Aurora's UnderBlog

2009-10-15T07:08:00.001-07:00

So we got a letter from a woman asking that we not print anything about her arrest. She left her name. Thanks for the tip.

2009-10-14T05:07:00.001-07:00

Just another foggy, mid-Oct. Colorado day after a late-summer arctic freeze. Questions about global warming?

2009-10-13T18:56:00.001-07:00

Here's hoping my iPhone is happier with the new AT&T upgrades they promise will end my constantly interrupted ca

2009-10-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

Here's an idea: Completely deregulate insurance companies and create a reasonable public option. Let the competition begin.

2009-10-09T06:26:00.001-07:00

All hell broke loose in Aurora this morning. Multiple crashes and highway closures. What a mess.

2009-10-08T12:44:00.001-07:00

Don't judge Aurora's books by claims of a cover. http://digg.com/u1DuTm

2009-10-06T20:47:00.001-07:00

Huh. Microsoft Windows in launching its own smartphone, an oxymoron if I ever heard one. How do you call for help when it crashes?

2009-10-06T14:52:00.001-07:00

Whoa. Loveland opens tomorrow. I feel a sick day coming on.

2009-10-05T15:53:00.001-07:00

Gourmet magazine gone? What am I going to make for Thanksgiving? Reservations?

2009-10-01T13:31:00.001-07:00

PERRY: Racing to the ends of the Earth for a cure http://digg.com/u1DU5q

2009-09-28T15:17:00.001-07:00

Sentinel reporter Brandon Johansson says some of the jurors will talk about the Aaron Thompson trial. More to come.

2009-09-28T14:49:00.001-07:00

Aaron Thompson guilty of child abuse resulting in death. Story to follow.

2009-09-28T08:36:00.001-07:00

Swine Flu is decimating the ranks here. I just heard someone walking by with a cart asking us to "bring out your deeeaad"

2009-09-25T15:29:00.001-07:00

Ky. folks are mad about lynching publicity, saying media make too much when it happens there. Are there revenooer lynchings anywhere else?

2009-09-23T08:24:00.001-07:00

Story in tomorro

2009-09-14T06:16:00.001-07:00

SCANNER: Traffic backing up in all directions as rescuers work a crash at First & Havana. Crash involved four cars.

2009-09-08T06:36:00.001-07:00

University of Wisconsin has discovered, after extensive research, it's unsafe to drive if you have a cast on your right foot. Who knew?

2009-09-04T08:03:00.001-07:00

can't decide. Drive to KC for a load of Gates& Jax BBQ & festivals, or stay home and put new windows in the house.

2009-08-31T07:29:00.001-07:00

I waited all night for an alien abduction and--nothing. Now I have to face another Monday. I feel silly spending all that time in the alley.

2009-08-26T14:23:00.001-07:00

It renews my faith to see Ted Kennedy get as good as play as Michael Jackson did-except at the Denver Post where Jay Cutler leads.

2009-08-25T06:17:00.001-07:00

Cheney says CIA agents deserve thanks & praise for threatening to kill a terrorist's children & rape his mom. Glad he's not my dad or VEEP.

2009-08-21T07:15:00.001-07:00

I wish I was rich so I could care less whether whackos kill healthcare reform, & then they would have to live with the mess they've created.

2009-08-19T07:27:00.001-07:00

ACK! Gotta talk to the food editor. Lead recipe is for "Chicken Wing Confit" and calls for a quart of oil.

2009-08-19T06:38:00.001-07:00

Bless the cantankerous Congressman Barney Frank.

2009-08-14T06:04:00.001-07:00

The saddest news yet out of this recession is the loss of an independent Frontier Airlines. It really was a whole other animal.

2009-08-13T07:27:00.001-07:00

I'm hoping there's a new psych care benefit for health care whackos. http://digg.com/u1AYL2

2009-08-11T09:48:00.001-07:00

Home is where the heartache is for slipping test scores. http://digg.com/u1AO2r

2009-07-13T09:41:00.001-07:00

Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs a year, 70 per person. I had 1. Did you eat my other 69? Yuck.

2009-07-13T08:02:00.001-07:00

Nothing says hate mail like a column about Palin and Churchill. http://digg.com/u18Bdm

2009-07-07T12:58:00.001-07:00

The NRA says it has "very serious concerns" about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Any other questions?

2009-06-26T11:19:00.001-07:00

German Chancellor Angela Merkel tells Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "We will not forget this." I'd be afraid, Mr. Ahmadinejad, very afraid.

2009-06-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

Aurora's chicken snit just poultry emotion. http://digg.com/u16kxq

2009-06-23T08:46:00.001-07:00

Ha ha. Insurance terrified by govt. health plan& starting 2 panic. Music 2 ears of every overcharged, fed up American.http://digg.com/u16UM3

2009-06-09T07:47:00.001-07:00

OMG. GM has made the former head of AT&T the new GM board chair. THE PHONE COMPANY? Oh yeah. Innovation & customer service incarnate - NOT!

2009-05-26T06:58:00.001-07:00

Who needs the U.S. Senate? This just in from CNN: "CNN confirms Sonia Sotomayor as Obama's Supreme Court Justice"

2009-05-18T05:38:00.001-07:00

SCANNER: 5 inured, 2 critically on southbound I-225 rollover, north of Colfax. Traffic at a standstill.

Betchya love it

2009-05-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

How rich is this? Sarah Palin promises to write her memoirs next year. Really, is there nothing this woman won't do to ensure she never runs for public office again?

Please, oh please, let me write the title for what promises to be the definitive work on America's favorite piece of work?

Try these on for size:

"Darned If It Really Isn't All About Me,"

"They Call Me Salmon-Ella,"

"Kids Say The Darnedest Things On TV Talk Shows,"

"Sarah!!! Nonfiltered At Last,"

"Chocolate Moose and Wolfs Too: Recipes for A Conservative Paradise,"

"God I Hate That Tina Fey,"

"Six Packs For Success,"

"Crazy Like A Box,"

"With Skeletons Like These, Who Needs Closets?"

"When I Am President: The End Of Newspapers"

and my favorite:

"Everything I Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Really"

2009-05-05T06:10:00.001-07:00

OMG! Txting ban? How dumb r u?http://digg.com/u11Eb6

OMG. How dum r u?

