May 12, 2007 - 04:11:14 CDT
“It is shocking and scandalous even by the (U.S. Veterans Affairs) own low standards that top officials at the VA would get performance bonuses when there’s a backlog of over 600,000 cases.”— U.S. Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on disability assistance. His comments came in a hearing about the bonuses set to be awarded to senior VA officials, ranging up to $33,000. Annual bonuses would average more than $16,000, for a total of $3.8 million. Meanwhile, military veterans’ claims have an average backlog of 177 days.
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“(David Reeve) has been my mentor for 20 years. He’s asked over the years if I’d be interested in coming back to help. I’ll be taking over a lot of his work. I like taking things that are all beat up and making them beautiful again. I can be working on a violin and look up at the clock and see that three hours have gone by.”
— Dan Murphy, of Bismarck. He and his wife, Kathy, have been mainstays in the area musical community, both being violin teachers and performers. After 13 years here, they are returning to Fort Collins, Colo., where Dan Murphy will rejoin Reeves’ business of crafting new and renewing veteran stringed instruments. Kathy Murphy will play professionally in the Fort Collins Symphony.
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“It’s time to be done. There are no more members. When all of us get together, we don’t even have enough for a quorum.”
— John Martin, of Bismarck, who was at Pearl Harbor on the “day that will live in infamy,” Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked. Martin, now 85, said that the North Dakota chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association has reached its end point with only four members now.
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“We formulated a letter, advertised twice in the paper, and I appealed to every medical facility and doctor, and still no one is interested. One of the big issues is being on call all the time. Doctors already have jobs and usually are on call. They don’t want even more responsibility.”
— Burleigh County Sheriff Pat Heinert, explaining to the county commissioners that there aren’t any applicants to fill the vacant post of coroner. The commissioners are having to consider whether $1,100 a month and $90 for each call needs to be increased.
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“It’s time for me to continue (my father’s) legacy in the only way I know I can — by taking the life lessons that he told me: Be a man, race hard and contend for championships. That’s what I intend to do, and I feel strongly that I would have my father’s blessing.”
— Dale Earnhardt Jr., talking about his decision to leave the Dale Earnhardt Inc. NASCAR racing team at the end of the season. Junior, who earned $20.1 million last year, couldn’t come to terms with his stepmother over the management of the firm begun by his father, who was killed in a racing crash in 2001.
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