4:04 AM Productions

It's a private matter

2009-11-30T07:48:00.000-08:00

Actually, the vehicle accident involving Tiger Woods is not a private matter at all. For those few who live in hermit-like existence and haven't seen the news, Tiger Woods was involved in an accident while driving his Escalade SUV in which he apparently struck a tree and/or a fire hydrant. Allegedly, his wife used a golf club to break out a window to enable her to pull him out for treatment.

However, according to various media sources, this may have been domestic violence against Tiger by his wife, it may involve infidelity on Tiger's part and there's a woman who is allegedly Tiger's mistress who flew to Los Angeles so that famed attorney Gloria Allred can represent her. Why she needs representation is another matter entirely, but we'll wait for the inevitable Allred press conference.

Sorry Tiger, you're a public figure. You depend on this for much of the over $100 million per year that you earn and you can't be a public figure and then suddenly plead for privacy when something like this happens. This is the downside of living in the public eye, and you've handled it very badly.

*If* the allegations are true, you should have simply owned up to the error, and told people you were working it out with your wife. Talk to the cops about the accident and how it occurred and then put the whole thing behind you. All you are doing here is four-putting on a very easy green. Not very much like the Tiger Woods the world knows and loves. Although how much they will continue to love you in the face of what is to come has yet to be determined.

What does that mean on my planet??

2009-10-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

So legal expert Whoopie Goldberg has stated that what Roman Polanski did wasn't "rape rape". What in the world is the difference between "rape" and "rape rape"?

There is a lot about what happened at Jack Nicholson's house between Roman Polanski and his victim that is not in the public eye. People have made up their minds without all of the facts, as evidenced by the Hollywood apologists for Polanski. I wonder if they knew what their hero said when he was interviewed so that a probation report could be prepared on him for the judge.

Example: Everyone who apologizes for the "alleged" child molester points out that he pled guilty to only the single count of Unlawful Sex with a Minor". They seem to forget that he was originally charged with Child Molesting, Furnishing Quaaludes to a Minor, Rape by use of Drugs, Oral Copulation, Sodomy and the count he ultimately pled guilty to. The other charges were dropped in a plea arrangement that was reached for the primary purpose of preventing the need for the victim to testify in court.

The time he spent behind "bars" prior to his fleeing the country wasn't a punishment it was part of a psychiatric evaluation period. Whoopie says that Polanski fled because he was afraid of being jailed for a hundred years. In fact, the most he could have gotten if the judge decided the original plea agreement wasn't valid was five years.

The lyrics for the old cop show Baretta include the phrase "Don't Do the Crime if You Can't Do the Time". He may be an Oscar winner, he may be a brilliant director and he may have suffered the loss of his wife in a heinous murder, but he did the crime here and he needs to be held accountable by being made to do the time.

Filmmaker Harvey Weinstein is circulating a petition to call for Polanski to be released and not extradited to the U.S. My response to this is that I will personally boycott all Weinstein Company films from this point forward.

Cleaning up a Dirty Mess

2008-11-16T09:01:00.001-08:00

This is a big, dirty economic mess we find ourselves in and without getting into the blame game, it's time to work on a realistic fix.

When something is dirty, you need to clean it up. There are a lot of causes to our mess, but for the purpose of this entry I am focused on one in particular, the outsourcing of jobs to other nations. This may have enhanced the profit margins of U.S. corporations, but it hasn't done a thing to help the bottom line of Americans whose jobs were sent overseas, nor has it helped the economies of those communities where those jobs were lost.

So I propose we use some SOAP to clean up this mess. Stop Outsourcing American Propersity would be an act of Congress to penalize U.S. corporations and Multinational Corporations that operate in the U.S. that take U.S. jobs and send them overseas to be done more cheaply. SOAP would do this by establishing the following conditions:

1. Corporations would no longer be able to take a tax deduction for the salaries and other expenses of jobs that are outsourced outside the U.S.

2. These corporations would also be subject to a Federal excise tax on the salaries of jobs outsourced outside the U.S. with the revenue from this tax being used to fund extended unemployment benefits and job re-training benefits for those whose jobs were lost through said outsourcing.

3. For manufacturers who outsource jobs overseas, additional tarriffs would be placed on goods they send back to the U.S. from their overseas factories

4. Tax credits would be given to corporations who had previously outsourced jobs and who bring them back to the U.S.

Apply a little SOAP to any dirty mess, add some elbow grease and effort and pretty soon the mess begins to get cleaned up.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign....in English

2008-08-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Every four years the little envelope arrives in the mail and you renew your California Driver's License. It is an automatic thing, no big deal and I hadn't given it any thought the last two renewals which were done through the mail. Knowing that this year was a renewal year, when the envelope arrived, I fully expected yet another auto-renewal.

I was in for a surprise. "Because your last two renewals were done by mail, this year you must come in to the DMV, make any changes in your personal information as required, and take a vision test. Since I wear glasses, the vision test is no big deal, they don't make you take it until you are so old that your corrected vision might still be suspect, and I have no objection to providing accurate personal info or giving up a thumbprint. What I object to are the horrendous wait-times one experiences at the DMV. Especially since, as the sign says "Due to budget cuts, walk-ins will be cut off at 3:00 p.m., and only clients with appointments will be allowed to join the lines after three.

Wait a second you say, if you have an appointment, why would you be getting in line? Because even though you have an appointment, that's just a way to get you into a shorter, much faster moving line. I had an appointment when I went to the DMV on Friday and after I checked in, five minutes before my appointed time, I found there were seven people in line ahead of me, all of whom also had appointments.

Eventually I was waited on, paid my fee and after posing for a photo, got my temporary license. It was while waiting for the photo I overheard someone being asked if there was a particular langauge they wanted to take the written exam for a driver's license in. The person responsed they wanted to take the exam in Vietnamese and that got me to thinking.

We are so sensitive to immigrants we not only do not require them to learn English, we let them take the driver's license exam in other languages. That might well be no big problem except for one tiny little matter. THE STREET SIGNS LIKE SPEED LIMITS, STOP, YIELD, ETC, ARE ALL IN ENGLISH.

If an immigrant, legal or illegal, can't read the sign, we shouldn't be licensing them to drive on our streets. I don't want to be driving on the same street with people who don't know that "STOP" means what it says.

They don't have to learn the entire English language, but they should certainly know enough to be able to read the street signs.

