Recovery.gov: Transparency of Farce?

Lovely. Right? Transparency = a web page. Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but charts and graphs indicating how the money from your American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being distributed does nothing for actual accountability.


According to recovery.gov $81 billion is going to "Protecting the Vulnerable." Who wouldn't want that? Cold hearted, anti-American folks? Maybe, but maybe those of us that have no idea who this money helps protect. Old people are vulnerable, but so are prisoners and the LGBT community and Iraqis. Is the $81 billion going to help protect all these vulnerable people? Maybe it should, but recovery.gov isn't providing a transparent account of whether it will.

Further more, the $111 billion allocated for "Infrastructure and Science," or any of the other broad and overarching categories, neither provides an exact breakdown of funds nor specifies the individual departments, contractors or organizations that will receive the bailout money. Isn't that the level of transparency we need at this point? Especially after we've seen so many institutions misuse their bailout money -- for parties, executive bonuses, private jets (like the one you used to fly to Chicago on Valentine's Day with Michelle. Too good for the D.C. restaurants or just too indifferent to the costs your romantic dinner levied on tax payers?).

Forget Blondes, Looks Like Bailed-Out Banks Have More Fun

Excuse me, Northern Trust, but hosting a golf event (undeniably a sport for the wealthy) at the Riviera Country Club in L.A., paying for lavish parties with A-List entertainment and swag from Tiffany's and footing the bill for travel expenses and hotel accommodations for hundreds of guests with tax payer funds is not cool.

After the Chicago-based bank accepted $1.6 billion from our generous Congressional bailout, the bank decided to do some wealth spreading of its own: paying millions in sponsorship fees to the PGA and millions more on parties for its wealthy clients (most of whom Northern Trust flew in for the event).

Congressional oversight anyone? No? We're taking the banks word that it was only using the institution's "operating funds" to pay for the event. Well, Northern Trust, if you take more than a BILLION and a half dollars from Congress, it doesn't really make sense that your institution actually has disposable "operating funds." But it's likely that you might if you didn't consider spending millions on lavish parties or event sponsorships part of a bank's "operating expenses."

Shame on you Northern Trust. Shame on Congress too for handing the money over, the institutional irresponsibility rests with you equally. What's more outrageous? Northern Trust laid off 4% of its workforce in December: 450 workers.

Here are the highlights provided by TMZ:

- Wednesday, Northern Trust hosted a fancy dinner at the Ritz followed by a performance by the group Chicago.

- Thursday, Northern Trust rented a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport for dinner, followed by a performance by Earth, Wind & Fire.

- Saturday, Northern Trust had the entire House of Blues in West Hollywood shut down for its private party. We got the menu -- guests dined on seared salmon and petite Angus filet. Dinner was followed by a performance by none other than Sheryl Crow.

There was also a fabulous cocktail party at the Loews. And how's this for a nice touch: Female guests at the Chicago concert all got trinkets from ... TIFFANY AND CO.

Yelp's Alleged Mafia Tactics

Extortion and blackmail claims abound in the East Bay Express article, out last Wednesday. News of 4,500 word story, "Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0," saturated info/media enclaves of the web within hours of the story's release. Showing up everywhere from The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital to CNET, Village Voice and FastCompany to PC World and Real Tech News.

Yikes! I bet Yelp wishes it could control these reviews, as it purportedly offered to do for countless bay area businesses. Lucky for us alternative weeklies like the East Bay Express still retain enough independence and journalistic integrity to expose dirty dealings and back door deals, rather than resort to such tactics for funding.

Mad Men vs. Trust Me

Fast forward from Mad Men nearly 50 years. We arrive at Trust Me, a new cable series on TNT. Since well before its mid-season debut the network has been hyping the show with unfettered fervor. TNT must seize this window of opportunity: during these next few months while Mad Men is on hiatus.

Both shows, ostensibly about high powered men in the creative departments at cutting edge advertising agencies, fall into totally different categories when it comes to execution. The macho, suave, sexism that makes Mad Man cool and relevant is precisely what Trust Me lacks. Instead of quiet self-confidence and dashing brashness, Trust Me coughs up weak characters lame with insecurities and an obsessive need to affirm their self-worth through uninspiring work.

Meet Mason, one of Trust Me's intentionally affable protagonists. He has an amazing job, as newly appointed Creative Director of some fabulous Chicago ad agency, and a gorgeous wife. But he is no Don Draper.

Instead, Mason is faithful, humble and domestic. He's neither clever or subtle and few in his department subordinates look up to him or take him seriously. He works haphazardly and takes everything personally. He whines and pleads desperately, apologizes awkwardly and dresses like he's a wannabe West Coast hipster.

Lack of Health Care: Cruel and Unusual?

Perhaps the state of California will put those foreclosed houses in your neighborhood to good use. After all, the 57,000 prisoners the state was ordered to release to reduce overcrowding will have to live somewhere.

