Born into wealth to a famous (and talented) dad, Martin, Charlie has had to endure a life of privilege and riches without doing much to earn it. Sure, he starred in the 1986 Oscar-winner Platoon and is today the highest paid star on TV, but he's also a freelance girl-beater, public drunk and, more recently, blathering idiot.
The past two weeks have seen a very public meltdown by Mr. Sheen that vies with the Libyan civil war headlines: lawsuits, a million followers on Twitter, losing his job on the show Two A Half Men, accusations of anti-Semitism, and threats of lawsuits. Did I miss anything?
I admire Martin Sheet. I love Platoon. Hell, I even like Emilio Estevez, but Charlie keeps letting me down. Chuck, you have everything in the world, so why do you insist on being a complete asshole?
Maybe that's the problem: he has everything in the world.
However, there's another dimension to all this: Charlie is on every American news channel, not to mention countless hits on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. All this media attention reminds me of the grotesque ending of Billy Wilder's savage, yet brilliant take on Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard:
Sure, Charlie is a screwed-up mess of a human being, but what about the rest of us who are witnessing his dissolution on our TVs and iPads like spectators at a car crash? Are we culpable?
Toronto Community Housing Corporation CEO Keiko Nakamura, left, and tight-lipped chair David Mitchell, right
These days in Toronto "TCHC" isn't a misspelling of the chemical in grass that gets you stoned. It's the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, the folks who run public housing, who were recently lacerated in an audit that uncovered interesting receipts such as:
* $40,000 on a staff Christmas party in 2009 plus $53,000 in 2008 -- the years of The Great Recession
* $3 million worth of bathroom and lighting fixtures from a single China-based supplier, Well Group Enterprises Ltd., made using 37 separate orders
* $5 million in purchases from that supplier since 2006, approved by then chief financial officer Gordon Chu, were inadequately documented, with no proof that the supplier was selected based on open and competitive bidding from local suppliers
You get the picture (read more at The Toronto Star). Contrast these shopping sprees to a huge waiting list of repairs that tenants are waiting for the TCHC to fix: bedbugs, water leaks, cockroaches, no heating. You know, little stuff like that that effects some of the 164,000 tenants who live Toronto's public housing. Take a look at one unit:
It's front page news all over Toronto, a city where people sleep on the streets in sub-zero temperatures. Like every Torontonian, Mayor Rob Ford is calling for heads to roll, and within days of the release of the audit the civilian board has resigned.
However, CEO Keiko Nakamura is hanging on, and at a public hearing this week some TCHC tenants actually applauded her. Perhaps she's a scapegoat since she's the new boss and a lot of these excesses were spent under the former CEO Derek Ballantyne who isn't saying a hell of a lot.
Whatever the outcome, Ford is going to far by threatening to privatize the TCHC. Do we need public housing to be profit-driven, where cut-backs in quality (i.e. repairs) generates profits? I mean, don't we suffer that already?
It's been two years since I wrote an entry in this blog, which I launched in the wake of several Wall Street scandals which plunged the world (not just the U.S.) into The Deep Recession. The lack of shame, in the form of greed and arrogance, led to a mountain of toxic mortgages and inflated housing prices which ruined economies in America, Ireland, Spain and too many other places.
The two-year absence wasn't a result of laziness on my part, but to a general backlash against these offenders. Wall Street crooks were hauled before Congress, newspaper editorials raged, angry documentaries hit the screens. The world was becoming sane again.
Suddenly, we're hit with a rash of SHAMELESS actions by various people around the world. Maybe the old axiom is right: when it rain it pours. This rainstorm is enough to piss me off and nominate some new faces to The Hall of SHAMEless. Believe me, I wish I didn't have to do this, but I got the vent somehow. Let's start with someone close to home:
CHRISTIANE OUIMET
Christiane Ouimet was Canada's former public sector integrity commissioner in Ottawa. That means she was in charge of the agency that hears complaints from public-sector whistleblowers tattling on their bosses for doing corrupt things. Guess what? During her tenure:
* she received 228 disclosures of wrongdoing * seven were investigated * five were closed with no finding of wrongdoing * two remained under investigation when Ouimet herself was being audited * Ouimet harassed and berated her employees * she sought reprisals against those she suspected of trying to undermine her
Add to this some serious allegations (actually the Canadian Press is reporting them as fact) that she tried to meet with the very folks she was supposed to investigate, even though her agency was supposed to be arm's length.
