Republic of L.A.

Jolie at 16: average, extraordinary L.A. teen

2011-11-27T14:27:00.001-08:00

Presenting a Special New Republic Of L.A. Feature:

- RoLAClassicHuman -

A designation recognizing those who make the most of their affluence, influence, wealth; or of their deficiencies, disenfranchisement, or poverty, to improve the human condition - doing so with style, elegance and/or panache

In terms of that fabled "it" factor, even as a kid, she may have been on par with Monroe. But that's just her star quality. In the "sheer-beauty" department, Angelina Jolie is, in RoLA's opinion, one of the most beautiful women in history.

Witness her effortless command of the room (granted, the two unseen participants in the conversation couldn't be falling over themselves any harder to please Jolie, nevertheless, her alpha presence is unmistakable) ...

And, she's a better-than-competent, better-than-average actor. Add to that her endless, tangible expressions of concern for others (and, we're convinced it's genuinely motivated)All of this combines to make Angelina Jolie a

- RoLAClassicHuman -

Avril Levigne, boyfriend assaulted by five assailants

2011-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Attacked at the Roosevelt

(Really?)

Canadian crooner, Avril Levigne and her boyfriend, The Hills star, Brody Jenner, told LAPD they were attacked outside the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood last weekend. Both are recovering from what appear to be relatively minor injuries. Levigne has a black eye. It's unclear what the motive for the attack was, and no mention of robbery was initially made as far as RoLA has been able to ascertain.Having lived five blocks from the Roosevelt until four months ago, this reporter knows the area as being highly energized on weekends, with partiers, club-goers, movie and late-night television production audiences and youthful tourists packing Hollywood Blvd.'s traffic lanes and broad sidewalks in the tens of thousands, anything can happen.

However, landmark properties such as the El Capitan Theatre, where Jimmy Kimmel Live is shot, the Hollywood & Highland mega-plex shopping, dining and entertainment center (which contains the Kodak Theater, home of the Oscar Awards ceremony and TV show) are all within feet of the well-lit, highly patrolled (by Los Angeles Police Dept. officers, Hollywood Safety officers, California Highway Patrol officers (rarely, but they have jurisdictions at some of the boulevard's major cross streets, such as Cahuenga Blvd.), and private security. Add to that the small army of service personnel, such as valets, doormen, etc... and something seems odd about the circumstances of this crime against celebrities.

Architecture in L.A.

2011-10-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Wrong Regarding 'Wrights'

This multifamily residential building may

not appear to the average passerby to

be a particularly special example of mid-

century modern architecture; but, it did

appear so to Republic of L.A.

Perhaps it's likely most other lay-persons

sharing RoLA's passion for L.A.'s hodge-podge

of adventurous, often highly stylized residential

design and frequently offputting urban-planning

paradigm, would - as we erroneously did -

recognize this collection of apartments at

2036-2046 Griffith Park Blvd. as a fine,

however modest, example of architecture

by Eric Lloyd Wright, founder of Eric Lloyd Wright

Architecture and Planning grandson and former

apprentice of master 20th Century architect,

Frank Lloyd Wright. However, It turns out, the

main cue that led RoLA to think we were looking

at an Eric Lloyd Wright design - the sculpted

flourishes atop the painted (cinderblock?) walls separating garages at the site, were etched out by sculptor gordon Newell. The buildings (there are two) were designed by legendary Los Angeles architect, R.M. Schindler as a home with rental-intcome units for Anastasia Bubeshko and her daughter Luby, whom - according to the Los Angeles Conservancy - lived in the Schindler-designed home that her mother left her, was first completed in the late 1930s.

The Bubeshko Apartments won a preservation award from the L.A. Conservancy in 2010 (Preservation Architect: DSH / Eric Haas & Chava Danielson)

JOBS PLAN: Obama's Golden Opportunity Could Spark a New Era of FDR-style American Greatness

2011-09-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

A giant freighter passes through the Maeslantkering sea gate in the Netherlands.
The Dutch can literally turn off the sea when their homeland is threatened by oceanic flooding.

...But only with a bold vision of greatness, beginning in New Orleans.

President Barack Obama will make what could be the most important speech of his presidency next Thursday. Next Thursday falls within the sixth anniversary of the castration of American greatness that was the response to Hurricane Katrina. Pictured Above is what the Dutch do when the Netherlands is threatened by flooding from the sea: Since they built the Maeslantkering sea gate, Holland can protect itself by simply TURNING OFF THE SEA!

The American solution for New Orleans: And it's already leaking.

During the Bush administration, the American solution to "preventing" another Katrina was to rebuild and increase the height of a stack of rocks, dirt and mortar; and, in some cases with a cement wall.

In RoLA's opinion, the the president's opportunity to reset the U.S. standing as a nation of greatness and innovation couldn't be more obvious: begin work on what could be called the "Great Gulf Coast Sea Gate," or "Great Gulf Gate." Or, because we love abbreviations in this country, the shorthand for the multi-thousand job project could be (drum roll) "G3."

Not only would this be good for the economy, our image abroad (not to mention our own self-image), such a bold move would reassert Obama's "Yes We Can" mantra--you know; the one that got him elected as the nation's first African American president. The Great Gulf Gate, however, should not, in our opinion be the only project in Obama's plan. Projects of similar significance, with equally bold vision, should populate the his new jobs program. But, please Mr. President; make New Orleans the center point--the foundation--of your plan

One million sq. ft. Renovation of Kaiser-Permanente's 50-year-old Los Angeles Med. Center Continues

2011-08-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

Demolition at Kaiser on Sunset, seen through a

display of mobile sculpture inside an already

completed portion of the hospital.

(Photo by Republic Of L.A.)

(Facility Billed as Innovative Enough to Serve Patients for Next Half Century)

According to builder Rudolph and Sletten, which is headquartered in Redwood City, once it's finished the hospital will be the first to have a built-in, electronic medical records system.

In addition, the new Kaiser will feature nurses' stations and procedure rooms with so-called "picture archiving system," which will "effortlessly" route images to flat-panel screens, thus eliminating the need for more expensive, bulky and less envinronmentally friendly X-ray screens. Another benefit of the "X-ray screen-free system is that mages will be instantly available to surgeons in operating rooms.

When necessary, patients will be eased into bed by special portable chairs that will hang from the ceiling and move the length of the room on tracks, the company said in a statement to reporters. Furthermore, the specialty construction company said, beds will be adjustable to a nearly vertical position for easy access from a standing or sitting position.

Among other benefits of such beds, will be the fact that patients needing dialysis will not have to be moved from testing areas elswhere for treatment. All services can be provided from one place.

The new emergency department will be equipped with the many of the patient comfort amenities found in other parts of the hospital. Because the potential for many of the same dangers that vex us now will probably continue to exist, disaster readiness measures will include decontamination showers and a dedicated air conditioning and ventilation system. The new medical center will have 456 patient rooms, 11 labor and delivery rooms, and six cardiac surgery suites.

The hospital will feature numerous green spaces including a garden with a play area for pediatric patients, a garden courtyard on the 4th floor serving the labor and delivery unit, an outside dining patio facing the park, and a tree-lined green-belt at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Edgemont Street. Palm trees will line the north side of the boulevard for a three-block stretch.

RFK Learning Center's Early Battle for Hearts and Minds

2011-08-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Angelenos' Journey from Resistance to Celebration of Campus not Universal

Los Angeles' New Ambassadors

Six Schools on a Campus Like no Other

a RoLA S e r i e s

Viewed in-person, this sculpture appears to be a watery ripple over Robert F. Kennedy's sculptured-bust mural (in bronze), affixed to a marble wall. The wall displays well known and some lesser known quotes from legendary authors, leaders and artists.

For some, the RFK Learning Center is not a great enough triumph to have justified the demolition of the old Ambassador Hotel, former home of the famed and legendary Cocoanut Grove restaurant and night club, and the place where Robert Kennedy was Assasinated.

When the word got out that the long-dormant Ambassador Hotel would be mostly razed and replaced by a public school, many local residents and others around the nation and the world were aghast.

"A Los Angeles Unified School District school campus? --On the practically hallowed ground of the Ambassador? No museum? Not a restoration of the mythical sprawl where not only sat the grand old hotel where the second Kennedy brother was murdered in the middle of an historic presidential campaign, but which was also home to the mother of all nightclubs--the Cocoanut Grove, inside which lay the stage and dance floor where the likes of Harlow and Flynne; Gable and Mae West once waltzed? Nor even a new Ambassador hotel and night-spot, with some multi-use aspect, themed around the original? A plain ol' LAUSD school, huh? Of course we need new schools, but here? How uninspired. How disrespectful."

Those may not have been the verbatim words and thoughts of yours truly at the time; but they're close.

Here's some of what a few other prominent and ordinary people said at the time:

I am very sad to report that we have fought the good fight, but have lost. Demolition of the Ambassador Hotel will likely begin within the coming months.

-Roland Wiley, Los Angeles Conservancy

This is a crime. Schools are great, but this treasure will never be replaced. The LAUSD is robbing the people of Los Angeles.

--Mary Hastel, 69, Wilshire District resident

However, there were similar cries from the other side of the issue, including this from Paul Schrade, who the New York Times described as having been both a "close aide" to and standing close to the late attorney general and Democratic presidential candidate when he was assassinated:

“We are under attack,” he said. “There are 400 hits on Google from people who have carried on this nonsense that it’s the Taj Mahal, the most expensive school in history.”

In the end, however, most have come to change their minds. Here's what Hastel, now 71, told RoLA recently:

“The high school and the entire campus are new treasures. The LAUSD did a good job memoralizing Kennedy and the hotel, including the [Cocoanut] Grove."

Glitz, Glamour Find Unlikely New Home in the Wilshire District

2011-08-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles' New Ambassadors

Six Schools on a Campus Like no Other

a RoLA S e r i e s

The Architecturally Acclaimed Auditorium at

Ambassador/RFK Campus' Los Angeles High School for the Arts (LAHSA):

Witness: A reinterpretation of the aesthetic of the iconic nightlife venue that helped define what was probably Hollywood's most glamorous period--from the 1920s to the early 1950s, when Harlow, Hughes and Hepburn graced the Ambassador Hotel's own Cocoanut Grove night club.

