Failing to truely understand

Well, I've been rather busy of late, hence no update. I missed the year anniversary of Conrad Black heading to prison, 1 March I believe. I was working in St. Louis at the time and hungrily ate up every news article I could find online about Black going to prison.

Anyways, he is still in jail, with nothing to do except defend his beloved FDR and the New Deal. Now, I know I did not write a biography on the man, I am no FDR scholar, but I know that the New Deal did not get the US economy out of depression. Nothing really that FDR did before WWII "got the economy out of depression." He brilliant did give the appearance the economy was turning around. He poured money in through the New Deal, but what got the economy out of its rut was, in fact, the United States entering WWII. Shipping off every able body man to war (paying him to fight) and employing everyone else to build stuff for this war was what jumped the economy back onto the tracks and set it off and running again, until it crashed into another wall at some point.

Before the country entered WWII, the unemployment rate continued to go sky high, people were still loosing their jobs. The New Deal did nothing to change this in reality, it actually made it worse because it made it more expensive for companies to hire people. The draft was what caused the employment rate to decline. The New Deal was a government thing, the projects were government sponsered and thus did nothing for the private sector. Is this country built on the public sector? Huh? No. Its more built on the private sector. And the private sector continued to suffere and die a slow death of failing under the New Deal.

This is something, I guess, Mr. Black has failed to realize. He has bought into the wonderful news reels of the era that basically are propganda for the New Deal and its so called success. I guess he's living in La La Land in jail. It must be nice. I used to live in La La as well, when I was about 8.

Still Behind Bars With Frizzy Hair

When I was called for jury duty two years ago and realized I had no idea what the state of the world's affairs were, I promised myself I would try to keep up on the news. And for about a year I did really well. Lately, I've been slacking mostly because most news bores me or depresses me, like it always has. I feel safe in my dirt hole from the big bad jury duty call.

But today, I felt guilty and I was wondering if Conrad had used it get out of free jail card as of yet, or if he had failed to get one.

He failed to get one.

So he's still rotting away in prison. When I read this, it made me happy in a vindictive sort of way. As I went back to the main news page and began scrolling, I notices this story: Ashlee Simpson: Stop Talking About Jessica's Weight.

Huh?

After reading the story and going through the pictures that got the "story" started, I was like, "Dude, she made a bad clothes decision. I stick would look fat in that outfit. God. Get a life media."

The only reason it caught my eye was due to the fact that I wrote about how yesterday Jessica stole my drive.

I've been looking at other people's wedding pictures as of late as well. It is something that I should not do for various reasons, one being I am beginning to not like the batch of pictures I had and I wish I had done more poses with my husband. Just the two of us. We only have two pictures, and he is not smiling in either one. Also, due to the rain of the day and the indecision of my father, my hair looked awful that day. I had taken a shower, then went to blow dry it and just as I finished and it was a HUGE puff ball, my mom was like, "We're not doing the family shots, let's go eat." And I was like, "I HAVE PUFF BALL HAIR! AND IT IS RAINING! I NEED TO GET THIS HAIR STRAIGHT AND FLAT!" She said, "Whatever. let's go."

So I put my hair in a pony tail and left. Two hours later, we had to do the family shots, so it was still in a pony tail. I tried to fix it for the wedding, but it was a lost cause. No matter what I tried to do, nothing worked. The curls I tried to put in wouldn't hold, and the ends looked stringy in a lot of the pictures and I keep thinking, "God, why didn't i just put my hair up?"

Thus, I should not look at pictures, but I do. I find them so easily as well. I am not sure how, because I am never actually looking for them, but I still seem to find them. There are times I wished I had taken the whole picture thing more serious, paid more attention to what was going on, but I let my father handle it for the most part. And when we met with the photographer, I felt okay and didn't think later I'd be sitting around thinking, "God, did I spend any time next to my husband at our wedding?" I also remember thinking when I looked through the picture the first time that some were missing because I remember certain shots the guy had gotten and thinking, "oh, good. I'm glad I'll have a picture of that."

