Friday, October 21, 2005
How Low They've Fallen
Two riches-to-rags stories caught my attention this week, for their humor as well as the silly journalistic spin they engendered.
First off, we have the trial of Saddam Hussein. In what was apparently a shock, as far as I could tell from the media, Saddam plead "Not Guilty." As if that were a surprise. I mean, really, doesn't everyone more or less plead not guilty at the beginning of a trial whether that happens to be the case or not? It's pretty much how western jurisprudence works. Did observers think Saddam had any reason to do otherwise, especially in a country with a new legal system that instituted the death penalty just for him? And furthermore, he's got about 15-20% of the nation behind him, actually rooting for him. I'd have done the same thing. Overall, I think Saddam's first day in court went pretty well for him. Better than for Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, one of Saddam's 13 lawyers. He was abducted the evening of the first day and wound up dead.
Now his defense team needs time to regroup and restrategize. The snail-pace speed of this trial will no doubt make the years-long courtroom circus of Slobodan Milosevic look tidy and organized by comparison. But in the end it really doesn't matter, since it's already been pretty much pre-determined that he'll be found guilty and likely executed.
There's a much less pat outcome regarding the status of Ms Elizabeth Paige Laurie, who recently returned her degree to the University of Southern California. OK, well nothing's really in question here, since when you're the granddaughter of Sam Walton you're pretty much guaranteed a cushy existence nevertheless. But it turns out that Ms Laurie, who chose to slum it with the regular proles by living with one of them during her college years, paid her smart-yet-impoverished roommate a cool $20,000 to do all of her homework for her during her stint at USC. The best quote came from the roommate in a 20/20 interview where the allegation first surfaced last year: "She said she learned a great deal by doing Laurie's class work".
My question is, why would she even go public with this in the first place? Technically speaking Ms Martinez committed just as much academic fraud as Ms Laurie, and I would not be at all surprised to learn that at some point in the future USC will quietly suspend her degree as well. And I'm guessing that Ms Martinez might need that degree a little more than her former study buddy to make ends meet in this world (and you can be certain that she's been blackballed at Wal-Mart for life).
Sure, young Paige has had to suffer the indignity of having her name removed from several sports arenas after the sad disclosure, but lest anyone think otherwise, she doesn't need that degree to do anything in her life. For anyone who has the title 'heiress' always preceding her name in print, college is at best a noble pursuit of academic self-interest (which doesn't seem to be the case here), or a lark designed to imply normalcy. Well, that and the opportunity to puke in an ill-lit dormitory bathroom after a night drinking too much trashcan punch in a vile, equally ill-lit, claustrophobic frat house where your feet stick to the unwashed tile floor from the grime and leftover spilled booze of countless parties past.
Not that I'd know anything about that, mind you.
Two riches-to-rags stories caught my attention this week, for their humor as well as the silly journalistic spin they engendered.
First off, we have the trial of Saddam Hussein. In what was apparently a shock, as far as I could tell from the media, Saddam plead "Not Guilty." As if that were a surprise. I mean, really, doesn't everyone more or less plead not guilty at the beginning of a trial whether that happens to be the case or not? It's pretty much how western jurisprudence works. Did observers think Saddam had any reason to do otherwise, especially in a country with a new legal system that instituted the death penalty just for him? And furthermore, he's got about 15-20% of the nation behind him, actually rooting for him. I'd have done the same thing. Overall, I think Saddam's first day in court went pretty well for him. Better than for Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, one of Saddam's 13 lawyers. He was abducted the evening of the first day and wound up dead.
Now his defense team needs time to regroup and restrategize. The snail-pace speed of this trial will no doubt make the years-long courtroom circus of Slobodan Milosevic look tidy and organized by comparison. But in the end it really doesn't matter, since it's already been pretty much pre-determined that he'll be found guilty and likely executed.
There's a much less pat outcome regarding the status of Ms Elizabeth Paige Laurie, who recently returned her degree to the University of Southern California. OK, well nothing's really in question here, since when you're the granddaughter of Sam Walton you're pretty much guaranteed a cushy existence nevertheless. But it turns out that Ms Laurie, who chose to slum it with the regular proles by living with one of them during her college years, paid her smart-yet-impoverished roommate a cool $20,000 to do all of her homework for her during her stint at USC. The best quote came from the roommate in a 20/20 interview where the allegation first surfaced last year: "She said she learned a great deal by doing Laurie's class work".
My question is, why would she even go public with this in the first place? Technically speaking Ms Martinez committed just as much academic fraud as Ms Laurie, and I would not be at all surprised to learn that at some point in the future USC will quietly suspend her degree as well. And I'm guessing that Ms Martinez might need that degree a little more than her former study buddy to make ends meet in this world (and you can be certain that she's been blackballed at Wal-Mart for life).
Sure, young Paige has had to suffer the indignity of having her name removed from several sports arenas after the sad disclosure, but lest anyone think otherwise, she doesn't need that degree to do anything in her life. For anyone who has the title 'heiress' always preceding her name in print, college is at best a noble pursuit of academic self-interest (which doesn't seem to be the case here), or a lark designed to imply normalcy. Well, that and the opportunity to puke in an ill-lit dormitory bathroom after a night drinking too much trashcan punch in a vile, equally ill-lit, claustrophobic frat house where your feet stick to the unwashed tile floor from the grime and leftover spilled booze of countless parties past.
Not that I'd know anything about that, mind you.
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