1429 The Accused Pleads Goo Goo

News Item: a two year old boy in Idaho shot his mother dead.  They were in a Wal-mart and he was searching through her purse, unzipped a hidden carry compartment, pulled out the 9 mm semi automatic and it went off.

Well, you know… terrible twos.  Cute, usually. Bad age, almost always. They’re forever sticking their fingers in light sockets, painting the rug or the dog with peanut butter and jelly.  Easily breaking easily breakable anything.

And curious.  At two, they start asking questions.  And quickly expanding a vocabulary of about 50 words.

The mother, Veronica Rutledge, 29, was shot once in the head.  She was “a responsible gun owner,” her father in law said. She and her husband, Colt Rutledge -- that is not a typo, Colt -- agrees.  They both have hidden carry permits.

He bought her that special purse for Christmas.

Just in case she should be hiking with their kids and came upon a mugger, or an FBI SWAT team which we all know are frequent occurrences in rural Idaho.

Those Special Agents could have mistaken her for Randy Woods.  You never know.  And a woman with little kids needs protection.

According to news reports, Mrs. Rutledge worked as a “nuclear scientist,” or “chemical engineer” which if true indicates considerable brain power, but not necessarily considerable sense.

So far, the following has not happened.

--The District Attorney wanting to try the toddler as a adult.

--The NRA defending the right of a two year old to shoot.

--The kid taken into an interrogation room and questioned without a lawyer.

--A Lawyer claiming the shooter was not read his Miranda Rights.

--A psychologist or social worker testifying that a two year old doesn’t typically know right from wrong.

--A gun control group claiming the mother should not have let a baby have access to a gun.

--A lawsuit against Wal-mart because it doesn’t have metal detectors at the entrances.

None of this yet.  But be patient.  It’s 2015 in America where anything is possible.

Meantime, at his arraignment the kid pleaded “Goo goo. Mama hole in head.”

Grapeshot:

-Question for the shopping channels:  when will you be offering those handbags with the pistol compartments along with the overpriced overweight  Dooney & Bourkeses?

-Question for outgoing PA Gov. Tom Corbett: Now that you’re going to have to buy your own gasoline, are you still happy with that new 10 cent a gallon tax increase you just had to have?

-Question for all newly elected politicians: Which campaign promise are you planning to break first?

-Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) to Tim Russert on why he never ran for president: “I didn’t think I was good enough.”

-Earth to Mario:  Yeah, you were.

Shrapnel:

--Rest in peace Hamlet on the Hudson. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, 82, a good leader and brilliant orator, died on the day his son Andrew was sworn in for a second term as governor.  As Shakespeare’s King Claudius said of his own Hamlet, “he benefited the whole kingdom.”

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

1388 Cadillac and Kmart

Here’s what happened to Kmart, which had been chugging along nicely since before the turn of the 20th century until the game shifted from the sales floor to the boardroom.

In the late 1980s it was still ahead of Wal-mart… and was the country’s second largest retailer, behind Sears.

Enter Joseph Antonelli, a long time Kmart executive, elevated to CEO. Among his bright ideas were things like getting big name endorsers… Martha Stewart for one. Jaclyn Smith for another.

Those lines flopped.  So did much else Joe did.  But the biggest flop of all was dividing the company into four different entities.

Instead of selling clothing, pots, pans and such, he sold stock.

Kmart never recovered and today is a shadow of its former shadow.

You’ve heard this from Wessays™ before.  Now, you’re going to hear it again.  When all the action is in the boardroom, the team on the field can’t win.

Fast forward to 2014.  General Motors has announced it is turning Cadillac into a separate company and moving its headquarters to New York City.

Not to GM’s imposing Fifth Avenue skyscraper, but to a relatively small office in SoHo.

Why?  Well, because Cadillac is the Kmart of luxury cars.  And some of the North American headquarters of some of the competing luxury brands are in Manhattan.

Caddy even has its own version of Joe Antonelli.  His name is Johan de Nysschen who once ran Audi/North America and more recently the beleaguered Infiniti division of Nissan.

Perfect. Infiniti is a mess.  And when was the last time you saw one on the road?  They sold about 9,000 cars in the US last month, down almost 23% from August, 2013.

At the same time, Lexus sold almost 30-thousand cars and Cadillac about half that.

The most optimistic prediction:  nothing will change.  A probable prediction: moving the front office off the auto industry’s beaten path while leaving engineering, design and production right where it is -- Detroit -- can’t possibly do the brand any good.

Cadillac still does a pretty good business in markets most of us don’t think about much.  Ambulances.  Funeral cars.

Actually, they and their outside contractors make the coolest ambulances and funeral cars on the planet.  But the call for that stuff is limited and mostly people only ride in each once, if that.

Other than those customers and a bunch of traditionalist grandparents, they don’t sell a whole lot of tin.

A typical reaction to seeing one of their stock models: “Wow, that’s a beauty.”  But more often than not, the thought is followed by “I’d buy one of those if they weren’t so bad underneath the skin.”

People who buy luxury cars are easily divisible into categories: show offs, arthritics and that part of the population with money to burn.

Cadillac needs to pay attention to all three categories.

Shrapnel:

--Attorney General Holder is quitting but he’ll wait until the Senate confirms the president’s nominee.  Figure Holder will be around until after the 2016 presidential election. The Senate wouldn’t approve John Jay, if Obama wanted him.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

833 I Have A Little List

833 I Have a Little List

Actually it is two lists. Both Forbes Richest Americans and the accompanying World’s Billionaires annual fun fest have been published. The the combined wealth of the 1200 or so people on the World list is greater than the GDP of Germany. Together they represent $4.5 trillion... that’s trillion with a “t.”

