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David Simon interviewed in sugaRAPE

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    David Simon interviewed in sugaRAPE

    ...here

    Haven't read all of it yet but it's looking interesting so far.

    #2
    David Simon interviewed in sugaRAPE

    Thanks SPR. Loved the Footloose reference, the Mayor O'Malley reference, and whatever else.

    In fact, what's also interesting about the aftermath of The Wire is that the model for the female mayor at the end of the series, Shelia Dixon, just pled guily to using gift cards designated for the poor:

    Greed at the heart of Baltimore mayor's fall

    By Ben Nuckols

    Associated Press

    BALTIMORE — Sheila Dixon reveled in the long hours and difficult decisions that came with being mayor, but episodes of greed and bad judgment ultimately doomed her political career.

    For a former elementary school teacher who toiled on City Council for two decades, Baltimore's top job was a culmination of her life's work — and by most accounts, she did it well. She won praise for curbing violence in a notoriously dangerous city.

    But questions about her ethics never went away. As City Council president, she was criticized for holding a part-time second job with the state. As mayor, she was dogged by accusations that she was a shopaholic who lied about gifts from developers.

    Ultimately, a pile of $25 Best Buy gift cards contributed to her downfall.

    Wednesday, Dixon, 56, announced her resignation after a plea deal involving a perjury charge and an earlier misdemeanor conviction for embezzling the gift cards, which had been donated to the city for needy families.

    While she could have faced prison time if convicted of perjury, legal experts said that was unlikely. She gave up her job to save her city pension and preserve the possibility of working for the city or state again.

    She will receive probation before judgment, meaning her convictions can be erased. Her legacy is irreparably damaged.

    She remained defiant in an interview Thursday, saying jurors who convicted her "got very confused" and claiming
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    the reasons for her departure were "clearly more complex" than her personal wrongdoing.

    "Information gets out because other people dislike you or like you. I had a lot of enemies here," Dixon told The Associated Press. "If I was a different kind of public official, I could expose a lot of people, but it's not my forte."

    When Dixon, a Democrat, became mayor in 2007, the investigation that led to her downfall was already under way. The probe was sparked by The Baltimore Sun's reports that Dixon, then the City Council president, tried to steer city business to a company that employed her sister.

    Federal prosecutors investigated, but didn't file charges. State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh took over and stumbled upon the gift cards. City Hall, it was alleged, was awash in gift cards to stores such as Best Buy and Target that were donated by developers to hand out to the poor, but not all of them were making it to their intended recipients.

    Throughout the probe, Dixon insisted she had done nothing wrong.

    When she took over as mayor for the popular and charismatic Gov. Martin O'Malley, many worried the city would regress. But Dixon quickly became known for hiring capable people.

    On public safety — always the No. 1 issue because of the city's persistently high homicide rate — Dixon had a better record than her predecessor. She brought stability to the police department, and homicides dropped to totals not seen since the late 1980s.

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