Monday, May 29, 2006

Weighty Matters

"Christian" evangelist Pat Robertson recently posted a picture on his CBN website of himself allegedly leg pressing 2,000 poounds. The Christian Broadcasting Network claims the feat was accomplished in 2003, though a date stamp on the photo itself clearly says "1999." [A Robertson CBN lackey suggests that whomever took the picture did not know how to set the date function on the camera. Right. I believe that, don't you?--Ed.] In video also posted on the CBN website, Robinson appears to leg press 1,000 pounds.

First, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Robertson would even want to claim he could leg press a ton. Second, I cannot figure out why, if Robertson really did do it (at the age of 73 assuming his 2003 date is correct), even the record-setting football players at NCAA Division 1 universities like Florida State can leg press a maximum of only 1,335 pounds. Third, neither CBS SportsLine.com commentator Clay Travis nor I can figure out where the heck Robertson got a machine capable of holding 2,000 pounds in the first place.

Has Robertson finally gone too far around the bend for real? Or is he just trying to sell people his "age-defying protein shake"? Is there no money-grubbing low to which this charlatan will not sink?

I Certainly Hope So!

Former US Senator John Edwards visited Council Bluffs, Iowa, last week, and admitted he's considering running for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2008. Oh, God. please let it bo so!

As much as I agree with Hilary Clinton's stand on many issues, I do not think she can win election to the presidency. She's too polarizing a figure. I can introduce you to any number of people who would vote for someone else saying the same things she says, but who would rather die than vote for HER.

Edwards is a superb alternative. I don't think Al Gore would run again, or that he could win even if he did choose to run, though he's been vindicated about many things, including global warming. Once someone has lost a presidential election, even if it had been stolen from him, when he does run again, he loses again. Consider William Jennings Bryan, Harold Stassen, and Adlai Stevenson, just to name three. Richard Nixon was an abberation in that regard (as in so many other things). Nor would Nixon have won in 1968 had either George Wallace not been running or had Bobby Kennedy not been killed. Edwards has immunity from this observation becuase last time he was the vice presidential candidate. The curse does not extend to potential veeps, at least as far as my research has indicated. If I'll need to stand corrected, I'll stand corrected. Just show me what you've got.

At this point, my personal dream ticket would be John Edwards and Barak Obama. But we have to get through the 2006 congressional elections first. So I'll apologize for jumping the gun on 2008 (and increase the frequency and urgency of my prayers to whatever Power(s) That Be which have any influence over politics).

Randy Newman Would Love This

"Short people got no reason . . . short people got no reason . . . short people got no reason to live . . ."

Way out west, in the town of Sidney, Nebraska, a state District Court judge last week sentenced a convicted child molester to probation because he was so short (5' 1") that he'd be in danger if placed in a prison environment. The outrage across the state is palpable. A very large number of people are calling for the judge to resign.

The Judge, Kristine Cecava, will not comment outside of the courtroom. In court, at the sentencing hearing, she said the convict did not appear to be a "hunter" and that sentencing him to probation with an electronic ankle monitor and constant supervision would be enough. [For whatever light it may shed on that opinion, he was convicted of two counts of molesting the same 13-year-old-girl.--Ed] Nebraska State Attorney General Jon Bruning disagrees. He has promised to file an appeal of the sentence on the grounds that anyone convicted of molesting children must do prison time. Steve King, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Corrections, said that Nebraska prisons are safe even for convicted child molesters, and that any time a prisoner felt threatened, he could request protective custody.

Frankly, I agree with the people chastising the judge . . . but my reasons include one that I've seen no one else mention so far. One of the first things any law student learns about trials and trial law is that no rulings are to be made based on speculation or opinion or on a fear of what might happen--the facts, as elicited at trial, are supposed to be the sole criterion for judgment.

Being concerned that someone of short stature might be injured (or worse) if sentenced to prison most egregiously violates this basic principle of trial law. For that alone, the judge ought to be put out to pasture.

The principle is not dissimilar to that behind First Amendment law on publishing: you cannot stop something from being published. Once it IS published, however, you can sue for damages if you suffer any injury as a provable result of the publication. In this case, fear of the convict suffering harm cannot preclude him from doing prison time. If he is harmed after he's in prison, he can seek any and all remedies available under the law (protective custody, damages from the state for failing to insure his safety while in custody, and so on).

