Blogs

The Pulp mailbox was recently hit with this list of Sun-Sentinel editors, including their gender/ethnicity:

Deputy Managing Editor: Pat Thompson (female)
Editorial Page Editor: Antonio Fins (Hispanic male)
News Editor: Willie Fernandez (Hispanic male)
Broward Metro Editor: Dana Banker (female)
Director of Photography: Taimy Alvarez (female)
Business Editor: Anne Vasquez (female)
Sunday Editor: Gail DeGeorge (female)
Sports Editor: Kathy Laughlin (female)
Features Editor: Gretchen Bryant (female)
Training Editor: Gail Bulfin (female)
Recruitment Editor: Kathleen Pellegrino (female)
Community News editor: Melina De Rose (female)

I'm not seeing much significance in the Hispanic male aspect of this list, but the large number of women is a bit revealing. While the top editor (Earl Maucker) and other deputy managing editor (Philip Ward) are white men, the leadership of the place does seem a bit, uh, top-heavy with the fairer sex. My source, who remains anonymous, points to the newspaper's alpha female, Sharon Rosenhause, as the reason for the newsroom's estrogenic overload. And he cites a piece Rosenhause wrote in 2002 as evidence of the bias that led to what he calls the "Sharon Rosenhause reparations tour":

By Sharon Rosenhause Managing editor, South Florida Sun-Sentinel 09.04.02

A well-prepared job applicant recently asked why I was so committed to diversity.

I told him the story of how I got a lot of praise and not much of a raise from the managing editor at my first newspaper.

Since there were few secrets in the newsroom, I knew what others had gotten and complained about the paltry amount.

Well, he harrumphed, and pointed out that I didn't have a family to support.
Ah, and so the light bulb went on. And stayed on.

I'm certain I didn't call myself a feminist at that moment, but that's surely when I became one.

And that moment was without question the beginning of my personal and professional commitment to inclusion and to diversity.

Over the years, as I've encountered so many women who were truly and totally committed to diversity, I've wondered if there wasn't something about our gender that made us get it, that made us want to make a difference.
I say that having been the "first" too many times in my career.

Maybe it's because women (I almost wrote "of a certain age," but I don't know anyone who would argue that our newsrooms today are models of diversity in terms of gender or any other category) in journalism have had to put up with everything from stupid comments (the raise example) to worse. Much worse.

While it's hard to imagine anyone saying anything quite that offensive today, it's hardly time to celebrate. The glass ceiling is still very real, and most of our newsrooms hardly reflect the communities we cover.

That's why the light bulb has never gone out for me.

Yep, she's an activist feminist, all right, with large chip squarely placed on shoulder. Rosenhause for years has been trading on her unparalleled "commitment to diversity" as evidenced by Maucker's praise of her here. And she had a good point about women in the business ... back in the late 1960s. Here's a scoop for you, Sharon: The newspaper business has been successfully feminized, so you can give that light bulb a rest now.

WINZ 940-AM has dropped syndicated "progressive" talker Ed Schultz from its lineup -- and Fort Lauderdale graphics artist and gadfly extraordinaire Cal Deal doesn't like it. So he sent the Clear Channel station's general manager, Ken Charles an email:

From: Cal Deal Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:52 AM To: Charles, Ken; kbrady@ccmiami.com; Sandler, Nicole; Webmaster ( Miami ) Cc: Ed Schultz; James Holm Subject: Ed Schultz gets the boot I have no opinion at the moment about the merits of Thom Hartmann as a broadcaster, but I do have an opinion about Ed Schultz: I like him a lot. I have been enjoying his program ever since I first heard it on 940. I listen to it every chance I get, schedule my lunch around it if (I can hold out that long), I tune it in while walking my dog, and sometimes stream it into my computer so I can listen while I work. The news that you are taking him off the air is very bad news. To me, it marks a further deterioration of the station that also got rid of Rachel Maddow, and replaced Jim DeFede with Nicole Sandler (sorry Nicole ... but DeFede is damned good!). Sadly, along with much of the rest of the world, I have not come to associate the word "quality" with Clear Channel. Lame Lionel and Madman Malloy are not my idea of good programming. Nicole lacks an edge. Stephanie is good, in a light sort of way. And there's Randi who probably will be the next one to feel the Clear Channel quality-cutting ax. On the weekends you hand much of your schedule over to snake oil salesmen. What does that say to your audience? Excuse me, but I have to go find a station that streams Ed Schultz. At least I'll save some money on batteries. Cal Deal Fort Lauderdale

