Scorpion & Frog as metaphor for income inequality

[Wellesnet]

Corporations Know Income Inequality Will Sink Us All. Here’s Why They Just Can’t Help It:
http://inthesetimes.com/rural-america/e ... on-parable

Scorpion met Frog on a river bank and asked him for a ride to the other side. “How do I know you won’t sting me?” asked Frog. “Because,” replied Scorpion, “if I do, I will drown.” Satisfied, Frog set out across the water with Scorpion on his back. Halfway across, Scorpion stung Frog. “Why did you do that?” gasped Frog as he started to sink. “Now we’ll both die.” “I can’t help it,” replied Scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

This centuries-old parable, which has been retold by Orson Welles and many others and sometimes refers to a turtle rather than a frog, is usually meant to show how a bad nature cannot be changed—even if self-interest and preservation demand it.
It’s also an apt metaphor for the growing scourge of income inequality, one of the defining issues of our age. 

"Unlimited campaign financing means an oligarchy with unlimited bribery power." - Jimmy Carter

[Le Chiffre]

Yet Again, TV Networks are the Frog, Donald Trump is the Scorpion:
https://medium.com/@TrumpTimer/day-719- ... baf3b825a1

For the media, being worried about being labeled as “fake news” by a man who will call them that anyway is cowardice of the highest order. A journalist’s job is to report the facts and explain what those facts mean to the public. It’s not the role of news outlets to let everyone get equal speaking time like it’s a kindergarten show-and-tell.

Journalism lecturer Jonathan Foster: “If someone says it’s raining & another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the fucking window and find out which is true.”

Here, the TV networks are the frog: they carry every Trump message — no matter how truthful — even though they know they probably shouldn’t. Meanwhile, Trump is the scorpion: unrepentant in his lying, swearing this time he’ll be better, but stinging the frog anyway.
Tuesday’s remarks should be yet another reminder to the frog that they’re under no obligation to help the scorpion cross the river.

Along similar lines, here's an excellent article by Wellesnet's own Ray Kelly about Trump tweeting a distorted video of Nancy Pelosi comments at the Center for American Progress Ideas Conference:
https://www.masslive.com/politics/2019/ ... r4I3dhO5Cc



Trump should apologize for spreading fake news.

[Wellesnet]

Our old buddy (and big Welles fan) Glenn Beck on why he has come around to Trump:
https://youtu.be/s9pLrLPBUeA

Maura Ann Henderson-Kelly (from Facebook)
"Anything else aside, from the beginning I simply don't like that he represents us to the world. But on the other hand he may be what we deserve. After all a leader is a reflection and I guess most of all I don't like what this reflects. He's an embodiment of all our country's worst traits and the danger is pretending that that doesn't include ALL of us. We all can be incurious, insensitive, opportunistic, greedy, shallow. All of our lazy traits. There he is, showing us what we are at our worst."