Could the Sun-Sentinel's corporate overlords at Tribune Co. please explain why Barbara Hijek has a job? Could they please explain why a paper at which honest-to-goodness investigative reporters and serious editorialists were not long ago pressured into accepting a series of increasingly crappy buyouts is still ceding valuable front-page real estate to Hijek's odious blog, "FloriDUH," which exists to trivialize and make unfunny punch lines about serious and/or tragic news stories?
And why the hell is Hijek making snide comments about atheists? To my knowledge, atheists haven't made any snide comments about overemployed, undertalented bloggers. It seems unfair.
Today, the title of Hijek's blog was "Atheist woman charged with simulating sex act." Its target was Lakelander Ellenbeth Wachs. Wachs is legal coordinator of Atheists of Florida, and she was arrested Sunday for, ahem, "simulating sex acts in the presence of a 10-year-old boy." Which sounds bad, right?
Actually: Ellenbeth Wachs was inside her house. The kid was outside. He
was playing basketball -- noisily, I assume -- and she wanted him to
stop. So she made sex noises.
This is a weird tactic and not the one I'd employ. (I subscribe to the
"Keep it down out there or I'll thump you" school of noisy basketball
management.) But what if Ellenbeth had been having actual sex and just happened to be a screamer? Have you, dear reader, ever been with a screamer? Before consummating, did you scan the area around your home for errant 10-year-olds?
Probably not. (Most partners are scared off when a prospective lover
initiates a precoital scan for prepubescents. It's a mood killer.) And
since nobody does so, I assume this charge is almost certain to be
dropped, just like the charge on which Wachs was arrested in March.
This twist in the story is one that Barbara Hijek elides -- she's just
after a quick larf -- but let's go into it anyway. Ellenbeth Wachs is an
attorney. As legal coordinator of Atheists of Florida, she has to
write lots of letters. She is apparently in the habit of signing these
letters "Esq.," as attorneys are wont to do.
Still, that "Esq." led to Wachs' arrest for impersonating an attorney. Why? Because she's retired.
Now Wachs has been arrested twice in three months -- the first time for
appending her correspondence with three particular letters, the second
time for having what sounded like sex in her own home. Which
would be merely tragic and weird if it weren't for this complicating
factor: For over a year, Wachs has been spearheading Atheists of
Florida's efforts to moderate the overly cozy relationship between the
churches and the governments of Polk County. (You can read
about these battles here.) Suffice it to say: Wachs is profoundly unpopular in Lakeland and even less popular with the local fuzz.
So: Presented with a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that a
Floridian is being targeted because of her civic activism and lack of
religion and presented with a very clear case of law enforcement rudely
violating a woman's right to sexual privacy, what does Barbara Hijek
write?
FloriDUH's Headquarter's [sic] burning question: Do atheists ever gasp 'Oh God!' during sex?Yes, Barbara Hijek, we do. Thanks for asking! Since we're on the subject, what do you gasp during sex?
Follow The Juice on Facebook and on Twitter: @TheJuiceBPB.
