By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Sunday, April 2, 2006

If you happen in find yourself in a boatload of trouble, if you plead guilty to your misdeeds, if you face time in the slammer -- gather up the character references before your sentencing. Judge Paul C. Huck received 262 letters written on behalf of Jack Abramoff , who got the minimum sentence (five years, 10 months) for fraud in the purchase of SunCruz Casinos. A few excerpts of the arguments for leniency, for those who don't know Jack.

· Theory of Relatively: "Whatever it is that Abramoff is guilty of, it certainly wasn't violent crime. In the spectrum of corruption and crime in politics, I'm not even sure where it would stand against bribery, check kiting, prostitution, drugs, blackmail and other nefariousness committed by our public officials in recent memory."

-- Karen McKay

· Blame the Press: "Much has been written in the media about him by people who have never so much as spoke to Jack, people who plainly had axes to grind against him."

-- David Klinghoffer

· Blame Washington: " I can only conclude that this aberration was due to either the Washington rat-race (inside-the-beltway insulation from the real world beyond) or a brain-freeze and loss of moral compass -- the one he had so strongly aligned correctly in high school."

-- Nathan Low

· Stuff Happens: " People make mistakes."

-- Jeffrey Klein

· Focus on the Good: "For some months, we (and a couple other families) participated together in a carpool with the Abramoffs when our kids were in the same school. Despite their political and business commitments, they held up their share of the carpool duties as equal partners with the rest of us. Also, when my son was in the Boy Scouts (Troop 613), Jack kindly asked his restaurant staff to assemble sandwiches for the troop's annual fundraiser, and charged only for the cost of the food."

-- Beth and Michael Singer

· People Change : "Mr. Abramoff has a wealth of knowledge regarding moral matters. Unfortunately, he was unable to understand how these lessons apply to him. However, I would argue that at this point he probably has a new understanding .

-- Russell Kwiat

· He's That Compelling : " I am not a friend of Mr. Abramoff, I actually have never met even him but I feel compelled to tell you how much he impacted my life ."

-- Michele Mattei

So, exactly how insulting was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's hand gesture this week? The Boston Herald called it "obscene." But in a letter to the newspaper, Scalia characterized flicking his fingers out from under his chin as meaning "I could not care less."

Readers fluent in Italian body language begged to differ. A self-described "Supreme Sicilian" wrote that the gesture is "as bad as, if not a worse insult than, extending the middle finger." A reader from the District who went to Catholic grammar school reports that students got in worse trouble for the Scalia flick than for curse words or the finger. "It's a super nasty gesture." Another critic called it "a street thug gesture that would get his palm whacked with a ruler in school." Ouch!

And one reader gave us what he says is the literal translation: The gesture means "Go [amuse] yourself. You are not worth the hair on my chin." (That made us think of the Three Little Pigs: Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin .)

Send your tips and childhood favorites to reliablesource@washpost.com .

When you take the show on the road, you gotta love shtick. The National Symphony Orchestra is in Nebraska this week, so Gov. Dave Heineman made Music Director Leonard Slatkin an "admiral" in the landlocked state's "great navy." In his acceptance speech, Slatkin responded like a true landlubber: "My first order is, 'Abandon ship.' "