| Editorial: Festival finally returns to its nonpartisan roots
The National Cherrry Festival's long walk on the dark side has come to an end. The iconic Traverse City celebration of cherries and tourism shed one of the last vestiges of its downward spiral during the 1990s when Executive Director Tom Menzel announced the festival had regained its status as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical, nonprofit organization. That news may have come as a surprise. Most people likely didn't know the festival had ever been anything but a nonpartisan, nonpolitical nonprofit annual party to honor a little red berry and an entire industry. But in 2002 the festival, under the guidance of then-director Tom Kern, had registered as a lobbying organization in Lansing. Under the 501(c)(4) designation the festival had long operated under, a host of activities -- including most financial transactions -- could be kept from the public.
Crime lab manager resigns, two others resign after accusations
Sujatha Yarlagadda, a criminalist specialist at the lab since January 2007, was suspended indefinitely, the Houston Chronicle reported in its Saturday editions. A criminalist specialist who was not identified received a temporary suspension. A probe by police internal affairs found that Nelson and Yarlagadda failed to use sound judgment when administering the lab's proficiency exam, police said. In August, criminalists in the crime lab's biology section were given a proficiency test. Some workers alleged that others openly discussed the test and that a manager told them what to look for and explained how to identify specific body fluids. The test was eventually retrieved and a new proficiency test ordered, according to the police statement. "In keeping with our policy of transparency, and because of the time, energy and over $5 million that we have spent bringing the crime lab up to standards and achieving accreditation, it is critical to maintain the highest integrity of the HPD Crime Lab," Chief Harold Hurtt said in a statement.
With greed as buzzword, how can Americans back Edwards?
John Edwards is running for president again, and is doing quite well.It is unfortunate that so many of our fellow citizens support him.Here's why.Edwards is basically running on the old liberal myths of the evils of capitalism and a beatific vision of the government. The oil barons and the railroad men in their expensive suits and diamond tie tacks, stand with their expensive leather shoes on the necks of starving, but virtuous widows.We may not have noticed, but evidently it is still 1880 with just a dash of the 1930's thrown in.Edwards, as Saint George, will ride in on his white horse, destroying these devils in pseudo-Christian wrath with his charismatic power, the help of the trial lawyers, and a very, very large government.Logically, he can either do this, which means that the threat was not as large or real as he maintains, or he can't do anything about any of this, which means that his campaign is bogus.Here is a quote from his Web site: "It's time for us to rise up and take on the corporate greed that is taking over our democracy so we can leave a better America to our children."First note what he manages to put into one sentence: "corporate greed,""democracy," "a better America," and the old Democratic standby, the "children."Let's inspect the first buzz word --- greed.Joseph Epstein once said that if you disagree with someone on the right, you are likely to be considered by the right, to be wrong, and maybe even foolish, but if you disagree with someone on the left, then you will be considered selfish, insensitive, and perhaps even evil.What I am going to say next is not evil.
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