During the [memorial] service, family members eulogized Lay as a loving husband, father, stepfather and grandfather. One stepson, Beau Herrold, read four pages of fond childhood reminiscences of Lay, going back to the days when Lay was courting his mother, who was then a single mother of three. Lay embraced him and his siblings as though they were his own children, Herrold said.
Another stepson, David Herrold, said he was saddened by Lay's death and "angry because of the way he was treated the last five years of his life. I'll leave it at that."
Such indignant outrage from David! Such fluffy nostalgia from Beau!
Lay left his previous wife and kids to court his secretary, who happened to be their mother. This is what Republican family values look like in practice.
As far as embracing people as though they were his own children, Lay's loving largesse did not extend to those he was legally responsible to — his employees and most especially the participants in his 401(k) plan. He was a fiduciary to the plan, meaning that he must manage it, by law, in their best interests and not in his own. Not only did he not live up to his duty, he abdicated in the most spectacular way possible: by personally siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars in cash while encouraging his employees to put their life savings in soon-to-be-worthless Enron securities. So much for being a loving "stepfather" to his employees.
Ken Lay was at best criminally negligent as a CEO and as a steward of his employees' money, crimes for which he will never pay. And neither will David, whose purloined inheritance was guaranteed by his stepfather's death, and whose indignant outrage is totally misplaced.
David, if you want to understand the anger of the rest of the world at your stepfather, get a mirror, you little shit.
Some with no social or business connection also paid their respects [at his memorial]. Geraldine Zillions said she came to know Lay a year ago when she was at Bering's, buying $80 worth of gardening equipment. When she realized she had left her wallet at home, Lay, who was in line behind her, paid for her purchase and refused to let her reimburse him.
Carpenter Jon Bothager, who worked on one of the Lays' River Oaks homes, tearfully recalled their generosity: His son was a top graduate of Stratford High School but could not get scholarship money. When he asked how he might find a way to get his son into the University of Texas, the Lays paid his tuition until Enron fell apart.
Behold the Houstonian God, Ken Lay. Geraldine Zillions [!] got to touch the hem of His garment, and received the celestial gift of gardening equipment &mdash procured with earthly gold pieces from Enron employees' 401(k) plan, verily.
Jon Bothager built Lay's humble River Oaks manger and polished His holy halo, and lo, Jon's child receives the fullness of the wisdom of the University of Texas. Such magnanimity! Such holy mercy! Such divine kindness!
As heaven opens its pearly gates to receive Him, let us sing Lay's praises! How mighty is His bounty! How brilliant His sacred visage! How lowly and pitiful the mere mortals who desire but a crust of bread from his holy purse!
Former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, sat in the second row. Also present were former Secretary of State James Baker and former Secretary of Commerce Rob Mosbacher.
Hmm. The father of the man who denied he was supported by the man who supported him the most, and the man who engineered that man's 2000 non-election.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Also in keeping with recent comparisons of Ken Lay to Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr: "The Rev. Bill Lawson, pastor of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, likened Lay to James Byrd, an African-American man who was dragged to death in a racially motivated murder near Jasper eight years ago. 'Ken Lay was neither black nor poor as James Byrd was,' Rev. Bill Lawson said. 'But I'm angry because he was the victim of a lynching.'"
Yeah, I know it's a funeral and the speakers feel the need to really pour it on — but this is Ken Grandma-Millie-Fucking Lay we're talking about. Ken Lay is no James Byrd, not even remotely close. Not even in the same universe.
The public sycophants can wring the crocodile tears from their handkerchiefs all day, but not one among them is weeping for the people Lay deceived and defrauded.
Citgo Petroleum Corp., the Venezuelan state-owned company, said it will stop selling gasoline to hundreds of stations in 14 states over the next year.
The move stems from a decision by the Houston-based company, a subsidiary of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, to stop buying gasoline from other refiners to serve the 13,000 U.S. stations it services. Instead, the company will sell just the fuel produced from its three U.S. refineries, which together can process up to 750,000 barrels of crude oil a day. [...]
