry Mom)? Why does he not understand that when you're a teacher/coach, you're a teacher/coach all the time?

Long story short: they canned him because a handful of parents went batshit. I don't know that they should have, but that's what happened.

When it comes to the GOP USA article above, their claim is that the liberal parents' claim was one of racism. I don't believe that. There's nothing in the song lyrics that points to race per se. However, the last lines of the song:
When we’re holding the hammer
Every one of them looks like a nail

I can understand mid-level understanding of simile and metaphor, but when you spend a whole song talking about how the hammer represents misguided and clumsy policies, getting ahold of the hammer does not empower you, but makes you subject to the same errors as your predecessors. Okay, so in that respect the song is accurate.

But this last line plainly incites the same Beck-esque language of violence reflected in oft-used words like "reload" and "open season on Dems." As represented by a handful of whacked-out "isolated incidents," this violence is not figurative but literal. And that prevalence is becoming ever-increasingly dangerous.

Sidenote: the comments on the story? Typical: He should sue the hell out of the school, join the Tea Party, open the Hannity Freedom Concert with his one song and then run for office (and presumably fail miserably).

4 comments:

Randal Graves said...

I wonder which form of music it was, country or western.

Chris said...

Free speech?

I don't know why he got fired but I suspect it wasn't over speech. It was probably inappropriate use of protected information.

If I sell Amway and get a list of parents from my school and then use that information for my own use - that is wrong.

I agree that anyone can write a bad song, and promote it. Let's not make this about free speech.

Professor Chaos said...

Hannity freedom concert? Is that a real thing? That should make Christian rock festivals look like Woodstock.

Ricky Shambles said...

Randal- they got both kinds!

Chris- agreed; totally proprietary.

Prof- Since 2003 https://freedomconcerts.com/