National Public Radio, 08/12/2003

The other morning as I was driving to work, I heard a story on NPR about a 70-something year old man in Virginia who is the oldest person to ever be death penalty eligible. I don't mean to talk like a lawyer but I'm not sure exactly how else to phrase it; he's the oldest person to be charged with a crime which could result in the death penalty being imposed. He is charged with ordering the execution style murders of three people in a town with a population of about 400. I know this is weird but what struck me as being awful was: What would it be like to be charged with a crime like that and then have them talking about it on national radio.

Now don't get me wrong, the crime was awful. This guy sounded like he wasn't a nice person, (he served 11 years for drug dealing). But it just struck me as awful to have people listening to what you are accused of having done on their way to work like that. I don't know. Just some random early morning weirdness.

So then this morning as I was driving to work NPR did another story which kind of pissed me off.

It was along the lines of "I can't belive they've done this!" sort of pissed off and not the "well they certainly won't be getting my $50 this year!" pissed off.

They did a story about a guy, whose name escapes me now. I don't know if I've blocked it out because I didn't like the story or whether I blocked it out cause I didn't catch it while I was trying to maneuver through traffic in order to get to the dry cleaners. Anyway, this guy is 39 years old and now makes his living giving speeches to business schools, the FBI and police departments about corporate fraud.

I know you see this coming. What you might ask is it that makes him such an expert? He spent time in the federal penitentiary for fraud. As a raising young executive for MCI he not only assisted MCI in covering up their bad financial deals and defrauding people out of their money but also set up his own scheme so that he stole 6 million dollars from MCI for his own benefit. He described it as "I got greedy." MCI is getting ready to take a dive financially and everyone who invested their money in it is getting ready to lose their shirts and he got "greedy." I can't even begin to imagine what one would do with six million dollars. He was vert contrite; "oh what I did was a terrible thing." But now he makes a living giving speeches about the terrible things he did.

I never said I was consistent. Chalk it up to some more early morning weirdness.