Community Service, not Glory, for This Gutter Rapper

L.A. Times photo

Snoop Dogg will pick up trash and clean toilets at an Orange County park as community service for carrying an illegal police baton aboard an airplane last year. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 12, 2007)

Deputy district attorney Andre Manssourian said Calvin Broadus (the real name of Snoop Dogg) could not substitute working with gangs, children or his nonprofit youth football league "because the spirit of the community service offer is for him to do the work in a manner in which he isn't glorified in the eyes of children."

Meanwhile, in Oakland the Youth UpRising agency welcomes another gutter rapper, Too Short, as a so-called career counselor, where he basks in the admiration of youth. The Oakland city council gave Youth UpRising $1.5 million without competitive bidding and with no annual audit of results during the five-year grant period. While the rapper promotes sideshows on his CDs, the city council made the grant from the so-called violence prevention fund of Measure Y.