Stupidity Squared (minus sympathy)

It is difficult to feel real sorry for some victims, though victims they may be. This is because victims often reach that lowly status as a result of their own stupidity and naivete as much anything else.

Two guys with broken thumbs feel the same pain whether they received their injuries through an unfortunate bowling accident or by falling behind on a debt to the wrong person. Both victims. Different sympathy levels.

I withhold my sympathy from victims that pursue business opportunities through shady dealings with shady organizations. In this case, the shady organizations include both the city of Detroit under mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and Maestro Associates, under the guiltless leadership of Kwame's father, Bernard.

Yet, the victims came knocking.

It appears to be quite a scam the two Kilpatrick gentlemen were running. The City, in perpetual need of infrastructure improvements, always had plenty of business to award. The mayor's father, operating as a consultant, could steer city contracts to businesses who paid him his consulting fees.

Who couldn't reasonably assume that such a tight consulting relationship between crony father and ethically challenged son would be a bit, shall we say, suspect?

Regardless of any assumptions, now steps forward a Grosse Pointe contractor seeking damages from the city for canceling a contract with his firm after it stopped paying Bernard Kilpatrick his "consulting" fees.

Wise up or you will be a victim all your life. Not to mention I won't feel sorry for you.