Those all seemed to be missing. The pictures arrived later than promised. I was let down by that and then some of the quality, like the graininess of all the ceremony shots. Also, when I was trying to create a little montage movie of the pictures, when I loaded them onto my old mac, they became even gainer and horrible. I wasn't sure why and I cried a lot. I am not sure what went wrong and when. I loved working with the photographer and his work on his website is still beautiful. He helped make my wedding day the special day that I remember in my head....there are just pictures lacking to represent this head pictures, as in my head my hair looked great and I was beautiful. There are very few times in my life I've felt truly beautiful. I think its happened three times in my whole life. Each time due to my husband.

I've become one of those bloggers...

Oh my god, I suck at posting here. Anyways, my reason for posting: CONRAD WANTS OUT!

OHNOZ! How can this be? I thought he wasn't going to as Bush Boy for a pardon? I thought he was ABOVE THAT?!

Jerk.

Cravin' freedom? One should have thought of that before you GOT CONVICTED and STOLE THAT $$$$ and became a total sketch bag. Dude, was Radler always orange? If so, that should have totally tipped you off on him. Orange people tend to be sketchy...especially when they wear rainbow ties and falling apart shoes and have whispy hair and REALLY ORANGE SKIN. But, no, Mr. Black, you went along in the plan, got your $$ and then you went on trial because the SEC found you out and BAM, you are in jail and now YOU WANT PUSH TO PARDON YOU FOR BEING A SCEEZE BAG?

I bet Bush will do it. Do you know why? Black is part of the corporate world. He is a big player (or at least thinks he is) and he likes Bush I bet. Deep down I bet Conrad LOVE BUSH. And even if he's not on the list now, he might get himself addes at the last moment. Yet, if Bush boy is smart (which he just might be at some point) he wont' do it, as Conrad isn't very American. Or Canadian for that matter. He is British. And last I remember, he was really a man without a country because no one wanted him. Poor Conrad. Fallen from grace.

Oh, and I just like this for its title: Conrad Black is an Idiot.
Anyways, I am done ranting about Conrad Black.

At least he's not bored...

It seems, Mr. Conrad Black has gotten himself a "job" while he is sitting around his prison cell in Florida. He's been writing like crazy since he got there, but now he's working for the Daily Beast.

Whoa. First off, he wrote an article about McCain and how he failed when he needed to be totally hard core. He titled it "McCain Missed A Trick." Now, Conrad doesn't truly lay out a good plan of attack...he is mostly just using his usual huge ass words and waffling along. But he has generated himself press, something I bet he misses.

Today, an article on FDR appeared. I have a feeling Mr. Black thinks he's a major know it all when it comes to FDR, as he did write a book on the man. However, it seems he might need an editor, as pointed out here. I wonder if they have those in prison?

I totally missed this!

David Radler ran away to Canada!

I always knew he'd wind up in Canada and serve a shorter sentence for being a squirrelly little man that was orange. I wonder if he's still orange? I bet he's not. I bet he is pasty. However, he will soon be out and about, as in Canada he only must serve like 1/6th of his 29 month sentance, so he will be back to being orange in no time, do not worry. I bet he might even go buy some new shoes...or maybe just keept those beat up penny loafers he wore during the trial? Strange man, that one is.

oh, but to wait a little longer

Surfing. I enjoy surfing. As long as it is surfing the web. I spend a great deal of time (much more than I ought to) surfing around the web. I think I inherited this skill and time consuming hobby from my father who has surfed around the web since it began. He was at the forefront of web surfing, maybe one of the first to spend a great deal of time surfing away. He has always been web savy, always understood how it works, and always wondered at how its changed.

I tend to surf for the same type of things on a daily basis. I have my Google New page set up to aid in this mindless surfing for news stories. Yesterday, I was rewarded with all the responses to Mrs. Black's wailing about being betrayed by friends. The FT (Financial Times) seemed to agree with me. Or at least how I thought I had written my rant on her story. I think my favorite part when when he seeming spoke to Mrs. Black, saying on her snip about the appeal hearing that did nothing for proclaiming that Conrad is innocent:

Lady Black, it was an appeal court. Of course Judge Posner kept on interrupting to discover points of law when faced by a defense attorney rhetorically claiming that Lord Black had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

If you don’t that know this is how US appeal court and Supreme Court judges behave in order to get to the point, you don’t get out much.

