Ask not for whom the toll tolls, it tolls for you, Virginia

In the words of the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus gambit, “and now for something completely different” we bring to the citizens of Virginia a novel idea, tolls on Interstate 95.

Twenty years after the citizenry hailed the extinction of tolls on the busiest East Coast Interstate highway, we find ourselves on the verge of installing them again. This time, however, instead of having the toll booths marking the former Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, the toll booths will sit like a Rottweiler’s collar on the edge of North Carolina.

It’s hard to make an argument that something isn’t needed to offset the road repair and construction costs generated by the traffic flow.  Just take a drive on I-95, or I-64, or I-81, well you get the point, repair needs far exceed repair funds. But is turning back the clock to 1992 the right approach?

As it stands, the state expects to extract $4 per car and a monstrous $12 for large trucks, in booths located along the North Carolina border.  I suppose the road situation around Lake Gaston, not to mention the lake itself, will present enough of an obstacle that the truckers would happily pay the $12 just to be on their merry way. And, hey what the heck, with the cost of fuel coming down to nearly $3 per gallon what difference does it make to tack on another $12 per load?

Who knows, the truckers may even opt to pick up an EZ-Pass device so they can pay an extra $1 per month in addition to the cost of the tolls. Works for me, but then I don’t have much north-south driving exposure, so the tolls are no big deal to me.  Besides, I know most of the back streets and byways and can simply take a mini-detour near Roanoke Rapids and get back on the Interstate at Emporia, or vice versa as the case may be.

Take that, Virginia.

But my cheapnicity (sic) aside, something absolutely needs to be done to offset the enormous and mounting costs of highway maintenance.  VDOT estimates the cost of maintaining all 178 miles of I-95 over the next 25 years at $12.1 billion, and by today’s estimation only $2.5 billion, or 20 percent, will be available to do so.  What’s a transportation department to do?

Since by VDOT’s estimate, 40 percent of the state’s Interstate traffic rambles along on I-95, it seems some sort of fee or tariff would be in order.

In his essay, Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau said he didn’t have a problem paying road taxes or local taxes in general, but he did not want his taxes to support government mechanisms, such as slavery, so he opted to become a tax rebel and refused to pay his taxes. That landed him in jail in 1848.  The state probably would have been better off just letting it go had they known then how Civil Disobedience would affect the country in the 1960s when wielded at the hands of Dr. Martin Luther King.  But that’s another story for another day.

If we think of some other way to generate that kind of money, the only other resource might be some kind of road tax tacked onto our annual state taxes.  That may indeed be an option, but it leaves one thinking that there are a great many “freeloaders” plying their trade on I-95, and other Interstate highways across the state.  So how does VDOT get into their pockets?

Hark, did someone out there say:  “user fee?” Yes, user fee. For my part, I try not to use I-95 as much as possible. If there’s another way to get where I want to go, I take it. But sometimes, the nature of my business leaves little choice and I end up picking up I-95 from the Temple Avenue entrances.

But I would argue that my Buick doesn’t do near the damage to the highway that those 18-wheelers do.  The big trucks scallop the road surface, making driving seem like some sort of carnival ride. Not that I am complaining, mind you, I like fresh vegetables, fuel at the gas station, and all those other goodies the truckers haul all around the US.  But I typically pay for any additional costs incurred due to fuel, salaries, or tolls, so any increase on the highway has a net effect on my family budget anyway.

So what’s a Virginian to do? Whether the state opts to put up new toll booths just south of its Welcome Center or not, somehow or someway, we Virginians will end up footing this bill. Maybe a toll isn’t such a bad deal after all.

Yeah, right.

Quickest guilty verdict in history: Jerry Sandusky--Guilty

Butterside Up

By David Breidenbach

As I write this, the defense in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case has just rested its case.  To say that things are looking pretty grim for poor Jerry is an understatement of mammoth proportions. As I said in an earlier post about this case, what would come out in the trial would be worse than anyone could imagine from just hearing the initial details.

So, before we get to the point of closing arguments, deliberation, or sentencing, I think it would be safe to say that Mr. Sandusky can get ready to spend a significant amount of the rest of his life behind bars. In fact, it’s likely that he will never be outside a prison again.  And for that, we can thank our criminal justice system.

The testimony of the eight victims was particularly damning. In fact, the case was strong enough that the judge would only toss one of the 52 counts Sandusky was charged with. And it was nowhere near the worst of the charges. One after another the eight testified to almost exactly the same set of situations leading up to the sexual abuse. If it sounds like they were in cahoots, it was because Sandusky felt he had a good model to follow and he followed it to the nth degree.

One after another, they told of him grooming them. Oh, they didn’t use the term grooming; they probably didn’t even know it could mean more than combing your hair and dressing well. But there it was. The prosecution didn’t even have to connect the dots. The dots just sort of connected themselves.

