Where to Turn First?
- BATMAN BECOMES REAL Dressed up in his faux Batman or monster gear and armed to the teeth James Holmes was quite the macho dude while shooting 70 people in of all sacred places (to TNB) a movie theater! [See the inspiration for this blog, the Normal Theater]. But in court today he didn't look very imposing, with his weird dyed hair, glassy stare, etc. Possibly over the weekend, the almost certain death penalty he will receive may have begun to register in his warped brain. BTW-- the futile argument over gun control (see the NRA) just surfaced again. When at least one right-wing gun nut Congressman suggested that if "law-abiding citizens" carrying weapons were only present in the theater, the carnage would have been stopped, TNB wanted to scream.Imagine after tear gas had been sprayed in a darkened theater and several "law-abiding citizens" had all started shooting at once, what the death toll would have amounted to!
- PENN STATE PUNISHED Speaking, sadly, of death penalties the university escaped having its football program shut down, which in the short run would financially penalize opponents whose games would be cancelled (not to mention anger the TV networks and their sponsors). While a $60 million fine will have to be paid over the next five years and bowl revenue and scholarships were severely curtailed, the biggest penalty occurred posthumously (sort of a post-death penalty) against the reputation and record of the late Joe Paterno. Joe Pa is now 8th instead of first on the all-time wins list, with all Penn State victories over the last 13 years retroactively wiped out. This action also in TNB's opinion unfairly penalizes all the players during that period. Couldn't Paterno's now removed statue just have been melted down instead? However, if it's OK (?) for Mitt Romney to retroactively retire from Bain Capital, apparently just about any actions or outcomes can be reversed--and many years later at that.
- MORE FINANCIAL SCANDALS The auditor in TNB never ceases to be amazed at the never-ending financial scandals. Let's see--there's the Barclay's LIBOR rate cheating, the HSBC terrorist money laundering, the $53 million apparently stolen by the controller of tiny Dixon, Illinos, Ronald Reagan's hometown, the apparent $200 million embezzlement by its CEO from Peregrine Financial (confessed to in a note left with a failed suicide attempt--this guy couldn't do anything right!) etc. etc. Interesting that about 10 years ago at the height of the Enron/World Com scandals, TNB predicted to his students in an auditing class he was then teaching at DePaul University that no matter what new controls were put in, these scandals would continue unabated (this was 6 years before the uncovering of Bernie Madoff). Easy to predict--human nature being what is is. Alas, not many of the students were paying close attention.
