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The L.A. Times ran a cover story in its Sunday Magazine today called "Dying on our dime: California's prisons are teeming with older inmates who run up staggering medical costs." It talks about the cost of incarcerating senior citizens, how terrible that is, how it's all the three-strikes law's fault, and how these poor elderly folks are no threat to anyone anymore, so, hell, why not just let them out?:

"She may have done some heinous or criminal act in her day, but at this point she's not a risk to the state any longer—other than fiscally," says state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), chairwoman of a select committee overseeing the correctional system. "We are locking up the elderly at the expense of building schools for students and keeping university fees down, and we can't pretend that it's not happening."

This argument for compassionate release goes into its third page in the print edition before it slips in a word about exactly what some of these inmates did to get here:

Frank Parker wears a bright orange jacket marked Sight Impaired as he wanders behind his three-pronged cane from bed to bed, saying hello, changing the channels, delivering gossip from the units and offering comfort to the dying.

"He's a real sweetheart. Really helpful, really kind," says prison chaplain Keith Knauf.

Now 72, Parker is serving 15-to-life for murdering a man who he believed was having an affair with his wife. His time in prison, 20 years and counting, has not been easy on him—or on taxpayers.

Or on his victim. He's spent 20 years in jail. His victim has spent 20 years decomposing.

And also:

Eighty-year-old Claude Hoffman, sits on a bed covered with a patchwork quilt handmade by the ladies of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in nearby Vacaville and watches a small TV. Though most inmates in the eight-cell unit pass away within a few months, he arrived more than a year ago ready to die of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His stay, not including medications, costs the state $1,500 a week, three times as much as a healthy prisoner.

Hoffman was sentenced to 15-to-life for killing his girlfriend about 18 years ago, an act he committed while drunk. Now a born-again Christian, he spends most of his time writing to and about Jesus:

"I used to struggle for power
An empty lonely thing
Now I am on a first-name basis
With the King of Kings."

"Every day I ask Christ our Lord to take me off the state rolls and let me go home to die," he whispers, using his inhaler to draw a breath before continuing. "I could get veterans benefits. Financially, I could take care of myself, instead of it costing the state to watch me die."

He killed someone.

They all KILLED SOMEONE.

And NOW we're supposed to show THEM compassion? When they never showed their victims compassion?

Here's compassionate for you: whatever the cost, leave them in jail. Let them rot. Medical aid? They shouldn't even get that. They are MURDERERS. Their age is not relevant. They are being punished. They DESERVE punishment.

The article ends:

So Claude Hoffman waits. The Christmas tree gives way to chicks and bunnies as he marks his second Easter at the hospice. Baseball season opens. Hoffman dreamily recalls seeing Babe Ruth and Hank Greenberg play in Detroit, his hometown. He hopes to watch a game with his family, one last time.

Yeah, and his victim can't. Remember her? The Times doesn't, or doesn't want YOU to remember.

So let the bastard sit in prison. He wants to see a game with his family? Shoulda thought of that before he murdered his girlfriend.

It's simple. The L.A. Times has sympathy for murderers. I don't.

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On the way to the ballpark tonight, there was the usual result of putting a stadium right next to downtown at the confluence of every freakin' freeway in Southern California:

But as I crept along, a car to my left caught my eye, a perfectly unusual confluence of ideas. See this car? Look at the bumper sticker and see if you can make it out, and then the license plate frame:

The bumper sticker reads "You CAN'T be both Catholic & Pro-Choice."

The license plate frame reads "Member, KCET"- the local PBS station.

Anti-abortion, pro-public broadcasting. Someone alert Kenneth Tomlinson. It IS possible.

Despite deadlines, I hung out at the stadium almost to the end. It was a close, if poorly played, game- Dodgers won 5-4- but there was a reward for sticking it out. And here it is:

Yes, a statue of the Ultimate Jewish Baseball Superstar, now occupying a prime position in my office right in front of the Dodger cap on the shelf. Got stuck in a little traffic on the way out, but it was worth it. A beautiful evening, a reasonably fast ballgame, a little mutated Sandy Koufax figure- a summer evening rarely gets better than this.

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Bush speech? Er, no, I'm watching the NBA Draft. I don't really know why. I could save the time by just waiting until it's over and read the list of draftees, but for some reason I feel compelled to watch. And it's an off year- none of these guys are going to make an immediate impact, and there are plenty of projects (the Lakers took one at 10, thus tempting fate by taking not only a center between 6 and 16 but a high school center at that). Like a true geek, I even have notes- hmm, Toronto didn't let Villanueva drop past them; hmm, Phoenix drafted Nate Robinson for the Knicks, apparently... All this and it's June.