Can the Tabloid Media be Any Dumber??

2007-12-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

Hotel mogul Barron Hilton has decided to follow in footsteps of other billionaires and donate most of his fortune to charity rather than to pass it on to his heirs. 97% of his estimated 2.3 billion dollar fortune will go to worthy causes. For those too lazy to do the math, that means that over 60 million dollars will go to his chosen heirs.

So the tabloid media headlines the story that it's Paris Hilton who is losing out. Pardon me, but did you idiots happen to be unaware of the fact that the man has eight children of his own, without worrying about his grandchildren? Would Paris really have gotten any large chunk of this man's fortune in any event, given his evident disdain for her antics? I think not.

Has it really been a year

2007-10-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

since I wrote here? Seems difficult to believe, but it has been more than a year in fact. Sandy Shaw is going to be paroled, but that's not why I'm sitting here at 4:46 a.m., staring at a blank screen. I sit here pondering other things.

Why has Joe Francis become a multi-millionaire (over one hundred million at least) by simply asking young, sexy girls to bare their breasts for his video cameras and will anything stop the growth of "Girls Gone Wild?"

How many times can ESPN2 re-run the same episodes of the World Series of Poker 2007 with the exact same narration and staging?

Is Regis Philbin the living portrait of Dorian Gray?

Am I the real father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby?

How is it possible for the son of a Santa Monica dentist with so little in the way of brains or talent could gain so much fame and fortune (referring to Spencer Pratt)?

Isn't it bad enough we get spam emails about penis enlargement in our email boxes, did they have to add a 30 minute informercial on top of the spam??

Beverly Hills Business Cops

2006-09-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday, September 17th and if you were to stroll down Beverly Hill's famous Rodeo Drive and wander into any of the ritzy establishments that line this extraordinarily expensive thoroughfare (some of the world's most expensive retail space on a per square footage space), you probably wouldn't bother looking for, or even notice if they had a Beverly Hills Business license. But if you did, you would see that it had EXPIRED in December 2005 and the City has not issued a 2006 license to that business just yet.

How can such a broad statement be made, without knowing which business you might or might not wander into? Because as of this past Friday, September 15th, 2006, the City of Beverly Hills has not yet issued a single 2006 business license and according to an official in the city office that oversees such things, they have no estimated date of when those licenses will be issued.

This official, who would not give his name, said that there was some kind of computer problem that prevented the issuing of licenses and it had to do with ensuring that confidential information would not print on the licenses, which are required to be posted for the public to see.

Now according to Beverly Hills City regulation, all city business licenses exprie every December 31, and must be renewed in January. If they have had a computer problem of that magnitude, don't you think it would have been solved by now? It would seem that almost any kind of computer problem should be solvable within 3 or 4 months, let alone 7 or 8. The city says nothing, apparently is doing nothing, and businesses just continue to do business, with expired licenses.

If you pay for your license late, you pay a penalty. What penalty will the City of Beverly Hills pay, for failure to issue those license? Probably nothing more than a slight bit of embarassment.

If I lived in Beverly Hills, I would sure hope they have better organization for their public safety departments.

Inconsiderate potential employers

2006-07-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

I am once again searching for a job and I want to relate an experience I had recently with one potential employer that I will someday write up as an example of how not to screen employees. It was rude, inconsiderate and wasted my time and theirs.

I won't mention the type of employer or their location, but they were in the market for more than one person to beef up their Human Resources department. They had advertised in several sources (newspaper, internet, etc) and I had responded to an ad on the net and I got a form email saying that they had reviewed my resume and they were inviting me to a "interview screening" on a certain date/time. No human contact, no check to see if that date/time was workable for me, just a form letter that said if the time didn't work, to respond cancelling.

I showed up. The screening consisted of tests, four in all, two of which had nothing to do with human resource work whatsoever. One involved reading a 3 page business description for over 30 minutes, without being allowed to take notes that could be retained, and then being tested on the functions of that business, including complex calculations using formulas that were in the description that were not available on the test sheet. The other non-HR related test was a MENSA type intelligence test that was fairly easy for the most part although the last three questions required having taken calculus, trig and advanced geometry at some point in your life, again, none of which you use on a regular basis in the Human Resource field unless you are developing HR software (none of these positions were doing that).

So after finishing all of these tests, I was supposed to interview with someone, but that person wasn't available and so I found myself interviewing with the company's president instead. He said and I quote "I don't know anything about HR and so I don't know what to ask you, but I was the only one available to meet with you, so here we are. So why would you want to work here?" Before I could answer he had to take three phone calls and then halfway through the answer, someone came in to join us, the person I was to interview with. A few minutes later when I was in the middle of answering the president's second question, there was a conference call that the president had to take and that was the end of my interview. Then, to add insult to injury, the form letter telling me that they had elected to pursue employment with other candidates was in my email box before I could make the short drive home.

Now there is no way they could have possibly evaluated all of those tests they gave me, especially since the two on HR were essay type in response, so that email wasn't based on the testing. So, why bother putting me through all that testing if they weren't going to use it in the evaluation process? I suspect they realized after they had me there that I was overqualified for the opening that they had brought me in for, and that my desired pay range was outside of what they were willing to pay. But that is no excuse for wasting my time.

If you are going to make someone spend three hours filling out tests, at least take the time to grade and evaluate those tests and in your response to that person, let them know how they did on those tests, which you can do even if you are telling them you've chosen to go with another candidate. It might take a little effort, but it is the right and considerate thing to do.

Pity Poor Chad Lowe

2006-07-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

He wakes up to find out that his estranged wife, two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank has aired his substance abuse problem in public and he's angry....

I'm sorry, but since when did a public personage's substance abuse issue become a totally private matter, even when they've somehow managed to keep it a secret to some degree? Congratulations to the man for three years of sobriety, and in her remarks, Swank says she is proud of him for getting and staying sober. But what is wrong for her choice to say that his issue was at least partly to blame for their break-up? Given the public fascination for the details of the lives of celebrities, if some celeb wants to pass out details then more power to them.

It is more of a sad commentary on our society that we are so wrapped up in wanting to know those intimate details of the lives of celebrities which indicates the level of dissatisfaction with our own lives. As for Chad, stop being angry and focus on staying sober.

