Zarembra and Goodell

My brother and I have been having trouble with the bank where my parents' funds were located. We had addressed what needed to be addressed for us to access the account and have a document to that effect. However, the person who created the document is no longer with the bank. He has been fired and there is no record of our interaction on the bank computers.  When we presented another banker with the document she told us it was worthless.

Annoyed and very frustrated, we had to go through  the whole process again. In the meantime the bank stopped payment on checks--that we had been told by the fired banker--that we could write. We had to deal with calling the companies, apologizing, and requesting the waiving of penalty fees.

Finally after resending materials to the bank we received a mailing back that included a document. On the document our information had been typed in. In order to proceed we were told we simply had to sign on the dotted lines to obtain access to the funds.

Unfortunately when we received this mailing we saw that it was riddled with errors. Instead of the account being called the Meyer Zaremba account. It was MeyerS Zaremba. In several places it was MeyerS Zaremba.  My brother's last name was spelled ZarembRa.  I was listed as living at  my brother's home with my brother.  I do not. Despite the fact that I sent in my driver's license and information about my place of work--my home state is listed as Florida and my employer is listed as North University (I work at Northeastern University).  Our phone numbers are incorrect. In a place where a primary and secondary trustee should be listed, I am listed as BOTH the primary and secondary trustee.

It is an incredible document.  My brother called the bank and heard the woman who created the document (the one they did not fire) spew a litany of excuses:  "I don't know why the computer did that", "That's very strange",

 If she kept her job, imagine the doozy who was canned?

"I can't imagine how this happened," she said on a number of occasions when she spoke with my brother.

It happened because she was incompetent and clueless about the fact that she was incompetent.

All through the fiasco known as Deflategate, I have been unable to understand the rationale that Roger Goodell had been using to arrive at his decisions. I wrote in this blog on a number of occasions that he must have had some bit of compelling evidence that he had yet to show. Otherwise this activity made no sense.

As we review the decision that came down yesterday--by the first impartial arbiter in this case--we realize how flawed and capricious the decisions by Goodell have been in this matter.   How could several very well paid people have thought that what was meted out as punishment was fair?

You:

• suspend a player four games because "it is more reasonable than not" that he was "generally aware" of someone else's transgressions?
• hire an "independent" consultant who clearly was not?
• claim to be impartial when you listen to an appeal, but--finding no evidence that could support the original decision--you headline your decision on the appeal by trumpeting the absence of Brady's cell phone as incontrovertible evidence? 
• ...And you do this at the same time as you withhold evidence from Brady's lawyers
• draw an analogy between being "generally aware" that a ball was deflated--to taking steroids to enhance performance.
• do not, despite repeated requests, deny a report about how many footballs were deflated by how many psi even though you know that the report (a) damns Brady and is (b) wholly inaccurate.
• 
  
• YOU GOT NOTHING.

I just keep shaking my head.  Of all the lawyers working in the NFL office didn't anybody scream out--"hey the emperor is naked?  We have no case."  And besides we are dragging a player who is an icon--maybe the best player in the league--through the mud for no good reason.  We could get sued big time.  Also, we are implicitly criticizing an owner who has done more for the NFL than any owner in recent history.

I am not right all the time with predictions, but on this I was spot on even though one need not be a wizard to realize that Deflategate was a sham.  My prediction now is this:

• For the next week or so, Goodell's stock is going to continue to plummet like a boulder in a bathtub as more people look through the Berman report and realize just how ridickalus the Goodell decisions have been.  
• Goodell's squawking about "his intention to appeal" will grow softer.  
• Players are going to scoff at decisions the NFL office makes. 
• The owners will get together and realize the NFL is beginning to look like a joke.  
• Roger Goodell will not be the commissioner by Thanksgiving, maybe Columbus Day.

He and his office have behaved like the fools at my dad's bank. Incompetent and clueless.