1654 Rape and Rib eye in Palo Alto

This is about Brock Turner, 20, the recently formered  Stanford University student convicted of raping a woman, discovered unconscious beneath him next to a dumpster.

In the panoply of stupid responses to this twisted case, the most grotesque comes from Brock’s father, Dan who says his son got a break at sentencing and should have because he has a promising future (should have said “had,”) and while jailed will miss his beloved rib eye steak.

Attention, Dan:  Your bug eyed boy was convicted of a serious crime.  He is, therefore, pending appeal, a serious criminal.  Rib eye?  Promising future?

When we write about such things, we do so keeping in mind the Duke University Lacrosse team rape case of ten years ago. When those young men were charged, everyone assumed guilt.  District Attorney Mike Nifong bet his career and his law license on it and lost both -- when the Attorney General of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, figured out and proved the story was fake.

Duke acted in advance of the not guilty verdict and suspended the team.  Lawn signs of condemnation were posted campus wide. The student newspaper howled in outrage.  Everyone -- everyone -- knew the guys were guilty.

Except… the “victim” lied.

So we think about this kind of thing when a highly publicized case of this kind arises.

But this time, Turner was convicted and the problem is not so much with that as it is with the sentence.  Judge Aaron Persky gave him six months in jail, of which he’ll have to serve three or four, three years’ probation and a lifetime listing on the national and local sex offender registries.

You can get more jail time and the offender listing for playing with yourself in a parking lot.

This time, the howls of outrage were directed at the judge.  Calls for his removal.  Death threats.  

Turner’s “character references,” his allegedly clean record and the championship athleticism of both defendant and judge -- himself a former star at Stanford -- kept the sentence low.

Except Turner’s record wasn’t all that clean. Turns out he lied about his brushes with the law over underage drinking back home in Oakwood, Ohio. Prosecutors put all that in the sentencing recommendation.  

Probation authorities, perhaps less alert, more overworked and in a rush recommended the sentence the judge pronounced.

Turner’s lawyers used a new version of the “affluenza defense,” invented for another bug eyed young criminal who was said to have been so shielded from reality by his rich parents that he just didn’t know that murder was wrong.

The new variation?  The “country boy defense.” Poor little Brock.  Grew up in the sticks.  Never was exposed to the drinking culture so prevalent these days at colleges. Got tanked up. Got her permission.  Permission from an unconscious woman. Telepathic permission.

First, Oakwood, Ohio is not the sticks.  It’s ten minutes drive from Dayton in the state’s southwest corner.

Home prices today range from around $150-thousand to about $700-thousand.  Income is above average.  The school district is ranked #14 in the state and #456 in the country.  This is not a laggard school system.

The town of about 10-thousand is 97% white.

What we know of the victim is she’s 23 years old and not a Stanford student.  That’s it.

Oh, that and that heart-rending and long letter she wrote about how the events affected her life and how she expected them to in the future.

Perfectly fine not to give enough information about a rape victim to identify her.  But there is one thing that could change perspective on the case, given the backgrounds of those involved.

Is this a white on black crime where a white boy committed the assault, and the equally white judge with the shared academic history came down on the side of race.

Eventually, we’ll know.  For now, we don’t.  But we should because it might change the bad perspective. For the worse.

---

Grapeshot:

-Trump is what you get when you have too many choices; Hillary is what you get when you have too few.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1653 The Annoyance Factor

A personal story.

I am lazy.  I hate getting off my bum and doing stuff. I also am easily irritated.  And I have found a way to merge these liabilities into an asset that cancels each.

It’s a Rube Goldberg-esque system of annoying and prodding myself that requires little to no effort.  It’s something I wish I had thought of decades ago.  But even if I had, it wouldn’t have worked as well now because we didn’t have the technology back then.

Google is my hero.  Its calendar app links to its email app.  So you can make it send you an email reminder if you choose to receive it.  And I do.

I put all my to-dos on the calendar’s early hours and when I get up in the morning, each item sits in my email in its own individual folder.

I get annoyed when I see a bunch of junk I don’t want to do.  But the annoyance goes away when I perform the task and joyfully delete its notification.

So the emails prod. And most days most tasks get done.  Those that don’t sit in the inbox beneath the next day’s lineup.  That’s super annoying.

Things get done.  The inbox which I am fanatically good at keeping empty gets emptied.  And then I can go back to doing what I do most frequently and best: nothing.

This or some version of this may work for you, too.  Sometimes it works too well.  For example, when the task is to “pay the gas bill” and the gas bill gets paid and I don’t remember paying it… I have to go back to the checkbook and see whether I actually did.

