Glass Houses and Closed Doors

A few days ago, the local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, highlighted its e-edition with a list of residents of the state of New York whose tax bills were in arrears.  The offenders were past due on amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars to multiple millions.  Those whose debts exceeded a few thousand dollars were mostly owners of failed businesses and the liability rested with the failure to pay sales and use taxes or property taxes on the now shuttered establishments.  

The D&C was quick to highlight a half dozen or so local entrepreneurs who managed to arouse Albany's ire.  Some caught in the spotlight were openly apologetic.  Others weren't available for comment.

On the same day this news broke on the front page of the paper's website, a couple of hard working bloggers really did their due diligence.  Perusing the list, they discovered that one of the tax scofflaws happened to hold a fairly high position at - you guessed it - the Democrat and Chronicle.  In fact, the man is the editor of the opinion pages.

When this matter was pointed out to the person via electronic mail, he was none too happy and responded to queries from the citizen journalist with the same angry rhetoric his opinion pages are famous for.  Citing New York's error in not removing him quickly enough from the list, thus admitting his laxness, he wished his critics ill and demanded they go away.  That tells me there's more to this than meets the eye.  Rather than a contrite apology for not living up to the standards of journalism he would expect of his own staff, he lashed out.  Like other media around him who use others' discomfort to milk the story, his squirming allowed the non-professionals a field day in the blogosphere.

All this brings me quickly to the moral of this morning's lesson and that is that it is never a good idea to use glass  as your primary home building material.   But, if you do decide to erect your domicile with transparent walls, make sure you cover your privates before you prance around the living room.   A bunch of eyes are watching.