Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Morning Edition read listener letters today, as they do each week. I usually tune to something else during this segment, or just ignore it, but today I listened. I'm sorry that I did because, as usual, an uninformed opinion got me hot under the collar.

Last week, as part of a month-long series on contemporary ethics, ME ran a story entitled "Supermarket Ethics." In the piece, an ethicist stated that "sampling" a grape in the grocery store without paying for it is, indeed, stealing.

Responding to this logical, valid point, a woman named Lee had written in to say that she was annoyed at the suggestion. As Steve Inskeep read her assertion about testing the quality of fruits, I snidely remarked to my coffee cup that the listener probably thought the practice acceptable because that's what her mother did.

Mere seconds later, Lee had the courtesy to prove me correct. She wrote that while trying a watermelon or packaged prunes (you know, stuff that's harder to get to and where it'd be obvious something had been taken) was unacceptable, "...with grapes, it's okay. Ask my 83 year old mother."

Lee, getting your values from your parents is the norm, and a wonderful thing. But if you wish to sway other people to your point of view, you have to take it a step further and ask yourself why they held those values in the first place. "Because my parents did it" holds no more weight in reasonable debate than it does in a court of law.

At least that's what my parents taught me.

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Kevin Smith's Fletch film may finally be made, with production slated to start early next year.

I'm a huge fan of the first Fletch, and consider it to be Chevy Chase's crowning film achievement. The second one I'm not as enamored of, but there are still plenty of quotable lines. The films led me to the Gregory McDonald books from which they're adapted, and the three or four of those I've read are wonderful in deeper, darker ways.

Smith promises his film will be much closer to the tone of the books. I'll miss the easy, breezy quips somewhat, but I'm very much looking forward to his take on Irwin M. Fletcher.

Posted @ 7:49 AM

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