By The River

Judge Jon Van Allsburg in Ottawa County, Michigan, now joins the ranks of those distinguished jurists who manage to ignore the obvious while making certain that well-lawyered corporations don't have to face up to the full consequences of their actions. I've written about this case before, and it just gets worse and worse.

Van Allsburg ruled yesterday that the family of Erwin Jordan can't sue for emotional distress in the outrageous incident in which Jordan's body was left in a box in a garage by Notier-VerLee-Langeland Funeral Home in my hometown of Holland, Michigan, picked up by a trash hauler, Priority Arrowaste,and subsequently dumped in Waste Management, Inc.,'s Auburn Hills landfill in Zeeland Twp., where it remains today. The reason? Because the family didn't "witness" the body being dumped in the landfill and didn't learn of the incident until more than a day later. It wasn't enough that they must go on living knowing that their family member was dumped in the trash.

That the body remains in the landfill is outrageous and shocks the conscience. Neither VanAllsburg nor anyone else with authority over the situation should have allowed Waste Management to leave it there. Costly to look for it? Sure. But that's what insurance and deep corporate pockets are for. That's what a civilized society does.

VanAllsburg has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Priority Arrowaste on the narrow ground of whether its employees should have known that the box contained human remains. But given how this case has gone so far, and given that the Jordan family is from the Holland area's blue collar fringe and has no position and influence in the community, I'm not holding my breath that they'll ever get justice in this sad and horrific case.

Huh? So the mere fact that a loved one's body has been dumped in a landfill instead of being laid to rest in cemetery or cremated isn't enough? Van Allsburg has already excused Priority Arrowaste from liability on the grounds that Notier-VerLee-Langeland Funeral Home placed the remains in a storage box too close to a refuse container, thus violating some arcane provision of its "contract" with the waste hauler.

Posted by David at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With the season over, Penn State University today pushed lesbian-hating women's basketball coach Rene Portland out the door. Portland termed it a "resignation," but almost nobody is buying that. Penn State settled a lawsuit last month filed by former Central Dauphin High School player Jennifer Harris, who had accused Portland of harassing her off the team out of an incorrect belief she was gay. Portland didn't announce a new job, but my bet is she ends up coaching at a conservative Christian college that agrees with the "no lesbian" policy that brought her grief at Penn State.

Like it or not, lesbianism is part of women's sports, especially at the college level. No, not every girl or woman who plays sports is gay. But some are. How did Portland recruit new players these past couple of years? As one friend commented, it's like if Santa Claus hated elves or a Boy Scout leader hated kids. Sure, you can say that lesbian players can go elsewhere. But if they are Pennsylvania residents, why should they not be allowed to play at the university their tax dollars support? One wonders if Joe Paterno protected her over the years. It's hard to say what made Portland the way she is: one would have to be a psychiatrist to know that.

Posted by David at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The American people are heading for a showdown with the Bush Administration over its mid-term firing of 8 federal prosecutors on spurious political grounds. As others have noted, that action was unprecedented and in no way comparable to the normal replacement of the other party's U.S. Attorneys done by Bill Clinton and every other President at the start of their administration.

While the Democrats are completely in the right to demand the testimony of the President's aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, she of the aborted Supreme Court nomination, the outcome is far from certain. Bush has vowed a court fight. Will his two appointees, Roberts and Alito, band together with the three remaining justices who made him President in 2000, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy, to thwart the efforts of Congress to investigate this potential obstruction of justice? If you think Watergate was a constitutional crisis, you ain't seen nothing yet.

I still don't think the Democrats can muster the votes for impeachment of Bush. Not yet, anyway, and not ever if it only brings Vice President Cheney into the Oval Office. If Cheney is indicted in the Plame affair and resigns, or succumbs to health problems, then all bets are off. Richard Nixon's impeachment became far more likely after Vice President Agnew resigned in disgrace and was replaced by the admirable Gerald Ford.

The thing to keep in mind is that Attorneygate is probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to White House horrors--another phrase from the Nixon impeachment. And don't you think Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is becoming more like his predecessor John Mitchell every day? All he lacks is his own Martha. And now everyone is talking about an "18-day gap" in the stream of e-mails the Justice Department turned over to Congress on the scandal. Shades of Nixon!

Posted by David at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm about four hours into the live telecast of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and I'm not going to bed.

This is the first time it has been broadcast live in its entirety (with no commercials!), and you have to wonder why it has taken this long. Well, maybe it isn't that hard to figure out. This is one of the more over the top and unpredictable award shows you'll ever see, with bleeped and un-bleeped obscenities and general craziness. Rolling Stone Keith Richards got things off to a rousing start when he came to induct the Ronettes and, with a twinkle in his eye, thanked advances in medical science for allowing him to be there. That was followed by Ronnie Spector's 17 page acceptance speech in which she seemed to thank everyone in creation. And Paul Schaefer came out at the end to read a message from Phil Spector--he of the murder rap--in tribute to the group he created.

Patti Smith, always a favorite of mine, was next. She was touching and tearful and seemed hesitant in her first two songs, a cover of the Rolling Stones 'Gimme Shelter' that's on her new album, and then 'Because the Night.' But she ended with a kick-ass performance of 'Rock and Roll Nigger,' which she said was her late mother's favorite song of her's.