2009-05-05T06:06:00.000-07:00

OMG. How dum r u?
You've got to ask that question after the state senate yesterday gutted a bill meant to get cell phones out of the hands of people behind the wheel of a car.
The state House had heroically passed a compromise bill that didn't ban the use of cell phones in a car, it just said that you couldn't use the kind of phone that made you take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road and spend 30 seconds or scrolling through dozens of phone numbers only to have to punch in the right buttons as you blazed at the speed of light along Interstate 225. If you simply must maneuver around other blabbing baboons on the interstate as you tell your wife, "Now I'm at Colfax. What's for dinner? Now I'm at Sixth Avenue. I'm so tired. Now I'm at Alameda and the traffic is — OH MY GOD. That jerk almost took me out. He's too busy talking on his stupid cell phone to ..." you would have to do it using a hands-free cell phone.
Making those demands on Colorado motorists , mostly Republican members of the Senate said, makes for too much "nannyism."
I can only thank God that juggling and accordions aren't as popular as cell phones because, clearly, your GOP state senators would think those are perfectly fine ways of passing the time as you navigate through school zones and perky little intersections like the one at Havana and Mississippi.
So these Live Free Or Die Hard members of the GOP agreed that it's not nannyistic to forbid teenagers from using cell phones while driving, just adults.
Talk about hypocrisy. You know full well these folks hand their cell phones to their teenagers several times a week in hopes they can make them work right. Teenagers can skateboard, listen to music, flirt and study for a chemistry final all while texting their pals in the rain. I know for a fact that the bulk of my fellow geezers down on the floor of the Senate pretty much have to silence the room while sitting in their big-blue chairs dozing off just to ANSWER their cell phones. There's a lot of mouth opening, shushing and redials involved in making a call. These are folks who probably shouldn't be able to sit in the Legislature and vote while they have their cell phones, let alone drive.
So you think that's pretty dumb? There's more.
Senate Republicans believe you should be able to knit a sweater or work the NY Times crossword puzzle while you're flying along Parker Road, but it's not too nannyistic to forbid everybody from texting and driving.
Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it.
Ding.
So how, do you think police or anyone else will be able to easily tell whether some idiot on wheels is texting or calling as they weave down E-470, and just how different are those tasks at 75 miles per hour?
Can you hear me now, Senate Republicans?
This guy can't. State Sen. Shawn Mitchell, Far-R, Broomfield, told the Denver Post yesterday that we must protect the citizens from an overprotective government.Oy. This from a state Senate that repeatedly kills seat-belt law enforcement because it might turn police officers into fire-breathing KKK members seeking out scofflaw blacks and Hispanics for recreational roadside beratings.
"I'm glad we throttled back our paternalism," Mitchell told the Post. "I still think this is a misguided effort to protect people from themselves."
Wrong again, senator. The measure was going to protect us from you. For the sake of us all. Hang up and vote.

2009-05-05T05:15:00.001-07:00

I survived the swine flu pandemic of 3:38 a.m. - 9:02 p.m. May 4, 2009.

2009-05-01T06:04:00.001-07:00

Hey, Justice Roberts, don't talk dirty to me.http://digg.com/u12B6j

2009-04-30T09:12:00.001-07:00

isn't worried that Joe Biden says we're all going to die. He just means someday.

2009-04-29T07:45:00.001-07:00

HAH! It wasn't a likely robber with his hoodie up in north Aurora, maybe just a guy with a Swine Flu mask. Cops still investigating.

2009-04-28T14:59:00.001-07:00

I'm such a hypochondriac. I have Swine Flu symptoms. Good thing it's not a hemorrhoid pandemic.

2009-04-21T05:53:00.001-07:00

Cheney unhappy Obama apologizing for agonizing Bush years. I'm unhappy Cheney won't see jail time for his misdeeds.http://digg.com/u11Eb6

Who's sorrry now?

2009-04-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

You've got to admit, whether you love or hate former veep Darth Cheney, the man has nerve. On Fox News, which is more of an oxymoron than ever, Cheney told Sean Hannity that he was unhappy that President Barack Obama was wandering all over the world apologizing for the mess Cheney and his little buddy caused.

That would be messes. Many of them.

"I don’t think we’ve got much to apologize for," Cheney told Hannity, with a straight face no less.

Naaaah. The Skipper and Curious George, only started one of the most expensive and disruptive wars in history under false pretenses, ruined the world's economy, held up any progress on dealing with global warming, saddled the world's leading economy with unprecedented debt, allowed grave situations in Africa to become catastrophic, seriously damaged U.S-Russian relations, ignored humaitarian crises in Haiti, infuriated the entire Muslim world and let the real Sept. 11 terrorist in chief, Osama bin Laden, get away.

Apologize? We should apoligize for having elected Tweedle One and Tweedle Two, not once, but twice. We should throw ourselves on the mercy of the world court for what we allowed them to do the planet for eight years.

Cheney, however, would do well to keep from drawing attention to himself and how prudent it would be to bring criminal charges against him. But then he wouldn't be the man he used to be.

2009-04-17T08:56:00.001-07:00

is choking in Texas Toast and G. Rick Perry's two-step.http://digg.com/u11Eb6

Texas toast?

2009-04-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

You gotta love Texas Governor-turned-Emperor Ricky Perry's Texas Two Step. During his do-si-do with neo-cons at a big Tea Party event on April 15, he played to a crowd calling for secession from the United States.

Now how un-American is all that? Texas Republicans were at the front of the line in Washington to saddle the United States with the biggest debt in the country's history, they worked hard to destroy the economy, lock us into the most expensive war ever and generally make the world hate us. Now, a new administration has come to clean up the mess and keep the country from seeing its citizens starve to death, homeless in the streets, and folks no longer want to pay the taxes the Republican president and Congress saddled us with. And Texas wants out of the union.

If these were Obama or Hillary supporters at these events, it'd be called treason. Letting Texas take its hate state mentality on the road seems like a pretty good idea at this point.

2009-04-17T07:36:00.001-07:00

feels sorry for the trees that leafed early in March, froze, releafed last week and are losing new growth again. Forget any apples in Denver

2009-04-16T07:26:00.001-07:00

For the second time in weeks, Texans are talking about secession. I don't hear any objections.

