Burnettiquette

Ten things that surprise me...or maybe not

• Levi Johnston, former almost son-in-law to Sarah & Todd Palin and father of their only grandchild, exposed his junk for Playgirl magazine.
• Playgirl magazine still exists.
• In her new book, Going Rouge Rogue, Sarah Palin bit the hands that fed her. And relax, Palin fans. I'm neither bashing the GOP or hockey moms. You should know this already. But just in case, "Bit the hand" is just a figure of speech, not a comparison to a dog or any other mammal large enough to hold a hockey stick or wear lipstick. Anywho, setting aside your political leanings, you have to believe that any reining in done by McCain staffers during last fall's presidential election was done to help McCain - and therefore Palin - win the White House. To bash those staffers now over things like diet advice, wardrobe, Saturday Night Live, and media interviews is silly.
• The first missing kid whose picture was posted on the side of a milk carton is still missing 30 years later. Not making fun. It's a tragedy. But have you ever taken even 10 seconds to look closely at one of those milk carton pics and then kept an eye out for the kid? Me either. And I used to drink a lot of milk.
• In the "It was bound to happen" category: A young athlete with big potential did not drop out of college to turn professional. Nope, Jeremy Tyler broke a record. He dropped out of high school. That's right, Tyler, a 6'11" basketball phenom, quit San Diego High School after his junior year. You can't enter the National Basketball Association draft till you're 19. So the impatient Tyler stupidly signed a 1-year $140,000 (that's thousand, not million) contract with a pro team in Haifa, Israel, so he could polish his skills and raise his profile till he becomes eligible to play in the U.S. Here's the shocker: Tyler's Haifa experiment is going very badly A good crossover dribble is great. Tyler's suck-ups (parents, friends, etc.) should have told him reading is fundamental, 'cause at the rate he's going, he may never make it to the NBA.
• The U.S. Army gave a bogus story...at first about the circumstances surrounding the murders committed at Fort Hood recently by Army Maj. Nidal Hasan - everything from who took him down, to whether he'd made any declarations involving his religion, to whether he was alive or not, following the shooting. Why?
• Andre Agassi's early-to-mid 1990s power mullet was actually a pelt. I would have written about this sooner, like right after Agassi admitted it in his new book. But the shock was too great for me.
• This one falls into the Hell-must-exist-for-people-like-this category: A woman in Texas faked breast cancer, so she could collect donations and use 'em to pay for breast implants. She got the implants.
• Carrie Prejean has more sex tapes, eight total. So if the first that she admitted to was "the biggest mistake of (her) life," as she told Sean Hannity on his Fox News Channel show, then where on the sliding scale of mistakes do the other seven tapes fall? Lesson: It's OK to take a moral stance on something, even if your stance is unpopular. If you're really principled, then popularity shouldn't phase you. On the other hand, before you take "principled" stands that involve finger-wagging, news conferences, and making the talk show rounds, you'd better make sure you don't have any closet skeletons that will negate your self-righteousness in the eyes of the general public. That's not caving in to popularity. That's just good sense. BTW, those of you, my friends, who always scold me for allegedly picking on sexually "free" people, leave me alone on this one. I'm not picking on Prejean for loving herself. But you gotta admit it was kind of very stupid to do it on tape, know the tapes were out there, and still go on a media blitz portraying herself as the picture of the new, modern, young "Christian soldier."
• This one from the Daily Mail in Britain: Universal Pictures, one of the film companies that frequently distributes to theaters worldwide movies so bad they might cause cancer, has been busted in the UK for deleting the images of African American actors Faison Love and Kali Hawk from promo posters for Couples Retreat. Asked to explain, Universal said it was innocently trying to "simplify" the poster for international audiences. Loosely translated, "simplify" in this context means "remove the scary black people so that our British audiences don't see the posters and get turned off to this film."

My Friday Column: Practical Environmentalism Through Priorities

Happy Friday, friends and frienemies.

Today's Miami Herald Metro column is about how to get average people to care about the environment.

But don't let that one line lead you to assume you know the direction this story takes. Give it a read here.

