In the previous entry, I mentioned that the AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY would soon choose the 2009 Word of the Year. And, so they have - along with the Word of the Decade and a host of other words deemed useful, outrageous and unlikely to succeed.
This weekend, the members of the Society gathered in baltomore where the fateful votes were taken. You can read the entire news release HERE, but I'll give you the highlights:
If you read the news release, not only can you learn more about the winning words, but you can also check out the words and phrases that were runners-up in each category. For example, crotch bomber, which made it into the "most outrageous" category.
The news release also recaps winning words from the past 20 years. It's interesting to look back at this history of the language because it accurately reflects the social and political trends of the time.
Can you feel the anticipation? In just a couple short weeks from now, the AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY will reveal its choice for the 2009 Word of the Year (WOTY). Early nominations include the likes of sexting, birther and Octomom. As always, I will let you know the winning word when it is chosen.
I know what word I would choose. It's not some newfangled compound or trendy catch phrase. No, it's an old-fashioned word that we've come to appreciate in a whole new way: Corruption. As a resident of Pennsylvania in general - and NEPA in particular - I can think of no other word that is more representative of the events of the past year.
Just how pervasive has the word "corruption" been? Well, let's start with the obvious. A phrase that seems to pop up in almost every local newscast these days is "the on-going corruption scandal in Luzerne County." So far, 23 people have been charged by the Feds. That tally includes, among others, two judges, one county commissioner and assorted school board members.
Of course, you know that the number of indictments won't stop at 23. Fortunately, the US Attorney's office has created a special Web page to help us keep track. You can check it out HERE. Greg Skrepenak's name hasn't been added yet, but you can bet it's coming soon. How many other names will be added remains to be seen but, from what I'm hearing, a safe guess is "lots."
The Feds are now feeling their way into neighboring Schuylkill County. Two young men face Federal hate crimes charges in connection with the beating death of a Mexican immigrant. The police chief and two officers stand accused of obstructing the investigation into that beating death. And, the chief and a fourth officer face Federal charges for allegedly shaking down illegal gambling operations. Published reports say the Feds have set up a tipline for people in Schuylkill County to call with information about other possible corruption. They did the same thing in Luzerne County, and we've seen where that's led. Will an "on-going corruption scandal in Schuylkill County" be next? Time will tell.
At the state level, we have the Pennsylvania attorney general's on-going corruption investigation known as "Bonusgate." The AG got indictments against a bunch of Democrats. Then, some Republicans got indicted. Now, a few more Democrats. They're all accused of basically using taxpayer money to fund political campaigns. According to prosecutors, they went about this alleged wrongdoing in different ways but always working toward the goal of political gain. I'm not sure what the total number of indictments is here. Around 25, I think. But, that number could increase any day now. As I said, the investigation is on-going.
The whole situation reminds me of a time a few years ago when the corporate types required us lowly employees to take - and pass - an ethics test. It was ten questions, I think, which could be answered correctly by applying what a co-worker broke down into three basic principles:
Maybe they don't exactly qualify as rules to live by, but they seem like pretty good tips for avoiding a corruption scandal, on-going or otherwise.
With only two weeks left in the year, everyone at work is in full holiday mode. That means lots of people on vacation, and the people who are at work really need time to sample all the goodies brought in by people from other departments. Basically, when the newsroom is in holiday mode, the actual news is supposed to be in holiday mode, too.
Not so this week. Monday, as I recall was pretty quiet. But, Tuesday, Wednesday and today have been intense. We've had several big stories, any of which could have led a newscast had not another big story come along to trump it.
Tuesday morning brought the arrests of two young men and four Shenandoah police officers on Federal charges. The young men are accused of hate crimes in connection with the July 2008 beating death of a Mexican immigrant. The young men are almost finished serving the time they got after being convicted of lesser charges at the county level. But, the Federal charges carry potential life sentences, so I'm guessing the guys won't be released on probation any time soon.
Three of the police officers, including the chief, are accused of obstructing the investigation into the death. The fourth officer, along with the chief, is accused of extorting money from illegal gambling operations (video poker) in the borough.
Tuesday's arrests in Shenadoah required coverage in the borough and also in Wilkes-Barre, where the police officers were arraigned in Federal court. In all, three reporters worked the story on Tuesday. That topped the one reporter we assigned to the recall of 800,000 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine by the manufacturer which is based - where else? - in the Poconos. It also topped the arrest of a powerful state lawmaker, his aide, and a former lawmaker/current Revenue Secretary in the so-called "Bonusgate" scandal. We sent a reporter to Harrisburg to cover that story.
Wednesday brought more developments as we sent two more reporters to Shenandoah for follow-ups and a third reporter to Federal court, where the four police officers (who were held in jail overnight) appeared for bail hearings. The timing of the hearings added extra pressure as they ended pretty much as our 5 pm news began.
