Expenses Smexpenses!

At the start of my interweb journey I discovered I was able to read Carl Hiaasen in the Miami Herald. We had enjoyed his novellas for some time and now I could follow his day to day take on a very corrupt part of a very corrupt country. I revisited his column recently and realised that our politicians may be as morally corrupt as anything in the sunshine state but for sheer imagination, brio and off the wall excess you can't beat the guys and gals in this post.

From up in the Panhandle we learn that Rep. Ray Sansom of Destin ran up $173,000 on an American Express card issued to him by the state Republican Party.

Sansom was speaker of the House for about nine seconds until it was revealed that he'd taken a $110,000-a-year job with Northwest Florida State College, after steering $35 million in extra or accelerated public funding to that school...

... Meanwhile, down in old Key West, suspended Monroe County School Superintendent Randy Acevedo was being prosecuted in another case of dubiously extravagant fringe benefits.

Acevedo was accused of trying to cover up some of his wife's alleged ``misappropriations,'' including nearly $200,000 in tuitions and fees that were supposed to fund adult education programs...

...Records show that Monique Acevedo also racked up more than $95,000 on her school-issued credit card for items that she claimed were necessary for classes in cosmetology, GED and English as a Second Language.

These vital educational aids included bar stools, pink silk ties, a chandelier, a table saw, spear-gun attachments and a DVD box set of the popular HBO show, Six Feet Under.

See, that's where we go wrong. The spouse of a british politician would, say, hire a few videos from the local shop porno section. Flickering images, passing clouds, fleeting pleasure compared to a box set of Six Feet Under! Plus you get to rip Thomas Newman's catchy little tune to MP3.

By this shall all men know....

A very sad post, a sign of the times, shades of things to come. What the hell will they do with our libraries when they get round to cuts. I'm sorry I'll re-phrase that. When they review, reallocate and prioritise existing resources in new, exciting and transformational ways.

I'm old enough and wise enough to realise that there are priorities. For the want of money and humanity the right to live is being denied. However, a taste of the post and the arguement that bread alone is never enough...

Think of the millions of lifelong love-affairs with literacy sparked in the collections of those libraries.

Read the post and weep. I'm not sure I should thank John Naughton for the link, depressing.

Bird on a Wire

The end of my chairpersonship of the board of a small non-profit which I hope has done some good in the world. Feelings of relief that the boat was the right way up as I was piped overboard, also glad that it has a purpose and some resources to carry on its mission.
I was downloading some of my recent snaps and this one caught my imagination.

Bird on a wire.
The long tail.
The bottom line.
There's always one.
I'm sure they said 5th wire down 4th post from the windmill.

Never a Grauniad Sub when you want one.