World's worst husband - maybe
I've never seen TV's reality show WIFE SWAP. ( It's about swapping cultural mores by swapping wives from one household to the other to direct the family activities for a week. No "hanky-panky" involved.) Well, Gayla, a somewhat heavy-set patriot from Missouri was sent to a San Francisco suburb to play mother to the Fowler family while Renee Stephens went to Missouri. Stephen Fowler, a fairly wealthy venture capitalist, did not take kindly to Gayla and was ultimately quite verbally cruel. Very cruel. His performance on the show and the accompanying youtube videos created a major firestorm for the Fowlers/Stephens. He is currently the most hated and despised man in the USA (exceptions would be the whole of our Congress - but that's another post). His wife who is a Life Coach and Diet Therapist apologized on her website and he has too. He has since resigned from a couple of boards he served on and is probably in hiding - literally. His wife says she has requested he go to therapy and get help.
His apology on his wife's website was quite well done, but...... In the course of the TV show he offended military personnel, mid-westerners, people with weight problems, people without college diplomas and the vast majority of Americans in general. The avalanche of angry/enraged comments by people who either saw the show or have seen the youtube videos has been astounding. Several thousand people have posted their hatred and vitriol on various sites. It's quite interesting, if you're not the Fowlers/Stephens or their two young kids. Who knows how genuine his written apology was.
Mrs. Stephens, in her apology, insisted that her husband is not like that and also indicated he had done the show to please her. There maybe some truth that Stephen Fowler is not actually satan incarnate. Surely televisions editors live to highlight conflicts and paint portraits of people that are shallow, superficial and often inaccurate. But on the show the "milk of human kindness" is totally missing from Stephen Fowler.
REGARDLESS of what happens in the remaining 20 to 30 years of Stephen Fowler's life, he will NEVER live down his brief stint on television. There is no mea culpa available on this earth that will convince a majority of the angry citizenry that he is anything but a total, "limey scumball" (he's British).
And that's bad. He acted horribly, he may or may not be horrible. We don't actually know. He has ruined his reputation FOREVER and his marriage and family may or may not survive. His performance was that terrible. That is sad.
FINAL THOUGHTS. I realized a few years ago that it is basically NOT in your best interest to go on T.V. I used to be periodically interviewed by local television stations regarding mental health issues. But I no longer do that. I finally recognized that nothing particularly good could come of being on TV, and possibly something negative would. The best I could hope for was a "wash." So I no longer expose my vulnerabilities and stupidities willingly to the camera. Nothing to gain, much to lose.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
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2 comments:
Most of my wife's friends have always called me the "ideal husband".
And even being told that, I would NEVER go on TV in such a setting. TV producers actively pursue character assassination because it's good for ratings.
It's sad that people are so drawn to tragedy and turn other people's despair into entertainment.
"I think the worst thing that James (his son) could do is to tell me that he wants to move to Missouri. What is wrong with the United States — people in the middle of the country frankly (laughs) are just like you. It’s amazing - uneducated, simple and without a clue about what’s going on in the world." ~ Stephen Fowler, Jan. 30th episode of “Wife Swap”
During both world wars, it was mostly the “clueless Americans” from working class families throughout the middle of the country who gave their lives and bailed out Britain and France. After the end of WW II in 1947, the Truman Doctrine followed by the Marshall Plan pledged American financial aid for a generous program of European economic recovery. This is why Europe and Britain were able to rebuild and afford good social programs and national health care — while we go without!
And international class bigots like Fowler dare to insult those same Americans?
For the past 65 years, Europeans have enjoyed longer life expectancies and higher living standards on the dime of poor working class American’s tax dollars that benefited everyone else — except Americans.
It was the tax dollars of working class Americans that funded the financial aid package to rebuild European nations after WW II.
Who does that smug prick think paid for the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, which made social benefits and socialized medicine affordable for Britain and France? The Tooth Fairy?
Every day, 122 poor uninsured Americans die for lack of access to healthcare, 1 in 5 foreclosures are due to unaffordable medical bills, 1 in 4 bankruptcies are due to unaffordable medical bills and extremely high prices on medicine.
Stephen Fowler and the rest of Britain enjoy generous social programs and safety nets, made possible because of poor working class Americans whose taxes funded Europe’s economic recovery post-war. And for this, we are put down for our weight problems, our inability to afford university educations, healthy foods, and being “militaristic” and “fascist.”
If it wasn’t for our military and our poorer people who have been deprived of opportunity and healthcare while our taxes funded the rebuilding of Britain, Stephen Fowler would not have had the luxury of growing up with access to low-cost high quality medical and dental care so that his advanced education and opportunity to achieve economic success would have been possible. His parents would not have had a nice middle class life due to the security that comes with having access to health and dental care so that he could go to a prestigious university. And it would be Stephen Fowler, not the majority of struggling Americans, living in a “podunk town” with nothing. Britain would have remained a pile of rubble that ended up as Hitler’s outhouse.
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