Bank Lawyer's Blog

Camden Fine Fires Off A Fine Salvo

In  recent opinion piece for Bloomberg News, ICBA CEO Camden Fine was in fine fettle, ranting about his favorite topic: new regulatory burdens are strangling community while the largest banks are doing just fine, thank you very much. Among his salient points are the following:

The megabanks are benefiting from what Bloomberg View calculated is an $83 billion annual taxpayer subsidy, the value of implicit guarantees by the U.S. Treasury. Bloomberg View was correct to characterize the too-big-to-fail subsidy as “a major driver of the largest banks’ profits.”

Perversely, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data show that large banks have both the lowest credit quality and the lowest cost of funds in the industry. Community banks rank the highest in both categories even though they have had to compete for years against the megabanks’ access to cheaper money in pricing loans. In addition, community banks must compete against the big lenders’ lower comparative costs in handling regulatory paperwork.

While Cam complains that this is "morally wrong," I suspect that in a nation overrun with Pontius Pilates who sneer in the throes of their born-again relativism "What is 'truth'?," appealing to "morality" as a behavior influencer will have as much impact on Congress as a stern talking to by Pope Francis would have on Charlie Sheen. More effective on the morally challenged is likely to be his economic arguments.

Community banks should be putting their capital to work in the small towns, rural communities and middle-class urban enclaves they know well. Instead, they are focusing too many of their precious human resources on onerous paperwork and time-consuming compliance measures.

Community banks are the source of almost 60 percent of all small-business loans of less than $1 million, as well as mortgage and consumer loans tailored to the needs of their local communities. Large banking organizations with more than $50 billion in assets hold almost 40 percent of outstanding small loans to businesses, according to the Federal Reserve, but loans to small businesses aren’t a significant portion of large-bank lending. Small-business loans represent less than 5 percent of the large banks’ total domestic lending.

Cam outlines five specific steps Congress and the federal regulators could take to help community banks (and credit unions, for that matter, although Cam would choke on his own tongue before admitting it). They include:

• Easing up on some of the more onerous residential mortgage lending and servicing rules.
• Eliminating the requirement that community banks report on every new small business loan application.
• Requiring a cost-benefit analysis for all new regulations and prohibiting the issuance of any regulation where the cost exceeds the benefit.
• Raising the threshold to $350 million in assets for the requirement for an audit of a bank's internal controls.
• Eliminating the annual requirement for sending no-change privacy policies.

These are all helpful suggestions, but  I'm frankly surprised that he didn't also call for the carpet bombing of CFPB's D.C. headquarters and insist that Jamie Dimon's king-size bed be short-sheeted. Oh well, the year is not even half over. There's still time to get down to the really important stuff.

Oh Georgia, No Peace, No Peace I Find

It was bad enough when Georgia reached the top of the heap (or bottom, depending on your view) of states in the number of FDIC civil lawsuits against former officers and directors of failed banks. Now, it appears that Georgia may be leading in a race to become the state with the most former bank officers and directors who've been indicted.

The former president and six other officers of First National Bank of Savannah on Friday were indicted by a federal grand jury in Savannah, accused of defrauding First National Bank and other banks out of millions of dollars.

[...]

The indictment comes on the heels of the 2011 prosecution of Savannah real estate developer Richard Guerard for scheming with First National Bank officials and employees to defraud the bank and others to cover loan shortfalls for two of his companies.

He pleaded guilty in May 2011 and was sentenced to 52 months in federal prison in August 2011.

The First National Bank indictments arise out of an alleged scheme by the defendants to hide losses from shareholders, directors, and the regulators that the bank suffered from soured commercial real estate loans through an alleged witches brew of straw borrowers, side deals, "hidden promises," "recruiting other banks to fund non-performing loans based on fraudulent misrepresentations about the quality of the loans," and falsifying and fabricating bank records and other documents. Other than that, everything appears to have been upfront and above-board.

There's a sense of "deja vu" to the allegations, in that other community banks that have failed due to CRE loans that went bad have been alleged by the FDIC to have gone to some lengths to conceal the nature of the losses by the use of similar techniques. Not many of those allegations have resulted in criminal indictments, but these indictments may signal that more of those are on the way.

Of course, indictments present only the government's side of the case. We haven't heard yet from defense counsel. I'm sure their response will paint a different picture.