2009-04-16T05:53:00.001-07:00

just finished Ken Follett's "Pillars" novel. Kind of an Atlas Shrugged set in Medieval England or "Ye Old Days of Our Lives. Don't bother.

2009-04-14T17:58:00.001-07:00

I wonder if Martha Stewart and Joe Nacchio might share an inside joke on all of this some day.

My Texas Toast

2009-03-12T12:10:00.001-07:00

Well that settles it. It’ll be best for all concerned if Texas secedes from the Union.
Chuck Norris, a fine, fine actor and obviously an equally skilled political leader, wrote in a blog that he would be interested in running for president of the Lone Star state, should it unbuckle itself from the other rabidly liberal 49 states.
“I may run for president of Texas,” Norris said in his WorldNetDaily.com opinion. “That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.”
Hmmm. Where can I sign that petition?
I can’t imagine why Norris wants out of the union. It seems like the other 49 would get the best part of that deal. Maybe it’s that pesky U.S. Constitution thing he doesn’t like. Do they want to execute people without any trial down there? Not pay one got-durned penny in taxes to them revenooers? Deport anyone who doesn’t speak English, at least as good as they do?
Out of fairness to both sides, of course, New Mexico would have to annex Austin, but as for Lubbock, Dallas and every gun-totin’, immigrant-hatin’, Huckabee-lovin’ town in between, I wish them luck with the Republic of Texas. Please don’t feel the need to visit, annual e-mail updates will suffice.

So long, sucker

2009-02-16T05:37:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you, 13 is a hard age for parents and adolescents alike. Isabella had a tiff on Valentine's Day with her, ummm, boyfriend. I still have problems with that word.

Guys are such jerks.

Anyway, to save her from terminal sullenness, my wife suggested we take Isabella to see Twilight, which I cannot believe she has not yet seen. This girl has read ALL the books, SEVERAL times. It turns out the boyfriend has as much interest in this flick as do I.

So off we go to the cheapo theater to sit in, I kid you not, a PACKED theater months after this film was first released. Patrons were visibly tense in anticipation of what was to come: vampire love.

Oy.

I never struggled with inappropriate laughter so hard in my life. The woman in front of me was crying because she was so touched by the vampire love thing. Tears were streaming down my face snickering over tree-climbing, blood-sucking, puppy-eyed stalkers who had the worst case of psoriasis I'd ever seen.

I never got into the Ann Rice thing either, but at least with those stories, you got to spend time in Romantic and mysterious New Orleans. This movie drags you to the dreariest part of the Northwest where there's so many things besides vampires to suck the life right out of you. Halfway through this very, very long movie, I was ready to pound a stake through my own heart.

On the way into the cinema, I said to Isabella, "Do you know how much I love you that I would go see this movie? Now I have to break it to her that I don't love her enough to see the sequel. Sorry. I'll upgrade your cellphone or something. Parenting is hard in ways you never expect.

Rove, Rove, Rove your boat

2008-12-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

Now this is rich.

Public enemy number one, Karl Rove, the man who gave you Bush, II, is going to name the names of those who didn’t see George as being a “legitimate” commander in chief when the got to the White House in 2001.

Pause for effect.

Hahahahahahahahahah.

You can’t get that many names in an e-book, let along a paper-and-glue tome.
Rove revealed his intention today to CNN that he was going to write a book telling about how nasty “Washington insiders” were to he and George.

If you ever wondered just how someone who met George Bush would think, “this man would make a great U.S. president,” it looks like Rove is going to finally answer that question.

More interesting would be a list of names and tales about those who really thought he was presidential material, even after The Decider got his show up and running. What a piece of blackmail that book would be.

Driving on the Edge of Disaster

2008-11-18T06:17:00.000-08:00

Long gone are the days of huffy, right-wing nationalists shaking their heads as American after American drives home a Japanese car.

For decades, my conservative father clucked his tongue when neighbors drove home their shiny yellow B210s and sporty Celica's, one of the sexiest cars ever built.

He didn't think so. He thought it was un-American to send money to the Japanese. Unfortunately, too many of his peers felt the same way for far too long. They'd buy cars from the Big Three, even though the Japanese models were undeniably better cars all the way around, launching a generation of loafing car companies.

They ruined themselves, and now, my father's generation is gone, or has quit buying cars at all. To be fair, American car companies are building better cars. In fact, I would say many models are even superior to foreign cars. Experts say so, too. But there's so much further to go.

While in Spain two years ago, I rented a Ford Focus wagon in Barcelona. I cringed when the rental agent handed me the keys. I'd driven a Ford Focus before in Denver. It was a shuddering, anemic excuse of a car. It seemed that no one on the design team at Ford had ever worked together on the design. I'm not sure the people who developed the engine even ever had lunch with the power-train folks.

This was not my father's Ford Focus, folks. It had five speeds, a peppy diesel engine and handled like a European car. I had to keep checking the logos to see that it really was a Ford. It turns out that the Europeans would never stand for the garbage we pay tens of thousands of dollars for here in the United States. Ford is not only welcome to build cars in Europe, they've been pretty successful at it. But they must build them to a much higher standard, and fuel efficiency, than what Americans demand of the Big Three over here.

Now, the majority of Americans feel like I do about American cars. Most likely, the either don't own one or wish they didn't have to. So when the three auto companies that pay themselves and their employees luxurious wages and benefits comes begging for tax-dollar handouts, it's hard to feel charitable. Most of us don't want their cars anyway. Who cares if they go away and let the experts run the auto industry?

You do. Or rather, you will.

While some Washington pundits are moaning over endless warning cries from the Big Three and their unions that one in 10 American jobs depends on GM, Ford and Chrysler, the truth is that may not be the truth. It could be that only a mere 1 in 15 jobs depends on the survival of the Big Three.

If you're not getting this by now, I hope you're not in charge of the Washington bailouts. With the U.S. economy deep in recession and teetering on a real, honest-to-gawd depression, losing even one in 20 American jobs right now would be a calamity like the United States has never seen. That is no exaggeration. Immediately, the steel states would collapse, drawing huge financial and military resources into the region. Even during America's best financial days, it's unlikely we could have managed such a disaster for any length of time. But with the precarious state of economics right this very minute, do not doubt that the United States could some how shrug this one off.

