Dearest Anderson "Silver Fox" Cooper,
Remember that time you, Al Gore and I were hanging out? Probably not since I was a mere audience member at Radio City Music Hall for a Times Talk hosted by you. It was during the primaries of 2008 and you asked Al who was he cheering for: Barack or Hillary? He answered with the integrity of a man worthy of holding the best seat in The White House. He told you he couldn't back someone who deals in slander. Without naming names (Hillary), Al said he didn't believe in ruining the reputation of anyone to get ahead. And you agreed with him, Anderson. You agreed.
And then you and I were together again at the start of 2009. It was the eve before the inauguration and there you were with us in Washington, D.C., interviewing folks inside a booth as fans hammed it up for the panning camera, all of us celebrating this incredible historical moment! We were so good together then, Anderson! You were a journalist and I was your fan for reporting with - what's that word again? INTEGRITY.
I don't know who you are anymore. But after what I witnessed Friday afternoon I do know one thing: You will never interview the likes of Al Gore again. And you'll probably never be invited to another Times Talk to discuss a topic as sincere as Politics. You'll be much too busy promenading a day time talk show set with mic in hand as you toss mediocrity like chicken feed to an audience of clucking imbeciles who didn't make the cut for tickets to Live! With Kelly Ripa. It sounds like the fate a TV personality might face after a sordid sex scandal. But you, Anderson Cooper, chose this path. You plucked yourself from a position of respect and dignity and jumped into the sheep suit of Geraldo Rivero faster than you could say, "We're here, we're queer, we want to do your hair!"
That's actually something you'll never say, Anderson, because unlike Rachel Maddow who has the courage to stand up with the homosexual community and blaze a trail for basic human rights (currently known as "gay rights") you're happy to live with your boyfriend in Chelsea (the gay mecca) and reap the benefits as such rights become available. More so, you'll step outside the lines of your own "alternative lifestyle" and play Judge for a few hours a week as you belittle the lives of others.
To get specific, in a million years I would have never expected to see you degrading a fragile and obviously damaged woman who's biggest faux pas was quoting the likes of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sure, this woman has been paying the legal fees for an obviously deranged killer and who knows why?! Your audience certainly didn't because you barely allowed her to finish a single sentence! (I found the rantings of this person far more interesting than any of your snarky interruptions.) Far from in love with Joran van der Sloot as the title of your show claimed, you made her the subject of a public stoning and riled up an audience of nutjobs to hurl whatever they pleased at someone who's suffered so much damage that paying $70,000 in legal fees for someone she's never met seems like a great idea. Later you featured several well-spoken individuals who met and married through prison pen pal sites and turned your seething audience on them to pick apart lifestyles that are considered alternative, yet work perfectly well for them and harm no one. You! A gay liberal! Moved by your hypocrisy, I was compelled to post the following comment (click on image for larger view.)
Yes, I misspelled "whose" but I doubt you'd even notice with your white head shoved so far up your butt (which is yours to do with as you please - no one's judging your lifestyle here).
You suggested that she let a dolphin move in with her instead of an ex convict and within seconds accused her of not taking this seriously (and you interrupted her again). You - accomplished journalist. Her - suffering from mental problems. Who do you suppose viewers with a decent IQ (or half a heart) are going to root for?
I've been writing to Steven Russell since last summer. Prompted by (the homosexual love story) I Love You, Philip Morris, I couldn't believe such a man was still incarcerated. So I Googled him and wrote a letter. This wasn't as difficult for me because I not only worked for WriteAPrisoner.com and became familiar with the desperate pleas of inmates to connect with someone on the outside, but my incredibly loving, compassionate, and big-hearted brother, Adam, owns and operates the site. You, Anderson, might recognize him as the guy you booked for your panel then bumped to the audience so that you could hand over the platform to a "criminologist" whose vocabulary consisted of made-up words (And speaking of made-up, there are plenty of "experts" who would say a woman so cosmetically oversaturated suffers from her own disillusionment.) You managed to ask my brother a question at the end of the show, which your editors snipped up nicely so that it would still fit your original theme: People Who Write To Prisoners Are Idiotic, Self-Destructive Whackjobs.
This photo was taken moments after Adam unleashed backstage, expounding on the correct statistics of inmates and their pen pals, how it reduces recidivism, and basically a whole bunch of wonderful information that would've been a lot more accurate and helpful to anyone interested in the true effects this act has on our society.
My brother's a bit classier than I, which you can tell by the following comment he posted at the show's page (click on image for larger view.)
To hear more about his feelings on the matter, listen to The Prison Show's podcast on Pen Pals.
Or don't do anything. Just sit around complaining about the type of people who end up in jail "living on tax dollars" as though it were a vacation and not the devastating result of having no one to love you, to guide you through rough times, or to help pull you up from the lowest point in your life. I'm proud to write weekly to an inmate. I send him books, money, magazine subscriptions, and hope whenever I can and, I promise you it's not because I suffer from a made-up word some camera-hungry "criminologist" likes to spew through over-glossed lips. I do it because I care about this person. He's a special case (don't get me started on how much I adore him!) but he ended up breaking the law out of heartache and pain - something we've all known. At a time when the LGBT suicide rate is so bad that people have taken to YouTube to create the It Gets Better Project, do you really want to be one of the bullies? It's not too late - you don't have to become another one of those hateful talking heads, hungry for ratings. I don't believe it's ever too late for anyone, but the masses have a different stance on that (just ask last week's audience). And though you've probably been bombarded by his quotes on Facebook today, remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
And speaking of bullies, how about that dolphin rape!