The special three-judge panel ordered their release Tuesday, finding in the inmates' favor in a lawsuit alleging the "California prison system had deprived them of a constitutional level of medical and health care." Yes, the conditions of the overcrowded prisons were deemed "cruel and unusual," giving the inmates constitutional grounds to sue for their freedom.

Excuse me, constitutional right to a certain level medical and health care? What gives convicted criminals the right to these services; services and a standard of care unknown to 40 million non-institutionalized Americans? This is a slippery-slope sort of situation. If prisoners are granted a constitutional right to mental and physical health care, then we should expect the uninsured among us to file suit to make the same claim soon enough.

I find it unconscionable for the government to provide a standard of care to prisoners that goes far beyond what non-criminals receive.

Social Suicide Paparazzi Style

At 11:00 p.m. last night I flipped to the local news, looking for word on the economic stimulus package. However, the local ABC station was otherwise occupied, broadcasting a slow-speed police pursuit of a luxury vehicle. While the station still knew little, more than three hours into the chase, the speculative newscasters continued to babble for thirty uninterpreted minutes before ceding their coverage of the confrontation to the "hard news" coverage of Nightline (including an expose on the now infamous "Octomom").

Turns out, the car chase that began nearly three hours earlier had turned into a parked standoff by 11:30 p.m. The situation took a turn for the worst, so to speak, nearly an hour and a half after the chase came to a halt in Universal City, not far from where it began. The driver, who police believed armed and suicidal, shot himself in the head as LAPD officers and California Highway Patrol officers surrounded his $170,000 Bentley sedan.

L.A. is accustomed to televised police pursuits, even of the slow-speed variety made famous by O.J. Simpson in 1994. The Monday night chase marks the fifth police pursuit in the L.A. area that has transpired in the last two weeks. What makes this one stand out was less its crawling pace, than the new breed of celebrity obsessed paparazzi that were on the scene within minutes of the driver, a Pakistani business man, slowing his vehicle to a halt.

The smell of money, fame and the possibility of a blood drenched celeb drew the swarm of paparazzi from their usual posts near the entrances of hot Hollywood clubs and celebrity infused restaurants. The pack of photogs and the live feeds to the scene they provided complicated the situation for officers. But, alas, although the driver took his own life less than 25 yards of the zoom lenses, no site boasts footage of the blast or, for that matter, the police storming the car and bashing out the driver's side window with a crowbar.

Maybe some moments still remain sacred, even among paparazzi.

Tortures' Conviction Too Little Too Late

On my visit home for my uncle's 50th birthday party, I encountered yet another example of the depravity of my hometown -- the town that brought you the implant-slashing ex-fiancée and the shoplifting, baby toting moms. This time it was the conviction of 24-year-old Vanessa Woods and her 26-year-old lover Riginald Hardin for torturing their 20-month-old daughter, known in court documents as Baby Woods.

Convicted of felony child abuse and felony torture of a child the pair will serve 12 years on the abuse count and a life sentence on the torture charge. What's confusing about their convention is that the pair will be eligible for parole seven years into the life sentence. After 19 years in prison emdash; for inflicting third degree burns on their infant's feet and anus, second degree burns on her legs and burning her with cigarettes, among other atrocities emdash; the two could be back on the streets.

What sort of rehabilitation will Woods and Hardin receive during the decades they spend behind bars? There are no guarantees. Most likely they'll not receive any intensive treatment or counseling or rehabilitation of any substantiative merit. Usually I'm among the first to call for rehabilitation before retribution, but the heinousness of Woods and Hardin's crimes and their remorselessness make forgiving them unthinkable and freeing them unethical.

Porta-Potty Pyro

Few and far between are the homeless in my Russian Hill neighborhood. Our clean streets welcome the European tourists with their maps and their impeccable posture. The crime rate in this part of the city rarely draws attention. Until recently.

Over the last four months we've seen a spike in crime. Not violent or indiscriminate crime mind you, that would cause an uproar in a district of the city that feels entitled to the safety of its sidewalks and well-lit piece of mind. This recent outbreak is not of crime overall, but a particular and peculiar brand of arson: porta-potty pyrotechnics.

The outrageous antics and the lack of suspects even garnered the interest of the New York Times. No details are known about infamous arsonist(s); if it is, indeed, a lone lighter, no one can say for sure.

The relative calm of the neighborhood at night leaves few people on the streets to bear witness to such flamboyant acts. Leaving only the hardened puddle of melted porta-potty-blue and the residual oder of burnt feces and plastic to remind the tourists, exercise fiends and stroller-pushing nannies of the atrocities that occur on the streets after the affluent retire to bed.

Google's Quest for World Domination

Talk about creepy, as if we didn't have enough options for staying "connected" to one another. Google's Latitude allows you to expose yourself to your contacts, via a tracking mechanism downloaded to your phone, and track your contacts' every move.

