OnVia.com- Randy Shandis, a prime candidate for mayor of the Internet, once again found himself in the headlines this week when he answered a reporter's casual question about elian Gonzalez by saying, "Hell, I'll buy the kid and that will end the whole mess. How much would he cost, a thousand bucks?"
While reporters scurried to turn on their tape recorders and scribble notes, Shandis turned to an aide and asked, "What did we pay for those Cubans we have working in the T-shirt shop? Five hundred dollars a piece? Did that include the falsified documents?"
Returning his attention to the reporters, Shandis continued, "I would pay a premium for that kid. He's cute and I bet if I got him off the hook with the government, I'd get a lot of those sympathy votes that I can't seem to capture."
When reminded that trafficking in humans is illegal, Shandis replied "So is jaywalking, but who's doing anything to stop it? Slave-trading is a victimless crime and I'm not going to apologize for my willingness to give foreigners a hot meal in exchange for fourteen hour work days. Besides, this Elian kid is only six. I wouldn't even work him more than eight hours, and it would eb easy stuff, like cleaning out the paint buckets or scraping lead off our older equipment at the plant."
"Is Fozano bidding on the kid?" asked Shandis. "Who should we talk to about getting this kid, Gore or Babbitt? Babbitt got us out of the hot water with the Indians, but didn't we just launder a bunch of money for Gore? Doesn't he owe us one?"
Shandis said that if indeed purchases Elian Gonzalez, he will make the child available to all reporters all the time, and that a nude photo spread would not be out of the question, provided it was in good taste.
