Essay 4573

Change of heart in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Bobby Brown and his lawyer can’t agree if the singer had a heart attack. The lawyer told folks, “[Tuesday] morning they did diagnose him as suffering from a mild heart attack … they attributed to stress and diet.” But on Wednesday, Brown was denying the ailments. “None of it’s true,” insisted Brown. “I went in for a checkup. The doc gave me a clean bill of health. … I did go to the hospital … to just get a checkup, get everything tested out so that I could go on this tour, and everything is fine. … I don’t know where the heart attack thing came from. I got my heart and everything checked out earlier this morning, and I’m just fine.” Brown’s real life continues to be more bizarre than his reality TV series life.

• The U.S. Army has been lowering its standards for recruits, increasing the number of approved applicants with criminal records and lacking diplomas. In the last year, over 11 percent of recruits needed “character” waivers because of criminal problems, up from 7.9 percent in the previous year. “That’s a pretty tough standard,” said the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. “Not to be cheeky about this, but [if] we apply that standard to our legislative overseers, a significant fraction would need waivers to join the United States military.” Which means Sen. Larry Craig has a new career option with the army.

• A new study showed big Los Angeles law firms have lousy records regarding diversity. Almost all of the 17 firms studied reported having three or fewer Black, Latino or Asian partners (In L.A., Blacks account for 9.7 percent of the population; Latinos account for 46.8 percent; Asians account for 14.6 percent). The firms even scored poorly in the female partners category, with the highest number for one firm at 27.7 percent. The good news: The firms still do significantly better than Madison Avenue advertising agencies.