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Monday: February 12, 2007

Can The Mayor Of Boston Count?

Filed under: — site admin @ 10:52 PM GMT-0500

Here’s a slightly-shortened version of something I found on Overlawyered:

. . . when Joseph M. MacDonald, a 26-year-old resident of South Boston, applied for a job with the Boston public works department, city officials never checked his criminal record because of the new “second-chance” policy. So they never found out about his long rap sheet (three drug convictions, seven drivers’ license suspensions) until Feb. 3, when police say MacDonald, riding his city snowplow, ran down a 64-year-old woman as she crossed a street, then fled the scene.

So a hard lesson has now been learned, right? You must be kidding. Although the city has admitted that it slipped up in not checking MacDonald’s driving status, Mayor Menino and one of his human resources deputies continue to defend the broader policy on ignoring criminal records (“The mayor believes firmly in giving people a second chance,” said a spokeswoman after the incident.)

Three drug convictions and seven drivers’ license suspensions? Apparently the mayor doesn’t know the difference between giving someone a second chance and giving him an eleventh chance.

I Hope This Is A Hat . . . .

Filed under: — site admin @ 9:25 PM GMT-0500

. . . . because otherwise it’s the worst toupee ever made:

This is a cropped still from Turtles Can Fly, and the man is an Iranian Kurdish doctor visiting Iraq in early 2003 to try to find an armless boy who can allegedly foretell the future. Not a bad movie, if you can get past the hat.