I'd write a book about the folly of an adult caring about this stuff, but Nick Hornby beat me to it. (Ignore the movie and read the non-fiction book)

Excuse me- Sacramento's on the clock.

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On "WKRP in Cincinnati," they had an overnight guy, spoken of but never seen, named Moss Stieger. In my career, the overnight hosts were like that- they came in well after you'd gone home for the day, and left well before you'd show up in the morning, so you didn't really know them. In fact, it was only in the time I worked on a morning show that I ever saw the overnight guy at any station on a daily basis. It's just how schedules work out. And that makes the job a very strange one, disconnected from the rest of the station. The overnight guy could walk through the station at high noon and nobody'd know who he was.

The overnight guy while I was at New Jersey 101.5 was Willie Twyman. We'd taken the station to a talk format, but we left the overnights as a music show, and Willie was a holdover from the station's previous AC and Oldies formats. I'd see Willie at staff meetings, but I don't think I ever really had a conversation with him. It wasn't deliberate, it was just that there wasn't much to say- play the records, give the time, here's a check. He did that for us, and he was appreciated.

Willie died last week. The news was e-mailed around to his former co-workers- he was gone from the station a few years after I left, went into acting, kinda drifted away. I was sorry to hear it, but it reminded me of how you can work with someone for years, even on a relatively small staff, even be his boss, and never quite know the guy. I wish him peace and a daytime airshift in the next world.

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Dear Larry:

Suggestion: knees together.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Everyone

P.S. Congratulations on the yard.

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I've been amused by the saga of Jeff Jarvis and his lemon computer from Dell. The latest is that he's gotten to some executive flack in charge of cooling off public displays of anger, and she offered him a refund. He's mulling it over, but it looks like he's going to buy a Mac. I can empathize- some of you might remember my own travails with Dell, and I have an earlier dell which has had a lot of parts replaced over the years. I haven't had quite the disaster Jeff experienced, but I haven't been 100% happy with Dell.

The problem is that there aren't too many options. Apple is good, but expensive, not trouble-free- believe me, I did IT work on Macs and there were plenty of headaches- and it'd require a substantial investment in replacing hardware and software I have that would be incompatible. Still, I go into the Apple Store sometimes and drool over the massive widescreen flat-panel monitor with the G5, and I'm very happy with the iPod so far. My next laptop could very well be a PowerBook. But they're not perfect. I hear nightmare stories about HP and Sony (I've had good luck with Sony laptops, two that pretty much ran as advertised) and Gateway and everyone else, and I had a worse experience with Micron (now MPC) than Jeff has been having with Dell- maybe Dell ignored him, but my Micron motherboard died and their tech and CSRs basically told me they didn't know what was wrong, it was my problem, and too bad.

When you're presented with that kind of attitude, and you tell them you're so upset that you'll never buy from them again and you'll tell the world, some companies snap to attention, because they really don't want to lose a customer. But too often, the CSR you get couldn't care less that you're unhappy- sometimes, the CSR's clear on the other side of the planet- and, since it's easy to just blow you off and it doesn't get them any bonus to ensure your happiness, you get screwed. The company eventually pays for that, but that's cold comfort to you.

So I've become more passive over the years when things go wrong, mostly because I just can't seem to get anywhere with complaints. The bosses don't care. So I dropped Earthlink, I'll never buy another Chrysler product again, I'm absolutely anti-Toshiba... what am I gonna do? Complain? They don't care. Tell everyone through my columns, this blog, picketing, going door-to-door? They don't care. Jeff has more power- his blog reaches a zillion more people than I do and he works for THE NEW YORK TIMES while I work for allaccess.com- and even he didn't get very far at first.

So good luck to Jeff, and I hope he gets satisfaction. I'm glad he's been on fire about it on his blog, too. Me, I'm just tired, because all my yelling hasn't really gotten me anywhere. All I can do is make a list and stick to it. Doesn't explain why I went back to Dell after the troubles with the first box, but, hey, what can I do? It was a really good deal.

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Accomplishments today: finished Nick Hornby's new book. Got halfway through "Kitchen Confidential." Drank beer. Watched Dodger game on TV.

Success!

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And welcome to Meredith Grace Sabo, born July 1 in New York. Walter's building another Women's Network all by himself (with Katie's critical participation, of course...).

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