One of the things I enjoy on the Palm Beach Post‘s website is the “Booking Blotter” – mugshots of the latest scallywags booked into the Palm Beach County Jail. It’s here where drug dealers, prostitutes, trespassers and wife beaters have their photos published for the world to see. While the purpose is not for humor, you can’t help but get a chuckle when looking at some and wondering, “did he/she really leave the house looking like that this morning?”

While no such “Booking Blotter” exists online in Luzerne County, after seeing Wednesday’s Times Leader I think we could use one. An article ran about a Laceyville, PA woman who was looking to hire a hit-man. Unfortunately the prospective hit-man she was looking to hire was an undercover state trooper. Michelle Lee Parkhurst was charged with criminal solicitation to commit homicide and two counts of criminal conspiracy to solicit the commission of homicide. While being booked into the Wyoming County Correctional Facility, the prison’s staff took the obligatory mugshot which you see below:

Photos have the ability to capture nature at it’s most sensational moments or humans at their weakest points. I always carry a camera with me wherever I go, and not just the one built into my iPhone. I always manage to see something along the highway, up in the sky, or right next to me which deserves to be saved in digital form for viewing later on. I’m not a professional photographer by any nature, but collecting interesting images is a hobby of mine. Like one from today:

I couldn’t help but notice the door handles for an old McCrory’s Five and Dime proclaiming “Self Service.” I started thinking about how many people over the years pushed those doors open to gain entrance into a menagerie of housewares. It’s a history lesson in itself coupled with a trip down memory lane.

Images are powerful. They can summon tears, instill fear, inspire awe or simply illicit a chuckle. Photographers have the ability to call upon these emotions with every click of the shutter. Even if it’s a dimly lit photo of the neighborhood mugger.

South Florida is quickly turning into the Ponzi Scheme capital of the world. First there was Bernie Madoff, now there’s Scott Rothstein. Rothstein is accused of running a $1.2 billion scheme as well as creating a web of business interests and investments that the feds are currently clawing their way through. In addition to screwing hundreds of investors, he’s also an attorney. Well, he’s not one anymore.

Photo: Florida Sun Sentinel

I said to myself, “How freaking coincidential is this?” The coincidence is that just yesterday, Luzerne County Judge Michael Toole was charged with honest services fraud for “secretly communicating[ed] with a plaintiff’s attorney to appoint a person that attorney had sought as a neutral arbitrator in an uninsured motorist case…Unbeknownst to the insurance company, Toole had a “long standing financial relationship” with the attorney, identified as “participant #1,” the complaint says. – TimesLeader.com”

This “great lawyer” did indeed “know the judge” and both worked to feather each other’s nests while throwing all honesty and integrity to the wind.

I’m beginning to wonder if there are any honest people in the business of lawyering and judging any more. I always respected members of the legal community as these were the people we looked to, to uphold justice and keep us on the straight and narrow. But now I have my doubts.

Granted there are plenty of honest, ethical and respectible members of the bench and bar and I have to believe that scum like Conahan, Civarella, Toole and Rothstein are those few bad apples in the bottom of the barrel. But I have to think about the young people who are taught to respect the legal system and abide by it suddenly seeing the very people they’re told to respect get led away in handcuffs.

What kind of message is that sending?

Me, behind the controls of a Boeing 737-900. Because I couldn't find the photo of me at the airport party that I was looking for.

That is when the new terminal opened at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and on Friday, May 19, 2006, I along with 899 others were invited to a gala evening of food, drink, music, a light-show and mingling with the area’s politically connected. That party, according to the Citizens Voice, is now being looked at by the FBI.

So in the interest of full-disclosure, I was there.

My picture was also taken with a group of people and made it into the newspaper, hence my quest to find it. Which I never did.

Anyone who knows me knows I despise politicians. In fact, last evening I went to dinner with by brother at Bistro on the Ave in Kingston. When we were walking in, a group of people were walking out and being the gentleman I am, I held the door open for them. One gentleman exiting happened to be political hack and former state representative Kevin Blaum. He never said “thank you” so I turned around and called him a schmuck then said to my brother and the hostess, “That was Kevin Blaum, I should have slammed the door instead of holding it open.”

I find politicians, no matter who they are, to be slimy. After being in close proximity to them I feel the need to take a shower. To me they’re nothing more than a glorified used-car salesman pushing an agenda instead of a Pinto. But that night there were plenty of them there. Commissioners from both counties, row officers, representatives from the Governor’s office, congressman, senators, even congressman Joe “I wasn’t masturbating in public, it’s my Parkinson’s” McDade who the new terminal is named after was there. The list was long, the photo opps were plenty and the booze was flowing along with the food.

I happened to be invited, not because I’m politically connected – heaven help us all, but because at that time I still owned Solid Cactus, and I offered to give the airport a new website because their old one was, well, old. So, we donated the design, programming and hosting of the site as a sign of good-will and as a means to help promote the area and the airport and to show off the new terminal online. So as someone who has worked with the airport, I received an invitation to the event and was excited to go and see what the new place looked like.

It wasn’t until today I realized the party cost $176,000.00. To quote Lackawanna County Commissioner A J Munchak, “Holy Shit!”

If knew that, I would have ate more, drank more and stayed a bit longer.