A hint for you: We prioritize what we need, whether that's food, shelter, work, money, transportation, or something less serious. When we don't need, we de-stress. When we de-stress, we care about our surroundings, ie. our environment - our literal surroundings and the environment as we think of it by traditional definitions.

Anyway, check out the column, and don't forget to follow me at: http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Quick Hits

What's crackin' friends and frienemies? It is a busy Thursday, so I'm gonna keep this short, which loosely translated means long.

First, don't forget to read my column tomorrow. Some of you will get it right away. Others won't like it 'cause it touches on a cultural boogeyman - a racial/ethnic issue. Boo! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Don't get tense. It's just my opinion. And trust me, it'll be food for thought. We all know that sometimes the healthiest food doesn't go down smoothly. Anyway, I'll link the column tomorrow. And for once, would some of you please join me in my online chat at 1 p.m. tomorrow at this address - http://www.miamiherald.com/qna/forum/james_burnett/index.html? You're gonna make me develop a complex. Last week, I was left hanging like the wallflower on prom night.

Second, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R - South Carolina) is an idiot - not because he's a Repubican or because he disapproves of Pres. Obama's healthcare reform plans. Wilson's an idiot because he disrespected the office of the presidency last night by shouting over a sitting president, during a live address, and calling the President of the United States a liar. What Wilson did was worse than when American celebrities (you, Gwyneth Paltrow!) talk to foreign media and complain about living in the US. The worst a few moronic Democratic congressmen did during live addresses by former Pres. George W. Bush was hiss. That was disrespectful too, but doesn't rise to the level of interrupting a sitting president to call him a liar. And don't try any partisan crap w/me. I'd say the same if we were talking about Pres. John McCain right now.

Third, take a good look at the mug shot below. It is of Alan Dale Lee, a Pasco County, FL, man, jailed recently for stabbing another man. Not another penny ever needs to be spent on anti-drug use campaigns. Lee's head shot is the best deterrent I've ever seen.

 

 

 

Fourth, Mike Duvall violated the rules of the game and the tenets of The Cowboy Code: He talked publicly about a sexual conquest. A real player wouldn't have done that. If you don't know the story, Duvall was a California state assemblyman...until yesterday, when he resigned after audio/video recordings surfaced of him bragging to a lobbyist in the state assembly chamber about how he - Duvall - had a mistress, had way too much sex with her, and liked to spank her because she's "such a bad girl." Some of you don't think affairs are that big a deal. I strongly disagree with you, but that's another post. For the record, Duvall now says he didn't have an affair. He just made up a story about a mistress to make himself seem cool, or as he described it, he engaged in "inappropriate storytelling." Hmmm, flashback to 8th grade. Sorry, I'm having trouble typing this 'cause I'm constantly drawn to Mr. Lee's mug shot above.

Fifth, it's Thursday. And my only televised guilty pleasure airs tonight: Real Housewives of Atlanta. Yes, I'm sure that if I continue to watch I'll catch something awful like junk rot, which will go nicely with the disease I'm certain I caught watching the first episode of Miami Social. But you can't live forever!

Finally, am I the only person concerned that classic Marvel Comics characters like Spiderman, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and Wolverine, are gonna be integrated into Mickey Mouse cartoons now that Disney has purchased Marvel? Probably.

Till next time, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Presidential reality check

Before I ask and state what I have to ask and state, let me remind a few of you who are prone to bulging neck veins and high blood pressure and bleats of "Ah haaaaa!" that I don't care who you voted to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. last November.

As "parties" go, I'd just as soon voluntarily give up my (self-appointed, but accurate) label of being "Miami's Coolest Guy" to knock back a fruit-flavored umbrella drink with and dance with the dorks who hang out at places like Have a Nice Day Cafe and Bar (Your City Here), than throw my full support behind either the Democrats or Republicans.

And any of you bulging-neck-veiners who try to say otherwise are either willfully ignorant, or unfamiliar with my body of work.

That being said, here's a pop quiz. Who said tthe following to a group of Washington, D.C.school children, in a nationally-televised broadcast to public schools across the great US of A:

"I ask every student watching today: Look around you. Count four students. Start with yourself. No one dreams of becoming a dropout, but far too many do. Which one of you won't make it through school?