One neighbor of RFK Community Schools said the auditorium by itself is the best thing that's happened to youth in this inner-city part of Southern California in decades, and that it shows. The woman, who lives within visual distance of the RFK campus, says she raised two of her own now grown and "very successful" children in L.A.'s pulbic school system. She also said, after years of apathy and neglect regarding public schools in Los Angeles, she can now sees students who seem proud of where they go to school. When walking her dog some mornings, the longtime Wilshire District resident has recently noted a new excitement in the eyes of the students she sees walking to toward the six RFK schools located at the former Ambassador Hotel site. (Watch for video of RoLA's interview with the neighbor and others with school officials and students--all in coming installmentsot of our special series on the Ambassador/RFK site. Meantime, here are some interior shots of the schools' auditorium inspired by, and built at the former site of the old Cocoanut Grove.)

Though not all who lamented, and still mourn, the demolition of the Ambassador in 2005 are completely satisfied with the outcome of their failed battle to completely preserve the property, some concede that the new schools' auditorium (which actually retains much Cocoanut Grove building's construction in its last incarnation before the closure of the Ambassador for good in 1989); succeeds in some measure invoking the spirit of the original Grove.

The faculty-staff-and their-guests-only lounge at RFK Community Schools is a faithfully restored original 1950s diner designed by Paul R. Williams, a pioneering African-American architect whose work (Beverly Wilshire Hotel [major redesign]; Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills; Chasens Restaurant; Theme building at LAX (the sweeping, swoopy structure at the center of the airport's terminals area); helped define the classical Los Angeles architecture asthetic.

I Predict a Riot!

2011-07-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

Did Kaiser Chiefs' 2004 Indie Track Foresee week of Hollywood's Hyper-tweeting DJ Debacle, Washington's Budget Battle?

Probably not. But sometimes the corny headline gene won't rest until it's satisfied...

So much can happen in a week: Since our last post, the Hollywood district of Los Angeles has had a "riot," while the nation's credit rating, which has stayed unblemished with "AAA" as our score ever since credit ratings have existed, even throughout the Great Depression, has come perilously close to being sacrificed voluntarily by congressional Republicans who, it appears, would be willing to see it downgraded--thereby causing what economists almost unanimously agree will be catastrophic consequences, if not a sparking a Great Depression II--in order to appease the always-angry Tea Party cult.

I mention the Hollywood & Highland "riot" in quotes, because, in the final analysis, MUCH was overhyped in news reports. Yes: somewhere between five and 8 youths jumped onto a police car. But whereas when the "melee" (if you can call hundreds of people talking loudly and yelling, but mostly texting and tweeting, a melee) first began, radio reports said police patrol cars had been lit ablaze. Even though it appears that didn't happen (RoLA is seeking clarification regarding the reports from some Internet and braodcast reports that, patrol cars were set on fire), the impression that Crown Victorias up and down Hollywood Blvd. were burning set the stage for a lot of innacurate portrayals of the event. Certainly, something was terribly wrong with the way things went in terms of one DJs apparently wreckless social-networking misuse, plus poor crowd control planning by event organizers, and, to some degree, the police response. However, I do give LAPD some props for their overall handling of the un-riot.

You can read some of the details here and/or here. But it's hard to argue that this was a riot when you realize that a) no one was injured; and b) three arrests were made out of a total of five people who were momentarily detained, according to the L.A. Times; c) there are countless images and many videos of people standing; people walking; people running away from police anti-riot personnel--as well as ample footage of people jumping onto police cars; yet you won't find any of police cars burning from that afternoon, as has been widely reported. At least we haven't been able to find any such video.

What's most interesting to me is the police-car-set-on-fire aspect of this story. It appears that nearly all headlines and copy written about the alleged arson since the day the near-riot (as the occurence was dubbed by the L.A. Times and other well established media outlets) is cited as "according to multiple news reports." That's what RoLA found on websites ranging from pop-politics destination, Firedoglake (lafiga.firedoglake.com) to MSNBC.com. In fact, our Web search found no attribution of the burning squad car report that could be immediately confirmed as an original, credible source; nor could we locate any imagery.

That doesn't mean vandal-arsonists didn't burn LAPD vehicles on Hollywood Blvd. last Thursday (28 July, 2011) didn't happen. It does mean that there is confusion about important details of the "riot." Check back next week, after RoLA has an answer (or non-answer) from the LAPD, and/or the District Attorney's office. Meantime, not the L.A. Times piece does not mention a police car set ablaze by "near-rioters."

★TUESDAY CONTINUES OUR SERIES ABOUT LAUSD'S NEW SCHOOLS at the SITE OF THE FORMER AMBASSADOR HOTEL, WHERE ROBERT KENNEDY WAS ASSASINATED BY SIRHAN SIRHAN IN 1968.

Ambassador Hotel's Gone, Poignancy of New School's Design Honors Kennedy

2011-07-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles' New Ambassadors

Six Schools on a Campus Like no Other

a RoLA S e r i e s

Reporter Surprised by Own Emotional Response to RFK Tributes at Ambassador (video)

[PART II in a multi-post, multimedia special RoLA Series.]

We appreciate your patience in viewing video on RoLA in small snippets, which, at the moment, are the most efficient way for us to upload and for you to enjoy, in light of the currently very modest resources available to the blog.

That said, RoLA expects to augment our capacities before the end of 2011. If all goes as planned, you'll be visiting a much improved site in terms of content and format. And, as a current consumer of information on Republic Of L.A., you can expect to receive special access to enhanced content on the new RoLA, as well as to some pretty cool events planned for election year, 2012.

In the meantime, here are the first two videos in this special series about RFK Community Schools. We've begun the series at the Robert F. Kennedy Inspiration Park and its memorial to the late brother also-assasinated John F. Kennedy. BTW, It's okay to snicker at how strangely and unexpectedly emotional my visit there was:

In the next video installment of this special Republic of L.A. series about RFK Learning Center at the Ambassador Campus, hear what muralized quotes were borrowed from Rosa Parks and George Bernard Shaw for the Ambassador site.

Rob't. Kennedy's Knowing Smile Shines at the Gateway to L.A.'s Best Investment in Decades: RFK Community Schools at the Ambassador Site

2011-07-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

a RoLA S e r i e s

Los Angeles' New Ambassadors
Six Schools on a Campus Like no Other

Thom Senzee, dwarfed by the shadow of RFK.

Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, slain brother of also-assasinated Pres. John F. Kennedy, understood that government is supposed to be the common ground where human beings meet solve problems, share costs for the big things civilizations need in order to survive and thrive, and to band together against enemies as they come and go.

❝ each time a man stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

❞

We hear so many throw-away assertions, nowadays, about how our government is the least of what makes the United States of America great and what makes this country's people so unique. It's a very popular and, dare I say, fashionable point of view. And so is has been for the past 30 or more years. That's all of my adult life.

The problem with the assumption that Americans have been and remain more free, more prosperous and more inventive than any other society in human history in spite of how we govern ourselves, is that it is absolutely wrong. In fact, that perspective represents the epitome of missing the forest for the trees. It is in fact our government's ability to be simultaneously run by those who decry its general "badness,"

Ask anyone from a country mired in endless civil wars, wretched poverty and hunger, sytemic corrutpion, violent oppression of women and minorities, institutional exploitation of certain classes if they believe the U.S. government with its strengths and weaknesses; its cost and size; or its very public vulnerabilities and shortcomings have anything to do with what makes ours the land toward which longing eyes point from lands with governments that are often (to borrow one of the revered business buzz phrases of all time) "lean and mean."

Business. Business' goal is to profit. Does anyone want a government looking to make a profit? I didn't think so. So, given that making money is not the reason we want our governments--federal, state and local--to exist; why do so many politicians keep acting like government should be run like a business? The gossimer-thin considerations that lead some to the misconception that the U.S. Congress should act as savvy board members of a Fortune 500 company and that the president of the United States should behave like the CEO of the same firm must have to start lickety-split ticking of exceptions to that philosophical model of government.

Take something as seemingly mundane as buildings for an example of what I mean: Run the government like a Fortune 500 company, and you'd expect training campuses, i.e., public schools, to gleam be gleaming, luxurious towers, like the shimmering edifices that house their corporate counterparts. Well? If you want to run a successful business, you've got to look the part, right? Can't have clients get the idea we're second rate. Who are the government's clients by the way? Taxpayers? Well, no. We're the investors, I believe. We don't want our own company selling us stuff; so, we're certainly not the customers...I digress.

Schools--public schools, that is, have mostly fallen into disrepair or at least just ugliness and bare-minimum upkeep during most of the past 25 years or so. Meanwhile, banks, public corporations, media megalopolies and private companies have continued to be the beneficiaries of generous investment in their own infrastructures in the form of state-of-the-art technology and impressive headquarters across the nation.

But, here in Los Angeles, there's a new story to be told about investment in public education, and perhaps surprisingly to some, the excitement among students that seems unmistakable to just about anyone who encounters students at any of the six schools of the Ambassador campus on Wilshire Blvd. , which sits on the site of, and uses some of the original construction of, the old Ambassador Hotel, where 1968 presidential candidate was shot dead. The place is a temple to optimism and youth--just as Bobbie would have wanted it.

Stay tuned as RoLA takes you to a the seat of public K-12 education's special new paradigm now open in the heart of the City of Angels.

-Thom Senzee

Treespotting

2011-07-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

Our recent post about Eccentrics and Eccentric Art in L.A. coming under greater scrutiny, and the photo of a blue-painted tree we published as an example of said eccentricities got us thinking and recalling that RoLA has snapped a you-know-what-load of weird, striking, and beautiful tree pics that were spotted across the city. So, for some light Friday pre-carmeggedon, relaxing, blog-reading enjoyment, here are a few, including another angle of the aforementioned blue tree.

eNJOY...

On the streets of Los Angeles, Beauty Comes in Many Forms, Including that of of a Classic...

2011-07-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Pontiac Firebird

In 1968 it was another quite respectable American muscle car.Today RoLA is humbled by the opportunity to share with you this exquisitely maintained example of beautiful arrogance in the form of industrial design, as could only have been expressed by Detroit during a certain moment in time...just before the realities of domestic excess and nascent globalization were to hit home during the decade following that of this 'Bird's creation.

(Photos by Thom Senzee)

This Firebird, with its illuminated-badge accents and chrome detailing, has conquered the barrier separating purpose from poetry; transportation from transcendence. Did her designers even ponder that their opus would, in another age, eclipse the drive for market share to become remarkable art that would be shared...by a stoic and contented custodian (for no one will really own her from here on), with me, a stranger with whom he sensed a common love of art on wheels...at an ARCO station in Hollywood, circa 2011.