Oh Those Grapes are Indeed Sour

2006-03-15T06:11:00.000-08:00

Pity poor Annie Proulx, author of the short story that led to the acclaimed film "Brokeback Mountain". She wanted the honey pot of gold known as Oscar for her story but instead of the Pooh wanna-be having the pot stuck on her nose, the Heffalumps stole the pot and gave it to the film Crash. At least that is how one must interpret her diatribe in "The Guardian".

http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1727309,00.html

The critical portion of Ms Proulx's piece follows:

"We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture. Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline."

I wonder if she saw "Crash". I did. I thought it was excellent. I say the same thing about all five of the Best Picture nominees of this year. That she felt the need to name-call the winner in order to attempt to make a point illustrates the invalidity of her argument. Neither of these films were "trash", but were the roles reversed and writer Paul Haggis to have been the loser and to have written a diatribe where he referred to Proulx's piece as "Poke in the Back Mountain", cries of "You can't say that, that's homophobia" would have rung out from Proulx and her crowd. Further, if Ms Proulx is angered by the "conservative" side of Hollywood, where is her anger at the decision to re-write and re-cast characters that she wrote as Hispanic as Caucasians? Doesn't that bit of Hollywood conservativism bother her, or was that acceptable because it involved getting her work onto the big screen. Can you say "hypocrite" rather than "sour grapes"?

Award contests where members of an academy like the Oscars do not really choose a "Best" Picture. They hold an election campaign and choose what should more properly be called a "Most Popular" Picture. "Best" Picture awards should be chosen by panels of professional film critics.

As for Ms Proulx's sour grapes, let us hope that in the future, the woozles do not join the heffalumps in attempting to frustrate her efforts to stamp her signature on the fermenting culture.

Clemency for Tookie? Why?

2005-12-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

On consecutive days there were full-page advertisements in the Los Angeles Times calling for convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams to receive clemency at a hearing that will take place on December 8th, only 5 days prior to the scheduled execution date for the self-professed co-founder of the Crips gang.

Wow! I would love to know if the Times charged the sponsors of those ads their regular rate for full-age ads, because I wonder where all the money is coming from to back this orchestrated campaign calling for clemency for this convicted murderer. There is a fairly nice website www.savetookie.org that has some very slanted views of the facts in the case, arguing in favor of clemency, but then again, who would expect a balanced argument with both sides of the issues from a website that is trying to save this man? If anyone from the website happens to be reading this, I think you should know that the Supreme Court doesn't set execution dates. That's what your site claims in this section:

"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Tookie on his final appeal and set his execution date for December 13. Thus they disregarded 9 of the 24 Ninth Circuit Court judges' assertion that the District Attorney at Tookie's trial employed "reprehensible and unconstitutional" racist tactics, using animal-in-a-jungle metaphors to refer to Tookie and to the South Central environment in which he lived. This landmark ruling means that minorities can now legally be rejected from juries based on race. This is now the law of the land."

An interesting piece of writing. First of all, it was Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders who set the execution date, not the United States Supreme Court. A small, but important distinction. The USSC doesn't set execution dates. Then let's look at the 9 out of 24 judges comment. That's 3/8ths of the members of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal of all of the Federal Courts of Appeal in the Nation and less than one-half of its members come out in favor of this slanted position? Or in other words, more than one-half of the members of this very liberal court had no interest in hearing this appeal and do not feel that the DA engaged in reprehensible and unconstitutional racist tactics. For the math challenged out there, it was 15 to 9 decision, which if we apply a little math to it, comes out to a ratio of 5 to 3 opposing Tookie's motion. That's almost two to one, which seems almost overwhelming.

Oh yes, the lack of blacks on the jury? What about William McLurkin? His death certificate shows that he was black. Tookie's lawyers dismiss this though, saying "It doesn't matter if he was black or half-black, cause he looked Filipino." That's laughable.

What about "You can't kill him, he's a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee"? So now is a Los Angeles radio talk show host, who got himself nominated for the Peace Prize to illustrate how corrupt the nomination process is. Williams has been nominated for both the Peace Prize and for the Literature Prize, but those nominations are meaningless.

All sorts of Hollywood's best and brightest are campaigning to get clemency for Tookie. I have no problem with Mike Farrell, who is opposed to the Death Penalty in any instance. At least he is consistent and I laud that. But Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg and the Reverend Jessie Jackson and especially Bianca Jagger need to go back to their vapid little lives and stop trying to prevent this murderer's date with destiny.

Maybe if they were to take a moment out and read the Los Angeles District Attorney's response to the clemency petition. Or this article: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47647
that includes evidence that Tookie hasn't been the model inmate that he has been painted as. Here's a partial list of his transgressions since being imprisoned:

throwing a chemical substance in the eyes of a guard Jan. 28, 1982, in an attack that resulted in chemical burns and emergency treatment;

a second attack on a guard with a chemical substance Jan. 29, 1982;

an attack on another inmate Feb. 16, 1984, in which Williams only stopped beating the prisoner when a warning shot was fired;

a threat to kill a guard June 8, 1984;

the beating of another inmate Dec. 24, 1991, that only stopped after a warning shot was fired;

another fight with other inmates July 6, 1993, in which a stabbing instrument (shank) was recovered.

Oh yes, there is the fact that this Nobel Peace Prize nominee threatened all of the jury members when they found him guilty. "Specifically, the defendant looked at the jurors and said he 'was going to get all' of them," said the report. "After learning of this threat, the trial judge inquired of the jury foreperson. The foreperson confirmed the defendant mouthed the words 'I'm going to get each and every one of you m-----f------." Now that's the reaction of an innocent man, wrongfully convicted? I don't think so.

Is he really saving any lives? According to a column written by a Los Angeles actor, Book Scan reports show that Tookie's books don't sell very many copies. If the books don't sell, and he isn't out on the trail talking to kids, how is he changing lives? By example?

The supporters of this drive for clemency say that they are working for justice for Tookie. Where is the justice for the Yang family? Where is the justice for Albert Owens?

University of Spoiled College athletes

2005-11-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

He allegedly said "I own the law" after allegedly punching another party-goer twice before fleeing a Halloween party and now freshman linebacker Rey Maualuga appears to have joined the very exclusive club of college athletes who are so valuable as to be above the law as long as their team is winning. He plays for the University of Southern California Trojans, who are ranked #1 in most polls and if they remain undefeated, will play for the National Championship in the Rose Bowl. Nothing wrong with this, except that they have yet to do anything to Maualuga about his having been arrested. Now he was demoted to the scout team or so it was announced, but he said he knew nothing of any punishment and in the Saturday that followed his arrest, he played in the second half of the USC game against Stanford. Why bother announcing that he was demoted if the demotion was only until they needed to bring Maualuga in. Then all of a sudden he wasn't demoted anymore, he was in the game.