The fact is, every one of you can. Let's make a pact then right here. Let's work to see that 5 years from now, you and your friends will be more than sad statistics. Give yourself a decent shot at your dreams. Stay in school. Get that diploma.....

"I'm asking you to put two and two together: Make the connection between the homework you do tonight, the test you take tomorrow, and where you'll be 5, 15, even 50 years from now. You see, the real world doesn't begin somewhere else, some time way down there in the distant future. The real world starts right here. What you do here will have consequences for your whole lives.

When it comes to your own education, what I'm saying is take control. Don't say school is boring and blame it on your teachers. Make your teachers work hard. Tell them you want a first-class education. Tell them that you're here to learn.

Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart. I can't understand for the life of me what's so great about being stupid. If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now when they're stuck in a dead-end job? Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.....

Take control -- challenge yourself. Only you know how hard you work. Maybe you can fake, maybe, just maybe you can fake your way into a job, but you won't keep it for long if you don't have the know-how to get the job done. Maybe you can cram the week before that marking period ends, and turn that C into a B. But you can't con your way past the SAT and into college. If you don't work hard, who gets hurt? If you cheat, who pays the price? If you cut corners, if you hunt for the easy A, who comes up short? Easy answer to that one: You do."

Answer? United States Pres. George H.W. Bush, on Oct. 1, 1991, at Alice Deal Junior High School.

Not a whole lot different from what Pres. Obama had to say in his speech this morning at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.

There are two shames here: That back in '91 Democratic Party leaders - elected and otherwise - called Bush's speech political opportunism and a paid political ad, and even launched a formal investigation into the funding for Bush's speech; and that in the weeks leading up to Obama's speech GOP leaders - elected and otherwise - suggested his was part of a devious plot to indoctrinate school children into socialist and communist lifestyles.

I even had a co-worker violate Godwin's Law and pull out that tired Hitler comparison, suggesting that like the late Führer, Obama's speech would be a brainwashing tool.

His evidence? Not just that Obama insisted on exhorting school children, but that as part of his post-speech lesson plan he wanted kids to write him letters on how they could help him be (presumably, a better) president. Yeah, the lesson plan idea was bad, no question. Still, I hate to break it to my colleague and others who were on that train of thought, but former Pres. Bush (41) made a similar request to his young, mush-minded audience. I study voting patterns and polling religiously. I haven't seen one study that suggests the GOP scored more young voters in the years immediately following Bush's speech. That won't happen for Obama either, as a result of today's speech.

My colleague also insisted that the job of exhorting school kids with inspirational speeches should be for parents only, because "we the people" didn't elect the president to do such things.

We didn't elect U.S. presidents to hold turkey-pardoning ceremonies on the White House lawn. But they do that too, every year at Thanksgiving.

Sure, both men were trying to score political points with their speeches. Why the shock?

But generally speaking the criticisms of both men over a speech telling kids to study, work hard, etc., etc., were just dumb.

If you didn't like Bush, hopefully your dislike was due to his policies and not because his gang wore different colors than yours. And if you don't like Obama, I can only hope you're using the same standard of policy and not team colors. Somehow though the fringe element of his critics is increasingly suggesting that while they don't like his policies, if there isn't a "fresh" policy to legitimately challenge they'll gladly take a swipe at a more superficial characterisitic.

So, neck-vein-poppers, take a deep breath, count backward from 10, breath slowly into a paper bag if you have to. And when you've calmed down, step gingerly off your soap box and acknowledge in a grown-up way that sometimes a pep talk is just that, no matter the six-degrees-of-separation sinister connections you think you can make between that talk and a broader agenda.

Relax. By week's end if your distaste for Pres. Obama is "pure," there'll be a legitimate issue, a policy issue for you to challenge and debate. And if your distaste is rooted in something more superficial...like team colors, well, hang on till tomorrow evening. And no doubt a TV or radio chat show host will give you plenty of toothless fodder.

Now, I'm going to get back to my Gurkha Beauty and await the inevitable and inaccurate onslaught of anonymous email comments from people who will have missed the point of this post, and will accuse me of one or more of the following: pushing Obama's hidden "black nationalist" agenda, pushing Obama's hidden "socialist" agenda, hiding Obama's original birth certificate in the safe under my floorboards, hating white people, pretentiously eating chicken nuggets with a fork instead of my bare hands, and wanting to open the U.S. borders to aliens - not from Mexico, but from Outer Space.

