Photo and blog post by John Hoff
Being stationed in Afghanistan has give me a whole new appreciation for government officials and, for that matter, citizen participation. Arguably, all the problems of Afghanistan could be solved by good government, and civic-minded citizens.
Moved by that insight, I decided to send a special gift from Afghanistan to three of my North Minneapolis city council officials (Barb Johnson, Don Samuels, and Diane Hofstede) to thank them for being my democratically elected representative and also to lobby on a particular issue...
...which I may write about later (I've already written about it in the past) but, for now, is neither here nor there. The gifts are of nominal value. I'm sure they don't fall under the category of bribery, graft and corruption. For example, a 1000 Afghani note from the Taliban era can be easily obtained for...two dollars. Roughly what you'd spend to buy a city council official a cup of coffee for a chat.
Pictured above are the three big padded envelopes before I mailed them, sitting amid my uniform, googles, and Afghan-produced throw blankets. Note unpainted wall. I am going to cover that with contact paper, as soon as I can score some. In fact, my room and the hallway outside my room has increasingly become an exercise in "urban revitalization."
NOTE: After getting some valuable feedback, this blog post was corrected to change "gifts from Afghanistan" to "Afghan trinkets of nominal value" in the headline, and the text was changed a bit to reflect the headline.
14 comments:
Bribery. I'll be sure to file ethics complaints on these council members.
For the record John, your hot sauce of nominal value is appreciated too.
Maybe you should save your money to pay for your appeal, and the new lawsuits that await you.Since you no longer qualify for IFP status.
Go ahead and sent your little "bribes". You have no friends anymore.
No one!
And we'll make sure the proper authorities are aware of your bribes.
Especially those sent to Don Samuels, who testified for you.
Dear FBI.....
To Jeff, (The Hawthorne Hawkman)
You like the hot sauce I sent you from Afghanistan? First, glad to hear it arrived. That means the helicopter got through OK, ha ha. (But not really "ha ha")
And, yeah, I don't like to waste ANYTHING from an Army Meal Ready To Eat and I know you watch every penny, so you can buy your own house in North Minneapolis in the near future.
How is that going? Is that going to happen soon?
Of course (sarcasm font) you know I only sent you that hot sauce to bribe you into doing me special favors in your role as Housing Director for the Hawthorne Neighborhood Council.
To all the haters posting on this thread: I am currently in Ali Al Salem, Kuwait.
I will be giving truthful and accurate clues to my location on a fairly regular basis so Level Three Sex Offender "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer and Jill Clark have a fair and square opportunity to serve me Spanky's bat s*** crazy psuedo-legal paper.
The game is on--!
TALLYHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Seeing as how whenever I get into mortgage technicalities, you start the "prepare to lose consciousness!" phrase, I'll say this much:
I can guarantee I'll be a NoMi homeowner within 12 months. But I think there's a better-than-50% chance that will happen before the year is out.
Maybe i'm Jill and maybe i'm Not, maybe i'm Pete and prefer a tot.
Feel free to get into those technicalities for the edification of everybody else, and I will refrain from my peanut gallery comments regarding the lack of excitement concerning anything having to do with mortgages.
Though I can't speak for all the OTHER commenters...
Call it superstition, but I'd rather hold my cards close to the vest until I actually close on a house. Then I'll get into the details.
Jeff can close on a house, then let is go into foreclosure and become a slumlord property again.
Courtesy of the "Galbanizer", history is bound to repeat itself.
I don't know what you mean by "Galbinizer."
Could you explain your comment?
If you had the files on Jeff you'd know. Makes for a good read on a rainy eve.
The word "Galbinizer" doesn't even exist on the internet until the Google bot crawls this blog. Are the trolls now talking in word salad like psych patients?
Or maybe they just can't spell things properly as usual.
Google suggests you mean "Galvinizer" but I still don't know what you mean, troll.
I don't see how Jeff Skrenes can buy a house. He has unsatisfied judgments, and a recent history of foreclosure. Not to mention a job that might be unfunded in the near future. What bank will finance him with that history? No wonder he's playing it close to his chest.
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