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A prom queen and World Peace

The perpetual beauty queen cliché says all she wants is world peace.

Really? Probably not if she is speaking of Metta World Peace, at least not today.

Metta, as we shall call him, is the Los Angeles Lakers power forward once known as Ron Artest. It doesn’t take a math major, as Artest once was at St. John’s University in Queens, to calculate an answer to why he chose such a name. Perhaps it is irony, but it is of little wonder to those whose minds run cynical.

The NBA handed the once Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers an 86-game suspension in 2004 because he jumped into an Autumn Hills, Mich., crowd and began beating upon Detroit Pistons fans. Bad boy, bad boy, what’cha gonna do … ? Artest, or so my cynicism says, did what any great athlete who wants to keep his day job does. He transforms into a saint doing charity work. After all, “Metta” is a Buddhist term for loving-kindness.

Unfortunately, the 6-foot, 7-inch, 260-lb. Laker might have ignored “Good St. Metta” poised on his left shoulder — visible only to World Peace — opting instead for “Mean St. Metta” on his right. Metta says it was an accidental blow Sunday night when his elbow decked Oklahoma City’s James Harden. The Thunder’s guard suffered a concussion, which World Peace said happened, when his elbow slipped after a celebratory chest thump. Loving? Kindness?

Well, that just kind of stinks, provided World Peace intentionally elbowed Harden into a concussion.

Metta will likely receive a suspension but a real, sort of, beauty queen may receive more severe punishment. No, she wasn’t wishing for world peace, not even Ron Artest Metta World Peace. Actually, she wasn’t even a beauty queen but rather a prom queen. Hey it’s a queen! At least it wasn’t RuPaul.

It was one of those heart-warming stories I see every Saturday and Sunday evening on the local TV news where the one reporter working that day apparently has to cover every fund-raising, analeptic that will fill the 10-minute hole of “newscast.”

A 19-year-old Angie Gomez of the El Paso suburb of Horizon City claimed she was dying of cancer and managed to collect more $17,000 in donations.  Gomez professed that she had only six months to live. Angie also said she had to miss her high school prom because of cancer treatments. Her classmates were so touched they threw a prom for her which did double duty as a fundraiser. There turned out to be a problem, however. The prom queen wasn’t sick with cancer.

Wait, it’s a miracle!

It isn’t a miracle that she was charged with felony theft. It is strange that her mother didn’t know about the “extent of the fundraising,” according to numerous stories today. What does that mean? What did her mother know and when did she know it? I mean, the El Paso Times ran a story and everything! Well, maybe her Moms doesn’t read the paper.

What a wonderful world full of inspiring people. It’s enough to make one want to wish for, well, maybe not world peace but perhaps a little karma.

 

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Lucky me: One in a million (and a half)

The phrase “astronomical odds” is often used for occurrences such as winning the lottery, or being struck by lightning. Perhaps, in the very strict sense of the phrase, such odds are those applied for a direct hit to earth by a sizable meteorite. I tried searching a short while ago for a definition of just what were astronomical odds and couldn’t find an expounding which made any sense. So is 1 in 1.5 million astronomical? I don’t know but if you are talking about winning the lottery, I would take it if I happened to be the “1.”

As usual though, I am 1 in a million, actually 1 in 1.5 million, for something that sucks.

Bank of America sent me an “alert” e-mail this morning which warned “irregular debit card activity” had been detected in my account.  Oh no, that can’t be good. When dealing by phone with Bank of America — which the e-mail told me to do — it never is good. True to form, it wasn’t good.

The customer service person I finally got was somewhat vague in explaining this irregular activity on my card. She asked about three or four transactions I made and, sure enough, there was one charge for $125 at Kroger that was technically not mine. It had something to do with a $10 gasoline purchase which I had made. I don’t fully understand it, but I do know that such charges temporarily appear with gas charges sometime. I wish I could understand it better but as long as the charged disappears, well, out of sight, out off mind. In the end, no one was using my debit card. Not yet, at least.

But best I can tell, my card number was used. Where and when and how it did so without a charge showing up is now the question. Maybe the charge would have shown up had I not eventually gone down to the bank today to cancel my present card and obtain a temporary one until my new debit card arrives in the mail in about a week. Taking such action will presumably help prevent an unauthorized charge from happening.

Waiting on hold for Bank of America this morning put me past time to start work so I called my supervisor and told him I needed a couple of hours of leave after I explained what was going on. It turns out that he too had the same happen last week with his charge card. Alas, two in a million (and a half)!

While waiting for the bank to open I read a store about how hackers had recently stolen 1.5 million account numbers for Visa and Master Cards from a processor called Global Payments. Visa removed the company over the weekend from its list of hundreds of companies it uses as go-betweens for banks and merchants. It is the largest such single heist in the past two years, a time during which about 8 million account numbers had been stolen.

Whether the action taken by Bank of America is a solution or just a heads-up, I will have to wait and see. Knowing my luck, some punk using my account information and name is probably tooling around somewhere smoking blunts in a new, black Navigator and having a high ol’ time. But I hope not.

Perhaps my odds-breaking will have been stopped cold in its tracks. Then again, maybe not. After all, I am the “lucky” one, being one in 1.5 million.

 

 

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Conservative judicial activists strike again

Who knows how the Supreme Court decision on the Obama health care plan will come out. But already the Democrats are reversing their political fortunes and can run against “activist judges.” This time the activists are the conservatives of the Supremes, the four hardcore and one so-called “swing vote.” After a history which includes such golden oldies as Bush v. Gore and Citizens United v. FEC, the latest is a decision saying a person may be stripped search in jail for any offense. Driving without a license? Take off your clothes. Trespassing? Take off your clothes. Or as portrayed in the comical Arlo Guthrie monologue “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre” (pronounced “mass-a-cree” not massacre) littering, Arlo and friend would have ended up getting strip searched.

