WHAT ABOUT MARTHA?
When was the last time you made a mistake?
Are you sure about that?
O. K. I’ll accept that – having been there and done that ,but I continue to wonder why the erasers on the upper tips of the almost-like-new pencils you use lack two-thirds of their eraser quantity. I never realized before erasers evaporate if they go unused.
To tell the absolute truth, we all make mistakes. Most begin as small sizes, and in a wide variety of shapes and colors, as well.
Martha Stewart got caught doing so.
At the moment of being “found out”, she made a second one. Had she offered a prompt apology the mention may have gone unnoticed, but that was not an easy thing for her to do. As a business-woman and eager carpentry’s, an intense innovator, and a folksy all-round “Doer”, she had created a group of contenders along the way – some of them of the green-eyed variety.
There are some among us who insist that, had Martha Stewart leveled with everyone at the very start and told he truth all the way, she could have avoided much of her recent troubles. I hold, however, that her “contenders” - enemies – in a technical sense – enjoyed seeing her trying to explain everything. There is still a great deal more old-fashioned macho feeling out there against successful business women, as well.
Hers is a complex personality and those things which happen to her seem to be more complicated than they otherwise might prove to be. Yes, Martha Stewart deserves what is being called “selective” attention ...which might also be known as “compassionate” treatment.
Certainly, with the “shame” of it all, with the tremendous financial losses she has and will suffer in her business ventures, Martha Stewart deserves a “break”. She is meeting today with that person or, those people, who will act as her Parole Officers, which suggests any jail terms might be suspended. In all fairness, I would hope so.
If imposing a fine would help sooth those who want to “make an example” of her wrongdoing, then, set one. Her “gain” from the sale of stock seems to have been about $38,000. To , satisfy, to some degree,the “let's get her” crowd, make that the amount of a fine?
Then, one more thing. It might be a good thing for that same group if they start looking at others - those who are making millions at stock manipulations without any punishment or loss.
A.L M. March 7. 2004 [c439wds]
