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posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Sep. 24, 2007 at 4:24 PM
This story, published Saturday by the Review-Journal, contains the following line: "The Review-Journal reported Friday morning that the foundation’s executive director, John Jasonek, got $129,000 for 12 hours of work per week between Sept. 1, 2004 and Aug. 31, 2005. He received another $134,000 in the 2004 tax year as head of the teachers association."
And that’s true. The R-J did report that on Friday.
But on Thursday, another newspaper you may have heard of reported the exact same thing. (Yes, if you’re too lazy to click on the link, it was CityLife.)
Now, we’re not asking for credit from the R-J. That would be too much. But at least don’t try to make it seem like you broke the story when it fact somebody else broke it!
We’re just saying.
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Sep. 24, 2007 at 3:41 PM
So a Roman Catholic priest admits that he struck a woman over the head with a bottle of wine, causing severe bodily harm. He admits it. No "innocent until proven guilty" canards here. He did it, and of that, there is no question.
The Rev. George Chaanine could face up to 15 years in prison on the battery charge, which he took as part of a plea bargain in which prosecutors agreed to drop other counts, including attempted murder and sexual assault. (And, we should also note, the guilty plea came after he swore to the Review-Journal he was not guilty, which technically is bearing false witness.)
Now, no matter what else happens to Chaanine in the system of criminal justice, one thing should be abundantly clear: He should never serve as a priest again. There are certain things you don’t come back from. If you’re a bank teller and you rob a bank, it’s a pretty good bet that while you may pay your debt to society, you’ll never work in a bank again. If you’re a lawyer and you defraud a client, you should get disbarred, even after you make restitution. It’s kind of why we keep track of who has and has not committed a felony.
Defrocking Chaanine isn’t a radical idea, either. Whatever else we expect of our clergy, abstaining from battering people to the extent they need 20 staples to close the wound should pretty much be a given. (Refraining from sexually abusing young boys should be, too, but nowadays, it’s probably a good idea to enumerate these expectations so everybody’s clear.)
So is the Most Rev. Joseph Pepe, bishop of the diocese of Las Vegas, standing by to defrock Chaanine? Apparently not. Rachel Wilkinson of the Rogich Communications Group, which represents the diocese, told the Review-Journal that church officials are not prepared to comment on Chaanine’s future in ministry.
Really? Because it seems to us that now would be a great time for his excellency the bishop to say Chaanine can still seek love and forgiveness from God and his church, but as a parishioner, not a priest. He might add something about how lax standards in these matters have greatly wounded the church in the past, and that on his watch, a serious crime merits serious consequences, and that he’s immediately using his ecclesiastical authority to remove Chaanine from ministry.
It would be a really good time to hear something like that.
Your excellency? Anything?
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Sep. 24, 2007 at 2:50 PM
Regular readers know that we like to make fun of stupid things people say and do in our own words. But sometimes, mockery requires a quote. So how about a collection of recent doozies, with some of our own flavor tossed in? (We culled these quotes from the pages of the Review-Journal and Sun.) Here we go!
- "I’m probably one of the four or five best-known Americans in the world." — former New York Mayor (and presidential candidate) Rudy Giuliani. Now we know why everybody hates Americans.
- "There’s a letter from my therapist saying there’s absolutely zero wrong with me, other than what’s happening, the stress I’m under from what’s happening, that I have no paranoia." — Suspended District Court Judge Elizabeth Halverson. It’s bad enough when you have to defend yourself by quoting your therapist, but even a fake therapist could not have concluded there’s "absolutely zero" wrong with Halverson. We’re guessing her "note" is scrawled in crayon on a napkin from Baskin-Robbins, and signed "Dr. Rocky Road."
- "I can drive you out there and find a family that’s giving me the finger and saying four-letter words, living with three other families, because we failed in our background checks." — North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon, on families living in low-income housing. Now, can we be totally sure they’re giving Montandon the finger and using four-letter words because the background checks failed? Could they be giving him the finger because he’s kind of a dick? We’re just saying.
- "Force this developer to think long term. Challenge them to take this 50 acres and develop something else. Casinos have huge social costs." — Activist Lisa Mayo DeRiso, on Focus Property Group’s plan to build a casino at Kyle Canyon Road and U.S. 95. Instead, the council forced the developer to accept pretty much everything the developer demanded from the city. Here come the slots!
- "Our basic rights come from God, not government." — actor and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, who’s now running for president. Yes, we remember well that passage from the Sermon on the Mount: "Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt keep and bear thine arms, and weapons of military usefulness, since thou art part of a well-regulated militia." Ass.
- "I’m not serving in the U.S. Congress for show." — U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, on symbolic votes against the war versus real progress. Now, who could she be implying IS serving in the Congress for show? Hmmmmm….
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Sep. 24, 2007 at 9:58 AM
For the first and last time ever, Review-Journal Road Warrior Omar Sofradzija’s Sunday column carried a dateline: East Lansing, Mich. It was Sofradzija’s swan song, now that he’s left to take a job as editorial adviser to The State News.
It was also the first indication to R-J readers that the guy who’s been answering their local traffic questions is no longer a local. "By the time you read this, I’ve been long gone from Las Vegas, having returned to my native Midwest from whence I came," he wrote.
Yes, "by the time you read this," he was "long gone."
Although that implies he penned his swan song before he blew town, that’s not accurate. In fact, he’s been "long gone" since mid-July, and everything he’s written in the last 2-1/2 months could just as easily have been datelined from East Lansing.
R-J readers would have no way of knowing that, however, since Sofradzija’s picture and e-mail address appeared regularly in the paper, and he answered questions dutifully without ever letting on that he was the ultimate telecommuter, living three time zones and more than 2,500 miles away. In fact, the only place you’d have learned that is right here. (To be sure, the R-J didn’t even start advertising for a replacement until we called them on this little white lie.)
So, what’s the big deal, you ask? Why didn’t the R-J just tell its readers that Sofradzija would be writing from East Lansing until the paper could find a local replacement? After all, it’s not like Sofradzija didn’t build up a lot of local knowledge that would still be relevant for a few months while the job search went on, right?
Sure, that would have been the honest thing to do. But there was a problem with that. See, the R-J has decreed — from the publisher on down to the editorial pages — that Nevada state transportation officials must live in Las Vegas. Only then, goes the argument, will they truly appreciate the dilemma that Las Vegas drivers face on the highways.
So the R-J had a little problem: It could level with its readers in the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, but in the process look like hypocrites, or it could simply cover up the fact that its Road Warrior was plying some much more idyllic roads for months and hope nobody would notice, thus avoiding the pain of having to reconcile the paper’s stated editorial philosophy with its actual practice.
Sadly, honestly lost.
Now, you might say to yourself, who cares? Do readers really give a damn if the Road Warrior is writing from Bonanza Road in Las Vegas or East Grand River Avenue in East Lansing? Hell, didn’t that one paper in Pasadena, Calif., outsource its City Hall coverage to friggin India?
Our thought about that is this: If the paper is willing to cover up little foibles like this — and we’ve documented some even more serious ones over the years, too — it raises the question of how much can readers trust what they read in the daily paper.
And that’s something you should care about.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: Various Things & Stuff, ValleyBlogs.com, and Las Vegas CityLife, the newspaper we edit when we’re not blogging, are all owned by Stephens Media LLC, the company that also owns the R-J. We at Various Things & Stuff worked at the R-J as the newspaper’s political columnist for five years.)
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