Here's Charles' reply:

From: "Charles, Ken" Date: March 27, 2008 10:58:14 AM EDT To: "Cal Deal" Subject: RE: Ed Schultz gets the boot

This is not about Ed the man. He is a smart talented engaging personality in my opinion. This is about Ed the talkshow host and for that I turn to the last few years of ratings. Lionel and Malloy have better ratings then Ed. So they get to stay. Stephanie Miller has better ratings then Ed. So she gets to stay. Sadly, and I do mean that, Ed’s ratings do not merit WINZ giving Ed more time.

As for Defede, same thing. His ratings were terrible. That is why we make changes.

I appreciate you like Ed and his show. Many do. I just hope you are open minded enough to give Hartman a fair chance. You may be surprised that you enjoy that too.

kc

-- Ralph de la Cruz does his obligatory "Life As A Movie Extra" column this morning, which contained one interesting piece of news: The film crew kicked Sun-Sentinel Managing Editor Sharon Rosenhause out of her office by the film crew, pissing her off.

-- Shaq threw down criticism on former teammates Ricky Davis and Chris Quinn. Davis I understand, since he's proven to be a dud. But Quinn? He's just a gym rat over-achiever who doesn't deserve the dis. Overall classless move by the big fella.

-- Wanted to throw down this story. I did a roundtable discussion for a group called West Boca Leaders yesterday morning at the Bagel Tree Restaurant and spoke about the falling newspaper biz and other topics. At one point, someone said they thought civility had been lost in politics. Used to be people on the opposite end of the political spectrum would go to one another funerals, they said. "That was just to make sure they were dead," quipped insurance salesman Jeff Schildkraut.

A juror in former Deerfield Beach High football star Jarvis Hicks' first-degree attempted murder trial was removed Monday after he recalled that he'd read about the case in the area's top weekly newspaper.

"I was sitting there listening to the evidence and it dawned on me that I read the story in your newspaper," said Jim Curci of Hollywood, who was chosen to sit on the jury Monday. "And I'm sitting there thinking, 'This kid is getting railroaded.'"

You can read about Hicks' case here. My story never made any claims about his innocence or guilt, but it did point to some of the weaknesses in the case while telling the tale of Hicks going from University of Connecticut signee (and one of the top prep schools in the country) to a Broward County jail cell.

Curci says that after the first couple of witnesses took the stand, it dawned on him that he had read the article last year. He also realized that he didn't believe the facts of the case supported conviction. So he was faced with a quandary.

"My moral delimma was do I stop here or do I stay on the jury?" he told me. "If they’re going to hang this kid, should I be the only person who holds out or do I excuse myself now?"

He decided to do the right thing. He told the prosecutor (not sure of who it is at the time of this posting) that he had a problem. Away from other jurors, he told the prosecutor, defense attorney David Simmons, and Judge Mily Rodriguez-Powell about his problem.

He was asked if he was biased against the state or the defense.

"The state," he answered.

When he told them he had read about the case in the New Times, he was told that the press often has its own slant on cases.

"I told them that I read New Times all the time and, I believe my exact words were, 'I put a lot of faith in what they write -- as you all know, I live in Hollywood,'" said Curci, referring to years of hard-hitting coverage of his city by my newspaper. "I think the judge even cracked a smile when I said that."

Curci, of course, did the right thing, as all of his friends have already told him.

"I used my moral compass versus what Mara did in Hollywood," he said with a laugh.

The poor Sun-Sentinel. It hosts a big Hollywood movie based on a columnist's dog and all it gets is scooped over and over about it. People.com broke the story of Owen Wilson's recent visit to the newsroom. The Miami Herald broke the story about the filming going on at Nick's on Hollywood Beach. And yesterday, the Pulp did a ditty about filming starting at the Sentinel.

