Tom Says: “Poor Conrad…”
Are you kidding me!? “Poor Conrad!?”
I read an article the other day in one of the Ontario newspapers, where the columnist expressed the sentiment that she was feeling sorry for poor Conrad Black.
I’ve checked everything I can find in this short, overweight body that I am now blessed with — And I can’t find even one sinew that has any sympathy or empathy for Conrad Black.
Conrad Black, at one time, had it all.
He may have owned more newspapers than any other media baron in the world. He was a modern day “Citizen Kane” and I’m sure had the money rolling in so fast that every week he likely took it to the bank in a wheelbarrow — and yet — it still wasn’t enough.
Not only did he want his, and ours, and yours — But he wanted the money from all the people who owned stock in his company. Since he was able to get his hand in somebody else’s purse, he’d put it in empty and take it out full.
In plain English, Conrad got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Too bad for him, it was one of those American cookie jars, and it seems the American legal system takes a much dimmer view of white collar crime than does the Canadian system.
One wonders under similar circumstances in this country if he’s even been charged, let alone sent to jail for six-and-half years.
Poor old Conrad was born with the preverbal “silver spoon in his mouth,” so he never had to learn or care about how the other half lived. However, he’ll soon get some life lessons.
Convicted felons in the American system are required to serve at least eighty-five per cent of their sentence before even being considered for parole. Seventy-eight months times eighty-five per cent in this case works out to just a shade under six full years.
Just to put his earning capacity over the next six years into context, — He’ll be paid twelve cents an hour for cleaning toilets. Twelve cents an hour works out to about four-hundred dollars per year, which comes to about twenty-four hundred dollars at the end of his six year term. In the same six years, if his hand hadn’t have been stuck in the cookie jar, one can only wonder how much REAL money he might have made.
As for him ever coming back to Canada, please remember that he renounced his Canadian citizenship to become, “Lord Black of Crossharbour.”
I wonder how British Lords are treated in the American penal system?
Have fun Conrad.
I’m Tom Young.