Another Bushie exposed

You couldn't make this stuff up:

Former White House Adviser Arrested
Former White House Adviser, Onetime No. 2 at Homeland Security, Arrested on Theft Charges
by Stephen Manning

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) -- A former domestic policy adviser to President Bush has been charged with theft for allegedly receiving phony refunds at department stores.

Claude Alexander Allen, 45, was arrested Thursday by Montgomery County police for allegedly claiming refunds for more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy, according to county and federal authorities.

Allen was the No. 2 official in the Health and Human Services Department when Bush nominated him in April 2003 to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Bush nominated to the court again a year later, but Allen never received a Senate vote.

During his confirmation hearing, Allen was questioned about his use of the word "queer" when he was a press aide to Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., in 1984. Allen said he didn't intend it as a slur against gay people.

In early 2005, Bush hired Allen as a domestic policy adviser. He resigned abruptly on Feb. 9, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Calls to Allen's home in Gaithersburg, a Washington suburb, were not returned. The White House also did not return calls seeking comment.

Allen has been under investigation since at least January for the alleged thefts on 25 different occasions at Target and Hecht's stores, a police spokesman, Lt. Eric Burnett, said. Police reviewed his credit card records to track his purchase.

Police believe Allen would buy items, take them to his car, then return to the store with his receipt. He would select the same items, then take them to the store return desk and show the receipt from the first purchase. Using that method, he would receive credit for the second items on his credit cards [emphasis added], Burnett said....

Here's the rest.

These guys can't help themselves. They just don't have it in them to play by the rules.

Like the Oscars, life seems both endless and much too short

I enjoyed last night's Oscar telecast well enough, I suppose. Jon Stewart found his groove after a slow start, and I enjoyed the various montages (which puts me in the distinct minority, I suspect) -- especially the tribute to my beloved Film Noir genre.

But somehow, it all lacked drama. It just wasn't that compelling -- for me, anyway. And I think the reason is that I didn't really have a horse in any of the races.

Usually, there's a movie or two that I'm pulling for and, more important, a couple of movies I'm adamantly rooting against.

The Oscars, after all, are as much about jeers as cheers.

But I didn't have a strong complaint to register about any of the major nominees -- not in the acting categories, not in the screenwriting categories, not in the Best Director or Picture categories. I saw and enjoyed, to varying degrees, every single movie in those categories, and so couldn't work up any righteous indignation, no matter who walked away with the statue.

I thought going in that I was happy that worthy pictures were being recognized this year, but I now realize that nominations for undeserving tripe are a key element in my enjoyment of the event.

Here's hoping the Academy returns to its senses next year.

The only time I was really stirred all evening was during the Robert Altman montage, when I realized that the venerable director's film The Player came out not five years ago, not a decade ago, but fourteen freaking years ago.

Such reminders that time flies sneak up on me in this fashion occasionally, but this one really rocked me.

I just turned 48 last week, and I'm fine with that. Or am I? Because the fourteen years that have passed since The Player hit theatres was like the wink of an eye. It honestly feels to me as if that picture opened four or five years ago (I knew it didn't, of course, even before last night, but I never would have guessed it had been fourteen years).

And after another similar "blink of an eye," I'll be >gulp!< 62 years old. And another after that will find me celebrating my >double-gulp!< 76th birthday (if I'm still around at all).

I was chatting with my friend Erin and one of her colleagues at my local coffee house about this during my lunch hour today. They're both much younger than me, and though they may already have a sense of how time speeds up with each passing year, they won't really get it, I'm guessing, until they're in their thirties. That's when it hit me, anyway.

I look at it this way: The first six years in a lifetime don't really count -- we're just amorphous blobs learning the very basics: our ABCs, our colors, how to tie our shoes, that a cow goes "Moo" and a lamb goes "Baa."

After that, life proceeds in twelve-year phases, and Phase One really begins once one reaches first grade. The dozen years from that point through the end of high school seem endless. They stretch on forever.

In Phase Two, from nineteen through thirty years old, the pace picks up. Most people start to think a bit about aging for the first time, and for many, birthdays become a bit complicated. You'd like to continue to celebrate them unreservedly, but they can begin to feel just slightly bittersweet.

In Phase Three, from thirty-one through forty-two years of age, things kick into overdrive. That dozen years really flies by, compared to Phase Two and, especially, Phase One. As one nears the end of Phase Three, one first begins to experience, I think, the sort of disorienting blackouts I described above regarding the years that have passed since The Player debuted. Or, in any case, they become much more unsettling.

I'm halfway through Phase Four, and it's like a runaway bus. The days, months, and years just fly by, and I have precious little grasp of whether of a fondly remembered event occurred five, ten, or event fifteen years ago. If I associate the event with a major milestone in my life -- like the publication of my book, for example -- then I can keep a pretty good handle on when it happened. But otherwise, it just becomes one more tiny chunk of potato in the stew of my life.

I really have only two bits of wisdom to share with friends who are significantly younger than me: Stay out of debt to the greatest degree possible -- it really can play havoc with your mental and financial well-being down the road -- and be aware, if you're not already, that time flies. And that, with each passing year -- and certainly with each passing decade -- it only picks up steam.

Therefore, enjoy the ride. Life is truly and undeniably short.