I'm not suggesting that we just heave a collective sigh and write a check. I'm saying that the Big Three bring and their unions bring acceptable financial plans to Congress, their new banker, and get a chance to make good on so much bad. The plan would include real changes in auto designs to accommodate the fuel efficiency and performance we, too, are learning to discriminate for.

But may no mistake. Having more than one of the Big Three collapse, and it appears that if one goes, the others will almost certainly follow, will make us long for the days when another $25 billion would turn back the clock to where we are now.

2008-11-11T12:06:00.000-08:00

If there were ever a good reason to open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, this is it.

Our "friends" the Saudis are beating a physician every day for weeks to come because one of his patients became an addict. The patient, it turns out was a Saudi princess. The doctor is an Egyptian. The story is all too familiar.

See what you think:

Egyptians decry doctor's sentence of 1,500 lashes
By SALAH NASRAWI
Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt | Demonstrators in Cairo demanded Tuesday that Saudi Arabia release an Egyptian doctor sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes after he was convicted of malpractice — reportedly after treating a Saudi princess.

His wife said she feared the punishment would kill him.

Raouf Amin el-Arabi, a doctor who has been serving the Saudi royal family for about 20 years, was convicted last year of giving a patient the wrong medication. Egyptian newspapers reported that he was accused of driving a Saudi princess "to addiction."

He initially was sentenced to seven years in prison and 700 lashes, but when he appealed two months ago, the judge not only upheld the conviction, but more than doubled the penalty to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes.

Family members, friends and colleagues gathered at the headquarters of Egypt's doctors' union in downtown Cairo and urged Saudi King Abdullah to pardon el-Arabi.

"My children want their father to return swiftly and safely," the doctor's wife Fathiya el-Hindawi told the Associated Press. "I hope the king will give them back their smiles."

She maintained her 53-year-old husband was innocent and feared he would die if given the full penalty.

"1,500 lashes is unprecedented in the history of Islam," read one banners carried by protesters. "Who is responsible for the humiliation of our doctors abroad?" read another.

The case has drawn nationwide criticism in Egypt and local human rights groups have demanded that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who maintains close ties with the Saudi royal family, intervene to free el-Arabi.

The Saudi government has refrained from comment but Egyptian newspapers report that el-Arabi was treating a female member of the royal family when he was accused of "driving a patient to addiction." The newspapers identified the princess as one of the wives of Abdullah's nephews.

Saudi Justice Ministry officials did not answer the phone on Tuesday to comment on the case.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that diplomatic and political efforts are under way to resolve the problem, but warned that relations between the two countries should not be affected.

"The ministry is very much concerned with this case," said Ahmed Rizq, a ministry official, in a statement. "However, the Saudi judicial and political system should be respected."

Egypt's state-owned Middle East News Agency later reported that Cairo's ambassador to Riyadh, Mahmoud Auf, met with the powerful mayor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, to discuss "the status of Egyptian expatriates in the kingdom."

El-Arabi is in a jail in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and is believed to have received at least one of his weekly installments of 70 lashes so far.

Nasty stuff. What a relief it would be to tell these people that their "friendship" and their oil are not longer needed, and if they want to play with the rest of the world, they're going to have to place nice.

California Dreamin' for Equality

2008-11-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Nov. 7 election wasn’t unlike a big gala where all the giddy guests wander away after the gaieties rung in by the Obama election and congressional ousters of those who supported the Bush regime. As that last guest leaves and the balloons begin to float back to Earth from the ceiling, one of the guests stays behind, devestated.

In the good time America had in watching the country lurch ahead, tens of thousands of California residents were kicked in the face by voters insisting on illogical discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The irony is tragic. In a state where even the Republican governor supports the rights of gays to marry, a state that clinched the Barack Obama presidency, blowing the lid off of eons of bigotry and discrimination, just over half the voters in the state denied equal rights and liberties to their homosexual neighbors.

It looked like America had moved so far last week. But it just wasn’t far enough.
Americans just can’t shake off their odd preoccupation with sex and especially the sex lives of others.

Just like other minorities before them, the vote seeks to dehumanize gays and lesbians, trivializing their quest for equality by marginalizing their rank in society. Maybe not this year, but soon, and more and more people will understand that our gay and lesbian neighbors are us, just as are Americans who are disabled, Spanish-speaking, old or white.

Just as those realizations about blacks and other minorities eventually made interracial marriage legal and segregation unconstitutional, I’m convinced that Americans will eventually see discrimination against gays for the folly it is.

Give Me an F, but Hold the U

2008-11-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, talk dirty to me Justice Roberts.

He and the rest of the Supremes took up the matter of potty talk on the airwaves yesterday. If you missed it, the FCC and broadcasters are in a battle over a 2004 FCC policy that says even fleeting use of the world’s worst English dirty words will net the networks colossal fines.

TV execs says the policy is f****d.

Roberts, who without a doubt sports the tightest sphincter on the high court bench these days, says that the F-bomb and anything that comes out of your body that starts with the letter “s” is so obscene, that even spoken so fast as to cause a double take, it’s punishable by fines larger than the gross sales of most companies in this country.

No spit.

Roberts says the F-bomb is indecent because it’s sexual in nature and therefore off limits. What a boob,
It took a little deeper thinker like Justice John Paul Stevens to point out that most instances of the F-word actually don’t refer to the sexual act to where Roberts’ mind runs when he hears it, or almost hears it.

Roberts never worked in a newsroom or a restaurant where there’s much dirty talk and little sexual innuendo and even less sex, at least compared to the judicial quarters out here in Colorado where judges walk the walk and talk the talk.

I remember the first and only time I heard my father utter the Big F. I was 13, standing in the hallway of our home. It was after dinner one night just after Christmas. He was carrying a yellow basket of clean clothes and the hot ashes from his pipe emptied into the basket. I turned as red as the glowing tobacco wad that fell from his pipe and onto my mom’s harvest gold polyester pants suit. It made that kind of an impression on me even though I launched the word among my pals with all the regularity and consideration of heartbeat.

It doesn’t matter whether your f*****g around or talking about finding a way to be fruitful and multiply, the word and it’s associated synonyms are vulgar. I say, stay the course. There’s nothing like whacking even the richest of the rich with a million-dollar fine to get their effing attention.