Oh, how I laughed at that. It is so true. Plus, I always enjoy tongue in cheek writing like that. Another point the author makes here is how she's moaning that all their high power friends left their sides in their hour of need. Sure....you asked for it. As, John Gapper puts it:

She appears to be particularly hurt that their friends (and Hollinger directors) such as Henry Kissinger and Marie-Josée Kravis did not stick by them when things got ugly.

Well, if you choose your friends according to how important they are and treat people of lesser wealth or social status with contempt, as the Blacks were notorious for doing, then you should not be surprised when your “friends” do not stick with you through thick and thin.

This is true. During the trial, a "birthday party" for Mrs. Black was put on the block. It was mostly paid by Hollinger, but was billed as a "surprise birthday party." The defense went on to ramble about how this wasn't a personal party because none of their friends were invited. Oh? Really? As time wore on and talk of the birthday party worn on, I realized something: The Black have no personal friends. Every single thing they do, event they attend, event they throw is a NETWORKING FAIR. That is the whole purpose of their lives: networking, something I loathe from every fiber of my being. I understand its point, but in our world today where it is how you get anywhere, you hardly ever get anywhere on merit. One of the witnesses for the trial was a former editor...I do not remember his name, but he wrote a bunch of books or something later and got these nice jobs because...because he knew Conrad Black. He tried time and time again to tell us he did it all by himself, but that is just a lie he tells himself. He is where he is because Conrad told him to be there (like on the witness stand).

Another article worthy of mention is the Guardian blog, Greenslade. The article, titled Ameil plays Cleopatra in casting Conrad Black as Dreyfus. When I read the orginal bit of "fiction" by Mrs. Black (also known as Mrs. Ameil Black, or just Ameil sometimes...woman has too many names), I had some of the same thoughts. However, never seeing American Gigalo, the movie she referenced, I had no clue what she was talking about. However, the reference to Cleoplatra he makes, I do understand. Ameil Black is the queen of denial. The author Roy Greenslade closing paragraph really hit home:

He [Conrad] and Radler - who, at least had the grace to admit it - rooked investors while deceiving fellow directors and shareholders for their own personal gain. That is the beginning and end of it. Her attempt to portray Black as a naive innocent deserving of our sympathy because businessmen can't get a fair trial in the United States is risible.

If businessmen did no wrong, they get a fair trail. Isn't that how the system works? Did I miss something? Oh, wait, no I did not. I was there, I know I missed nothing that would proclaim the reality Amiel Black toots is reality. I missed the bigger picture, the bigger scheme that truly went on due to the system of objections and "that's not important!" However, as one ages and learns, there is always a bigger picture behind what is on trial. You hardly ever get the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You do get facts and lots of facts. You get lots of paper and more paper. And you get the picture that something sketchy went on and end of story.

everybody things i'm weird

Well, this past weekend I came across two articles that caught my attention simply by the headlines: Conrad and I were betrayed and US Judge Amy St. Eve Rezko Judge is a big punch in a small package. Both were found under my Google News section for Mr. Black.

The first one caused me to roll my eyes a few times. During the trial Mrs. Black spent a good deal of the time she was in the courtroom glaring, just as her husband spent his time glowering. Both of which were understandable to me, as neither believed he or she should be on trial an in the courtroom. Now, while this trial has been over for a year and Mr. Black has been moved to a jail in Florida, I cannot figure out why she simply has not accepted the facts and moved on. Something fishy happened. End of story. This fishy thing that occurred was...illegal and now you must pay the price. I do not believe the people in the trial were used as "a lesson" for others out there. I am not sure I know of a person who would plead guilty to something if they were no guilty of something in general. Radler might not be guilty of what he plead to, but it had to be a worst crime he was guilty of if he plead guilty to something he wasn't. The fishy character that Ralder is causes him not to be bullied and not to do what is not best for his own orange hide. This comment by Norman Farrell summed up my feelings on the article:

When people spend a career comforted by sycophants and servants, they lose ability to judge experiences with common standards. Conrad is convinced he did nothing wrong. Barbara is too. The jury disagreed. The Chicago trial judge, one of America's finest, disagreed. The appeal court did too.

