:
SoFlo: YOU GOTTA
PROBLEM WITH THAT? -

The Disney Corp's local TV outlet, WABC Channel 10, has been conducting a crusade this weekend against Judge Larry Seidlin who's presiding over the Anna Nicole Smith case.

Why, what's their problem with him? They do not approve of his working class New York City dialect. No, it's not a joke. They have repeatedly hammered the judge for it. And they've even posted an editorial on the topic.

But the editorial was dated Saturday, so I thought they'd move on and start fresh for Sunday. No such luck. This morning, they actually interrupted their presentation of the news for another pet pundit blasting him.

That working class NYC dialect makes an easy target because provincial people have been exposed to it only in Hollywood movies and TV entertainment shows in which it is most often associated with the Mafia these days. But thousands of people speak in that dialect and have no association with the Mafia at all.

*Growing up in the Bronx, his father was an interior decorator and his mother a secretary. He drove a Yellow Cab in New York City to pay for college and became an accountant, then went to law school at night.*

I don't care about a judge's dialect, as long as I can understand what he's saying.

I am much more concerned with a judge's temperment. And, so far, from what I've seen of him, he has exhibited a remarkably sanguine temperment. While I don't have the patience to sit through much of the live stream video of the case myself, I haven't run across any complaints about him getting nasty, irritated, tyranical or sadistic.

I think this is a silly topic to "take a position on." And Local 10 TV is veering into the realm of self-parody. Their preoccupation with this dialect belongs in a Ron Burgandy sequel. It's reminiscent of Ted Baxter, the pompous newsman on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show. They are rapidly turning into another kind of Emily Litella.

Enough about his dialect already. Please move on!

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