Dodgers, Wells Fargo & Cardinal Mahony

Let’s look at this week’s luminary:

The partners: Los Angeles treasure and master salesman, Roger Owens, has been selling, with humor and style, Dodger fans their peanuts for 51 years. With his trademark; behind-the-back pitch, he has dispensed famous Dodger peanuts at over 4,000 games. His skills have earned him invitations to the Bellagio in Las Vegas and also to Tokyo to pitch peanuts. Next time you go to a Dodger game, try to get loge seats in aisles 101 to 167 to experience Roger live.

This one was a toss up between partners in crime and just plain clueless. How about the teacher that worked for a preschool in L.A. City that got her colleagues loaded? It seems that the first week of April 2009 she bought brownies from a street vendor claiming to be selling the brownies as a church fund raiser. She did not eat any herself but gave some to her adult son and then took the rest to school and left them out for the other teachers, who proceeded to complain of being sleepy and dizzy, among other symptoms. They even had to bring in the CDC. Finally, after several months, the LAPD determined that the brownies contained marijuana. Hell, any baby boomer could have made that same determination in less than half an hour. Who says that the old farts can’t deliver value in the workplace?

The predators: This one is just too...well, you fill in the blank. Apparently, Wells Fargo Bank senior vice president, Cheronda Guyton, who works out of downtown L.A. and is responsible for foreclosed commercial properties, has been using (on weekends) a WFB held, $12-million Malibu Colony ocean front, beach-house since May 2009 when the owners (victims of Madoff’s fraud) surrendered the house to WFB. She was even able to procure for herself, a “homeowner’s parking pass for the gated community. While WFB says that its ethics code wouldn’t allow employees to make personal use of property that had been surrendered to satisfy debts, local residents observe a completely different story. Local real estate agent Irene Dazzan-Palmer has also been denied access while having credible buyers for the property. I sure whish I could keep a $12-million dollar beach front Malibu house in my back pocket for my family’s exclusive weekend use.

On the non-profit side; UCLA School of Medicine professor of cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Gerald D. Buckberg, (and 5 of his fellow L.B. Research & Education Foundation officers) are being held accountable by California Attorney General (Gov. Moonbeam) Jerry Brown for using hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal gain activities.

Not to be outdone in the area of idiotic greed are the folks running the Tarzana Treatment Center, the largest publicly funded provider of drug rehabilitation in Los Angeles County seems to be over paying rent to its executives. Seems that Chief Executive Scott Taylor and Chief Operating Officer Albert Senella, and others, have been renting properties, owned by them, to the center for quit a bit (obscenely) over the prevailing market rate. Funny, the Los Angeles County Supervisors are expecting some sort of a return payment back into the county coffers. Yep, like that will happen.

The pariahs: traditionally the pariahs were the lower cast in India . However the term is broadly used for any group that has been shunned…like innocent children. L.A. ’s own Cardinal Roger Mahony saw it fit to bless a trash truck on Labor Day but continues to block the L.A. District Attorney’s attempts to gain personnel records of disgraced priests accused a sexual child abuse. Go figure…

The stupid: has got to go to Orange County ’s California State Assemblyman, Michael Duvall (R-Yorba Linda). Duvall, married and a family-values crusader, was caught over an open microphone, and video recorded, bragging about his recent sexual conquests—one with a lobbyist with business before a committee of which he served as vice chairman. The video was broadcast over the internet. And yes, he has resigned. What a dumb shit!

Enjoy your weekend, Ed Rigsbee