✧✧✧

As the encounter among men and machines ended, my new Nissan showed deference, waiting to activate its garish technology, which might falsely outshine the lights of the graceful, elder beauty dressed in tested sheets of turquoise metal, affording her the exit she deserved. Yet unencumbered by navigation or Bluetooth, she required no handicapping. The aged Pontiac glided out of the station, onto the street with an elegant precision, which bespoke a technical prowess all her own.

✧✧✧

Now growling, her fleet rubber mitts grabbed the on-ramp to the Hollywood Freeway. That's how I came to snap a precious handful of ghostly images before the Turquoise 'Bird vanished one Saturday evening last spring...in the new century...in the new millennium, when kindred souls born in the old ones crossed paths.

✦

L.A.'s Eccentrics and their Art Facing Greater Scrutiny

2011-07-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

Endangered Off-beat Charm and Colorful Folk Art Defines L.A.

Like a not-ready-for-prime-time-at-Disneyland's Small World attraction attraction, or a rejected eighth-hole miniature golf course design, this blue tree, it's attendant lawn gnomes and a watchful blue owl atop its branches constitute a fixture in someone's idea of Shangri-La. Repulbic Of L.A. spotted this unusual assemblage lovingly appointed to the front yard of a corner-lot home in Los Angeles, near L.A. City College.

Perhaps the coolest aspect of this Dali-esque affair is the fact that it barely stands out amid the delightful (delightful--if you're in a similar mood that this blogger happened to be when charmed by the scene pictured above) hodgepodge of bungalow-style, mid-century, post-modern, contemporary, residential and commercial structures and the equally discordant intentional-aesthetic-meets-obvious-neglect atmosphere that define this and so many Los Angeles neighborhoods.

On the topic of L.A.'s oddest charmers, is the apparently imminent demolition by county bulldozers of Phonehenge West and the jailing last week of its 59-year-old builder, who refused the county's order to tear down the surprisingly "right-looking" buildings.

Kim Fahey, a retired phone-company technician, built an outlandish and playful world for his children and visitors to Lancaster to enjoy. In fact, there's a proper gift shop and regular tours at Phonehenge West. (We're not sure if there's a Phonehenge East.) The County of Los Angeles ordered him to tear down the permit-less buildings, and after years of battles in court, which Mr. Fahey seems to have lost, he's been incarcerated for not following those orders. Because of the inherent property and claimed constitutional rights issues, not to mention the great visuals, plus the David vs. Goliath theme of the story, Phonehenge West has captured national attention. Click here for a link to the Washington Times' reporting of the Fahey and the D.A., and here for an earlier piece by the Huffingtonpost

It's interesting to note that the current edition of the L.A. Weekly has a cover story about L.A. County's "War on Desert Rats" which the paper says is currently underway near Lancaster in the Antelope Valley. Here is a link to that story.

RoLA will keep the exact location of our whimsical creation secret. lest the city attorney tries to pull a (District Attorney) Steve Cooley on it.

HYWD BLVD; Not Times Square, but...

2011-07-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Evening Stroll Reveals Hollywood Renaissance Still Growing

Almost any weeknight on Hollywood Boulevard finds the stretch of road from Gower westward to La Brea pulsing with life. Each week, the sidewalks at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue are pounded by a sea of people the likes of which one would expect at Manhattan's Times Square.

Anyone who remembers the desolation and the nearly defunct nightlife of Hollywood Boulevard circa 1990, which consisted mostly of the homeless, runaways, and prostitutes should be amazed by all of this out-from-behind-the-steering-wheel foot traffic.

For now, the shoulder-to-shoulder quantity of pedestrian activity is concentrated at Hollywood and Highland, but it persists at least for two blocks in either direction of that landmark intersection (on both sides of the street, no less) most Thursday, and just about all Friday and Saturday nights.

Here are some pics RoLA took on a recent Thursday evening walk around Hollywood and Hghland with our trusty iPhone camera in hand:

Photos by Thom Senzee (c) Republic Of L.A.

Famed Surfer, Skateboarder Cahill's Passing Rekindles Memory of Summer of 1980

2011-07-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

DYING DAYS in DOGTOWN

Photos by Thom Senzee

It was just a few days ago that I watched the acclaimed indie film "Lords of Dogtown" for the first time. It's a fairly heavy telling of the story of mid-to-late 1970s skateboarding and surf culture in Southern California as told through the eyes of a motley crew of Venice Beach and south Santa Monica-area youth, who turned an industry and a sport on its head.

But it was more than just skating low, fast, and "vert" that made these young lords legends in the long run. It was the fact that they had, as it's been called in other sports, "heart." They needed a certain kind of wherewithal to survive simply because of the circumstances of their time and place. For the most part, they had nothing besides one another, skateboarding and surfing--which the late Chris Cahill, an original member of the group portrayed in Lords of Dogtown (though his character was downplayed in significance) said was always more important to him than skateboarding. To paraphrase, he said: we skated because we surfed; not the other way around.

In any event, skateboarding, surfing and surviving were orders of the day.

As one Cahill's contemporary's put it: "We almost all came from broken homes." Dogtown itself (Venice Beach and south Santa Monica) was a place where you didn't want to take very many steps forward without looking backward over your shoulder. Venice of the 1970s was, in a word, dangerous. It was, in another word, dirty.

The Z Boys (a professional skateboarding team that included one girl skater) got their name from the Zephyr Surf Shop on Main Street in south Santa Monica. Chris Cahill is said to have "talked his way" onto the team. At the 1975 Del Mar National Skateboarding Finals, the Z-Boys won first place with their never-before-seen, aggressive skating style. It's largely agreed that event marked the primordial beginnings of extreme sports. After Del Mar came the magazine interviews, sponsorship offers and endorsement (not to mention money).

From that moment on, Cahill and his fellow Z-Boys set surf and skate fashion, whether they meant to or not. For instance, they helped make Vans tennis shoes famous throughout Southern California. Basic dark-blue Vans were the foundation of their competition uniform. We're talking at least five years before the film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" made the sneakers famous nationally.

Chris Cahill was found dead at his L.A. home June 24. The cause of death has not been announced. Some who knew him say Cahill was battling cancer.

A personal memory about Chris Cahill:

My dad, little brother and I were homeless, living in a Ford Econoline Van in 1980. I was 12 and 13 during that period. It was the apex of surf-&-skate style in mainstream culture in the southwestern U.S., albeit a couple of years after it had been shaped and influenced by the Z Boys of Dogtown.

Although homeless, not really yet a teenager, and new to Southern California, I struggled to look the part by trying to get my dad to buy whatever O.P. or Qucksilver rags I could find at Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift stores that summer.

So much of our time living in the van was spent at the beach, where it was easier to stay clean (public showers, the ocean). Ironically, one of the dirtiest-looking neighborhoods in the city was where we often drove in order to remain hygenic.

I was familiar with the Z-Boys from skateboarding magazines. I knew what some of them looked like.

I like to believe a guy who stood up for my little brother and me while our drunken father roughly dumped a shampoo bottle and its contents onto our heads, lambasting us for being embarassed and ashamed about our obvious homelessness and use of the public showers as our family bathroom.

It was true; I was ashamed. And, I thought all of those "cool kids" laughing at us probably had really nice houses and moms and dads who doted on them. I only recently learned that guys like Chris Cahill were not the spoiled blond brats who had it made, as I had assumed.

I'll never forget the skinny, yellow-headed skater who kick-flipped his way through the little circle of youths gathered around our outdoor dysfunctional-family affair, during which Daddy downed a can of Bud, used his foot to kick Michael and me in the ass a couple of times each, and told us to soap up and be proud, because we had no right to be embarassed about him or about living in a van.

Then, there was this slight-looking young guy standing bravely between where I and my brother Michael stood and where my much larger and rather intimidating father stood, still ranting away.

The young man said something like this to my father:

"Lay off, man. Who do you think you are? Leave these guys alone, man. They're just kids."

Everyone watching us seemed to know him and acted deferential to the blond skater. They dispersed while muttering phrases toward my dad affirming the admonition of the guy I will always believe was Chris Cahill.

"Let the little dudes rinse off and kick it on the beach, man," were the last words he said before he slapped his board to the concrete and disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. I was sorry he was gone then; I'm sorry for he's gone now.

Postscript: My father got sober in a 12-step program and has remained so for more than 30 years.

One of L.A.'s Juiciest (& Most Forgotten) Stories of Mayhem & Malfeasance

2011-07-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

This Week Marks the Anniversary of a Bombshell of a Murder Occured in the City of Angels in 1982

Q: What do this classic 1970s blonde beauty, her murdereous gay roommate, the late founder of Bloomingdales, Larry Flynt, Grauman's Chinese Theater, as well as both Nancy and Pres. Ronald Reagan all have in common?

A: The Story of how a set of Videotapes Reportedly Depicting some of these Famous People Allegedly Participating in Depraved-Sex Orgies were 'Stolen' after the Murder of Vicki Morgan, the alleged mistress of the late Alfred Bloomingdale. Click here for the full story, not mention of the most amazing (however plain) website about the 1980s you'll ever encounter.

Radical Fungi in L.A.?

2011-06-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

After a little bit of research and cross-referencing of images and articles across a wide spectrum of major news outlets, life science publications, and at the university Web site of the original discoverers of a new branch of fungi, it seemed apparent that in the first three (vertical) photos here, Los Angeles was indeed being overtaken by the just discovered new phylum of fungi, and that the publiher of this blog, Republic Of L.A., had probably made the same discovery around the same time, or even earlier, than the researchers in Britain.

A phylum is the biological classification just below kingdom; kingdom is just two steps below the classification known as "life." (In other words, the discovery of this "new" fungi is momentus. The discovery was made in a pond at the University of Exeter in the U.K. by researchers there. It's called Cryptomycota, or hidden fungi, because the entire phylum has gone undetected for eons.

Had Republic Of L.A. found the Phylum First?
Here's what we almost posted:

It's noteworthy that Republic Of L.A.'s lens encountered the subject in the three small photos shown in this post at least three months before the Exeter scientists announced their discovery in the journal "Nature." We're contacting officials at the university's Biology Department with these images to see if they can give a likelihood of whether or not this specimen (shown from three different camera angles) may be a member of the dodgy fungi phylum. The photo was taken because the growth on this tree in Los Feliz just seemed extraordinary. (I heard about the discovery of a new type of fungus on NPR several weeks after taking these pics, then read about it on Huffingtonpost.com the same day. I had a hunch that maybe that was the explanation for that somewhat ominous looking beach ball-sized parasite I had s shot with my Droid camera a few months earlier. However, I didn't see any photos of Cryptomycota (aka, Rozellida) until today."