Norman Farrell, Vancouver, Canada

The next artcile, well, I've read several like it. Judge St. Eve is really one in a million it seems. Now, I have not worked with many judges in my life, but I have heard horror stories. Judge St. Eve understand how to get a jury to work together and how to make them happy. To be on a jury (especially one that goes on for three long months) is hard. It disrupts your life. It causes you to live a different life and disconnect from the world. You don't go to work except one day a week, you cannot talk about what you have been doing for that time, while everyone alive wants to know and tell you what they know. It does have its perks, as I took it as a learning experience. I followed the Rezko trial throughout all of it, and while many people complained about all the 'breaks' the jury took, I knew why. Life must go on for happy jurors. If you have unhappy jurors you will never get an answer that is impartial and clearly based on the evidence. and unhappy jurors will take a lot longer than ones who are happy working half days trying to sift through mountains of evidence.

Another news article I was pointed at, was this one by Clarence Page, who my dad had worked with at one point: Paris for President. I had not heard much about this, other than a little spot on Talk Soup about Kathy Hilton's response to it. It is an interesting story, how Paris's plan for energy might be the best one out there. Well, who ever wrote the two minute dialouge's plan that is...

Let The Vauge Musings Begin!

Hello. First post in this new blog, which is a public forum for musings. Stay if you want, go if you must. Let's get started.

For a few months over a year ago, I sat in a court room almost every single day, listening to the rantings of lawyers. That is all I was allowed to do, as when it was all said and over with, I was long gone. However, a few months ago, I became slightly obsessed with the case, Mr. Conrad Black's case, so I began reading news stories every now and then to keep up on the matter. Mr. Black went to a Florida jail, Mr. Kipnis went on house arrest and started selling signs and the other two obvious went to jail at some point in their lives, I just do not know where. No one cares enough about them to say much. However, that so called star witness...what occurred to him?

Well, Patricia Best finally told me where he was in her post here: O Radler! O Radler! Where for art thou David Radler! The title is what caught my eye when it appeared on my news page.
I had thought that Radler was long gone to Canada by this point in time, as all the lawyers (the defense ones) made it clear that this is where he was going to go once he set foot in the American jail of choice. However, from this article, it seems that he's still wallowing away just as Mr. Black is wallowing away. Only, Radler is wallowing in silence, while Mr. Black is still making noise loud and clear.

Mr. Radler was a rather fascinating character on the stand. He had been built up to rival Mr. Black in stature and pose. He was a let down. When he showed up he was a skittish little ferret type of man who was orange. Seriously, the man was orange and wore purple and hot pink ties. Who was this man who brought down the Black empire!? He was orange! Just like the Ompalumpa's from Mr. Wanka's chocolate factory! He might have even been as tall as one. Least to say, he was a less than steller witness due to his being orange and not seeming to know what he was talking about. He was like a guy I once knew who lied a lot. He lied so much he got to the point he no longer knew what the truth was from the lies he told. It all fell together into a muddled mess. People got stuck in this muddled mess of a lie. This muddled mess Radler created got a lot of people in trouble, but there must have been some substance to him pleading guilty, as he did this and it was not in his favor or in keeping with his save his own skin nature.

The comments at the bottom always fascinate me on articles/blog posts such as the one in Nobody's Business in the Globe and Mail. People who failed to be at the trial always seem to fail to truly understand what happened.No one saw Radler as the people in the court room did. It is neat to see how people react to the whole thing. The whole situation was rather complicated and muddled and for someone who is not in corporate anything or a lawyer, it was almost like the people were speaking Greek. However, somewhere in that corporate nonsense, humans were still humans and something fishy happened. I do not think anyone really heard what that fishy matter truly was, but Fritzgerald got jail time for all except one of the guys he went out to get, so I guess at the end of the day, the fishy thing that happened was punished in a sense.