“That tells your readers something about them,” Khayat said. “There are some people who would not have done that.”

Quite upstanding.  Nice.  And noble.  Kuddos to them.  Sticky Gold star, and all.  Hindsight is so 20/20.

In other words....Good of them to GET ON BOARD before the alumnus did.

In other words, it goes sort of like this: Khayat went to the Scruggsy-mansion and met with the Dickster, himself, with the agenda to talk Dickie into asking The University to take his name off the Music Building. 

Upon initial tepid resistance from Scruggs, who is still obviously having difficulty with his own guilt as he can’t say the word “felon”, Khayat begins to spin that “This will be a good showing to the community at large to show your penance...your embarassment… you know, Dickie, your contrition.  I, as the pious Chancellor, can then say to the press that it ‘tells...something about them, there are some people who would not have done that.’ “

As Scruggs begins to ponder the thought of what precious metal should be used to cast his own legacy, the Pious Chancellor then says “let me assist you with your PR campaign, Dickie.”

Scruggs then holds out his right hand, and the Pious Chancellor genuflects and kisses Scruggs’ ring, and departs the room.

Hey, and then they don’t have to face about a week of world-wide media centered IN THAT VERY BUILDING-- which will be the media station for the presidential debate-- doing little local color sidebars about just who is this Dickie Scruggs guy the building is named after.

NMC, you pointed out what I meant to say that the Pious Chancellor was thinking when he kissed the ring.

Good Lord, Alan, we are in unchartered depths....unreal.  Like with each CRIMINAL ACT, folks (sometimes) think about the victim, but ,OMG, look at us, the family.  Thanks, DS!  WE ARE YOUR MISSISSIPPI FAMILY.......WSJ, et all....nice.

Your clarity is both sharp and crisp.

"There are some people who would not have done that.” By THAT was he talking about bribing a judge? Ohhh myyyy, Khayat is gonna miss that jet.

But will he so willingly give up all his ill gotten fee awards?

Thanks to Mr. Khayat and his loyalty, I get another whiff of what the American University endowement program is all about, the legend of the gifting and the propagation of the mentality of denial of wrong-doing.  The Khayat position is “shows you what kind of people they are” is like a good poker tell, as I seem to see no harm in the real fabric of the dirty material of my master’s hood, but the smell is and will always remain as a constant reminder that there is nothing behind that story.  Rachmaninoff probably doesn’t mind that his tomb is not remembered as being in America.  Maybe some Russians do. I hope so.

As a part of the long tradition of “run or roll” when a thing is on fire, I like to remember the doctoral degree as a fairly just performance of meritorious mentoring, and preparation toward a secret society; not everyone was allowed to join, even in the best of institutional learning.  It’s like a club, as Oscar Wilde notes about such things, and at the top of the club, there’s the Board of Directors, the Regentry, and the Deanships, and, leading the band from time to time, the President or Provost.  The President is the rummy.  He’ll do anything for money.  But he usually is prudent and “rolls”.

“Run or roll” on fire is the historical way to put out the near miss of the standards for which we all tend to believe, and I think falsify, the rule of University ethics.  What an oxymoranic thought.  Ethics is the value of the piece of fortune earned by good, bad, or in a variety of ways.  But it’s significant that it go on, and forward, with the character of what it once symbolized.  I visualized ethics in University, but it seemed always to boil down to do what’s necessary.

So Mr. Khayat has the last word on what the placement of a name is forever - pleased with what he knows is only a half truth.  Shows you what kind of man that Mr. Khayat is - he runs against his on fire straight into the wind.  That only means he didn’t get it in first grade, and he certainly can’t be a sailor.  No matter.  This year, the graduation walk will have the right tempo.  The music is always the same - triumph.

It would be better, though, if they marched to Rachmaninoff - hands, heart and talent with not screwing the world, but saving it.  I don’t think he has a building named for him.  Is that the difference between honor and fire? 

My Khayat’s signal to us is that, on the whole, this life, this noble spirit, these traditions of rightful destiny, all of this, isn’t about what a man does in life.

He’s still worth music.  In the end, if you’re lucky, it’s classic or jazz.  But a man signs off on his duty.  I’d much rather that building be named Eudora Welty.  The nature of ethics isn’t a short story.  It’s a long narrative, a bulk of truth, and, even for the best, it’s not about truth. 

Mr. Khayat, sees “injustice” in change and he reasons the need to mark the present with that injustice.  Good people are in fact good markers for the all tenses. 

God save the “system” of American Higher education.  It works well if the endowment is tied to the right building at the right time. 

I’m quite sure that Diane and Dickie required no remorse for the removal of their name from the Music Hall.  For twenty million, the pledge of 1998, you don’t have to have a building named after you. 

