The Mark Mellinger Update (and Zoo pics!)

NOTE:  If you can make it through the rant, there are zoo pictures on the other side!





In yesterday's post (published this AM) I told the story of a news article in which a man riding his motorcycle was run over by a car.  At issue in the article IMHO was the following paragraph a few lines from the end:

Police later found the driver of the car, Prionda Hill, at the Rally’s several blocks down the road from where she hit Oliveri.  She told police “she was driving and out of no where God told her that he would take it from here and she let go of the wheel and let him take it.” She’s now facing several charges. (From WANE.com)

And without further elucidation on the woman's fate or mental health- which you always seem to get in such stories- WANE reporter Sara Wagner finished with some quotes from the man involved.  Which of course led to fine comments like these from the area's atheist population:

Any moron who believes in an invisible skydaddy should be committed...

superstitions/religions are dangerous....

"guardian angel wings" come on: seeing jesus' face in toast is childish crap, and so is imbuing the supernatural into someones bruises
and yes, if his "guardian angel" was watching over him, why did this angel let him get smashed? paranormal nonsense...


Christian's beliefs have been putting others in danger since the beginning. No secret there...

 When you ride with God, you ride alone....


So my thought process was, why when a story NOT involving God in some fashion would generally finish with, "Police took the woman to X hospital for psychiatric observation", was it NOT part of this story?  Lazy reporting, Hidden agenda?  And it made me think of other questionable calls by WANE.com of late.   Despite the presence of a responsible Christian as anchor and all-around good guy (Mark Mellinger, and not trying to be sarcastic there), WANE seems to be shifting the way of all flesh to the PC, the whole PC, and nothing but the PC.  So I put it to Mr. Mellinger like this:

The story that WANE.com ran on the guy who got run over on his motorcycle ended with the part about the woman “being told by God” to let go of the steering wheel.  No mention was made of any mental health concerns or treatment for the woman.  This opened the door for all the site’s atheist fans to have a field day bashing God and religion.  Don’t you think that story should have had a coda to point out that this was not an indication of  the “delusion of religion” but rather it was the sign of a woman needing help?  I have to wonder sometimes how you justify your continued presence in mainstream media when your employer seems to be as big a proponent of the liberal “god-free” agenda as the rest of the MSM.  Just curious, like to hear your thoughts.

 

 

And the response:

Well, we just report the facts as given to us by investigators and the police; there’s no agenda. People are, within the bounds of propriety, free to say whatever they want on our ‘comments’ sections. Folks who are Christians or theists have every right to voice their opinions in that forum as well; we don’t police those sections very strictly regardless of the points of view that are expressed. I’m not sure if this is a satisfying answer for you, but that’s my take on it. Thanks for your interest and take care.

 

All The Best,

Mark Mellinger

I'll let you all make the judgment.  I wasn't real satisfied, but he did answer, and politely.  And he ain't lying about the "Not policing the sections very strictly"- I had to post a comment with a word I KNEW would get flagged to make them look at the posts of a dude making basically terrorist threats on a story about Ft Wayne having the best looking guys (if you can believe any of that).  Even then, they took away his posting privileges, but left his posts up under "anonymous".


In the meantime, zoo pictures!

Lynx was awake to greet everybody.

"What did I just get on my hand?"
"Heh heh heh..."

See the rainbow...

15 pictures at seal tank: 12 necks, a tail, and these two...

More chipmunks than peacocks these days...

Weekly meeting of headwaiter's union local 75...

Just call me Bob... (as in bobbing along...)

ZOOOOOM!

One of many friends Laurie made this trip...

Wildest, noisiest animals in the park.

Dingoes chillin'

You wanna piece o' me, suckah?

Laurie:  "It's not a butterfly, it's a booberfly!"

He stayed on Laurie's hand for about ten minutes listening to the Kangaroo lady.

The miracle of photographic zoom- we were nowhere near this close.

Biturong in a bowl- now at IHOP.

He was determined to sleep in the smallest slice of shade possible- just moved to this spot.

Serval- if you remember the Black Pines post, this is what they breed with a house cat to get the Savannah Cat.

Honey Badger be like, Y'all get lost, I be snoozing!

What's the oldest joke at the zoo?  Hey, what's Gnu?

That was a nice nap.  And now.... Mom? Dad?

Zoo guy:  "Sir, don't stand so close.  Only because his head weighs about 200 lbs, and he's too young to realize that and just swings it around."

Chris:  "How old is he?"
Zoo guy: "16 years."
Meh.  Teenagers.

Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!