Nevertheless, lawyers who represent banks that are "in distress" some times find it necessary to point out to bank officers, and occasionally to bank directors, as well, that attempting to mask losses can subject responsible officers and directors to allegations that, among other things, they have filed false financial records, including their quarterly CALL Reports. These types of indictments are a lesson. I hope those who might benefit from such a lesson are paying attention. For some, the time for paying attention has passed. For them, the best approach at this time might be fervent prayer.

SARs: They're Not Just For Goats

We've speculated for years that when a financial institution files a SAR, it's fed to FinCen's pet goat. However, NAFCU Regulatory Compliance Counsel Bernadette Clair reminds us today that a few SARs aren't lodged firmly in a goat's gullet, but actually generate some law enforcement firepower ("Book 'em, Dan-O! Five Counts, Using Campaign Funds To Buy A 'Date'"!). Bernadette lists a representative sampling of criminal actions that resulted from SAR filings, as profiled in FinCen's most recent SAR Activity Report - Trends, Tips & Issues.

My personal favorite? That would be the SAR that led to the smackdown on the illicit importation of human growth hormone. Sure, Ponzi schemes and our old friend, "Mr. Blow," may grab the nefarious glamour, but nothing says "Threat To Western Civilization" more than men and women who look like this:

 

So, keep up the good work, FinCen. We'll all sleep better knowing that our SARs are forcing bodybuilders to make muscles the way they had to make them before HGH ruined the "sport": picking up 98-pound weaklings by their ankles and stuffing them into gym lockers.

A Tale Of Two (Spinning) Tops

A reader who toils in the credit union industry sent me an interesting juxtaposition in spin, one from the NCUA and one from a trade press publication. They both concern recent financial results announced by the NCUA for AEA Federal Credit Union, which was seized by the NCUA in December 2010 and placed into conservatorship. The NCUA injected a $20 million subordinated note that it allows AEA to count as capital. In a press release trumpeting how well AEA is turning things around, the NCUA sounds almost giddy.

AEA Federal Credit Union, which operates under the conservatorship of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), posted 2012 year-to-date net income of $839,096. Total assets at the end of the first quarter stood at $245.1 million, up from $230.6 million at year-end 2011. AEA Federal Credit Union’s net worth also improved by 18 basis points during the first three months of 2012, ending the first quarter at 2.85 percent.

[...]

Since Dec. 17, 2010, NCUA, the interim management team, and AEA Federal Credit Union’s employees have worked to dramatically improve the credit union’s financial condition and maintain services for the credit union’s 42,000 members. Deposits at AEA Federal Credit Union remain protected up to $250,000 through NCUA’s National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund.

Sounds like everything is just peachy at the formerly busted credit union, doesn't it?

Here's the take of the Credit Union Journal (paid subscription required) on the same financial results.

NCUA said this afternoon that AEA FCU, the one-time $410 million credit union which was victimized by a massive MBL fraud, continues to operate with zero capital, despite a $20 million emergency NCUA loan it is allowed to count as net worth.

AEA, whose former MBL director William Liddle is headed to jail as a result of the fraud, reported net income of $840,000 for the first quarter of 2012, but is still operating with negative $12 million of its own net worth. A new federal law allows such credit union and bank failures to count regulatory assistance, such as NCUA’s $20 million bailout loan, as regulatory net worth. As a result, NCUA says AEA actually has 2.85% net worth.

Are we talking about the same institution? Counting debt as net worth is a great trick. The FSLIC used it in connection with the Southwest Plan in the late 1980s, which allowed the FSLIC to hide the fact that it was technically insolvent, until Congress finally caught on and punished the FSLIC by merging it out of existence and transforming its operating head, the independent Federal Home Loan Bank Board, into the OTS (recently abolished by Dodd-Frank). Could the NCUA be following down FSLIC's weed-strewn road to perdition?

A couple of months ago, I sat through a presentation by a couple of "big guns" from our nation's capital, both lawyers who do a lot of credit union representation, and one who's a lobbyist for financial institutions. They told us that the NCUA was the reincarnation of the FSLIC and when the extent of its financial troubles came to light, the political fallout might be toxic. I have no idea whether or not this allegation is correct. However, using debt as equity and issuing a press release that trumpets an increase in "net worth" without noting that we're not talking about GAAP net worth, but the often-vilified "regulatory net worth," smacks of slathering not only lipstick, but eyeshadow and rouge, all over a rather corpulent porcine-like slab of flab.

