Sidebars

Sidebars has moved!

Exciting! Bob Sanders' column has moved to

http://sidebars.typepad.com/

Just click HERE!

American Academy of Achievement….by Bob Sanders

It’s difficult to know where to begin the American Academy of Achievement/EduCap story.  It gets enormously involved because there are highly intense Washingtonians in major roles, a family fight among members who underwent a name change, the refusal of a $38 million gift made by the Smithsonian Institution, and a murky entwinement of the Academy with a not-for-profit student loan company lends complexity to the tale.  There is, indeed, a lot of money involved and questions are being raised as never before largely because D.C. is looking at itself as never before.  At least for now.

It all began with Hyman Peskin, a great sports photojournalist, born in Brooklyn, who helped make the Dodgers famous.  The feeling was mutual since, as Peskin put it, ‘they helped make me.”

Following World War II and the Marine Corps., Peskin shot for Look Magazine before becoming the first staff photographer hired by Sports Illustrated.  Forty of his photographs appeared on the cover of that magazine.  Peskin also shot for Life and his photo feature of Senator John F. Kennedy and fiancé Jacqueline Bouvier brought national attention to the future President and moved the photo journalist into the area of celebrity photo journalism.  Hy Peskin snapped them all and came up with a fascinating idea.  How about a dinner party to which no one but the celebrities photographed by him would be invited?

That was in 1961, a year in which Peskin not only threw his first bash but changed his name to Brian Blain Reynolds so that, as the story goes, the American Academy of Achievement would not be perceived as being run by a Jewish photographer.  The American Academy of Achievement, after mediocre success, was eventually moved to Dallas where it flourished. Super celebrities loved the event--particularly since little media attention was given the annual soirees.  Unfortunately, a dust up developed between the former Hy Peskin and son Wayne Reynolds who took over responsibilities in 1885.  Neither the name Hy Peskin nor Brian Reynolds appears on the Academy of Achievement’s web site.

Peskin/Reynolds died in Israel in June, 2005 from errors occurring during kidney dialysis.

I got much of this information from author Ruth Beebe Hill, a fellow Clevelander whom I met shortly after moving to Friday Harbor, WA in 1990.  Hill, whose membership in the American Academy came after she authored the mega-hit, Hanta Yo, invited wife, Jan, and me to experience the American Academy in 1997.  Having been exposed to celebrities during careers in journalism and public relations, I had seen much of them while working for such firms as TV Guide, Playboy, Public TV and a number of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune.

Held that year in Baltimore, the four-day annual event was crowded with an impressive number and variety of strictly A List celebs including 24 Nobel laureates, Colin Powell, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Martha Stewart, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, Ron Howard, Tom Clancy, four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher, Naomi Judd (then more famous than daughter Ashley) baseball’s Cal Ripkin and religion’s Dr. Robert B. Schuller.   Clancy, a Baltimorean, was co-host along with Peter Angelos, fellow Charm City resident and Baltimore Orioles owner.  There must have been 20 celebrities for every guest and each event of the four days was positively choked with the famous.  I met Wayne Reynolds and found him distant when asked questions about his organization.  The event is now called The International Achievement Summit whose recent inductees include Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Peskin/Reynolds may have set in motion a well-intentioned and well-paying adjunct to his gathering of celebrities when he began inviting 250 of the brightest of the nation’s graduating high school seniors to rub elbows with the highly successful.  Enter Catherine D. Reynolds, a high-profile figure in the $17 billion private student loan industry, major philanthropist, controversial D.C. socialite, and wife of Wayne Reynolds.  She had gone to work as an accountant for non-profit EduCap in 1988 when student loans came largely from the government.  She wound up in control of one of the few firms that over the years has competed with federal loans now capped at 6.8 percent interest.

About every two years or so, student loan industry watchdogs take another look at EduCap whose status is fiercely protected by the Reynolds.  Such possessions as a $30 million Gulfstream IV jet, used for seven years to fly family and the highly-connected to exotic places, now has their full attention along with nagging subjects of the past.  They include her annual salary, now up to $1.2 million and student loans of as much as $50,000 with interest rates as high as 18 percent, nearly three times the federal rate.  Because of a recently initiated investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and Congress, the Gulfstream has been sold but not before it was used for free trips taken by such heavyweights as Senators Tom Daschle and Ted Stevens, the later before he was found guilty of fraud.  Along for 58 trips, including flights to Turkey, Sweden and Asia, was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.     

Catherine Reynolds, now prominent in D.C. social and political circles, is so controversial (critics say she has long been driven by a severe case of social climbing) that the Smithsonian Institution once refused a $38 million contribution from her Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.  That was in 2002 and there were strings attached to the offer.  The Smithsonian refused on the basis of the Foundation’s demand that it have a “hands on role” in the creation of a Hall of Achievers.  By the time the offer was rejected, the Foundation had already transferred an un-retrievable $1.5 million to the venerable Institution.   The Foundation has donated more than $100 million to noble causes.

Hy Peskin’s daughter-in-law has come a long way in achieving her unregulated slice of the $85 billion student loan industry made possible by soaring college tuition costs.  According to the Reynolds, EduCap, which now lends under the Loan to Learn name, has helped more than 350,000 students pay for college.  Catherine Reynolds says the student loan interest rate of 15 percent is for those of high risk.

CBS News carried stories on consecutive days early in March about the government’s interest in EduCap, its relationship with the American Academy which has received at least $9 million from the fellow non-profit out of which was paid, according to tax filings, at least $1.7 million to ASC Management Co., a firm with one shareholder: Wayne Reynolds.

What appears to be inescapable in the government’s increasing curiosity about EduCap is an entwinement with and ability to function under three different yet connected names: EduCap, the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation and the Loan to Learn brand. 

                                                            #          #          #          #

Death on the Diamond....By Bob Sanders

This is the time of year when snow tends to stop snowing, buds continue budding and major league baseball teams break camp to begin playing 162 games at least three weeks before they should.  Such is box office greed and why should baseball be any different in these times of abject avarice?

Baseball was a very special thing as I grew up in suburban Cleveland.  In reflecting upon my youth, I find it significant that my parents largely managed to hide The Depression from my brother John and me.  Fortunately, we had no need for bicycles and other things today’s kids take for granted.  There was never any anticipation of driving our folk’s car.  They didn’t have one.

