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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (103606)	5/10/2005 12:13:16 PM
From: Alan Smithee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

At a minimum, this guy should be prosecuted for public corruption and abuse of his office. Based on what I've read, the Spokesman-Review has their story right. Spokane Mayor Taking Leave Amid New Allegations May 10, 2005 By KOMO Staff & News Services SPOKANE - Citing what he called persecution and hysteria, Mayor Jim West says he's taking a few weeks off to defend himself against old allegations of child molestation and new claims that he offered city jobs to men he met online. Shortly after West announced Monday that he would take a leave of absence, The Spokesman-Review posted a new story on its Web page alleging the mayor offered city jobs to two young men he met through a gay Internet chat room - and that one of them briefly accepted a city appointment. The newspaper last week launched a series of articles about West after hiring a computer forensics expert who posed as an 18-year-old male high school student in Internet chats with West on Gay.com. West offered the "teen" a City Hall internship, tickets to professional sporting events and other gifts, the newspaper reported. In Monday's account, Ryan Oelrich, an openly gay 24-year-old, told the paper he accepted West's appointment to the city's Human Rights Commission in April 2004 after meeting West online at Gay.com. Oelrich said he resigned from the commission in January after West "hounded me for months, telling me I was cute and asking me out on dates." Oelrich said he refused the mayor's advances, the newspaper reported. Oelrich told the newspaper he knows of "five or six other young gay men that Jim West has met online and offered City Hall jobs." An Associated Press call to Oelrich's Spokane home was not immediately returned Monday evening. The newspaper said another man, who is 25 and spoke on condition of anonymity, said West offered him a job as the city's human resources director, but the man said he was not qualified. When he rejected the human resources job offer, the man said West offered him a job as aquatics director, overseeing operations at the city's swimming pools, the newspaper reported. The man did not accept that job either. Calls placed late Monday to the mayor's office and City Attorney Mike Connelly seeking comment on the latest allegations were not immediately returned. City officials had earlier seized West's City Hall computer for an investigation into whether he used it improperly. Connelly said the computer's contents had been "frozen." "The current news media hysteria is distracting to the business of the city and is occupying a great deal of my time," West told the City Council on Monday afternoon. He said he would take his first vacation since taking office in January 2004 to prepare a response to the newspaper's allegations. "I hope that you and the people will reserve judgment on me until the newspaper is done persecuting me and allow me to have the fair opportunity to respond to each of the allegations in due time," West said at the beginning of the council meeting. He left without taking questions. West, a 54-year-old former Republican state Senate leader and staunch opponent of gay rights, last week denied the decades-old molestation allegations, but subsequently acknowledged that he had visited the gay online chat room and had relations with adult men. Also on Monday, a Spokane woman filed paperwork with the Spokane County auditor to recall the mayor. If the petition's wording is approved by a judge, recall supporters would have to gather more than 12,500 signatures to place the issue on the ballot. West gave up a two-decade career as a conservative state legislator to become mayor of his hometown. He told the council that Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch would lead the city in his absence. City leaders immediately began taking stock of the damage. City Council President Dennis Hession said the city's legislative body is committed to moving ahead. "Our conviction is that we will regroup and make sure we do not allow this to further distract us," Hession said. "We're very concerned about the reputation of the city. We want to move forward ... to shore up our reputation that may have been impacted by these allegations." The newspaper articles resulted in a number of calls for West to resign. He has 32 months remaining on his term. The Spokesman-Review and The Seattle Times have called for West to step down, as did the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. a national gay advocacy organization. In the series it began publishing last Thursday, the S-R reported allegations that West had abused two boys while he was a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The statute of limitations has expired on those old allegations and no criminal investigations were under way in connection with them, local law enforcement agencies said.

To: ManyMoose who wrote (103606)	5/10/2005 12:38:33 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I always like to see life being presented in the movies as more complicated and more nuanced than it is usually presented in black and white fabular movies. So I feel really positive about movies that make people think about complexity, since I think most people are fairly static, and they aren't looking at life in new ways. Any movie that opens people up to looking at life with more nuance is good, imo. That doesn't make black and white movies bad, but they do play to our confirmed prejudices, and I don't think that is something that is "good"- I guess I'd calling it an annoying reminder of the status quo, rather than "bad".