Because of their proximity, the U.S. and Venezuela rely on each other in the oil market. Venezuela supplies 14% of the U.S. oil supply, and the U.S. buys half of Venezuela's oil exports. Venezuela has reserves of about 80 billion barrels of conventional oil and as many as 270 billion barrels of extra-heavy oil that must be substantially upgraded before it can be refined.
But the Venezuelan oil company has become highly politicized under the country's president, Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the U.S. Because of poor field management and political choices, Venezuela has reduced its oil production since Mr. Chavez took power in 1998 to about 2.6 million barrels a day from a peak of 3.1 million barrels a day.
In Washington, Larry Neal, deputy staff director for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, criticized the move. "It is not unreasonable to wonder if politics instead of economics are at work when the man behind the company routinely uses it to dabble in American politics," Mr. Neal said.
Such bogus bravado and blustering bullshit. The men behind energy economics have been dabbling in American politics for at least decades. Do the names Dick Cheney, Ken Lay, and George Bush (pick one, it doesn't matter) mean anything to a global warming politicker like Larry Neal?
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to protest on Thursday against the US president, George Bush, who arrives in eastern Germany tomorrow night for a three-day bonding session with Germany's leader, Angela Merkel.
The president is dropping into Mrs Merkel's picturesque Baltic coast constituency before flying on Friday to the G8 summit in St Petersburg. But the trip has already provoked opposition from residents. Officials in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have invited 1,000 carefully selected guests to meet Mr Bush on tomorrow in the seaside town of Stralsund. The stage-managed reception for the US president is being wryly compared to the treatment once afforded East Germany's communist party.
Among those attending the private memorial was Jeff Skilling, Lay's co-defendant, who quickly slipped into the chapel with his wife and his defense attorney Daniel Petrocelli.
Security was tight at the chapel. Access was granted only to those whose names appeared on the guest list, and when the Lay family arrived in a caravan of black sport utility vehicles, security personnel surrounded the group with umbrellas, obstructing photographers.
The Rev. Bill Lawson, pastor emeritus of Houston's Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, officiated the 90-minute memorial. Joining Lawson in eulogizing the former Enron chairman were longtime family friend and former Enron executive Mick Seidl, Linda Lay's brother Ray Phillips and the five Lay children.
The portrait they painted of the man who once ran the nation's seventh largest company was that of philanthropist, father, grandfather and friend. Little mention was made of Enron, guests said. [...]
While Lay had numerous detractors, many in Aspen remained his friends and fans. Lawson told the gathering of almost 200 that those who are vilified in life — John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and even Jesus — often become heroes in death.
Lawson recited the Lord's Prayer.
Then he read Psalm 18:1-3 and read from the New Testament's Second Corinthians. [...]
Family members coming in from Houston for the service included Ken Lay's children — Elizabeth Vittor with her husband, José Luis Vittor, and Mark Lay with his wife, Natalie — and Linda Lay's children — Beau Herrold with his wife, Heather, Robyn Vermeil and David Herrold. The service was followed by a catered reception on the chapel deck and in the garden.
The catered reception (with an open bar [!], according to the Chronicle's video clip) was involuntarily paid for by Enron's 401(k) plan participants as an unfortunate and unwelcome side effect of their employment.
The writer of the article, Shelby Hodge, is not the Chronicle's business or political reporter, but its society columnist. At the core of the story, Ken Lay was newsworthy not because he was smart or ethical because he was rich and famous.
Here's a guy who had an affair with his secretary (Linda Lay nee Herrold) and screwed his employees. I am baffled why people find such cads as Lay so fascinating when their crimes are about as interesting as convenience store holdups, albeit on a much bigger scale.
The only reason I have followed this story for five long years is not because Lay is intrinsically fascinating in the least, but because this commonplace piece of shit played a pivotal role in delivering the Bush administration into the White House — one of the biggest frauds in the world's formerly great democracy, the USA.