Earlier this year, credit union industry pundits were raising questions about how big the losses might be at the NCUA and how the NCUA was publicly handling the disclosure of its potential problems. It looks like this is an issue that might gain some traction.

Ironically, although the NCUA is allowed to use debt instruments as equity infusions, a simple proposal to permit commercial banks to amortize commercial real estate loan losses over a ten-year period was killed by federal regulatory opposition because it would cause "regulatory accounting" to depart from GAAP and might permit banks to "mask" their "true" financial condition. The depth of cynicism in D.C. is beyond the comprehension of anyone other than professional politicians and members of organized criminal enterprises.

Drawing Lines In The Sand

HR 1723 was shot down last week. While I didn't talk to any of the bill's sponsors about it, I honestly don't think any of them thought that the bill stood a chance of passing. I think it was another case of community bankers, and those federal legislators who support them, laying down markers to build momentum for future legislative efforts following the 2012 elections, and to send messages to the federal banking regulators about hot button aspects of overly restrictive regulation that, community bankers contend, is choking off their ability to lend and, in some cases, to survive.

The American Bankers Association, which community bankers understand speaks for the largest, publicly traded banks, hamstrung the efforts of the bill's proponents by publicly opposing the bill on the grounds that it would cause uncertainty among investors about the validity of banks' financial statements. The fact that regulatory/GAP accounting differences could have been handled by detailed disclosures in the financial statements undercuts this argument, but, then, the ABA has seldom been a friend of the small banks. That's the job of the ICBA.

The federal regulators, of course, also opposed HR 1723. They despise any effort to tamper with GAAP principles in a manner that might preserve any too-small-to-save community banks, albeit this love affair with GAAP was actually an arranged marriage, forced down the regulators' throats in 1989 by Congress. In the good old days prior to the enactment of FIRREA, regulatory accounting principles were a favorite tool of federal regulators to try to preserve financial institutions during times of economic duress. While some argue that such accounting exceptions only compounded the agony, the experience of the agricultural bank rescue program in the 1980s, when extended loan loss amortization forbearance saved many agricultural banks, contradicts this shibboleth. Of course, these programs involve some risk, taking risk requires courage, and that's in short supply in the 21st century in D.C.  These days, the only "institutions" that seem to be within the regulators' cone of compassion are themselves and the too-big-to-fail banks. As to the rest, it's easier to just say "no" and let them eat cake.

HR 1723 is only one a number of bills that have been and will be introduced to try to regulate the regulators. It's going to be a long, hard slog.

Putting Your Money Where Your Rage Is

I was trying to decide which group, Occupy Wall Street or The Tea Party, better epitomized the "little ball of hate" approach to political discourse and I could not decide. Therefore, I've decided to join both groups, so that I can become a living, breathing version of Munch's painting "The Scream," 24/7/365. While Dean Wormer may have told Flounder that "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son," I'm pretty sure he never said a word about going through life "enraged."

According to The Puget Sound Business Journal's Kelly Giblom, big banks in this country are presently receiving boatloads of rage as a result of their recent adventures in fee-raising. At the same time, however, they're also the recipients of boatloads of something that doesn't seem to be consistent with rage: cash.

A flurry of data released today by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shows those big banks have seen a significant jump in deposits in King County since last year. Meanwhile, smaller, state-based community banks have not seen a similar boost.

According to the FDIC, Bank of America had $16.47 billion in deposits on June 30, 2011, up from $15.39 billion the same day in 2010. JPMorgan Chase had $5.13 billion in deposits at the end of June this year, a $305 million jump from the year before. Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank also recorded large deposit gains of $632 million and $438 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, Washington Federal, the state's largest bank saw a more modest increase of about $4 million to record $2.55 billion in deposits on June 30, 2011. The state's second largest bank, Spokane's Sterling Savings Bank actually lost $71 million worth of deposits. It had $530 million in deposits in King County at the end of the second quarter.