PS. Follow me: http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Sonia Sotomayor and a dangerous vat of acid

Sorry, no punchline to that title.

Jan. 29th, 1999, Milwaukee, Wis. - It was so cold outside that morning that I could see my breath. How do I remember, you ask? 'Cause it was Wisconsin in January. You can always see your breath.

As soon as I arrived at work, the police scanners on my desk started going crazy. At the time I was the "cops" reporter, a coverage beat that encompasses fire and medical emergencies too.

All the scanner activity was about an explosion that had occured earlier that morning at an industrial plant on the city's south side. A crane operator had lowered a large piece of metal into a 10-foot high vat full of a corrosion treatment chemical. The chemical was water reactive though, and aparently the metal had gathered condensation as it sat overnight. So when the crane operator lowered the damp metal into the vat, the 1,200 degree chemical exploded, burning the crane operator over most of his body.

The city editor on duty, having heard the same explosion news I'd heard on the scanners, stood and began to look around the room to see who was available to send to the accident scene. I left to work on another story. When I got back to the newsroom an hour later, another writer was working on the explosion, but he was having a hard time with some of the fine details. I offered to take a crack at it, but the editor said the other writer had it under control.

The other writer did not have it under control. So again, I offered to help. The editor grew exasperated and gave me a mini-lecture on how every reporter worth a damn should be able to give himself a crash course on a topic and go and cover it intelligently. Then he asked something to the effect of "What do you bring to this story that he doesn't?"

So I told him. Less than two years earlier, I had closed out a six year career as a machinist on the U.S. Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Va. While working at the (now defunct) Naval Aviation Depot, one of my responsibilities in my machine shop was to maintain and monitor the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) book that contained a list of all the chemicals - hazardous and theoretically harmless - that we used. The MSDS book also contained details of the types of injuries each chemical could cause, the types of accidents that could happen when the chemicals came in contact with certain materials, how they should all be stored and handled, and what should be done in the event of an accident.

So yes, any good reporter should be able to cover everything. But in the case of a story about a chemical explosion, a reporter with personal experience using dangerous chemicals, monitoring their use, and even working with the Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration to make sure our monitoring books (MSDS) were up to date, is much better suited to report on things than a reporter whose work-related education is limited to the usual college classes.

What does this have to do with Sotomayor? Much has been made over this quote from a speech she gave in 2001: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

Without any context, that comment was out of order and Sotomayor was wrong for making such a broad generalization.

BUT, her sentiment was correct. And before anyone blusters and shakes a fist at their computer screen think for a moment. This post is not about Sotomayor's personal politics, or partisanship. It is about reaction to that quote. This does not have to be about race. You can make it about race if you want. But when I say the sentiment is correct, I mean about broad experiences vs. narrow experiences.

In the analogy of the chemical explosion story, I made that point. My colleague and I were both able reporters. But I was better suited for that particular assignment because my professional experiences were broader and more relevant than his.

If you and I are both computer programmers, and you've programmed for Company A, and I've programmed for companies A, B, and C, then my experiences are broader than yours. And my insights to the world of professional programming may be deeper than yours.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Sgt. James Crowley, Lucia Whalen: My last word.

By now, unless you live under a rock or in Iraq, you've probably heard about the hubbub surrounding the arrest a week-ad-a-half ago of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The abbreviated version: Gates, upon returning home from China, where he'd been working on a documentary, found that the front door to his Cambridge, Mass., home - just steps from Harvard's main campus, was jammed. So, after he and his driver tried unsuccessfully to get the door open, Gates went to the rear of the house and let himself in through the back door. The driver continued to shove on the front door. An elderly neighbor saw the door-shoving, stopped a young woman passing by and asked the young woman to call the cops. The young woman, Lucia Whalen, did so, and told police that the older woman may have witnessed a break-in, but that she - the younger woman - saw that the men on Gates' porch (he and his driver) had suitcases, so perhaps they were trying to get the door open to their own home. At no point did Whalen tell police that two large black men with backpacks were breaking into the home, a mischaracterization (or outright lie?) that had been previously reported by Cambridge Police. Officers arrived at Gates' home minutes later and asked for his ID. He declined to give it at first, but eventually did, but not before berating Sgt. James Crowley and asking if he was being hassled for being "a black man in America." Gates followed Crowley outside (at Crowley's request), and continued to berate him, in spite of Crowley warning him twice to pipe down. Gates didn't pipe down. So Crowley arrested him. Hubbub ensued. A few days later, the charges against Gates were dropped by Cambridge Police.