This morning, though, the newspaper's John Tanasychuk wrote up the story on the newsroom-turned-movie-set pretty well, including anecdotes about Harriet Johnson Brackey being removed from her desk and someone from the film crew unplugging Jon Burstein's computer to charge up their cell phone (how Hollywood is that?). The newspaper is basically promoting the movie at this point (c'mon, "Owen and Luke Wilson: A Life in Pictures"?), but the best of all was the photograph in the newspaper of director David Frankel looking at dailies (I guess) with Earl Maucker behind him with earphones around his neck looking like a boy at his first big league baseball game. Hey, with the news biz the way it is, can't blame him to escape into la-la land can you?

After a few weeks of redecoration of the Sun-Sentinel newsroom to give it an 80s feel for the set of the movie Marley and Me, actual filming began today.

The venerable Alan Arkin is playing the role of Sentinel Executive Editor Earl Maucker. Owen Wilson, who is playing the role of former Sentinel columnist (and bestselling author of the book on which the flick is based) John Grogan, is doing a scene with Gray's Anatomy's Eric Dane. All in all there's about 100 crew and extras swarming the newsroom -- and the real reporters are finding it hard to get any work done at all.

"If big news breaks today, we're screwed," one newsroom staffer told me. "They are starting and stopping filming continuously. It’s just pissing me off. They are telling people to be quiet, asking everyone to keep it down. Security is everywhere. It’s not as disruptive as a hurricane, but pretty disruptive."

The source wonders why they couldn't have done the filming over the weekend to keep it from hindering the newspaper's work. But if it's frustrating today, just wait -- the filming is expected to go through the week.

Here's what the owner of Tribune Co./Sun-Sentinel recently told the Baltimore Sun:

“The news business is something worse than horrible. If that’s the future, we don’t have much of a future."

How far we've come from a few months ago, when Zell was all excited about the vast potential in the news game. Writes the New York Times' David Carr of Zell and other recent newspaper buyers:

"These are all smart businesspeople, with significant success in other endeavors, who took a hard look at the wave-tossed publishing sector and appointed themselves as life savers. And very soon after jumping in, they too began foundering in the tall waves."

Zell is now putting Newsday, one of the company's marquee publications, on the auction block. I think it's a good move that could help plug some of the leaks on the Tribune ship, but we'll see.

Also, remember that report on attorney-murder suspect Tony Villegas from NBC-6? Well the exclusive information WTVJ obtained -- including an email about Villegas from victim Melissa Britt Lewis -- was apparently supplied by a BSO jail employee named Divan Hicks-Badger, who wasn't authorized to give out the information, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Now prosecutor Howard Scheinberg is getting on his high horse about the "unlawful disclosure." Please Howard, shut up. When you put a man in jail in America you're supposed to tell the public why. What are you going to argue next, that Villegas is an enemy combatant?

The Sun-Sentinel's Scott Wyman has an interesting story this morning about the black newspaper Westside Gazette supposedly excluding white candidates from its political forum.

Seems white commissioner John Rodstrom is all atitter about being excluded. Oh, poor John. The troubles he's seen! When are the discrimination laws in this country going to protect rich white men?

It's all quite lovely idiocy, especially coming from Rodstrom, who gave up any hope of winning black votes years ago. Plus, Sheriff's candidate Scott Israel and Shak Dhangi, neither of whom are black, were at the forum, which, oh, I don't know, seems to hurt the premise that no white candidates were allowed. And then Rodstrom has the cajones to bring his campaign manager, Judy Stern, into Scott Wyman's story to complain that Gazette Publisher Bobby Henry told her that Jews excluded other candidates all the time.

This is the lowest form of divisive, dirty politics I've seen in a while and it's coming not from Henry (of whom I'm no fan, read this for proof), but from Rodstrom. You know what the better story is? That Rodstrom's campaign manager is Judy Stern -- the most active and influential lobbyist at the Broward County Commission.

Here's a better story, Scott. Research all the issues on the commission involving Stern's clients and see which way Rodstrom voted. That might drum up some genuine outrage.

UPDATED: Check out the Sun-Sentinel comment board beneath Wyman's story. Apparently there really was outrage. The thing unleashed the half-baked white supremacist crowd in a big way. Some examples of what they had to say:

"Blacks are a race of predigest, bigoted, racists confirmed as inadequate by Affirmative Action."

"You don't want darkie answering the phone at 3am; he's either getting his freak on or his chicken on..."

"The more black Americans open their mouths the more ignorant they sound, if that's possible. Blacks are constantly proving time and again they are some of the most racist people here in America. When is white America going to wake up and stop appeasing this low achieving race of people?"