It’s just amazing to me to hear what some of these people thought and did when the suggestion of potential child abuse was raised. “Oh, Coach has a heart of gold, he wouldn’t do that.” BS. When kids come to you and tell you that things are happening, you have a moral imperative to check into it. There’s a tendency among adults not to believe a child when they report such things. We don’t want to believe such things, but the sad fact is that you may be the only person he or she has nerve enough to tell.

If you ignore it, it sends exactly the message that people like Sandusky want the kids to get and they clam up.  It’s defeatist, but where else do they have to turn? And, in the case of Sandusky, the kids were being enticed with gifts and opportunities most other kids never get. Who wouldn’t want to be invited to an all expenses paid trip to a Bowl game, including a place to stay, food, and being on the sidelines.

And what about that legal defense?  His wife, Dottie, didn’t really help him out much. And all of those character witnesses? What good is that? ‘Well, I saw Jerry bringing kids into the showers and didn’t think anything of it.’ Of course, there were likely several people in the shower at the same time and for him to do anything untoward would have been much more difficult to explain.

To me when the high school coach caught him “showing wrestling moves” and when McQueary saw what he saw, that sort of sealed the deal.  I have no doubt that Sandusky did everything the witnesses claim he did. In fact, I would be surprised if there weren’t a bunch more “alleged” victims out there.

Even so, there are still a lot of questions.  It seems the college may have known about his bizarre behavior well before the incident at the Alamo Bowl in 1998.  Am I the only one who latched onto the super secret file the administration kept on him for his bizarre behavior?  Certainly, that portion of this case will be coming out soon, too.

All along Penn State has tried to show this as a case against Jerry Sandusky and not about the university. But, as we move closer to the end of this mess, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the college was aware of Sandusky’s odd behavior. In the end, I believe Penn State will also be culpable from trying to cover up the scandal.

Of course, all of that is speculation on my part.

There’s always the chance that someone on the jury will hold out from finding Jerry guilty due to a misguided sense of protecting PSU.  But they would be wrong to do so.  If the school did in fact know about Jerry’s behavior before the 1998 season ended, then those in charge should be held culpable. It was their express duty to protect those kids; they dropped the ball and allowed a sex abuse predator to remain active for many more years.  In the end, they will all be punished.

How dare you use weapons of war against us!

It’s sometimes amazing to me how naïve some people can be about the exploits of war, warfare, and the killing of other human beings in attempting to accomplish something that will end up having to be worked out by people in some kind of treaty. What I am talking about is the audacity, or incredible stupidity, of someone like Abu Bakr al-Qayed, the brother of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was blown up in a drone attack last week.  al-Qayed claimed that the US’s use of remote-controlled weapons is inhumane and that doing so makes nonsense of the United States’ claim to champion human rights.

One has to think that this moron of a doctor has lost sight of what predicated most of what’s going on right now.  He had the temerity to make the following statement, “I never heard him speak of killing innocent people and don't believe he would ever condone it. He was a Muslim, and we don't kill people without reason.”

Mmmm, now let’s think that one through a bit. It wasn’t so long ago that some group of people opted to fly a pair of airliners into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. And then there was the failed attempt of the airplane that was forced down in a field in Pennsylvania, which was reportedly destined for the White House. Now, we could say that the attacks on the Pentagon and the White House were military targets, and therefore subject to attack.  But the attacks on the World Trade Center killed thousands of innocent people without a minute’s concern over the humanity of killing innocents.

Now, I suppose, using al-Qayed’s rationale, it was OK to knock down the World Trade Center buildings because the planes were flown by human beings, and as he said earlier, Muslims don’t kill people without a reason, right? Well, we are still waiting to hear a reason for that attack.  The Pentagon houses a great deal of America’s military leadership, and the White House is the home of the President, the Commander-in-Chief of US Military Forces. So you can make a case, I suppose, that those were legitimate targets.  But not so the attack in New York.

Having spent more than a few years in the military, I can tell you that war in general is inhumane. There is nothing humane about napalm, claymore mines, or flame throwers either. But when you are in a jam, they can help out a great deal. Is it more humane to leave an IED by the side of the road and detonate it when a military vehicle passes by?  Is it more humane than taking a Western journalist captive and be-heading him on a video? Is it more humane than dousing a child with gasoline and setting him on fire because he believes a slightly different variant of the same Muslim religion you do?

The more I think about it, the more I wonder what al-Qayed means by humane.

War is not meant to be pleasant. It’s meant to be fierce and horrible. It’s meant to be so nasty that you don’t want to continue, at which point a resolution can be sought out.

