Dear Mr. Friend

(Received via e-mail.  Adapted for use)

March 4, 2012

David Friend

Co-Founder and CEO Carbonite

177 Huntington Avenue

Boston, MA 02115

 

Dear Mr. Friend,

I read about your intention to pull your advertising from the Rush Limbaugh show due to his remarks about Sandra Fluke while lobbying for free contraceptives.

It is not unreasonable to conclude that the primary reason for a woman to use contraceptives is so that she can have sex without getting pregnant. To need $3,000 worth of contraceptives would suggest that the individual plans on having a lot of sex. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Slut n. 1.a. A woman considered sexually promiscuous.

Was Mr. Limbaugh’s choice of words excessive? I would say so. However the subject was sex and contraception. Could he have used words more artfully to make the same point? I would say yes.

That brings me to another program that you sponsor, The Ed Schultz Show. On Schultz’s show he called conservative commentator Laura Ingraham a right wing slut. Let me quote Mr. Schultz. “But you know what they’re talking about: Like this right wing slut. What’s her name Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut…”

Where’s the outrage there Mr. Friend? Is it acceptable to you to call a professional woman a slut if it is merely a pejorative? How is it overstepping any reasonable bounds of decency to refer to a woman who is lobbying for free contraceptives, a woman considered sexually promiscuous, but perfectly fine as a smear for someone’s opinion with which you disagree ?

Why haven’t you pulled your advertising from that cretin’s show? As I am a strong believer in liberty, I say you have a right to purchase advertising time anywhere you wish. Similarly, I can buy whatever products that I wish and when my Carbonite subscription expires, I will not be renewing it if you place on the same playing field a somewhat crude but not inaccurate term to describe one woman with a baseless slur of another.

As you have encouraged your fellow advertisers to withdraw their ads, I will encourage my network of contacts to dump your product “to contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

Sincerely yours,

Brian D. Bollmann