"the typical black person is way to bold these days. they have become very mean and prejudice.they need to mind their manners."

"There is a reason no black man has ever been elected as President, look at them when they become Mayors, or any other elected official. They can't stop from being extremely corrupt and racist!"

"So many cruise ships available to take these unhappy blacks back to their home (Africa). The American public is sick of reading and hearing about how they (blacks) want it all, but hate America."

And on and on. Way to get an intelligent dialogue going, Sun-Sentinel.

The Miami Hurricanes are now officially on the map, thanks to Jack McClinton, a bona fide star. You hardcore Hurricane fans already know that, but his incredible performance in today's victory over St. Mary's put him on the national stage. He scored 38 in brilliant fashion against the tougher-than-you-might-expect St. Mary's team. He's a guy that can score from anywhere on the court at any time. He reminds me of a guy I watched play at Kentucky quite a bit, Tony Delk, only McClinton's seems tougher and more assertive. (Delk, by the way, was the star of the 1996 national championship team, and had a long NBA career).

I had a torrid meeting in the brackets, by the way. Had San Diego (over Connecticut), Western Kentucky (over Drake), and Davidson (over Gonzaga), all good upsets. If I end up torching this tourney, I'm gonna be pissed because I'm in a head-to-head contest with a buddy (for a ten-spot) but failed to get into the big pool I usually get into that's worth a couple hundred. I almost hope I get a few losses.

What else now? Oh yeah. Deerfield police tasered a naked guy and killed him. It wasn't until after the tragedy that the cop realized it wasn't a gun the guy was holding. (Worst joke ever, forgive me. Seriously, I'm officially on the anti-taser bandwagon now. One stupid death is enough, but they're really starting to add up).

The Melissa Britt Lewis murder case may still have some holes in it, but the email sent by the victim regarding the suspect in the case, Tony Villegas, pretty much seals it for me.

The email, which was included in the arrest affadavit, was first reported (I believe) by NBC6. Here's the text of the email:

"My friend Debra is going through a divorce. Her ex-husband is nuts. To be on the safe side, she wants to be sure she designates who gets her children if he hurts her and goes to jail. Seems extreme but you have no idea what's going on and restraining orders are worthless."

Instead of going after his wife, Debra Villegas, it looks like the son of a bitch lashed out at Lewis. The police also have DNA evidence tying Villegas to the crime, according to the television station.

I'm not a big fan of the death penalty, but this is one where it doesn't seem like such a bad idea at all.

March Madness has me looking ... fair. Big loss was Kentucky, an upset pick (and my team) that played Marquette strong. I only had UK going to the 16, but Tom Crean's team is better than I thought, which has me wishing I'd played the Big East a little stronger in my brackets. I have Pitt getting to the Final Four (what can I say, I like the upsets) but G-Town falling to Kansas, who I have winning it all (against UCLA). Louisville I got falling to UT who in turns falls to UNC, the only team from the ACC I expect to do much (Duke's lucky to still be around after Belmont last night).

Like you care about my brackets. There's serious things to write about that I couldn't get around to yesterday, which was a helluva time to be on deadline, as the Tribune was making news all over the place. First, there was news of the Tribune money drain. From TRB's press release:

CHICAGO, March 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Tribune Company today reported a loss from continuing operations of $78 million for the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with income from continuing operations of $233 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. For the full year 2007, Tribune reported income from continuing operations of $55 million compared with $661 million in 2006.

"Despite the continued difficult operating environment and weakness in print revenue, we see significant opportunity within Tribune Company," said Sam Zell, Chairman and CEO. "In our first 75 days, we've made a series of key leadership changes, have launched a number of programs and projects to drive new revenue, and have initiated a fundamental shift in culture. In addition, we have begun a strategic review of certain Tribune assets to determine whether capital can be more effectively redeployed into our core operations or toward reducing our outstanding leverage."

