Foley's Follies, Borat's Invitation, Parenting by Britney, Less Grasso Green, Ozone Oh No, the Hip Accordion and more...
The Buck Stops Nowhere
When you are booted in deep and unique shame from a body already often considered shameful, it's hard to follow it up by surprising us on the downside. But Mark Foley has managed to do just that following his Congressional exit. Of course, we weren't expecting anything positive, but few would've predicted a move so gutless as to follow finally getting caught with a list of excuses - headlined by alcoholism and teenaged molestation at the hand of a priest - channeled through a lawyer's mouth.
This is not to suggest that alcoholism is not a real problem and certainly you can't help but shake your head in disgust as you listen the accused priest pass off his transgressions as something tantamount to jaywalking:
Father Mercieca told of skinny-dipping and lounging naked in saunas with Mr. Foley and massaging him while the boy was unclothed. He said that once, while on tranquilizers, he might have done something that Mr. Foley found inappropriate but that he could not recall the details.
"I wish him well ... Let bygones be bygones ... Once maybe I touched him. It's not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that, you know. We were just fondling."
Sounds like someone needs a Miranda refresher course.
But this story is not about the epidemic Father Mercieca represents (although one wishes that story had the media legs of, say, shark attacks or Tom and Katie) and it's not about the impact on the upcoming election. It's not even about the wanton hypocrisy that oozes out of this story's every corner. This is a story about an epic failure of leadership in an age when that trait is nearly absent in Washington.
Foley may have been abused and he may have substance abuse problems, but he signed up for a leadership position and that means that he had to be strong enough to overcome those issues. Period. That's what being a leader means. It doesn't mean abusing others. It doesn't mean continuing your pathetic behavior until you get caught in a net of such notoriety that there's no place left to hide. And it certainly doesn't mean compounding that dishonor by having a public mouthpiece provide a list of excuses about why you behaved the way you did. The timing of the release of his personal story of woe is almost as humiliating as his crime itself. Mark Foley is a extreme example of a continual failure of leadership, self-restraint and personal responsibility in an era when it frequently seems that the buck stops nowhere.
The Grasso is Always Greener
We hear a lot of complaints about the lousy salaries in the public sector, but Richard Grasso (former head of the of the NYSE) was pulling in YouTube like dough during his tenure. A judge just ruled that Grasso had to give back about $100 million of a $140 million payment he received on the way off the trading floor. And believe it or not, Grasso contends that he is actually due another $95 million because he was terminated. And no one's even bringing up the $80 million he pulled in during two years of his tenure.
and...
Sacha Baron Cohen, the man behind Borat, has officially been invited to Kazakhstan. From that country's Deputy Foreign Minister Rakhat Aliyev: "I'd like to invite Cohen here. He can discover a lot of things. Women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogue." (Sounds like a slogan that would make any chamber of commerce proud.)
Jason Kottke recounts Tom Friedman's five reasons why this is not your father's energy crisis.
The record breaking hole in the Ozone layer is now big enough to drive a whole lot of Hummers through (think in the neighborhood of 10.6 square miles). And if that wasn't bad enough, many climatologists believe that decreasing pollution may actually heat things up in the short run. It's a little something Global Dimming and it's a major drag.
Parenting by Britney
Forget the negative buzz. My wife and I just got back from the Britney Spears school of parenting and we learned some great time-saving tips.
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Kim Jong Il: Uh, sorry about that nuclear thing, NFL Dirty Bomb Threat Just a Hoax (which unfortunately means the Raider-Arizona game is still on), Breakthough Study: Mothers don't get enough sleep (but researchers do get too much funding), Big Marketers are already waiting for you in Second Life, Shakira's hips remain remarkably honest but she's no accordion player, Google goes from better to even betterer, Putin lost in translation, and NBC drops the cross from Madonna's TV concert (no word on whether they'll delete the last four letters of Peacock).
NFL underdog locks of the week: Steelers -2.5 at Atlanta, Cards -3 at Oaktown.
Any and all feedback on the new newsletter is appreciated. Have a good weekend. Back at you next week.