Odd though this fungus appeared in the eyes of this observer, there was a nagging feeling that something was not quite right with the image (bottom of post), purportedly a photograpgh of Cryptomycota, that Huffingtonpost and so many others displayed as an image of the hidden fungus when news of its discovery was announced. That image accompanied so much of the coverage of the the new fungi--online and elsewhere--and it so resembled the thing RoLA captured six months ago, that we wanted to believe our fungus and the image of the fungus others published were both the new fungus. But alas, it became too hard to ignore the nagging and a feeling that this thing was just too big to be a "crypto" anything. Who could miss it?

Not Cryptomycota:

The photo above that has been widely and erroneously presented as an image of Cryptomycota. In fact, the only photo Republic of L.A. could find of the new fungi is of its microscopic cells (click the link embedded in "only" above to see it).

As it turns out, the fungus Republic Of L.A. photographed appears only to be of a common variety known as (drum roll) "Orange Fungus." We still think it's special and weird.

Optical Illusion? Or Haunted House?

2011-06-21T13:11:00.000-07:00

M Y S T E R Y ?

This humble Spanish Mission cottage in Hancock Park (-adjacent) inexplicably grew a multi-story castle from its single-story roof.

Actually, the mansion is a graceful, early 20th-Century multi-family residential building one block west of this home near Vine St. and Melrose Ave.

The effect is even spookier with the "darken" special effect on my camera enabled.

M Y S T E R Y solved...

But it's no less magical that only in Los Angeles are all the elements for visual novelties with an air of mystery, or at least of mystique, so easy to stumble upon. I see them all the time. Hopefully, you like seeing them as much as I love sharing them on Republic Of L.A.

Hollywood's Border's Shutters with Hundreds Nationwide

2011-05-02T20:50:00.001-07:00

Ending what was a 1990s runaway success, quintessential of that era when big audacious (and unlikely) ventures were homerun hits with investors and consumers alike; Borders, is closing stores and filing Chapter 11.

Not even a high-volume landmark flagship store, such as the Borders at the glamorous, historic and lavishly renewed intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Vine Street in Hollywood is immune in.

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Tax Day? Tea Time!

2011-04-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

Anti-Obama, Anti-Medicare, Anti-Tax, Pro-Ryan, Tea Partying Angelenos' Day in the Sun?

What they lacked in numbers during tax season 2011, they made up for in zealousness

By Thom Senzee

WOODLAND HILLS (RoLA)--Patti Hutchens (far left, w/flag) came out in the late afternoon sun Saturday to a park in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of the City of L.A. and did something she's done every April 15 since 2009--wave the red-white-&-blue at passing cars to express her passion for what she believes America needs most: lower taxes.

"I like the Paul Ryan plan," Hutchens, 56 of Canoga Park, said.

Asked whether the part of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Minn.) plan to end Medicare as we know it today in favor of a system that would give seniors a voucher and marching orders to fend for themselves in the private health-insurance market bothered her or not, the self-proclaimed former liberal aanswered in with a definite "no."

"I don't think [ending Medicare] is a problem," she said. "They can just go to Kaiser."

Hutchens and many of her fellow Tea partiers seem to believe seniors will find few if any barriers to obtaining health care from a largely for-profit private system, despite the fact that politicians and business leaders from both parties have long decried as dysfunctional and inaccessable to at least 40 million people in this country.

But on one defining aspect of the Ryan plan, Hutchens seemed confused. Republic Of L.A. asked her if she really believed an 80- or 90-year-old with pre-existing conditions (is there such a thing as a 90-year-old without pre-existing conditions?) would be able to find coverage with an $8,000 government voucher. That amount that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would be the average value of a voucher for a person aged 65.

"I think it's $12,000," she said. "I think Kaiser would insure someone like that for $12,000."

In fact, according to the non-partisan CBO, the cost for coverage of the kind now enjoyed by all seniors who receive medicare would cost, at minimum, $16,000 on the open market. The Paul Ryan voucher system would allow the average 65-year-old $8,000. The individual would have to come up with the other $8,000 on her own--assuming she could find an company that would accept her (keeping in mind that Republican plans also include repealing Pres. Obama's Affordable Care Act, and returning the nation to a system that allows for denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions).

Yet Tea Party "patriots" such as Hutchens, are confident that not only will insurance companies welcome 65-year-olds with pre-exisint conditions, they'll also roll out the red carpet for 85- and 95-year-olds too.

L.A.'s Overlooked Overlooks

2011-04-12T03:40:00.001-07:00

We drive by, walk past and stumble upon some of the most spectacular vistas you could ask for each and every day in this town without ever noticing. Here's one that caught my eye recently. Photo taken from the rooftop parking lot of the Pavilions grocery store in West Hollywood last Saturday afternoon. The challenge for we Angelenos is finding a few minutes to stop and breathe in this storied land. But the payoff is nealy always worth the effort. Slow down once a day and realize how lucky we really are here.

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Green Irony

2011-04-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

GOT GREEN?
I was walking back home from the gym on Sunset (Arclight 24-Hour Fitness). Across from Amoeba, there iT was: somebody's dead-tree flier advertising something in an apparently greenwashing manner (greenwashing, of course, means falsley coloring your ad campaign, corporate image, etc...in the colors of an enviornmentally friendly entity).

"OMG, Thom; give these folks a break! It's a friggin' flier...shit happens. The wind probably blew it off of a telephone pole or a bulletin board. Maybe some jerk tore it off and threw it on the ground. This is probably a flier from a cool non-profit, or a small business. Whoever it belongs to is just trying to make a living in the Great Recession!" you say.

Okay, but zoom in a little. See? It's masking-taped to the sidewalk, for crikey's sake."

Pundit Declares Senate Minority Leader a Political Street Fighter: RoLA Disagrees

2010-11-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

Tough Guy?

Last night on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," the host described Mitch McConnell as "tough." Correction: Senate Minority Leader (and he'll still be the minority leader after the new congress is sworn in, as Democrats kept their majority in the senate Tuesday) Mitch McConnell (R.-Kentucky) is not tough.

There's a difference between tough and mean. You can easily impose your will in the United States Senate simply by folding your arms and saying "No! I vote we DON'T vote on it." and thus, because of the rule requiring 60 or more votes to override your filibuster, stopping anything and everything in the form of legislation that comes down pike. McConnell led his party to just say no (or use the threat of filibuster) to stall or kill several pieces of legislation that arguably help middle-class families and individuals (take extending unemployment benefits and assistance for those paying for COBRA health-care coverage).

Mitch McConnell is like the kid who owns the soccer ball and doesn't like the way the game is going. He snatches the ball up, puts it under his arm and takes it home so no one gets to play. That doesn't make him a tough guy, or even a bully. Mitch McConnel is just a brat.

Obama Channels 'W.' on Daily Show

2010-10-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

HECK OF A JOB SUMMY?

click here for clip

Giving props to top economic advisor and Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, Pres. Barack Obama, appearing on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with John Stewart" conjured memories of George W. Bush, whose comments on camera during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina included a pat on the back for then FEMA director, Michael D. Brown followed by the now-notorious compliment: "You're doin' a heck of a job, Brownie."

That, of course, led to a nickname that will stick with Mr. Brown for the rest of his life. From Nantucket, to Nome, he's still referred to as Heck-of-a-job-Brownie--the tragic irony being that he was waxing conceitedly about his telegenic looks while elderly women died in the streets of New Orleans.

Shall we now call Larry Summers, Heck-of-a-job-Summy?

If you Love NPR Help Save it from a Full-Blown Attack by Sean Hannity and the other Nazis at Fox News NOW!

2010-10-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH

Fox News Channel Sets its Sites on

Destroying NPR in Coming Days

NPR Has fired ever-crazier Juan Williams after Williams, a once-actual journalist, now a Fox news analyst and former NPR analyst, decided to proclaim that Muslims on airplanes scare the shit out of him while he waxed bigotedly while appearing on, you guessed it, Fox News Channel.

First, how stupid do you have to be to not be able to guess that the next time someone tries to bomb an airplane or execute some other horrible terrorist act, they're NOT going to "look Muslim?"

NPR is kind of old-fashioned about its reporting, its reporters, and its other journalist employees. You see, technically-scratch that-actually, you're not supposed to know if a reporter at a traditional news organization hates or loves babies, or hates or loves Muslims, or hates liberals, or conservatives or can't stand broccoli.

Really? Yes, really. A blog is different. It's not traditional. It's a bastard child of a perverse universe in which the wrongdoing right gets to act righteous and indignant while a left-lurching liberal like me gets to do the same online because there's so much frigging noise on the cable networks and the radio stations of America that all the gloves have come off and no one really does news any more!!! Except NPR.

Okay, there are a few others--but only a few. But, just about everyone who actually listens to NPR says the network is fair.

Now, because it doesn't allow its journalists to go around spewing forth lists of a few of their least-favoritist things, and has fired one for doing just that, the only major power on the side of obective news-gathering and reporting will be battling to survive in tact as that bastion of objectivity, which people who just want to know the facts and figure out their own opinion about an issue or an event after hearing the facts, so desperately need.

Fox will be trying to rally support to pull all of NPR's federal funding. They'll be surprised by, and won't share, the fact that NPR only gets two percent of its funding directly from the federal government. This ain't your grandfather's public radio.

So come on all of you smart people, call NPR, email NPR, Tweet NPR, Friend Request NPR, Become a Facebook Fan or Myspace Fan of NPR right now! And just give the editorial team, the management team and the ombudsperson's office the good word that you stand by their decision to can Juan Williams for basically making himself useless to a news organizaiton that requires objectivity in order to maintain credibility in its reportage. So far the right-wing whiners have been louder than you and me.

How could Williams ever do analysis objectively on anything terrorism- or Muslim-related and be considered objective? How, I ask, could he be considered a fair source about those issues after saying people who look Muslim are spooky when he sees them on airplanes? He may think that. You may think that; I may think that. But we don't work for NPR. Part of his job is to keep Juan Williams out of the story, unless it's a story about Juan Williams (in which case, he should recuse himself from the story).

Now the story is about him, and about Fox news, because not only have they started screaming and whining that NPR is mean, and liberal and spooky and mean and snobby and liberal and mean, it's also just given Juan Williams $2 million and a three-year contract. So there! Mean old liberal-pants NPR. Nanner-nanner na.

By the way, you don't hear Fox News complaining that NPR, last week, banned its reporters from attending as participants upcoming liberal events, such as Stephen Colbert's and John Stewart's "Restoring Sanity" event in Washington D.C.