The feds are looking into the party as part of the ongoing corruption probe in Luzerne County. According to the article, the party was paid for mostly by the various contractors who worked on the new terminal and the airport picked up $23,000.00. What will come of the investigation is yet unknown, but the investigators have taken documents relating to the construction of the terminal and are reviewing them.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking the people you just paid nearly $50 million to, to write a check to throw a party in order to show off the work they did and to showcase the new facility to people who an encourage others to use it. It’s called marketing. If I open a new supermarket and I want to have a grand opening, you bet I’m going to put the squeeze on every “brand” that’s in my store to give me deals, some co-op money, etc to offset the cost of the party. It’s done every day and it’s commonplace. But in the airport’s instance, it was public money, and the spotlight is on them.

If you have an interest in wild birds, or just want to keep your feathered friends happy, visit my wild bird store! Come on, do it!

I grabbed my trusty Canon PowerShot and headed over and started snapping away. What I captured was several green parrots. You might be wondering, “are parrots native to Florida?” Well, the answer is “no.” According to one report:

In the 1960′s pet parrots became quite popular and there was a huge business importing parrots that were caught in the wild elsewhere. It is thought that the wild parakeets in Florida originated from these birds that somehow got loose before being sold off. Since these birds were not domesticated and already had to fend for themselves in the wild, it was easy for them to adapt to life in Florida and multiply to the flocks present today. (http://www.epet-center.com/wildparakeetsinflorida.html)

Up the road in Palm Beach, parrots have been on the island since the 1940′s when they were imported. The famous Breakers Palm Beach hotel is home to several endangered wild green-cheeked Amazon parrots. Occasionally, some scally-wags will attempt to steal the parrots and sell them at a pet store, but as this article from The Palm Beach Post says, parrot theives face a stiff fine if caught:

Trapping birds on the island can result in a $250 fine for the first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses. Whoever trapped the birds could also face arrest on trespassing charges for going onto Breakers property without permission.

While I enjoyed the beauty of these afternoon visitors, I hope you do as well in the photos that I’m sharing with you below.

Photo by Mattel

As he describes him, Ken “comes complete with a George Hamilton tan, apple-green jacket, white pants and shoes, swim trunks, tea-cup white pooch with a pink leash and, it’s understood, an attractive bank account.”

When it comes to Sugar Daddies, no geographical location has more of them than Palm Beach. Unfortunately, they’re all over the age of 70 and their Sugar is usually about 40 years their junior. I find them quite amusing, like the old buck who can barely make his way to the men’s room at Bice having dinner with a honey who belongs over at E. R. Bradley‘s with people her own age. But hey, who can blame Sugar! I’m sure she is getting everything she wants like that new Gucci bag, the diamond earrings, the new Bentley…

I could never be a Sugar Daddy. But I know a few of them. They’re the ones who feel they need to buy themselves happiness, if only to be taken for a ride later on. A friendship or a relationship is never bought, it’s something both parties work at together with mutually respected boundaries and contributions. Those who feel the need to buy their happiness can’t really be happy, but those being bought certainly can and most take full advantage of the situation.

I see myself more the gigolo, or keeping with the Palm Beach theme, “the walker.” These are guys who get paid to be companions for the elderly women of the island. They’re their dance partners at balls during the season, dinner companions at the Palm Beach Grill, dog walkers along Worth Ave. Some of them make good money and the job doesn’t usually come with bedroom responsibilities, unlike that of the Sugar.

Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken looks like he’s more in tune to be hanging out at Rooster’s than The Breakers, but then again, this is Palm Beach where anything goes. And often it does.

Visit BlairCandy.com for Your Sugar Daddy fix!

Now, if you came here looking for some real Sugar Daddy’s, my friends over at Blair Candy have them for you! They’ve got the small one, for the Daddy who’s a little low on the cash, and the big one for the Daddy with the bucks!

Take a good look at this woman. This is 23-year old Cassandra Danielle Lauderdale and she ranks among the lowest of the low – the scum of the earth. What did she do to deserve these harsh words? She’s a cold-blooded murderer, but you won’t see her on trial anytime soon.

Lauderdale, has been charged with cruelty to animals after she brutally stabbed her dog to death in her bathtub as a house full of people listened in horror as the dog squealed in pain as it died a slow, painful death. A sheriff’s deputy was quoted as saying, Lauderdale said she killed the dog because “she had the right to kill [it] and it was no one’s business.”

These are the words and actions of a severely disturbed individual.

This poor, defenseless animal suffered intense pain at the hands of a woman who could very possibly become one of the nation’s next serial killers. Research has shown that people who abuse, torture and kill animals eventually “graduate” to doing these heinous actions on people. Lauderdale is probably next.

The sad part of this whole situation is obviously the death of the dog, but what’s even sadder is the fact that this degenerate has only been charged with cruelty to animals and been fined $2,500. I am a firm believer that in cases like this, the punishment fits the crime.

If you are pitiful enough to inflict torture and murder another living creature, you deserve to be met with the same fate. I certainly can’t be alone in my thinking. If you look at the newspaper’s website where this story is reported, nearly 100 readers have commented and expressed similar feelings.

Lauderdale is going to be given a slap on the wrist, a night or two in jail, and a fine which she probably can’t even afford to pay. In the mean time a dog is dead and a neighborhood may be harboring the next Jeffrey Dahmer.