But what I'd like to know is how that judge got appointed and how she retained her position during subsequent elections. In Nebraska, voters are periodically asked whether "Judge ______ should be retained in office." This ruling by Judge Cecava is so aberrant and abhorrent that I cannot believe it's the first weird thing she's done.

And what I'd really like to know is how the heck I can get appointed to a judgeship. I am quite sure I could do a better job, even with my physical limitations.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Da-Do-Ron-Ron-Ron-Da-Do-En-Ron

Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay have been convicted (Skilling on 19 of 26 charges--or was it 28?, and Lay on 6 of 6--plus a separate conviction in a bench trial for personal bank fraud) in the collapse of Enron! Hooray! Toss the confetti, toot the tooters, bang the drums! The jury system works.

I never could take seriously Skilling's and Lay's contentions that even though they held positions of great power and authority in Enron, they were clueless about what was going on.

Get real! Anyone could see from their demeanor that they both were "I'm in control" kind of jerks. They knew exactly what they were doing, and did it anyway, because they were arrogant enough to think they could get away with it.

But what really ticked me off was the behavior of their attorneys, both inside and outside the trial. One of Skilling's attorneys made the ludicrous claim that since no one could point to a meeting where a conspiracy was created that no conspiracy therefore took place. I know it was closing ARGUMENTS, but misstating what the law requires to get a conviction on conspiracy is not an argument--it's stupid.

I salute the jury for seeing through it. Justice is not always done in this country, but it's done often enough in the big cases to keep my faith in the system mostly intact. Now if we could only get justice done in the small cases as well as the large . . . we'd be onto something!

Sunday, May 21, 2006

A Modest Proposal

Barry Bonds hit career home run # 714 last night, tying him for second on the all-time list with Babe Ruth. While it is quite an accomplishment, it pales in comparison to Ruth's overall impact on the game. Ruth far and away is still the greatest single baseball player ever. For one thing, Ruth became the all-time home run leader when he hit his 137th big fly. The next 577 were superfluous. Also, entire teams hit fewer home runs in any given season than Ruth hit by himself the same year. For yet another thing, Ruth began his career as a pitcher, and his name is still sprinkled liberally throughout baseball's collection of pitching records, too. No one before or since has performed at a level so far beyond everyone else in the game as has the Babe.

Besides, there is absolutely no whiff of steroids or other performance enhancers anywhere near Ruth. Indeed, one wonders how much more he could have accomplished than he did if he'd lived a less "party hardy" life.

So what do we do with Bonds's records, especially once he hits his # 715 and beyond? And what do we do with the records of other baseball players who've been touched by the steroids scandal still simmering in baseball?

My modest proposal (thank you, Dean Joanathan Smith) requires consideration of the following: first, that the single most difficult feat in all of sport is to hit "squarely" a spherical object, the baseball, with a conical object, the bat (it's not a cylinder because it tapers at the handle) when the ball is moving toward the batter at upwards of 90 mph. Second, that steroids do not so much change one's abilities as they enhance them (by about 10% according to the talking heads on ESPN).

We thus should go back and remeasure every home run hit by every player who has been at all touched by the steroids scandal. For the players who have either confessed to using steroids or who have been confirmed to have used steroids, take 10% off the distance of every homer they hit, compare the new distances to the dimensions of the ballparks in which each homer was hit, and continue to count each hit as a home run if it still exceeds the distance to the applicable outfield fence. If the adjusted distance is the same as the outfield fence, go ahead and give the player the home run. (The ball could have bounced off the top of the wall and beyond the field of play.) If the adjusted distance is shorter, subtract the hit in question from the player's home run totals. No asterisks required. A parenthetical notation after the player's name that the totals were adjusted (and by how many) because of confirmed steroid use will suffice.

For the players who have not been proven to have used steroids, use the same procedure, but place an asterisk by the player's totals to indicate that X number of home runs may or may not count if the allegations/suspicions/implications of steroid use by the player in question are ever confirmed.

This will clarify the situation in the record books, honor the dignity of the game, and yet recognize that some of the things that have happened in the past several seasons may not be entirely on the up-and-up. Of course, all this becomes moot if someone proves that steroids do not merely enhance performance, but change/improve it.