No, you won't hear Fox point that out at all, because it would disprove the lie that Williams was fired because he's become a regular-old Fox News right-wing whack-job. That would prove that NPR expects all editorial staff, liberal or conservative, to keep their personal beliefs to themselves.

Here's how to Tweet regarding NPR (click me)

Here's where to send snail mail: NPR, 635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001

Here's where to call by phone: NPR Listener Care (202) 513-3232, Hours: 10am to 5 pm ET, Monday through Friday

Click here to email.

You know how to friend and fan request on Facebook, I'm sure. If not, just email!

Ask God Why You Did It: Clarence Thomas' Wife to Anita Hill

2010-10-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

"Who has put a pubic hair on my coke?"

Those were the words that echoed through the halls of congress in 1991 during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing. Justice Thomas confirmation was contested by a former employee named Anita Hill. Now a Brandeis University professor, Hill accused Thomas of having been a chronic harasser of the sexual variety when she served under him as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But, as descriptions of a multi-behavioral pattern of inpropriety emerged from multiple witnesses, it was Ms. Hill's retelling of a situation where then Director Thomas allegedly proclaimed to an office full of women that someone had intentionally deposited a pubic hair upon the surface of the can of Coca-Cola he was enjoying.

So weird.

But now, even more weirdly, Thomas's wife, Virginia "Ginny" Thomas, has "reached across the airwaves and the years to implore Professor Hill to become chaste regarding her now nearly 20-year-old testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, recant it, apologize for it and ask her maker what made her do it.

ABC News has reported the content of a voicemail left to Prof. Hill by Mrs. Thomas as: “Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” she said, according to ABC News. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Anita Hill has not yet made a public statement (it would really suck to typo the sixth word in the preceding phrase as I almost did by leaving out the letter "L"), but has apparently found it of enough concern regarding her own safety and wellbeing that she reported campus security at Brandeis, where the voicemail was left by the supreme court justice's wife. In turn, the university has turned it over to the FBI.

It's worth noting that Mrs. Thomas is a conserviative activist with ties to the Tea Party Movement. That may be what has scared Prof. Hill most, given the history of the Tea Party and the issue of racism among some of its ranks. Professor Hill is African American.

Ft. Worth Council Members Breaks Down in Chambers. Something Every Man, Woman & Child in America Should See

2010-10-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Finally, something good out of Texas.

Fraud Scheme Exposed

2010-09-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

DMV Employee Jailed for Peddling Drivers Licenses
Charged $500 a pop to unqualified drivers

California Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown has secured jail terms for a former DMV employee and two associates for "jeopardizing the safety of thousands" by running a scam in which unlicensed drivers paid up to $500 to acquire a phony driver's license without taking a DMV driving test.

"This trio of characters allowed wannabe drivers to acquire a California driver's license without passing a single driving test," Brown said, "thereby jeopardizing the safety of thousands of Californians by putting ill-prepared drivers on our roads and highways."

Former DMV employee Rodney Wheatly, 46, of Fairfield and his two co-conspirators, Donald McGowan, 55, and Maricar Bazemore, 37, both of Vacaville, all entered no contest pleas to a single felony charge of unlawful access to a computer system (PC 502(c)).

Wheatly was sentenced to one year in Sacramento County Jail, and the other two defendants were sentenced to six months. Their prosecution was handled by Brown's office following a DMV undercover investigation. Investigators believe the trio issued about 20 fraudulent driver's licenses, but they were unable to confirm a precise number.

The investigation was initiated in late 2009 after a concerned citizen called DMV's Office of Internal Affairs to report a scheme involving the illegal sale of California driver licenses at a Napa DMV field office.

DMV investigators set up an undercover operation in which one of the agents posed as an unlicensed driver with a record of failed driving test attempts. The agent made initial contact with Bazemore over the phone and claimed to be a friend of a friend with an interest in purchasing a license. Bazemore agreed to meet the agent at a Taco Bell in Vacaville, adjacent to the senior citizens' home where she worked, and told the agent to bring $500 for the license.

At the Taco Bell, the agent and another undercover investigator posing as her boyfriend met with Bazemore and McGowan, who was introduced as the best friend of Wheatly, the DMV employee. Bazemore and McGowan instructed the undercover agents to drive to the Napa DMV field office where Wheatly would process the driver's license.

Before entering the Napa DMV field office, the agent paid McGowan $300. Inside, Bazemore instructed the agent to complete an application for a driver's license and directed her to Wheatly's window where she was told her driver's license would be mailed to her.

Upon leaving, the agent requested that Bazemore and McGowan provide her with a temporary driver's license before she paid them the remaining $200. They agreed, and the exchange was made the following week at the same Taco Bell in Vacaville.

Did You Know California Law Forbade Suing Adults who Supplied Booze to a Drunk-driving Minor who Killed your Kid?

2010-08-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

...That's About to End

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed a measure that will end that prohibition.

The governor signed AB 2486, written by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) after the measure – jointly sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – sailed through both houses of the Legislature with virtually no opposition.

Although it is illegal to supply alcohol to a minor under state law, California is one of just three states that prohibit a civil recourse even in cases that end with teen deaths. By ending that restriction, AB 2486 seeks to boost responsible behavior and deter adults from providing alcohol to minors. Entitled the Teen Alcohol Safety Act of 2010, the measure will allow a civil action to be brought against an adult “social host” who spawns tragedy by providing alcohol to underage teens.

A lawyers' group co-sponsored the measure along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

“We’re very grateful for the governor’s signature and support,” said Christopher B. Dolan, Consumer Attorneys of California president. “As we’ve said all along, this effort is about saving young lives. We hope that by strengthening the legal consequences, adults will think twice before providing alcohol to teens.”

Not that it negates Mr. Dolan's or any of his organization's 3,000 attorney members, of course, AB2486 will provide much new work for members of CAOC and many other attorneys.

California has seen a surge in recent years of teens hospitalized or even killed after engaging in binge drinking. Some cases involved parents or other adults knowingly providing alcohol to teens.

The bill was inspired by the tragic death of Shelby Allen, a 17-year-old from Redding, Calif., who died of alcohol poisoning in December 2008 at a friend’s home with the parents present.

When efforts to seek criminal prosecution failed, Shelby’s parents attempted to pursue answers through the civil courts only to be rebuffed by California’s barrier against such lawsuits. An attorney for her parents brought that restriction to the attention of CAOC, which enlisted MADD California in supporting the bill.

Under AB 2486, the families of a minor injured or killed by alcohol would still need to prove in court the elements of negligence – that an adult breached their responsibility to uphold the law and knowingly provided alcohol. Because of the measure’s limited scope, its greatest impact would be to act as further deterrence to help keep parents from promoting behavior that runs counter to common sense and criminal law.

Prang Warns West Hollywood Residents, Beware: 'Scam' Petition would Put Billboards Everywhere

2010-08-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

This from Councilman Jeffrey Prang:

VOTER ALERT - you may be asked by paid petition signature gathers, either at you home, or at grocery stores and other businesses, to sign a petiton alleging to lower your taxes and to impose a new tax on billboards in West Hollywood. THIS IS A SCAM. It is an initiative paid for by an aggressive billboard company in an effort to open all of West Hollywood to billboards and tall walls. Currently, West Hollywood only allows outdoor advertising on Sunset. Other advertising in the city is "grandfathered," as it was there before the laws were imposed - but new advertising is not allowed off Sunset Bl.

The proposed tax on billboards is legally questionable, moreover, the city recently adopted a new law to generate fees from billboards and tall walls. This initiative is not about taxing billboards; its about allowing even more to proliferate in our neighborhoods. I urge you, please DO NOT SIGN the petition.

Scanty List of Auditors Disciplined in the Years Since Enron Inspired New Rules for Accounting (LINK)

2010-08-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Cloaked Disciplinary Hearings for Accounting Auditors

May Break Open to Media, Public

Once hailed as the legislation that was supposed to expose creative-accounting misdoings to the disinfectant powers of daylight, Sarbanes-Oxley (sometimes shortened to "SOX" or "SarbOx"), has had some pretty outstanding holes in it, which have gone relatively unnoticed for almost a decade.

One of the most negligent of those "oversights" is the SarbOx language that--pun intended,--keeps oversight proceedings--proceedings meant to ensure honesty and accuracy in the accounting offices of America's publicly traded corporations--cloaked in secrecy.

However, changes may soon come that would put a public eye on auditors whose conduct is under examination by the congressionally appointed board whose job it is to ferret out wrongdoing on behalf of shareholders and anyone who has an interest in honest accounting.

This from a press release sent to journalists today by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board:

Under current law, firms and auditors litigating with the PCAOB have little incentive to consent to public proceedings and can prevent proceedings from becoming public for long after the information would be most relevant to investors, other auditors, and interested parties.

“No other auditor, investor, audit committee, or member of the media is entitled to know what the PCAOB considers to merit discipline, whom it has charged, what issues are being litigated, or whether the PCAOB staff has prevailed or not,” said Acting Chairman [Daniel L.] Goelzer. “The public is in the dark about how the Board uses its enforcement authority until there is a settlement or an SEC decision on the Board’s sanctions.”

PCAOB's Daniel Goelzer has assigned to his staff the task of writing new language to present to congress, which would allow disciplinary hearings to be open to the press and the public without consent of all parties, and without needing extraordinary merit for public scrutiny to be allowed, as is now the case.

Debut Orchestra Goes All-out in Final Concert of the Season: At the Broad Stage in Santa Monica

2010-04-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

“I find it fitting that the YMF Debut Orchestra is concluding its 55^th season with a program entitled "Revolutionary Voices," Maestro Case Scaglione said. “Classical music's course has always been driven by composers who have had the courage to push the envelope and think outside the box. YMF has always searched for and supported these composers. From the time of Igor Stravinsky all the way to Charlie Fox today, YMF has carried on this tradition proudly. In addition to a world premiere by Mr. Fox we will also perform the music of Weber, Pärt, Michael Daugherty, and Beethoven.”

According to Scaglione, the pieces chosen for the April 17 concert are insignia of their respective eras.

“Each one of these pieces employs a compositional technique that was bold and fresh for the time. Michael Daugherty's Red Cape tango from 1994 brings the comic book character Superman to life while Beethoven throws us even deeper into the jowls of romanticism with his wonderfully evocative 5th symphony,” he said. “And all of this performed by the world-class Debut Orchestra. It is going to be a musical event to behold.”