First things first, apologies are owed to Ms. Whalen. I'd say that other writers and me owe her apologies for suggesting that maybe Gates should have aimed his anger at her from the beginning, instead of at the police, 'cause how could Gates' "neighbor" not recognize him in broad daylight? The problem is - and I can't speak for other writers - I voiced that opinion based on the written police report - written by Sgt. Crowley - and on statements made by Cambridge Police officials that Whalen was a "neighbor" and that she had called police about large suspicious black men on Gates' porch, who were apparently breaking into the home.

Anyone reading between the lines of those two factoids might "glean" that Whalen jumped the gun in calling 911. Turns out she's not Gates' neighbor. She only works at a facility nearby. Also, she called 911 because an actual neighbor stopped her and asked her to call. Finally, Whalen, contrary to the statements made by Crowley and CPD brass in the early days of this mess, did not mention Gates' race or that of his driver. On the 911 tapes, released today by CPD, Whalen tells a dispatcher she has no idea what race the men are, because she's standing too far away to tell. And only after the dispatcher asked her if the men were "white, black, or Hispanic," did Whalen reluctantly answer that maybe one of them looked "a little Hispanic," and she wasn't sure about the other.

So Lucia Whalen has gotten a bad rap. Whether the statements in the police report about Whalen being a "neighbor" of Gates' and claiming big black men were breaking into his house were lies or innocent errors on the part of the CPD remains to be seen. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt, especially to people with difficult jobs like law enforcement. So I'll assume they were innocent errors. But surely I don't need to explain how the inclusion of those misstatements in the police report could alter the perception of this whole mess from the very beginning.

Otherwise, the rest of this story remains the same:

• First, some media types were wrong to perpetuate the "racial profiling" theme in covering this story. It was unnecessary and inflammatory. You'd have to be an absolute moron to try to characterize this incident as racial profiling. The officers involved did not stop Gates or single him out, because of his skin color. They encountered him coincidentally, while responding to a possible breaking-and-entering call...at his house.
• Second, Gates may have been justified in his righteous indignation, but he was wrong for going off on the cops and accusing and suggesting racism as their motive for questioning him. Plus, many cops will tell you that if you embarass them in front of an audience (in this case, Gates' neighbors, curious passers by, and other police officers), they may arrest or ticket you just because you pissed 'em off or because they're genuinely worried you're going to harm their credibility and authority with the gathering crowd. Even Gates admitted later that the police were just doing their job by responding to the 911 call. In an interview after the incident, Gates said he was actually grateful for the cops and that he did not believe Sgt. Crowley was a racist.
• Third, after confirming Gates' ID and securing the grounds (making sure there was no burglar on the premises), Crowley and company should have saddled up and left right away, considering how agitated the whole mess had apparently made Gates. And you have to ask why the hung around. What was the point, to teach a limping man with a cane a lesson about minding his manners when dealing with the police?
• Finally, Crowley was within his rights to arrest Gates, but he didn't have to.

If you dislike or doubt my last point, consider the wording of the Massachusetts statute under which Gates was arrested and charged: Chapter 272, Section 53 of Massachusetts' State Code,

Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure may be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

No matter what you think of him, I'm pretty sure Gates is not a "common night walker," "common street walker," "common railer," or "common brawler." Neither he nor Sgt. Crowley has suggested Gates was behaving in a "lewd, wanton, or lascivious" manner with Crowley or any of the women at the scene.

So, that leaves "disturbers of the peace." If Gates was indeed yelling at Crowley and yelling accusations of racism, no doubt, he was arguably disturbing the peace.

