Liar, Liar

So, Chappell Hartridge, the outspoken juror on the Martha Stewart case who gloated to the press that her conviction was “a victory for the little guys who lose money in the market”, turns out to be an accused embezzler with a cocaine habit.
Hartridge also has been arrested on assault charges, and three lawsuits have been filed against him. In addition, his son was convicted of attempted robbery in 2000.
This ignoble defender of the “little guy” failed to disclose any of these facts on his jury form, which he was obliged to do, and this has become the basis for an appeal by Stewart’s legal team, which after weeks of ineptitude in court actually decided to mount a defense on her behalf.
Oh, and did I tell you that the organization which claims the Hartridge stole from them is the Bronx Little League?
The AP reports that Hartridge, who was so eager to babble to the press after the Stewart trial, “could not immediately be reached for comment. A listed phone number for him was out of service.”
Meanwhile, the prosecution feels that Stewart’s attorneys “are trying to do a very bad thing”.
Excuse me, but I thought that the whole point of bringing Stewart to trial was the fact that she supposedly lied to the government?
So, I guess it’s okay for a black man to lie, but not an uppity white woman?

Friday Five

A little late, better than never….
1. What do you do for a living?
Web applications development.
2. What do you like most about your job?
The intellectual challenge and the enlightenment that comes when understanding how a particular technology “thinks”, the way it is organized and the rules within which it operates.
3. What do you like least about your job?
Honestly? The fact that it takes SO LONG to learn to do things well.
4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…
Something has failed, over and over, for reasons that are arcane and ineluctable.
5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
If I had the skills and temperament, I’d have been a skilled craftsman. If I were very wealthy and had a warm, nurturing nature, I’d like to have been a foster parent for as many children as possible.

Yet More Bush Hypocrisy

The current Bush administration, which has cut veterans’ health care benefits and the combat pay of those serving in Iraq, continues to dig in its heels on payment of reparations to 17 POWs from the first Gulf War.
A U.S. district court awarded almost $1 Billion to the POWs last summer, but payment of the award, from Iraqi assets mind you, was blocked by the Bush administration. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada sponsored an amendment to help the POWs last year, but it was dropped under pressure from the State Department.
The administration claims pure motives, of course, but isn’t this action consistent with the notion that the spoils of this particular war belong to Halliburton, Bechtel and other friends of the Republican Right?
Heaven porfend that they should have to share that bounty with soldiers who were starved and tortured by the enemy. In the world of Bush II, that would be downright un-American.

Love Sick, Indeed

So, for the next two weeks, we’ll be seeing a mustachioed Bob Dylan in his new career as advertising shill for Victoria’s Secret. He not only scored but appears in the ad, which features his song “Love Sick”.
Per Orin Snyder, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips who claims to represent Dylan, this is not a sell-out, nay, nay, but just another way for his client to artistically commune with the public:
“Artists are really yearning for new avenues of communication with their audience.”
(http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/04/150552.php)
Dylan’s pathetic mid/late career obsession with sexual and romantic frustration may make him the background songwriter of choice for purveyors of soft porn, but appearing in the commercials is another matter altogether. A leering, dirty old man is still a leering, dirty old man.
I’m with AdAge on this one.