But in perspective, this system is superior to its predecessor, writing everything on its individual little scrap of paper. You can lose a little scrap of paper.  Or maybe it gets wet and you can’t read it.  Or you wrote it in the dark and can’t read it.  Or you have that med school handwriting without the fuss of actually going to med school … and can’t read it.

You never lose the internet.  You may get service outages, but your stuff’s still there.  And you can always hit McDonalds or Starbucks to check your messages.

In any event, leveraging a liability into an asset is something worth thinking about.  Not too heavily, though.  That lazy thing will get in the way if you do.

Shrapnel:

--The Associated Press can now say its (AP) logo stands for Aggravating Piñata.  The agency could have been more cautious about the way it posted Hillary Clinton’s “clinching” the Dem nomination Monday causing political cat fur to stand on end and provoking a long line of bat swingers.  In the long run, it probably won’t amount to more than much ado about little.

Today’s Quote: “I hate writing.  But I love having written.”  --  Dorothy Parker whose quips and quotations were always better than the stuff she was paid for.  She is quoted in the NY Times’ series of memorable quotes from its obituaries.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments when you get around to commenting to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1652 Goodbye, Champ

1652 Goodbye, Champ

He didn’t look all that big in the ring.But when you stood next to him, even if you were a full size man and you knew he had only a few inches of height on you, you felt like you were in the shade of a great oak.

And when you shook hands his swallowed yours.

When he was in his mid 50s and already reeling from all of those punches in the ring, and could barely speak, you could only half understand what he was trying to say.  But you could tell that he was happy to hear a fan still calling him “Champ.”

Because that’s what he was.  Then, when he won. When he lost.  And now in death.

Muhammad Ali was bigger than the sport. Everybody says so. And they are right. There are lots of athletes “bigger than their sport.”  But Ali is the guy most everyone can agree about.

You can hate boxing and still love Ali.

You can read all about his childhood, his struggles, his problems with the draft, his conversion to Islam, his ups and downs, his Parkinson's.

There are ten thousand words about all those things for each of his millions of admirers.  If your head’s in the sand and you don’t know, ask the stranger sitting next to you on the bus or at your next company picnic before the Jim Beam kicks in.  They’ll tell you all you need to know and more. Much more.  Maybe too much more.

You want to know about his beliefs, his role as a role model, you can ask that same guy on the bus or at the picnic, and he’ll fill you in, chapter and verse.  Not here, though.

Here, you hear only about the 74 year old man whose name everyone knows because -- among many other things -- what he did for a living was legally beat up other guys for money and was cheered for it.  And he did it with the grace of Baryshnikov the strength of Paul Bunyan and the accuracy of a Cruise Missile.

Everyone knew death was coming.  Everyone knew when he was hospitalized a few days ago that the end was near.  So, no surprise.  But still a shock.

And when they propose putting his pretty face on a postage stamp, and they will…  and they take a public vote as they did for Elvis, vote for the young image, not the older one.  Because while his body was deteriorating, his spirit was still fully vibrant and intact --as the younger picture shows.

Whether you’re a butterfly or a bee, you can’t use rope-a-dope when the other guy in the ring is death.

Today’s Quote: “I am the greatest.” -- If you don’t know the source, check back with that Jim Beam guy at the picnic.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1651 Happy Birthday to the 24 Hour News Cycle

Thirty six years ago this week, CNN went on the air for the first time and forever changed the way we get our news.  They laughed when owner Ted Turner flipped the switch to “on.”

It’ll never last. It’s too expensive.  What does this guy from Georgia think he’s going to do going up against the big boys of New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles? Line up to buy the fancy machinery, ‘cause Ted will be needing to sell it cheap and soon to pay off his loans.

Nope.  It was and is a howling success.  But in a way it helped cause a howling failure.

Turner didn’t invent the 24 hour news cycle, he just made it public.  The wire services -- they like to call themselves news agencies -- did that years ago.  But with a difference.  The AP, United Press and INS clacked away all day and all night every day and every night.  But their clientele wasn’t you, it was the editors and broadcasters at newspapers and radio and TV stations.

Only when passed through the hands of gatekeepers did you get to see, hear or read it.  Judgments could be made about content, placement and prominence. Now, everyone had access to the wire.

But 24 hours is a lot of time to fill.  And so it was filled as often as not with junk.  We got -- and get -- more than our share of car chases, school bus crashes, closed circuit renderings of convenience store robberies and -- eventually -- the invention of a whole new industry: Expert Windbaggery.

From out of the woodwork came the likes of every opinion holder on every subject on earth.  Since then, of course, the internet has fully democratized undocumented nonsense.  But thank CNN for creating the time filler and gainfully employing dozens if not hundreds of mouth-runners who might previously have had to settle for actual jobs.