But to sit there and say that use of military equipment in fighting a war is inhumane is crazy. The only reason to say something like that, in my opinion is because it hit so close to home. And, sure, if you can find any of the pieces of Abu Yahya’s body, then take it on home for burial. But don’t think he’ll be a martyr; all he’ll be is another dead soldier.

Tiger Blood Part 2: The Return of Charlie Who?

With so much going on this week between Jerry Sandusky’s jury selection, which in case you haven’t heard took a total of two days, and all the strife around the world, it seemed to me a good time to take a look at what’s going on with Charlie Sheen.

Sure, it would be easy and fun to beat up Jerry and his penchant for toddlers, but all of that will be worked out over the next month and to slam him again now would upstage all the other juicy details that are starting to leak out, like his “love letters.”  Sure, there’s that stuff about Iran supporting Syria in its dementia, and who better than the minions of Ahmadinejad to support such a brutal state. But there’s nothing quite as unbelievable as Charlie Sheen’s interview in the Rolling Stone magazine.

But then again, what better place for the aging star to start his apology to beg forgiveness as he readies a new small screen appearance?

First of all, when he blew up while working on Two Men and a Baby, no wait I meant, Two and a Half Men, it was unfathomable that someone could be so self-centered and egotistical and not be either President of the United States or at least a Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Yikes, talk about giving up a good job in a down economy.

And for him to go out with such a blaze of gory (sic).  For months it seems all anyone had to talk about was Tiger Blood and winning. Well, the start of his apology doesn’t sound like he thinks he was a winner now. Actually, it sounds like someone who is working hard to get back into the good graces of the public he wants to woo in order to support his new TV venture.

In the real world, it’s hard to imagine anyone willing to take a chance on working with such a one-man pandemic. But he was a big part of Two Men and a Whoopee Cushion’s success, so I guess it was only a matter of time before someone would try to bring him back.

That job apparently has fallen on the FX TV channel. Yes, it’s true, Sheen will soon be headlining once again on TV, this time on the FX show Anger Management, appropriately enough. And, thinking about the title, maybe this is just another of those great reality TV shows?  You know, shows like Jersey Shore, Billy the (Drugged) Exterminator, or in this case, Survivor?

Still, in the recent interview posted on CNN lately, it doesn’t make Sheen seem as if the Tiger has changed his stripes any.  About alcohol, he said, “I mean, the “stuff” works.” But on a post, he also had this brief bit of self-enlightenment, "Clearly, a guy gets fired, his relationships are in the toilet, he's off on some [expletive deleted] tour, there's nothing 'winning' about any of that. I mean, how does a guy who's obviously quicksanded, how does he consider any of it a victory? I was in total denial."

So, how does a guy who is totally quicksanded right his personal ship?  Simple, get some money hungry TV studio execs to buy into the idea that bygones are bygones and what happened in the past certainly isn’t a forbearer of what may happen in the future.  It worked with the ’29 Stock Market, right?

I know I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s going to be pretty hard for me to sit down and watch his show knowing all the baggage he’s toting along behind him. I’m sure some people will want to watch, like those who stare at train wrecks or rubberneck serious accidents on the Interstates. But for me, my time would be better spent taking pictures of the feral cats in my neighborhood, or writing a new Butterside Up column.

Enjoy the show!

Best medicine for Honor Students--a day in the slammer!

Here’s a fine example of how our judicial system is so far out of whack it’s ridiculous. One would think that a jurist who is expected to apply the law when necessary would have an iota of common sense and realize when the law doesn’t really fit in a particular case.

Recently a Texas honor student, who has two jobs and is doing her best to try to keep her family together on her own, was summarily tossed in jail because of truancy. Diane Tran, a 17-year-old 11^th grader at Willis High near Houston, was sent to jail for 24 hours as punishment for missing more than 10 school days in a six-month period.

Now, I can understand why truancy is a bad thing if we want all our kids to be in school to maximize their learning, or even just to minimize their time on the streets so they don’t resort to drugs, running around, or just being a bad kid. But it’s hard for me to rationalize that kind of behavior with a girl who has two jobs, is an honors student, and is doing her best to take care of her younger siblings because her father works too late to do so himself.

At what point exactly do we not get that this is an exceptional person in an exceptional situation? There are times for rules and times when rules should be acknowledged and overlooked.  A judge, which Lanny Moriarty apparently is by virtue of his title, needs to use more than the draconian type laws that really don’t address all situations, but might make us feel good about sticking it to people. It takes away the onus of using one’s brain to make a decision and merely tacks it on to policy, or law, or some other equally ridiculous process.

