Who is Philip Mangano

Philip Mangano's name rolled off Malcolm Gladwell's tongue the other day and I had to learn why.

He was a Bush appointee and has been working to fight homelessness in the US. It's funny he shares his name with a mafia don.

Some stats: 34 m Americans live below poverty, estimated 3 m homeless.

Mangano has been traveling the US holding press conferences on homelessness. This issue has not been a Bush admin hot button but it has been impacted. Large Section 8 housing cuts needed counter-spin by an investment in helping the homeless without families get back in the workforce. Mangano has been shuffling around federal funding from one homeless program to another. Either he's hoping to get his agenda across with a radical shakeup or he's demanding more accountability and not finding it. Either way, I am not sure why Gladwell thinks he's so great.

This may just be one more instance where government passes off social programs to the non-profit sector. In Costa Rica, rural schools grow crops to pay for amenities like books and paper. He has been working closely with churches and local groups to solve the problems. Though Mangano has been working with California heavily, the evidence of his impact may lie in New Orleans. Keep your ears open to see if he's worth the hype.

Comparison Shopping

Progressive designed their whole advertising campaign off of comparison shopping, but I used them and felt a little overwhelmed with the plan features and a little skeptical of the prices they compared with. It turns out I was better off going to someone else.
Travel aggregators and shopping aggregators were some of the first online players to get comparison shopping right.
Survey Monkey is doing comparison shopping in a more honest way. They recognize that their savvy consumer is going to want to look around and they are making life easier by giving them links to other sites. They are also giving a pitch on why you should choose them even if they are not the lowest. Smart marketing.

Dog-on-doll action

I don't know why someone didn't create this before ...

Artist of the Month

Nouvelle Vague is only the second musician to get pinned up here on AOTM. They are a french collective founded in 2003 who cover 80s punk and new wave songs in a bossa nova style.

Does the world really need another album of covers? No, but the founders of this collective just seem to find the most sensual sirens to sing these songs. And they took creative leaps on this to make the songs sound so fresh and appetizing. Hear them at myspace or pick up their self-titled. Just one earfull and you wont be able to stop humming.

The birth of corrupt cops

Philip Morris has finally started bribing police for their time to handle their crimes (full story).

Is this $50,000 simple civic fundraising, or a return to corruption of law enforcement. Will this lead to a growing mercenary force known as the LAPD? Can I hire the police to patrol my Beverly Hills block or my quiet suburb instead of wasting time in crime infested ghettos?

On the flip side, why can't big companies sponsor police departments and buy them gifts and equipment? The government isn't pitching in as much as they should. As long as it doesn't directly correlate to their assignments, as long as no link can be made between priorities and money, I no change in how effective is law enforcement. And if LAPD does more contract policing, it will help them be accountable. It makes when giggle when I imagine the LAPD doing a cost analysis and calculating overhead into the project.

This latest event with P.M. rubs me a little in the wrong direction.

April Fools

So my family held me back from doing any April fools day jokes at work. The confetti over the doors didn't fly. Neither did the industry-rattling press releases I drafted. Oh well, I can live vicariously through Google.