May 16th, 2019

Vizard

Dept. of Birthdays

Happy, (Delayed) Happy, Joy (Really Delayed) Joy

I appear to have come down with a rich, bubbling cold - go, me - but that shouldn't stop me from delivering some much-delayed (as the headline says) birthday wishes. 

On May 3, [personal profile] sunnytyler001  had a birthday. I hope she sees this; I know she has had a pretty tough couple of years, and she deserves a much better year now. All the best wishes to you, and hopes for good days to come. 

On May 5, that erudite Liverpudlian [personal profile] jjpor  celebrated. He's a treasure for Who fandom, not only for his excellent fiction, but for his cheerful efforts on behalf of the fandom's online communities. I am so pleased that I've gotten to know him online. I hope your birthday was an excellent one, and that your year has continued in that fashion. 

Happy May 9 birthday to [personal profile] calapine , who likes Twelve, Eleven, Four and Romana II, Moffat and Missy, all of which I heartily endorse. Also, she likes Sapphire & Steel and Battlestar Galactica and many other things of which I approve. I hope the day in question was excellent for her. 

It's been some time since [personal profile] deathpixie  posted, but I hope her birthday, on May 9, was good. I don't know if she's still in My Home and Native Land, or if she's returned to her Antipodean home; wherever she is, I hope she is doing well. 

Two days ago, on May 14, the inestimable [personal profile] thisbluespirit  celebrated a birthday. I can't adequately say how much her humor, gentle and wry, has made me smile over the years, or how much her fiction, sophisticated and memorable, has enriched my reading life, although she has probably had the same effect on many other folks. (Oh, and hey - S&S!) May your summer be manageable, may your genealogical and historic. explorations be surprising and fun. and may you continue to brighten the electronic page for some time to come!

And this very day, [personal profile] akirlu  celebrated. She doesn't come around much, so I wished her a happy birthday on another platform, and I hope she had one. She is well worth knowing, and although it's been some time since we communicated, I appreciate her. 


This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/732664.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comment count unavailable comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.
Gaeta

Dept. of Rage

Of Course.

He pardoned Conrad Black.

Of course he did. Black wrote a deliberately fawning book about him. He and Black had business dealings in the past, which probably didn't hurt, but it was undoubtedly the book that did it. 

Black looted the Chicago Sun-Times and its associated properties while he owned them. That's the correct term for it. Looted.. Robbed. Eviscerated. Because of his thievery - which, by the way, he did all while publicly disdaining the journalists he was robbing, and the journalism he dishonored - the company fell into a bankruptcy.

That bankruptcy ended when a buyer forced Sun-Times employees to take a "temporary" 15 percent pay cut before his group would buy the company. 

We never recovered from that temporary pay cut. Neither did the Sun-Times or its associated properties. The Sun-Times eventually sold much of itself to the Tribune, after another rich man with no integrity bought the company and wrecked it further. 

Still, some of us took at least a little comfort in knowing that Black, against all expectations of wealth protecting him, went to prison. It wasn't for long, certainly not nearly as long as he deserved, but he was a convicted felon. 

Neil Steinberg, in his column, says he has nothing against Black. He also suggests that Black and the man who pardoned him are much the same.

I disagree with the latter assumption. I imagine that Black would disagree, polysyllabically. He knew how to flatter the subject of his book, but Black's self-aggrandizing snobbery is such that I suspect he thinks very little of him, considering him no more than a particularly notable member of the hoi polloi. 

This may be why I think Robert Feder's column says it better. 

As for me, I hold much against Black. It rises in my throat like bile, the rage I feel about him, the hatred I hold for him.

I know we are counseled against hate, that we are told it is corrosive to ourselves more than to those we hate. And I know that's true. 

But I hate this man.  This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/732900.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comment count unavailable comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.