How many self-appointed political, social, psychological, legal, criminal, military, and financial experts were there 36 years ago? Compare that to how many more there are now.  

Actually you can’t compare.  There’s absolutely no way to tell.  The only answers verging on accurate would be “lots” or “many” or “a boatload.”

And how illuminating are their proffered guesses?  Hard to tell.  Of course some are good and some less so.  And some are downright worthless.  But we really have no way to tell.

So is this all to say that CNN has spoiled the whole news barrel? Absolutely not.  But it and its imitators have stood coverage standards on ear (left ear for MSNBC, right ear for Fox, inner ear for itself and the rest.)

It has turned many wannabe journalists into wannabe TV stars.  It has widened the gap between content and presentation.  No small trick.

The internet has, too.  And that may not be a good thing.  The internet has wrecked the news industry’s business model. And without that, it’s not just magazines and newspapers that are reeling, it’s you.

Why?  Because print is still the chief form of discovering and/or uncovering facts.  TV and the internet do not have the resources and even if they did wouldn’t know how to use them well.

Ad revenue is a bigger engine of democracy than you might have imagined.

Today’s Quote: “Others are doing it. So we thought we should too.” -- NY Times reporter Philip B. Corbett on why his paper has made the momentous decision to lowercase “internet” which it had previously insisted be capitalized.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1650 How The Long Island Railroad Foiled a Nazi Terror Plot

1650 A Tiny Tale: How the Long Island Railroad Foiled a Nazi Terror Plot.

“Tiny Tales” was a predecessor to Wessays™ and was discontinued in 1990.  But every once in awhile, one previously unpublished or -- as now -- new surfaces.

Inspired by real events, this story is a work of fiction.

It was June of 1942 in the early hours of the morning when the German U-boat edged close to the south shore of Long Island.  The landing party made its way to the beach in the predawn darkness, half a dozen members of the Master Race and an expendable token with brown hair and brown eyes.

Slowly, they traveled on foot to the Long Island Railroad station at Amagansett, schedules in hand.  The westbound train was due in eight minutes.  It would take them to Penn Station in Manhattan where they’d carry out what the Abwehr described as “small acts of terrorism.”

Eight minutes later, no train.  Ten minutes later, no train. 30 minutes later, a train at last.  The Germans were apoplectic.  Where they came from, punctuality was next to godliness.

“Equipment troubles,” explained the patient old conductor.

The Third Reichers fell asleep in their seats as the train rumbled toward the city.

“Babylon!” called the old conductor, awakening the terrorists.  “Last and final station stop on this train.  This is Babylon.  All change here for trains to Jamaica, New York Penn Station and Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn.”

The terrorists goosestepped off the train in line, and waited at track 2 which was empty.  The public address system comes on:  “Attention passengers.  Due to switch trouble at Harold Interlocking, trains to New York are delayed 15 to 20 minutes.  We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Fritz, what do we do?  We’re already very late,” the expendable brown haired, brown eyed token asks.

“My name is FRED. F.R.E.D. Fred.  Do not call me Fritz again. I am Fred from Amma… uh… Ammo… uh, the Long Island.”

Eventually the train arrives and when the Ach du Liebermen get to Manhattan, they head for the nearest open deli, buy a quart bottle each of Schaefer (sounds like Germany, tastes like diluted horse pee,) empty them into a convenient sewer and head for the nearest filling station, where they intended to fill each with gasoline.

In 1942, there still were visible gas stations not too far west of 8th Avenue and these Freds from The Long Island had counterfeit ration coupons.

As it turned out, their train conductor -- who drove to work that day -- pulled into the Flying A at the same time, noticed what was going on and called the cops.

Had it not been for the train delays and then the observant conductor all those Nazi bombs would have been set off that morning in midtown.

So when your train is delayed and you fume, remember that a time honored tradition of the railroad’s inability to read a clock may some day save you from some flying glass from “...the one beer to have when you’re having more than one.”

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re willcommen to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1649 A Handshake in Switzerland

Ah, Switzerland, home of neutrality, Nazi loot and four national languages squeezed into a space the size of a shoe box.  

Switzerland with expensive watches, secret bank accounts and the kind of sleaze that goes with them, chocolate for those who look down their noses at a Hershey Bar, bell ringers, ski slopes and cheese with holes.

And this, which they probably learned from the same people who invented numbered bank accounts and neutrality:  there is no state religion, but there are “official” churches.  Of course, not a lot of people pay much attention to any of them.  But it’s Europe, after all.

They’re also pretty good about tolerating what many in this country would call marginal faiths. Like Jews and “other,” which we’re still trying to figure out.

Muslims are another story.  They’ve been immigrating to Europe in large numbers recently and who can blame them?

