The new Orlando Sentinel
The new Orlando Sentinel available at a checkout stand near you. For when you need garbage to fall asleep with. Poised to take the lead in tabloid reporting. "The truth is out there"-x-files
ORLANDO SENTINEL TURNS YELLOW!
YEP, hard to believe isn't it? That bastion of responsible journalism, the Orlando Sentinel has joined the ranks of yellow tabloids you find on the supermarket shelves right next to the check out counter. The powers to be at the Sentinel apparently have determined that chasing down three headed monkeys, women impregnated by aliens and the last known address of Elvis is easier and possibly more profitable than reporting the truth. Witness the blazing headlines of their Sunday am edition ( click here). And then for the hell of it, read the story. Now if you found it difficult to make any sense out of that jumbled mess of "statistics" explaining the death rate of motorcyclists don't feel alone. This reporter with a masters degree in public communication found it to be a masterful job of reporting leading the general public who would not know any better into believing a total package of BS!
My response can be found here, however it pales in comparison to the masterful job Bruce did in tearing into this piece of inflammatory fluff showing it and the writer for exactly what it and he is. His post here should be required reading for any reporter that wishes to take liberties with th "truth".
But what is MORE outrageous? Where is ABATE of Florida, the only MRO in the state that bills itself as the premier motorcycle rights defender and safety advocacy in the state of Fl. Whose president has stated publicly that other MRO's across the country look to Florida ABATE to see how it is done (I ain't real sure what "it" is yet). As of 1:47pm today I counted 59 posts on the on line Sentinel forum. Not one that I saw, identified themselves as an ABATE of Florida member. Central Florida is home to a large percentage of ABATE members as well as many of it's officers. The president/lobbyist "Doc" Richenbach earns $50,000.00 dollars or more a year (it just depends on if you count those 3 or 5 thousand dollar checks he receives bi monthly to do with as he sees fit) to speak out against this garbage. To quote Bruce Arnold of LDRlongdistance rider.com Mr. Reichenbach's statement that "new riders have no clue" is a regrettable choice of words and suggests he may not recall the knowledge base and riding skills required to obtain a motorcycle endorsement in Florida.
My contention would be that the state president of ABATE has such a poor grasp of the issues that affect the motorcycling public, demonstrated by his willingness to commit ABATE of Florida to support a cell phone bill introduced by the legislature that would have made the law a secondary offense and would have allowed "hands free" use (against the mandate of the organizations membership). Which may be why the organization finds difficulty in maintaining membership above 2% of the registered motorcyclists in the state of Florida, and can not maintain members or chapters. He is an embarrassment to the organizations original mission statement and it's members. If he had any "balls"/integrity at all he would step down. If the members of ABATE of Florida had any balls, they would throw him out and restore ABATE to the position it should hold, before the current president kills it beyond resuscitation.
It is fortunate that some out of state riders such as Girl Geek and others were able to alert us to this story.
However beware. A few posts back I mentioned implementation of a tactic by where it is incumbent upon us as motorcyclists to address every false press release that comes out in order to dispel the myths that not only the government is spreading re motorcycle safety, but the ever increasing attacks by the press. Which of late have increased dramatically. It is now a real war. It truly is us against them and it is time for all of us, Harley riders, Metric Riders, Sport bike riders, riders of all ethnicity and backgrounds to get our differences out of the damn way and make a concerted effort to avoid losing this war which will in turn cost us all the right to ride as we choose, dressed as we choose, on what we choose. If not our right to ride at all.
Do not be fooled or lulled into some false impression that you can leave it up to the large percentage of "freedom fighters" who do no more than plop down a twenty, slap a patch on there back and call themselves "freedom fighters" while doing nothing.