In that case, there's no other answer but to force the players involved to eat their children [no comments, please. If you do not get the reference to Swift's A Modest Proposal, go read it before you castigate me for this made-in-jest suggestion.--Ed.].

Friday, May 12, 2006

A Quick Miscellany

According to the post-election analysis of votes, one other reason Dr. Tom Osborne lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to (unelected) incumbent Gov. Dave Heineman is that Dr. Tom supported the Omaha Public School District's bid to take over the west Omaha suburban schools, while Gov. Heineman came out firmly against it.

Dr. Tom did win Douglas County, but he lost the precincts of the county where OPS would have taken over the schools--and he lost them badly, something on the order of 65% for Heineman to 35% for Dr. Tom. That was enough to counter Dr. Tom's advantage in winning overall the most populous, most urban counties in the state.

He says he is going fishing. I wish him a great catch.

* * * * * * * * * *

So now the NSA is creating a nationwide database of "who called whom" by getting the telephone companies to give up their calling records. AT&T, Bell South, and (if memory serves, which it not always does) Verizon gave up their data . . . but Qwest did not.

I never liked Qwest. I had phone service from them for a time--and I was on their service plan--but when I had a problem with some of my house's phone wiring, I got hit with a $70 service charge. For which the tech who came to my house did exactly nothing. It seems that this wiring was not included in the service plan, because Qwest hadn't installed it. Well of course Qwest hadn't installed it. My house was built about 30 years before Qwest even existed. What really stunk, however, was that I asked the tech whether there'd be a charge, and he said "no."

I guess I am going to have to change my mind, now that Qwest has been the only company to show visible backbone in resisting this Big Brother behavior by the NSA. OK, maybe I still don't like Qwest, but I appreciate the company's legal staff's advice to just say no to the NSA.

I do have a question, however. So far, none of the news reports on this that I have seen, read, or heard have mentioned the stand of the cable companies which also provide telephone service. I'd like very much to know what they did--did Cox, for example, cave into the NSA's demands, or not?

Does anyone out there know?

Please tell me if you do!

* * * * * * * * * *

Tell me I am not the only person who is amused by the suggestions provided by the computer's spell checking function. I laughed out loud at this one: for "NSA's" (as I used the possessive form earlier in this post), the computer suggested I substitute "Nazis."

Res ipsa loquitor.

* * * * * * * * * *

Trish Lanphier, erstwhile employee of the Douglas County Treasurer's Office, has her job back. The Douglas County Civil Service Commission, after a long (12+ hours) hearing, said that Treasurer Lynn Haney was wrong to fire Lanphier, and that a 3-day unpaid suspension was punishment enough for her actions in signing and passing on a sympathy card for a convicted embezzler from the Treasurer's office.

Among other things. Haney had also accused Lanphier of insubordination and other unsavory behavior . . . after Haney had yelled so loud at Lanphier about the sympathy card that people down the hall from Haney's closed-door office could hear her.

Lanphier came across at the hearing as being contrite and surprised that her actions had caused anyone in the Treasurer's office (besides Haney, one presumes) distress. Haney came across as petty and shrewish.

Lanphier returns to work next Tuesday. She'll get back pay for all but the 3-day suspension period for the workdays she missed. She acknowledges that she and Haney have some fences to mend, but says she is eager to return to her job.

Nonetheless, Haney may not have to suffer Lanphier's return for long. Lanphier won the Democratic primary vote for Clerk of the District Court for Douglas County--and if she wins the general election in November, she can shake the dust of the Treasurer's office off her shoes and move on with a clear conscience.

Haney is up for re-election, too. I cannot help but think that she may not be long for the Treasurer's office herself if the majority of Douglas County voters got the same impression of her from the Civil Service Commission hearing that I did.

Good thing, too.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

It's Deja Vu All Over Again For Dr. Tom Osborne

Do the results of yesterday's Nebraska gubernatorial Republican primary vote remind you of the 1984 Orange Bowl? They should. In 1984, Dr. Tom Osborne led the Cornhuskers to a 31-30 DEFEAT at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes. It was a real heartbreaker for the Husker faithful everywhere, even though Dr. Tom did the right thing by going for the win instead of a tie at the end of the game. Of course, Dr. Tom later parlayed that agony in the Husker Nation into 3 national championships before he retired from coaching, citing heart problems and the need to reduce the stress in his life as his reasons.