So was Crowley within the letter of the law? Sure, if his allegations about Gates' behavior are true...and are born out by something more credible than the police report that said Ms. Whalen was a "neighbor" who was concerned that big black men were breaking into Gates' house. But Crowley still wasn't required to make an arrest. It is discretionary.

I'll leave you with this personal analogy to hammer home my point: Several days ago, I stepped out of my back yard to roll my garbage can onto my rear swale, because garbage pickup was the next morning. But there was no room for my can on the swale, 'cause a mystery neighbor had dumped junk on my rear swale, taking up all my space. This annoyed me for the obvious reason. But it also annoyed me 'cause my fair city had done its once monthly bulk pickup a couple days earlier, removing a hacked up tree that I'd cut up and placed back there. Bear with me. There is a limit of 45 cubic feet of free bulk pickup once a month in my city. If you place more than that limit out for pickup in a one month period, the city charges you for the overage. My tree was definitely a good 45 cubic feet. So when I saw the junk on my property, I was not just angry that my space had been filled by junk that wasn't mine, but also that I could billed for the stuff.

But the mystery dumper was really no mystery. Over the past few years I've caught a couple different people from the home of a wack job woman whose back yard faces mine leaving things behind my house, 'cause I have lots of room, and they don't. Our yards are separated by an alley. Occasionally, I've asked them nicely not to leave stuff on my rear swale, explaining each time that I didn't want to get charged for their junk. This time, I didn't ask. I dragged the junk across the alley and left it on wack job's rear swale, making room for my garbage can on my own property.

The next morning my garbage was picked up and we all lived happily ever after...until Mrs. B called me at work a few hours later to tell me that wack job had just pounded on our front door, cussed her out, and demanded that we take the junk back. Mrs. B told wack job not to hold her breath. Wack job said she'd move the stuff back onto our property herself. Mrs. B cautioned that she was busy painting but if wack job persisted she'd call someone else to stop her from putting the junk back on our property. Wack job accepted the challenge.

So I got on the phone and sent over the police officer who supervises our part of our lovely 'hood.

When he arrived, along with a city code officer, the cop attempted to talk to wack job, who told him and the code officer to go and fornicate themselves. She grew increasingly agitated, and increasingly loud. She drew a crowd. The crowd looked disturbed and bothered by her rant. She grew defensive, eventually acknowledging in a round about way that she was responsible for the junk on my property. And she cussed the cop out over and over and over, finally flipping him off and walking away, shouting profanities as she went.

How did the officer respond, you ask? He took a deep breath, considered the circumstances - that the woman had been humiliated in front of neighbors who saw her admit to her sneaky illegal dumping, chuckled about her tantrum, gave her a verbal warning to behave, climbed back into his squad car, jotted down a few notes about the incident, and drove away.

I'm not guessing. The officer called me later and gave me a play-by-play.

And the code officer, who also took a brutal tongue lashing from the woman? He laughed it off too, also gave her a verbal warning, and drove away.

Her behavior fell well within the parameters of disorderly conduct. The police officer would have been more than justified if he'd arrested her. Her placing her junk on my property constituted illegal dumping. The code officer would have been more than justified ticketing her.

Both men had the right to cuff and cart her off, and cite her, respectively.

But both excercised discretion that says just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.

Careful what your family does; it might get YOU fired.

I hate straightforward titles, 'cause they take the surprise out of the following blog post, like this ethical doozy:

The town manager of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, was hired in March 2008, because the Fort Myers Beach Town Council believed he was a good government administrator, based on his past performance as an administrator in other Florida communities and his vision for the management and future of Fort Myers Beach.

Good reasons to hire a man, no?

Earlier this week, that same town council voted  5 - 0 to dismiss Scott Janke "without cause" - the council's words, not mine - because they believe Janke's wife's job gives the wrong impression of what Fort Myers Beach is all about.

Anabela Mota Janke, AKA Jazella Moore, is a porn star. And the Fort Myers Beach council believes she gives the town a bad name.

Every time I write about porn and the like on this blog, it's inevitable that a few of you scold me for being a prude and for trying to legislate adult behavior.

And every time, I have to reiterate that your'e wrong, and I don't care what consenting adults do.