Then we can all go back to pretending that people don’t talk like that.

Haunted by the Ghosts of Elections Past

2008-11-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

How different today would be had the Supreme Court not declared George Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election.

It could well have led to the same race we face today: Obama v. McCain, but there’s little doubt the campaigns would look anything like they did.

It is inarguable that if a President Gore had faced the trials of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Obama and McCain would not have battled about the Iraq War. There simply wouldn’t have been one. Instead, arguments would certainly have focused on troop levels in Afghanistan and whether the United States could afford to continue to occupy that country.

It’s equally inarguable that Obama and McCain would be fighting about details of how best to handle global warming, since Gore would have steered the country directly into the issue instead of being like Bush, who ignored it.

It’s hard to say what difference there would have been in the economy. Certainly, Wall Street would have been under a much shorter leash with Gore writing veto messages that Bush would never have dreamed of.

There would have been no Abu Grahib disaster, no Guantanamo mess, no spying on U.S. citizens, no Karl Rove or PlameGate. No one would have cared who Dick Cheney shot or what he hid in the office of the vice presidency. There would have been no scandalous shame around Bush illegally suspending the concept of habeas corpus, or having tortured prisoners of war, and hen defended it.

Now, the next president has to undo eight years of malfeasance and mistakes before we can make progress on what Bush was handed to him in 2001. Good luck, Mr, President.

Big Mac attack

2008-11-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

Whoa. The Mac IS back. Or at least he was Saturday night.

Sen. John McCain resumed his former self during a comic appearance on Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey’s reprisal of Gov. Sarah Palin wasn’t nearly as entertaining as McCain’s reprisal of who he was eight years ago when he ran against George Bush.

I had forgotten that he was funny, happy and sincere, just like he was Saturday.

It’s so sad that somewhere along the way, McCain either wanted to or had to pander to Republican elements far from who is really is, or used to be. It was that John McCain who would never launch the desperate, bizarre attacks against his opponent, just like Bush and Karl Rove did against him in 1999.

Maybe after the election, McCain can reprise that role in the Senate to help get things done, just like he used to.

Tell Me No More Lies

2008-10-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

Egads. Has the nation’s press loss all sense of our profession?

I understand that we are all under a great deal of scrutiny about how we cover election stories fairly and accurately, but if we allow anyone to say anything without any recourse, we do the country and democracy a great disservice.

I’m not talking about the hot and heavy political rhetoric that both Democrats and Republicans spew constantly, saying they’re plans for the future are best, or their opponent’s ideas all suck eggs.

I’m talking about crazy talk that has real consequences here.

First off today is Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who was convicted, and I do mean convicted, this week by a jury on seven corruption counts. The veteran GOP senator was already in a tight race for re-election, made more difficult by his conviction, and I do mean conviction.

So during a debate with his opponent yesterday, Stevens reportedly said, repeatedly, that he hadn’t been convicted of anything, that instead, there was simply a pending case against that was all pack of lies.

That is a pack of lies. And for newspapers to allow Stevens to say it, at least without prominently calling him a liar, is just plain crazy.

Likewise, top John McCain campaign officials announced yesterday that McCain had “closed the gap” with Obama in battleground states and they now had a plan to win the White House.

It’s a lie. At best, and this is looking at only the polls that are most favorable to McCain, Obama’s lead in states McCain must win has eased some. But to suggest that McCain can get to 270 electoral votes by reclaiming Indiana and North Carolina is just crazy talk.

By allowing this nonsense to make print, we legitimize it, and we lose even more credibility than do the candidates.

It’s one thing to let McCain crazily call Obama a “socialist” and to repeat Obama’s false remarks about McCain not understanding the economy, but the rest of this stuff is making is all look like Fox News.

You can just forget Election Day

2008-10-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Pack it up, folks. No need to lose any more sleep over the presidential election, Obama has it in the bag.
No, it’s not the incessant polling and cynical media calling the winning shot here. The Obama declaration comes from a much higher authority: The Weekly Reader. That’s right. America’s classroom news magazine took its quadrennial poll of kids across the country and they picked Obama for prez with a 53 percent to 43 percent vote.
You laugh? The Weekly Reader readers have correctly chosen the winning presidential candidate in 12 of the last 13 elections.
Of course that doesn’t mean America’s kids have always chosen well. They picked Richard Nixon and Dubya along with Kennedy and Carter.
I nearly cried when they dissed Kerry four years ago. This time, I'll just keep holding my breath.

McCringe

2008-10-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

So it's easy to see the John McCain White House shaping up fast. While Sarah Palin runs the Senate, keeping 60 pesky Democrats in line, Joe the Plumber will be running the world as secretary of state.
Joe, aka Joe Wurzelbacher, formally endorsed McCain yesterday and was later overheard backing other McCain supporters stating that a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for the death of Israel. Since it's clear his understanding of foreign affairs is at least on par with that of the next boss of the Senate, it only makes sense.
McCain sure can pick 'em.
It's unclear whether late-night host David Letterman will be appointed communications director.

Saks-pack Sarah

2008-10-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

No matter how much politicians try to persuade Americans otherwise, there’s no denying that U.S. politics is all about image.

Americans last week went gaga about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe dysfunction. The barely-a-story hogged the headlines all week and almost faded into the ocean of other non-stories about the presidential candidates when the candidate herself resurrected the story yesterday at a rally in Florida.

Of course Palin and the McCain camp say it was the media that scared up the story about McCain’s campaign paying 150 extra large to outfit the “frugal” Sarah Palin. That’s a lie. A good part of the money, as in tens of thousands, went to pay a makeup artist to get her on stage every day.

The story grew legs faster than Joe the Plumber could keep the headlines unclogged, not because the media was intent on peddling it, but because Americans craved it.

About the same time, the Associated Press unrolled an extensive investigation detailing how Palin wasted Alaska taxpayer dollars dragging her uninvited children on expensive state trips.

No outrage there from the persnickety public.

Instead, Americans died to hear about the expensive clothing labels the campaign purchased for Palin to promenade in all across the country.

First the campaign, and now Palin, have tried to persuade Americans that Palin’s the victim here. We’re all to believe that a well-meaning wardrobe agent couldn’t find anyplace but Saks open after Palin was surprised onto the political scene in August. What’s shopper to do?

