Speaking of Phil ...

It's been a great source of amusement to me that if one Googles "Philip Mangano," high among the various awards, adulatory articles, official statements, and even a page of ridiculous quotations, are a few of my blog posts, which have been slightly more critical. At one point I was in the number seven spot.

Imagine my surprise when a softball interview we ran when he was first appointed homelessness czar in 2002 suddenly appeared today way up in the number five position! In those first few months, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Six months later I had a different opinion. I don't think Phil will be going out to dinner with me again any time soon.

Obviously, Google rankings can be manipulated. The world's most popular search engine looks at the number of links to a page to assess its popularity. Links from "important" pages weigh even more heavily. Someone probably went to some trouble to boost our adulatory puff piece of a five-year-old interview to its stellar #5 ranking. We've returned the favor by editing the page. Next time Google's spider bot runs, the language in that number 5 spot will change a bit.

If you have a website or blog, you can help keep a little truth in Google by linking to the page yourself. Let's see if we can boost its ranking right up to number one! The article from StreetSheet in the number four spot deserves a higher ranking as well. You might even pass this on to a friend. Yeah. I'm petty. But at least I'm having fun.