You wanna make porn or view it, or change your name to Buck Nekkid, or Golden Globes, go ahead. Ultimately, we're all responsible for our own actions and activities, and that's that.

But this isn't about the morality (or lack thereof) of the porn industry.

This is about a guy losing his job, 'cause his wife's job made elected politicians blush.

If you can be fired for what your spouse does for a living, what's next - fired for what your adult children do for a living, or for what your parents do for a living?

Don't laugh. What are you going to do when your boss tells you your 21-year-old coke dealer son's face was plastered across the front page of the local paper, and because of that he's going to have to demote you, because your "family" problems might make clients uncomfortable.

I'll tell you what you won't do. You won't shake your boss's hand and say "No problem, sir. This is a privately owned business, and you can do what you want with it!"

No, you're going to protest, insist to your boss that the demotion isn't fair, that your job performance has been stellar, and that you shouldn't suffer 'cause your kid is a criminal.

So even if you don't like porn - and mom, if you're reading this post I'm not quitting my job to become a porn industry lobbyist; I'm just playing Devil's advocate - consider how you'd feel if an adult relative's activities were weighed in your abilities to do your job.

Follow me: http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Five Questions: Miss California, Nazis, Menacing Computers, World Citizens, Racists

What's crackin' friends and frienemies? I have been so remiss with Burnettiquette. But hey, I had news to find and write, because my bills don't pay themselves.

We need to catch up. And I think the easiest way to do so is ask you five of the most pressing questions on my mind.

Without further ado:

1. If "contract violations" are a good enough reason for Donald Trump to snatch Miss California Carrie Prejean's crown off her head today, why weren't they a good enough reason a month ago when Trump said she could keep her crown? Make up your mind, Trump.
2. The number of people hurt by computer equipment rose eight-fold from 1994 to 2006, to more than 78,000. About 39% of the injuries are llacerations to the head. Victims age 9 and under were injured climbing on or playing near computer stuff. I get that. But how in the world do adults with all their faculties cut themselves on computers? I've got computer equipment everywhere at home. It has never wounded me...except for that time I shattered the stupid mouse 'cause it wouldn't respond. That hurt my wrist.
3. "88" is a common tattoo on the slimy bodies of Nazi-wannabes, because "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet, thus "88" is a supposedly clever and coy way for them to say "HH!" or Heil Hitler. You're welcome for the lesson. But my point is the irony: An 88-year-old Nazi-wannabe shot a guard in the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. today. The guard shot him back. No word on either man's condition as of the writing of this post. Why is anyone still angry at 88-years-old? Why not write off the parts of life that angered you most and spend the rest of your days or years engaged in your hobby...unless your hobby is plotting museum shootings?
4.  I sorta liked Ronald Reagan. There I said it. Deal with it. If it makes you feel any better, I liked a few things about Bill Clinton too. Anyway, I think former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dishonored the late president Monday night in his speech at a Republican fundraiser, when he took a jab at Pres. Obama for calling himself "a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world." Gingrich left out the "proud...United States" part of Obama's quote. He also failed to mention this quote Reagan made in a 1982 speech at the United Nations: "I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world." What's the difference? BTW, it's not that the GOP doesn't have jabs that could work against Obama, but if this were a boxing match Gingrich's goofy swat on Monday was the equivalent of waving to his fans instead of throwing punches that will score points with the judges (voters).
5. While we're talking politics, a friend who always asks me what he thinks are trick questions in the hope of tripping me up and "catching" me saying something racist, asked me if I have ever been in a situation where I thought my race made me better able to get the job done than a white person. My answer: Skill trumps everything. But...I do recall being with a white colleague at a rowdy homicide scene years ago in a black neighborhood. We each took one side of the block so we could talk to witnesses. On her side she ran into trouble when a group of young black males started yelling at her and accusing her of being everything from "the man" to an undercover cop. Silly accusations. But my colleague is tough. She was unruffled and persisted with her questioning. The guys grew more agitated and not only stopped answering questions but began hinting that they might get violent. So I crossed the street, intervened, and pulled my colleague aside to tell her to let me finish the interview. The guys calmed down and talked to me. Yes, I am convinced they did it in part because I'm black. So, did it make me racist to reason in my mind that my skin color might help me make progress with these guys where my colleague couldn't? I don't think so. I think I was using an available "resource." What do you think?