So just when the story was about to die, Palin, appearing in Sunday Florida, breathed life into the wasteful tale again by telling the crowd that the media invented the whole thing, and that the clothes don’t even belong to her. She said she would never buy such things and that half of her fancy new togs are still in the belly of the jet that flies her all over the country to wear those clothes.

It begs the question that if this woman can’t tell the RNC wardrobe department, “no,” lobbyists from the insurance, pharmaceutical and oil industries are going to have a field day with Palin.
It seems that the only difference between this hockey mom and a pit bull is that a pit bull will let go of 150,000-volt live wire after biting into it. Palin wants to hang on.

Stay clear of these folks

2008-10-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

Holy cow! A new CNN poll shows that 75 percent of adult Americans think that the country is pretty much in the toilet. The economy, the wars, the healthcare system, the environment. You name it, Americans are convinced that we're in a very bad way.

But not all of them. What shocked me is that a whopping 25 percent of those polled DON'T think the country is going to hell in a hand basket. That means that one out of every four folks you drive next to, sit across from in a restaurant or get your hair cut with thinks that things are really pretty good.

Please, tell me one of those folks isn't my physician or car mechanic or anyone who I depend on to think clearly before fixing my furnace or even frying my chicken. What could possibly be right in a country where we take trillions of taxpayer dollars to give to the rich banks and mortgage companies so they will continue to loan money to other rich people so we can all keep our jobs and our puny IRAs?

What's right in a country where we send hundreds of billions of dollars to fix and build roads in Iraq, while they can't even manage to spend the oil money they're raking in, and we can't afford to fix our own crumbling bridges?

Hopefully, we won't have to wait until 100 percent of adult Americans can see how bad things are before they start to change.

Hate Talk Express

2008-10-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, Sarah. You go girl.

A new CNN poll hot off the press shows that Sen, Barack Obama has now doubled his lead against Sen. John McCain. One of the reasons why? Six-Pack Sarah.

Seems that I’m not the only one who sees through Gov. Sarah Palin’s own private language as a lame cover-up for not having a clue. Those polled said it is her ineptitude that is helping pushing them into the Obama camp.

Drill, baby, drill.

It can’t hurt that Palin is on the hunt these days, taking thinly veiled racist shots at Obama for having attended a church where that nut-job Rev. Jeremiah Wright blabbed sometimes, and where Obama attended meetings years ago with another nut job, William Ayers. At it's best, it's all about hate, hate, hate.

The shrill, almost seizure-like attacks are beneath even Karl Rove and Co.

That stuff may fly up in Alaska, but Sarah Six Pack doesn’t get it that most of America has moved beyond just tolerating people of color and instead actually accept them and like them. The deeper the hole Palin digs the McCain campaign into, the higher Obama’s lead gets. If she digs much deeper, she might strike some of that oil she and McCain are huntin’ for.

Now we know why the McCain camp kidnapped her for as long as they could. She’s out there today, charging up the base and making the rest of America cringe with her talk of saying that the high heels are going on and the gloves are coming off.

Looks more like that lights are all one, but nobody’s home. Must be an Alaska thing.

No Keating around this time, folks

2008-10-06T06:40:00.001-07:00

Hmmmm. This all sounds so familiar, and not only to me.
Let’s see. High-rolling finance types pour big, big bucks into the campaign coffers of U.S. senators. They fly them on fancy vacations for free to fabulous private island getwaways. Sound familiar?

There’s more.

After softening these senators up with big, fat donations, they then press these senators to lean on the government for deregulation. That way, they can use public investment for shady schemes. If the schemes pay off, the greedy finance types become filthy rich. If things go south, well, the government’s not going to let thousands or even millions of American taxpayers lose everything.

So these senators do as they told. The shady schemes fall apart. The government starts seizing important financial institutions. Thousands lose everything. And the government has to step in with more billions of taxpayer money to fix the problem than anyone dreamed possible.
A paltry few get caught and a few senators get their hands slapped for doing everything but breaking the law to help their once richy-rich friends, who are soon to be prison inmates.
Here we go again.

Finally, I’m not the only one who remembers how this all went down before in the late 1980s when the U.S. Savings and Loan scandal taught Americans an important lesson about the dangers of banking deregulation. It really wasn’t all that long ago that Lincoln Savings and Loan icon Charles Keating became the poster boy for S&L evil and corruption. Keating, whose nefarious schemes and plots cost 20,000 people every dime they had in savings, and forced American taxpayers to pay well over $100 billion to unravel the mess. But Keating didn’t destroy American S&Ls by himself. No, no, no. Over several years, Keating bought himself five important U.S. senators to pass bills he needed and to lean on federal regulators to look the other way when dealing with Lincoln S&L.

Ringing a bell? Yes, those were the infamous Keating Five. Those five powerful senators who had their re-election coffers stuffed full of cash and who took numerous incredible vacations on private jets to super=exclusive Bahama Isaland getaways in exchange for their, errr, “friendship.”

And has American forgotten all too soon which of those Keating Five scoundrels is running for president these days? Oh, yes. It’s John McCain, who nearly lost his senate seat after the scandal when he had to go before a senate panel to determine whether McCain acted criminally in the case. He and four other very powerful, very well connected senators had to undergo Democrat scrutiny and humiliation for their deeds. He joined other Keating favorites, such as John Glenn and Alan Cranston.

I remember the hearings as if they were just weeks ago, not years. Four Democrats and The Maverick squirmed as federal regulators retold how there were pressured into backing off of Keating’s bank. There was no way a Democratic Senate was going to press charges against four of its favorite and most powerful pals, and the Keating Five either sank or swam together. Republicans, all but one, The Maverick, howled because no charges were filed. In typical partisan style, the senate panel publicly scolded the Keating Five for using “poor judgment” in running interference for Keating and working to deregulate an industry that nearly crippled the U.S. economy.

McCain has worked very hard to get Americans to forget about his bad judgment in banking deregulation, and even worse judgment in what was clearly congressional bribery.
Well I was lucky enough to have my savings in an insured account at the time, and I got my money back. But I know some who didn’t, and none of us have never forgotten John McCain and his role in the Keating Five scandal and how those prominent politicians vowed to never let it all happen again.