We can only hope Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia will be arrested for some petty offense that will let them “reap” from what they sow.

 

 

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Arrested bank robber may have once received clemency

A suspect who was wanted in the robbery of three Southeast Texas banks was arrested today while trying to catch a cab at a Beaumont mall.

John Steven Stark, 46, was arrested outside Parkdale Mall shortly after the nearby Prosperity Bank was held up around 9:15 this morning, a Beaumont Police Department news release said. Stark, who was listed on a driver license database as having a Huntsville address, was stopped after entering the taxi at a front mall entrance. Police said Stark was arrested without incident and had a large amount of cash on him.

A tease line on the Beaumont Enterprise Web site this evening said it all: “Talk, Dark, and Handcuffed,” referring to the name given by police and media to the robber of the “Tall, Dark and Handsome Bandit.” The alleged robber was shown in surveillance photos dressed neatly and wearing sunglasses on the top of his head during robberies at the Bank of America on Calder Avenue in Beaumont on Jan. 30 and the Comercia Bank off Southwest Freeway in Houston on Feb. 2.

Beaumont police said an employee at the Prosperity Bank this morning was able to see the silver Toyota Corolla Stark was driving and gave police a license plate number. Officers found the car in the mall parking lot and set up surveillance of the car while other officers searched inside the mall.

A criminal database indicated Stark, who previously resided in Rye, Texas, in Polk County, had previous arrests for forgery and aggravated robbery. Those records showed Stark had been paroled and received and unspecified type of clemency.

Just a note, since I have written about this guy I figured that I would follow-up with his arrest. The clemency found in his criminal records is interesting since the Texas Department of Criminal Justice says:

 “The governor has the authority to grant clemency upon the written recommendation of a majority of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Clemency includes full pardons, conditional pardons, pardons based on innocence, commutations of sentence, and emergency medical reprieves.”

It may be something innocuous but could be as well something to make one say: “Hmm.”

 

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Day 4 of problems with the jawbone of an ass. Plus: Local bandit identified by FBI. Ain’t all that tall!

Day 4 of the Unknown Jaw Syndrome. Having not gathered any information whatsoever from my Veterans Affairs medical “provider,” I am left alone to diligently search the George W. Bush Memorial Internets for whatever the hell is making me feel more than a might peaked. I went to work today. That is about all I can say, that and at 4 p.m., I am in my robe. Speaking of GW, I was just briefly watching CNN’s “The Situation Room” and watching it renewed my long-held desire to just slap the living dogs**t out of Ari Fleisher. And that isn’t even for his alleged role in the Susan G.. Komen P.R. nightmare in first deciding to not fund Planned Parenthood and then deciding the foundation will fund it. Ari is just such a great communicator.

Nonetheless, I still feel terrible and am suffering on and off jaw and facial pain. West Nile? Lyme? Lemon-Lime? Orange-Orange? The jaw trouble makes me wonder just how Sampson could have slain 1,000 men with the jawbone of an ass? Why that is more folks than Dirty Harry blasted with his S & W Model 29 .44-Magnum and the rest of his arsenal.

That good ol’ Internet.

Don’t know the tall, dark, handsome robber

The "Tall, Dark, and Handsome Bandit" during the Houston Comercia Bank heist. Note the odd-looking letter and the wrinkles in his forehead.

The bank robber recently dubbed the “Tall, Dark, Handsome Bandit” has now been identified by the FBI

John “Steven” Stark, 46, is facing federal bank robbery charges for the Jan. 30, robbery of my local bank, the Bank of America on Calder Avenue in Beaumont, said an FBI press release. He also allegedly robbed the Comercia Bank, 3135 Southwest Fwy., in Houston, on Feb. 2.

When he robbed the establishment where I bank, I remarked here after seeing a surveillance photo that that the dude looked very familiar. Well, upon closer examination Stark doesn’t look all that much like someone I know.

That isn’t to say I haven’t seen the guy. The FBI says his last known address is in next-door Liberty County. He also is known to have friends here in Beaumont and in Houston.

Check out the surveillance photo of the Comercia robbery. The letter in front of the bandit, while he is fingering a wad o’ dough, looks pretty odd, as if it has a photo in it. He looks looks he has wrinkles in his forehead too, which also seems pretty strange for someone robbing a bank, or so it would seem. I can’t say for sure though. Fortunately, robbing a bank is not on my resume. Then again, an original description noted the bandit had acne scars on both sides of his face. Note, as well, Stark goes for the “shades-on-head” method of parking his sunglasses. I prefer to place an earpiece of my shades in the middle of my shirt. That protects the lenses from oily skin and perspiration. That isn’t to say I have oily skin. I doubt, as well, that whomever makes up these bank-robber names would call me tall, dark and handsome. That is even though I am a half-inch or so under 6 feet tall — the bandit’s height. But I am not dark. Handsome? I do have a protruding belly these days, a gray Van Dyke beard and a shaved head with a light complexion. So if you see someone who looks like me, do not, I repeat, do not, call the law. Instead, ask me if I am having a nice day. If it is really me, I will tell you “$&#@ no. Mind your own @&%$@%! business!”

The FBIs (hey, just doin’ a little Geedubya Bushin’.) give this additional information about the real bandit:

“Stark goes by Steven Stark. He is a white male, 46 years old, 6’ tall, and weighs approximately 230 pounds. He was last known to be driving a silver 2006 Toyota Corolla four-door sedan bearing Texas license plate 699XPW.”

Houston Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the location and arrest of Stark. The feds ask that if you spot Stark, call the Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 713-222-TIPS (8477), or the Houston office of the FBI at 713-693-5000.