Birmingham's mayor Larry Langford was convicted on 60 counts of bribery and money laundering this week. It's never a good thing when someone has to go to jail, especially an elected official. It means the life of someone who most likely went into public service with the best of intentions has run off the tracks, the public trust has been violated, and the faith of the people in their leaders has gotten that much more ragged.
(And for crying out loud, hasn't Birmingham been through enough embarrassment already?)
But, in times like these, when so many politically connected operators seem to be doing whatever they please without even being brushed back by the fastball of justice, it's heartening to see somebody take one right off the melon.
Often, when the powerful are accused of wrongdoing, their defense is, "Dragging this allegation into the open would be bad for the people." This is, of course, complete, self-serving nonsense.
It is good for the people--good for the republic, good for democracy--to see proof that there is such a thing as justice and no one is beyond its reach.
Now, Birmingham has a big, big mess to clean up, but now there's at least a chance that the cleaning will be done by someone who is a little bit less of a crook.
Technorati Tags: birmingham, langford, scandal
(And for crying out loud, hasn't Birmingham been through enough embarrassment already?)
But, in times like these, when so many politically connected operators seem to be doing whatever they please without even being brushed back by the fastball of justice, it's heartening to see somebody take one right off the melon.
Often, when the powerful are accused of wrongdoing, their defense is, "Dragging this allegation into the open would be bad for the people." This is, of course, complete, self-serving nonsense.
It is good for the people--good for the republic, good for democracy--to see proof that there is such a thing as justice and no one is beyond its reach.
Now, Birmingham has a big, big mess to clean up, but now there's at least a chance that the cleaning will be done by someone who is a little bit less of a crook.
Technorati Tags: birmingham, langford, scandal
Thanks for the link, Jason.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should strive to find someone who's not a crook at all to help with the clean-up.
(Also, be careful: Using a copyrighted photo is bad form and illegal.)
Hey, no problem Wade. Thank you for the comment.
ReplyDeleteAs for bad form, I think it's pretty obvious that I wasn't trying to claim the picture (located here: http://media.al.com/birmingham-news/photo/langford-091028-9e58a36f9f9f5559_large.jpg) as my own work. But as for illegal, you're right, I certainly don't want to mess with that, so the picture is now removed.
Understood. I'm protective of photographers (staff and freelance) because of the hard work they put in to making their photos.
ReplyDeleteAs an alternative, you can look on Flickr for photos OK'd for commercial use through Creative Commons licensing.
Here's a search for Langford.