THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Freedom’s Just Another Word For … Whatever Al Neuharth Wants It To Mean: Having previously probed several problematic donations and grants by the Freedom Forum – which funds and operates the Newseum - Gannett Blog editor Jim Hopkins – a former USA Today reporter - now turns his attention to the outsized bonuses paid to top employees in 2008, despite the foundation’s endowment having suffered multimillion-dollar losses that necessitated a series of layoffs. The information is from IRS Form 990-PF (Return of Private Foundation), which is a public document:
The bonuses included $375,000 to Freedom Forum Chairman and CEO Charles Overby, bringing his total 2008 pay to $991,044 in compensation and expenses … The museum's then-president, Peter Prichard, got a $225,000 bonus; his total pay and expenses for the year were $665,927. …
The 2008 returns show that [former Gannett Chairman and CEO Al Neuharth], 85, was paid $225,000 in compensation, and another $231,953 in unspecified expense reimbursements. … With his 2008 pay, Freedom Forum has now paid Neuharth nearly $1.3 million in compensation and expenses since 2006 alone, public documents show.
Nice work, if you can get it. But then, these days many journalists can’t even keep the jobs they have.
† Nanny Tried To Take Porn Pix Of Kids: VA prosecutors have dropped all charges against Bosnian immigrant Aza Hrnjic, 23, who had been accused of showing pornography to children she had been hired to care for as a nanny, and asking them to pose nude for a Web camera, reports The Washington Post:
Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Prince George's state's attorney's office, said "new information came to light" that demonstrated that "the case should not go forward," but he declined to be more specific. He said prosecutors made every effort to drop the charges as soon as they thoroughly screened the case.
† Court Pans Smoking Actors: It is illegal for Warren Sherrill, artistic director of Denver’s Paragon Theatre, to stage "Agnes of God" because “one of the key characters is a psychiatrist who chain-smokes” and CO’s indoor smoking ban extends to actors on stage – a restriction that was recently upheld by the state Supreme Court because actors could convey smoking without actually lighting up. Sherrill begs to differ, reports the Los Angeles Times:
For Sherrill, the decision means he'll keep passing on plays in which smoking is integral to the plot or to character development; he refuses to employ methods he considers unacceptable.
Miming is silly, he said. Talcum cigarettes are ridiculous. "The talcum lasts for a couple of puffs. If your actor sucks in rather than blows out, they've just swallowed a bunch of talcum," he said. "And it's going to look incredibly fake."
Altering the stage direction so that the character doesn't light up is equally distasteful, Sherrill said. "To me, that's sacrificing the writer's integrity."
Instead the Paragon, along with Denver's Curious Theatre, will pursue a legal case, hoping to win an audience with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of the states that prohibit smoking in public venues such as restaurants and bars, at least six - including California - provide a theatrical exemption, according to the group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Restorative Capital Punishment): The New York Times reports that the debate over whether CT should follow the lead of NY, NJ and NM in repealing the death penalty, “for some … has been seen through the lens of just one crime”:
More than two years later, the details still have the power to horrify.
In the middle of the night, two parolees break into a tidy clapboard house in the central Connecticut town of Cheshire. They club the father, a doctor, and tie him up.
One of them rapes and strangles the mother, the authorities say. The other molests one of the daughters, 11-year-old Michaela. The father breaks free and shouts for help. But the intruders have set a fire: The girls, Michaela and Hayley, 17, tied to their beds, die of smoke inhalation.
The triple murder on Sorghum Mill Drive - widely compared to the Kansas killings in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” - has transfixed the state ever since. The suspects, both habitual criminals, were arrested a block from the house. The crime prompted a searching review of the state legal system that had freed them.
Now, jury selection in the first of their capital murder trials is set to begin Tuesday, though both defendants tried and failed to avoid trial by offering to plead guilty in exchange for sentences of life in prison.
A member of a congregation that supports restorative justice, Dr. William Petit – the sole survivor of that horrific night - has now become a death-penalty advocate. He says, “I need to stand up for what is just in society, and I need to stand up for my family personally.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due): At a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Loonam told the judge that prosecutors "anticipate additional charges" against Adis Medunjanin, and alleged that he “conspired to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan after receiving military training from the terror network,” reports The Associated Press:
He also said the case could be combined with that of Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver charged with plotting to attack New York City with homemade bombs. …
Medunjanin, 25, has not been directly linked to the foiled bomb plot. But authorities say that he, Zazi and a third man, cab driver Zarein Ahmedzay, traveled to Pakistan, where Zazi received training in explosives from al-Qaida.
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