I see Ariana Huffington's "Move Your Money" campaign has been a raging success (it never was in Texas, at any rate). Putting your money where your rage is directed is apparently something that defies the countervailing pull of cognitive dissonance. Of course, these statistics might also indicate that the reports of public anger and rage at the big, bad banks are being exaggerated by certain elements of the press and political class, and that much of what we see enacted on our television and computer screens is more political theater performed by an activist minority than reflective of widespread popular discontent. Whatever the truth, it's unlikely we're getting close to it by watching the main stream media.

When In Doubt, Threaten The Bank

These days, saying you're a "banker" is, in the minds of many members of the general public, like saying you work for a Middle Eastern charitable organization named "Al Keyeda."  Unable to distinguish between TBTF bad boys and the thousands of smaller banks that not only weren't involved in creating the current depressed mess in which we wallow, but are as much victims as are any of the rest of us, Joe Sixpack is only too willing to pee on a banker's geraniums or hock a loogie into his cup of joe if given an opportunity to do so. Community bankers have come to expect such ignorant hostility as going with the territory. However, it's especially painful when a desperate and cranially-deficient member of the public decides to make bankers' lives miserable not so much out of misplaced sense of aggrievement, but as part of a loopy plan to prevent the bank from doing the right thing.

A Connecticut woman who hid unemployment and money troubles from her husband for nearly a year phoned in bomb threats to banks and an insurance company to prevent him from asking questions, police said. She was arrested when an officer recognized her from a surveillance video he viewed while tracking one of the threats.

The officer may have recognized her because she's the wife a fellow police officer.

Coventry Police Detective Michael Hicks said Thursday that he recognized McLean and her sport utility vehicle from a liquor store's surveillance video, which he viewed after discovering that one of the threatening calls was made from the shop.

I suppose downing a quart of MD 20/20 makes phoning in bomb threats a little easier on the nervous system.

The befuddled woman had hidden from her husband the fact that she'd lost her job and was not paying the family's bills for over a year. I expect that she's either an expert dissembler or hubby has the deductive powers of Inspector Clouseau.

The husband was headed to the couple's bank, apparently to check into the financial records that the wife had falsified or concealed, and the wife thought she could thwart the bank's ability to reveal all to the husband by repeatedly phoning in, and sending written, bomb threats to various branch offices of the bank. Offices were evacuated, police dogs sniffed for bombs, and a good time was had by all. I'm not sure how long she thought she could keep up the charade, but she's now sitting in the slammer in lieu of $45,000 bail. I guess she could call in a bomb threat as part of a plot to extort bail money out of the bank, but by now, I think that scam has worn thin.

You can't make this stuff up.

CRE Loss Amortization "Zombies"

In April, we discussed round 2 of the efforts of Rep. Ed Perlmutter and a bi-partisan group of Colorado representatives to push a bill through the US House of Representatives that would allow commercial banks under $10 billion to write off losses on commercial real estate loans and OREO over an extended period of time. Round 1 ended last year in initial victory in the House and ultimate defeat when Democrats in the Senate stripped the provision out of the small business lending act before it was passed.

The American Banker (paid subscritpion required) focused on the story this week and labeled the bill a "kick the can" effort. That's a true statement, as evidenced by the cheerful agreement of the bill's sponsors. They want to give community banks the same opportunity to gradually recover as real estate markets recover as folks in the current administration and federal banking regulators like Sheila Bair advocated giving residential loan borrowers.

As we predicted, American Banker reporter Robert Barba picked up all kinds of static about the proposed law from federal bank regulators, who raised the "zombie bank" meme. One opponent argued that the same scheme didn't work in the late 1970s and early 1980s "for savings and loan associations." I was in-house counsel for one of the largest savings and loans in Colorado from 1977 to 1981, when I left to join the law firm that represented the Colorado Savings and Loan League and many savings and loans in Colorado and surrounding states. I subsequently was a partner in two law firms, one regional and one national, where I represented scores of savings and loan associations and a lobbying group that helped add the forbearance provision to the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987. I don't know what the person making this allegation was doing during that time period, but there was never a 10-year (or even 7-year, as was the case with ag banks) amortization period for CRE losses in the late 1970s and early 1980s that was allowed for s&ls.