Peer pressure did not exist.  Our lives, focused on sports, were simplistic by current standards.  We lived half-rural, half city.  We grew our own vegetables, made great use of a neighborhood library and took street cars to Cleveland theaters like The Palace and Loew’s State where stage shows and movies alternated for 12 hours.  While particularly interested in the big bands (Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Lunceford were my favorites), I enthused over vaudeville acts--some of them particularly amazing to a teen.  Willie, West & McGinty were a sort of Three Stooges of home construction whose finely tuned antics featured building materials swung or heaved about causing near-misses.  Another wonder was Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, a black dancer with a wooden leg.  How he was able to dance with such remarkable facility was astonishing.  Thanks to YouTube, his artistry lives on.

Allowances didn’t exist so I came up with money-making gigs.  I was a Cleveland Plain Dealer paper boy and created a money-maker involving the next door Church of Christ, Scientist.  Part   of our horseshoe-shaped driveway ran parallel to the church so short of parking space that members of the congregation used both sides of the drive.  Since it was our property, I began charging them a quarter and it added up to a nice Sunday take plus once-a-month Wednesday meetings.  Thank you, Mary Baker Eddy.

The most expensive thing I ever wanted was a Joe Vosmik glove.  The cost was $2.95 and many of my peers had one.  Before I got the Joe Vosmik (born in Cleveland, he was an outfielder for the Indians and later the Boston Red Sox), I leaned to play the game with a glove worn in the big leagues.  That glove bore little resemblance to today’s sophisticated gear.  Black and small with very little padding, it was made by the Rawlings Sporting Goods Co., no autograph graced its leather, and it lacked the kind of webbing which makes successful so many of today’s nonchalant stabs at the ball.  A single leather lace tightly joined thumb and forefinger three times.  Fly balls were caught with two hands.  Major league nonchalant stabs at the ball were something less than de rigueur and Willie Mays’ basket catch would not be seen until 1951.

I got the glove in 1932 when I was six years old.  It was given me by a neighbor, Xen Scott, a former coach and sports writer who played a prominent role in one of baseball’s most unique and under-reported stories involving the sport’s second major league death on the diamond.  Eleven years earlier, catcher Mike “Doc” Powers of the Philadelphia Athletics crashed into a wall while chasing a foul ball and died two weeks later.

In 1920, the country was not yet aware that the preceding World Series had been tossed by the Chicago White Sox, but there were rumors.  On August 16, with the Cleveland Indians very much in the American League pennant race, shortstop Ray Chapman was hit on the head by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees decades before the batting helmet.  A submarine pitcher with a rising fast ball, Mays pitched five seasons of 20 or more victories (he won 26 games in 1920 and 27 the following year) and shared unusual commonalities with the man whose death he caused.  Both were born in 1891 in western Kentucky in adjoining counties.  Mays called Liberty home while Chapman grew up in Beaver Dam, less than 100 miles away.

Chapman was an outstanding bunter whom baseball analyst Bill James feels was “probably destined for the Hall of Fame had he lived.”  Another expert opinion, authored by Cleveland pitcher George Uhle, suggested that Chapman, who tended to crowd the plate, had a bunt in mind when Mays’ slightly inside pitch struck him on the temple.  He took two steps toward first, collapsed, and died 12 hours later never regaining consciousness.

Except for a brief reference to Chapman’s death, there is nothing more of the tragedy in Ken Burns’ slightly flawed but fascinating book, Baseball, later a fine PBS series.  Much of the Chapman story was told me by my parents.

At the time of Chapman’s death, Xen Scott was the University of Alabama football coach.  In the days when big leaguers rarely attended college, Joe Sewell was a three-sport Crimson Tide athlete enthusiastically recommended by Scott to the Cleveland Indians.  Sewell did not impress the Indians at spring training in 1920 and he was assigned to the New Orleans farm club.  When Chapman died, his immediate replacement, Harry Lunte, played until Labor Day when he was injured.  Suddenly, Sewell had moved up two notches to become a major league starter under rather extraordinary circumstances.  The Indians sized up Scott as a father figure for Sewell and helped get him a job as a horse racing writer for the Cleveland Leader, now the Plain Dealer.       

Wonder of wonders, the Indians, sparked by the rookie Sewell, won the American League pennant and went on to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers for the team’s first World Series Championship in a competition highlighted by two records: the only unassisted triple play ever made in the rich history of post-season play and what was then the first bases-loaded home run.  The triple play was accomplished by second baseman Bill Wambsganss (Wamby in most box scores) and outfielder Elmer Smith hit the homer.

Joe Sewell, smallish--150 pounds, 5’7”--was a remarkable player.  Moved to third base early in his career, he had a lifetime batting average of .312.  An outstanding glove man and contact hitter, his batting eye was such that he averaged but eight strikeouts per season and gained the reputation of “toughest man to fan” in the game’s history.  A lot of Sewell’s fame came after being traded to the Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig New York Yankees where he played from 1929-33.

Gloves and bats lasted a long time then.  Bats were thick resembling Coca-Cola bottles much more than today’s lightweight models pre-disposed to splinter.  Sewell was an oddity using but one bat, “Black Betsy,” in 14 major league seasons.  So close was Sewell to “Black Betsy” that he took the bat with him at all times including restaurants and theaters.  Not only did Sewell strike out seldom (once every 63 at bats) but he probably went through his entire career with, probably two or three gloves. 

Late in the 1933 season, the Yankees were in town for the last Cleveland series of the American League pennant race and some of the ballplayers agreed to personal appearances at the Masonic Temple next door to where I lived.  It was Sewell’s farewell tour and my parents encouraged me to seek him out.  I did, taking my glove along.

“Where did you get that glove?” questioned the astonished Sewell when I approached him at the end of the evening’s festivities.

“Mr. Scott,” I replied.

“Where is he? asked Sewell.

“Down the street,” I said.

“Let’s go see him,” suggested the future Hall of Famer.

Scott had some years before left the employ of the newspaper and lost touch with Sewell after the Yankees acquired him.  I soon had re-united two long-lost friends who played roles in a rare piece of baseball history.  I didn’t realize what I had done at age seven, but I carry with me such good feelings when I recall that moment.

The Sewell glove and my baseball cards eventually went the way of so many possessions that became cherished with the passage of time after gathering dust, then disappearing but leaving behind vivid memories.  I still wonder when it was that the great ballplayer had used the glove in his pursuit of the glories of the game.

Judging from the look on his face when I showed him what had become my glove, I like to think it was Sewell’s first in the major leagues, perhaps the one bought or given him in Titus, used at the University of Alabama and taken with him on the train from New Orleans to Cleveland where he helped the Indians win their first World Series.

