To the editors:
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Ms. Baldridge, stop and think for a moment. In what sense was Hogan “causing a man with two children to lose his income” when she took him to court for an actionable offense? Excuse me, but it seems to me that guy put himself in the way of losing his job, etc, when he let Wee Willie Winkie do the thinking for him. Would you be equally indignant on his behalf if he’d committed some other relatively minor, relatively harmless offense? According to your logic, anybody who objected to, for example, a bit of racist verbal abuse should just shut up and take it lest they “trivialize” the “legitimate concerns” of people who’ve been beaten up or lynched, and anybody trying to pursue a legal remedy would be making life too difficult for the poor misunderstood perpetrator. If you’d bothered to read Hogan’s story carefully, you’d have noted that she did some soul-searching about whether it was worth the trouble to pursue the matter in court, either to herself or to the hapless schmuck who started it all. Remember, the guy’s employers encouraged her to continue with the court case despite all the hassles. Do you think maybe they needed legal evidence in order to fire him because of, oh, I don’t know, a file full of unprovable complaints from at-home mothers who let him in to read their meters, only to find him bringing Uncle Wiggly out to play in front of the kids?
S.F.K.
