Ross A. Lincoln

Are you a recent victim of the Bush recession? Hoping to finally cash in on those (extremely meager) unemployment benefits you've been accumulating? Better hope your cell phone bill is paid up: In January, with the unemployment rate nearing 6%, nearly 12.6 million calls were placed to the state's toll-free phone number to apply for unemployment insurance benefits. But more than three-fifths never got through. Frank Hartzell knows the problem all too well. A laid-off...

As noted earlier in a brief, the LA Times, having eaten more crow than a Lance Armstrong-Eric Clapton Constructicon, have fully retracted their most recent annual Tupac Article. Among other things, the March 17 article and related Times publications reported that newly discovered information supported Shakur's claims that associates of music executive Sean "Diddy" Combs orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994....

In a decision that could have massive repercussions for Internet businesses who thrive by overcharging people for something they'll have better luck with on Craig's List, the 9th US Circuit Court has ruled that certain federal laws, specifically fair housing laws, do indeed apply to the internets: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Thursday that a website may be found liable for violating fair housing laws by matching roommates according to gender, sexual...

Thanks to the most exciting primary season in years, there's been an understandable lot of talking about the process of selecting a presidential candidate, especially regarding Delegates, Super Delegates, and of course, Mutant Delegates from the sewars. Unfortunately, there's been a kind of New Star Wars Trilogy feel to reporting on the matter; ponderous, boring, pretentious and narratively inconsistent, but somehow taking forever to get through. The general consensus seems to be that these Ancient,...

New News for those following the ongoing Countrywide trainwreck. As reported by the LA times on Saturday, despite the ongoing national economic worries, and the total meltdown of the company, Countrywide Executives are still set to recieve Big Bucks Big Bucks no Whammies: The top two executives of beleaguered Countrywide Financial Corp. will pocket $19 million in stock next week, according to a regulatory filing. It's the start of a series of multimillion-dollar payments expected...

On March 17th, the LA Times published yet another article in its ongoing struggle to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the stone that once called itself Tupac Shakur. After an "in-depth" investigation into the Nov. 30, 1994 shooting/pistol whipping of Tupac, Times reporter Chuck Philips alleged, among other things, that Rap Mogul Sean "Puffy/Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Vanity Smurf" Combs might have had advance knowledge of the attempt on Shakur's life. Puffy* was not...

Via LA Now, The Daily News is reporting that LA won't have to buy the cow today because Mayor Villaraigosa is giving away the milk for free: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will take a furlough day today. Villaraigosa, who makes $223,142 a year, will give up $858.26 in gross pay as a way to encourage other city employees to take unpaid vacation days. "The buck stops with me, and I am absolutely committed to making the...

For months, critics of Hillary Clinton, from John "such a mavericky maverick that he promises his presidency will be exactly like George Bush's" McCain, to our corporate liberal media, have been demanding, with different degrees of credulity, that Hillary release her White House records. From newsrooms to blog comments, it's been a tidal wave of"What is She hiding?!", or "Why doesn't she follow Obama's lead and release her records?" And who can blame them? With...

Most people are probably aware of how difficult a thing it is to satirize something large. One runs the risk of either cutting so broadly as to make the observation meaningless, or being so specific that only those being described will even get the joke. Which is to say, it's a fine line. Not as fine as "Was your father a thief? Because I'd really like to have sex with you." But nearly so....

On Saturday, March 8rd I went down to Silverlake's Manual Archives (a "Microtheater") and saw a strange and wonderful play called Concrete Folk Variations Part 1: Death Of A Sugar Daddy. Written and designed by Susan Simpson, this absurdly titled play is a surprisingly gripping thriller about city corruption, sex and murder, set against the backdrop of LA's gay underground during the McCarthy era. It had literally everything - A scandal revealing the black underbelly...