                                                            #          #          #          #

 

 

Future Press: Bush Leagues....by Bob Sanders

Future Press     George W. Bush

During these concerted attempts to provide the reader with perspective, it has become increasingly apparent to this writer that there are among us those who achieve such prominence that our curiosity about them lingers--sometimes becoming intense thus demanding conjecture about their futures.  While Future Press is  blessed neither with the insight of Nostradamus nor Johnny Carson’s Karnak, it does offer an opportunity to see into an admittedly murky future by way of gut instinct and a little imagination.                                                                                                                                                                 Bob Sanders                           

The Associated Press                                     

By Doug Duffus          

HOUSTON - March 25, 2012 - George W. Bush’s latest controversial decision as Commissioner of Baseball has met with resounding disapproval.  Having moved the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this year from upstate New York to a site adjoining his Dallas one book library, the former U.S. President acquired a setback when his proposed major rule change for the sport was met with marked disapproval after yesterday’s trial run during the Dallas Haliburtons-Chicago Cubs exhibition game.

Called Runner’s Option, the Bush rule, if accepted by Chief of Umpires Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, baseball owners, the players association and the U.S. Supreme Court, would enable a runner, who reaches third, the option of scoring by means of current opportunities thus registering one run or retreating to second base and beyond.  Should subsequent hitters advance such a runner to home plate from second or first, score keepers then would post two runs.  A special Loopholes Committee, headed by former Presidential aide Karl Rove, is investigating yesterday’s unfortunate collision of two base runners, going in opposite directions near second base.   Haliburtons’ trainer “Tape” Mercurochrome pronounced the injuries as “moderate.”  The Loopholes Committee also is expected to deal with the challenging question of what to do about runners arriving concurrently at the same base.

Veteran baseball observers had mixed emotions about yesterday’s test.  Purists of the grand old game pointed to a need for record book asterisks so that marks such as Hack Wilson’s 191 runs- batted-in during the 1930 season would not be minimized.  Former major league pitcher Roger Clemens, possessor of two asterisks and serving five years for lying to Congress, could not be reached for comment.      

The matter of baseball’s asterisk profusion has developed into what many consider the sport’s albatross.  Should the Runner’s Option be incorporated into baseball rules, three asterisks will be required to provide further understanding of hitting statistics including both a steroid user’s runs-batted-in and the run-scoring player--regardless of the latter being pure or tainted. 

The sport’s succession of asterisks began two years ago with half asterisks assessed those suspected in the Jose Conseco Shadow Era.  Conseco, a long ball hitter who played with the Oakland A’s and the Texas Rangers, wrote a book (Juiced) in which he confessed the use of performance enhancing drugs while accusing many others of steroid culpability.  Full asterisks were later affixed to those deemed guilty while performing during the Barry Bonds Era of Designer Steroids.  Two asterisks were assessed the names of the guilty in the Alex Rodriguez Heads in the Sand Period that immediately preceded the current Full Bore Unscheduled Testing and Water Boarding Era.  Sports fans will recall claims by some proven cheaters of the Heads in the Sand Period who suggested that their biggest juice boosts came from 10 cups of coffee and not steroids.  A lawsuit by Starbucks is pending.

Baseball’s tepid public admission of the steroid problem came 13 years after responsibilities were assumed by the National Football League.  Commissioner Bush has presided over the current (three asterisks) Unscheduled Testing Era as agreed upon by former commissioner Bud Selig, the player’s union and AIG.  The highly appealing home run, all but invented by Babe Ruth and now missing, has long been baseball’s weapon of mass destruction--now in a slugging meltdown because of steroid testing revelations.  So it was that Bush set about recently not to find the diminished weapon but to resurrect its majesty. 

Commissioner Bush, appointed by Selig and a blue ribbon panel of baseball owners plus George Steinbrenner, is investigating the possibility of increasing major league home run production by reducing stadium power alley fences to 275 feet, some 100 less than major league averages.  Baseball attendance during the past three years has shrunk 58 per cent--largely because of the economy, the steroid scandals and the resultant sharply reduced number of home runs.  Of added significance and reflecting unusual times and a changing sport, the hot dog has been replaced by the burrito as America’s favorite fan food.

Commissioner Bush’s first controversial act shortly after taking office in 2010 was to declare “mission accomplished” from the Haliburton Stadium pitching mound on opening day.  It was on that historic occasion that he declared Rummy Day to be held on July 4^th in all major league ballparks to honor Donald Rumsfeld for his unusual service as Defense Secretary during the Second Iraq War.  Despite gigantic prizes, including Enzo Ferraris at each ballpark and a media blitz featuring an appearance by Bush (he stumbled while doing the cha cha with U.S. Secretary of Shopping Sarah Palin  on “Dancing With the Stars”), Rummy Day attendance was an abject failure except in Tokyo where something was lost in translation among the promoters resulting in Japanese fans being treated to a Tummy Day celebration complete with free food and all the sake they could consume.

Bush’s roller coaster ride as Baseball Commissioner took on added dimensions shortly after the Rummy debacle.  Declaring himself “the decider,” the former President has been in favor of establishing a franchise in Paris, Texas.  Interviewed by ESPN’s Chris Berman, Bush admitted that he was confused by facts attendant to his desire to establish a franchise in a small Texas town. Veteran baseball minds appear to be prevailing.  They want the franchise in the Paris of France where, according to Bush, “they speak funny.  Heh, Heh.  I say let them eat Pringles.” 

 “The French are kinda lousy ballplayers,” continued the Commissioner, “and the French people want to look at local players, not some kumbaya kids from Haiti or wherever.  Heck, the French are so out of it, they still don’t have a name for entrepreneur.”

Another of Bush’s controversial decisions involved the Texas Rangers, a team whose ownership once was 1.8% his, thanks to $600,000 loaned him by friends of his father.  That was after the junior Bush failed in the oil business.  In a strange turn of fate, the Baseball Commissioner engineered a complicated deal in which Nori al-Maliki, former Prime Minister of Iraq in search of a job following the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and the country’s subsequent return to a feudal society, was made general manager of Bush’s old team.  It has been a difficult time for al-Maliki whose communications shortcomings include an inability to converse in baseballese.