After a short absence from public attention, he thereupon ran for and won the US House of Representatives seat for Nebraska's Third District. He kept the seat for 3 terms, winning by gaudy 80-90% plus margins of victory each time.

He apparently got tired of being in Congress, however, for he threw his hat into the ring for this year's race for the Nebraska governorship. [Much better to be 1 out of 1, and to be totally in charge, than 1 of 435. It's a coaching mentality.--Ed] Early predictions had him winning by a wide margin (after all, he's a god in this college-football-mad state), especially once sitting Governor Mike Johanns accepted Dubya's offer to become US Secretary of Agriculture. That in turn made Lt. Gov. Dave Heineman the unelected incumbent governor. The "smart money" in the urban areas of the state figured Heineman had further reduced his choices of winning an election to that post after he picked a lame design for the Nebraska state quarter (Chimney Rock) instead of doing a superb and original thing by picking the Chief Standing Bear design. On the other hand, the Chimney Rock design did pander to the voters in the mostly rural Third District, Dr. Tom's own stomping grounds.

Geuss what happened? I can hear Keith Jackson now: "Whoa, Nelly!" Heineman just beat Dr. Tom in the Republican primary. It wasn't particularly close, either. The most recent results I saw had Heineman leading by over 12,000 votes.

What the heck happened? Well . . . for one thing, Dr. Tom ran a totally uninspired campaign. His broadcast ads came down to "I've been in Congress; I know the issues; I'm a true fiscal conservative; I have a plan; I have integrity; you can trust me." Yawn. Even though these claims may all be true, I am sure I am not the only person whose response was: (1) what the heck does having been in Congress have to do with being Nebraska's Governor? (2) what the heck IS your plan? Details were never revealed in the ads. Since I couldn't bear to watch the pre-primary debates, I never did find out precisely what Dr. Tom intended to do once in office.

Dr. Tom's campaign staff also screwed up. Dr. Tom pledged more than once that he'd not say anything bad about his opponents in the primary [the most enlightened and useful promise he made.--Ed] but someone on his staff hired an out-of-state telephone polling company which did not know that. It used "push polling" questions in its calls to well over 1200 Nebraska Republicans--questions that cast Gov. Heineman in a very negative light according to the unappreciative recipients of the calls. Dr. Tom apologized and fired the company once he learned about it, but damage had already been done.

Gov. Heineman also ran a virtually flawless campaign. He timed the majority of his broadcast ads to air within the 10 days or so before the election; he stressed the fact that he was the incumbent [never underestimate the power of incumbency . . . which bodes well for Ben Nelson this fall in his US Senate race against multimillionaire Pete Ricketts, who spent around $5 million of his own funds in the run-up to the primary alone, and who is the phoniest "man of the people" I've seen in a long time.--Ed]; he stressed the things he'd accomplished already during his short time in office, like getting TAX CUTS passed; and he looked friendly and at ease with everyone, unlike Dr. Tom, who tends to come across as being somewhat aloof, even when he's at his most personable. Furthermore, many people questioned Dr. Tom's ability to carry out the duties of the office, given his history of heart problems.

There was also a great backlash, in my humble opinion, from Nebraska Republicans who resented the number of prominent Nebraska Democrats (like Warren Buffett) who said they were switching their party registrations to Republican precisely so they could vote for Dr. Tom in the primary. [There are no open primaries here. In the partisan races, you are allowed to vote only among the candidates of the same party as your registration . . . and if it's a partisan race, and no one from your party is running, you're SOL.--Ed] No one else that I know of has mentioned this yet, but I am sure the diehard Nebraska Republicans resented the impression that their primary was being hijacked . . . and they voted for Heineman just to keep the Nebraska Republican Party of "true" Republicans, by "true" Republicans, and for "true" Republicans.

I shouldn't be surprised, though I am. Nebraska, for all its vaunted "red state-edness," more than once chose Bob Kerrey to be first its Governor and then one of its US Senators (until he bailed out on us, that is), and in the past has voted in other noted Democrats from William Jennings Bryan to Frank Morrison to Edward Zorinsky.

Nebraskans aren't so much Republicans as Populists. And they do like to confound the pundits. So for Dr. Tom it must feel like January, 1984 all over again, and that can't feel good. For him.