Van Halen was represented by Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, Eddie Van Halen having gone off to rehab and David Lee Roth not showing. They were inducted by Velvet Revolver, which performed two of Van Halen's songs before Hagar and Anthony and Paul Schaefer came out to do the third in what seemed an impromptu decision.

Gotta run. R.E.M. is coming on. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is doing the induction.

Posted by David at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Halliburton, which has become a curse word among liberals because of the Iraq War, says it is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, supposedly to be closer to the heart of the world oil industry. Halliburton chairman and CEO David Lesar will move to Dubai as well. No word on Vice President Cheney.

Call me skeptical, but I have to wonder if the big H is worried about endless investigations of its Iraq "reconstruction" contracts in the likely event that a Democrat wins the White House in 2008 and the Democratic Party widens its margins in the House and Senate. Do we even have an extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates?

I've just finished reading Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran's excellent book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone," which tells the story of the first couple of years of the American occupation of Iraq. One of the more horrific stories about Halliburton was how the company managers ordered Marine guards, and later Filipino contract workers, to shoot all the stray cats and kittens inside the Green Zone in Baghdad on spurious health grounds. Many had been adopted by American civilian employees. There is no happy ending to this story. The cats were all killed.

Posted by David at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wonder from time to time what outrage will finally jar Americans into realizing they've been conned by the Republican tax cutters.

You know the ones I mean. The ideologues from Ronald Reagan on down who tried to persuade you that the only valid government program is the military. That everything else is waste, welfare, or worse. That taxes needed to be cut sharply on the wealthiest Americans, which happened early in the first term of George W. Bush. Bush and his raving lunatics deprived the America government of the revenues that a modern, 21st century country needs to prosper and grow and keep its people safe.

Or to protect the world against killer asteroids. NASA says that because of budget cuts--budget cuts demanded of every federal agency by Congressional Republicans who can't stomach the deficits the tax cuts created--it can't complete a program to find and track all the asteroids out in space that could kill millions of people if they struck the Earth--or wipe out life here entirely. This is a real threat, not science fiction.

Given how whacked-out crazy some in the Bush Administration are, I can't completely rule out the idea this program is being cut because it offends some fundamentalist religious group. After all, it might be God's will that the world be destroyed by that asteroid. I tend to think not, but I'm an Episcopalian, not a snake handler.

So if you happen to look up in the sky someday and see a huge flaming object bearing down upon you, be sure to spend your last moments saying, "Thank you, Mr. President."

Posted by David at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the more bizarre and disturbing stories to come out of my hometown of Holland, Michigan, in recent years had to do with a lost corpse. It is a story with elements of black humor, but which ultimately shocks the conscience.

Here's what happened: Erwin Jordan, 66, an average working man, but descended from Holland's original Dutch settlers, dies Dec. 20, 2005. What with the holidays and all, his children can't decide whether to bury or cremate him. The body is at the Notier-Ver Lee-Langeland Funeral Home in Holland. The funeral home, which has been there forever (my grandfather was buried from it), put the corpse in a black body bag inside a white cardboard cremation box to await their decision. Since its refrigeration units are all in use, they put the box in the unheated funeral home garage (Big Mistake #1)

After the holidays, the kids, who seem a bit dysfunctional, still can't decide. One day, Jan. 6, 2006, to be exact, along comes a truck from Priority Arrowaste, the regular trash hauler used by the funeral home. The dim-bulb crew sees the white box, which weighed 70 pounds, and according to testimony in the lawsuit, thinks it contains used rags (Big Mistake #2). A worker picks up the box to put it in the truck. It breaks, and the body bag tumbles out. He picks it up--that must have been easy--and throws it in a dumpster (Big Mistake #3), which is then emptied into the truck.

Off goes the truck to the Auburn Hills Landfill (did it used to be a subdivision?) operated by Waste Management, Inc., in Zeeland Twp. Erwin Jordan's body is dumped in the landfill along with whatever else is in the truck (Big Mistake #4). Seventy other truckloads of garbage are dumped on top of him before the mistake is discovered later that day. The police go to the landfill with cadaver dogs on Jan. 7-8, 2006, but can't find the body.

Now things really get strange. The search never resumes. Police determine that no crime has been committed, so they have no obligation to find the body. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, after initially insisting that the body must be found and removed from the landfill, change their mind. They determine that it is only against the law to dump medical waste in a landfill, i.e., body parts. Since Jordan's body is intact, voila! No law has been violated! The Jordan kids say they don't want the search to continue, either. Only Jordan's brother, Stuart, issues a plaintive plea to find his brother Erwin. The Holland Sentinel publishes an editorial headlined "Find the Body."

Guess what? Erwin Jordan is still in the landfill. This was no Law & Order landfill search, where they keep digging till they find the body (that does happen in real life, by the way, usually when someone offed in New York is suspected to be in a landfill in Pennsylvania). A county judge should have ordered the search to continue, and hang the cost. That's what insurance is for. Inconvenience to business or bureaucrats is not a legitimate excuse. Where were Holland's many pro-life clergy? The whole episode shocks the conscience.

This past Friday, the various parties squared off in a Michigan courtroom for the opening rounds of the litigation. Notier-VerLee-Langeland and Priority Arrowaste, which appears to be the hardliner against settlement, are suing each other. The Jordan family, now united, is suing both. Where is the Pedro Almodovar of America to turn this epic into the absurdist film it cries out to be?

Posted by David at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)