While al Maliki has faced serious problems as GM of the Rangers, his difficulties pale by comparison to those of his predecessor, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration Michael Brown.  The baseball Brown was the central figure in a spectacular flash flood whose details were called “irrefutable irony” by syndicated columnist George Will.  The flash flood at Blackwater Park occurred while the Rangers were in the field during the seventh inning of a game played late last year.   Brown, who directed FEMA during the 2005 Katrina storm, took more than two days to rescue his team by helicopter from a dugout roof.  It was during those two days that Bush told Brown: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job, again.”  Perhaps buoyed by the Commissioner’s words of praise, Brown pointed to only 15 fatalities resulting from the flood, a sharp contrast to the 1,200 Katrina deaths.  Pundits in general were quick to point to Brown’s relatively quick flash flood response as a major factor in keeping fatalities as low as they were.      

Questioned about this season’s opening game, Commissioner Bush said he is giving thought to not throwing out the first ball but, rather, throwing out the first shoes--baseball spikes--rumored to be a forthcoming further measure of Texas justice.  He vehemently denied the shoes will be thrown at the Iraqi photographer who was imprisoned after tossing a couple of shoes at Bush shortly before the end of his Presidency.

                                                            #          #          #          #  

In Search of the Right Word....by Bob Sanders

The genius of the English language is that it is always in a state of flux much like fashion or the stock market.  Our language’s constant state of development is because English, charming and confusing, is in the hands of common people for better or for worse; further, there are more of them than, say, English teachers.

Most of  us are better at one form of expression than another.  Chances are pretty good that if you write for a living, the likelihood of being a skilled user of the spoken word is slim although there are exceptions.  One would be Jean Shepherd who talked and wrote funny; a classic example is his Christmas Story.  Both the film’s writing and narration are his and examples of his remarkable radio work (all of it adlibbed) are available via free downloads.

The luxuries of writing as opposed to speaking are profound.  Writers can sit down in front of a computer or typewriter, stare at the machine for any length of time, then, maybe begin writing.  Should the output prove wanting, then a cup of coffee or stronger may be necessary. 

Liquor more than once was a subject of discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist John Fischetti.  Employed by Field Enterprises (its holdings included the Chicago Sun-Times & Daily News), we were convinced that the booze muse by way of a couple of martinis at lunch made us more creative during the afternoon struggle.  I’ll have more down the road about Fischetti, my all-time favorite luncheon buddy whose enormously human work appeared in the New York Herald Tribune before he moved to the Daily News and later the Sun-Times after the Daily News folded.  It was at Fischetti’s funeral that he was eulogized by TV host/journalist Bob Cromie as “probably the inventor of the long lunch.”         

Long lunches were not the forte of the enormously serious general manager of a Kansas City TV station back in the early 60s.  We weren’t pals but let’s be kind and call the fatuous GM simply by his first name.

Joe had one of those out-of-focus backgrounds for a guy hired to provide television leadership in the boonies.  Actually, it was better than most--even a bit exotic in those days.  Joe had been advance man for Irene Wicker, radio’s “Singing Lady” who somehow missed being acknowledged in Woody Allen’s wonderfully nostalgic Radio Days film.  Check it out for a look at the effect radio had on people in the 40s. 

Joe had the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever run into this side of Alzheimer’s.  People could be introduced to him countless times and he could never get their names straight.  How he maintained employment with his publishing empire owners was beyond the ken of most who knew him.  Of help, of course, was TV’s being the original cash cow in the days when the competition in typical big city situations was a couple of other stations.

Guys like Joe always seem to have a Kick-Me to push around.  For those who don’t know, cartoonist Al Capp invented the Kick-Me for “Lil’ Abner,” a long-running cartoon strip.  Weighted on the bottom, the Kick-Me always bounced back when delivered a boot or punch.  Eventually, the Kick-Me was manufactured and is now a collectable.

Joe’s Kick-Me was Mike whose Herculean last name (Strawn) suggested he might earn his keep as a private eye, professional football player or rodeo cowboy.  Wrong.  Mike was a long-suffering promotion manager of the CBS affiliate and if he wasn’t playing indentured servant to Joe’s plantation owner, he was attempting to right one of his boss’s wrongs.

The one thing Joe feared more than anything was intense criticism from women--particularly those with children who might witness something untoward on his station.  One day Joe appeared at a luncheon held in a restaurant on the edge of Country Club Plaza--one of Kansas City’s upscale areas still considered a major attraction.  Among those gathered was your faithful scribe, then employed by TV Guide, plus a large collection of PTA women representing a great many of the community’s schools.  Before each of them was a massive array of papers put together by Strawn to strengthen the suggestion that Joe’s programming for children could be trusted.  A master of detail and very much of the opinion that sheer weight can often win the day, Joe had demanded and received massive proof of his station’s superiority including  impressive charts, graphs and diagrams involving every possible aspect of television that made KCMO a buy impossible for advertisers to ignore.  Joe beamed as Mike gave his usual groveling and unctuous introduction.

Joe the GM got off to predictably stumbling start, drifted into some unfathomable communications jive indicating, as best I could tell, that he was essentially up with up and down with down and then kicked into high gear.  “Ladies,” he intoned waving on high evidence of his station’s deepest held principles, “I want all of you to grab your diaphragms.”

Tiny titters were enjoined by polite giggles in turn by somewhat controlled guffaws all of which converged with wild explosions of laughter--real belly busters.  Members of the audience were repeating what had been said to those whose minds had been benumbed by the executive’s earlier attempts to communicate.

Not used to creating uproars and stunned by the audience reaction, Joe didn’t have a clue regarding what he had said.  The tsunami of hilarity had developed into such a perfect storm of uncontrolled laughter that the speaker couldn’t go on.  Finally, Mike, seated at the head table, approached his boss explaining the situation.  Things finally quieted down and the red-faced general manager continued.

During my own searches for what I hope is the right word, the memory of Joe and the greatest laugh I’ve ever witnessed often returns.  In terms of audience reaction, it was better than anything I’ve heard out of Shecky Greene, Carol Burnett or Richard Pryor. 

Some humor is simply beyond clever writing and delivery. 

                                                            #          #          #          #    

 

                    

Sidebars Wunderbar Weather Blogging....by Bob Sanders

I have what minimal observation must reveal is a less-than-normal (whatever that means) relationship with the computer.  I guess it’s mostly a matter of wanting to take full advantage of my sense of wonder about it while having a severe fear of it taking advantage of me.  It’s sort of like Hugh Hefner and women.

While my reluctant embrace of the machine is what Johnny Carson would have called  “a caution,” a son of mine is another matter; his commitment is so pronounced that I told him recently I fully expect his rather spectacular departure from this world will be in his room of exotic electronic equipment where he will be swallowed headfirst by one of his machines.

