Below is another e-mail from Harry Summers of the Center for Nursing Advocacy, and my response to him. Harry's married to Sandy Summers, the executive director of the Maryland-based, self-appointed watchdog org. When he's not working as a "litigation attorney with the Federal Election Commission," he advises his wife's pro-censorship group, which has a total of four persons listed as staff, including, of course, Harry and Sandy.
As an added bonus, I incude here another one of the many images CNA is out to censor. There are tons on the CNA website. Seems in the Summers' delusional little world, the only folks who should be allowed to publish these, ahem, arousing pics, are the Summers themselves. Remember, this comes out of the current kerfuffle over Tempe's Heart Attack Grill, and the item on it in the recent Bird column, "Nursing Grudge," 11/9/06.
Please note: I wrote the "you may not work for the government" line before I found out that Summers does indeed work for the Feds. Obviously, they're not giving Harry enough to do these days...
SL
>>> Harry Summers
Hi Stephen,
it seems like you're dying to make this about "feminism" and censorship, which I guess helps you fit us into that little box you've been polishing. I think the death of "feminism" has been greatly exaggerated by a few reactionary blowhards, which the somewhat desperate, wishful tone of your stuff suggests. and of course, we're not state actors or even powerful economic ones, so we can't engage in "censorship" any more than you can.
but that's pretty much irrelevant. you insist on confusing criticism of nursing images with criticism of sexual images. we really-- really--don't care about blood, gore, or sex, and no careful look at what we've said on the site or elsewhere would suggest that we do. I could give examples of raw media we've praised, or sanitized things we've trashed, but what's the point? you've found your theme, and we wouldn't want to complicate it with facts or understanding.
of course in any discussion of nursing there will be gender issues. but nothing you've written suggests that you know or care anything about nursing or what we're actually trying to do. the naughty nurse is a small part of what we look at, but the larger issue is what society knows and thinks about nursing, how that affects the profession, and how it affects whether people live or die. I'm still waiting to hear why that doesn't matter.
I marvel at your confident speculation about our personal motives. if I were to indulge in that kind of thing, I might suggest that the world is easy when you're just playing around with it.
Harry
my response of today, 11/17/06
You may not work for the government, Harry, but CNA is harassing and intimidating business people, attempting to get them to comply with CNA's wishes in altering or eliminating certain visuals. That's censorship in my book. In fact, CNA offers examples on its website where it has "successes"; i.e., where some corporate entity has very stupidly decided to comply with rules laid down by a husband-wife team in Maryland.
You say you're "not state actors or even powerful economic ones," and I would indeed argue that's why any and every business should ignore your threats of letter-writing campaigns, etc. As for your startling assertion that you're not concerned with sex or sexual imagery, that's a serious non sequitur, boyo. Just on the first page of your site, there are: posts about "sexy/scary 'naughty nurse' imagery" in an ad campaign for Saw III; blue-nosed finger-wagging at the "half-dressed female 'nurses'" of Tempe's Heart Attack Grill; kvetching about a Schick advertisement featuring an "injured male skateboarder" being tended to by "three naughty 'nurses'; and so on, ad nauseam. Click on the "campaigns" link on your site, and there's a lot more along this line, as you know.
Censorship and the control of sexual imagery is at the heart of your little organization. And yes, it does harken back to the excesses of extremist feminism and political correctness. However, CNA is a lot more cynical than the righteous bra-burners of yore, who actually believed in their own cause. CNA only wants to garner attention for its niche in the advocacy-exploitation game. It does this by concocting "campaigns" and insisting demands be met. This gets CNA into the public eye and gives it more fodder for its site. It may also help bring in some really gullible donors, and encourage equally gullible patrons to hire your spouse as a speaker.
Hey, you never did answer my question on how much moolah your wife rakes in per speech? No biggie. You've gotta keep the two kiddies in Nikes, right?
SL
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