Once again, the Shenandoah story trumped a story that could have led a newscast on any other day - a hearing for a man accused of trying to make off with millions of dollars worth of artwork done by his famous father. The museum is in the Poconos, and the fact that the son used a backhoe to break into the gallery last week adds extra spice to the story. At the hearing, the son talked on camera to our reporter and claimed to have notarized evidence that his father gave him permission to get the artwork "by any means possible." We also had two guilty pleas by suspects in the on-going corruption scandal in Luzerne County. Their guilty pleas happened in late morning. A reporter covered the pleas live at noon but, by the evening newscasts, each plea only rated a 20 second vo.
Had enough? I had. But then Thursday rolled around and so did more big stories. We sent a reporter back to Shenandoah, where he learned that the chief and three officers (more than half of the borough's seven-member force) had been suspended without pay. But, the really big news came out of Luzerne County where a commissioner long-suspected of being caught up in the corruption scandal resigned. It's also where money may be missing from a county office, and where county officials abruptly took down the manger/menorah display at the courthouse after threats of a lawsuit from the ACLU. You know things are bad in Luzerne County when even the baby Jesus gets the boot.
So, we had one reporter on the manger story, which broke in the morning. Word of the commissioner's resignation started surfacing in the early afternoon and ultimately required coverage by three reporters to handle the various and late-breaking aspects of the story.
What will Friday bring? I'm not sure if we'll be in Shenandoah yet again, but I'm sure we'll be able to find a couple, two, tree follow-ups in Luzerne County. And central PA's been awfully quiet. Maybe too quiet. We'll see.
So, I went to the movies this afternoon. It doesn't matter what movie I saw because it's not really relevant to the story. What does matter is that there were, I think, seven other people in the theater with me. What also matters is that, because there were only a few people in the theater, there were many, many empty seats in many, many empty rows.
The few people who were in the theater arrived in the following approximate order: me, two guys, a woman, a young couple, and a woman with an older man.
I staked out my seat in the center of the second row from the back so there were proabably seven or eight seats on either side of me. When the two guys came in, they sat just left of center about four or five rows in front of me. The woman went all the way to the back row and sat a few seats to my right. The young couple sat in the row in front of me, a couple seats to my left. Then the movie started.
The woman and older man showed up about five minutes into the movie. Now, where do you think they chose to sit? That's right. They decided to sit in my aisle. Not only that, but they decided against sitting in one of the seven or eight empty seats to my right. Instead, they decided to sit to my left, which meant that I had to change my position to let them pass in front of me. And then, they left only one seat between me and the old guy, who turned out to be a loud breather, so I had to listen to him essentially snore his way through the rest of the movie.
I suppose I should be glad he didn't have popcorn. That could have been a deal-breaker.
My stress level is a lot lower today due to the fact that (thankfully) Election Day is over and (sadly) so is the World Series.
Tuesday's elections - in my view, anyway - did not yield may surprises. Luzerne County voters said no to another term for Judge Peter Paul Olszewski but gave Judge Thomas Burke ten more years on the bench. That's about the way I thought it would go. Olszewski couldn't overcome the implied guilt by association to the on-going corruption scandal. Burke's name, to my knowledge, has never been mentioned in connection with the scandal, so I figured he'd be safe. The PPO vote, I thought, could have gone either way, but I figured it was more likely to go "no" than "yes."
As for the open seats on the LuzCo bench, you had to figure that William Amesbury would win one of them. He was on both the Democrat and Republican tickets. The fact that the judicial age limit will prevent him from seeking retention may have also played in his favor. The other seat went to Tina Gartley, who beat out the Republican Richard Hughes. Again, that's pretty much the way I thought it would go. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Luzerne County, so Gartley had the edge there. And, I think there may have been a movement among the voters to choose a woman if for no other reason than to break up the old boys' network that brought us all the corruption.
A couple things did stand out, however. One is the loss by long-time Wyoming County DA George Skumanick. He squeaked out a victory in the primary, but lost Tuesday to Democrat Jeff Mitchell. My station talked to Mitchell yesterday and even he seemed a little surprised by the whole thing. As to why Skumanick lost, I can think of two possible reasons. One is his pursuit of charges in the cell phone sexting case that surfaced in the Tunkhannock Area School District back in the spring. Some voters may have felt Skumanick was overzealous in his handling of the case, especially in his threat to file charges against the kids.
The other thing Skumanick may have had going against him was the fact that he has been DA in Wyoming County for 20 years. I didn't realize it until I started preparing my notes, but he's wrapping up his fifth term as DA. That's a long time in DA terms. Maybe voters just felt it was time for a change.
The other thing that stood out was that a good number of incumbents seemed to lose. I'm not talking about row offices, but rather about mayors and council people. I didn't take any official count, but as I was entering vote totals, it appeared that many incumbents in communities all over the area came out on the short end.