Trojan Head Coach Pete Carroll says "He has been punished, he is being punished, there are things he has to do for this program through next year," (from a L.A. Times column by Bill Plaschke, 11/13/05). Oh really? How was he punished, Coach? How is he being punished? His arraignment isn't scheduled until November 22nd, and you've punished him already? Is that punishment for merely having been arrested, or have you already tried, convicted and punished him and whatever happens in the criminal justice system will have no impact on his career on the field for the Trojans?

There is something to be said for privacy and it should be noted that Maualuga is going through a difficult period. That doesn't excuse him from throwing punches if he in fact did so, and the pressure of a winning streak and a #1 ranking and shot at a BCS Bowl bid doesn't excuse letting him off without punishment if he is deserving of it. If this was being handled properly and was capable of withstanding scrutiny, then the punishment would be public and we would know what it is. We don't. Therefore, we can't help but suspect that something is rotten in the scheme of things and the Trojan football program is hiding something. If players are supposed to be role models as Carroll has said, then they should be held to account for their actions.

Symbols and symbolism

2005-11-15T02:37:00.000-08:00

Once again, San Francisco has demonstrated that it is out of step with the rest of the nation, by passing Proposition I, a symbolic measure that called for an end to military recruiting in the city's public schools. It passed with the support of 60% of those who voted and that's no surprise, because there is no risk to passing this symbolic measure.

I wonder if the voters of San Francisco would have voted the same way if the langauge of the proposition had been written differently and had taken a real stand by banning military recruiters from having access to those students enrolled in the city's public schools. The city or should I say the school district can do this, but at the risk of losing federal funds. They were willing to vote for a symoblic, fist in the face of recruiters gesture, but when faced with the loss of federal funding, I doubt those voters would have been as eager to take the same stance.

The question is, why the vehement opposition to recruiting and recruiters? It is time to stop opposing the war by protesting the recruiting effort. If someone wants to protest the war, then protest the war itself. Make a sign, march in a demonstration, do whatever. But since the days of the draft ended, and the all volunteer force began, the need for recruiters and recruiting have become critical. The 2002 "No Child Left Behind Act" requires school districts to provide recruiters with the names, addresses and phone numbers of students or risk losing federal funding.

That same act also allows the student or the family of the student to chose to be left alone, that is to "opt out" and if they do so, they will not be contacted by military recruiters. One piece of paper, one form, and no recruiter will phone or make any other attempt to contact the student. It is very easy to opt out. In fact, the same type of opt-out method is currently in use by unions in California to allow those members who don't want their dues payments used for political purposes and the unions used the ease of this method as one of their defenses against a proposition to change that system in the most recent special election. So if it is good enough for union members, it should be (and is) good enough for students who don't want to be bothered by recruiters.

So, San Francisco, either do it right, and ban recruiting altogether and give up the money, or just pass out the opt-out forms and be quiet. Let the recruiters do their jobs and you do yours.

Unhappy Veterans Day

2005-11-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

I have finally figured out why I get so agitated on Veterans Day and the root cause surprised me. It isn't that no one says "thanks" for my having served, after all, aside from a few close friends, most of the people who know me don't know that I spent ten years in the military. I'm still angry over having lost my G.I. Bill educational benefits to a loophole in the law that was changed in 1984 and it was an editorial in the L.A. Times on Veterans Day that called for the government not to skimp on G.I. Bill education benefits that finally made me realize what bothers me so.

I stood in line, starting at 4:00 a.m., on December 30, 1976, in order to enlist and gain access to the Vietnam era G.I. Bill educational benefits. My recruiter had explained at length that this meant that upon my leaving the military I would have ten years to use my four years worth of educational benefits. It was one of the primary reasons that I had decided to delay entry into college and go into the military. That, and the fact that I could go to night classes in college once I was permanently assigned to a duty station (if all went well, and it did).

But in 1984, the rules were changed, thanks to then Representative Sunny Montgomery and there was a loophole in his legislation that I got caught in. For people who were eligible for the Vietnam era benefits, they had to remain on active duty beyond a date in 1988 in order for their benefits eligibility to convert to the new program his bill created. I left the service in July 1987. Therefore, I had only from August of 1987 through December 31, 1989 to use my four years worth of educational benefits. 17 months to use 48 months worth of benefits?? Yeah, that just doesn't add up. As a result, I was unable to use any of my educational benefits, as I had to secure work right away and the following year, even if I had applied to college, the benefits would have run out in mid-year.

I wrote to Rep Montgomery asking that he sponsor legislation to amend his bill to provide adequate time for me and others like me caught in the same loophole to use our benefits, but received no reply. Neither of the U.S. Senators from my home state of California nor the Member of the House whose district I lived in at the time responded to letters on the subject either, except to say that there was nothing they could do. Good ole B-1 Bob Dornan did respond saying he would look into the matter, but later responded saying that budgetary constraints prevented anything from being done. At least he looked into the matter.

So now, every Veterans Day, I am reminded that this is how my nation said thanks for my service. It took away my promised educational benefits. No wonder I don't like this holiday.

Playing the Blame Game

2005-09-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

It seems that almost everyone, everywhere, who is anyone of note, wants to point the finger and assign blame for some part of what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Oprah Winfrey thinks that an apology is owed to all of the victims. Goodness knows how many people want to blame President Bush and the list of things they want to blame him for may reach back to being the cause of the hurricane itself. Don't laugh. Some are blaming Hurricane Katrina on global warming and his (President Bush's) failure to sign the Kyoto Accords. This makes no sense, but it is being argued anyway.

So the blame game is afoot. Let's play. We should start by reminding everyone that those who fail to learn the lessons of history, in this case known as Hurricanes Betsy and Camille, are doomed to repeat them. Unlike earthquakes, which give no warnings, hurricanes give advance notice of their coming. There is time to evacuate in advance of the arrival of a hurricane. Many residents of New Orleans and other cities that were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina chose not to evacuate in spite of the warnings that a major hurricane was en route. I blame each and every one of those individuals who had the means to evacuate and chose not to, for worsening the burden and workload of rescue personnel in the aftermath of the storm. Every person who could have left and did not do so made that much extra work for rescuers to have to do once the storm had passed.