Who wouldn’t want to escape dictatorships and monarchies like Iran or Saudi Arabia… and especially these days, Syria?  No one wants to live in a permanent war zone.

And here comes a problem. Along with their mothers, their fathers, their sisters and their brothers, some are bringing along the very misery they fled.

In the small Canton (that’s like a state) of Basel-Landschaft, two Syrian boys declined the age- old Swiss custom of shaking hands with their teachers, who in this case were women.  

You can probably think of a few of your own teachers you wouldn’t want to touch.  But that’s not the point. The point is these lads said such a brazen act would violate their religious principles.

The Canton said you gotta.  The boys’ parents said “no way, Zoey.”  The Canton said the fine for that will be five grand.  A sheikly sum for a newcomer without a stash of gold in a Zurich vault.

State over personal, tradition over individual is the standard there. So you can just imagine the Swiss fuss that followed.  

The overwhelming majority were outraged by the boys and ready to embrace Swiss policies and traditions.  Big shots of all political persuasions united on that one.  Left, right, neutral.  There has to be neutral. It’s Switzerland, after all.

In ever-diplomatic Switzerland, the authorities based their decision to enforce compulsory handshakes on the idea that not ALL Muslims were on board with the boys and that the no-touching-the-opposite sex wasn’t a central tenet of Islam.

That wouldn’t go well over here in America, land of give me your poor, your hungry, your sweaty hand.

The left would be outraged because we were being racist and uninclusive. The right would be outraged because we were knuckling under to foreigners who don’t look like “us,” and practice a self- oppressing faith.

Congress would get in on the act.  So would the teachers union, the ACLU, the KKK, Occupy Everyone, Very Serious Professors of every stripe, the Pentagon, and every social worker and cleric identifying as anything from Atheist to Zoroastrian.

Good thing we don’t put our traditions into anything more concrete than speeches.

Lest I leave you wondering on which side I stand: When in Rome, etc.

Shrapnel:

--Memorial Day.  It’s not just another three day weekend.  If you don’t know why -- and you should, look it up.

Today’s Quote: “... Royal Caribbean's highest priority is to ensure the safety of all its guests and crew members and any final maintenance is being carried out in accordance with strict safety guidelines…” A company spokesman explaining open floor drains, non functioning toilets and closed or unfinished attractions on the shakedown cruise (appropriate name, no?) of its new “Harmony of the Seas,” which looks like a floating public housing project lying on its side.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1648 I Will Not Switch to Windows 10

Dear Bill,

I’ve been your loyal customer since the days of MSDOS.  You remember MSDOS, right?  The thing you and Paul Allen bought for 50- thousand dollars… that made you two into billionaires… that the courts eventually forced you to pay what the system was actually worth to its originators?

I have suffered through countless upgrades of Windows 3, 3.2, 95, 98, 2000, Vista and Windows 8. And now you’re trying to force “10” up my… nose.

It may be Free Free Free.  But I don’t need it. I don’t want it.  It reminds me of the days when you were trying to “cut off the air supply” of your competitors,  as you so tenderly put it at the time.

Why the tirade?  Because Win 10 forces me to undergo a constant barrage of “house ads” for your lame software, your lame browser, your lame search engine and your lame tablets.

It’s taken two years to figure out how to use Windows 8 without an engineering degree.   I’m too old to jump through still more hoops.  And 30 years ago I was already too old. But I did it because I thought I had to.

You have been blue-boxing my eyes for a year.  No day passes without your outrageous demand that I give up something I can use for something I have to re-learn and re-jigger and can’t really guard against your prying eyes.

And the blue box “invitation?”  The “x” to “x it out” is getting smaller all the time.

News reports say you’ll soon make the change for me if I don’t make it myself.  And, yes, there’s a way to revert to 8.  But how long will that last?

Don’t feel too bad.  I won’t go over the wall and get a Mac.  They’re just too cool for me.  The likely replacement will be a ChromeBook.  

Google is becoming the Godzilla you guys once were. But at least I know my way around.  I’ll have to find a way to use MS Word because I have years stuff worth keeping on it.  But that’s a small price to pay for not having to deal with you.  In non-geek circles there was hope that when you got rid of that windbag Ballmer that the new guy would be able to drum some sense into MSFT.  If force feeding “10” is how he’s going to operate, I want no part of it.

Shrapnel:

--Micro’s problems are just karma, and so is this: Former “independent” counsel and Republican hitman Kenneth Starr of Monicagate fame was removed as president of Baylor University and demoted to chancellor for mishandling a football sex scandal.  But  he gets to continue teaching his specialty, over- zealotry 101. The football coach was fired and the search is on for someone new who is good at showing the boys of Autumn how to bang their heads, the cheerleaders and each other.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016