Free CASH money in Los Angeles

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, and Boo, Wisdom Quarterly; KPCC FM Crew (scpr.org)

Fat stack of greenbacks (Jason Unbound/flickr.com/Creative Commons/scpr.org)

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So that's what it's all about, eh Mitts?

Isn't money the goal of American life, cash-money?

We do everything we do for the sake of it. I'm "spiritual" to be famous to make money. I meditate to get spiritual to be famous to make money. I study to meditate to be spiritual to be famous to make money. Then, if I had wads of greasy cash, I could [make jokes that go too far]. And, well, know wut im sayin, y'all get the idea.

But now who needs all that? Money is falling out of the anonymous sky! Somebody's making it rain. First it was coming down over the clear blue Bay, now it's pouring into the gray haze above Tinsel Town.

UPDATE May 29, 2014: The person behind @HiddenCash has brought her/his free cash drops from breezy San Francisco south to the sleepy pueblo of Los Angeles. (See his/her Twitter feed).

 

The person behind it, reportedly a man but maybe a woman, has been leaving FREE envelopes filled with cash and tweeting clues for where people -- anyone, even YOU -- can find them. 

• Anonymous benefactor behind @HiddenCash comes to LA

S/he's also been working with media outlets to get the message out, including leaving cash in the NBC Bay Area parking lot and telling Angelenos to tune into the local CBS news to get their next clue Wednesday night.

(Hope the major TV networks and media conglomerates in the Hollywood skyline highrises aren't involved, *wink*).

Why do millennials drink so much?

The clues are easy! And next I hear Willy Wonka is going to be hiding golden tickets in bottles of Duff beer for Peter Griffin to choke on for a chance to get into the Made in America festival and Under the Influence rap concert featuring Jay Z, Cypress Hill, and Wiz Khalifa! It's better than trying to call Big Boy.

I found it by the Griffith Park fountain!

What an exciting time to be alive! Now, if I could only get back to my first plan, meditate, get spiritual, and get famous!

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Cash Out doing his 2012 break out hit "Cashing Out" about livin' large in the big city while modeling an aspirational lifestyle for everyone to enact

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Goin' gangsta: The Santa Barbara County Sheriff displayed the weapons used by Elliot Rodger during his mass murder spree. New gun legislation is unlikely in Washington. But attention to mental health, maybe (Jae C. Hong/AP).

Why for-profit prisons fill with inmates of color

Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Rina Palta (NPR/SCPR.org, March 13, 2014) Why for-profit prisons house more inmates of color; Robert May (facebook.com)

"Kids for Cash" is a shocking and riveting real-life documentary thriller that rivals fiction.

"Kids for Cash" examines the notorious true story of judicial scandal that has recently rocked the nation. Beyond the millions of dollars paid to corrupt judges to jail kids by private for-profit prisons, it exposes a shocking American secret. In the wake of the shootings at Columbine, a small town celebrates a law-and-order judge who is hell-bent on keeping kids "in line." Then one parent dares to question the real motives behind his brand of "justice." This real-life story reveals the untold stories of the masterminds at the center of the scandal to fill up for-profit prisons with any children available, guilty or not, and the chilling aftermath of lives destroyed in the process. It is a stunning emotional roller coaster.

A new study by a UC Berkeley graduate student has surprised a number of experts in the criminology field. Its main finding is that private prisons are packed with young people of color.

 

The concept of racial disparities behind bars is not new. Study after study, report after report, working group after working group has found a version of the same conclusion [ -- the country and courts are affected by ethnic prejudice, economic biases, and subtle racism that people find too uncomfortable to discuss or recognize]. 

Prisons for Profit (WQ)

The Sentencing Project estimates that one in three black men will spend time behind bars during their lifetime, compared to one in six Latino men, and one in seventeen white men. Arrest rates for marijuana possession are four times higher for black Americans than white Americans. 

 

Black men spend an average of 20 percent longer behind bars [when everything else is controlled for] in federal prisons than their white peers do for the same crimes.

 

These reports and thousands of others have the cumulative effect of portraying a criminal [in]justice system that disproportionately incarcerates black Americans and people of color in general.

 

Ruining lives the racist way: a young inmate of color walks through yard at the North Central Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio, which recently switched to private for-pro management (Ty Wright/Bloomberg via Getty Images).

  

Int'l Women's Day, L.A. (WQ)

Berkeley sociology Ph.D. student Christopher Petrella's finding in "The Color of Corporate Corrections," however, tackles a different beast.

Beyond the historical over-representation of people of color in county jails and federal and state prisons, Petrella found that people of color "are further overrepresented in private prisons contracted by departments of correction in Arizona, California, and Texas."

This would mean that the racial disparities in private prisons housing state inmates are even greater than in publicly-run prisons. His paper sets out to explain why -- a question that starts with race, but takes him down a surprising path.

Age, race, and money

Prisoner (themonastery.org)

First, let's look at a bit of background. Private prisons house 128,195 inmates on behalf of the federal government and state governments (in 2010 numbers, which have increased by 2014). There is a continual debate among legislators and administrators as to which is more cost effective -- running a government-operated prison, with its government workers (and unions), or hiring a private for-profit company (like GEO or Corrections Corporation of America) to house prisoners. States like California, Arizona, and Texas use a combination... More

• LISTEN NOW (0:46 sec) download

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Finally, Bitcoin EXPLAINED (comedy)

Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Conan O'Brien's writers (TBS), March 11, 2014

Bitcoin is not a coin but a virtual, well, a...

(Team Coco) Bitcoin may be too much for puny minds to comprehend; luckily this training video explains all. Bitcoin's COO Marcus Ortmann explains what bitcoin is. Team Coco is the official YouTube channel of late night host Conan O'Brien. More

• Who actually invented bitcoin? It was the son of a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest hiding in California
• Conan O'Brien's bitcoin explanation (BusinessInsider.com)