I blame the Mayor of New Orleans for failing to use the plan to evacuate the residents of the city who had no way to get themselves out of the city, by using city busses. If this was the written, advance plan for such a disaster, then it should have been exercised, tested and had that been done, it would have probably worked. I also blame said Mayor for failing to exercise proper leadership in the aftermath of the storm. Screaming on talkradio may have raised his national profile, but it accomplished little else and did nothing to aid his constituents. He should have been more visible in the city, helping people in need, working the food lines, solving glitches in the rescue and relief efforts, and on the phone to the Governor to demand more assistance.

I blame the Governor of Louisiana for failing to respond more quickly, and for not having a better response planned as soon as it was apparent that the storm was going to hit. I further blame said Governor for failing to take a proactive position on repairing the levee system that was overwhelmed by the storm and failed, causing the flooding that has made New Orleans uninhabitable.

I blame President George H. W. Bush Jr. for failing to appoint a director of FEMA with the training and experience to properly manage a disaster of this magnitude. I further blame our president for failing to step in and declare martial law in the most heavily damaged areas right away so that those areas could be cleared without any problems, or further looting and the recovery could eventually begin. I also fault the president for his clear inability to manage a crisis or his public image during a crisis, causing a complete loss of confidence in him by the bulk of the American people, even among his Republican supporters.

The blame game. The problem with this game, no one wins. No one ever wins the blame game.

File Under Lessons Learned

2005-09-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

So my headhunter sends me on yet another job interview, telling me that this is for a full-time direct hire position and I show up on time, in the appropriate suit and tie. Actually I was early but the important point is that I got there before the appointed time. I went to the reception desk, portfolio tucked under my arm, fresh copies of my resume and professional references inside.

I waited in the reception area of this large corporation and was first greeted by a courteous woman who introduced herself by telling me her name and that I wasn't on her calendar and she then asked "How can I help you" and before I could respond, the receptoinist explained that I was there to see her counterpart. She apologized for the confusion and quickly enough her counterpart came out and ushered me into her office.

I found myself being interviewed for a position, but not the full-time direct hire position I thought I was there for. It was for a temporary contract position that would only last for four months at best, and wasn't even full-time during that entire four month period. I was taken aback because this wasn't what I was there for and being an honest, upfront person, spoke up about the confusion. After the confusion was sorted out, the interviewer asked me if I was interested in the contract position and after I was assured of a few conditions that I needed to be met in order to be able to take on the contract job, would be met, I said I was interested, and the interview went on. I even felt it went well, as I expressed interest in the specifics of what needed to be done during the four month period.

Subsequently the headhunter tells me that the firm came back to him telling him that the interview went "negative". Well, damn. I find myself interviewing for a position that wasn't what it was supposed to be, for fewer hours and less money that it was supposed to be, completely catching me by surprise and they felt the interview went negative.

Now I've sent a card and a note of apology to the interviewer, apologizing for any negatives she may have experienced in our interview, because they certainly weren't intended. But when one considers just how much surprise there was in that morning's interview for me, she might have been a bit more accomodating to give me time to absorb the shock and try to determine if I was interested in the position.

Lessons learned. 1. When working with a headhunger, interviews may well contain surprises. Don't let them put you off of your game. 2. Keep that positive smile on your face in the interview room.

Kayne West is an Ignorant Fool

2005-09-03T05:53:00.000-07:00

So Kayne West decides to use a benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina as a platform to bash President Bush. According to the Associated Press, West appeared about 2/3rds of the way through the show on NBC and said "George Bush doesn't care about black people", that America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible" and "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food."

Well, well, well. Mr. West, you have a lot to learn and while I doubt you are a regular reader of this blog, in your vernacular, I will try to school ya. First of all, let's consider those images, haunting images of the victims of Hurricane Katrina from the city of New Orleans. They are truly horrific and it appears that almost all of the victims are black. Which makes it seem like there is someone to blame for the disproportionate amount of black victims, since blacks make up roughly 11 percent of the population of the United States.

But wait. New Orleans is a city with a predominately black population. The population living within the city limits at the time of the hurricane was 67% black. Or to put it another way, just over 2 out of every 3 people living within the city limits of New Orleans when the levees overflowed was black, and likely a victim of poverty as well. There was no government mandate for blacks to live within the city limits. The only reason for the absence of whites living within the city limits of New Orleans is that phenomenon known as "white flight" to the suburbs surrounding the urban area of New Orleans. The whites are in Metairie and Kenner.

As to the differences between looters and those looking for food, when we see images of looters carrying armloads of guns, flatscreen and plasma televisions and other items that are not edible, it is difficult to see or portray them as anything but looters. Were they to be carrying food and water, it would be a different issue.

Is assistance slow in arriving? Probably. But remember, this is a representative democracy, in which the federal government can only act based upon requests from the local and state governments. President Bush could do nothing except order FEMA to stand by and prepare to render aid until the governors of the impacted states asked for aid. Even then, when helicopters intending to rescue survivors approached the Superdome, they were shot at. Makes it kind of hard to render aid, doesn't it?

Fats Domino was a victim who had to be rescued and yet, he wasn't poor and he had the resources to flee before the storm arrived. Instead he chose to "ride it out". That was a mistake that he and everyone like him, who had the ability to get out and chose not to made, and in doing so, increased the burden upon the rescue and aid systems. What has happened is that the order to evacuate has come before, but the hurricane has missed the city and people have grown tired of evacuation when it seemed there was no reason to. This time, the reason did exist, but the people in the line of danger failed to heed the warning. Just like with Hurricane Camille, just like with Hurricane Betsy.

You see, Mr. West, this has happened before. But those who refuse to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

How Many is Too Many??

2005-08-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

Now there is a loaded question. How many is too many? Are we talking about martinis at a business lunch because then in this day and age the answer might well be one. On the other hand, if we were talking about peanuts at a baseball game, there probably is no correct answer provided that you don't get ill in the car on the way home.