Well, Ouimet eventually lost her job, but walked with a golden gag order worth $407,000. That includes 18 months of regular salary plus foregone benefits worth $53,100. God knows where she's spending the taxpayers' hard-earned money? Ironic that the integrity commissioner is now hiding. No wonder kids today are cynical towards government.
Ms. Ouimet, you're not only Shameless, but Gutless.
Now that Allen Klein has passed away, I can write about him without worrying about getting sued. That's the kind of fellow Klein was: a bastard.
Klein was the archetypical sleazy rock manager, right up there with the shady Col. Tom Parker. In a nutshell he swindled The Rolling Stones in the sixties (and owned their landmark recordings after Mick & co. divorced him) and helped to break up The Beatles. "Controversial" and "pugnacious" were words often used to describe Klein who was lampooned by John Belushi in the hilarious mockumentary The Rutles.
"Why don't you like me, Bill?" Klein once asked Stones' bassist, Bill Wyman. 'Because I don't trust you, Allen,' would come the unblinking reply.
Did Klein break up the Beatles? No. The Beatles broke up The Beatles, but Klein did a hell of a job alienating one Paul McCartney, and he sold a bill of goods to a gullible John Lennon who took a shine to Klein's tough street-talkin' style. (Lennon would later sue Klein and skewer him in his 1974 song, "Steel and Glass.")
c.1969: Mick Jagger wondering if his then-manager Allen Klein is thrusting a knife into his back
True, Klein was a tough negotiator, but he fought for himself ahead of his clients and there lies the tragedy. He could've made his clients as well as himself rich without screwing them and earning their eternal ire (just read McCartney's views in Many Years From Now).
For a full "obituary" check out British writer Ray Connelly's "Monster of Rock."
Four Canada Pension Plan Investment Board executives were paid nearly $7 million in bonuses for the 2008-09 fiscal year, ended March 31. Their investments lost 18.6 per cent of their value during that period.
SHAMEometer rating out of 100: 7,000,000
by Richard J. Brennan, The Toronto Star (May 29, 2009) http://www.thestar.com/living/Fashion/article/642318
OTTAWA–Four top executives of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board pocketed nearly $7 million in bonuses this year despite losing $24 billion of taxpayers' money in bad investments, according to the board's annual report released yesterday.
The report set off a highly charged debate inside and outside the Commons, with critics urging the Conservatives to roll back the bonuses.
"I don't know how they can look themselves in the mirror and (then accept) cheques of Canadians' money for millions of dollars for such a pathetic performance," NDP Leader Jack Layton told reporters.
The bonuses were paid for the 2008-09 fiscal year, ended March 31, even though their investments lost 18.6 per cent of their value during that period.
The executives' total compensation was down about 30 per cent compared with the previous fiscal year.
"Remember, their salaries are already higher ... higher than the Supreme Court justices, higher than the Prime Minister," Layton said.
"I mean they're well paid and to turn over millions of dollars of bonuses to these individuals after they've clearly lost billions is just not something that passes the test of common sense for Canadians."
David Denison, president and CEO of the federal Crown corporation, receives an annual salary of $490,000 plus almost $2.4 million in bonuses, compared with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is paid about $315,400 a year.
The average CPP monthly retirement benefit for Canadians is $501.82, and the maximum is $908.75.
The Conservative government ignored opposition calls to urge the CPP Investment Board to roll back the bonuses.
Harper told MPs the Canada Pension Plan, worth about $100 billion at the end of the fiscal year, is "actuarially sound," will benefit Canadians for many decades to come and doesn't need politicians sticking their noses into the operation.
"Obviously the board is responsible independently for remuneration for the management of the plan. I actually noticed, by the way, that the board, in fact, did drop a total compensation for its executives by 31 per cent last year but that is a board decision, not a government decision," Harper said.
Joining Denison in collecting million-dollar bonuses are:
Graeme Eadie, senior vice-president real estate investments. He receives bonuses totalling $1,077,239 this year plus a salary of $310,000.