But now the real fun begins . . . because does anybody give the Democratic candidate, David Hahn, a snowball's chance in Hell? Does anyone other than some of us Democratic party junkies even know who he is?

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Crocodile Tears And Goat Cheese

Zacharias Moussaoui now says he was only kidding. He wants to take back his guilty plea to being a terrorist member of Al Quaida and in on the 9/11 plots. He says all the outlandish claims he made about being set to fly a plane into the White House with shoe-bomber Richard Reid were lies. He says he didn't really believe the jury would cut him a fair shake until after he read its answers to the required findings in his sentencing trial. He says he thought his trial would be nothing but a show and a sham. He claims that he was truly astounded that the jury could put aside its hatred of him and make rational judgments.

But "It's too late . . ." Thank you, Carole King.

Under the applicable laws, no guilty plea can be rescinded after sentencing--good thing, too--or else we'd have nothing but "do-overs" clogging up an already overcrowded court system. Moussaoui had his chance. He had plenty of chances. He just doesn't want to give up the spotlight. He finally realized just what being sentenced to life in prison without parole means. Poor baby! I shed crocodile tears for thee.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now for the Goat Cheese: the curse on the Chicago Cubs lives. The Cubs managed to win a few more games after first baseman and spark plug of the Cubs' offense Derrek Lee got his wrist broken about two weeks ago. But now the Cubs have lost something on the order of 8 in a row, with no end to the freefall in sight. They were 4 games above .500; now they are 3 games and counting below it. "Notice how they do not so much fly as plummet." Thank you, Graham Chapman.

[This is why I take the stand that if you have to choose between good pitching and good hitting, take good hitting. The best good pitching can get you is no runs scored against you--and while you do not absolutely need hits to win, it's much easier to score runs when you get hits than it is when you don't. And without runs, the best you can hope for is a 0-0 tie.--Ed.]

So the curse of the billy goat lives. For those of you who don't know the story, during the Cubs' last World Series appearance (in 1945, if memory serves--the last time the Cubs won one was in 1908), a local fan wanted to bring his billy goat into the stadium with him to watch a game. He even bought the goat a ticket. But the Wrigley Field staff would not let the goat on the premises, so the owner cursed the team, and the Cubs have been losing and otherwise breaking hearts ever since.

Now is the (spring and) summer of my discontent. Apologies to William Shakespeare. Methinks that despite both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox ending their respective curses by winning the last two World Series Championships, the Cubs won't win one until Charlie Brown's team wins a game by other than a forfeit. And that just will not happen. Damn. It would have been glorious. I don't think that even the impending return of Kerry Wood will rescue the Cubbies. However, I will reserve judgment for at least a few more weeks . . . even though that little voice in the back of my brain is already whispering "wait'll next year!"

Birdman Biggles

"Birdman" as in "Up In The Air, Junior" and "Biggles" as in "Flies Undone."

Right.

Anyway, when the news broke last Friday about Porter Goss resigning as head of the CIA, at least one network felt it necessary to break into regular programming . . . in essence to let ABC's stable of talking heads waste 15 minutes speculating about what it all might mean. That is not news, people! An on-screen crawler reporting the resignation would have sufficed, thank you very much.

Breaking into regular programming is supposed to be reserved for really important things, like presidential assassinations, assassination attempts, and airplanes being flown deliberately into buildings. I didn't need to spend time on a Friday afternoon listening to George Stephanopolous and others dither. They didn't have anything to say. There wasn't anything to say. I miss Peter Jennings. He'd have talked some sense into the powers that be at ABC News.

OK, I'll fess up. I'm also mad about it because it pre-empted the last 10 minutes of "All My Children." Hey, everyone knows that about the only time anything really happens on a soap opera is during the last 10 minutes on Friday afternoon. The viewers thus spend the weekend agonizing over the interim cliffhangers set up on Friday and will doubtless come back the following Monday to see how everything resolves itself.

"What does any of this have to do with Birdman Biggles?" you ask. It has to do with Dubya's Monday nomination of US Air Force Four Star General Michael Hayden to take over Goss's post. Unlike others, I am not upset that an active duty Armed Forces general may become the head of a civilian government agency. Our system has been designed to cope with that. Hayden still must answer to a civilian Commander-in-Chief. Besides, other active duty personnel have served in the same or similar capacities in the past. [Or so say the media. I confess that my knowledge in this particular area of history is spotty at best.--Ed.] Furthermore, Hayden apparently has pledged to retire if that's what it will take to end such objections to his appointment to the CIA dictatorship--um, directorship.