PS. Follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Liberty City Seven, Six, Five...

If you live outside the Miami area the headline on this post might not mean anything to you.

So, just in case, the "Liberty City Seven" was a group of Muslim men in a Miami neighborhood who authorities say told a paid FBI informant that they wanted to commit terrorist acts in the U.S. and that they pledged allegiance to al-Qaida. Among their "goals?" To blow up an FBI building in Miami and the Sears Tower in Chicago.

This was all very controversial, 'cause folks in South Florida were divided over whether these guys were the real deal - terrorists-in-training - or just a bunch of morons, who talked tough. The government's case hinged on the sincerity of the group's desire to carry out terrorist acts on U.S. soil. The defense argued that these guys were not terrorists. Rather they were rubes, who fell for the rantings of a wannabe cult leader (one of the seven) who convinced the others they could get rich quick by pretending to be terrorists-in-training and suckering a terrorist sympathizer to fund their efforts. They would accept the cash and all run away laughing that they'd gotten over on their money source. Naturally it didn't work out that way.

There were two mistrials 'cause of hung juries. The recent third trial finally resulted in convictions. But only five of the men were convicted of various terrorism-related charges. Another man, Naudimar Herrera, was acquitted.

But that only accounts for six. The seventh member of the group, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted in the first trial of all charges. That was about a year-and-a-half ago.

And yet, Lemorin remains behind bars.

Lemorin comes to mind, 'cause an activist group and music group are throwing a party to promote a new CD, which calls for Lemorin's release. This is the poster they sent different folks in media today:

  

Before someone new to this blog - someone who doesn't know me - gets angry and calls me something that's gonna piss me off like "Terrorist Sympathizer," consider that Lemorin, who is a native of Haiti, is not an illegal alien. He is, according to the State Department, a permanent legal resident of the United States. And he was fully acquitted of all charges relating to this case. Still, immigration agents asked an immigration judge to deport Lemorin...even though he was acquitted. The judge granted the order...even though he was acquitted, and Lemorin remains in federal custody in rural Georgia...even though he was acquitted. He hasn't been deported though. He hasn't been charged with any new crimes. He still has status as a permanent legal resident of the United States. But he has been behind bars now - again with no charges - for more than 500 days, after being acquitted in the Liberty City Seven, Six, Five...case. No end in sight.

It's possible Lemorin and his buddies really were budding terrorists. One out of three juries agreed so for five of the men.

It's also possible that Lemorin and his buddies were the easily fooled suckers their defense attorneys portrayed them to be, suckers who wanted money, not death or destruction.

Either way, five were convicted, one was acquitted and walked. Let's take them out of the equation.

We're left with Lemorin.

Le'ts set aside our shared disgust for terrorists and those who would be terrorists and ask if it's right for a permanent legal resident of the U.S. to be held in prison awaiting deportation for crimes a jury acquitted him of?

I don't know if Lemorin's jury, or the other juries got their decisions right or wrong. It sounds to me like Lemorin and his pals were just numbnuts who fell for an immoral get rich quick scheme. If that's the case, they're all dumbasses. But if the juries were right - and Lemorin's wrong - then these guys all deserve to be locked up under a prison for plotting to repeat the kind of grief that 9/11 brought us.

In the mean time, charge Lemorin with something or let him go.

Swine Flu the key to peace in the Middle East?

An Israeli health official yesterday called for world health officials to change the name of "Swine Flu" to "Mexican Flu," since Mexico is where the new flu strange allegedly originated because pigs are offensive to both Jews and Muslims.

Really? Really?

I'm not incredulous about the offensive nature of pork in either religion. I understand the nature of that offense. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that a disease named after a forbidden (for some people) food source is offensive because of that name.

I'd find it offensive if it was called Christian Flu, or Muslim Flu, or Jew Flu, or Really Good Looking Black Man Flu. But Swine Flu? How's that religiously offensive?

Seriously, with all the people freaking out over this flu, does it really matter what we call it? Pig flu, dog, flu, cat flu - catching it or fearing it is not gonna make anyone abandon his faith.