The five dramatic musical pieces are considered cutting edge examples of their times. The concert will begin with Weber’s Der Freischütz, considered to be the first important German Romantic opera. Festina Lente by Pärt brings drama to the recounting of the beginning of the Christian era with violas, violins and bass all play in harmony at varying tempos. Fox will premiere his Arabesque For Orchestra. Daugherty's Red Cape Tango ties American pop culture directly into the classical arena. It is the final movement of his Metropolis Symphony, a work inspired by the life and times of the comic book character Superman. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, is one of the most popular and often played symphonies. It is considered groundbreaking both in terms of its technical and emotional impact.

For more information visit the Young Musicians Foundation’s website at www.ymf.org or call 310-859-7668.

Founded in 1955, Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) is devoted to preserving the classical music heritage by providing performance opportunities; financial assistance and community outreach programming that contributes to the personal, academic and artistic development of youth from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. YMF is committed to the belief that music unifies a community and is a universal language. It is to this end that YMF strives to keep classical music alive.

The Debut Orchestra Performing Brahms for High School Students in Hollywood, Audience at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica

2010-03-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

The Young Musicians Foundation, The Legacy Continues

C U L T U R A L W A R F A R E!

A Fiery Roundtable
A Brilliant Concert

The Young Musicians Foundation and its Debut Orchestra, led by music director and conductor, Maestro Case Scaglione, present “Cultural Warfare,” a concert performance and what promises to be a lively roundtable dialogue. The Debut Orchestra’s first performance takes place Sunday, March 14 at the Broad Stage, 1310 11th Street, Santa Monica, 4:00 p.m. This will be followed by a performance on Monday, March 15 at Hollywood’s Helen Bernstein High School, 1309 N Wilton Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028 at 1:30 p.m.

As part of its Outreach Concert Series the Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) along with its world-famous Debut Orchestra, has set out to revolutionize the way music is presented to young people by bringing together classical scores and an interactive presentation that includes provocative visuals and spirited conversations about pop culture, art, and current events, infused with music history and appreciation, literature.

To provide more than just an extraordinary listening experience, Maestro Scaglione and YMF Artistic Administrator Dr. Mieko Di Sano will use innovative slides, videos, and music examples to get across the imagery. Students will discuss how the current societal norms compare to the events and culture that produced pieces like Pärt’s Fratres for Violin & Strings in the late 20^th century (Sunday) and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor in the late 19^th century (Monday).

- -

“We have a moral obligation as classical musicians in the modern era to bring our splendid art form to tomorrow's generation,” said Maestro Scaglione. “If the young people in our cities and towns are not tirelessly sought out we cannot expect them to understand the magnitude and importance of what we do. I can think of no better introduction to Western Art Music than an open, interactive discussion with the youth of Los Angeles. This will be a wonderful opportunity not only for our young audience
as a learning experience, but for us to rediscover why we fell in love with classical music to start with.”

The concert series is underwritten with generous funding from State Farm Insurance, and partners with Teach for America.

YMF’s concerts not only prepare young players for their life as professional musicians, but also allow YMF to bring great music to the people of Southern California for free. With the generosity of corporate underwriting, YMF continues to expand that tradition so that every child, regardless of race or socio-economic standing, can be taken to those magical places visited only through great music.

For more information visit the Young Musicians Foundation’s website at www.ymf.org or call 310-859-7668.

What Gets Young People Excited These Days?

2010-03-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

It's not drugs. It's not rebellion.
And, it's not necessarily shoes, but...

For many, it's something small, something personal that connects them to their peers, their heroes and their world. I love this generation. Here's an example of what I mean: Click the play arrow and learn about the youth of today from a minor, yet emblematic moment in time as Brian DeWolf, our researcher at the Business Journal, opens a pair of reissued retro Air Pennys.

Brian sent me an email after he agreed to let me blog the impromptu video I took at the office...(I think the kids are alright.)

"Hey Thom, at the risk of being obnoxious, here’s more on the shoes.

The ones I just got…

These were the three colorways that came out in 1996 for Penny Hardaway when he was playing for the Orlando Magic.

Hardaway ended his career on the Miami Heat, so these are the shoes in Heat colors. Interestingly, he retired before these shoes came out so he never wore them in a game.

These are some more special edition colorways.

The Air Penny line has about 4 or 5 different shoe models, and they just came out with the ones below about a month ago. The idea with

these is that they’re pulling elements from each shoe in the series and putting them into one shoe.

How's This for Government Intrusion Into Healthcare: Undercover Officers Posing as Patients to Expose Fraud by Doctors & Nurses

2010-03-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

Conservative and Republican politicians have so many labels to choose from. They can be Blue Dogs, RhINOs (Republican in Name Only)...& Now,
the Hippo:

Republican Senator Exposes Himself as Complete Hypocrite.

Today's New York Times Health section's lead story is about how Sen. Tom Coburn (R. Okla.), who is himself an M.D., proposes to establish a network of undercover government agents to lay in hospital beds across the country to expose waste and fraud. This guy is one of the vocal Repubs. who have been fear mongering about Obama's government takeover of health. All the president wants to do is consolidate the buying power of uninsured Americans. Sen. Coburn wants to put agents in hospital rooms to spy on providers. Click on the photo or here for the full NYT story.

Health Care Reform Calculator
Also, if you want to know EXACTLY how the three health care reform proposals might effect you or you and your family, the California-based Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has a dynamic calculator here.

City of L.A. to Grade Banks it Invests Through

2010-03-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Alarcón's Report Card Proposal Moves Closer to Becoming Law

Richard Alarcón's proposed ordinance requiring financial institutions to submit local investment “report cards” about how socially responsible and committed to the local economy they are has been drafted and is one step close to becoming law. The ordinance is to be presented to the City Council within 45 days.

Currently, the City of Los Angeles has nearly $30 billion in investments, including savings and pension funds.

A source close to the councilman's recently confirmed to RepublicOfL.A. that he has had conversations with Arianna Huffington about her online newspaper, The Huffington Post's so-called "Move Your Money" campaign, encouraging people and institutions to abandon large banks in favor of smaller, community banks and credit unions.

However, the source made clear that Councilman Alarcón's proposed investment report card law is not an outgrowth of that movement.

“The City of Los Angeles has an obligation to ensure that not only are our taxpayers dollars spent properly, but that they are also invested in a way that gives the greatest benefit to our City, and the report card created by the Responsible Banking Initiative will give us the information we need so we can invest smarter,” said Councilman Alarcón.

The councilman said even better interest rates are not enough for the city give business to institutions that under serve the community.

"A slightly lower interest rate isn’t much of a deal, if the same bank is taking advantage of homeowners, refusing to issue small business loans or not opening branches or ATMs in low-income areas.”

Alarcón was joined by colleagues on the council who share the belief that the city's investment portfolio should be placed with financial firms that demonstrate a commitment to the city's residents and businesses.

“...This ordinance will put the City in a position to have a more meaningful relationship and ensure the banking industry is a partner in not only the investment aspect, but also the community benefit," said Councilman Bernard Parks.

Alarcón will be presenting the Responsible Banking Initiative to leaders of other cities during next week’s National League of Cities meeting.

Interestingly, a statement issued by Alarcón's office referenced the use of a "national model to promote investment in banks that are operating in a socially responsible manner, including investing back into local communities and providing much needed services to residents, especially those in lower-income areas."

As mentioned, there is a national movement afoot already: Huffington's "Move Your Money" campaign, which state legislators in New Mexico have attempted to do in recent weeks. It looks like L.A. is next.

While Los Angeles would be the biggest City to create comprehensive reporting requirements for banks wanting to do business with the City, it is not without precedent. In 2006, the Philadelphia City Council unanimously approved a law requiring all banks that do business with the City fill out a Statement of Community Reinvestment Goals within Philadelphia. This year, five states have introduced bills to look at how State deposits can be used to ensure reinvestment within their State.

Tonight: Baby Boomers Getting the Once Over on CNBC by Brokaw

2010-03-04T02:19:00.000-08:00

...But, Will Boomers be Told the Truth About what They've Done for a Change?

Tom Brokaw's greatest contribution to the American mediascape may not be his role as an anchor on NBC; it may be his coining of the phrase "The Greatest Generation" to describe the once-young Americans who fought and won World War II. However, his treatment of another generation tonight on CNBC via a new documentary called "Boomers" derived from his book of a similar name, heaps another overdose of attention upon the already majorly overexposed Baby Boom generation. This time it's about how they're "facing aging" in these most challenging of economic times in, well, a generation."

A side note to our valued Baby Boomer readers: Forget about aging; you're aged! Well-aged. Old. There. You're old. Sorry; it's just a fact. You've been old for a few years now.

Bland Book

Brokaw's book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, which was released in 2007, was described that year, by USA Today's Michael Minzesheimer as bland and better at descriptions than analysis. If the same turns out to be true for the documentary, he will have missed an opportunity to hold up a mirror to Boomers and ask them if they can see that what they did in the 1960s has not defined our world; it's what they did after the sixties that gave us the planet we walk today. In the 1980s the sold a nation the idea that greed was good. In the 1990s the fine-tuned that message by turning everything that wasn't bolted down over to corporate America. Rather than the more tangential message "Greed is Good," the mantra of the nineties gave us instructions. It was "Privatize! Outsource! Contract it out!"

Cheaters

A public school teacher recently told me a set of parents, whose daughter had been caught cheating on a final, protested the disciplinary action the school had decided to take by saying, "Come on, everybody cheats a little." The parents were likely Gen-Xers--my demographic--rather than Boomers.

I don't buy it. Not everybody cheats. But, that's the legacy of the Baby Boomer Generation.
Cheating is taking advantage of the trust of others. The others of whom the Boomers have taken advantage are the generations to come.

The Space Program as an Example

Their parents' generation gave Boomers the advantage of a highly accessible higher education system, the crown jewels of whose public university component may have been California's U.C. and CSU systems. But Boomers have decided to begin dismantling is in order to minimize their own pain as they continue aging. It's just too expensive now, they say. And yes, look at the ages of the politicians, administrators, corporate leaders, and even the largest demographic segment of taxpayers driving the deconstruction of nation's largest public university systems. They're boomers. Boomers represent about 25 percent of the U.S. population, weighing in at about 80,000,000 people, according to the U.S. Census.

To be sure, they've done great things. They've vastly improved race relations and increased human communication with technology and openness.

But, they dropped the ball or actually kicked it over the fence and onto the freeway (and in some cases told other generations to go get it), when it came to the economy, infrastructure, the environment, and the family unit.

