Musings
Newscasters on TV show animation, sometimes even enthusiasm, when introducing tragic stories. Rather than researching facts, they ask bystanders for their reaction. Newspaper columnists routinely introduce their stories, no matter how serious, with humor. When a reporter wrote up a story about a van that crashed through our front door, he said when we came downstairs we didn’t expect to find a van in the house. How lame—and we have a ranch house with bedrooms on the first floor. I didn’t finish reading the story.

Musings
On my recent European vacation, two local guides told mother-in-law jokes. When I returned home, a comedian on TV told a mother-in-law joke. They are in comics on a regular basis. Have you heard any father-in-law jokes? Women seem to be “safe” targets.

BLS County Employment and Wages Summary
News release: From December 2007 to December 2008, employment declined in 285 of the 334 largest U.S. counties, according to preliminary data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. Elkhart County, Ind., located about 100 miles east of Chicago, posted the largest percentage decline, with a loss of 17.8 percent over the year, compared with a national job decrease of 2.3 percent. Manufacturing sustained the largest employment losses in Elkhart. Montgomery County, Texas, which is about 20 miles north of Houston, experienced the largest over-the-year percentage increase in employment among the largest counties in the U.S., with a gain of 2.7 percent.

Q. What is the difference between slander and libel?
A. Libel generally refers to statements or visual depictions in written or other permanent form, while slander refers to verbal statements and gestures.
http://www.medialaw.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Public_Resources/Libel_FAQs/Libel_FAQs.htm
Note a memory aid: slander refers to spoken word—libel to written word.

Q. What city’s motto is “Urbs in horto" or "city in a garden."
A. Chicago. http://www.choosechicago.com/microsite/Pages/GreenChicagoACityinaGarden.aspx

What’s up in New Jersey?
For answers, we checked in with a couple scholars who know lots about politics and ethics in the Garden State: Joseph Marbach, a dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University, and Brigid Harrison, a professor of politics and law at Montclair State. Marbach calls one of the most “persuasive and pervasive theories” that early immigrants to New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania viewed the role of government differently than did their contemporaries in New England or the southern colonies. “They--collections of Dutch and English settlers--tended to look at government as just another service provider,” he says. In New England, the Puritan belief advocated that government should be a force for good, says Marbach, and in the south, government initially was small and its role was to protect the status quo. “But in this area, people got involved in politics because it was a career option, not necessarily because it was a higher calling. People who couldn't become doctors or lawyers became politicians.”
Marbach says that such an attitude helped create a culture of corruption in two ways. For starters, because politics was a career option and not something one did at the tail end of a successful career in law or business, politicians weren't necessarily wealthy. “So a sense developed that a certain amount of graft was acceptable,” says Marbach. Secondly, the role of a politician simply became to distribute goods and services--not to build a better society or to protect the status quo--adds Marbach, and such goods and services became viewed as products to trade away.
Harrison adds that early attempts to rein in local corruption in other states never really took hold in New Jersey. “You had these counties where party bosses never really relinquished their power,” she says. “These modern corruption stories really have their grounding in those party machines.” Partly as a result of this reluctance to give up or consolidate power, says Marbach, New Jersey stayed incredibly fractured. Today, the state has 566 local municipalities, the second-most in the nation, behind Illinois. “We've got parkway commissions and special districts and each of these has an executive with authority and control over purse strings,” he says. “That's a lot of opportunities for corruption and patronage.” Harrison calls them “mini-fiefdoms.”
More on New Jersey following the unveiling of some 30 criminal complaints and a press release led by New Jersey's acting U.S. attorney, Ralph Mara. Click here for the WSJ story. The arrests and summonses made were made pursuant to a two-tracked investigation that had gone on for 10 years. One track: a public-corruption probe which led to the arrest and summons of 29 politicians and a money-laundering probe allegedly involving 15 others, including 5 rabbis. The list of those arrested (click here) include the 32 year-old Hoboken mayor, Peter Cammarano, a Democrat, Secaucus mayor Dennis Elwell, also a Democrat; state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt, a Republican; and Democrat Leona Beldini, the deputy mayor of Jersey City. The money-laundering scheme allegedly involved Saul Kassin, the Coney Island-based U.S. head of a large Syrian-Jewish congregation. Politicians “willingly put themselves up for sale,” for “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Mara during the press conference, saying they took advantage of “huge loopholes” in the state's anticorruption laws.
Amazon.com has reached into customers' Kindle e-readers and deleted some e-books written—ironically--by George Orwell. Amazon, which returned the cost of the e-books, said it made the move when it realized that the publisher didn't have the proper rights to sell the books in the U.S. The move annoyed some consumers. “I love my Kindle, but if they can take back a book after I buy it, that bothers me,” said one. Amazon later promised to change its system and “not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances,” according to a spokesman.
“What this incident shows is that the law gives radically more control to the company than the system ought to,” says Harvard's Lawrence Lessig. Owning an e-book is more akin to licensing a piece of software than it is to owning a bound volume: access comes with fine-print terms of service, and often digital rights management software to ensure that you abide by the rules. The fine print in the company's terms of service gives consumers the “right to keep a permanent copy” of purchased titles, but also reserves Amazon's “right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the service at any time.” U.S. law generally supports the terms of service imposed by companies--so long as they're listed up-front. Real books can be shared with a friend or sold, but e-books with digital rights management software cannot. The number of devices that can play a single e-book license varies from one publisher to the next, and often confuses consumers. WSJ Law Blog July 23, 2009

The Car Allowance Rebate System, commonly known as Cash For Clunkers, takes less fuel efficient vehicles off the road and replaces them with more efficient ones. The National Highway Transportation Administration is expected to issue final rules by Friday that allow consumers to receive up to $4,500 in a voucher to lower the cost of purchasing a vehicle. The vehicle has to be less than 25 years old at time of trade in, with an estimated combined city and highway mileage of 18 miles per gallon or less.
A new $25,000 vehicle that meets the fuel standard would have a $4,500 government incentive. In some cases, new car manufacturers have an additional $4,000 rebate available. The result is the new car owner can purchase a vehicle for $17,500. http://www.abilene-rc.com/index.cfm?event=news.view&id=A8E703A3-19B9-E2F5-46121AC7E59A8C40