Sometimes you just have to sigh and shake your head over some of those we share this planet with. For instance you would hope someone, like a judge for instance, would have enough wisdom to refrain from hitting the SEND button for an email containing a racist joke about the President of the United States.
Richard Cebull is not just a judge; he’s the chief judge of the U.S. District Court he presides over in Montana.
The story made me wonder how many people there are out there who wish they could take back an email. Guilty here.
Reportedly, in the text of the controversial email Cebull wrote, “Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.”
So Judge Cebull took enough time to write that out, in trying to be witty I suppose. Probably thinking that the people he wanted to impress would see the email from him and say to themselves, “Great, this will be another hysterical email from my old buddy Dick, out there in the Great Plains of Montana. He’s always good for a chuckle.”
Wonder what they thought after reading it. Hopefully it was, “That is very offensive to me.”
OK, I’m not that naïve. What they probably thought when they read it was, “Don’t believe I’d a sent that one.”
And just who were these folks Judge Dick of Montana was trying to get a laugh out of? Those, chosen few, if you will.
On dailymail.co.uk I read that, “On February 20, the judge sent the e-mail, which was forwarded to him by his brother, to six ‘close friends.’
I wonder if that ‘close friends’ description is still accurate?
Anyway, some, all or at least one of those friends forwarded it to someone else, And one of them sent a copy -- with the judge’s official e-mail address in the e-mail history -- to the Great Falls Tribune newspaper in Great Falls, Montana. That’s where, most likely, a Jimmy Olsen wannabe did what any enterprising cub reporter would do. He published it. Busted.
Even ultra-conservative Bill O’Reilly of FOX News says if he were in Cebull’s shoes he would resign. Arguing with analysts on his show about the incident, who tried to make Cebull look better by saying at least he apologized, O’Reilly countered, “No, no, no. There are some things you just can’t come back from.”
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Some stories from The Week –
The old saying about “when your number’s up, then it’s up,” was tragically reinforced when a woman, sitting in her mobile home in Potrero, California, was killed by a cannonball. But fate isn’t as much to blame this time as the victim’s intoxicated boyfriend, who was spending the afternoon with a buddy loading his homemade cannon out in the yard. When the firework powder they were using accidentally ignited and blew, it sent shrapnel hurling through the mobile home, where it struck the 38-year old mother.
The boyfriend was taken to a hospital where he was treated for burns. He later told his girlfriend’s brother, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it should have been me.”
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Another story in the “Think first, email…text….tweet later” category comes from the Pacific northwest, where newly crowned Miss Seattle, Jean Sun-Hannah Ahn tweeted, “Ugh, can’t stand cold rainy Seattle and the annoying people.” Like the joke emailing judge a few states to her right, Sun-Hannah Ahn says she’s sorry.
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I’m fascinated by the street views of locations that are available from Google. When I discovered it the first thing I did was go to my house. I’m still not sure how they pulled it off, or when they came out and took the picture, from one of those big Google spaceships they own. But it was taken in the summertime when our grass was green, which I appreciated.
Someone who doesn’t appreciate them so much is a 50-year old guy in France. When Google decided to photograph his house it also happened to be the exact moment he had chosen to step outside and relieve himself. Google took the shot and posted the photo on its site. The man is suing. He agrees that his face is blurred out but says he is still the laughingstock of his village.