No, my problem with Hayden's nomination has to do with one of his acts while heading the National Security Agency, to wit: he's the architect of the warrantless wiretap program about which I previously have complained (in this blog among other places). In terms of knowledge and experience about intelligence-gathering, Hayden is quite qualified to take over the helm at the CIA. But is he in terms of temperament and understanding of how the US government is supposed to work?

I think not. His justifications for the warrantless wiretap program ignore our entire constitutional system of checks and balances, place secrecy ahead of every other American interest, and therefore are entirely unnecessary. Under the laws as they presently exist, the NSA has up to 72 hours after it starts a wiretap to get a warrant--from a secret court set up expressly for that purpose. Why not just obey the law instead of claiming extraconstitutional executive power? There's no good reason. I do not trust anyone who says that no one independent of the decision to start a wiretap needs to evaluate it, even if it's already been in place for 3 days. People who fall for the snake oil salesman's "Trust me" pitch tend to get what they deserve. Heck, Ronald Reagan himself said, "Trust--but verify."

If our tactics are no better or no different from those who attack us, we lose the moral high ground. And if we implement those tactics because we must if we are to survive, we lose all claim to being a beacon of freedom for the world to emulate.

When our ultimate justification is expediency, how can we in turn claim that no man is above the law? It is important to maintain difficult principles in our actions, not just with our words, or else we are merely blowing more hot air into an already dangerously globally-warmed world.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Never Underestimate The Wisdom Of the Group

The jury gave Zacharias Moussaoui life in prison without parole. Collective wisdom is a wonderful thing. I know that many of the relatives of those killed on 9/11 (and Rudy Guliani) are not happy about this. Nonetheless, it was the right thing to do. Moussaoui wanted to die so that he could become a martyr. He also wanted to die because it would spark a whole new world-wide wave of anti-Western and anti-American violence by Muslim extremists.

I don't care that Moussaoui says America lost because he did not get the death penalty. He is wrong. In actuality, America won. For Moussaoui will be forgotten but not gone. I hope he lives a long, long, long time in jail. Long enough to realize that the world at large has erased him from its consciousness. That will punish him far more than his own death ever would--or could.

I remember a very early Law and Order episode, wherein the character Ben Stone tells the character Adam Schiff that the jury in a quite complex trial got to the right verdict (guilty on some counts, not guilty on others) even if it did it for the wrong reasons. I don't give a hoot about what the Moussaoui jury's reasons were. They got to the right verdict.

Let's hear it for the jury!

[I cannot help but shudder, however, at applauding the wisdom of the collective. It strikes me as capable of being interpreted as pro-Borg, which I most assuredly am not.--Ed.]

All The News That Gives Us Fits To Print

Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has proposed that Iraq be divided into three governing regions: Kurd, Shi'ite, and Sunni, with a central government in Baghdad.

I think he's been reading NE State Senator Ernie Chambers's additions to the recently passed Nebraska LB 1024, redrawing the Omaha Public School district into 3 smaller districts (one each primarily black, Hispanic, and white). For additional details, please read the last section of my earlier post, "No Wonder Our Society Is In Decline."

At least Biden doesn't have to worry about his proposal being unconstitutional. After all, Iraq is a foreign country. Separate is not inherently unequal over there. It's a survival mechanism. It is inherently unequal over here, however, and I hope we can do better by our various ethnic groups within America than implement LB 1024.

* * * * * * * * * *

I am not normally too het up about Douglas County, NE, politics, as I live across the line in Sarpy County. What happens in Douglas County normally affects me indirectly if at all. But the recent goings on in the Douglas County Treasurer's Office beg for comment.

The Treasurer is Julie Haney. A nineteen-year-plus employee in her department, Fred Cappellano, recently pleaded guilty to embezzling--over the course of several years--more than $120,000 from the office to fund his gambling habit. [He spent most of the money across the state line, in Iowa, by the way . . . which brings up a whole other set of issues around here, on which I may comment in a later post.--Ed] An outside audit first revealed the embezzlement. Haney did change office policies to prevent it happening again, but there is a big question as to how Cappellano was able to get away with it for as long as he did in the first place.