Boomers have totally gutted U.S. manned space exploration. Think about what their parents did. They went to the moon--multiple times. We couldn't do that today if we wanted to. Think about where we find ourselves today in space: the shuttles are retiring; we're going to have to use the Russians rockets in order to get to the space station until the return to 1960s space-capsule technology is made real. Yes, that is the plan).

Kidding

Unfortunately, there are so many ways to point to the Boomers as being responsible for so much that is wrong with America today. It's sad. So, if Mr. Brokaw (aged 70, and not a Boomer) expects the youth of today to buy another sales pitch of the Baby Boom generation as being anything but a net failure, he's kidding himself and the Boomers too.

Mad as Hell: Los Angeles City Government Could Move Investments out of Large Banks

2010-03-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

Chase, Other Bigs Fear Losing City's Multi-billion-dollar Portfolio

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcón recently ordered the city's legislative analyst to create a points system for grading the social responsibility of financial institutions that want to handle the city’s investment portfolio.

But Councilman Alarcón didn't stop there. He also said the city should, as Arianna Huffington has said both on her online newspaper, "The Huffington Post" and on network television, "Move Your Money." The "Your" in this case means the taxpayers of the City of Angels. The move would, presumably, be from big banks such as BofA and Chase to smaller community banks and perhaps even credit unions.
Alarcón proposed that the city create a “report card” to evaluate the number of small business loans provided, evidence of working with homeowners facing foreclosure, the number and location of branches and ATMs and the use of federal TARP funds.

“During these times of the financial meltdown and the federal bailout of big banks, it is more important than ever that we ensure that our money is being invested in institutions that are investing back in our community—not those that are taking advantage of our residents and ripping off their clients,” said Alarcón, whose district is in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley.

“Creating investment criteria will help us ensure the city is investing taxpayer money responsibly and making the most out of our multi-billion dollar portfolio.”
After a hearing on the city’s investment practices, Alarcón, who is chairman of the Jobs and Business Development Committee, led a contingent of union members, staff, members of the public, and media to the downtown offices of Chase Bank. Inside the bank’s lobby, the group delivered a letter demanding the bank act more responsively to the needs of the community.

Pictured above: L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcón (second from left) and an unnamed woman ask a bank employee at Chase Bank near City Hall to help get a letter of demands to Chase's Wall Street headquarters.

Below: A draft of the councilman's proposed report card for banks who want to handle L.A.'s investments:

2010-03-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

Friday Film & Fold With Mom & Thom

...has been delayed so that we can perfect the feature.
Stay tuned; it will be worth the wait.

-Thom Senzee

Physical Therapists March on Anthem Blue Cross Headquarters

2010-02-25T01:14:00.000-08:00

Insurer Threatens to Slash Payments to Therapists by 30 Percent,
While Raising Rates by 40 Percent

But you've got to feel sorry for these poor health insurance companies. The parent company of this one only made $4 billion dollars last year. Times are tough.

"They'd never think of doing this to doctors; guess they think we're easy targets." --Demonstrator
Click the Play Button (arrow) Below to Watch RoLA's On-the-spot Coverage

Funday-Monday: Random Scenes from the Mean (and sometimes, just plain crazy) Streets of Los Angeles

2010-02-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

An SUV Driver Took a Sharp Right--Right into an Edible Arrangements Store on Fountain Avenue & La Brea Boulevard in West Hollywood Recently

And guess who just happened to be driving by--with my camera?
(I swear I don't stage this stuff.)

Scientology Protest

2010-02-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

A local photographer who was allegedly intimidated by Scientology officials at his home after shooting pics at a previous demonstration, recently joined protesters as they marched up and down Hollywood Blvd. The motley crew of demonstrators stopped at each of the controversial church's many buildings along that storied thoroughfare.

Here's what RoLA caught via our Droid cam.

Young Designer, Alexander McQueen's Biggest Fan Shares a Poignant Moment Before Midnight Outside Fallen Designer's Melrose Store (Low Light)

2010-02-17T23:39:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Night Vigil:

Fashion Designer, K. Aguirre

Let's Call it a Comeback...

2010-01-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

Republic of L.A. will be back online Tuesday, January 26. And RoLA has some new stuff coming that will be exciting to those we love and those who love us.

Obama, McCaine: More F22s Unneeded (Cuts to Thousands of Jobs in California)

2009-07-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

Say Goodbye, L.A., to a Big Jobs Program...and a Really Bad-Ass Airplane

Sorry, I guess even a gay leftie still has an inner ten-year-old who loves cool jet fighters. Just look at it! I want one. Well, between the Air Force and the Navy, the U.S. military is getting 187 of them anyway. Truth be told, many experts believe the F-22 Raptor is a weapon in search of a mission, as it was designed to combat a never-built, advanced Soviet fighter.

The local angle is jobs. In California, contractors--the lead of which is Lockheed-Martin--claim 19,500 jobs will be lost as a result of the recent vote to ix-nay the ane-play. About 6,500 of those are workers working directly on the contract to supply the military with the ultra-fast, ultra-stealthy war birds. Another 13,000 in supporting jobs will be lost, they say. The job losses will begin to materialize this year, as the program winds down, with the bulk of pink slips to be issued next year when it ends altogether.

Award-winning blogger and former L.A. Times columnist Robert Scheer calls Obama and McCaine brave for not supporting the military-industrial complex's biggest pet project, noting that while some in congress were ready to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to keep the F-22 Raptor contract flying, there was no one on earth who could find $50 million to keep L.A.'s summer school sessions alive.

Yay! Everyone's Favorite ROLA Topic: Parking in WeHo!

2009-07-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

Typical? An electrical sign flashes a warning about construction, while taking up a precious parking stall in West Hollywood one recent weekend. At the same time, there was ample space near a driveway a few feet away that was neither parking, nor firelane. Wah-wah.

Republic of L.A. has waited two weeks for the City of West Hollywood to respond to our questions about the elimination of a few dozen parking spaces in an alley off of Melrose Avenue, and more than 100 others inside of West Hollywood park for construction and "safety reasons," and their replacement with $10 valet-only spots. The old spots were free between 6-10 p.m. Well, it turns out that Jake Stevens has gone to Washington for a new job. We wish him well.

Stevens was deputy for Councilmember Jeffrey Prang. He had been getting answers about the parking problems at West Hollywood park--an area that served as the only parking solution for many restaurant, bar, coffee house and 12-step meeting goers in the heart of the nation's most creative city--for Republic of L.A. since the issue first arised. His replacement, Mike Haibach is now looking into the issue. But, instead of making you wait any longer for the information Republic of L.A. has been promising to bring you, we've decided to keep you in the loop as we investigate. That said; here is the text of an email we sent to Haibach today. We'll let you know what the response is as soon as it comes:

Hi Mike,

It was nice speaking to you this afternoon.  BTW, do you have contact information for Jake Stevens?  I'd like to congratulate him on his new job. 

Below are emails between Jake and I.  As you can see, Jake addressed the concerns about lost parking and the dubious manner in which the changes had been executed, even offering to review the citations that may have been erroneously issued during the transition.  However, he did not mention--and regrettably, I did not ask about costs--that the free (between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.) spaces had  been replaced by $10 valet-only spots. 

That's a big deal.  I have interviewed people for an upcoming piece who have given up on going to their A.A., Crystal Meth Anonymous and other 12-step meetings because they were so frustrated by the lack of parking that has resulted from the recent changes.  Of course the truly dedicated recovering alcoholics and addicts are going to get to some meeting, somewhere, some how.  But, it's probably the ones for whom just being able find or not find parking may be the difference between relapsing and not relapsing. 

Additionally, I have spoken to one business owner who said business dropped by about 10 percent as soon as as the new parking regime was initiated; and it's stayed down.  I have spoken to patrons of restaurants, coffee houses and bars who are also upset by the elimination of spaces they had relied upon for years.  Here is a quote: 

"I know ten bucks is nothing for people coming over from next door in Beverly HIlls, but there are a lot of people who live right here in WeHo, who are out of work like my boyfriend, and maybe me next week.  We live east of Fairfax, and so we drive to go out for dinner at our Bossa Nova on Friday nights.  It's where we met five years ago.  I can't take him out for dinner and drinks and then pay ten dollars for parking.  I just can't afford it." 

Tim Cahill, patron at Bossa Nova on Robertson Friday, July 3 2009. 

Mike, I would like to know what the city council's response is to this situation.  If it's simply been an oversight and work will be done to find a solution, I'd like a timeline of how the issue will be addressed.  Or, if it's going to be more complicated than than, I'd like to interview your boss.  I've interviewed Jeff before, and I know the councilmember's heart is always in the right place, so I'm eager to receive a response. 

Best,

Thom

Exclusive Video Interview with Former Iranian Gov't Insider

2009-06-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

A chilling insider's account of how the Iranian government works behind the scenes. In Part One of my interview with a woman we'll call Za-Za, because she fears retribution against her family still living in Tehran if her true identity were revealed, you'll hear what goes on behind the scenes in an ayatollah's realm.

The video is at OurLA.org, (<click) the new destination for deep-reporting in Los Angeles, founded by former Daily News editor Ron Kaye--not to be confused with Ron's blog RonKayeLA.com. This new site is a journalism-driven, multimedia website with all the bells and whistles. It promises to bring depth and weight to local online reporting. Thom Senzee and Repulbic Of L.A. are proud to be a small part of Ron's newest venture.

They're Back!

2009-06-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Iranians have returned to the streets, not yet in as great of numbers as last week, but in the thousands.

Axes. Chopping Young Iranians Down with Axes. Evil has a name: Khamenei

2009-06-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

I don't care if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, an Atheist, Agnostic or Bhudist. Watch this video, then pray, chant, speak encantations, meditate or scream at the top of your lungs: The Iranian People need a Miracle today.

Past Fervor Over Child Pornography may be Culprit if Iran Protests Fail

2009-06-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

(photo (c) The Telegraph, UK)

It may sound like a grand leap, but it's really not. Here's why:

Last year, European telecom partners Nokia Group and Siemens AG, of Finland and Germany, respectively, sold the government in Tehran sophisticated Internet-traffic surveillance and control (and manipulation) equipment under the auspices of helping it combat child pornography.

Who's going to argue with that?

Trouble is, now the European systems are being used to block information from entering and exiting the country, and thereby supporting Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

In fact, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, thanks to Nokia's and Siemens' multi-million-dollar contract to help Tehran protect its citizenry against kiddie-porn, Iran's Internet control-and-capture system can even intercept, read, and alter (for disinformation and other purposes) anyone's (and presumably everyone's) Facebook updates, blogs, and twitter postings as they go out into cyberspace, then neatly pack the data back up and send them on their way--all within a nano-second.