With legs pointed heavenward, his last moments will be memorable as he disappears--never again to battle viruses and worms, to experience the thrill of hibernating a laptop, the spine-tingling passion inherent in downloading bad music, the fascination of pimping your flip (I’m assured there is such a procedure), the exhilaration of encryption conniptions, the smug satisfaction of VOIPing, Phishing and, maybe best of all, Skypeing.  One wonders if down the road awaits a 30,000 foot club of exclusives who do their Skypeing at that altitude.

While I am pretty good at the pursuit of information on the internet, I am also so lacking in hipness as a neophyte in the computer world that I continue to fall far behind in understanding its rich nomenclature, road marks in its intense development.  For example, I don’t know how to twitter but wonder if twits have a leg up on such adventures?  Further, I have a terrible time doing simple things like forwarding my neighborhood activist information to the local daily.  The Guide Meridian/Cordata Neighborhood Association has monthly general meetings except during summers when we give everyone a break and take advantage of Bellingham’s hard to beat weather at that time of year.  Anything short of summer is something else but we won’t go into such Chamber of Commerce downers at this time.

We ‘hamsters, as we call ourselves, are a sturdy lot.  Blue collar and all the clichés that go with the description, we are inclined to be impressed more by: a good hamburger than a filet mignon; jeans rather than something shiny from Italy; and local entertainers like the Cody Rivers Show at the Idiom Theater where 10 bucks gets you much better than the mediocrity of $60 road shows at the Mt. Baker Theater.  There is a prevailing honesty in Bellingham difficult to understand unless you live here.

Fourth Corner living, often chancy weather-wise, offered some unexpected snow 10 days ago.  Decidedly a surprise, the left jab of a storm had enough intensity to suggest checking in with that wonderful little Google slot that tells you just about anything you want to know about the local weather and more.  All you have to do is give the computer your zip code and voila--five days of details.  Aware that just about any five days in a row these days will offer 60 to 90 percent chance of rain or snow, ‘hamsters don’t pay a lot of attention to weather reports.  As I continued my Googling, I came upon a plaintive announcement carrying with it both urgency and challenge.  It turns out there is a close cadre of weather bloggers and Bellingham, City of Subdued Excitement, is currently without anyone willing to get involved with what is known as Wunder Blog!  The exclamation mark is not mine.

It quickly became apparent that an idea so fulsome of opportunity would make rejection of it difficult.  As readers of this space are aware, I have cast myself in the role of Bellingham protector, guardian against sprawl and a firm believer that you can’t beat laughter.  Part of my protectionist spirit was inspired nearly 20 years ago by best-selling author Ernie Gann, a San Juan Island neighbor.  Ernie would never tell nosy journalists (now, there’s a highly apt oxymoron) where he lived for fear even more people would move to the island further disrupting his tranquil life.

Buying into Gann’s philosophy of protection, it made sense 15 years later that I would do the same for Bellingham after moving here.  Among my ideas is a disinformation program that would accentuate the negative.  Because mottos are so important to cities, it has for some time been my thought that Bellingham’s unofficial one be abandoned in favor of something more dramatic like “Tony Soprano’s Kinda Town.”

Having chanced upon Wunder Blog!, I came up with further inspiration through the readings of such weather bloggers as BangorWalker, Fshfan’s Wunder Blog, HadesGodMyvern (he checks in from Western Australia) and Charlesimages.  The latter, originating in Cedar Springs, Michigan, offers stories, often not weather-related, like the time a teen-age Charles was practicing lassoing and decided to test his skills on an outhouse.  He managed to rope the air conditioned toilet, finally overturning it with a healthy tug.  The results were rather surprising: his father was in it.

BangorWalker is really into the weather.  Presumably located in Bangor, Maine, he keeps tidy records of such things as daily highs and lows, record highs and lows and record snows.  Being able to crank up the computer to reveal that Bangor’s all-time one-day record snow of 16.5 inches on February 25, 1969 should augur a sense of relief down the road when only 10 or 12 inches of the white stuff falls in a day.

Some of the weather enthusiasts aren’t nearly so caught up in the subject, but do enjoy the outdoors and/or looking at pictures, the latter a major weather blogging offering.  Take TukwilaCathy, whose most recent communiqué in late February, reported that Seattle-Tukwila was “showers,” some .34 inches of rain having fallen.  A further revelation was a high temperature of 48 that day and a low of 44.  For those with a sense of history, we were informed that the key numbers a year ago were 56 and 41 with no rain.  TukwilaCathy appears

to be rather casual in her weather blogging duties while offering a decided contrast to BangorWalker.  It may be that she has better things to do since her prior report was made on Dec. 15 of last year, a development not likely to qualify her for a web page listing as the author of a Featured Blog.

Featured Bloggers of Wunder Blog! apparently are the elite of those who pursue weather information.  One of its leaders is Dr. Jeff Masters who writes about such things as “Weather and Mortality.”  The major conclusion of a survey, recently reviewed by Masters, suggests that people living in rural areas are more likely to die from a natural disaster than those living in cities.  As conclusions go, this appears to rank right up there with fish got to swim and birds got to fly. 

Wunder Bloggers! refer to themselves as Underground Weathermen, a name whose origins give pause.  It was the radical Underground Weathermen who’s Days of Rage included one on October 8, 1969--a year and change after Chicago cops acquired some bad PR while participating in the Democratic National Convention riots.  I remember it well.  Employed by Playboy Enterprises, I had attended a party at Hugh Hefner’s residence on North State Parkway.  Upon leaving, I recall every car within sight had broken windows except mine that bore a Playboy logo.

The upshot of all this is that it appears I have the opportunity to be a weather blogger and help make America aware of all the bad weather that happens in Subdued City.  Our numbers are stunning and the release of such information, touched up a bit here and there as my imagination prompts, should help keep the horrific hordes away from our fair city.  This innate ability to create fear and loathing among potential residents carries grave responsibilities.

Those responsibilities should include attempts to get follow-up stories in the local press about some of the people who suffered various inequities during the January gullywasher that tormented Bellingham.  Of course, journalistically speaking, it appears that follow-up stories these days too often go the way of follow-up questions.

Regardless of how much interest you have in the weather, its erratic transitions and professional attempts to forecast it, I’m inclined to go along with what was George Carlin’s prediction for any given night: dark.

