Forgive Them for We Know Not What They Do...

Rich  Old White Bribe Coordinator Robert Gioia

According to Buffalo Schools Superintendent Pamela Brown she never considered the bribe made by local Plutocrats Gioia and Wilmers, not even for a second. Whether you believe that or not is your business but for some strange pathetically hope addled moment I am going to say I believe her. She has given us nothing to go on since rolling into Buffalo. There is no reason to offer her any benefit of the doubt especially in the courage department when you consider how she's put her paws in the air and whimpered every time the little Commissioner Who Couldn't has kicked her in the ribs, questioned her leadership and bemoaned the sorry spectacle of Buffalo Schools. I guess I'd like to think she has enough humanity to spot a disrespectful, racist, rich old white guy's version of sending her down river with a little something for her troubles. If not that maybe they unwittingly tapped into a reserve of pride nobody has seen before. 

Ahh but my end of the year charity knows no bounds. Upon further reconsideration I have concluded that poor Brahmin Gioia has been slightly disoriented by his own recent experiences in the realm of buying and selling folks. When it was announced that Gioia planned to host a fundraiser at his house for Democratic Congressman Brian Higgins there was much ado in the Buffalo News and elsewhere. Gioia raised over a million for John McCain once upon a time and God knows what fluttered to the gound when he shook the "old money tree" for Romney last campaign. The ruckus this time centered around the outrageous fact that this old bluenose was propping up a Democrat! Oh the humanity. Pikers, I say, the lot of them. Gone are the old divisions of Democrat and G.O.P. All we have left now is the Green Party. Whoever has the most green is going to party. Look no further than the simpering Neo Liberal in the White House, the union hating, corporate shill we have sitting in the Governor's Mansion in Albany and "Democrats" like Rahm Emanuel, Corey Booker and Pat Quinn. That these rich old white guys would approach a Democrat to do their bidding should surprise nobody who hasn't been in a medically induced coma for the past 12 years or so. It made some farcical comical theatre that Carl Paladino, Board of Ed member and local loose cannon announced he was going to picket Gioia's house but the event was moved elsewhere and Carl plus his usual band of trucklers posted up there with barely legible protest signs doing their best impression of what they think real picketers do. What's funnier than sworn union haters doing their damnedest to ape a picket line and failing miserably? I wonder of anyone's snow tires got flattened. Ahh but I digress. In Gioa's defense I think it might be said that on the heels of buying off a South Buffalo Irish Democrat Congressman, what's to say he couldn't wave his magic checkbook and buy off a Black, Democrat, Female School Superintendent from -- where the hell IS she from anyway? -- in exactly the same manner? Winning goes to your head, we understand that.  How many times did Jim Kelly get greedy after hitting Andre over the middle and put his next pass between the numbers of an opposing linebacker? No harm no foul, Bob. Be happy you got your congressman and it's  bsck to the old country club drawing board with you and  your pals. 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha -- OMG  Nice Pic Bro, Can I Get A Wallet? 

Which brings us to our other Bob. Robert Wilmers is, as we know, a Harvard man. Enrique Hank Lopez advises us sagely that Harvard is the fountain of all bullshit and in the next breath that he can say so because he went there. Oh but we don't tolerate such muddy boots in our American holy places though do we? We know better, and so does Bordeaux Bob Wilmers. I never pass up an opportunity to mention his Chateau Haut Bailly Winery in Bordeaux and why the hell should I? Not that I have any prohibition against demonizing wealth and the wealthy mind you but I believe it's pertinent in understanding the orientation of this old mossback. It occurred to me in a more reflective state that maybe Bordeaux Bob has realized his sin in bringing Jimmy the Pimp Williams to town 8 years ago. The joke at the time was that Wilmers instructed his "search team" to google "union busting SOB" and Williams came up with the most hits. The Buffalo News was on some kind of "see no evil report no evil" hiatus for the first half of Williams' regime so we counted on Artvoice to keep us in the loop as far as Jimmy Dubz outrageous antics were concerned. Anyone interested in the scope and depth of destruction Williams caused both here and in his previous buyout in Dayton OH should read the excellent work done by Artvoice here. I can't say for sure Wilmers made the connection but anyone of a marginal intelligence even if they happen to be morally short-sheeted or ethically bankrupt would be forced to make the cause and effect assessment that aiding and abetting a known thug, crook and shithead like James Motherfucking Williams in securing another urban district to demolish should be deeply ashamed of themselves. We never got any public apology from Bordeaux Bob, nay, not a syllable. Of course in some legalistic bullshit fashion he could always pawn off the blame on the search team or the board for hiring the guy but we know better. Another fairly prominent Harvard man Henry David Thoreau, likely more prominent now than in his own era, is  well known for his reflections at Walden Pond where he was set up by a wealthy friend and father figure Ralph Waldo Emerson. What's not so well known though is that Hank D. was also something of a community fuck up nearly run out of town on a rail like Williams after he accidentally set a grass fire that nearly burned Concord to cinders : The fire, we understand, was communicated to the woods through the thoughtlessness of two of our citizens who kindled it in a pine stump, near the Pond, for the purpose of making a chowder. As every thing around them was as combustible almost as a fire-ship, the flames spread with rapidity and hours elapsed before it could be subdued. It is to be hoped that this unfortunate result of sheer carelessness, will be borne in mind by those who may wish to visit the woods in future for recreation. More here. 
Thoreau admits later in his journals that he'd been struggling to write up his trip of the Concord and Merrimac Rivers with his brother John who'd recently died. He was stuck and spinning his wheels and while the fire destroyed 300 acres of woods he admitted it had a positive effect on him.  O.K. in the argot of the day he all but admitted he kind of got off on it... The fire  focused Thoreau to begin his sojourn at Walden where he'd stake his place in literary and Transcendentalist history. Was James Williams drive-by on the Buffalo Schools Bob Wilmers' fire in the woods? Is his whipping out the old checkbook to cover TFA's first years of dues and his attempts to bribe the black lady into going away his "Economy" and his "Where I Lived and What I Lived For?" I'll let you be the judge. Probably not to be truthful but who wants to live in a world where Scrooge wakes up acting like the same old stingy bastard he was before the ghosts dragged his old ass over London on Christmas Eve? Here's to hope in the new year.