The Hall of SHAMEless

Charlie Sheen

2011-03-04T18:11:00.007-05:00

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?

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation

2011-03-04T17:28:00.008-05:00

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?

Christiane Ouimet

2011-03-04T16:43:00.001-05:00

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.

More sordid details found here...and here.

ALLEN KLEIN

2009-07-09T13:53:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
90

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."

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

2009-05-29T09:56:00.000-04:00

$7M bonus as CPP loses $24B

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."

"It's just ridiculous," he told the Star.

The Great Firewall of China

2009-04-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/5048583/China-says-Tibet-torture-video-is-a-fake-as-it-blocks-YouTube.html

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.

Shame Is Fleeting (New York Times op/ed)

2009-04-24T16:05:00.000-04:00

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?

PHIL SPECTOR

2009-04-15T21:07:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
95

Who:

Legendary music producer who created the Wall of Sound, starting with hits by girl groups in the pre-Beatles sixties (including The Ronettes, whose lead singer he married, and The Crystals). Later, he shaped pop anthems by The Righteous Brothers ("You've Lost That Loving Feeling") and Tina Turner ("River Deep Mountain High"). After a slump, Spector returned to form in the early-seventies producing ex-Beatles John (Imagine) and George (All Things Must Pass), but angered fans by helming Leonard Cohen's Death of A Ladies Man (1977) and The Ramones' End of The Century (1980).

Long a paranoid, violent recluse who rarely gave interviews and stopped producing music years ago, Spector returned to the public spotlight on April 13 this week when the former Tycoon of Teen (coined by Tom Wolfe) was found guilty in the second-degree murder of Hollywood actress and restaurant hostess Lana Clarkson. Spector will be sentenced to serve at least 18 years in prison on May 29.

Left: Phil Spector's mugshot; Right, his victim Lana Clarkson

Shamelessness:

"Mad genius" doesn't begin to describe Phil Spector. Though his music is widely acclaimed and influential (Brian Wilson for one), Spector's legacy is forever tarnished by his violent outbursts, rampant paranoia, and alcohol and drug abuse over the decades. He's pulled guns on everyone from John Lennon to The Ramones, and emotionally and physically abused his ex-wife Ronnie Spector of the famed girl band, The Ronettes. Lana Turner was simply the latest in a long line of victims Spector has terrorized in his life, and never once offering a drop of remorse.

Why is he like this? Clues lie in Mick Brown's acclaimed biography, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector which recount Spector's dark childhood in the postwar Bronx growing u[ in a lower-middle class Jewish family that apparently suffered from in-breeding and depression. Spector's father killed himself when the boy was eight, and Spector suffered from an overbearing mother all his life. There was little love in the Spector household. Music became an escape for Phil Spector who possessed golden ears. Despite success and wealth, Spector became paranoid and would seclude himself in his L.A. mansion after his first peak in the sixties. Brown's biography and accounts by others consistently paint a portrait of a musical genius but a damaged human being, likely scarred by his father's suicide and unable to show compassion towards others. Basically, Spector has no conscience.

The Tycoon of Teen

Mitigating Factor...or not:

Do the actions of an artist diminish his art? That's the question that music fans have been wrestling with since Spector was arresting for Clarkson's murder in February 2003, and ever more so since his conviction this week. Can you listen to "Be My Baby" ever again?

The answer is Yes. Just because a man or woman creates beautiful music doesn't mean they are saints in real life. Public relation machines create an image that fans devour and rarely question. We expect too much from our musical heroes. Just look at Miles Davis who used to hit his women or Charlie Parker who didn't give a damn about anybody when he wanted to score heroin. Brian Jones, the original guitarist of The Rolling Stones looked angelic but acted like the devil, a "nasty piece of work," as the Brits say. Should we burn their records and CDs?

No, but it won't be the same listening to "Da Doo Ron Ron," because it's so closely associated with Spector and his Wagnerian Wall of Sound.

Garth Drabinsky

2009-03-26T22:10:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
91

Who:

Canadian cinema and theatre mogul who, with business partner Myron Gottlieb, cooked the books of their ailing company, Livent, in the 90s, and bilked investors of approximately C$500 million. Convicted on March 25 in Toronto.

Shamelessness:

Called a "tyrant" by many. For instance, would chew out his cinema employees for leaving (God forbid) kernels of popcorn on the lobby floor. Officially labelled a crook after the March 25 ruling by Ontario Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto who found Drabinsky and Gottlieb guilty of fraud and forgery in their running of their company Livent Inc. Both face prison terms of up to 14 years.

Drabinsky & co. took kickbacks, and manipulated the grosses to make their theatrical shows look more profitable than they really were. Livent accountants joked about being fitted for pinstripe suits, because they'd all likely go to jail. (Note: Another member of The Hall of SHAMEless, Conrad Black, sat on the Livent board.) Meanwhile, shareholders, musicians and artists lost money or never got paid.