                                                            #          #          #          #         

2 

  

Of Cheap Land & Sanford Jarrell....by Bob Sanders

It was while watching the magnificent Lawrence of Arabia the other day that I began thinking about desert land and the world’s extraordinary abundance of it.  Reasonably observant but not entirely sure of my facts, it would appear there is more sand in Lawrence than snow in Dr. Zhivago.  Maybe that’s one for trivia buffs? 

Interestingly, while many of us tend to think of our country becoming increasingly crowded, the truth is there is an enormous amount of land that, while habitable, has little or no present value.  Take Bent County, Colorado, a four-hour drive southeast of Denver.  The most recent census figures show 6,000 people living in Bent County--half of them in Las Animas, hard by the Arkansas River and just west of where the Purgatory River flows into the Arkansas.  It’s easy to imagine developers, wishing to push east, expressing chagrin over the river’s name and finding it difficult to envision intrinsic curb appeal for realtors to extol as in: “Just think.  You can live on the edge of Purgatory.”  A realtor hawking property without curb appeal is like a pitcher lacking a curve ball.         

 Each year I receive a tax notice from Alta Mae Brown, Bent County Treasurer.  The annual assessment for what I understand are 80 arid acres  in Tax District 25 amounts to $10.69 and each year I send a check to Alta Mae.  I even have the option of making payments every six months but I resist on the basis of wanting to appear magnanimous about it.   Although I’ve never visited my inherited property, I find there’s something reassuring about paying 10 bucks and change each of every 20 years to retain my legal possession of 80 acres.  In addition, paying my Bent County taxes enables me to vent even greater anger over politicians, bankers and CEOs who forget to pay theirs. 

The land became mine when Mickey, my second wife, died.  A couple of years later, I called Alta Mae wondering if I should do something about placing the land in my possession. The Bent County Treasurer was casually agreeable and my tax notices began coming to Mary Jarrell Sheridan  c/o Robert H. Sanders.  I guess that’s progress.

Things haven’t been as one-sided as they might appear, Bent County-wise.  I’ve twice been the beneficiary of what turned out to be failed attempts to find oil beneath the land.  The rental has added up to something approaching four times the 20-year total of my annual chump change payments.  It’s also good to get reminders each year that my money is being distributed to such worthy causes as School District RE-2, the Hasty McClave Fire Department and the Bent Prowers Cemetery.  The cemetery is getting 32 cents from me this year and it seems reasonable.  Getting up there in years, I may investigate more serious aspects of the big sleep opportunities there whose confines, to make W.C. Fieldsian jest, might very well pale by comparison to Philadelphia.

My land was originally purchased by Mickey’s father Arch Jarrell.  A rather well-known mid-western editor, Arch was press secretary to Alf Landon during one of those Republican failures achieved running against Franklyn D. Roosevelt.  Being beaten in 1936 by Roosevelt (FDR won all but Maine and Vermont) was the political equivalent of being a member of heavyweight champ Joe Louis’s Bum of the Month Club. 

Arch was one of three brothers--all of them journalists.  Jack Jarrell, a long-time Washington bureau chief of the Omaha World-Herald, spent 50 years in the business, then eased into  something of a second career: acting in movies, TV series and commercials.

Then there was Sanford, the reportorial reprobate of the family who gained more fame of sorts than the others.  Employed by the New York Herald Tribune, Sanford Jarrell titillated readers in August, 1924 with a series of front page reports about a fabulous gambling ship off Fire Island beyond the 12-mile limit.  The ship, the Friedrich der Grosse, came complete with ladies of the evening who danced on tables amid Niagaras of liquor.  Sanford’s only clue concerning the veracity of the series came from a red-headed flapper who reportedly shouted an unlikely line: “This is an epic lark.”

The story was a series of falsehoods originating in Jarrell’s fervid imagination.  He had phoned all of it in--mostly from a bar not far from the paper.  He lost his job, became an itinerant newsman, and died in a fire caused by his cigarette.  Time magazine’s obituary included a picture of the Herald Tribune’s play of Sanford’s entertaining deceit.  His call-in coverage had produced a headline reading: “Wine, Women, Jazz and Revelry Turn Night to Day on Mystery Ship.”  Those were Prohibition days when thirsts were parched by illegal booze.

One of the strangest things about Sanford’s post-Herald Tribune life involved an approach by William Randolph Hearst, an early practitioner of “yellow journalism” whose current approximation would be that of Rupert Murdoch.  Impressed by Sanford’s front-page fiction, Hearst offered the writer a job cranking out scripts at Cosmopolitan Pictures for great good actress friend Marion Davies.  Sanford turned him down, according to family lore.

One evening in 1978 while employed by Field Enterprises, I was having dinner with Stuart Loory and his wife.  Field owned the Chicago Sun-Times and Loory was its managing editor.  A particularly tenacious newspaperman, Loory had a resume that included a gig with Sanford Jarrell’s late and decidedly lamented paper.  Mickey was with me, the conversation turned to great newspaper hoaxes and I made passing reference to his old paper’s deception of the 20’s.

“That was the magnificent hoax of all newspaper hoaxes,” declared Loory who today is a Professor of Magazine Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism.  “It was pulled off in remarkable fashion by a reporter named Sanford Jarrell.”

Warming to Loory’s chortling enthusiasm, I said: “Stuart, my friend, you are sitting next to the niece of Sanford, the black sheep of the Jarrell family.”  Loory was impressed.  Mickey beamed and we hoisted one to Sanford.  In toasting the juiced journalist, we concluded he had upheld at least half of a once popular publishing dictum: “Liquor is the curse of the Herald Tribune and sex is the bane of the Times.”

                                                            #          #          #          #

    

Self-Absorption....by Bob Sanders

Having posted observations since last July, I must confess a nagging uneasiness about the name of what it is I do: blog.  Without putting too much emphasis on my confusion, the word blog, as defined by something called Free Dictionary by Farlex, suggests it is diary-like as in: “I blogged today and told you and the rest of the world about how much weight I’ve already lost this week.  Between that and some awesome clothes I almost bought and this diary being about the most important thing in my life, I’ve been busy, busy, busy.  Seen any good movies lately?”

The Free Dictionary is provided by MSN to whom I am indebted for the magic at my often stumbling fingertips.  I’ve used FD but once for the above and that because I’m a feely sort of communicator who prefers reaching for Webster’s Dictionary, my old standby.  For whatever it’s worth, I find it deliciously ironic that neither Webster’s nor another reliable, Spell Check, recognize the word blog or any of its offshoots.   While the case can be made that such forms of blogging as diaries are democracy in action, my hope is that we can create classifications that will set various approaches to blogging apart.  Not attempting to come off as some kind of Fourth Corner snob (and I submit there is less of that sort of thing in the Pacific Northwest than elsewhere), I have a solution to my quandary.  Because my blogged meanderings tend to be essayistic recollections, from now on all references to them by me will be as blessays.  There, I’ve invented a word.  I trust this isn’t latent self-absorption raising its ugly head.