Oh lord things are tough all over. (Read this excellent piece by the Miami Herald's Scott Andron to see the way this recession thing is hitting consumers the hardest, especially the working class. This while the Fed is holding toxic debt and printing money for the investment banks, the same crooks who helped put us in this position). I suppose the economic struggle has something to do with what the Tribune is doing with its properties in Broward, the Sun-Sentinel and WSFL, the CW affiliate TV station. They are bringing them together under one roof. In Marcia Heroux Pounds' Sentinel story, which is little more than a glorified press release, she writes that "about 40 CW workers" will be moving from their current digs on Lee Street in Hollywood into the Sentinel's building on Las Olas. I'm wondering if there will be any layoffs. If Sun-Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel publisher Howard Greenberg is taking over as the station's general manager (he's got so many top jobs now that he's proving these glass-office folk never did much of anything to begin with) does that mean that the current general manager has gotten the ax? The article (in which publisher Greenberg refers to an "array of mediums," indicating that the newspaper is reaching out to psychics for help) doesn't answer these questions and also fails to mention the steeps Tribune losses.

Sun-Sentinel -- cover thyself!

After the jump is the memo from Tribune exec Ed Wilson, courtesy LA Observed.

More

The Melissa Britt Lewis murder investigation is about as confusing a case as I've seen. Start with a dearth of information from Plantation police and throw in contradictory accounts in the newspapers and you're left with a lot more questions than answers.

The evidence (a cell phone and a Google search?) seems scant and muddled. Police have sealed the arrest affidavit, which in my eyes runs counter to the Sunshine Law. In Florida, you're supposed to tell the people why you've locked one of their fellow citizens in a locked cell. Police spokesman Phil Toman and prosecutor Howard Scheinberg argue that probable cause for the arrest can't be made public because the investigation is "fluid" and "very active" at the moment. Well, maybe they should have waited until they had a case before they arrested Tony Villegas for the murder.

And what about Tony? The suspect is, of course, the estranged husband of Debra Villegas, who was the murder victim's colleague and very close friend at the Fort Lauderdale law firm of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler. Why would he kill his wife's best friend? Read this from the Sun-Sentinel's Sunday story on the arrest, in which Debra Villegas said Tony was "abusive" toward her but had no problem with Lewis:

"[Debra] said Lewis and her husband "never had a cross word" and that he thought Lewis was a 'very nice person.' But, she said that he was outraged at the divorce."

He's so outraged at the divorce that he not only killed somebody on the fringe of the relationship but also somebody that he liked?

Then there was this from Monday's story in the same newspaper:

"Debra Villegas on Sunday said Tony Villegas and Lewis were always cordial and that she did not sense that he harbored ill will toward the woman the couple's children considered an aunt."

The Monday article also quotes Tony Villegas' lawyer, Michael D. Walsh, as saying the defendant is "bewildered" since he didn't know Lewis and had no problem with her.

Okay. You never know what to believe from a man accused of murder (or from his lawyers, for that matter). But the Miami Herald's report on Tuesday morning included a totally different story from Debra Villegas. It was headlined "Wife: Jealousy was motive in Lauderdale attorney's killing." Here's how it beings:

The motive behind the killing of Fort Lauderdale attorney Melissa Britt Lewis is pure and simple, according to her best friend.

Jealousy.

Debra Villegas alleges that her estranged husband, Tony Villegas, killed her best friend because of how close they were.

''If a dog showed me attention, he'd be jealous of it,'' said Villegas, who is in the midst of a contentious divorce.

``He was jealous of her, and in turn killed her because of it.''

Whoa. That's a total u-turn from the what Debra Villegas told the Sun-Sentinel. Herald reporter Jennifer Mooney Piedra also questions why there is no past record of Tony's alleged abuse and reveals that Debra Villegas owed Lewis about $11,000 for "kitchen work."

Debra Villegas apparently told Piedra that her lawyer advised her not to file a restraining order because it might have prompted him to kill her and that she paid back the loan.

And there's the evidence, which seems scant and insubstantial at this point. Lewis's I-phone (which hasn't been recovered) was tracked to an area near Tony Villegas' apartment and he ran a search on his computer on how to clean Mace of your hands (Mace was found in Lewis' garage after her murder). His lawyers say he Googled the info because someone called him and asked about it. They aren't revealing who made the alleged call, however.

Exhausting is what this thing is. And all the contradictions and holes have led to a lot of commenters on the Herald site to point the finger at Debra Villegas. While Debra's words and actions don't seem consistent and might be challenged, I say only a fool would start throwing accusations around in this case without more info. But the truth is that when the official story is full of gaping holes, people generally fill them in with raw speculation.