Furthermore, Drabinsky slapped libel suits against critics. Most notably in 1995 against Alex Winch, then a Toronto investment analyst, who wrote a letter to Forbes magazine accusing Livent's accounting of being a tad aggressive. Drabinsky slapped Winch with a $10-million libel suit. Winch chose to settle rather than face ruin, but the ordeal cost him $350,000.

Judge Benotto's Ruling Shames Drabinsky:

“The exponential growth of the company was analogous to an athlete taking a performance-enhancing drug. The result may be spectacular, but the means involve cheating.”

Mitigating Factor:

Opened the world's first multiplex cinema (at Toronto's Eaton Centre in 1979), and in the 90s produced a string of hits in Canada and on Broadway including Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Phantom of the Opera and a revival of Show Boat. Drabinsky made Toronto the third most important centre in the world for live theatre, which makes his downfall all the more tragic. If not a shame, then a pity.

Bernie Madoff

2009-03-26T21:34:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
100

Who:

Former chairman of the NASDAQ exchange who bilked countless investors totalling nearly US$65 billion (that's right billion) amounting to the greatest Ponzi scheme ever.

Once a well-respected investment professional, today a symbol of Wall Street greed during the economic meltdown. Public fury toward Madoff has been so great that he wore a bulletproof vest to court at his recent hearings, the last of which on March 11 in New York he pled guilty to charges of fraud, perjury and money-laundering. The 70-year-old Madoff faces 150 years in prison. Sentencing scheduled on June 16. . .

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Shamelessness:

Starting in the early-90s, Madoff's scheme wiped out people’s retirement savings, destroyed charities and foundations, and apparently pushed two investors to suicide. Investors included: Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, and Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Many of Madoff’s victims were Jews and Jewish charities, which trusted in Madoff because he is Jewish. After violating the trust of both friends and strangers, Madoff destroyed lives pure and simple.

Financial analysis:

Experts have only begun to unravel how Madoff built this mega Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, some of his victims speak:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Mitigating Factor:

Madoff sounded contrite as he pled guilty on March 11: “I am actually grateful for this opportunity to publicly comment about my crimes, for which I am deeply sorry and ashamed.” Does the old saying, "Too little, too late" ring a bell?

What the Future Holds For Madoff:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

AIG Call of Shame (MSNBC video)

2009-03-20T14:55:00.000-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

2009-03-17T22:40:00.001-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
94

Who:
For three years running in Forbes magazine, are the most valuable franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) at US $448 million. The Toronto Star reports that the hockey team's parent corporation, MLSE, is forecasting a profit of C$105 million by the year 2011 with ticket revenue expected to increase 30% to C$166 million. Yet, da Leafs haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967 or come close. In fact, the Leafs have missed the playoffs entirely for the last three (almost four) seasons. Golf, anybody?

Shameless:
The blue-and-white are raking in the green by charging some of the highest ticket prices in the NHL, broadcasting exclusively some of its games on Leafs digital TV which means that fans have to pay to watch them lose in the comfort of their own homes; and hogging the national spotlight from other (read: better) Canadian teams.

Shameless Stat:
Last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 when The Beatles were still together, black-and-white TV was normal, and most of us weren't even conceived yet.

Financial & Psychological Analysis:

“The fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs are a bad hockey club is the inevitable by-product of the laws of economics. Their mediocrity is a design flaw, and it comes down to this: for any business to thrive, it must be obsessively focused on victory. Success must yield powerful benefits and failure must unleash harsh consequences. In the world's greatest market for pro hockey, that cost/benefit equation doesn't exist. A gusher of wealth, regardless of performance, has begat 40 years of infighting, a culture of laxity, and a refusal to admit the problem. The Leafs are a monopoly business that has been corrupted by its own market power.” - Steve Maich, Maclean's, April 2, 2008

Mitigating factor:
The Leafs couldn't have accomplished this alone: its fans. The “Leafs Nation” are either too loyal, too dumb and/or too desperate to abandon a mediocre team that's been taking them for a ride for 42 years (and counting).

PARIS HILTON

2009-03-17T22:28:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
88

Who:

American socialite, hotel heiress, model, singer and occasional porn actress. Basically, she's famous for...being famous. (Is Paris Hilton Andy Warhol's nightmare?)

Shamelessness:

Shilling a tasteless and shallow personal image of self-made celebrity based on zero talent and 100% marketing to an uncritical public. Also: setting back the image of women everywhere by a generation or two. Worst of all, we the public keep buying what(ever) she's selling.

She can't sing. She can't act. She can't write. And she has no sense of humour. A success – only in America. (According to Forbes, Ms. Hilton's income was in the neighbourhood of US$7 million in 2005–2006.)

Dear, can't you channel your wealth and influence into something useful?