So, no, the loss amortization scheme during that time period didn't work because it never existed. There was a concept that was tried called "supervisory goodwill," which involved extended amortization of the "negative goodwill" that was created when a healthy savings and loan took over a broke one with a negative net worth. If what this "expert" is addressing is that issue, then the "zombie" banks that he's referring to became "zombies" only when Congress wiped out the extended amortization period in August 1989 with the enactment of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. With their capital accounts devastated, most of those savings and loans sued the US government in the US Court of Claims and most won big money from the government for breach of contract. They weren't zombies, they were pissed off plaintiffs.

If what the critic is referring to are the forbearance plans allowed by CEBA, only a few were approved, and when Senator Proxmire criticized them on the floor of the US Senate, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board suddenly determined that the subject banks weren't living up to their forebearance plans and yanked its approval for those plans. Those banks subsequently died, but they were few in number and they were not beneficiaries of an extended amortization of CRE losses.

So-called "zombie s&ls" were the result of the fact that the losses suffered by savings and loans on CRE were so massive that the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation didn't have the funds to resolve them, other than to let them stay afloat in a lake of insolvency while awaiting a miracle, which the FSLIC and its operating head, the FHLBB, tried to concoct via creative solutions like The Southwest Plan, which involved less immediate cash outlays but the issuance of a bunch of notes that the FSLIC couldn't pay when the bill came due without a bailout from Congress. Congress punished both entities by abolishing them, shifting FSLIC's fund into the FDIC and creating the OTS (which officially dies tomorrow). Zombies were not created by a 10-year CRE loss amortization scheme.

As to another criticism of the bill, that such banks wouldn't be able to raise capital because the financial statements of these banks would deviate from GAAP, it must be based on conversations with an entirely different group of private equity players than I have been talking to. Banks would still have to calculate the loss under GAAP, but would not have to recognize it immediately for regulatory capital or earnings purposes. Instead, they would take the hits in installments over a 10-year period. Financial statements would be required to show both GAAP and regulatory accounting calculations. Unless your ability to read a financial statement is at the level of a not-so-smart Rhesus monkey, you should be able to easily determine the gap between GAAP capital and earnings and regulatory accounting capital and earnings. The critical determination will be whether the initial determination by the bank of the amount of the "loss" with respect to each CRE asset was "correct," but you've got that crap shoot with all banks who have CRE in their portfolio, whether they recognize the loss immediately or not. In fact, extended amortization of the loss may actually encourage banks to take a more healthy "loss" than they otherwise would have taken, because the result isn't instant obliteration.

Reasonable people can disagree on these issues, and obviously do. I just wish the critics would get their facts straight and quit raising bogus arguments.

Of course, none of these arguments will make a whit of difference. In the end, I don't see community banks having enough clout in D.C. to win this war this year anymore than they had last year. I admire the gang from Colorado for trying, however. At least in one state, the legislators are listening.

Singing The Perp Walk Blues

While The New York Times droned on about the failure of federal prosecutors to make the Wall Street Fat Cats pay for their nefarious misdeeds (missing the obvious reason that they've sold their souls to The Great Horned One and will prosper in this life while burning for eternity in the next), Jones Day was cranking out an analysis of all the criminal prosecutions that have so far been pursued against former officers and directors of failed commercial banks and thrifts, and a few failed banks where criminal prosecutions may be forthcoming.

As Jones Day observes, only a handful of prosecutions have occurred thus far against failed bank executives, while there have been many more prosecutions of mortgage brokers and borrowers ("low hanging fruit" Jones Day calls them). Yet, that should be cold comfort to the executives of failed financial institutions. As is the case with civil actions, these cases usually involve a complex set of facts and take some time to build. We're likely just starting to see the commencement of the prosectutions. In addition, "prosecutors appear convinced that there were plenty of bad actors." Finally, prosecutors have a wide range of criminal statutes to use to pursue defendants and they haven't been shy of using them in the past to nail those they consider to be the bad guys.

Of the cases that are discussed by Jones Day, many of them involve classic cases of corruption that we saw in the 1980s, including using borrowers or other customers to funnel loan proceeds to bank executives, insider trading,creating fictitious borrowers and/or mortgage loans and/or bank accounts, filing deliberately falsified financial reports, outright lying to the regulators, embezzlement, and similar incidents of self-dealing criminality.

