Social Network

The day of reckoning has finally arrived for Bernard Madoff. Last Monday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin sentenced Madoff to 150 years in prison for defrauding investors of at least $13 billion over several decades. Bloomberg.com reports that Madoff, 71, showed little emotion as Chin said, “This was not merely a bloodless financial crime that occurred on paper, but one that takes a staggering toll. The breach of trust here was massive.” However, the courtroom reportedly erupted in applause after Chin handed down the verdict, and several victims wiped away tears as Madoff was led out of the courtroom by two U.S. marshals.

None of Madoff’s family members attended his sentencing, during which Madoff claimed to “live in a tormented state.” He added, “I believed when I started this problem, this crime, it was something I’d be able to work out of. [I will] live with this pain for the rest of my life.”

Rumor has it that Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks to adapt Ben Mezrich’s newest work, Accidental Billionaires, into a movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the development of Facebook (you knew it was only a matter of time). The word on the street is that the book, which will be released July 14, is a salacious tale of “sex, money, genius, and betrayal” in the Ivy League and Silicon Valley from the author who wrote the book on which the Kevin Spacey film 21 was based.

The working title of the Facebook movie is said to be The Social Network, and director David Fincher, who most recently directed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is reportedly in place to helm the film. As to who will portray beaky geek-to-god Zuckerberg, several media sources are saying that actors Michael Cera—of Superbad, Juno, and Arrested Development fame—and Shia LeBouf—of Transformers fame—are in the running.

But the film is also said to be no kid-gloved homage to Zuckerberg, who has been entangled in several legal battles over issues of proprietorship since the site took off. While Accidental Billionaires and consequently The Social Network (adapted by Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing) are said to take several liberties with the actual story of the rise of Facebook, both film and movie could allegedly cast Zuckerberg as an obnoxious nerd who schemed his way to the top in an attempt to meet girls and ingratiate himself to Harvard’s upper crust.

What do you think? Will you see The Social Network when it comes out?

You know Twitter has finally become mainstream when Irish writer James Joyce’s Ulysses descends on the microblogging service. That’s right: to commemorate Bloomsday on June 16, a chapter of one of the most difficult English novels ever written was condensed to fit Twitter’s 140-character guidelines.

Chapter 10, “The Wandering Rocks,” follows 19 Dubliners going about their daily businesses. The creative minds behind the Ulysses tweets are Ian Bogost, a Georgia Tech professor, and his friend Ian McCarthy.

Bloomsday commemorates the day on which all of the fictitious action of the novel takes place. The novel chronicles the experiences of a man named Leopold Bloom.

In an effort to regulate biased editing of its content, Wikipedia has banned a series of IP addresses associated with the Church of Scientology, The Register reports. The decision by Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee marks the first time that the eighth-most-popular website has prevented a major organization from promoting its own agenda through self-serving edits.

According to The Register, a former member of the church’s Office of Special Affairs said that the church has mounted “massive efforts” to scrub material that criticizes Scientology from the Internet. He claimed, “The guys I worked with posted every day all day. It was like a machine. I worked with someone who used five separate computers, five separate anonymous identities…to refute any facts from the internet about the Church of Scientology.”

However, Wikipedia has also cracked down on anti-Scientology “Wikifiddlers” who tweak Wikipedia content in accordance with their own agendas. In the past, the site has banned a number of anti-Scientology editors from revising content related to the church.

Susan Boyle, the Scottish frump with the voice of gold who captured the world’s attention several weeks ago, is back in the news. After singing “Memory” from the musical Cats in the semi-final round of “Britain’s Got Talent,” Boyle was pushed through to the final round, where she’ll compete for the £100,000 prize and the opportunity to perform for the royal family.

Although Boyle has quickly earned a strong legion of fans, her victory is not guaranteed. And it appears that at least one celebrity–British pop singer Lily Allen–hasn’t offered support. On her Twitter account, Allen called Boyle “overrated” and said, “yes, she can sing, but it’s not about talent with her is it?” In her punctuation and grammar-free tweets, Allen added, “she seems like a lovely lady but if its about talent,that Shaheen kid should win. listen, im allowed to have an opinion. i thought her timing was off, no control, and i don’t think she has an amazing voice.”

At this point, Allen appears to be in the minority, however. Still, Boyle could face an upset in the final round on Saturday, May 30. As the recent conclusion of “American Idol” proved, when it comes to reality TV competitions, anything is possible.

After suing American Apparel more than a year ago for unauthorized use of his image without his consent and reputation damage, Woody Allen has settled the lawsuit for $5 million, Reuters reports. Allen told reporters, “I am told the settlement of five million dollars I am being paid is the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law.”

Allen filed the suit against the clothing company after American Apparel used an image of the director from his 1977 film “Annie Hall” on billboards that appeared in New York and Los Angeles. The man behind the billboards, American Apparel founder Dov Charney, said that the case was about “the dignity of ideas,” adding, “I am not sorry for expressing myself.”

Last week, the media announced the upcoming retirement of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, sparking intense speculation about who Obama will appoint as Souter’s replacement. The president declined to address the issue last Friday, but already several names have been pitched into the fray. Obama, drawing on his legal background, is no doubt considering many possible replacements. Here are a few that legal and political observers have mentioned:

• Judge Sonia Soto, mayor of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
• Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of the Stanford Law School
• Seth Waxman, former U.S. solicitor general
• Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
• Solicitor general of the Obama administration Elena Kagan
• Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago
• Judge Kim Wardlaw of the 9th Circuit in California

Because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is, at present, the only woman in the court, many have predicted that Obama will appoint another female. Speculators have also predicted that Obama will appoint a justice who will maintain the ideological balance currently in place with the liberal Souter, a New Hampshire Republican. In the past, Obama has said only that he would want to appoint someone with empathy for real people and their problems.

