Greed, news networks, getting stiffed, getting screwed, whose ox got, uh, gored – and al that jazeera

Is Al Gore the screw-er or the screw-we?

Don't answer until you read this  post

Infuriating as the events currently occurring in Ferguson, Missouri are, I simply can’t bear to write anything more about them just now. If you’re keeping your eye on the unfolding horror story and you need to sate yourself on commonsense outrage, go here.

Meanwhile, I want to turn my attention to money, greed, Gore, and a news network. 

Despite the likelihood that the contretemps between Al Gore and Al Jazeera may be the most pun-worthy story of the year, I’ll lay off further punning, now that I’ve had my fun with headline of this piece. The story and facts of the dispute between Al G and Al J are fun enough

Seems that Al Gore is suing Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, owned by Arab high oil mucky-mucks. Gore is fighting for money he says Al Jazeera stiffed him and his stockholders for .

See, according to a law suit filed by someone named John Terenzio, a suit since dismissed, Terenzio went to Gore and proposed that he sell Current TV, a news and commentary cable outlet that was owned by a group of investors including Gore.

Gore wouldn’t go for it. He was, said Terenzio, “adamant” that he wouldn’t peddle his pet news station to a bunch of Qataris. 

But then the Qataris (or maybe Terenzio) waved $500 million worth of oil moola  under Gore’s nose and guess what? Yeah, you guessed it.

The transaction closed. Current TV is no more. You can find Al Jazeera, and with it some of current TV’s former inmates, among many of the cable news offerings available in our great nation. But now Gore claims, on behalf of his stockholders of course, that Al Jazeera stiffed his people, including himself, for the escrow money.

That would be after Gore successfully fought off Terenzio, who claimed Gore stiffed him for a kind of finder’s fee for suggesting the deal.

What happens next? What am I, a seer? All I can tell you is that you are entitled to draw morals to this story where you can find them. For example:

• Beware of big oil sheiks bearing $500 million gifts
• In America, the stiff-er and the stiff-ee are often the same person. 
• Middle men who see themselves as Lucky Pierre may get less luckily screwed.
• People who go to Washington idealistically hoping to make laws will instead sooner or later turn their attention to making money.