Dear Brannon Howse III...

Brannon Howse could not be here today. He's probably out picketing the public library, what with their evil "access to anti-biblical information" and all. I'm doing Brannon the favor of fielding the letters that his fellow committed wackjobs have sent him regarding his misguided crusade on common sense, that Barnes and Noble does not need to cater exclusive to sexually repressed and self-important dicks.

Today's letter comes from...well there's no name given. Oh well. What if we called you Georg Hammerbottom? Has a nice Germanic sound to it....oh, no reason...

Anyway, this today's letter was the succinctly titled:

"Mid-South Mother Steps Forward to Say That A Barnes and Noble Employee Has Been Sharing The Same Two Stories That Store Management Says Howse Made Up"

The full title was

Mid-South Mother Steps Forward to Say That A Barnes and Noble Employee
Has Been Sharing The Same Two Stories That Store Management Says
Howse Made Up, a Letter in 3 Paragraphs by the Inestimable
Anonymous, Author of the Magnificent Poem Beowulf,
In Which Intellectual Depths Unfathomable are
Plunged and Unclogged, Wherein the Hairball
of Tolerance Was Dislodged From the Drain
of Public Discourse Thusly Allowing Free
Passage of the Constitution of the United
States of America Incorporated
(FDIC) into the Septic
Tank of History.
Peace.

There is a preface to this letter, so I'll share that with you.

The following is an e-mail we received on Thursday night June 12, 2008. Ironically Brannon and his wife met the person that wrote this e-mail at a banquet just a few weeks ago. Here is the e-mail as it was received.

Remember this detail. This is important. Of course, as with just about everything that Brannon says, I can't verify the date of this. On to the

Dear Brannon,

I am terribly sorry that all of this has come about regarding the whole Barnes and Noble incident with you and your son last week.

Boy, aren't we all? But Brannon has the power to stop it anytime he wants.

I know this has been a trying time for you and your family as well, as your character and integrity have come under fire as a result.

Ha! She thinks he has integrity and character! Not one thing that he has said has met the barest minimum standard for evidence!

I realize that what I have to say might come across as sounding like hearsay, but I would like to do any small amount I can if it will help anyone restore the confidence and trust they might have had in you prior to this happening.

I have a friend whose relative is an employee of the Barnes and Noble in Collierville, TN. This employee has confirmed that the things you have made public are indeed true.

Sound like hearsay? IT'S THE VERY DEFINITION of hearsay! Jesus Christ! Man, I love when this stuff writes itself.

The incident of a man lying on the floor in the restroom, engaging in a lewd act when a young boy walked in was, in fact, stated to be true by this employee. Also, she confirmed the incident of a man, licensed to carry a concealed weapon, that left his gun lying on the bathroom counter by mistake. I might also add that she knew of these incidents before your story ever came out.

Some may still say this is not proof, but I want to do everything I can to show you my gratitude for standing up for what is good, and right, and decent, and truthful. You are a man of integrity and I can only imagine how hurtful this all must be when you know in fact that the words you are speaking are true, just as you were originally told them.

God bless you, and thank you again for taking this stand. Know that there are many who have the same convictions as you, and who are grateful for the voice you are sounding out loud across the waves!

Thanks for making a difference!
(Name removed at request of individual)

So, an anonymous person's relative's friend says, "It's true." That's proof enough for Howse, but not good enough for rational adults. At the same time, Howse, in the attempt to verify his story, has indeed set up a timeline in which it was possible for him to have learned about the alleged (and mysteriously unreported to the police) incidents in the men's room at his Barnes and Noble before he ever went there. Whoever wrote the preamble says that Brannon and his wife met this person weeks before! Hello?! This, of course, damages his story in several ways.

1) It means that he did not need a store employee to tell him anything.
2) It's not independent verification--it's coming from an acquaintance.
3) Howse could very well could have taken his son to a bookstore that he suspected of security lapses!
4) See what happens when you have conceal and carry laws?

You know, I am reminded of the great American orator Frederick Douglass, a man who was so eloquent that nobody thought that he could possibly have ever been a slave--it defied all logic and prejudice of the age. When he wrote his Narrative, he gave it the subtitle "Written by Himself" to show that, yes, a black man, even a slave was capable of becoming highly educated and persuasive (you will remember, of course, that argumentative eloquence in preparation for public life in the classical tradition was one of the major goals of American higher education at the time). So many slave narratives were published "as told to" that even abolitionists, unless they had seen Douglass, reason to doubt that the man who wrote the Narrative was the same one who was on the lecture circuit, and even then there was no confirmation that Douglass had ever really been a slave.

At least, not until ACC Thompson wrote to The Liberator to say that he knew this "recreant slave Frederick Bailey [later Douglass]" whose Narrative, Thompson said, told lies about the plantation and the owner, Auld. This, of course, was the worst thing that a slaveholder could do--establishing Douglass' credibility as a former slave. Passionate belief in irrational positions often spurs people to extravagant acts of showy self-discrediting in the attempt to validate their own claims. This, I trust you will see, is precisely the case with Howse. Of course, a heaping helping of stupid doesn't hurt.

HJ

PS: You can read the letter from Thompson here.
You can read Douglass' notes to Garrison regarding Thompson's letter here.