Mark Wiseman, senior vice-president private investments. He receives bonuses of $2,112,115 and a salary of $335,000 this year.
Donald M. Raymond, senior vice-president public market investment. He receives $1,296,573 in bonuses this year and a salary of $335,000.
CPP Investment Board chair Robert Astley told a media briefing yesterday compensation is based on a pay-for-performance system that is tied directly to portfolio performance measured over a four-year time period.
"We have a four-year compensation model that enables us to compete for talent within the private sector world of capital markets," Astley said.
Layton said it is ironic the Conservative government won't reduce the threshold for receiving employment insurance benefits, for example, for fear unemployed workers will find it too lucrative.
"I'll tell you where the lucrative life is. It's amongst the senior managers of CPP giving themselves millions while they lose our billions," he told reporters.
Liberal finance critic MP John McCallum called the bonuses "shockingly excessive" given the investment board lost so much money.
Kevin Gaudet, a spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said it is "absurd to think that someone could lose $24 billion and end up getting a bonus for a positive performance."
China says Tibet torture video is 'a fake' as it blocks YouTube
China has closed the video-sharing website Youtube to internet users on the mainland in a move that may be linked to videos on the site allegedly showing police brutality in Tibet.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 10:30AM GMT 27 Mar 2009
A video that appeared to show Chinese police beating handcuffed and prostrate Tibetan monks was posted twice on YouTube on March 20 and has been viewed over 3,500 times:
"We do not know the reason for the blockage," said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Google, the owners of YouTube. He said the network in China began to slow on Monday and was eventually halted altogether on Tuesday.
In Beijing, the foreign ministry denied any knowledge of a YouTube ban, and said China was not afraid of the internet. "Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the internet. In fact it is just the opposite," said a spokesman. "We encourage the active use of the internet but also manage it according to the law," he added.
But commentators suggested that censors had acted against YouTube because of sensitivity over Tibet.
The video showed Chinese police kicking and beating apparently defenceless Tibetan protesters, along with graphic images of a Tibetan identified as Tendar, who died from wounds allegedly inflicted by police during riots in Lhasa last March.
The Dharamsala- based Tibetan government-in-exile, which released the rare video footage, said the treatment of the Tibetans violated international norms and amounted to torture.
But Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, issued a rebuttal to the video, saying that the footage had been pieced together from different sources. The agency added that the person shown in the video was not in fact Tendar and that the wounds shown were fake.
An unnamed official said: "Tendar died from a disease at home awaiting court trial. The image of an injured person in the video is not that of Tendar and the wounds were fake."
China has accused Tibet of circulating the video in order to gain international sympathy. However, Beijing has also been courting public opinion. A study by David Bandurski, at the Hong Kong Media Project, showed that Chinese newspapers had published at least 3,087 articles praising China's rule in Tibet over March.
Security in China's Tibetan areas has been tightened in recent weeks because of sensitive anniversaries this month. March 14 marked the one-year anniversary of anti-government riots in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, while March 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight into exile after Chinese troops crushed a Tibetan uprising. Access to YouTube was patchy earlier this month, around the anniversary date itself.
China has a long history of internet censorship and is thought to have the most advanced internet surveillance systems in the world. A “Great Firewall” blocks content that is deemed unsuitable by censors while police scour the web to “harmonise” signs of dissent. Chinese web sites usually self-censor and sites including Google, Yahoo! Microsoft and Skype all block terms they believe the government would want them to censor.
In 2007, the city of Xiamen banned anonymous blog postings after text messages and blogs were used to coordinate protests against a planned chemical plant.
Last year, a report from the Pew Internet project in China showed that the majority of Chinese Internet users welcomed the idea of controls over content and believed it was natural that the government would censor the web.
An excellent op/ed piece from this week's New York Times:http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/shame-is-fleeting/?emc=eta1
April 22, 2009, 10:00 pm
Shame Is Fleeting
by Timothy Egan
Barely one year ago, when New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made that cringe-inducing appearance with his wife after being named in a prostitution scandal, a friend of mine with keen radar about such things had an instant reaction: “We’ll never see him again.”
