Sick In Bed

Plays With Tools
All the months of toil have caught up to me today as I lie in bed. Well, I've crawled over to the computer to check out what the headline news stories are, and I found this interestng tidbit.

Costner Named in Former Spa Worker's Case
Wednesday April 26 10:52 AM ET

Kevin Costner was accused of performing an indecent act as he received a massage at a Scottish hotel, in a claim by a former spa worker filed with a British employment tribunal.

The 34-year-old woman claimed the actor exposed himself and carried out a sex act as she gave him the massage at the Old Course Hotel in Fife, Scotland, in October 2004, said papers filed with the tribunal.

Her allegations were not taken seriously by hotel staff, papers said.

Tribunal chairman Nicol Hosie said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had agreed to settle her claim of unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination out of court.

The tribunal, sitting in Dundee, Scotland, on Tuesday, did not consider whether her allegations were true.

"This was never about Kevin Costner. It is a dispute between a hotel and an ex-employee," the 51-year-old actor-director's spokesman, Paul Bloch, told reporters.

Hosie lifted a restriction that had been imposed to prevent Costner's identity from being revealed, saying there was no reason for it to be withheld from reporting.

An earlier hearing had been told Costner and his wife were staying at the hotel at the time of the alleged incident.

"It is the company's position not to comment on matters of litigation," said an Old Course Hotel spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, in a written statement. "The parties have settled this matter. The terms are confidential and undisclosed."

Way to go Kev, you seedy little bugga. So the competition of the day is: "What Sex Act Was Kevin Costner Carrying Out As He Received A Massage, Exactly?"

a) Masturbation.
b) Auto-fellation.
c) Insertion of a foreign object into his rear.
d) All of the above.

Millionaires Complaining
Really, it's just not right. Johnny Damon thinks he is going to be mistreated by the fans of the Boston Red Sox because he changed sides.

"What people don't understand is that I still have friends over there. I still care about them," Damon says. "They're not the same team. A lot of guys I played with are gone. They went young. But guys like Big Papi (David Ortiz) and Jason (Varitek) will always be lifelong friends. I have extreme loyalty to them.

"But this is a business. Life moves on. I thought they'd re-sign me. I even bought a home there because they (the Red Sox front office) told me I'd be there a long time."

Damon signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the Yankees during the offseason after rejecting Boston's four-year, $40 million offer.

"Look, it takes two to tango in terms of reasonable expectations and reasonable levels of compensation," Red Sox President/CEO Larry Lucchino says. "We made a determination what we thought was fair and an appropriate contract. It's not like we didn't bid for his services.

"In general, the team has got to do what it feels is right. You want your fans to love your veteran players, but the front office has got to have enough independence and objectivity to know what value seems fair and what the alternatives will be."

The Red Sox chose to go with a younger and more defensive-minded lineup, adding such players as center fielder Coco Crisp, who takes over for Damon, and first baseman J.T. Snow in the offseason.

"They made their choice," Damon says. "I'm not bitter. I'm not angry. I'm just with the team that wanted me the most. I just hope the fans there remember the good times we had together."

Starting May 1, when the Yankees play the Red Sox at Fenway Park in the first of a two-game series, Damon will face Boston's fans for the first time since he signed his contract with the Yankees. "I don't know what's going to happen when I get there, but I know I gave them everything I had."

He pauses, gently brushes his hand through his styled hair and, speaking almost in a whisper, says, "I don't want them to hate me. I don't want them to think I'm a traitor. We have enough hatred in the world without this."

Damon never anticipated the animosity and hostility he faced the first time he played in tranquil Kansas City after the Royals traded him to the Athletics in 2001.

"That was the worst," he says. "It was brutal. It was 'Boo Johnny Day' in Kansas City. There were signs. One radio station had a contest that if I made an error, somebody would win a flat-screen TV. The guy from the station even had the gall to come up to me later and said it was all in good fun. When he introduced me to his son, I told him, 'Nothing personal. But your dad is a piece of crap.'

It's tough being an elite athlete these days. We should count ourselves lucky not to have such issues confronting us in our everyday lives. *roll eyes*

More Millionaires Complaining
It's the theme of the day.
Kenneth Lay thinks he's being mistreated by prosecution.

Hueston also presented quotes from one of Lay's defense lawyers, who told reporters earlier in the trial that former Enron treasurer Ben F. Glisan Jr. was "a performing monkey" who "contradicted the theory of intelligent design." Glisan, who pleaded guilty and is serving a five-year prison sentence, testified that he informed Lay about Enron's dire financial problems, providing some of the most potentially damaging testimony against him.

"Did you engage in character assassination of witnesses?" the prosecutor asked.

Lay replied sharply, "Are you considering yourself? I just want to make sure I understand who's on that list."

Hueston, who has drawn Lay's ire for years as the main investigator in the case against him, shot back: "Mr. Lay, I'm an assistant U.S. attorney. This is my job. You may call me anything you want."

A clutch of Lay's relatives and friends, including his pastor, spilled over into a second bench of the courtroom Wednesday, and spectators vied for a better view of what could be the pivotal moment in a case that launched an era of business scandals. How the eight-women, four-man jury assesses the credibility of Lay and his fellow defendant, Jeffrey K. Skilling, who finished his own testimony last week, could be a decisive factor in its verdict. Both Lay and Skilling, 52, face more than a decade behind bars if they are convicted.

Hueston asserted that Lay had placed several phone calls to friends at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in the course of the trial, seeking to find witnesses who would discredit the account of a Sept. 6, 2001, meeting given by former finance chief Andrew S. Fastow, one of the government's key witnesses. The prosecutor also claimed Lay had tried to reach another witness, risk analyst Vincent J. Kaminski, through an intermediary just days before he began his testimony. Lay said he "did not recall" whether Kaminski was a likely government witness, even though his name appeared on lists provided to the defense.

"You were trying to recruit people to say what you wanted them to say," Hueston charged. Lay retorted that he didn't have a "story" he was trying to get straight, as prosecutors claimed.

The prosecutor noted that Lay, who resumed day-to-day control of Enron after Skilling resigned abruptly in August 2001, received frequent updates on the company's finances. Lay said he did not recall those documents, partly because he said he depended on Skilling to notify him about trouble spots. Lay also said he performed only brief reviews of securities filings and scripts of presentations to investment analysts, an issue the government is likely to revisit.

Hueston also asserted that Lay violated the company's code of ethics by not disclosing to the board of directors his $120,000 personal investment in Photofete Inc., an online photography company that won about $400,000 in contracts from Enron. Lay said he had "forgotten about this investment altogether" until prosecutors used it against Skilling, who also invested in the company, in cross-examination last week. Lay conceded that he did not get board approval for his investment, which he characterized as small.

It's really tough when you get found out for your wrong-doings and have to somehow make it look like normal business practice. I hope they send him to jail until he rots there and then hang his corpse on Wall Street as a warning to future white collar criminals.