Well they did. And The Maverick has consistently and regularly pointed out that he’s still the King of Deregulation. And there are plenty of people who want to let this man run a White House administration what will be first in line to try and clean up the banking industry so that this most recent banking debacle doesn’t happen again.

That comes only from the “you gotta be kidding” department.

I’m not alone in making the connection here. A new website, www.keatingeconomics.com, started up today and offers voters a little refresher course on just how much The Maverick had to do with the last U.S. banking disaster, and just how little trust you should have in this man to handle this one.

Sarah Palin made me pay

2008-10-03T05:47:00.000-07:00

I have only Gov. Sarah Palin to blame for loosening a whopping $10 from my wallet this morning, which I gave to the Obama campaign.

In almost 50 years, I've never done such a thing. Oh sure, I've rooted for my side of the fight, but with so many campaign millions, I never felt tempted to throw my pennies in such an overwhelming pot.

Until last night.

Nothing persuaded me that she and Sen. John McCain would extend the Bush term for another four years like Palin's debate performance last night.

Simply because the bar was set so low by her previous TV experiences, anything other than declaring war against Canada was guaranteed to be a wild success on her part.

I laughed out loud when, during halfway through a debate where neither her opponent nor the moderator had challenged one thing she said or directed one attack at her own bizarre career, she said she liked this kind of TV, where she gets to talk to "the people" without those pesky news folks making her explain herself.

You betchya. That's Sweet Polly Palin's kind of TV, where she can run roughshod over the facts and give it a wink and a smile.

Talk about more of the same. It's the same anti-intellectual smarmyism that George Bush brought to the table eight years ago. That man lowered the intelligence bar for president so low, that now Six-Pack Sarah looks like a vast improvement over the last GOP pick.
In looking at the polling from last night, I'm relieved that an overwhelming number of Americans could see that Sweet Polly Palin is no more ready to take the office of veep than she is to answer questions for real reporters. Still, unbelievably, a whopping one-third of those polled gave her high marks for her looks and personality. Like this is some kind of beauty pageant or TV talent show.

Oy!

Wake up, America. We don't need a bunch of GOP bowling buddies running the country. We don't need another four years of handing over the reins of the country to Big Oil and Big Insurance and Big Brother. We don't need someone who admits that she's only been at this darned ol' vice-presidential thing for five weeks, less time than it takes to make a batch of beer in the closet.

So, please, Sen. Obama, take my ten bucks and re-rerun parts of that debate where she says with a wink that she'd look into that global warming thing and get back to ya. Run the parts in the debate where she says Obama's push for diplomacy is "naive" and "dangerous." Run the parts where Palin winks and says she's gonna work on that rascally McCain and change his mind about drillin' for oil in what she considers to be just another vacant lot in Alaska that the rest of us call the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Notice how that last word is "REFUGE." Run the part of the debate where she doesn't even understand that she did in Alaska what Obama wants to do for all Americans, increase taxes on Big Oil so we can lower taxes for the middle class. Show America over and over, that she doesn't get, that she just doesn't get it — just like Poor George.

And for God's sake, teach Sweet Polly Palin to parrot something new or just give this odd bird a cracker.

Set your Staffords on "stun"

2007-10-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

You can just imagine what's left of the Republican Party faithful scratching their heads over "why in the world" would state Rep. Debbie Stafford ditch the GOP? And why now?
Stafford rocked her former party yesterday when she announced she was joining the Dems for her final year in office as state representative to House District 40 in Aurora.
She was elected as one of the last of a long line of moderate Republicans in the state. Before her, the likes of Gary McPherson, Paul Schauer, Martha Kreutz and a gaggle of Jeffco moderates had pretty much run the state government for eons. I can remember a few years just after Stafford was elected that she was the Republican Party darling, embodying what they considered to be "compassionate conservatism."
Then came the run for the right. Politics as usual in Colorado mirrored politics as usual in Washington. The likes and antics of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove not only became irresistible to some state GOP lawmakers, they became business as usual. The former far-right-wing fringe of the party took control.
What's a moderate to do? Jump.
As GOP party leaders pointed out yesterday, Stafford had nothing to lose by changing parties. She's term limited and she's made it clear her tenure in the House wasn't a stepping stone to something bigger.
They missed the point. She had nothing to gain by switching parties. There is no new balance of power in the House, where Democrats now hold 40 of the chamber's 65 seats. The move not only restricts Stafford’s political future at the Capitol, it pretty much ends it. As a term-limited Republican, she could at least ran for the Senate District 28 seat in two years. The seat is held by Democrat Suzanne Williams. Come next May, Stafford is pretty much out of a job.
So why tempt scorn from the leaders of a party known these days for not only making their own walk the plank, but yelling at them to hurry it up?
Could it be that Stafford was telling the truth when she said that her decision had everything to do with her own values clashing with those of her political leaders? Could it be that she thought it was unconscionable to vote in support of homebuilders at the clear expense of homeowners?
I think so. I think Stafford's bolt was a slap in the face of political party that used to enjoy the ranks of Elsie Lacy, Al Meiklejohn, John Love, and Tony Grampsas.
I don't see anyone like that leading the party these days. Stafford didn't either.

Craig tap dancing back into the limelight

2007-10-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

While just about every American has an opinion as to whether the now famous Idaho Sen. Larry Craig likes men, women or both, no one can deny that Craig seems to prefer himself more than anyone in the world.
Craig, whose unremarkable career in Congress exploded a few weeks ago when he was busted during a gay-sex sting in the men’s room at the Minneapolis airport announced yesterday he was rescinding his previous decision to resign.
"I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said in a written statement yesterday.
He may certainly be as effective as he has been in the past.
But the decision makes it clear that Craig thinks very highly of himself and his work at the Senate. He believes no one could replace him, or should replace him.
Besides, he pointed out, who would defend his soured reputation if he left the Senate? Good point, but other than Craig, who cares?
So now, Craig is going to stay in Washington so he can effectively work, even though he’s been tossed off of all the committees he sat on.
He’ll continue to collect his $165,000 salary to spend his days trying to persuade fellow senators that they’re all safe from his “wide stance” in the men’s room.
He’s likely to find it pretty lonely at the Senate during the next year and a half, and even lonelier in Senate bathrooms. Then again, maybe not.

