Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Here it is! Margaret Menge's Letter to the Editor in the Post and she's big supporter for foreskin

[That circumcision story is back in the news again. The last time it was big news Margaret Menge (pronounced men-gā or men-gay) wrote an impassioned, emotion-based Letter to the Editor at The Palm Beach Post. Here again is that blog post from March 27th:]

Margaret Menge was the 'editor' and 'journalist' of a now-defunct tabloid in the City of Lake Worth. Back when she was publishing her "ALWAYS FREE" tabloid with hardly any advertising the big issues of the day were "THE BEACH!", Mayor Pam Triolo, people allegedly stealing her free rag, suicides, Mike Olive and his Common Ground (no 's') Church, and on it goes. Certainly not the content one would expect to find in a community newspaper.

But little did we know she had other major concerns such as circumcision and foreskin. She apparently has very strong concerns. So much so she penned a letter to The Palm Beach Post that appeared today (5/27) in the print edition. 

If you don't have digital access to the paper I blocked out some of the text in the image below. Go buy a paper! 
Notice the choices of words are similar to what she used in her defunct tabloid such as "thrown in jail" and a mother's rights "cannot be trampled". She goes on to compare circumcision (one of the most performed and safest surgeries in the world) to a lobotomy. And in making that case she writes, "the inventor of the lobotomy won a Nobel Prize"; which is half true. Dr. Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz was awarded half the prize. Walter Rudolf Hess won the other half. 

She ends her letter questioning the integrity of Honorable Judge Jeffrey Gillen this way: "As for Judge Jeffrey Gillen, who ordered the arrest of Hironimus … When is he up for re-election?" The Post editor(s) did about three minutes of research and answered Ms. Menge's question:
[Judge] Gillen was elected without opposition in 2014 after having been appointed to the court by Gov. Rick Scott in 2012 to fill a vacancy. Circuit judges serve six-year terms.
You see, it doesn't really matter what the topic is, when it comes to Ms. Menge it's all more of the same: weak analogies, straw man fallacies, appeals to pity, etc. The one thing in short supply are the facts sans the emotion.