Up? or down?
So I read today that ex-Enron chief, Kenneth Lay,
died today of a heart attack. I wonder which way he went .. upstairs with the good guys, or down below with ... well its not my place to judge.
I have always followed this story, as I was living out in Houston back in 2001 when the spectacular collapse of America's "most admired and respected business for 7 years running" unravelled - literally - before my eyes.
I worked in the petrochemical sector and therefore in the same 'space' as these Enron m(b)illionaire's. I went to their offices for a business meeting and was spun a whole line of b*ll-shit (from the 'deal-making' perspective) by people who I felt at the time were way too cocky and just flying a little too close to the sun for their own good. So it was with an especial sense of Schadenfraude a few short months later, when alongside the rest of Houston, I watched as the entire glittering edifice disembowelled itself onto the streets. An entire sky-scraper sacked in one day. They never even got to open its virtually completed twin - an identical mirrored tower directly adjacent to the present structure - the latest 'marquee' addition to a skyline already dominated by oil industry sky-scrapers.
I particularly remember one picture on local TV of people standing, Jerry Macguire-esque with hastily filled card-board boxes of desk trinkets and possessions, in front of a line of double-parked porsches and luxury SUVs. Sounds like I'm making it up now, right? - I am not I swear - it was completely surreal. The most surreal thing about it was how admired these guys and the enron entity were by the rest of America (and possibly the world - Corporate London was definitely gripped by Enron fever back then). As a young corporate exec making my way in a new territory - the USA goddamit! - I count myself among them. I couldn't help read and watch with awe the dazzling intelligence employed and dazzling wealth that Jeff Skilling, Lay and their foot-soldiers were creating. It was pretty intimidating. You couldn't get away from them. Every in-flight magazine on Continental Airlines (Houston's finest, HQ there) had some feature or another on these guys. And I spent many weeks on these flights at one point. Kind of ironic then that these guys have spent their fortunes trying to avoid the custody of Houston's 'finest' in recent times! For Lay, his last days - according to the story he spent $5 million on bail to avoid being held in custody till his October sentencing (up to a 45 years sentence apparently). Given how consuming this story and its characters were for one particular period of my life (chronological as well as cultural), I have found this whole episode spooky.
Despite maintaining their innocence - the judicial system has found them to be architects of deception, corruption and theft (and God knows what else) on the grandest of scales. From the moral perspective, I feel the system that fed off and idolised this success moved on swiftly with barely a blip or a pang of conscience - perhaps because you cannot quantify easily the extent to which such large scale greed and criminal behaviour affects individual lives and society as a whole (apart from all those arrogant corporate types - who deserved their come-uppance anyway right?!). I always felt that this angle deserved closer media inspection but has, intentionally or otherwise, been brushed under the carpet. Too uncomfortable to explore - after all didn't everyone want to be just like them. The Enron story consumed me and I had no choice in it. I couldn't get away from it in Houston. They made my skin crawl from the very first point of contact. Skilling wasn't helped by his uncanny likeness to Lee van Cleef in a bad guy Western role. Lay however always frustrated me - with that folksy, texan drawl and cuddly grandfather appearance, he always seemed beyond reproach - despite the fact he sold over $200 million worth of Enron shares just months before the company sunk, taking with it entire portfolios of employee shares and pension investments.
I will never feel comfortable saying that somebody deserves to die for their actions. As I think I've said before, that judgement lies with a higher authority. It was a weird feeling for me though when I read this story 30 minutes ago - I felt the same way I felt when I heard the breaking news about the death of Slobodan Milosevic - an usual sense of closure on a horror/ a presence in this world that was too massive for me to make sense of/ especially in words now. Like Milosevic, I wonder how many will speculate whether it was really a heart attack, or whether he took matters into his own hands. Either way, he for one will never get to enjoy that swanky, city pad again, that I used to pass regularly near my office - a spectacularly located penthouse in the plushest part of town. I wonder who will? I will never know of course, but can't help wondering where guys like this end up following their demise. God have mercy on their souls.
Got home last Friday, to find Jo's much publicised surprise ... this 'scatter-gun poo pellet, mucous-piss leaving' rodent prancing round my living room. I have no idea at what level in the depths of Jo's consciousness this appeals to? Given that she has categorically ruled out the tiny pitter patter of (carbon) foot-steps (prints?), this latest venture can surely not be a test of my commitment and enthusiasm for devoting every spare second of leisure to cleaning up after kids. If it is such a test, then I am failing ... and miserably. As fast as I can dust pan and brush up its crap, than an immediate and fresh trail of scat appears. And the viscous piss is in a league of its own (is the rabbit healthy? in the NHS, we're immediately yelling 'UTI' (urine infection) when this kinda stuff appears). Bunny has no name yet - that would mean forming an emotional attachment when all I want to do is touch-kick it into the stratosphere. Watch this space (and bunny, watch your back!).