One of the practices that may receive some future "play" in connection with other failed banks is the use of various tactics to "mask the true financial condition of the bank." These can include bogus loan restructurings or refinancings, questionable "new" appraised valuations of real estate collateral, and other financial sleight of hand whose goal is to keep the pony trotting down the track until the economy improves. The regulators frown on such activities and, some former bank officials are discovering, so do criminal prosecutors. While I think that there is still legitimate room to argue about the valuation of collateral, the appropriate level of reserves, and the proper treatment of restructured loans, I think that "pretend and extend" in its most egregious forms will subject former officers, and perhaps directors, to criminal liability, in addition to civil; liability. This will certainly be true in those cases where the actions are not supported by the advice of independent, reputable, outside advisors.

It's too early to tell with any degree of certainty where this is headed, but it appears that for the executives and directors of failed banks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Troubled Bank Templates

A recent complaint filed by the FDIC against former officers and directors of a failed bank followed what's become a fairly standard template. Although the Jacksonville (IL) Journal Courier calls the lawsuit a "fairly untypical maneuver," those of us who represent troubled banks and thrifts find the "maneuver" anything but "untypical."

In the case of Corn Belt Bank, which failed in 2009, the FDIC found five loans that caused losses to the bank ("Loss Loans"), alleged that the former directors and officers were negligent or grossly negligent in making the loans because they were improperly underwritten, and that the officers and directors breached their fiduciary duties to the bank. The former officers and directors failed to adequately inform themselves of the relevant risks and acted recklessly in approving them. In addition, the FDIC alleges undue loan concentration, out-of-area lending, high loan-to-value ratios, and overall weak loan administration. Finally, the FDIC alleges that regulatory examiners "repeatedly warned" the bank of these risks and the bank chose to ignore these warnings.

In another complaint filed by the FDIC against former officers and directors of Heritage Community Bank, which also failed in 2009 (and which we discussed a few months ago), the FDIC also alleged negligence, gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. In the Heritage Bank complaint, the bank, as is the case with many community banks that have failed and are expected to fail, grew rapidly by concentrating on commercial real estate loans, which went south when the economy crashed in 2008. According to the FDIC, the underwriting and loan administration and monitoring policies and procedures of the bank were deficient, which resulted in "Loss Loans" being made by the bank. The FDIC also alleges that instead of dealing conservatively with losses when they should have become evident by accurately classifying loans, increasing reserves, and preserving capital, the officers and directors "masked" the losses, continued to make deficient CRE loans, and, as a result, compounded the ultimate losses from those poorly underwritten loans. Again, the FDIC alleges that examiners warned the bank of these risks and that the warnings were ignored. In addition to losses on CRE loans, the FDIC is claiming losses on unjustified dividends and incentive payments made by the bank and claims specifically that the bank's former CFO was grossly negligent in failing to ensure that adequate reserves and capital were maintained, in advising that dividends and incentive compensation payments were proper, and in inaccurately advising the board of directors that interest on non-accrual loans "has only been deferred." Finally, the FDIC makes much of the bank's "undue concentration" on commercial real estate lending (responses to which we featured in our previous post linked above and in an earlier post from 2010).

None of these allegations is "untypical," based on what we've seen thus far. In fact, these types of allegations are standard stuff. As I've discussed in the past, many community banks focused on commercial real estate and today are bearing the bitter fruit of that concentration. The Monday morning quarterbacking will continue. The fun has only begun.

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For those community bankers (and their advisers) who might be interested, Venable LLP partner Joseph Lynyak will deliver a one-hour webinar on April 14, 2011 for Bankerstuff on "Troubled Banks and Thrifts - A Guide Through The Maze." Joe represents troubled community banks and their officers and directors who are facing regulatory scrutiny and potential claims by the FDIC. He'll tell bankers who are in such straights what they're facing and what actions they should take to prepare.

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UPDATE: 04/11/11: A reader e-mailed me to point out my heinous error in indicating that the state in which the Jacksonville Journal Courier is located is Missouri rather than Illinois. I've corrected that error and sincerely hope that its inclusion in the original version of this post didn't ruin any one else's enjoyment of this post, cause an epileptic fit, or otherwise prompt the management of the Journal Courier to start drafting a complaint for defamation. My brother-in-law, a died-in-the-wool University of Kansas fan, once wore a tee-shirt to the Kansas-Missouri football game that read "Missouri: Literacy Ain't Everything." Therefore, I understand that a mistaken reference like the one I made above can start a shooting war.