Fencing a dangerous sport for Chertoff

2007-10-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

There’s one thing the famed Homeland Security Mexican Border Fence is keeping out these days: wacky weed.
And it looks like top leaders of the Bush administration are smoking plenty of it.
What else would explain Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s remarks yesterday about how good for the environment hundreds of miles of fences would be between the United States and Mexico.
He said illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States through Arizona and Texas are terrible litter bugs and the billion-dollar fence will save many a desert from their candy wrappers and piles of doody.
"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."
Really?
Since when has ANYONE in this administration shown so much concern for the environment that they would lose sleep over litter?
This is the administration that would rather turn the country into one giant Texas rather than slow the development of oil, gas and coal.
This is the administration that will stop at nothing in its quest to get at oil in the Alaskan wilderness.
This is the administration that gave up coyly looking the other way at giant polluters and outright fights environmentalists in court to shut them up.
This is the administration that has taken greenhouse gas cases to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to keep the government from regulating industries that may well end human life on Earth.
And now all of a sudden the Bush team is wringing its hands over stray pop cans?
Straighten out immigration laws by providing work visas and we can keep the garbage out of the desert and save taxpayers a few billions dollars by making it so people don’t have to sneak into the country.
Dave Perry is editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or dlperry@aurorasentinel.com.

We're all collecting nuts for winter

2007-09-27T12:36:00.001-07:00

I don’t get why Americans are so bewildered by the president of a big country beings so ridiculously mistaken, so lame-brained, so smug and such an all-around disagreeable schmuck.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn’t create his farcical personality from scratch, he simply based it on George W. Bush and Co.
Americans were nearly rolling in the aisles earlier this week when Ahmadinejad starting spewing his personalized brand of lunacy at Columbia University. We all wondered how Iranian citizens keep a straight face when he launches into craziness about the Holocaust being staged or women liking the way they’re abused in Iran.
It’s not so funny when Bush and Dick Cheney parade around the world that the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and “alleged” global warming needs more research before can decide whether to do anything about it.
And the lies, lies, lies. Like when Cheney and Bush made the media circuits for weeks telling people that Iraq was al-Qaida Central, and that we should all shudder in fear of Saddam Hussein’s finger being on the button.
How about the lies, lies, lies Bush and Co. told about secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe? Lies about buying prescription drugs from Canada? What about his crazy talk about Social Security and the lies he told trying to persuade Americans that the checks would stop coming unless we listened to him? And the lies about Haliburton? The oil companies?
And what about the craziness? The craziness about stem-cell research? Craziness that somehow some forms of torture should be acceptable? Craziness that somehow things weren’t as bad in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as the media was making out? Cuba? About Guantanamo? About “Old Europe” and our fabulous coalition?
Ahmadinejad wasn’t trying to make Americans mad. He’s just been watching TV for lo the past few years and thought that we liked political leaders spewing hate, lunacy and making it clear that he was just dead wrong.
It smacks of global hypocrisy if we scold Iranians for keeping around their hi-level nutballs even though we don’t seem to be willing to let go of our own.
Dave Perry is editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at dlperry@aurorasentinel.com.

GOP nervous in the service over Craig's stall

2007-09-26T14:38:00.001-07:00

Just when you quit worrying about your stance in the men’s room stall, the tap-dancing senator from Idaho is back in action — in court, not the restroom.
Has anyone since Rock Hudson tried so hard to be outed so he could deny it?
Sen. Larry Craig got his day in a court of law rather than the court of public opinion yesterday in an effort to persuade a judge to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea for looking for love in all the wrong places back in June.
The good senator was accused by an undercover cop of approaching him for sex in a men’s stall in the Minneapolis airport.
Craig, who’s been running from rumors about his sexuality for years, pleaded guilty to the charges and when the mess went public, said he shouldn’t have done it. Plead guilty that is.
All of Craig’s now very former fellow conservative Republican pals were hoping Craig would stop explaining how he accidentally nudged the cop’s foot, didn’t really run his hand back and forth under the wall of the stall, and how he is in the habit of picking stray sheets of toilet paper off the stall floor.
Now, Craig wants a chance to tell it to the judge and all of America at least one more time.
Make it stop. We already know that Craig doesn’t flush, and only his fellow Republicans care whether he likes boys.
Given that the veteran lawmaker is so good with words and has used a great number of them to insist he’s not gay, maybe it’s time to ask whether the senator enjoys working both sides of the aisle, so to speak. Then we can allow American men to go back to men’s room to stall for time rather than a date.
Dave Perry is editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at dlperry@aurorasentinel.com.

Wrong turn choosing the write stuff

2007-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, the follies of youth.
I’m sure what seemed like an excellent idea last week to embattled CSU student newspaper editor J. David McSwane, now seems a notion obviously fraught with flaws and peril.
McSwane decided to cash in his 15-minutes of fame last week when he launched the F-bomb in a headline over an editorial. At the time he made the decision to pull the stunt — reportedly as a way to draw attention to how apathetic we have all become regarding our right to free speech — “F” could have stood for freedom or fearless. Impetus for the editorial came from the Tasing incident of a college student who verbally attacked Sen. John Kerry during a Q&A session.
McSwane thought that exercising his right to write any damned thing he pleased would be a good way to draw attention to his newspaper’s opinion that too many students are too cavalier about their First-Amendment rights.
Now, “F” stands for, well, just what McSwane wrote, but in a different tense.
And tense is certainly what he must be feeling as most of the college and apparently half of the country clamor for his ouster.
There’s no doubt that the CSU junior defined sophomoric with his little stunt, but it’s a college newspaper where mistakes, even on this grand of scale, have happened before and will certainly make their way into print again.
Should McSwane see the light that what he did was a cute advertising stunt and a very poor editorial decision, it would be entirely wrong to fire him. It’s the second mistake that should draw lightning when it comes to human beings. Sure, the gaff brought a great deal of embarrassment to the school, the newspaper and to McSwane. But no lives were lost. No one was maimed or scarred.
As long has he admits the mistake, let him stay.
If he refuses to admit what a foolish error in judgment he made, then by all means, send him to the school’s marketing department where he will probably enjoy a brilliant career in advertising.