It is your rights, your freedoms, your safety that is under attack. It is also your responsibility as a "biker" (not a bike night fashion plate wanna be) to take individual action now. Give the Orlando Sentinel your two cents worth while you can. Before it is two late. We do not currently have enough soldiers to address the attacks coming on all fronts. Addresses to write are as follows: hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com
editor@orlandosentinel.com, mrussell@orlandosentinel.com, ahellmuth@orlandosentinel.com, bburton@orlandosentinel.com
lcianci@orlandosentinel.com, sdoyle@orlandosentinel.com
sholton@orlandosentinel.com, kmarcum@orlandosentinel.com
amoor@orlandosentinel.com, public@orlandosentinel.com
insight@orlandosentinel.com, lake@orlandosentinel.com
osceola@orlandosentinel.com
And for kicks write Tucker Carlson @ Tucker@msnbc.com who claims to be a motorcyclist, has verbalized his contention that he believes the governments role is to ultimately ban motorcycles, yet despite our pleas remains silent on the issues. Riding free, remaining Free is not some vague entitlement that you are born with. You must fight to keep it your right to do so. rc
My response can be found here, however it pales in comparison to the masterful job Bruce did in tearing into this piece of inflammatory fluff showing it and the writer for exactly what it and he is. His post here should be required reading for any reporter that wishes to take liberties with th "truth".
But what is MORE outrageous? Where is ABATE of Florida, the only MRO in the state that bills itself as the premier motorcycle rights defender and safety advocacy in the state of Fl. Whose president has stated publicly that other MRO's across the country look to Florida ABATE to see how it is done (I ain't real sure what "it" is yet). As of 1:47pm today I counted 59 posts on the on line Sentinel forum. Not one that I saw, identified themselves as an ABATE of Florida member. Central Florida is home to a large percentage of ABATE members as well as many of it's officers. The president/lobbyist "Doc" Richenbach earns $50,000.00 dollars or more a year (it just depends on if you count those 3 or 5 thousand dollar checks he receives bi monthly to do with as he sees fit) to speak out against this garbage. To quote Bruce Arnold of LDRlongdistance rider.com Mr. Reichenbach's statement that "new riders have no clue" is a regrettable choice of words and suggests he may not recall the knowledge base and riding skills required to obtain a motorcycle endorsement in Florida.
My contention would be that the state president of ABATE has such a poor grasp of the issues that affect the motorcycling public, demonstrated by his willingness to commit ABATE of Florida to support a cell phone bill introduced by the legislature that would have made the law a secondary offense and would have allowed "hands free" use (against the mandate of the organizations membership). Which may be why the organization finds difficulty in maintaining membership above 2% of the registered motorcyclists in the state of Florida, and can not maintain members or chapters. He is an embarrassment to the organizations original mission statement and it's members. If he had any "balls"/integrity at all he would step down. If the members of ABATE of Florida had any balls, they would throw him out and restore ABATE to the position it should hold, before the current president kills it beyond resuscitation.
It is fortunate that some out of state riders such as Girl Geek and others were able to alert us to this story.
However beware. A few posts back I mentioned implementation of a tactic by where it is incumbent upon us as motorcyclists to address every false press release that comes out in order to dispel the myths that not only the government is spreading re motorcycle safety, but the ever increasing attacks by the press. Which of late have increased dramatically. It is now a real war. It truly is us against them and it is time for all of us, Harley riders, Metric Riders, Sport bike riders, riders of all ethnicity and backgrounds to get our differences out of the damn way and make a concerted effort to avoid losing this war which will in turn cost us all the right to ride as we choose, dressed as we choose, on what we choose. If not our right to ride at all.
Do not be fooled or lulled into some false impression that you can leave it up to the large percentage of "freedom fighters" who do no more than plop down a twenty, slap a patch on there back and call themselves "freedom fighters" while doing nothing.
It is your rights, your freedoms, your safety that is under attack. It is also your responsibility as a "biker" (not a bike night fashion plate wanna be) to take individual action now. Give the Orlando Sentinel your two cents worth while you can. Before it is two late. We do not currently have enough soldiers to address the attacks coming on all fronts. Addresses to write are as follows: hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com
editor@orlandosentinel.com, mrussell@orlandosentinel.com, ahellmuth@orlandosentinel.com, bburton@orlandosentinel.com
lcianci@orlandosentinel.com, sdoyle@orlandosentinel.com
sholton@orlandosentinel.com, kmarcum@orlandosentinel.com
amoor@orlandosentinel.com, public@orlandosentinel.com
insight@orlandosentinel.com, lake@orlandosentinel.com
osceola@orlandosentinel.com
And for kicks write Tucker Carlson @ Tucker@msnbc.com who claims to be a motorcyclist, has verbalized his contention that he believes the governments role is to ultimately ban motorcycles, yet despite our pleas remains silent on the issues. Riding free, remaining Free is not some vague entitlement that you are born with. You must fight to keep it your right to do so. rc
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