Facebook good neighbor by funding financially strapped police annex.
Jul 15th
Meet Mary Ferguson, AKA the Facebook Cop, whose position was created through public-private partnership between tony Menlo Park and the social media giant.
Over the next three years, Facebook agreed to pay $600,000 to the town, where the company also happens to be headquartered.
Ferguson, 34, who’s paid $194,000 in salary and benefits per year for her services, keeps an eye on the internet behavior of potentially unruly kids by using an online persona that hides her true identity.
Ferguson’s primary duties apart from patrolling Facebook include keeping children in school, working with juvenile offenders, and helping large area businesses equip themselves for natural disasters, campus shootings or other violent crimes, reports the Wall Street Journal.
‘Mary is a pro-active police officer who enjoys working with kids,’ Commander Dave Bertini told NBC Bay Area in March, when the force first accepted the funds. ‘Her passion and enthusiasm for truancy abatement will drive the department’s program in a successful direction for the youth of Menlo Park.’
While many residents of the well-off tech town appear happy with the unusual corporate partnerships, some people see a conflict of interest.
Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller supports the partnership.
‘Facebook moved into a part of town that was blighted, that was hurting,’ Mueller told the WSJ. ‘One of the first things we’re seeing is this public safety net coming down to protect everyone.’
Mueller brushed off suggestions that the tech giant is acting solely out of self interest.
‘Anyone who has the perception that Facebook is trying to protect themselves really doesn’t understand the situation,’ he told the WSJ. ‘That place is a fortress—they don’t need the Menlo Park Police to protect them.’
Some experts have their doubts.
‘That raises some potential conflicts that, if I was the chief, I am not sure I’d want to wrestle with,’ University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert told the WSJ.
Alpert said he worries about skewed loyalties. ‘What do you tell your officers about how to treat people who work at Facebook?’ he wondered.
For it’s part, Facebook has called the $600,000 donation a no-strings-attached gift.
‘We just identified a need in the community,’ Facebook spokesperson Genevieve Grdina told the WSJ. ‘It’s not the “Facebook officer”; it’s the officer for the whole community.’
by Menlo Park C1N staff
the Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributed to this story.
Life Itself – Movie Trailer
Jul 6th
Acclaimed director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and executive producers Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and Steven Zaillian (Moneyball) present LIFE ITSELF, a documentary film that recounts the inspiring and entertaining life of world-renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert – a story that is by turns personal, funny, painful, and transcendent. Based on his bestselling memoir of the same name, LIFE ITSELF, explores the legacy of Roger Ebert’s life, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning film criticism at the Chicago Sun-Times to becoming one of the most influential cultural voices in America.
Obvious Child “Not the Worst Movie”
Jul 6th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
OBVIOUS CHILD has been getting outstanding reviews, but as with most movies these days, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
Heck, it won’t even be everyone’s glass of water.
Jenny Slate stars as Donna Stern, a struggling stand-up comic living in Brooklyn, New York, who is almost 30 years old and who also works in a bookstore to help pay the bills, because her comedy sure won’t.
We can tell this not only from what we see of her comedy act, but also from where she performs at a small bar and comedy club on open-mic nights.
Donna uses her own life and being a woman as material in her act, and not everyone will find jokes about vaginal discharge in women or her boyfriend Ryan particularly funny.
Especially Ryan, who says that he feels weird when she always makes jokes about him in her comedy act.
So, while Ryan is talking to Donna and breaking up with her, he keeps looking at his phone, saying that he doesn’t know where to look.
Donna uses her hand to circle her face and says, “Well, this is probably a good area.”
Donna learns that Ryan has been sleeping with her friend Kate, and the next day she stands across the street from Ryan’s apartment and sees Ryan and Kate come out to walk a dog, which really upsets her.
In the meantime, Donna learns from her boss at the bookstore where she has been working for five years that the bookstore is going to be closed.
Then one night at the comedy club, Donna meets Max, essentially picks him up, they have common interests and taste, they get drunk together, they go back to his place and dance and drink some more, and the next thing we see is Donna sneaking out of bed the next morning while Max is still asleep.
So, a few weeks later, Donna learns that she is pregnant, and she decides to have an abortion.
Even this new aspect of her life becomes material that she uses in her comedy act.
Well, what do you know, but Max has taken a liking to Donna, and he keeps showing up in her life.
OBVIOUS CHILD has an ending that might really annoy you, but it is not the worst movie I have ever seen.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”