Good morning, all.

Wilford Bradford Sims has gotta be kicking himself for not boasting a better Rolodex.

As you may remember, Sims was sentenced last week to 20 days plus probation and community service for animal cruelty as a result of abandoning cats at his north Clarke County home. If you read the story, you were probably struck by the raw meanness, but not necessarily surprised as this type of thing seems to happen far too often.

Sims is a sick, sad dude who is going to serve an appropriate amount of time for his crime. That’s how the system needs to work. The prosecution asked for 60 days; the defense asked for none. Judge Ethelyn Simpson bought the prosecution argument that the severity of the abuse demanded time behind bars and settled on the 20 days. Good for Simpson.

But just think how many days Sims could have shaved off that sentence had he been able to call upon Oconee County Commissioners Melvin Davis or Jim Luke as character witnesses. What if they had told a story about Sims being a good man who made this one mistake, a man who loves Jesus and his neighbors and abused cats only this once? Oh yes, he was really, really sorry, his family has suffered enough and he promises to replace the cats as soon as he gets around to it.

I bet that would save Sims from spending time behind bars.

Heck, forget the cats, why I bet you could steal $20,000, dare I guess even $36,000, from a veterans memorial fund and walk away without a day behind bars with a collection of cronies like that.

But alas, Wilford Bradford Sims couldn’t produce a single county commissioner to save him. And so he’s going to do a little time to think about his crime. I guess the felines of this community are offering up a purr of relief that Judge Lawton Stephens didn’t have a shot at this case.

Honestly, when I first heard about Sims’ sentence, Jim Ivey was the first face that popped in my head. “Sweet lord, even the cat guy is going to do more time than Ivey. Amazing.”

In the interest of equal time, I offer up this nugget I received in the mail last week. It wasn’t scrawled in Crayon (or composed of clipped letters from a magazine), but the letter did lack a signature, a trademark of works produced by cowards, ignoramuses or some combination of the two. After reading it, I simply needed to share. It’s a grand piece of prose so blinded by homerism that I’m not 100 percent sure they weren’t being serious.

I’ll let you decide:

This is not a letter to be printed. It is not signed. The author doesn't matter. The issue is the discussion.

Melvin Davis has been one of the most positive and constructive leader this county has ever had. He knows how to communicate and coordinate even on tough issues. Our communities need people like him, and newspapers like yours should support and encourage this type of leaders rather than to focus on an occasional difference of opinion.

FIVE-MINUTE READ

Speaking of “the most positive and constructive leader this county has ever had”: If you read Oconee County hellraiser and University of Georgia professor Lee Becker’s blog (Ain’t tenure grand?), he discusses Oconee County Commission chairman Melvin Davis’ pr offensive to spin some of his recent missteps. Good read. Most recently, Melvin has attempted to explain the commission’s passion for secrecy (especially as it relates to a story we wrote last week about Becker again clashing with the commission). In his blog, Becker talks about a conversation Davis had with one Oconee County newspaper. A reader forwarded it to me this weekend and asked if Melvin had contacted us. For the record, he did. He called my boss complaining about our story. Not the facts of it, mind you, but seemingly the fact it was written in the first place. Davis’ excuses he gave for holding an illegal meeting were not only dizzying, but downright wrong in terms of the law according to our attorney. … If you asked me about my early influences, I would say Mad Magazine was among the earliest. … Seeing this photo of Ernie Pyle brings back a lot of memories of a hero I discovered at a young age. A chunk: "It's a striking and painful image, but Ernie Pyle wanted people to see and understand the sacrifices that soldiers had to make, so it's fitting, in a way, that this photo of his own death ... drives home the reality and the finality of that sacrifice," said James E. Tobin, a professor at Miami University of Ohio. … Is this even a surprise? I thought he had been on the payroll for years. … So does this make John McCain a TRS-80? … Funny story about the staff at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star took the challenge to go 21 days without complaining. At all. Tough for journalists to do. … At some point, the music industry needs to realize that tracking CD sales makes about as much sense as tracking album and 8-track sales. Don’t panic, it’s a new world.

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