Charles Rangel

According to Charles Rangel, he has spent $2,000,000 of campaign funds to defend against charges that he violated ethics rules.  Now he says he is out of money and his lawyers have dropped him.  He walked out of the panel hearings saying he doesn’t have a lawyer and isn’t being treated fairly.

The funny thing is, when you ask “what is the worse that can happen” it doesn’t seem that bad for him.  If he is found guilty he probably won’t get booted from the House.  He’ll probably just get a public reprimand.  This may be why he can’t afford a lawyer.  The consequences are low enough that he doesn’t want to spend any of his own money on it.  Now that he has exhausted the money others have given him he feels he is “broke” or at least broke when it comes to spending money to avoid a reprimand.  I have a feeling that if he were defending himself from going to prison, he might be able to find the money or perhaps well that vacation property he has been accused of not paying income taxes on.

It would seem that this would be a pretty easy thing to look at the facts and see if he violated the rules or not. I think he’d save face by simply working with the committee to try to get things over with as quickly as possible instead of drawing things out and spending all of this money on it.  It seems he’d benefit from having less media exposure instead of more.

Tapeworm on State Seal

Here is a crazy ballot initiative being voted on in Washington State:

This measure would require the Seal of the State of Washington to be changed to depict a vignette of a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached to the lower intestine of a taxpayer shown as the central figure. The seal would be required to be encircled with the following words: “Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every tax payer.” The illustration would be selected from submissions submitted by taxpayers. (source)

How would you vote on that initiative? :)

Newspaper Sales Pitch

Brett’s story about a kid trying to sell him a newspaper subscription reminded me of this experience:

We were living in Grand Rapids Michigan in a nice neighborhood of the type that the Grand Rapids Press would love to acquire more subscribers.  The phone rang and caller id showed the call was from Arizona. I didn’t know anyone in Arizona at the time, but I answered anyway.

Me: Hello?
Them: Hi, I’m calling people who don’t subscribers to the Grand Rapids Press to see if they would like to start receiving this wonderful newspaper.
Me:  Hm.  Well I don’t know.  Is the paper any good?
Them: Oh yes, it is fabulous.  It is really something you need to get to be informed.
Me: I see.  Tell me, what state are you in?
Them: Arizona
Me: Have you ever read the Grand Rapids Press?
Them: No.
Me: Then how do you know it is any good?
Them: Well I’ve heard about how wonderful it is from the people I call on the phone.
Me: Didn’t you just say that you were calling people who aren’t subscribers?
Them: Yes.  Thats right.
Me: Then how would they know if the paper was any good?
Them: Ummm…

photo credit

India’s Commonweath Games

With the Commonwealth Games finished in India, everything came off much better than many were expecting.  However, India isn’t getting the public relations boost they were hoping for when the won the rights to host the Commonwealth Games back in 2003.
Much of the work was finished at the last minute and there was a great deal of negative press about whether or not the infrastructure would be complete.  Several top athletes decided not to come after the widely reported concern about the filthy living quarters and there weren’t nearly the number of tourists as they were expecting.

In the end, most of the events went smoothly.  The venues and infrastructure was completed and the sanitary conditions sound like they were resolved.  There was a a problem with the computer system that handled tickets and several events had a lack of spectators while being listed as “sold out”.

Unfortunately the lack of preparation made front page news, while the last minute sprint to get everything done didn’t get nearly the same amount of publicity.  Overall, it will probably help India’s reputation.  There were no major catastrophes at the actual event, so they were able to pull everything off successfully. The negative PR probably isn’t going to help India get the Olympics anytime soon, but the experience of working under a global spotlight along with the infrastructure that was put in place will probably help them move closer to that goal.

photo credit

Invite Delight

Matthew Cornell asked what things “invite delight”  here is my list:

  1. Nerf Guns
  2. Large bean bags
  3. Magnetic poetry
  4. The wall behind the music practice rooms at college where people have written messages for the past 10 years.
  5. Personal stationary
  6. Butterfly nets
  7. Kites
  8. The Logo programming language
  9. Silly Putty
  10. Large empty cardboard boxes