It is sad, however, that Mr. Khayat, tells me, who knows the score in higher education and in gifting in higher education, that his “roll” on the value of education to put out his fire.

For twenty million dollars, we do anything.  But there are great people in Mississippi.  Some are dead.  Some would probably be worthy of “no fault” to unscrew me from the corners of the building.  I wonder if there’s a Eudora Welty building on campus? 

A new generation will “walk” in May.  I think the tradition is marvelous.  The Doctorate of Justice (Jurisprudence) isn’t at all tainted.  Cleaners always can shape up a velvet - especially a nice gown - and even a hood.  No color fade on cold.

I’ll remember this.  Mr. Khayat’s coloring of a man’s contrition is vague when it should be bright. 

But that’s the score.

Ole Miss will never return a dime from Dickie. I hope that someone will look closely into the financial records of Ole Miss to see EXACTLY where Dickie’s millions went. Could start with the football program.

Well, this is one way to get ahead of the hounds.

"I hope that someone will look closely into the financial records of Ole Miss to see EXACTLY where Dickie’s millions went. Could start with the football program.”

If the money went to the football program, we need to figure out what the damned fools did with it.  ‘Cause it sure doesn’t look like it’s been spent on football these past few years…

And Khayat is a disgrace.  He’ll be getting a letter from this alum. Which will mean nothing to him because I don’t have big bucks to buy him with.

Inside the Tobacco Deal interviewed Dick Morris in January 1998.

Morris: “When the history of the 20th century is written, there are going to be some pretty obscure people who are entitled to sainthood. Nobody is going to know their names, and I don’t know if they’ll go on to do anything else in their lives. But Scruggs and Moore have earned their place in heaven.”
http://www.pbs.org

J.D. Berry - if I drank, I’d order from the same bartender.

Re: JDBerry’s comment:  Oh please, please....Dick Morris must have been in a hurry to meet one of his “girls” to come to the conclusion that Moore and Scruggs are bound for Heaven.

"I hope that someone will look closely into the financial records of Ole Miss.......” Maybe Scrugg’s buying of football players was done with as much forethought as his LATEST attempt to buy a judge.  It appears that while he might haves had successes in the past, as time went on his ability to select good quarterbacks is equal to his ability to select judges that would subside to these attempts to be purchased.

In the simple fashion, when Dickie Scruggs finalized his portion of the Texas, Mississippi, and Florida (pre-Global MasterSettlement), it was reported that HIS take at HIS firm was 870 million dollars.  That sum was increased when the Global Settlement, as handled in State by State “Arbitation Panels”, was presented with the evidence, by Mike Moore, that Dickie Scruggs was the mastermind of the Settlement, and got quite a “heist”, and which adds up to billions.  Around that time, Dickie made a distribution of a few millions to Don Barrett, Lewis Who, Paul Minor, and a few locals.  He then made a “pledge” to Ole Miss for 20 million dollars, and, as I understood that, he would pay a million a year to Ole Miss, for each of the 25 year pay out from tobacco.  I would guess that, in open records States, the making of the Music Hall would be partly paid for in the manner of the payment per year as is most likely.  There is one additional thought.  In the first of the three “settlements”, which were outside of the Master Settlement of Christine Gregoire of Washington State, it was reported that Dickie took his near billion award from tobacco’s original settlement - not to sue and have a trial on the merits - he arranged for the long-term pay-out from these three States (D.S. had dozens of States in which he was an awardee along with Don Barrett and Ness Motley) and put that original sum up for sale as bonds.  He sold the bonds.  The bonds were presumably taxed, are in that process, and from that sum, if he didn’t change from his orginally reported action, Ole Miss was still on the pay out for a million a year.  Remember this - the three early pay out’s were miniscule in comparison to the second round of captive money from the friends on the State by State “Arbitration Panels.”

I assume that the IRS knows where the bond sale money went, and that Ole Miss is an “open records” University.  Surely Alumnus have a right to gather information on donors’ gifts, and how the money is used (I am an alumnus, so I think I have the right to know, but I think it shouldn’t be any mystery). 

The mystery will always HOW MUCH?  I doubt that the Dickie and Motley lawyers, State of Mississippi and South Carolina, which got the bulk of lawyer’s fee’s, miss out on an opportunity to unload taxes, but surely the Ole Miss account is a good way to do taxes.

What is clear is that 20 billion buys a lot of brick and mortar. I don’t think it’s clear why the bricks went to music and not to Nursing or Medical Schools.  I guess it’s the fluffy sound of “I gave to performing arts.” But it’s all about ego.  I don’t think Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Elvis Presley, Blind Lemon Jefferson, or any number of writers and artists need a name for their lives. 

Ironic to know that your good name is misunderstood and can be unscrewed from an inanimate object.  Ole Miss: your honor is not ever screwed.