Shameless quotes:

“I don’t really think, I just walk.”

Psychological analysis:

"We would walk down the hall and you would find a nasty wad of what looked like Barbie hair. This came off her head?"

- Tina Fey, then-writer on"Saturday Night Live" recalling guest host, Paris Hilton

Mitigating Factor:

At 28, still young enough to mature...or self-destruct.

CONRAD BLACK

2009-03-17T22:19:00.001-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
92

Who: Newspaper magnate, freelance Canadian and professional snob.

Once CEO of Hollinger International, Inc. which published major newspapers including The Daily Telegraph (UK), The Chicago Sun Times, The Jerusalem Post, The National Post, and hundreds of community newspapers in North America; and for a spell was the the third biggest newspaper magnate in the world.

In 2003, following investor complaints, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Black and his partners of running a "corporate kleptocracy." Translation: he bilked his investors. Black resigned as CEO and was charged with mail and wire fraud and obstruction of justice. In July 2007, Black was convicted in Illinois U.S. District Court and sentenced to serve 78 months in federal prison, and pay Hollinger $6.1 million plus a fine of $125,000. (Black was found guilty of diverting funds for personal benefit from money due Hollinger International when the company sold certain publishing assets. He also obstructed justice by taking possession of documents to which he was not entitled:)

Shameless:

1) Black remains unrepentant about how he ran Hollinger (into the ground), and denies any wrongdoing on his part. (For more, please see “denial” in the Oxford Dictionary.)

2) Despite being a published writer and former newspaper publisher, Black has sued numerous journalists whose views about him he did not agree with entirely.

3) In 2001, Black renounced his citizenship in the "oppressive little world" of Canada, where he was born, educated and his family prospered. Perhaps owing to a change of heart, Mr. Black has yet to denounce his Order of Canada (or the Canadian government hasn't had the guts to revoke it from a convicted criminal who isn't even a Canadian citizen anymore since he's busy serving time in an American prison ).

Shameless Quotes:
"If saintly men like Gandhi could choose to clean latrines, and Thomas More could voluntarily wear a hair shirt, this experience won't kill me."

Psychological Analysis:
"Now when Uncle Conrad likens himself to the assassinated Mahatma, the apostle of India, that is mere hubris. But when he compares himself to England's greatest Catholic martyr, a man of saintly honour if ruthless conviction, this is truly weird."
- Robert Fisk, The Independent

Mitigating Factor:
Has a sense of humour – and until October 2013 he's gonna need one.

A.I.G.

2009-03-17T22:04:00.000-04:00

SHAMEometer rating out of 100:
100

Who:
American International Group, Inc is a major American insurance corporation based in New York. According to the 2008 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG was the 18th-largest public company in the world and its collapse would surely harm not only the American but world economies, already mired in recession. Presently (March 2009), A.I.G. requires US$152 billion in American taxpayers' loans to just to pay its debts and stay afloat.

Shameless:

Despite posting a fourth-quarter 2008 loss of US$61.7 billion – the greatest ever for any corporation – AIG still plans to pay its executives – the same geniuses who flushed the company into the toilet until it backed up all over the floor – US$165 million in bonuses out of taxpayer funds. AIG has defended the bonuses by citing contractual obligations, but evidently the word “renegotiation” is not written in the AIG company manual as it is, say, in Detroit.

Economic Analysis:

"I would deny them the bonuses if possible. I would be for an exemplary hanging or two. Have it in Times Square, invite Madame Defarge. You borrow a guillotine from the French and we could have a party." - Charles Krauthammer, conservative commentator

"I was going to recommend boiling in oil in Times Square."

- Mort Kondracke, another conservative commentator

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

- Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

Mitigating Factor: If you find one, let me know.

Welcome to The Hall of SHAMEless

2009-03-17T21:38:00.000-04:00

You're surfing, you're Googling and by a freak of nature you come across this blog, and go: "What the hell is this?"

Ever wonder if our moral standards are slipping. Well, this blog that shines a 10,000-watt environmentally friendly fluorescent spotlight on those who are SHAMELESS in our society. Those who suffer from arrogance, greed, power or what the ancient Greeks (shameless pederasts themselves, though they formed the basis of Western philosophy) called "hubris." The Shameless think they are better than the rest of us and mightier than the Gods. Big mistake. Just ask Nixon.

Some of the SHAMEless listed here have suffered their comeuppance. Others have their comeuppance still...coming up.

I'm launching this blog to research and brainstorm a documentary I am making about SHAME. That said, I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, nominations, criticisms, corrections, contributions and questions.

By the way, if any of you wants to invest in an exciting commercially viable documentary made by a talented filmmaker about the nature of shame, then give me a shout at tong.allan@gmail.com. When it comes to making films, I'm utterly shameless...

Allan Tong (March 17, 2009)