Isn't This Disgusting?

[Big Don]

From USA Today:
Girl won Hannah Montana tickets with fake essay GARLAND, Texas (AP) — An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."
While gripping, it was not true — and now the girl may lose her tickets after her mom acknowledged to contest organizers it was all a lie.

 

[Lisa]

This line is especially revolting:

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."

Wow. Teach your child to win at all costs. Lie and pull on the heart strings of others to get what you want. Theres a Christmas message for you.

 

[Kacey]

That's just unspeakably wrong.

 

[BrandiJo]

I think i read somewhere that the committee wasn't going to take the tickets back. However, i am not aware of the rules, but did it say the essay has to be true? if not it could be murky water.

 

[fireman00]

That story is unbelievable... there are hundreds of children who whose mom or dad HAVE died in Iraq and this woman seems to have no issues with the web of deception she wove? Absolutely disgusting that their morals, scruples, ethics are so screwed up that they would conspire to write such a story. They should be made to visit families who have lost a parent to see what their life has become.

 

[exile]

At this point, if the committee doesn't take the tickets back, they are collaborating in this loathsome deception and helping promulgate the message that lying is OK if the stakes are important enough to you. We should be watching this episode in the same way we watch to see whether major league baseball will step up and confiscate the official records held by people who wind up being convicted of steroid use/abuse in the BALCO cases. In both cases, and all similar cases, we're seeing individual creepiness of a kind which will always be with us; the major question is, what will the response be of powerful or high-profile institutions to this kind of personal dishonesty? If they play along and give it a pass, that would be the worst aspect of the whole case. If people are going to be creeps, the last thing we need is for organizations to send the message that yes, this is how you succeed.

 

[grydth]

Scene I'd like to see: a war widow from Iraq thoroughly kicking the snot out of the "mother" that put the 6 year old up to this and saying, " I just did what I had to do, too!"

With all the fake veterans ("Stolen Valor") we have seen, can there be real surprise that kids are doing this?

 

[michaeledward]

I think the prices for Hannah Montana concert tickets is disgusting. And that parents choose to pay the exhorbitant prices from the ticket resellers and auction sites is disgusting. And the Disney marketing of Miley Cyrus as the product 'Hannah Montana' is disgusting.

A little girl making up a story to win concert tickets, I am not sure that is disgusting.

I can't help but wonder at the outrage of her chosen topic, and not seeing a similar outrage for the prosecution of a war which has some 160,000 fellow Americans in harms way.

Incidentally, I checked, and by definition, the word 'essay' seems to have a strong leaning toward, but not a specific reference to, a 'truthful' personal opinion.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

That mother NEEDS in some way to be punished for this. I have no other civilized words fit for posting at this time.

I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that her surname does not automatically equate to illegal alien status because if that *did* turn out to be true, what I'd have to say about her stealing the honor of an American Soldier and trivializing the grief of families who have lost loved ones for her own ends would be sufficiently worse as to have my account under review just like that.

 

[Big Don]

If people were not willing to pay the high prices for the tickets, the price would go down. That is how capitalism and free markets work.

 

[michaeledward]

I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that her surname does not automatically equate to illegal alien status

Well, isn't that nice of you. Have you seen Tellner's thread?

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Okay that is disgusting!

 

[BrandiJo]

i guess i only see a problem if the essay was supposed to be a true story or evet. I mean i have done some pretty creative writing in classes and they stretched the truth and pulled heart strings. So i only would fault the mother if she coached her child to write (and helped write) a fictional story when the contest was for a true story.

 

[crushing]

A little girl making up a story to win concert tickets, I am not sure that is disgusting.

I know little children can be manipulative, but for her to have the understanding of human psychology to pull this off on her own would be incredible for a six year old. I don't think of the little girl as the one that did something disgusting.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

i guess i only see a problem if the essay was supposed to be a true story or evet. I mean i have done some pretty creative writing in classes and they stretched the truth and pulled heart strings. So i only would fault the mother if she coached her child to write (and helped write) a fictional story when the contest was for a true story.

That's pretty much exactly as it appears to me.

The whole" cheating to win" thing is bad enough, but you probably guessed by now, me being in the military, and serving in direct support of the servicemen and women who have to literally risk everything over there, why I have such strong feelings concerning the lack of respect shown this country's soldiers by one of its own citizens for ANY reason, let alone such a trivial stupid purpose as this.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

I don't think of the little girl as the one that did something disgusting.

Nobody is , he just wants to stir the pot because he can't NOT stir it.It's in his blood, he can't help it. May as well tell the poor fellow to stop breathing.

 

[michaeledward]

me being in the military,

That's a stretch of a claim, isn't it?

 

[Big Don]

That's a stretch of a claim, isn't it?

How is claiming a child's father was a soldier that was killed not offensive to the military?

 

[Andy Moynihan]

How is claiming a child's father was a soldier that was killed not offensive to the military?

After looking to see what was in Mike's message( I don't think he realizes he's on my Ignore list), it appears he is, true to form, attempting to bait me, in this case by calling my military service into question,(and, once again, a totally off topic hijack as well) possessing the temerity to insinuate that because I am in the Massachusetts State Guard and not a federal branch of the military, that my claim to be in the military is a "stretch of a claim".

Used to be a time I'd have gotten mad about this sort of thing but at this point it's so old that I want to laugh, but instead I'm just shaking my head.

So before once again, and this time finally, consigning our favorite Confused Gentleman to the depths of Ignoreville, I will clarify the matter definitively for those of you who matter:

In point of fact it is no stretch of any claim: The MASG Is Part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Military Division, organized under Chapter 33 of the Massachusetts General Laws and our chain-of-command is identical to that of the regular Massachusetts Army and Air National Guard, we get our orders from the same people, that being the Governor through the Adjutant General.

Anything else those of you interested would like to know may be found at the State Guard's website( www.mastateguard.com )

For what it's worth I'm also in the US Civil Air Patrol (www.cap.gov) at the same time.

The most elite military unit since the Knights of the Round Table it ain't, but no doubt it is greater service than my accuser will EVER perform.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Lisa]

I think the prices for Hannah Montana concert tickets is disgusting. And that parents choose to pay the exhorbitant prices from the ticket resellers and auction sites is disgusting. And the Disney marketing of Miley Cyrus as the product 'Hannah Montana' is disgusting.

Disgusting yes, but in a different sense then what the subject of this thread is about. There are different degrees and types of disgust.

A little girl making up a story to win concert tickets, I am not sure that is disgusting.

I don't think a little girl making up a story is disgusting either, kids makes stories up to get what they want all the time. What I find disgusting is that the mother allowed and for all intense purposes, helped the child do a dishonst thing for a set of tickets to a concert of someone that in 5 years we won't even know anymore. That is disgusting.

I can't help but wonder at the outrage of her chosen topic, and not seeing a similar outrage for the prosecution of a war which has some 160,000 fellow Americans in harms way.

You really think that there is no outrage for that? I have read threads on subjects of the war here, do a search. However, if you feel that there isn't one that sufficiently satisfies that specific topic, please feel free to start one. This thread isn't about that.

I know little children can be manipulative, but for her to have the understanding of human psychology to pull this off on her own would be incredible for a six year old. I don't think of the little girl as the one that did something disgusting.

I don't think she did either, as I quoted earlier in the thread:

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."

The mother was obviously involved. And that is not only disgusting but sad beyond words. Teaching a child to out right lie to win concert tickets and use a subject to pull on the heart strings of others, is repulsive.