Also coming out on the short end were my Philadelphia Phillies. They lost the World Series in six games to the New York Yankees. I can't say that the Phillies deserved to win. If you don't hit and you don't pitch, you don't win. In this series, the Yankees were the better team. They hit when the Phillies didn't; they pitched when the Phillies didn't. Now, if you play a second series next week, the results might be different. But, for this week, in this World Series, the Yankees were better.
My general take on it is that it's something of a miracle that the Phillies got back to the World Series in the first place. They ran hot and cold all season rather than playing consistently good baseball, and the pitching was always shakey. Fortunately, the Phillies got "good" Cliff Lee for two games in the series, otherwise it might have been over in four instead of six. In terms of hitting, Ryan Howard picked a bad time to go on a strikeout streak, and Rollins and Victorino weren't much help. When Carlos Ruiz is the second most dependable hitter in the lineup, you're in trouble.
101 days and counting until spring training 2010.
Halloween is almost here and that means the end of one Death Pool season and the start of another.
This past season was pretty good for me, Lady Macbeth. Three people on my list are no longer eligible to be on my list - Mark "Deep Throat" Felt, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Swayze. By no means will I win the pool, but to have three scores is pretty good for me. Usually, I have one or none.
Anyway, now that it seems I'm on something of a roll, the people on the new list (which includes a lot of holdovers from the previous list) better watch out.
20. Billy Graham
19. Nancy Reagan
18. Betty Ford
17. Kirk Douglas
16. Fidel Castro
15. Ariel Sharon
14. Kim Jong Il
13. Jerry Lewis
12. Louis Farrakhan
11. Stephen Hawking
10. George H.W. Bush
9. Ernest Borgnine
8. Olivia De Havilland
7. Eli Wallach
6. Abe Vigoda
5. Mickey Rooney
4. Robert Byrd
3. Phyllis Diller
2. John Wooden
1. Rod Blagojevich
First of all, it sounds like winter is getting an early start. The forecast for today and tomorrow calls for snow, especially in the higher elevations. Could be three inches or so there. Most places won't see that much, and what does fall from the sky will probably be rain. Still, the mention of the word "snow" on October 15 is not comforting.
Secondly, hearing one song a couple of times reminded me of another song that I like very much. The first song is "BLUE SKIES" by Noah and the Whale, the same group that brought us "FIVE YEARS TIME." Embedding on both songs is disabled, so you'll have to click the links if you want to listen.
The second song is "Got You Where I Want You" by The Flys. I think it's the bass lines that tie them together. They're not exactly the same, but similar enough.
... that maybe I had given up on this blog thing comes a sign that, no, I have not.
For me, the sign came this morning in the form of an AP article stating that Pennsylvania is planning another run at putting tolls on Interstate 80.
If you recall, the idea first surfaced a couple years ago during budget negotiations (which did NOT drag on for 101 days, BTW). The big picture involved generating billions in revenue by a) leasing the Turnpike to a private company and/or b) allowing the Turnpike Commission to turn Interstate 80 into a toll road.
So far, neither scenario has come to pass. A Spanish-led consortium tried to lease the turnpike, but lawmakers didn't think they were offering enough money. And, the feds put the kibosh on the I-80 plan.
Now, according to this latest AP article, the Turnpike Commission plans to present the feds with new evidence that tolling 80 should be allowed. I don't know what that new evidence is, but I suppose we'll find out shortly.
At any rate, I'll believe there will be tolls on I-80 when I see construction start on the toll booths.
Today seems to be a day for tying up loose ends. I've finished the ironing that I didn't get to over the weekend, made an appointment with the bank, and made the bed. So, while I'm at it, I might as well update the ol' blog seeing as how I haven't posted anything here for almost a month. It's not like I haven't thought about it, because I have. But, I just never got around to putting fingers to keyboard until now.
So, what have you missed? Not much, really. The Phillies are still on track to make the playoffs, though I wonder how far the pitching staff will be able to take them with these injuries popping up all over the place. I also have concerns about the hitting. The Phils tend to run hot and cold, and if they're cold when the playoffs roll around, forget it, especially if the pitchers aren't healthy.
Pennsylvania still doesn't have a budget, but at least there's an agreement in place now. So, there could be an actual budget by late this week or early next week. That will put the budget somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 days late. Can you imagine a scenario in which YOU were 90 days late with something? How well do you think that would go over? I'm just sayin'.
I went to my high school reunion over the weekend. After 25 years, the Class of '84 still looks good.
I spent the rest of the weekend at Penn State catching up with a good friend and molding young minds. I also briefly met the husband of an acquaintance from college and had a quick chat with a former news director who once considered me for a job. It's a small world and a smaller business.
I am not a cat person, but I do like "Cat People." I especially like how Quentin Tarantino utilized this '80s classic in "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS," his film set in the '40s. Brilliant!
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