But here he is on the latest cover of Newsweek. Not only are we seeing plenty of him, after a round of television appearances as well, but it appears that Spitzer is blazing a new road to redemption — a shortcut, at that. Polls show him more popular than the current governor of New York, which isn’t saying much.
Of late, moralists, ministers, politicians and celebrities of varying degrees of self-regard have been felled by scandal only to rise after doing minimal time in the desert of ill-repute.
Whether this is a good thing is almost beside the point. Spitzer is trying one way back, a contemporary three-step: accept responsibility, show remorse, go away — for a while, at least. Still, he sounds strangely disconnected when he says in Newsweek, “We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, ‘How could I have?’”
In appealing to the “we,” he’s playing the weasel card.
At the other end is Rod Blagojevich. He skipped every step and wants the redemption right away, complete with television show, book deal and lollypop.
At the least, the public expects some groveling. Some admissions. Some contrition. And then, it helps if the disgraced is committed to a larger cause. In Spitzer’s case, reminding people that he tried to prosecute the bad guys who destroyed the global economy goes a long way toward making people forget that he was Client Number Nine, and those sad, hollow eyes of his wife during that haunting appearance.
Every month or so, the volcano in the village square chokes down a new offering. How long till it’s revealed that the amateur singer of the moment, the transcendent-voiced and plain-faced Susan Boyle, doesn’t actually live alone with her cat, and has in fact been kissed?
Shame, thy names are many, and they are most often coupled with hypocrisy. Newt Gingrich (infidelity-affair with young congressional aide while denouncing Bill Clinton after his affair with young intern). Alex Rodriguez (lying about steroids while holding himself up as a role model to kids). Jesse Jackson (fathering a child out of wedlock while moralizing on subjects great and small). Bill Bennett (gambling problems while lecturing on the decline of personal responsibility). Britney Spears (a mess, enough to fill the entire entertainment category).
Every one of them has made a comeback, and seems free to carry on without someone mentioning the asterisk. The Reverend Jackson, who said he needed to “take some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family,” was back in an hour or so. Ditto Gingrich, who blamed “periods of weakness,” and has now joined Rush Limbaugh among the fallen faces that represent the Republican Party’s image to the world.
Those still doing time in the stocks, like former Senator Larry “I Am Not Gay” Craig, failed to follow the first couple of steps taken by Spitzer. John Edwards is also stuck, after trying to lessen his lies about an affair by claiming that he cheated only while his wife’s cancer was in remission.
Then there are people who had nowhere to fall from. Dick Morris, despised by nearly everyone he came in contact with while working for the Clinton White House, resigned from the campaign after reports of cavorting with prostitutes.
Of course, he’s now found a home as a public scold on Fox, along with Karl Rove. They must have a gym just off the green room for practicing moral flexibility.
Some people should never be allowed a second act. O.J. Simpson, for one. The jury that let him get away with it because of some fancy race-baiting by his defense attorneys, for another.
For most, a lifetime of shunning is not necessary. It was instructive to read the account of Charles Van Doren in The New Yorker not long ago. He was the handsome young college professor caught up in a cheating scandal in a 1950s-era television game show, “Twenty One,” and the subject of a Robert Redford film, “Quiz Show.”
After his fall, he resigned from his job at Columbia and disappeared — for what seemed like a lifetime. Hey, all he ever did was agree to be a fake on television. Van Doren now seems so sincere, so self-aware, so likeable. Or maybe it’s the years between his transgression and the modern follies that put him in a new light.
“It’s been hard to get away,” he wrote, “partly because the man who cheated on ‘Twenty One’ is still a part of me.”
In a similar vein, Spitzer has tried to live with the duality. He has said, “I have no one to blame but myself,” repeatedly, which negates some of the weasel language. Still, that may not be enough. At the end of the online version of the Newsweek story, a reader commented: “This guy just needs to stay in exile.”
I’m not so sure. Which is worse: giving him early parole from shame, or making him wander in a Van Doren wilderness?
Born into wealth to a famous (and talented) dad, Martin, Charlie has had to endure a life of privilege and riches without doing much to earn it. Sure, he starred in the 1986 Oscar-winner Platoon and is today the highest paid star on TV, but he's also a freelance girl-beater, public drunk and, more recently, blathering idiot.