However, in this instance I am asking about a very specific instance. When you are in the express check-out line at the grocery store, how many items over the limit is too many for the person in front of you to have? Is it one, or two or just how many? I must admit never having given too much thought to this question until this past Sunday morning when I got into that express check-out line with three items in my cart, well below the limit of ten items or less and I saw not just ten but 13 items in the basket of the elderly woman in front of me who was laying her items onto the conveyor belt while waiting for the customer in front of her to finish checking out. Then, to add insult to injury, a younger woman (probably her daughter or niece) came up to the check-out line, stepped in front of me to join the elderly woman and added three more items to the pile on the conveyor belt. So now instead of being just three items over the limit, she was six.

I was of course too polite to point out their transgression, since I am no longer a member of the National Express Check-out Line Limit Enforcement Force. I resigned several years ago after a very nasty confrontation with a shopper turned violent. She resisted apprehension after I told her that her excuse of being parked illegally in a handicapped parking space did not give her the right to use the express check-out line when she had more than twice the amount of items allowed, even if it meant she might get a $300 parking ticket. Anyway, since I no longer have check-out line enforcement powers, I couldn't say or do anything to the elderly woman and her younger counterpart in front of me who were 60% above the authorized limit of items.

Frustrated, I searched for an appropriate course of action to take and finally it hit me. As the lovely young checker scanned the first item above the limit of ten, I called out firmly, "Eleven!". As she scanned the next item, I increased my level of volume slightly and said "Twelve!". At this point, the checker leaned over and said to me that she was sorry, but once the customer had placed the items on the conveyor belt, there was nothing she could do about it. I told her it wasn't her fault and not to worry about it. Then as she scanned the next item, I called out even more loudly, "Thirteen!" and the process continued with "Fourteen, Fifteen and Sixteen" when finally all of the items had been scanned.

In a perfect world, the objects of my obvious scorn would have been embarrassed by the attention I was drawing to their transgression. But they weren't. However, I will not be deterred by this. In the future, should someone in the express check-out line in front of me be more than one item over the limit, I will repeat this process. I encourage all of you who are not members of an enforcement agency able to take action against the transgressors to use this same method to embarrass them. Perhaps someday if we all take aggressive action, we can make express check-out lines safe for all.

What in the world is LWOP and why isn't LWOP really LWOP in one case???

2005-07-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

LWOP is an acronym for Life WithOut Parole, usually used by law enforcement personnel. As for when is LWOP not LWOP, that is in the case of convicted murderer Sandy Marie Shaw.

Ms Shaw, who is a prisoner in the Nevada state prison system was turned down for parole, but she can apply again in 2007. This is in direct contradiction to the Life Without Parole sentence imposed upon her at the tender age of 15 when she was convicted of murdering James Cotton Kelly in one of the most gruesome killings in the history of the Las Vegas Valley.

What made this killing so gruesome? Was it the six shots that were pumped into the face of the victim, James Kelly at the desert site he was lured to for the purpose of robbing and killing him? No, not by itself. It was the fact that for the next six days, while the body lay there undiscovered, Sandy Marie Shaw and her two accomplices returned to the scene of the crime several times with friends in tow for the purpose of showing off what they had done. The media, which I was part of at the time, immediately dubbed this the "Show and Tell Murder" and it was front page news from the day the body was discovered until the day Ms Shaw was convicted and sentenced to LWOP. The other two who were involved, Troy Kell, who is now believed by many to be the triggerman is on Death Row in Utah after killing another inmate there, while Billy Merritt who got a lighter sentence in return for implicating Shaw has subsequently returned to prison on other felony charges.

Then, in what appears to be one of the most gross miscarriages of justice I can imagine, for some reason the Nevada State Board of Pardons voted 5 to 3 in November of 2004 to commute Ms Shaw's sentence to make her eligible for parole. Why, I have no idea? While she may have earned a high school diploma and associates degree during her time in prison, and even have counselled other inmates, that doesn't change the fact that she brutally took another person's life. This is not a moment to debate the death penalty, but when one commits murder in the first degree, that person must forfeit their right to be a member of society for the remainder of their days. That is why it is murder in the first degree. Had she been convicted of a lesser offense, parole would have been permitted as part of her original sentencing. There was no reason for the Board of Pardons to be second-guessing the judge. Nothing that Ms Shaw did or does while behind bars will ever "make-up" for the heinous act in the desert that took the life of James Cotton Kelly. That is, if it was murder in the first degree.

At her parole hearing, Ms Shaw claimed that she did not fire the shots that killed the victim and that she only arranged to have her two accomplices "beat Kelly up". According to the brother of the victim, the court transcripts tell a different story and the parole board listened to him. But was he right? Was he telling the truth about those transcripts? Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith wrote a column on Sandy Shaw in April of 2001 that raises doubts about Shaw's role in the murder. She was involved in bringing Kelly out to the desert location where he was killed, but she may well not have been part of the plan to take his life and IF that is true, then she does deserve parole consideration. Especially if as Smith wrote, she was unaware of the intent of Kell to kill the victim.

Raphael Stavale, a friend who attended Shaw's parole hearing in December, was appalled by the decision.
"The damn parole commissioners do not judge her for who she is today, but the lost teen she was in 1986," he said. "What more does she has to do to prove herself? You tell me and her mother what she has to do to convince the board she is good and worthy of her freedom?"

The answer here is simple. Convince the board that she didn't pull the trigger. Convince the board that she was not aware of Kell's intent to kill James Cotton Kelly. If that is truly what is in the transcripts of the trial, then drag them to the hearing and quote from them. Diffuse the brother's testimony before he has a chance to testify.

The Politics of Lunacy or Vice Versa

2005-06-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the wonderful wacky world of politics in the 21st Century where nothing makes sense and why should it?

Senator Dick Durbin calls U.S. detention facilities "gulags", describes what is going on there as having been done by mad regimes such as the Nazis or Pol Pot and then he blames the Right-Wing Media for taking his remarks out of context. Since his remarks were made in a speech to the U.S. Senate and the text is in the Congressional Record, the context should be clear. (btw, he should be censured, but he shouldn't resign)

We have a group referred to perjoratively as the "Religious Right" by a group whose leaders include Rev Jesse Jackson and Rev Al Sharpton. Are they the "Agnostic Left"? The "Satanic Left"?

California's Gubinator finds his popularity rate plummeting and suddenly he is interested in bi-partisanship.

Everyone thinks that the "Downing Street Memo" is some great big smoking gun, when all it turns out to be is a memo that says that one British Intel official expressed the opinion that President Bush's mind was already made up about going to war with Iraq ahead of time. Hell, the Agnostic (Satanic) Left has been of that opinion all along, what does this intel guy's memo change?