While the self-absorbed are everywhere, I submit that actors are up there near the top.  That’s probably the biggest motivating factor in their getting into such a crazy business.

A case in point involved the long gone and very great Frank Fay whose personal life was a continuing meltdown compared to his success on stage.  You missed something if you didn’t see him in Harvey.  He made Jimmy Stewart look like a road show version.

Once upon a tumultuous time for Fay, the actor had been hauled into court on a serious matter and his attorney, knowing the judge’s feelings about Fay’s lack of respect for the law and his monumental vanity, warned the actor to play down his egocentricity.  “When he questions you, give him simple answers and don’t embellish a thing,” pleaded the attorney.  Asked by the judge for his name and livelihood, Fay replied.  “I am Frank Fay, the world’s greatest entertainer.”

After justice had been administered (Fay thought unfairly), his attorney asked him why he had behaved in such boorish fashion?

“Well,” offered the actor, “I was under oath.”

One evening in the southwest, I observed the kind of self-centeredness I’m sure Sigmund Freud would have found fascinating.  You may recall Dr. Freud as the man who inspired the term “Freudian slip” which is what results when a person says one thing and means a mother.

Enter Barbara Nichols, perhaps best remembered for her portrayal of Mildred, Jack Benny’s TV girl friend.  In 1955, TV Guide purchased a successful Oklahoma City programming publication and I was dispatched to train an editor, play big brother to an infantile manager, and create a state-wide weekly of programming accuracy. 

We chose the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City for a party and bought booze in Texas--Oklahoma then a dry state.  As an extra added attraction, as the vernacular went in those days, Nichols was invited for photo op purposes.  TV Guide’s home office in Philadelphia (later suburban Radnor) was represented by circulation director Dwight Yellen and other members of the company including my first boss, Art Shulman, who later co-authored How Sweet It Was--a nostalgic look at TV including lots of pictures, some of which I supplied.

Somehow, I wound up having dinner with Nichols the evening before the party.  I have a vague memory of picking her up at the airport and heading for an Italian restaurant.

Barbara Nichols, born in Queens, New York, got into reasonably dignified forms of show business by way of men’s magazines where her magnificent body graced page after page.  As sex symbols go, Nichols was easily an 11.  I won’t go so far as to suggest she made Marilyn Monroe look like a boy, but you get the idea.  Today, we would say Barbara is exceedingly hot.

Dinner progressed very nicely when, quite suddenly, Nichols exclaimed: “Oh, my goodness, there I am,” and pointed to a brick wall some 15 feet away.  The wall had an oddly mottled look.  With that, she pulled me out of my chair for a closer inspection.  Our examination revealed the more interesting pieces of female anatomy had been cut from magazines, pasted on the wall, then shellacked.

“Look, there’s one of my boobs,” she exclaimed.  Who would know better than the possessor of it or them?  Later on, dinner cooling, her thoroughgoing inspection produced a derriere claimed as her own although, in her self-absorbed exuberance, she didn’t call it that.

                                                            #          #          #          #    

 

       

This Dog's Life....by Bob Sanders

Sidebars    This Dog’s Life….By Bob Sanders

I want to come off as neither a snob nor a whistle blower, but I guess my observations are significant enough to warrant those risks.  I figure you deserve to know what goes on behind the scenes at the recently concluded Westminster Kennel Club event at Madison Square Garden.  Oh, yes.  I know about these things. I’m a dog.

Not just any dog.  My name is Gemstone Spoiled to Perfection but my best friends call me Pixie.  I was one of five Bichon Frises invited to participate in the 133rd competition of that American rarity, an unsullied sport.  With New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez admitting the use of steroids, I’m proud to point out that the Westminster Kennel Club Show has yet to be disgraced by charges of steroid use although rumors persist regarding how two years ago a judge was smitten by the Botox lips of a standard French poodle from Santa Barbara.  We often refer to her as the Angelina Jolie of the canine world.          

It may be that you are relatively unaware of the Bichon Frise.  We are a proud breed of Mediterranean ancestry whose origins predate the birth of Christ.  The dog you see today is the Tenerife Bichon named after one of the Canary Islands.  We are happy, playful and mischievous. 

It’s not easy being a show dog.  Unless one achieves the kind of stardom possible at Madison Square Garden, it’s something like being a model at a Milan style show.  There are big bucks involved and the dog business is a $43 billion industry.  We competitors are there for various reasons and getting you to buy a dog that looks like one of us goes paw in paw with what we’re about.  You probably think we’re a spoiled lot having nibbles tossed at us while we’re strutting about, but think again.  Some of the judges are really weird and grope us unmercifully.     

Further, there’s the matter of fitness.  We’re all on strict diets and I wish I could say the same for the handlers, some of whom look like they’ve been dining exclusively on Krispy Kreme doughnuts for at least 10 years.  Oh, what I’d give to put my incisors into just one Krispy Kreme.

I know a lot of you are puzzled by the handlers and their appearance.  It is absolutely untrue that many of the women’s clothes are designed by the same guy who did pioneer dresses for the Mormon women found last year in the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas.  The truth is that the Westminster is all about dogs and not people.  Paris Hilton would be a distraction and decidedly less than de rigueur.  The same goes for men who run around panting in tuxedos from college days.  I swear one judge wears something that looks very much like what baseball umpires wore 75 years ago.  

Strange things happened when I was handled by an amateur at a charity event.  Some genius decided I should be paired with one of Hugh Hefner’s “Girls Next Door.”  It was a disaster.  First, she draped a garish chained Playboy logo around my neck and walked me around Hefner’s swimming pool.  The next I knew, she had me in a bikini, then tossed me in the pool.  Thank goodness I’m a good swimmer.  Oh, yes.  While in Southern California, the big canine buzz indicated Disney is considering filming a feature whose working title is “Desperate Housedogs.”

At the Big Apple event, we dogs stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania where they have a doggie concierge.  I understand the Glenn Miller Orchestra used to play gigs there with great regularity back in the 30s and 40s.  One of the Miller instrumentals was a catchy tune called “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” the hotel’s phone number.  Those days and that phone number are gone forever.