The richest man in the world is -- again -- the inaccurately named Carlos Slim. The Mexican telco tycoon is said to be worth $74 billion. Buying this guy a gift must be tough. What do you give him for his birthday, Liechtenstein?

The American side of the list looks like a police lineup of the usual suspects.

Bill Gates is #1 at 54 billion; Warren Buffett is number two with a relatively paltry $45 billion. Four of the top ten are members of the Walton (Wal-mart) family, with a combined worth of something in the neighborhood of $84 Billion. Two of the top ten are the Koch Brothers, the oil guys who aren’t seeking special favors from the governor of Wisconsin. Together, they are worth a combined 43 billion.

So six of the ten are either Waltons or Kochs. That leaves Gates, Buffet and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($27 billion) at the top and Mike Bloomberg ($18 billion) at number ten.

Forty seven people dropped off the US list. Recession is bad for the super rich, too. At least for some of them.

The Forbes.com website’s presentation of the list is a little less flexible than in previous years. So we can’t tell at a glance if there are any Rockefellers or Gettys on it. (There aren’t.) We don’t know how much of any individuals’ wealth is liquid or what would happen to the un-liquid part of it if they tried to turn their paper into cash.

So, how much of this money is “real?” That is, if Bill Gates walked into his local WaMu branch with a hand truck and a withdrawal slip for $55 billion, what would they give him? Fortunately, we won’t find out. There ARE no WaMu branches in Washington State, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Notice there are no Forbeses on the Forbes List? Not now, and not even when you didn’t need a billion dollar minimum. Is that because they hide their wealth well or because they aren’t as rich as they’d like you to think.

Here’s a hint: in recent years they’ve sold a half interest in their media company, their ranch in the west, their collection of Faberge eggs, the Forbes Building on Fifth Avenue and now, a palatial house in England.

Shrapnel:

--Fellow Long Islander and fellow Sunnyside Queens boy Peter King is the wrong guy to head hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims because of his close and well known ties to the Irish Republican Army. His rejoinder, “The IRA never attacked America” just doesn’t wash. But his investigation might.

--Wisconsin Republicans found a “work around” or loophole to have their way with unionized state workers and have passed a slightly less draconian anti-labor bill than originally proposed. Time for Democratic Party legislators to leave the witness protection program, go home and work against further declawing their constituents. Where are the former IRA and KGB agents when we need them?


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Address comments and nail bombs to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011

832 Culture Peace

832 Culture Peace

The Conference of New Religions has picked Madison Square Garden for its 2011 convocation and convention. The place will be packed. Twenty thousand or so of the New Faithful are expected. Great boost for the region and the nearby hotels, especially the New Yorker (think “Moonies”) and the Pennsylvania (Think PEnnsylvania 6- 5000.)

Here come the McDonaldites, the Wal-Martyrs, the eBayers, iPadders, iPhoners, iPodders, the Starbuckians and the Roadhoggers. Invitations have been extended to the Tea Partiers, the Footballers, the PoolSharks, and some others, but they haven’t responded yet.

To the uninitiated (most of us,) there aren’t major differences among these groups. But to the individual societies, tension and petty bickering abound. The conference will try to smooth them over to present a united front to the heathens (most of us.)

The Starbuckians, for example think that because this is their 40th anniversary year, they should be given special placement in the hall and that their way of life is both superior to and older than most of the others.

The Wal-Martyrs and McDonaldites point out that their churches are 42 and 70 years old, respectively.

Then, there’s the availability of the house of worship. Wal-Martyrs are convinced that they have hit upon a perfect formula, remaining open 24 hours every day. The McDonaldites apparently have agreed and are keeping their churches open around the clock, too.

The Roadhoggers had always did that, but concede that they’d rather have Johnny-Come-Lately copycats on this score than claim exclusivity.

This is a good thing. Exclusivity, barring the uninvited from worship has always been a mark of anti-ecumenical faiths. The Podders, Phoners and Padders readily jumped on board with this.

So it’s good to see all these sects coming together to present unity based on similarities rather than differences. Outsiders see them as one religion as it is. But the subtle variations of doctrine and ceremony have been keeping them apart.

There are renegades, of course. People who fear a loss of identity by getting too close to the others. The United Church of Neurotic Activians And Compulsivians, the NACs, are a case in point. They merged years ago when both the Church of the Hyperactive and the Church of the Obsessive Compulsivians fell on hard financial times. They believe they are the overall leaders of these newer groups and refuse to “take in the children,” as they put it.

So, two steps forward, one step back. Eventually they’ll realize that in unity there is strength and there’s safety in numbers.


Shrapnel:

--Quote of the 21st century’s first decade: “Holy crap. They knocked the whole fricking thing down.” This from a newly disclosed tape of an NYPD helicopter pilot or rescuer in the air near the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/01.

--There are those of us who don’t especially like Altoids but buy them anyway. The reason: the white wrappers and the various things printed on them. One says “In case of surrender, wave this,” Another says “Home for Troubled Mints.”

--This year’s Forbes 400 has just been published. All the usual suspects are there with four of the top ten named “Walton,” and two of the top ten named “Koch.” Full details probably Friday.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011