Cazual Conversation

When someone is shot in the head, the family and friends of the victim want justice.

The problem comes in trying to define it.

William Proctor died the day he turned 21 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

His friend, Dylan Weiler, 18, supplied the gun during a party in which all had been drinking, and he supplied the fervor, egging and daring Proctor to play Russian roulette.

Police charged Weiler with manslaughter. The State Attorney’s Office dropped the charge.

Essentially, the SAO determined Proctor was the older of the two, Proctor had familiarity with the game and no matter what egged him on, Proctor spun the cylinder, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He killed himself.

Wieler’s family was outraged that he was charged. Proctor’s family is outraged the charge was dropped.

But, really, when does get being held responsible for another’s decision?
If I convince you to try hanggliding, knowing the dangers, and you die, am I responsible?

If my stockbroker convinces me to buy stocks that later tank, is he legally responsible? Should he be?

We all make bad choices. We all give bad  advice.

Who do you think should be accountable here?

Here I go again, plucking the nugget of good news from the bad and getting worked up about  it.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines is adding a weekly flight to Cincinnati this month.

The story was on the bottom, left-hand page of A-1 Tuesday, tucked underneath “Gunfire erupts in Fountain,” which was just below “Appraiser wins VAB lawsuit.”

So what? Here’s what: We are adding a flight out of Panama City. And it is going to Cincinnati, home of George Clooney, who you just might run into if you fly there.

George Clooney, famous Cincinattian

For today I accept that as good news. We are not losing a flight, we are gaining one. It’s not daily, but it’s better than monthly.

It goes into the “plus” column.

Will our new airport survive? Whether you were for it or not, you best hope it does.

The folks who wish failure upon it just so they can say they were right are probably the same ones who hope President Obama fails to lead us  out of this economic mess so they can crow about voting for McCain.

I, for one, welcome the bit of good news.

How about you?

Are you stimulated yet?

You ought to be, one way or the other. The U.S. House just  gave you 819,000,000,000 (that’s billion) reasons to be stimulated. That’s how many dollars in spending increases and tax cuts it says are needed to pull us out of recession.

$272 Billion

That is a lot of money, even by my high-living standards. In fact, it’s about $3,276 for every adult in the country.

Do you think we’re better off letting the government handle the funds, or putting the $3,276 into our hands to do with as we will?

(At left is a stack of $1 bills representing one-third of the amount of the stimulus package. This pile is 250 feet long, and 125 feet wide. It’s 320 feet high at the tallest point. That is a human being and a car at its base).

Wayne Garrett’s wife, missing for days, had been found with a gunshot wound to the head inside two garbage bags in a shed on their property and he didn’t have much time to grieve.

He was essentially being accused of having a hand in how she ended up there. This is how it works.

As much we may abhor the idea, it is what it is and when people die mysterious deaths, their loved ones are immediately put under scrutiny by the police and, at times, the media.

God help the agency that doesn’t aggressively look at family members in such circumstances.

This understandably leads to hard feelings on the part of family members, which makes Garrett’s comments to The News Herald’s S. Brady Calhoun more noteworthy.

“I think the Bay County Sheriff’s people have been as thorough and as kind as they can be,” he said. “They are good people, and they are doing their jobs as diligently and as thorough as they can.”

How many would be so gracious?

On July 20, Nancy Garrett, 63, was reported missing from her Lisenby Avenue home. An extensive search of the property turned up nothing.

Two days later, deputies found her body, inside two garbage bags, in a shed near the home. They were sure it was not there during the initial search.

She was lying on top of newspapers, a .357-Magnum with her, and a bullet still inside her skull. She had one of her husband’s canes and a license plate resting on her hip.

Bay County sheriff’s investigators were left with three scenarios:

She was conscientious in planning her death, careful not to make a mess. Deputies somehow failed to notice the garbage bags containing her body on their initial search of the property. She simply shot herself inside two garbage bags placed on newspapers her husband collected.

Or, most of the above, but someone for some reason moved the body after death, either out of embarrassment or fear or bad judgment.

Finally, that someone else  killed her and put her in the garbage bags, hid the body from police and got caught when deputies found it in the shed.

Garrett is right, deputies were diligent. They climbed into garbage bags to see if you could do it that way. They sent deputies to hypnotists to see if a hidden detail might be revealed.

They argued possible theories amongst themselves. And this is good. If you don’t have the occassional heated exchange in your business, I suggest you’re not being creative enough.

The way this case was handled leaves us with this: There are no open questions that we can expect investigators to answer. It was thorough. There is nothing to second-guess.

Wayne Garrett was questioned hard and seems to understand. I’m guessing that’s much appreciated down at the Sheriff’s Office.

Good or bad, people have something to say about the 44th President of the United States. Nearly everyone is ready for some sort of change in today’s economy downfall.

That is reflected at The News Herald as well as we plan and carry out unprecedented coverage, on a local level, for an inauguration.

A Freedom Communications reporter, Mona Moore, is riding a bus with locals to attend the event and is reporting via a live blog at newsherald.com as well as in the print edition.

Alvin Peters, chairman of the Bay County Democratic Party, also is blogging live for us (click here).

We also have Crystal Ouimet and Paulette Perman blogging live.

The News Herald offers a four-page commemorative edition Wednesday that will include a wide array of wire coverage, pictures, local stories and reaction from locals both here and at the ceremony Wednesday.

This is all to say that whether you like his politics, you have to admit this is a big deal.

Don’t you think?

It is never fun to write a story about why your paper is not arriving on time, or explaining why our press would not work.

The only reward is the response we unfailingly receive when we open ourselves up and simply explain why your paper was late.

Friday night, due to press issues beyond our control, we printed The News Herald in Fort Walton Beach in black and white. Saturday night it was off to Tallahassee for printing as we awaited the arrival of a crucial part.

We explained all that and you responded. Diane Wetherbe brightened my morning with the following e-mail:

“Good morning,

I read your article this am in the paper. I have been exposed to the Albany & Thomasville, Ga.

and Tallahassee, Fl. newspapers. Ours far surpasses these three.

I look forward every am to sitting down with my coffee and reading the morning news.

You all are doing a GREAT JOB.”

Diane Wetherbee

Even cooler was a note from Jacqueline Tellier, who noted we were having difficulty communicating in French with the folks who had the part we needed.

“Mr. Cazalas,

I have spoken to you several years ago and written the newspaper for a letter to the editor when I had problems with my association, called the squall line, e-mailed you last week to demand that the newspaper do something to recoup the money spent by the governor on his then fiancée and her sister on his trip to Europe. Today after reading about the problems with the press machinery, I would like to offer my services. Although not an engineer, I am a French native and am retired from heading the French department at the Armand Hammer International College of the West in New Mexico and also from being the Chair of the Modern Languages Department at Nightingale Bamford School in Manhattan. While I hope the press will behave, if you need someone quickly to write a letter in French, call on me.

I also wanted to tell you that my day is not complete without my newspaper in the morning and the newspaper delivery man I have now is doing a great job. I am sending him a little bonus in the mail today.”

Thank you for your attention,”

Jacqueline Tellier

I love our readers.