This new "tool" only further increases the anxiety I feel whenever I venture out into the schlepping masses. I want to avoid people when I go out and this device might make that easier to do, providing me the location of those I want to avoid. However, the tool relies on the presumption of mutual transparency -- you share with me and I share with you. But it can complicate my efforts if I'm avoiding you but you know where I am.

I could set my location manually, so it looks like I'm at the movies when I'm really at the dinner you weren't invited to. My boyfriend could set his location to the gym or stuck in traffic, while he's really at the bar or still at work. The idea that we can double check someone's whereabouts is complete nonsense if the location pin-pointer is completely discretionary.

What's going to happen if people begin sharing their whereabouts on Facebook or via Twitter? Could the police subpoena records of locations tracked by the device? Google still knows your "real-time" whereabouts, regardless of the location you reveal to your contacts.

I understand the advantages of this tool for Google, but I don't see the advantages for users. The only thing Google Latitude will get you is ads targeted to your location and uninvited encounters with contacts you made no plans to see.

Kid Undercover; Chicago Cops Clueless

If a 14 year-old shows up as a Chicago police station wearing a police-like uniform shouldn't someone notice he's not a real cop? Apparently not. Should the kid be the one in trouble? Apparently so.

Such was the case two Saturdays ago when a boy walked into the station wearing what resembled an officer's uniform. He was told to go to the patrol room and then assigned to man a patrol car with another officer. The boy willingly obliged and spent the next five hours securing the city's streets, then returned to the station. Only back in the squad room, after five hours on the job, did officers realize that the boy's uniform wasn't legit: the star featured by regulation uniforms was missing.

The Chicago PD bumbled any coherent explanation for how the boy went undetected so long. Saying only that he looked older than 14 and had once taken part in a youth program sponsored by the department that would've familiarized him with some of the procedures.

Aren't these cops trained to detect crime? To look for things that appear amiss? Not only was the kid not wearing a department issue uniform, he wasn't even carrying a guy. Why wouldn't the partner he spent five hours with notice a missing gun or the fact that they were wearing different uniforms or that he'd never seen the kid before? I'm glad I don't live in Chicago.

Repossession by Force

Diamonds are forever, unless you break up and someone wants the ring back. Breast implants, however, are even more permanent. When gift giving, buyer beware: breast implants (or implants of any kind, for that matter), aren't returnable and should your lover leave don't expect her to leave the implants at the door before she slams it shut.

Apparently no one sent Thomas Lee Rowley the memo.

After Rowley's girlfriend left him the 28-year-old Victorville man decided to take matters into his own hands. Telling his roommate, "I'm gonna cut 'em out and get 'em back." Rowley set out to reclaim the implants, he says, he purchased for his 26-year-old ex girlfriend.

Waiting in the bushes outside his ex's mother's house, Rowley held a large kitchen knife. When his ex approached he leaped from the bushes and plunged the knife into her head and breasts more than six times. While his efforts were too imprecise to allow him to repossess the implants, they did serve to puncture one.

Rowley is now on trial for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, stalking, burglary, and false imprisonment. Too bad he didn't get the memo: if you give a woman breast implants, she takes them with her when she leaves.

Ex-Future-Son-In-Law

Stupidity may not run in the family of 36-year-old Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, but it certainly runs in the neighborhood.

Police arrested Martinez last month for agreeing to sell his 14-year-old daughter to their 18-year-old nebighor, Margarito de Jesus Galindo, in exchange for 100 cases of beer, a few cases of meat and $16,000 in cash. In California a girl as young as 16 is eligible to marry with her parent's consent; however,in California marrying a 14-year-old is never legal, regardless of parental consent. With $16,000 in play, why not purchase a fake birth certificate?

This sort of exchange might well have gone unnoticed, with the poor girl betrothed as a means to her father's ends. Yet, Mr. Martinez isn't as shrewd a business man as the deal suggests. When Galindo failed to fulfill the terms of the agreement, Martinez went to the police for help. This being a business arrangement, Martinez believed that the police were obligated to help him get his due.

Martinez's call to police landed him and his ex-future-son-in-law in jail. Martinez for attempting to sell his daughter into slavery for lewd and lascivious acts, statutory rape and cruelty to a child by endangering health. Galindo was arrested on suspicion of statutory rape, but prosecutors have not determined whether to file charges against him.

What makes the case a quagmire for authorities is Martinez's ethnic affiliation with an indigenous Mexican Trique community. It's common practice for Triques to arrange marriages for girls as young as 12. In such cases the exchange of money isn't seen as a payment for the child, but as a marriage dowry and the meat and beer the family's contribution for the wedding reception. State law, however, outranks cultural traditions, especially when those traditions involve the wellbeing of children.