In truth, I don’t enjoy staying in one of the Hotel Pennsylvania’s 1,700 rooms although it’s certainly convenient to Madison Square Garden.  Sometimes I fantasize about checking into The Plaza where Eloise used to live.  Boy, would I have fun at The Plaza!  I can see myself checking out the Oak Room, one of New York’s great bars where CEOs and bankers hang out, perhaps searching for moral compasses.    Oh, look!  There’s Bernard Madoff, the Ponzi schemer still at large.  I’ll just sidle up and pee all over his Pradas--maybe get some on his Brioni trousers.

Another of my beefs is with the name of the category in which all Bichon-Frises must compete.  It’s called Non-Sporting and the name is a joke well-understood by the dog world.  It’s a catch-all category and the very fact that such dissimilar breeds as the bulldog and the Dalmatian compete against each other is proof enough.  On the other hand, it could be a break since the most obvious place for us would be in the Terrier Group.  The trouble is that terriers have won the Westminster 44 times in 133 years.

Speaking of the Terrier Group, did you catch the judge doing that impression of Donald Duck?  Apparently an attempt to determine canine calmness in the face of strange noises (he also whistled, gurgled and chortled), it’s a cheap shot in my opinion.  Maybe the judge was auditioning for the David Letterman show?  Can U-Tube be far behind?

Only one Bichon has won Westminster’s top prize.  That was J.R. in 2001.  In the run-up to his victory was an accumulation of 158 Non-Sporting wins on the road in 2000, the most by any dog ever.  He lost but nine times that year and was named Best in Show 77 times.  J.R. has a fantastic personality and I think I’m in love with him.

The Westminster Kennel Dog Show is certainly the canine world’s premier event and it was good to see Madison Square Garden sold out.  As you may know, this is the time of year when the New York Knicks play even worse basketball than earlier in their pathetic seasons.  I guess there are dogs and then there are dogs.

Oh, yes.  I finished fourth in Non-Sporting, a hickey on my ear not helping.  Wait ‘til next year.

                                                                                #             #             #             #

    

 

 

 

 

     

Future Press: The Wonderful World of Blago...by Bob Sanders

It's always fascinating to wonder about the future meanderings of people who have impacted this remarkable world.  In its never-ceasing attempts to bring further understanding to matters great and small, Future Press again presents a look at what might very well happen since what we have already witnessed is, well, staggering.  

New York Feb 13, 2011…Capping a remarkable comeback, megastar Ron Blagojevich has won the Big Four Grammy Awards including one for his unique album, “Kipling Really Rocks.”  Set to music recorded in 1993 by Kurt Cobain and discovered last year in an orange crate believed to be among the late musician’s last living room furniture, the epic Kipling poems enabled the former Illinois governor to further cement his hold on a world gone Blago mad. 

In addition to his Album of the Year victory, Blagojevich won Grammys, awarded by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, for Record of the Year, Song of the Year (a surprise win for “A Lunge at Grunge”) and Best New Artist Who Had Never Ever Recorded Before--a first time achievement in the 53-year history of the event. 

For Blago, as he is affectionately known, it was the culmination of media stardom attained while currently serving 18 months of a 10-year prison sentence at Illinois Stateville Correctional Prison.  In accepting the award (Spoken Category) for “Kipling Really Rocks,” Blogo recognized the role played by Shelby “Groove” Shellak, describing him as a “recording industry giant.”  According to the once-reviled former governor, it was Shellak who made recordings of Blago’s readings of the long-revered but dated British poet later matching the outpourings with Cobain’s artistry.  According to Shellak, “we added a whole bunch of drums in that salute to Kipling--a sound  greater than a Hawaiian band interpreting the music of Samoa.”

It was Blago who also revealed while accepting his awards that a major motion picture is in the early planning stage when he emerges from prison--as early as three months.  It’s working title: “Doing Time and Loving It.”  Consideration, according to cinematic insiders, is being given Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who has tested for the key role of a madcap flutist who has trouble determining whether she wants to concentrate on music, continue her governorship,  or run for the Presidency of the U.S.   Early word on the script is that it is heavy on psychology and the value judgments and challenging decisions made each day by state governors.  

Initially shunned by prospective employers while awaiting trial on felony charges, the scandal-tainted Democrat had built name recognition keyed to 187 TV interviews conducted in five whirlwind days of January, 2009.  The massive publicity campaign, dependent solely upon the spoken word and terminated by what the Mayo Clinic described as a severe case of  “non- tetanus” lockjaw, was characterized by late-night TV’s David Letterman as “consisting of more words than the combined total of all the filibusters conducted in the U.S. Senate since the devious parliamentary device was created in 1841.”

In retrospect, the Letterman appearance was the highlight of Blago’s campaign to right what he described as “just one big misunderstanding.”  Commenting about three former Illinois governors with corruption convictions, Letterman joshed: “Is this just part of the oath of office that you guys take?”  Replied Blagojevich: “Unlike those, I’ll be vindicated,’ as the audience broke up. 

Blagojevich is believed to be the only person achieving redemption while in prison by way of acclaim as a recording star.  Further atonement has been achieved by Blagojevich’s wife Patti, famed for her colorful vocabulary as she joined her husband in a taped attempt to strong-arm the Chicago Tribune into firing unfriendly editorial writers.  In a touching Emmy moment  available on U-Tube as this is written, Blago is shown in his Emmy acceptance speech making reference to his wife’s rehabilitation made possible by coaching TV anchors, reporters and commercial actresses all too often cast because of their looks.    “Not long after the trial, I began realizing that far too many people on TV have shi….I mean really bad voices and I decided to do something about it.”  A rumor suggests that voice coach Patti Blagojevich has been working with TV pitchman Billy Mays in what is, apparently, a failed attempt to take some of the irritation out of his voice.

Underscoring the Blago story is that Americans have a particular fondness for the rehabilitation of fallen heroes.  New York marketing genius Charlie Tubthumper is quick to liken Blago’s success to homemaking diva Martha Stewart whose insider trading resulted in a prison term and who has successfully resumed her career.   “The idea of a governor, convicted of attempting to sell the former Senate seat of a newly elected President and then achieving redemption by winning four Grammys, is breathtaking.”

Blago’s tremendous Grammy victories are considered possible preludes to such additionally significant awards later this year as the Pulitzer and the Nobel Peace Prizes, a subject paramount in Katie Couric’s recent report, dropped with apparent indifference, into Hugh Hefner’s “The Girls Next Door” on the E Channel.

                                                            #          #          #          #