Monday, February 27, 2006

Maxinista: The Hole in the Walsh Gang


More hard truths about the clique that stole the Local


by Sniper
January 26, 2006: Oh holey night! Lawrence Walsh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Neiman Fellow and former big gun for the Washington Post, lecturer at Duke, battlefield news cameraman in Vietnam, ME of the Texas Observer, had just come off a gurney where he'd had a colonoscopy done. He was reeling with the after-affects of sedation. He arrived at Chestnut Hill Hospital (!), where the Maxinistas had weirdly switched their illegal Executive Session to consider firing him from the CHCA Board at the last minute -- maybe they were doing a P.R. deal with CHH's new management team?; or maybe they hoped that with his frail health, he might be needing the ER?

Anyway, standard Maxinista obfuscation, the usual murky procedural night moves. Corruption of the very Roberts Rules of Order types like Sanjiv "Can We Move On?" Jain reflexively use to stifle discussion by loud guys Ron Recko and Ed Feldman . . . But the truth is, an official Board of Directors meeting must actually convene before an Executive Session -- which excludes the general public -- can be called. And notice of the agenda must be published seven days in advance. But Max was so anxious to get her kangaroo court martial rolling that she and Jane Becker and others smarmed over objections of procedural foul play and convened the ES before the Board Meeting opened! Thus the whole three-hour farce that followed is legally null and void . . .

So what happened was three hours of the interested public cooling its heels while petty remarks Lawrence once made were woven into a tapestry of trivia meant to show his unfitness to serve on the august Publisher's Committee and Board. This from a group that esteems and lauds Medicine Show fraud Douglas Doman, inheritor of the Institute for the Achievement of Human (whew) Potential in Wyndmoor, who retails pricey hope to the physically helpless; real estate hustler Jain; dreadful crybaby and inept operator SuperBrat Snowden (currently down in W. Va., reportedly trying to buy up dangerous coal mines to exploit); and Exploding Car Mysterioso & McNally's Saloon Fixture Joe Pie . . . A typical charge was that Walsh had muttered "bitch!" about some alleged clumsy makeout moves by Pam "Boom-Boom" Waters on WASP cutey Jeremy Heep (at an earlier meeting.) For the record, Lawrence admits it.

Okay. Walsh, gaga on meds, has to endure a maelstrom of twittering before they kick him out. A slander package, containing an e-mail he'd written to former Local editor Jim Sturdivant and copied to former staff writer Mike Mishak, in which he'd counseled Mishak -- upon solicitation of advice -- to resign his position, and which had been making the clandestine rounds for months and burning up the Phone Mafia lines in town, was distributed to the assembled CHCA heavies. Oh, Law & Order, Criminal Intent! Foolishly, but understandably, Walsh had been vehemently denying that he'd suggested either Jim or Mike should quit. Given the level of hostility in the community, the tiny stitches ripped wide at every opportunity, he didn't feel he could speak truthfully in such a hateful atmosphere. Chestnut Hill was like Clay County, Missouri in 1863 or something, when Bloody Bill Anderson was shooting abolitionists who disagreed with the Old Values . . .

Mishak, as fine a reporter as the Local has seen (despite one dumb move involving not contacting SBSnowden before writing a story about that churl's questionable business practices), had been weighing whether he should leave the Local's glorious employ. These doubts started in 2004, at a dinner Sniper attended at the Warsaw Cafe on 16th Street, long before Sturdivant even showed up. As things grew worse under the Maxinista boot, Mike naturally turned to Lawrence, the only man on the premises with pro journalism chops. After Jim's resignation following a silent coup still shamefully denied by the Executive Committee, Mishak was offered effective "control," if he agreed not to criticize the CHCA and its ruling clique (!). The offer was made by Kari Ghezarian. When Mishak rightly refused, a Jain associate, Vijay Kothare, with credentials as solid as newly-minted Maxinista Carol Cope's, was brought in as a back-up spy to make sure neither Mishak, Scott Alloway nor Robyn John did anything interesting with what was left of the Local. And this was when Nancy Berger and Joe Pie were already marauding through 8434; these are people capable of squeezing the joy out of firecrackers -- Kothare ended up writing a report for Sanjiv characterizing Walsh and his friends as "parasites" and the recalcitrant staff as "terrorists".

Once more, for the record:

There is no rule in the CHCA bylaws preventing Board and/or committee members from advising Local staffers to apply or resign, a charge the Maxinistas have been furling over Walsh's dome like a Scarlet Letter. Sniper knows of two current members who've just advised a candidate for the editor's job to go for it.

Mishak didn't need Walsh to tell him to resign. And Lawrence and his boys are not the Hole in the Wall Gang. He should have been censured for lying, then, if his health allows it, reinstated, since his ouster violates all known rules of procedural honesty, and because no one else in the CHCA cares more about journalism's true role here.

It's the Maxinistas who should be thrown out in the spring election. For being subversive of the Fourth Estate.

Where are the Hill's liberal due process lawyers when you need them?

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

With Apologies to Edward Lear

There once was a Sniper grown hazy
Whose views may mix drink
And crazy
And lazy
A disapated career
A funding wife who knows better
Is this the Sniper who courts libel by letter?

Tue Feb 28, 09:43:00 AM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're so clever, anonymous, for a pseudo-intellectual moron.

Tue Feb 28, 03:27:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is your critique?

The apology to Edward Lear is much appreciated. Your limericks are worse than the editor's puns.

Sniper's first posting was funny, wickedly funny, but funny. First-class writing no matter what side you're on. Our limerick writer wouldn't understand that though -- not educated enough, I suspect.

For God's sake, do any of you people read actual newspapers? If so, the recent obituaries of Otis Chandler could be illuminating. Oops, I forgot. That would require thinking and learning and you don't know who the hell he was anyway and wouldn't care to learn.

Tue Feb 28, 04:00:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

pot shot of poetry. poor selection.

BUT HEY YOU KNOW WHAT'S FUNNY, a deer's first person perspective of running through the Morris Arboretum.

NOW THAT'S SOMETHING

Tue Feb 28, 09:23:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Someone...anyone...should keep Pie OUT of the Local.

Wed Mar 01, 01:03:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, Mary Sue
Still feeling blue?
If I were you
I'd rhyme badly, too

Wed Mar 01, 02:01:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

With continuing apologies to Edward Lear

Is the Ravine the home of the dreaded Sniper
Where cowardly he coils as a Marxist viper
Condemnation without thought his only lesson to be taught
Robespierre?
Lenin?
Stalin?
Hardly.
Only old, unkempt, used-up and tawdry.

Thanks to those who obviously saw themselves or friends in previous postings. Direct hit, considering the responses.

Oh, and really…you two couldn’t have carried Otis Chandler’s coat, so skip trying to improve your sad lots by association.

Wed Mar 01, 05:35:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wait a minute, Sniper.
There may be other Mary Sues, but I suspect you were referring to me. I am not anonymous, the Edward Lear wannabe. I would never be anonymous. I don't believe in hiding behind that word or a false name. And I certainly wouldn't paraphrase Lear to make nasty innuendos about you, whoever you are.
I really don't like the name-calling stuff that goes on in this blog.
Guess I'll have to stop surreptiously reading it.

Thu Mar 02, 12:07:00 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I could list a rolecall of the maimed -- including Carole Boynton -- to be laid at the feet of the Maxinista majority in this dreadful situation on the Hill at present, & you're worrying about "politeness"? Pulleeeze, as they used to say in the old neighborhood.

Thu Mar 02, 02:34:00 PM EST  

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