After Obama names Souter’s replacement, he may have additional opportunities to reshape the Supreme Court. Both Ginsburg and Justice John Paul Stevens have also been the targets of retirement speculation. On behalf of FOOQU, we say good luck with this tough decision, President Obama.

If you, as an awkward high school student, ever found yourself the unwitting participant in a fistfight, be glad that you weren’t enrolled at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, Texas. There, former principal Donald Moten reportedly sanctioned “cage fights” between students. As a way of working out aggression between “troubled” youths, the fights were held in a steel equipment enclosure in the boy’s locker room. The contestants were not given any head gear, although the fights were said to have been monitored by a school security guard.

An internal report by the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) says that the fights went on between 2003 and 2005, although Moten, who resigned from the district in 2008 (more on that later) denies the accusations. Moten told The Dallas Morning News, “That’s barbaric. You can’t do that at a high school. You can’t do that anywhere. It never happened.”

But Moten, a former Dallas police officer, has a history of struggles with veracity, including once lying about being kidnapped and robbed in order to avoid going to work (he was placed on administrative leave). Moten was also embroiled in a grade-changing scandal (which led to his resignation) that forced the school to hand over its 2005 and 2006 state boys’ basketball championship titles.

The DISD found that Moten had pressured teachers to change athletes’ grades so that they would be academically eligible to play in the state championships. It was during that investigation that the district also uncovered the cage-fighting incidents. DISD Superintendant Michael Hinojosa has confirmed that there were “some things that happened inside of a cage.” Although criminal charges have not been filed, discipline has been taken, according to Hinojosa.

Apparently, the fights were common knowledge among staff and students, though no one spoke about them until the report was made public. Frank Hammond, a former South Oak Cliff counselor who has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit, said that he, too, was aware of the fights but did not report them because he knew that nothing would be done. He told The Dallas Morning News that the culture at the school, staffed by many South Oak Cliff alumnae and attended by their relatives, prevented action.

The New York Times’ coverage of the South Oak Cliff cage fights adds that school-sanctioned fistfights run counter to research within the last decade regarding conflict resolution in schools. Dr. Joan F. Goodman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Education told the Times, “Schools need to think much more carefully about how they can find outlets, socially appropriate outlets, for aggression. But to just go into a room and slug it out until someone wins, that’s obviously condoning violence, and the school has no business condoning violence. If kids think this kind of behavior is encouraged, it could spread.”

Each week seems to hold more scary headlines about the poor financial standing of age-old US institutions of vastly different sectors of the economy. The Washington Post and New York Times have to cut staff and extend buyouts to staff members (again). The US postal service just announced that it’s running out of money. I keep reading articles about how Bank of America is too big to save, too big to fail, but also at risk of failing (though it’s implied, and not bluntly stated most of the time).

I don’t know about you, but when the US postal service says it’s running out of money and the Washington Post and New York Times announce new financial woes as dozens of papers across the US print their latest and last editions—and all in the same week—well, this is when I start researching how which foods to hoard and how to plant a garden. The Times just laid off 100 workers and will cut the pay of non-union workers. If unionized employees want to avoid being laid off, they are being told that they will need to accept similar pay reductions. The Boston Globe is giving staff a 5 percent pay cut over the next nine months plus 10 days off. The Post handling its financial challenges by extending buyout offers to newsroom, production and circulation employees. This paper too may have to lay off staff.

In recent years, the newspapers themselves have contained numerous articles highlighting the ongoing decrease in readership as readers turn to free online editions, rather than shelling out cash for their printed counterparts. With the recession in full swing, advertising revenue, which once kept the publications afloat, is dwindling rapidly. Printed publications are faced with the challenge of somehow maintaining the revenue they need to print their papers, plus enough profit left over to pay their staff. It’s understandable that a lot of papers are coming up short—but these? Something about the headlines just seems eerily foreboding. I hope I am just being paranoid.

These new headlines come amidst the backdrop of an economy where the unemployment rate has nearly hit double digits (and doesn’t seem to be losing any momentum), the largest banks of the country are often claimed to be at risk of failing, and the President himself tells Americans not to count on the government to save them (yet we continue to)…It’s weeks like this when I wish I could just zoom 10 years into the future to make sure everything turned out okay.

50 years ago, Barbie was introduced to the world at the New York Toy Fair. To celebrate her 50th birthday, Mattel teamed up with fashion designer Adler to create a life sized Malibu Dream House located right off the PCH near Zuma Beach, California.

The L.A. Times covered the luxurious show which was six months in the making. “The surreal experience began with the bright pink floral ‘B’ on the gates, continued past the tricked-out custom VW Beetle convertible in the driveway –- complete with a pop-out vanity in the trunk and a bright pink engine block and dipstick.”A long red carpet led down to the 3,500-square foot house that was filled with Barbie’s personal items, such as wedding photographs on the wall and a vintage Warhol print of herself. She even had a fully stocked bar. Barbie’s shoe closet featured 50 pink Christian Louboutin shoes.

Among the many birthday guests included Project Runway host Heidi Klum, actresses Romi Dames, Madeline Carroll, and Debby Ryan. Fans can make sure to stay in touch with Barbie by visiting her own Facebook page, Twitter account, and a new style website.