James Jay Lee has taken hostages at the Discovery Channel in an attempt to force them to change their programming to reflect his Malthusian worldview.  Apparently, Discovery’s programming about child birth has led to a heretofore unknown baby boom which will overwhelm our planet with “parasitic human infants” and “filthy human children”. Instead, we need to worry about “The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.”

Of course. The squirrels. Can’t forget them.

Mr. Lee was previously found guilty of disorderly conduct for a protest outside Discovery headquarters where he threw thousands of dollars in the air.

Mr. Lee continues to demand that “all human procreation and farming must cease!”

Those were the demands and sayings of Lee.

Update: Mr. Lee has reportedly been shot by police, and 3 hostages freed. No word on Mr. Lee’s condition

In my previous post, I lamented the death of journalism as displayed through a terribly biased and unprofessional article by Jennifer Dobner of the Associated Press.  The AP is now altered the article on their website and make no mention of any correction.

The original article contained the following quote

Lydia Kalish, Amnesty International’s death penalty abolition coordinator for Utah said her organization opposes the state’s effort to see Gardner executed. But despite Utah’s strong religious roots – it’s the home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – most here support the use of the death penalty.

“I think in Utah, when it suits their purposes, they go back to the Old Testament and the ‘eye for an eye’ kind of thing,” Kalish said. “These people may be the worst of the worst, but if the best we can do is repeat the same thing, it’s so obviously wrong.”

That quote has now been replaced with

About 20 anti-death penalty protesters demonstrated in the courthouse rotunda before the hearing.

“The firing squad is archaic, it’s violent, and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society,” said Bishop John C. Wester, of Utah’s Catholic Diocese.

This is an unacceptable alteration of the record. Longstanding journalistic practice demands that corrections be noted. The Associated Press is a dinosaur which sweeps unpleasantness under the rug and pretends it never existed.

In the credit-where-credit-is-due-dept, I should mention that the New York Times’ Eric Eckholm has written an article on the same topic which merely reports the facts objectively and dispassionately. Without interjecting opinion.  The way journalism is supposed to be done. Ms. Dobner and the AP would do well to learn from Mr. Eckholm and the New York TImes.

Amorous couples would do well to take heed: a dumpster is a poor choice of venue for a romantic interlude. Though one would think this warning would be unnecessary, a Wichita couple learned this lesson the hard way recently.

Apparently not bothered by the stink of garbage, or by its slimy texture, the couple’s coitus was interrupted by the appearance of two men armed with a knife who proceeded to rob them of shoes, jewelery and wallet. Luckily for the couple, their belongings were recovered a short time later. No word on whether their mood likewise returned, hopefully in a more appropriate location.

We came across two items in the news last week and are trying to understand why they elicit different reactions from everyone who encounters them(including us), even though they seem to be morally equivalent.

In the first case, 17 year old Jacquelyn Lockard noticed $2.2 million extra in her bank account. She informed the bank of the error, and the bank credited here with $125 worth of interest the deposit had gathered while it was in her account.

In the second case, Microsoft overpaid the severance of some workers it laid off, and asked for the money back. This was met with general outrage that Microsoft would expect the money back. Microsoft has since agreed to let the affected employees keep the money.

We are struggling to find the fundamental difference here. In both cases, a corporation mistakenly gave people money they were not entitled to. In one case the expectation is that it should be returned, and in one case not. Some possible distinctions:

The Amount Of Money Involved
It’s possible that this is a question of magnitude. A multi-million dollar error is so clearly egregious that it must be returned. An error amounting to mere thousands is a cost of doing business. This is an unsatisfying answer because the magnitude of the error should not affect the moral calculus.

The Size of the Corporations Involved
Perhaps we have more sympathy for a small credit union then a huge multinational corporation, especially when the small company has made a huge error. This is likewise an unsatisfying answer. Stealing from the rich is as wrong as stealing from the poor.

Who Discovered the Error
Perhaps the difference is that in the case of the credit union, Ms. Lockard reported the error to them. She is therefore portrayed in a sympathetic light, as someone who made a choice to do the right thing. In the case of Microsoft, the company contacted the employees and asked for a check back, causing it to be perceived as a bully. We hesitate to accept this explanation, as we are fairly certain nobody would object to the credit union asking for $2.2 million back from Ms. Lockard.

How Sympathetic the Person Who Was Overpaid Was
Being that these were severance payments and Microsoft had just laid these employees off, Microsoft already appears in a negative light towards them. Nobody has sympathy for the bully boss, firing employees. These are unemployed people in a terrible job market and our sympathy naturally goes towards them. Asking for money from them, appears to us to be adding insult to injury. In the case of Ms. Lockard and the credit union, there is no perceived wrong done to her. She may be a nice person, but there was never any expectation that she should receive this money.

Morally, there is no difference between the two cases, but in both customer service and interpersonal relationships, being right is not enough. Especially when dealing with a public image, corporations need to take a step back and look at how their action will be perceived and not just at whether what they are doing is legalistically correct. Microsoft’s cost was far greater than the $125,000 they overpaid here.

Perhaps Chris Cummings can give us an example of this from his deep experience.

Airlines want your love. Desperate to save themselves, and divert attention from their panoply of surcharges and fees, they’re asking you to beg congress to stop the greedy oil speculators. We don’t expect them to find a lot of sympathy from anyone who’s flown in the last 10 years.

Smart

My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!

And then I went and showed my dad,
and he go red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head-
Too proud of me to speak!
-Shel Silverstein

We usually enjoy reading Steve Silver’s blog(we still can’t help but smile when recalling the story of the neo-nazi who lived with a black prostitute in a storage container in his ex-wife’s yard) but were puzzled by his description of a post by Shysterball as “genius”.

Shysterball points out that the Yankees lineup average age would only increase from 32.1 to 34.98 if 34 year old Hideki Matsui were replaced with 60 year old Billy Crystal, and comments “I know the Yankees are an aging team, but wouldn’t you hope that adding a 60 year-old to your lineup would skew that average age up a bit more?”

Actually, the age of the Yankees lineup is irrelevant.

60(Crystal)-34(Matsui) = 26 years

26/9 = 2.8888888888… years

No matter how young or old the Yankee lineup is, swapping those 2 players will increase the average by exactly 2.88888..

How long before young Ms. Spears(or is it still Mrs. Federline) shows up in Bahrain in a burka married to Michael Jackson?
One of the enterprising scribes at an established and respected news source ought to set about to make this happen. If they can also adopt Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, we may be able to save the newspaper industry.