Ferri Tales

Ben Fields , a white sheriff’s deputy in South Carolina, was fired after he threw a black female student across a Spring Valley school district classroom floor because the student wouldn’t hand over her phone. Another student recorded the attack on his cell phone. Fields was fired two days after the incident, and Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said, “He picked a student up, and he threw the student across the room; that is not a proper technique.... Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we’re taking the responsibility for that.” No charges have been filed against Fields. To paraphrase the Bible, assholes will always be with us. Thanks to modern cell phones that are everywhere, we can now readily identify who they are. Ben Fields qualifies for this new Scarlet Letter , and in his case, the “A” stands for something Hester Prynne probably knew her accusers to be. JLF

[This is my reply to a letter-to-the-editor in a local newspaper, The Daily Review , in Towanda, PA] After I read Jeff Deutschle's letter, " Does marriage really matter? ," ( The Daily Review , Sept. 3, 2015), I checked the date to see if a temporal anomaly had transported be back to the 1950s. Nope -- I was still in the 2nd decade of the 21st century. Deutschle started by citing a study, " The Marriage Effect: Money or Parenting? ," and claimed that, "children raised by married parents typically do better in life on almost every available economic and social measure." This seems like a reasonable conclusion because of potentially increased income and parental engagement, and the sharing of responsibilities between parents. Then Deutschle regresses back to the 1950s with, "Married parents have gender specific roles." I was expecting him to also cite " The Good Wife's Guide " from a 1955 Housekeeping Monthly that advises