Cappellano promised to repay the embezzled funds as part of his guilty plea. Another employee in the Treasurer's office, Trish Lanphier, signed and passed on a sympathy card already circulating for Cappellano. Haney fired her for it. [Haney says there's more to it than that, but so far she has offered exactly zero to support her assertion.--Ed]

A Douglas County resident, David Karas, sent a letter criticizing Haney to the Omaha World-Herald, which dutifully published it in its Letters to the Editor column. "As a faithful Republican," Karas wrote, "it pains me to say this[, b]ut I won't be able to vote for Douglas County Treasurer Julie Haney this time around unless she reinstates Trish Lanphier. I was willing to forgive Ms. Haney for the lax management and policies that enabled Fred Cappellano to embezzle more than $120,000 from her office. But when she fired a staff member, apparently for circulating a harmless greeting card for a guy headed to prison, that was too much . . ." [Somehow, allowing Cappellano's embezzling to go on for as long as it did strikes this observer as the worse offense, but one must also recognize 'the straw that broke the camel's back' syndrome.--Ed.]

Haney has replied directly to Karas. She used the Treasurer's office official letterhead and paid the postage using the county's presorted postage rate. In her letter, Haney chided fellow Republican Karas, asserting that "[g]enerally speaking . . . Republicans are the last to jump to conclusions, don't believe everything they read and are usually patient enough and broad-minded enough to know there is 'the rest of the story' to be heard."

When asked about her letter, Haney first denied sending it. "I don't ever respond to any letters to the editorial sections," she claimed. The reporter then read her a portion of her letter to Karas. She thereupon switched her story, saying her letter was in response to an email he sent her. Once confronted with the fact that Karas never contacted her directly--by email, by phone, or in person--Haney brushed it off. "I answer so many things . . . That's been some time ago." She then defended not only answering the letter but doing it on county time and at county expense. She said she has a right to defend her office and her staff. [I see nothing defending her office or her staff in her letter--I see her defending herself and herself alone.--Ed.]

In response to this information, Karas noted to the World-Herald reporter covering the story that his letter did not criticize the office or the staff. It criticized Haney and her management style. [See? I was right!--Ed]

The big question, of course, is how in the world Haney's behavior here differs from Lanphier's in circulating the sympathy card for Cappellano. Especially after Haney said it was OK for her staff to express concern for a former colleague who was going to prison, but not on county time. Haney also claims that Lanphier was fired not for circulating the card but for what she did when Haney confronted her about it. I have yet to see anything in the news detailing just what bad deeds Haney alleges that Lanphier did, however.

Lanphier has [rightly, in this observer's opinion.--Ed.] appealed her termination. She's also running for Clerk of the Douglas County District Court. There's thus an additional implication that Haney doesn't like Lanphier's political ambitions, but that has yet to be addressed, let alone proven.

Karas had the best summation. "[Haney's] letter [and her reaction to being confronted about it.--Ed] basically proved everything I said. There is a pettiness and a vindictiveness there that makes me question her management style."

I see at least one deeply unpleasant fallout coming. If a man were to behave as Haney did,we'd shake our collective heads and wonder how he got to be such a crazy jerk . . . but when a woman does it, it somehow reflects poorly on the ability of every woman to hold a position of responsibility and authority. That's a shame. It's also just plain wrong. But we won't know whether my fears about this are well-founded until the fall campaign rhetoric inundates us, will we?

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Where Is Steven Spielberg When We Need Him?

One of the Omaha area's local recreational lakes made the news today. Zorinsky lake, named for the late Nebraska US Senator (and erstwhile mayor of Omaha) Edward Zorinsky, is one of the more popular fishing and boating sites in the metro. It also is near quite a bit of the westward suburban housing development the area has experienced of late.

Earlier today, someone who lived near the lake called in a water emergency, telling local fire and rescue personnel that something was floating in the lake, possibly an upside-down boat. Since temperatures were unseasonably warm today, getting near 80°, and since the day has been rather windy, the rescue personnel responded especially quickly.

What did they find? Wait for it . . .

A near life-sized inflatable shark water toy. Speculation has it that the shark was tied to the dock and somehow got loose in the windy conditions. [Do you hear the infamous theme from Jaws? You should!--Ed.]

Must have been a very slow news day.

But hey, all is not lost. This may make "News of the Weird." One can but hope!