"Character assassination is an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation. It may involve
exaggeration, misleading
half-truths, or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person. It is a form of
defamation and can be a form of
ad hominemargument." --
Character assassination - Wikipedia
Chris may not have been lying, but there's definitely some shenanigans afoot. The original, unedited post he made claimed the training director/shop owner was responsible for this incident and he went and posted the allegations here, on Cave Drama Forum, and Facebook. For what purpose was this blasted all over social media??
Ken, here is the first and unedited version (which as a advisor on SB I can see)
My edits were to 1/ make sure nobody thought that Jon Kieran was in any manner involved (and I bet he wishes I didn't use his article) and 2/ to clarify that I wasn't saying that Jon Bernot pushed thru but members of his group because I worded it in a clumsy fashion.
"I know, like and respect the author of this article.
He missed the topside cave diver etiquette aspect however as was driven home to me this weekend.
I had some time Saturday and having been invited and in the area drove out to Manatee to visit an old friend who I had taught to be an instructor many years ago. He now runs a successful dive shop and like so many shops in the southeast US takes his open water students to the springs for open water dives.
I arrived while they were eating lunch as a group, the owner, his wife and half a dozen students. I was introduced as the instructors instructor and a cave instructor. Immediately one of the students said to my old student "he may know them then". Curious I asked "who" and was told the name of a very high profile cave instructor and even training director for a cave association and shop owner who apparently showed up with some others and who pushed their way in front of the group while they waited for the park to open. In doing so they explained how they "have a permit and are extending the line and need to be in first".
So there I was at lunch with a table full of people that had a very bad taste in their mouth from a bunch of cave divers that by all reports were VERY full of themselves.
In fact the group decided they would prefer to move to another location for their afternoon dives before the cave divers came back and ruined even more of the day.
Being a cave diver, cave instructor or part of a "exploration team" is more of a reason to be good representatives of our activity than allowing it to get to your head and feel it allows you to treat "simple open water students" like crap. They are people too and even potential future cave divers. they are also people who can write to the state regarding the people that had a permit that made them feel unwelcome and uncomfortable being in the vicinity of at a state park, when they paid to be there.
Just saying."
