Who the Hell Is Hank Sims?

Lately, it seems, anytime you open up the Times-Standard newspaper, there's that "name," Hank Sims, staring out at you. Today, Wednesday, May 11, 2011, right  under “Guest Columnist” is the half-page rhetorical and bombastic, “Lost Coast Outpost: Parliament of apes plays to baser instincts.” Here he is, ostensibly, writing about the emails pulled out for public scrutiny and their supposedly (un)intended consequences of trying to vilify and delegitimize, on the one hand a hardworking city councilman and on the other, preoccupying his extremely valuable time, contending with the “animal passion of the citizenry – combating it, engaging in it, studiously ignoring it.”

I'm always amused when the pious, self-righteous hypocrite seeks to speak or write, actually tries to define, how people think, believe and act. To press my point, Sims says:

“It's so much easier than inviting people to think through policy and make informed choices.” 

What is? Why personally attacking the individual, by lying, vilifying and trying to delegitimize who they are. Here, of course, he is speaking for himself, as he continues:

“We are a simple species. We strongly prefer fairy tales to nuanced literature, and will strength all evidence to populate worlds of our imagination with noble knights, disfigured ogres and helpless maidens on the verge of being defiled. We want this same story again and again and again, because it shrinks things to a size that our poor brains can comprehend.”

Do you see how he has completely defined exactly what he just wrote? Then he concludes by saying:

“That's where we're at. You can point out this state of affairs, and encourage others to at least recognize it when they see it. Perhaps you can go a little out of your way to thank and support those who decline to reduce government to a simple morality tale for children. Don't expect either to accomplish very much.”

What makes him a “Guest Columnist”? That is the question Barbara Kennedy submitted in her letter posted in the same edition titled: “It's simple, Hank, don't be mystified” - Letters to the Editor, Posted: 05/11/2011 12:30:27 AM PDT

Perhaps a better question is, why is the Times-Standard promoting his website and that of the Humboldt Herald Blog? Not that his loyalties and personal affinities are not screaming out at you in his article - that is more “Opinion” that anything. It is here, the obvious connection and promotion of a select group are revealing themselves in their “baser instincts.”

Perhaps, that's the answer.

[Source]
PS. I couldn't find a link in the Times-Standard for this column. I did find an Internet copy on the Lost Coast Outpost website.

--Joe