Even her teachers admit that “all she does is work and go to school.” But because some people are from that strain of human being called homo-simpleton, they don’t get it when common sense needs to intervene. If it were my kid, and he missed 20 days of school and still managed to work two jobs and be an honors student, I would be looking for a third job for him. It seems to me that Ms. Tran is doing an exemplary job in school and likely at work too.

But in this day and age we are too dumb realize that the intent of the truancy law was to keep problem children on the straighter and narrower, not kids like Tran. So what we do, when they break some incredibly stupid law, like the Zero Tolerance drug laws some schools invoke that make having aspirin in school illegal, is just apply it. Nothing can mitigate the issue. No sensible approach, like figuring out why the law is there in the first place. Nope, we just apply it where the criteria are met and who cares?

I don’t know about you, but I expect my judges to have a brain and to look at a case from all sides.  That this even made it to the courts bends my mind. The schools themselves should have intervened. But that’s not the way the world works in 2012.  In 2012, we apply the law without understanding its need for application or whether the case merits such application.

We move through life as little automatons, ensuring that Tab A goes into Slot B and can’t figure out what to do if there is a deviation from that. That’s why we have laws like the 10-absences laws and the Zero tolerance laws. It’s not that they are very good laws. Most often they aren’t.  But they do take away the need for anyone to use their smarts in handling such cases.

So, in this case, Ms. Tran gets a day in jail to think about how she’s ruining her life, and creating a paperwork nightmare for the school and legal authorities. She is also getting a nice criminal record that will follow her around all her life. Maybe, now that she has a record, she will lose one or the other of her jobs; that ought to improve things for her and her family.

But the judge can sit back knowing that he performed his duty as required.  His only comment to KHOU news, was, “If you let one run loose, what are you going to do with the rest of them? Let them go, too?”

No, we expect a judge to look at the situation. Use your brain and see that this is a special circumstance. Ben Franklin once said, “An educated blockhead is a greater blockhead than one which is ignorant.” No question that Moriarty is educated; he’s likely been a lawyer.

Pakistan: With allies like this who needs Iran?

Here’s part of the problem when working with the likes of Pakistan in the Terrorism war:

Already because we don’t trust Pakistan, we opt instead to take out Osama Bin Laden all by ourselves.  One would think, in the scheme of anti-terrorism, taking out the Big Honcho is a big deal and everyone would want to do it.

But here’s the catch, Pakistan probably wasn’t interested in doing so for a number of reasons: 1 Bin Laden still holds a lot of power in Pakistan, 2 Pakistan has never really supported the US in its endeavors; 3 they thought they could keep him safe inside the confines of the country.

But lo and behold, things start to trickle out. Our forces make a few discoveries, and we find that Bin Laden is holed up within miles of the Pakistani equivalent to West Point. It stretches the imagination to think that officials in Pakistan were unaware of Bin Laden’s presence there.

And now, as if to prove their sovereignty, they arrest and jail a doctor who they say was helpful to the United States in getting Bin Laden.  According to a Reuters report, Shakil Afridi was sentenced to 33 years in jail for assisting the US in capturing the No. 1 terrorist in the world.

Does that sound like a country with our vested interests in mind? Heck no. That sounds a lot more like an enemy. And all that garbage about the drones and how they complain about them in public but when behind closed doors are happy we allow the reapers to do their thing in the tribal lands where the reigning authority has no power.

And, when you think about it, how can that even exist?  What kind of a country is it that has known enemies of their own state right inside their own state? Oh wait, all of them really.  But in some countries they are more surreptitious.

It’s getting harder and harder to understand the strategic(?) value of being friend’s with a country like Pakistan.  They don’t appear to track the same things we track, they do however, seem to like green backs, which we are way too happy to provide. And in exchange, what do we get? Not very much, and those who do help us end up in jail.

An ally is supposed to be a friend, someone who works with you to accomplish a necessary or desired goal.  But this is pretty one-sided. Symbiotic relationship my tuckus.  Whatever happened to quid pro quo?

The sad truth is that Pakistan is caught between a rock and a Predator. On the one hand, they would like the US to help clean up the wild tribal lands, while on the other hand they don’t dare come across as if they are “friendly” to the Americans, despite the massive amount of money they receive annually. That’s why Dr. Afridi is facing 34 years in prison; he mollifies the anti-American sentiment without actually being anti-American.

Our military influence in that area needs to shrivel up. We need to have a lot less of a presence in Afghanistan than we do now, and we need to try to eliminate any kind of association with Pakistan. We certainly don’t need to be beholding to them.

I know I know, you say, ‘but David Pakistan has the nuclear bomb.’ Well, so does India, and so does, secretly but I’ll let you in on it, Israel, and in just a matter of days so will Iran. In my mind, I say leave them unto themselves.  Let them work out their differences and when it’s all over, we can come back in with humanitarian aid and everyone will feel good about themselves again.