I'm giving the Plantation police the benefit of the doubt right now, but they better hope they can fill in those holes with facts soon.

Sun-Sentinel Chan Lowe is posting cartoons on his blog "that never ran in the paper due to narrow thinking or lack of imagination on the part of some editor." The sketch above is one that editorial page editor Antonio Fins vetoed. Lowe explains:

In this particular case, I showed the above sketch to Editorial Page Editor Tony Fins, who said, "I don't get it."

I explained that Bush had indicated that he wanted the Guantanamo military tribunals to be conducted like the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II. I looked up the counts upon which the Nuremberg charges were based, and lo and behold, Count One was "Conspiracy To Wage Aggressive War."

I thought this was rather ironic in light of the moral bankruptcy of our pretenses for going to war in Iraq, and felt that what was sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

Editorial Page Editor Tony Fins' take:

"Unlike Chan, I'm not as well-versed on the language in the Nuremberg counts and indictments. But I do know this much, we're not Nazis. It's not an appropriate comparison, even if it's a joke."

The most recent reject posted by Chan had to do with the implication that Rush Limbaugh was getting some Viagra-fueled pleasure from Ann Coulter. The Pulp's take: Both these cartoons would help give the Sentinel an edge they sorely need. Lee Abrams, if you really want your Tribune newspapers to "have such an impact on the imagination that people dream about us," free Chan Lowe!

So they've cut off free coffee at the Palm Beach Post now? That's the word from Pulp sources. It's only the least substantial (but perhaps most symbolic and short-sighted) cut happening at the newspaper, including about a dozen pages a week from the printed product. Call it the Other Incredible Shrinking Newspaper. Editor John Bartosek, aka "Bart," posted the following on the newspaper's bulletin boards late last week:

08.03.12

Folks:

Tom's note last week on reducing newsprint consumption said we'll make some changes in sections. I explained a few of those things at a meeting today with some metro editors and reports, and I want to let the rest
of you know about it as well.

You'll see most of these changes in the next 4-6 weeks.

- Combine Local and Biz sections a few days a week. Many of you who've been here a while remember that we did this regularly for years.

- Combine Sports and Classified sections a few days a week. That, too, is something that we did often for many years.

- Take about a dozen pages a week out of the paper. Most of that will come from the A Section and Sports, generally the two largest sections, and a little will come from TGIF.

- Eliminate the Sunday Biz section by moving the best features to other days.

- Drop zoning on the weekly Food section and move it to Wednesday distribution. That'll save us some production time.

- Reconfigure the NPost zones to reduce the number of them, which again should save production time.

We're looking at a number of other possible changes involving stocks, TVPost, Comics, and Sunday Opinion, but no decisions have been made on changes there yet.

Bart

... And, with condolences to other leading villains like Angelo Mozillo and George W. Bush, this guy is the new poster boy for the financial disaster coming our way.

His name is Alan Schwartz and he's president and CEO of the once-giant investment bank Bear Stearns. Last week rumors spread that the bank, a leading player in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, was in jeopardy of going bankrupt due to liquidity problems (i.e. lack of money, which is a big problem for a BANK). As the stock began dropping from $70 to around $60, Schwartz took to the airwaves.

"There is absolutely no truth to the rumors of liquidity problems," he said.

The company's "balance sheet, liquidity, and capital remain strong," he said.

The company's first-quarter earnings (which are due out tomorrow) would meet analysts' range of forecasts, he promised.

On Wednesday, he got on CNBC and assured investors that Bear Stearns was fine and was going to turn a profit in the current quarter.

Fuckhead was lying through his teeth. Friday, the Fed announced that the bank's liquidity situation had "deteriorated" and that it was working with JP Morgan to bail out BS (what appropriate initials).

The stock plummeted Friday to $30, with some poor suckers holding with the belief that scumbag Schwartz would come through. Well, it was announced tonight (Sunday) that JP Morgan was buying BS for $2 a share.

Two bucks. Let put that in perspective. The thing was trading at about $175 early last year. Just a few months ago it's market cap was over $20 billion. It's now being sold for $236 million.

Hold on to your hat. The recession is here and the first big bank has gone belly-up. And a big reason that it hasn't been handled better is because the lying crooks at the bank have been hiding the dire truth, trying to bide time (and, in some cases, take profits). Schwartz showed us last week that they'll lie right down to the bitter end.