Teri Schiavo's autopsy reveals that her husband was right all along, that the doctors who supported his position were correct and the "Religious Right" who tried and tried to interfere with that case should have just gone back to church and stopped meddling in a case that had already been heard not once, but six times. Maybe Senator Frist will stop trying to diagnose cases from video and spend more time trying to censure Senator Durbin?

Liberals claim that it is conservatives that run negative, nasty campaigns, namecall, etc, but it is on the Majority Report Blogsite that you see a pile of dog feces referred to as a "pile of Bush". They will claim it is done in good humor, but in fact, this is just one example of the latest in six years of insults from these sources aimed at the President. At least they could be honest and admit they are the side of nastiness, but honesty ain't their policy.

Then again, honesty ain't the policy of conservatives either. Otherwise, Tom DeLay would be facing the Ethics music and the wagons are very tightly circled to keep him from going down in flames for his countless ethical lapses.

Will Rogers once called Congress "The best government money can buy". How right he was.

Nightline and Doonesbury and Proper Memorials

2005-05-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

It is Memorial Day and yesterday the comic strip Doonesbury printed a list of names of the soldiers who have died in the current U.S. invasion of Iraq. Tonight, on the ABC television program Nightline, the entire program will consist of the reading of the names of the soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since last Memorial Day. These so-called "memorials" are actually political statements to show opposition to the "war" in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is a shame that such statements are being made in the guise of paying tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

If Garry Trudeau and Ted Koppel wanted to pay tribute to the "fallen", they should have included the names of Capt. Arthur G. Bonifas and Lt. Mark T. Barrett among those they listed. They were shot and killed on August 18, 1976, on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, while attempting to trim back the branches of a tree that was blocking the view from a U.N. guard post. They should have included the name of Cpl Terry W. Abbot and the 240 other U.S. Marines who were killed on October 23, 1983 by a terrorist bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. They should have included the name of Air Force TSgt Joel C. Mayo and the seven other U.S. servicemembers who died at a nameless spot in the Iranian desert on April 26, 1980 during the failed attempt to rescue the U.S. hostages in Iran. They should have even included the name of Capt Dean Martin Jr. who died in the crash of his fighter jet while on a routine training mission on March 21, 1987.

Today is the day that we pay tribute and honor all, repeat ALL of the men and women who died defending our nation. It is not a day to be making political statements against or for positions taken by the current administration and those who use it for such should be ashamed.

All the News that's fit to slant.....er print.....or air

2005-05-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Somehow, somewhere that line between journalists and opinionists has gone from blurry to non-existant and the slanting of the news grows ever more tilted. This becomes especially true whenever the media is covering a story involving illegal immigration into this country.

Consider a story done on Los Angeles area television station Channel 7's "Eyewitness News" involving this critical issue which has been in the forefront of the news recently since the Gubinator was forced to retract a statement about closing the borders citing a "language difficulty" as his excuse for backpedaling". Newsanchor David Ono read the lead-in to reporter Carlos Granda's standp-up saying "Yesterday the governor praised a vigilante group which patrolled the border in Arizona". While it is true that President Dubya did incorrectly label the Minuteman Project a vigilante project, the actual work done by the Minutemen themselves in no way, shape or form qualifies for that particular characterization. If you don't want to consult your own dictionary, the definition of vigilante is: "One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands."

That's bad enough in and of itself but it got worse very quickly. Democratic Party flack Art Torres said "The Governor should apologize and refrain from encouraging this type of illegal and violent behavior. Now nothing the Minutemen have done so far has been the cause of any charges to be filed against them, they are not facing any indictments, nor have they been accused of any crimes at all. But would Granda call Torres on this? No, of course not. A liberal politician makes a statement and a reporter wouldn't dare question a liberal politico now would he? No way. Later in the same report, Granda played a sound bite from a MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who accused the Minutemen of having detained border crossers at gunpoint. Now there are no accounts of such incidents to be found anywhere on the net.

Another news report on another Los Angeles station mentions a MALDEF suit against the Minutemen for detaining illegals at gunpoint, but no record of the lawsuit can be found anywhere. There is a lawsuit pending about an incident where a landowner held some people at gunpoint, but that has nothing to do with the Minutemen project.

If reporters want to be columnists, then they need to get out from behind the microphones and start writing op-ed pieces and label them as such. But if they want to report hard news, then they need to stick to the facts and remember to question people on both sides of the political aisle, even if that means that their own political biases aside in the interest of getting at the truth.

If it doesn't feel wrong, is it wrong?

2005-05-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

"I don't feel I'm doing something wrong." So said Eamon Cannon, an 18 year old high school student during an hour long seminar hosted by United States Attorney General Alberto B. Gonzales on digital piracy. Cannon, a child of privilege whose divorced parents are both successful actors in Hollywood, attends an exclusive private school on Los Angeles' upscale Westside was defending his illegal downloading of movies and music from file-sharing sources on the internet.

Now if this spoiled, entitled computer pirate were to walk into a Blockbuster Video store, I feel confident that he would not begin to even consider taking a wrapped DVD movie that he wanted, slip it underneath his sweater, remove the protective marking that would set off any alarm and then walk out the door without paying for it. That would be a crime known as shoplifting. For some reason that only Eamon can explain to us, the difference between shoplifting and digital piracy somehow makes one a crime and the other nothing more than something that isn't doing anything wrong. This moral relativism is why digital piracy is the pervasive problem that it is, and it is why government faces such a difficult task in trying to stop it.

As long as the majority of teens feel as Eamon does, any serious effort to try to stop digital piracy is doomed to fail before it begins.

The end of an era...and a nation

2005-04-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

It has been 30 years not 20 and while there were many Sergeants present, none of them were teaching a band to play. They were busy saving lives. It was called "Operation Frequent Wind" and it began with the words "Gentlemen, start your engines". Thus began the ending of the U.S. involvement in South Viet Nam which concluded on April 30, 1975 with the final evacuation of the American Embassy in Saigon.

The scenes of helicopters spooling in and landing on the embassy roof and then struggling to take off again, weighted down by the load of as many evacuees as they could possibly carry is a memory that those of us who watched it on television will not soon forget.

