Who’s framing whom?
I am writing in reference to the dispute between Kris Coulon, the owner of Suitable for Framing, and Katie Richter, regarding a question as to whether or not to frame a memento (allegedly damaged).
In fairness, I decided to look at both sides of the story (unlike “Fox & Friends”). So several days ago, I walked into Suitable for Framing and introduced myself to Ms. Coulon as simply a curious Aspen resident. I asked her several questions and engaged in about a 15-minute conversation. I found Ms. Coulon to be friendly and open to different political points of view.
The other day, I again stopped in to see Ms. Coulon, but I had to wait quite a while, since there were so many customers in the small shop. After two conversations in two days, I found Ms. Coulon to be a credible source of information regarding the dispute.
I did not meet with Katie Richter in person to get her side of the story, but I did closely read her extensive comments in the Aspen Times (Feb. 1, 2017, pages A1, A8 and A9). I found Ms. Richter’s comments to be quite interesting, especially her unedited letter on page 9. Also note that Ms. Richter refused to be interviewed by The Aspen Times.
The first paragraph in Ms. Richter’s letter states that she could not initially get The Aspen Times or the Daily News to print her story, and went on to state that the reason was, “You ignore those stories that don’t align with your personal political agenda and philosophy?” and that “other news outlets have had no problem shining light on this event.”
I have an answer for Ms. Richter. The local papers don’t like to report on silly stuff. We are not talking here about Darfur, Rwanda, the slaughter in Syria, millions of homeless refugees or even the World Cup Finals. We are talking about framing a memento.
Ms. Richter goes on to describe the non-framing of her memento as “my terrible plight of being turned away from a business” and the “demonizing double standards in the Left’s rhetoric” and that “The only tolerance and respect they have is for that which aligns with their own destructive ideology and deranged agenda.”
Somehow Ms. Richter has gone from not framing a memento to equivocating this situation with her “plight” to “they,” being some group of leftists who are “deranged” and have a “destructive ideology.” Next, “They protest, riot and vandalize in our streets.” She goes on to talk about “these people” as if Ms. Coulon was somehow the leader of a movement of millions of crazy people dead set on destroying the United States.
And I mistakenly thought this alleged situation was really about not framing a memento.
Next, Ms. Richter digresses to discuss the “silly Women’s March.” From there she jumps to, “Hm. I wonder why this lady felt I was inferior to her and denied my business?” In my conversations with Ms. Coulon, or any statements by Ms. Richter, no one ever said Ms. Richter was “inferior.”
(If you have actually read this far, please just hang on for another minute.)
Next, Ms. Richter turns her attention to possible legal remedies: “I am in NO way advocating legal intervention.” (You know. Like when three white civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi, and the president called in the troops.)
Finally, the reader is told that “they (whoever they are) will pay the corporate price of turning away 63 million people’s business who voted for Trump.” (Please note that by law a business is not allowed to vote in the general election.)
In my last conversation with Ms. Coulon, when the shop was full of customers, we agreed that it would be difficult to hire enough people to handle 63 million new customers anyway.
Bob Morris
Aspen
