INSENSITIVITY BREEDS

SOME THINGS YOU DON'T JOKE ABOUT

Lara Logan, shown here in 2005, is chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

     I felt compelled to join a Twitter based conversation that swirled around comments made by Nir Rosen an NYU fellow and writer.

    I will not repeat his indiscretions, but will note they were made about the brutal assault on CBS Correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo.

    I am a loud advocate of the First Amendment and believe that a commitment to free speech must, some times, suffer the excesses of zealots and idiots. There is however, an however an in my thinking.

    I learned from my parents, free thinking, politically sophisticated, well read and wise people, there are some things you just don't joke about.  Civility, decency, good manners do matter, even if we seem to inherit an increasingly course and unsophisticated age.

    I'm including my comments about Rosen, as posted at a couple of places.

Brutality to a journalist while trying to report is no laughing matter. Insensitivity breeds. Rosen should know better. Now he understands that loutish behavior should be called out.

     The nature of the attack on Logan only makes Rosen's comments all the more reprehensible.  Rosen wrote an eloquent apology, to which I responded on SALON.

Knowing Better

Yours words are compelling. Your lack of judgement was disgusting.

I too have been in tough places, on assignment. You've been there, you should remember always to keep your wits.

My greatest disgust is, in knowing that you have been in danger, to see you make light of it. Yea, I know about the fatalistic self defense of men and women under pressure and in danger that emerges as humor. But when one of our own is down, it is never, NEVER a source of humor.

Insensitivity breeds. A journalist under attack is never a laughing matter. That is the lesson. Sorry for your plight, but how would have it?

    Rosen enjoyed the right to say and write what he thought, however ill conceived. The school was right to make it clear his behavior was unacceptable. 

     If this is an issue for which you have passion or interest, you might check here.

JOAN WALSH AT SALON.COM NOTES OTHER NEANDERTHAL THINKING ON THE ISSUE.

     I don't believe it is a matter of right or left, despite some opinions to the contrary. 

I think it is really a matter of decency. 

     What do you think?  Did the school do the right thing?  Should we not be offended by 

comments like those of Rosen?

      Leave your thoughts.   See you down the trail.