Remember that time you, Al Gore and I were hanging out? Probably not since I was a mere audience member at Radio City Music Hall for a Times Talk hosted by you. It was during the primaries of 2008 and you asked Al who was he cheering for: Barack or Hillary? He answered with the integrity of a man worthy of holding the best seat in The White House. He told you he couldn't back someone who deals in slander. Without naming names (Hillary), Al said he didn't believe in ruining the reputation of anyone to get ahead. And you agreed with him, Anderson. You agreed.
And then you and I were together again at the start of 2009. It was the eve before the inauguration and there you were with us in Washington, D.C., interviewing folks inside a booth as fans hammed it up for the panning camera, all of us celebrating this incredible historical moment! We were so good together then, Anderson! You were a journalist and I was your fan for reporting with - what's that word again? INTEGRITY.
I don't know who you are anymore. But after what I witnessed Friday afternoon I do know one thing: You will never interview the likes of Al Gore again. And you'll probably never be invited to another Times Talk to discuss a topic as sincere as Politics. You'll be much too busy promenading a day time talk show set with mic in hand as you toss mediocrity like chicken feed to an audience of clucking imbeciles who didn't make the cut for tickets to Live! With Kelly Ripa. It sounds like the fate a TV personality might face after a sordid sex scandal. But you, Anderson Cooper, chose this path. You plucked yourself from a position of respect and dignity and jumped into the sheep suit of Geraldo Rivero faster than you could say, "We're here, we're queer, we want to do your hair!"
That's actually something you'll never say, Anderson, because unlike Rachel Maddow who has the courage to stand up with the homosexual community and blaze a trail for basic human rights (currently known as "gay rights") you're happy to live with your boyfriend in Chelsea (the gay mecca) and reap the benefits as such rights become available. More so, you'll step outside the lines of your own "alternative lifestyle" and play Judge for a few hours a week as you belittle the lives of others.
To get specific, in a million years I would have never expected to see you degrading a fragile and obviously damaged woman who's biggest faux pas was quoting the likes of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sure, this woman has been paying the legal fees for an obviously deranged killer and who knows why?! Your audience certainly didn't because you barely allowed her to finish a single sentence! (I found the rantings of this person far more interesting than any of your snarky interruptions.) Far from in love with Joran van der Sloot as the title of your show claimed, you made her the subject of a public stoning and riled up an audience of nutjobs to hurl whatever they pleased at someone who's suffered so much damage that paying $70,000 in legal fees for someone she's never met seems like a great idea. Later you featured several well-spoken individuals who met and married through prison pen pal sites and turned your seething audience on them to pick apart lifestyles that are considered alternative, yet work perfectly well for them and harm no one. You! A gay liberal! Moved by your hypocrisy, I was compelled to post the following comment (click on image for larger view.)
Yes, I misspelled "whose" but I doubt you'd even notice with your white head shoved so far up your butt (which is yours to do with as you please - no one's judging your lifestyle here).
You suggested that she let a dolphin move in with her instead of an ex convict and within seconds accused her of not taking this seriously (and you interrupted her again). You - accomplished journalist. Her - suffering from mental problems. Who do you suppose viewers with a decent IQ (or half a heart) are going to root for?
I've been writing to Steven Russell since last summer. Prompted by (the homosexual love story) I Love You, Philip Morris, I couldn't believe such a man was still incarcerated. So I Googled him and wrote a letter. This wasn't as difficult for me because I not only worked for WriteAPrisoner.com and became familiar with the desperate pleas of inmates to connect with someone on the outside, but my incredibly loving, compassionate, and big-hearted brother, Adam, owns and operates the site. You, Anderson, might recognize him as the guy you booked for your panel then bumped to the audience so that you could hand over the platform to a "criminologist" whose vocabulary consisted of made-up words (And speaking of made-up, there are plenty of "experts" who would say a woman so cosmetically oversaturated suffers from her own disillusionment.) You managed to ask my brother a question at the end of the show, which your editors snipped up nicely so that it would still fit your original theme: People Who Write To Prisoners Are Idiotic, Self-Destructive Whackjobs.
This photo was taken moments after Adam unleashed backstage, expounding on the correct statistics of inmates and their pen pals, how it reduces recidivism, and basically a whole bunch of wonderful information that would've been a lot more accurate and helpful to anyone interested in the true effects this act has on our society.
My brother's a bit classier than I, which you can tell by the following comment he posted at the show's page (click on image for larger view.)
To hear more about his feelings on the matter, listen to The Prison Show's podcast on Pen Pals.
Listen to internet radio with The Prison Show on Blog Talk Radio
Or don't do anything. Just sit around complaining about the type of people who end up in jail "living on tax dollars" as though it were a vacation and not the devastating result of having no one to love you, to guide you through rough times, or to help pull you up from the lowest point in your life. I'm proud to write weekly to an inmate. I send him books, money, magazine subscriptions, and hope whenever I can and, I promise you it's not because I suffer from a made-up word some camera-hungry "criminologist" likes to spew through over-glossed lips. I do it because I care about this person. He's a special case (don't get me started on how much I adore him!) but he ended up breaking the law out of heartache and pain - something we've all known. At a time when the LGBT suicide rate is so bad that people have taken to YouTube to create the It Gets Better Project, do you really want to be one of the bullies? It's not too late - you don't have to become another one of those hateful talking heads, hungry for ratings. I don't believe it's ever too late for anyone, but the masses have a different stance on that (just ask last week's audience). And though you've probably been bombarded by his quotes on Facebook today, remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
And speaking of bullies, how about that dolphin rape!
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