As of this date, there are 58,245 U.S. military casualties listed on the Viet Nam memorial "wall". How many others died in "secret" missions while working for various intelligence agencies is something we will never know and their deaths will probably never be memorialized. They, like others who wore this nation's uniform, died in the service of our country, so that we might enjoy freedoms that most of our fellow citizens spend far too much time taking for granted. I will not dare to question their sacrifices on this day of remembrance by questioning the necessity of their deaths or the deaths of other U.S. fighting men and women in other protracted struggles in other places. That is a subject for another time and another day. Today is a day to remember the men and women who went to Viet Nam instead of going to Canada or taking graduate school deferments or finding other ways to avoid the then compulsory military draft. Whether or not they believed in the war, they went and they served and they did not all come home afterwards to tell the tale.

One such brave young soldier was Milton Lee Olive III. He was a black child from the South Side of Chicago who grew up in a middle class neighborhood. He decided to join the U.S. Army rather than finish high school and managed to get his father, Milton Olive II to consent. He entered the U.S. Army on 8/17/1964, three months short of his 18th birthday and after completing his initial training, he volunteered for Airborne school. It was the lure of the extra $50.00 per month in pay that drew him to the Airborne Infantry.

By the fall of 1965, Milton Lee Olive was a hardened combat vet known by his platoon mates as "Preacher" because he often read from his well-worn Bible. On 10/22/1965, his company was on a routine patrol when they were subjected to varying degrees of enemy fire. Each time they repulsed the enemy fire and Private First Class Olive was often in the forefront of the counterattacks, often exposing himself to hostile fire without regard for his own safety. Later that day, as they were pursuing their VC attackers, PFC Olive, his Platoon Commander and three other soldiers were moving quietly through the jungle when a VC grenade was thrown into their midst. Knowing the risk, PFC Olive scooped up the grenade, said "I've got it", moved away from the group and fell on the grenade as he pulled it to his midsection, absorbing the deadly blast all himself.

It isn't PFC Olive's incredible bravery that day, which deservedly saw him receive the Medal of Honor, that has me writing about him on this day. His story, is just one of a number of such incredible true stories that can be read about in a great book "Vietnam Medal of Honor Heroes" by Edward F. Murphy, from which the above text regarding PFC Olive has been quoted or paraphrased (thank you, Free Use Doctrine). It isn't the fact that Milton Lee Olive III was the first African American to win the Medal of Honor in Viet Nam either. The reason I write of PFC Olive's story on this date, is a letter that his father, Milton Olive II wrote to President Lyndon Johnson after learning that his son's bravery had been recognized by the award of the medal of honor. The letter read:

"It is our dream and our prayer that some day the Asiatics, the Europeans, the Africans, the Australians, the Latins and the Americans can all live in One World. It is our hope that in our country, the Klansmen, the Negroes, the Hebrews and the Catholics will sit down together for the common purpose of goodwill and dedication, that the moral and creative intelligence of united people will pick up the chalice of wisdom and place it upon the mountaintop of human integrity, that all mankind from all of the earth, shall resolve to study war no more."

Brilliant moving words, from a man whose apparent sole claim to fame is being the father of a war hero. Words that until I read the aforementioned book, I was unaware of. Today, as we pause for a moment to remember the end of the Viet Nam War, maybe we could all resolve to study war no more. I know I'm down with that, if everyone else is.

Los Angeles Dodgers Management has me a bit upset

2005-04-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter I sent to Frank McCourt, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers recently:

April 3, 2005

Mr. Frank McCourt
Owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers
1000 Elysian Park Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: Attending Dodgers Games and Dodgers Sponsors

Dear Mr. McCourt:

I am a lifelong Dodgers fan and will continue to be one no matter who owns and operates the team. However, after witnessing what you have done to the Dodgers in the off-season following their first post-season victory since 1988, I wanted you to know the following:

1. For the first time since 1962 (with the exception of those years I was out of the country in the U.S. military), I will not attend a single Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium. Not one. I will not consume a single Dodger Dog, I will not spend a single dime on merchandise of any kind that would result in any profit of any kind for you.

2. I intend to actively boycott every single sponsor of Dodger radio and television broadcasts and will be writing to these sponsors to let them know of this boycott. I will include a copy of this letter to those sponsors so that they will understand why I am no longer using their services and/or purchasing their products.

3. Since a single person boycott will have a very limited effect, it is my intention to establish a website of some sort, calling on other loyal Dodgers fans who feel as I do to join in my boycott and hopefully bring about a change in how the Dodgers are being operated, so that the sinking ship currently in residence at Chavez Ravine can be righted before it plummets to the bottom of the Western Division standings.

Why do I feel this way? Because you and your management team have made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe since the season ended. If Adrian Beltre is to be believed (and he has no reason to lie, whereas you and Mr. DePodesta do), the Dodgers made absolutely no effort to retain him. Letting him go is a mistake that borders on the magnitude of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees in order to raise funds to produce a musical. The perfidy of one of baseball’s finest coaches, Joey Amalfitano wearing a Giant uniform this year turns my stomach just in writing about it. The departure of Mr. Statistic, Ross Porter from the broadcast booth was not only handled wrong, it was just plain wrong. Worst of all, allowing a fool like T.J. Simers to take cheap shots at your spouse by her own failure to return his call for weeks on end takes foolishness to the edge of stupidity.

I could go on, there are other errors I could and should list, but I think the point is driven home with sufficient emphasis. What you need to do to right the ship is simple. You need to hire someone like Derrick Hall to handle your communications, so that when gaffes occur, they can be smoothed over easily. You need to lean over at the dinner table and tell your wife that while you love her very much, you need to hire someone who knows more about baseball to take over operational control of the Dodgers while giving her a position more suited to her natural abilities. I don’t know what they are, but then again, anyone who isn’t smart enough to know you can’t win a pissing contest with a newspaper certainly isn’t ready to be a COO.

Then you need to reach into whatever funds are left in your wallet and take out a full page ad in the L.A. Times sports section and in big bold letters say “I’m Sorry” to the Dodgers fans of L.A. and tell them that you sincerely mean it. That you blew it when you let Beltre and Amalfitano leave, and that you’re going to stop trying to run the Dodgers like a parking lot structure and start running it like a baseball team. You might want to call Peter O’Malley for advice. He knew what he was doing.

In Tiananmen Square, one single, solitary man stopped a column of tanks solely armed with a sense of purpose. I only hope that I, one singly, solitary Dodgers fan, armed with a sense of purpose can stop you from ruining this team.
Sincerely,