That's the reason for the parenthetic use of the word "manipulation" in one of the paragraphs above. That capability is why some experts are saying Iran's Nokia-Siemens technology puts China's much ballyhooed Great-Firewall-of-China censoring program to shame as an Internet quashing instrument.

By the way, check out this paragraph from Nokia's Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) 20-F filing, and note the acknowledgment of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Of course, Nokia is a Finninsh firm, and is therefore not bound to adhere to U.S. sanctions. But at least (thanks to Franklin Roosevelt's 1934 financial regulations regime) because it does business in the United States and sells stock here, the company had to go on record acknowledging that the United States considers the Iranian government to be a sponsor of terrorism.

In Nokia's own words, from its SEC filing...

" Sales in sanctioned countries—Devices & Services,
NAVTEQ and Nokia Siemens Networks

...We are a global company and have sales in most countries of the world. We sold mobile devices and services through Devices & Services and network equipment through Nokia Siemens Networks to customers in Iran, Sudan and Syria in 2008. NAVTEQ did not have any sales to customers in these countries from the completion of our acquisition of NAVTEQ on July 10, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Our aggregate sales to customers in these countries in 2008 accounted for approximately 1.6% of Nokia’s total net sales, or EUR 791 million. Iran, Sudan and Syria are subject to US economic sanctions that are primarily designed to implement US foreign policy and the US government has designated these countries as 'state sponsors of terrorism.'" (Nokia's full 20-f filing is here)

A final Thought:

When multinational companies and governments team up to protect the public from pictures of child abuse, it's always good to examine the companies' quest for profits, and the governments' drive to stay in power, and ask what the respective parties' real motivations are, and what unintended outcomes might arise.

Consider too, when dictators win, every child is an abuse victim...and so are their parents.

Mainstream American Media are Missing Big Stories in Iran. Case in point: Aussie reporter sees presidential militia siding with Mousavi supporters.

2009-06-16T20:17:00.001-07:00

Embarrassing. Pathetic. Anemic. Clueless.

That' s how I see the U.S. mainstream media's coverage of what is happening in Iran. While some of the network's cable-cast and digi-cast television news shows are better than their online coverage, or at least the presentation thereof, judging by their homepages, you would think we were still in the early post-election stage of the developments in Iran. But we're not. We're in potentially pre-revolutionary stages. While most American correspondents seem to be staying behind hotel and office doors at the order of the Iranian government, Iranians with camera phones are twittering messages and images to the outside world. HOWEVER, check out what ABC reporter, Robert Fisk saw when he disregarded the forced sequestration. Oh, by the way, this ABC is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

excerpted from :(LINK)

There were about 10,000 Mousavi men and women on the streets, with approximately 500 Iranian special forces, trying to keep them apart.

It was interesting that the special forces - who normally take the side of Ahmadinejad's Basij militia - were there with clubs and sticks in their camouflage trousers and their purity white shirts and on this occasion the Iranian military kept them away from Mousavi's men and women.

In fact at one point, Mousavi's supporters were shouting 'thank you, thank you' to the soldiers.

One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi's supporters, and said 'can you protect us from the Basij?' He said 'with God's help'.

It was quite extraordinary because it looked as if the military authorities in Tehran have either taken a decision not to go on supporting the very brutal militia - which is always associated with the presidency here - or individual soldiers have made up their own mind that they're tired of being associated with the kind of brutality that left seven dead yesterday - buried, by the way secretly by the police - and indeed the seven or eight students who were killed on the university campus 24 hours earlier.

Quite a lot of policeman are beginning to smile towards the demonstrators of Mr Mousavi, who are insisting there must be a new election because Mr Ahmadinejad wasn't really elected. Quite an extraordinary scene.

New York's, San Francisco's Mayors Address the Media Ten Times More Than L.A.'s

2009-06-13T11:12:00.001-07:00

Three Cities;
Three Mayors;
Two Frequent Communicators;
One 'Shy' Guy

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been known as being very visible, but suddenly the guy who has been dubbed by some 'Mayor Photoraigosa' hasn't much to say.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and San Francisco's Gavin Newsom have issued at least one press release for every regular business day of June this year, yet the mayor of America's second-largest city, Los Angeles, Ca. has only--get this--found not one issue of enough import to formally address the press with a news release. That's not to say there have been no statements or comments from the mayor in June, but nothing official--not even a press conference.

At the same time, Mayors Newsom and Bloomberg have been churning out news about issues facing their cities' residents. On one day in June alone, Newsom's office issued press releases in which the mayor chimed in on New Hampshire's legalization of gay marriage, commented on Princess Cruises' marking of its 40th anniversary by setting sail from San Francisco, made a fuss over the city's Sunday Streets program--and, announced the addition of KaiserPermanente to the menu of coverage choices in the City by the Bay's universal healthcare system.

For his part, Mayor Bloomberg issued no fewer than five press releases on a single June day, and like Newsom, has had something to say every day this month. Among the issues addressed: World Trade Center talks, restarting stalled construction projects in the city, National Peurto Rican Day Parade; mitigation of Canadian Geese (remember the Hudson, but don't hurt the geese --ed.); and helping New Yorkers in foreclosure.

To be fair to Antonio Villaraigosa, the other two big city mayors are facing election campaigns, and so need as much exposure as they can get. Newsom wants to be the next governor of California, and Bloomberg wants to remain Mayor Bloomberg.

Also, Chicago's and Dallas' mayors each have released only slightly more press releases than L.A.'s mayor. But it does seem that we should at least have more going on than Dallas, and really, even Chicago.

Republic of L.A. gets City to Reconsider Parking Tickets

2009-06-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Republic Of L.A. got a lot of feedback on the Monday, June 8 post about ambiguous parking signage and what effectively turned out to be a parking-ticket trap near West Hollywood Park. I emailed all of the WeHo City Council Members a link to the post and got a prompt response from Council Member Jeffrey Prang's deputy, Jake Stevens. Addressing the subject line I included with my email to his boss, which referred to the situation as seeming to be a "sham" Stevens assured me in his initial email that a) there was no scam, and b) he would research the issue and get back to Republic Of L.A. with more information. He did get back to ROLA with some really valuable information, and a reiteration of there being no scam at play (it may seem like minutia, but it's important from my perspective to note that I used the word "sham," not "scam." The difference being, in my mind at least, that you can end up with an unintended sham, but a scam is always planned from the outset.) Here is the response we got from Prang's office via Mr. Stevens:

As part of Phase I of the West Hollywood Park Master Plan (which includes the construction of the new 44,000 square foot, state-of-the-art library, public meeting rooms, Friends of the Library space, a municipal parking garage with over 300 parking spaces, a 91-space parking garage and new tennis courts), the 20 parking meters in the Melrose alley are being eliminated for safety reasons since construction is going on in close proximity and to maintain a fire lane for the Fire Department.

The parking meters in the Melrose alley were removed and the curb painted red last Friday, June 5, 2009. Removing the signs was part of the work order but all the work could not be completed on Friday. The current signs are scheduled to be removed on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 and replaced with new signs that alert drivers that no parking in the alley is allowed. The situation you reported is not the result of any deliberate attempt to mislead the public, but rather a delay in getting all the work completed in the alley as requested.

We will evaluate any requests submitted by individuals cited at this location during this time and will take appropriate action if we find that the citation resulted because drivers were confused by signs. In order to mitigate the loss of parking in the area during the library construction project, the City recently built a 113 space parking lot just north of the Public Library and a short walk from the Melrose Alley that is open to the public from 6:00 AM to 2:30 AM seven days per week.

Without wanting to diminish the response, which was comprehensive and detailed, not to mention promptly delivered--and all but promises to forgive any tickets that were wrongly issued during the weekend in question if the drivers ask for a review--it left out the one thing that seemed most important: Parking Enforcement's wanton combativeness with the public.

As you may recall or may want to re-read here, a central point of the post was the fact that the shift supervisor ended up hanging up on me after saying the signs didn't matter all that mattered was the freshly painted red curb. "If they parked in a red zone, they will be ticketed," were his exact words.

I asked Council Member Prang's deputy if it seemed proper to him for Parking Enforcement to dismiss a sincere phone call about an issue that was clearly unfair to citizens of and visitors to the city (especially during the Great Recession). His response to that final question was a real eyeopener.

It turns out that those little white Prius's with "City of West Hollywood Parking Enforcement" emblazoned on the side are operated by a private company: Serco Inc., a global parking and traffic enforcement contractor.

This brings up a whole new discussion and ripe fodder for future blog posts: Is West Hollywood or are similar cities really well served by these contractors that allow them to avoid building their own police forces, parking enforcement divisions, housing programs and many other services?

The military has fired Haliburton after that contractor reamed the taxpayers for untold billions after promising to do the job of supporting the troops on the battlefield "better, faster and cheaper."

But here's a better comparison: the City of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power charges its customers considerably less than Edison charges its customers. During the rolling blackouts of the early 2000s, DWP managed to keep the power on for everybody.

But don't take my word for it. Ask a Realtor how much value is added to a property simply by virtue of being in DWP service area. The reason is because buyers know they will pay smaller electric and water bills, even with recent rate hikes. Besides, when the power executives' bosses are elected officials, i.e., city council members, it's fairly easy to keep up pressure to keep rates down.

Note: The city also promised to consider doing more to communicate with more signage the availability of temporary parking north of Melrose Alley.

2009-06-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

LAPD's Chopper Force Moving to Van Nuys Airport

Flight operations of the Piper Tech Hooper Heliport, LAPD's base of air operations, will temporarily relocate from its sprawling rooftop pads downtown to Van Nuys Airport. The move is part of construction happening at the downtown site.

Residents living in nearby Lake Balboa, Van Nuys, Encino, Northridge and Sherman Oaks neighborhoods have long battled against helicopter traffic originating from Van Nuys Airport (VNY); it will be interesting to see how they respond to the two- to three-month relocation of all LAPD operations to their backyard skies.

While LAPD is often said to have the largest non-military "air force" in the nation (and there is little reason to doubt it), I was surprised to learn, when I wrote a piece about cops' claim that they needed an air unit dedicated to supporting Valley-based operations, there is never more than one LAPD chopper patrolling the city from the air at any given time. That claim, of course, does not include emergency, or crime-scene situations, just general patrols.

Republic Of L.A. is waiting to hear back from the National Helicopter Noise Coalition, based in Encino, as well as Los Angeles World Airports, which runs VNY.

For its part the airport is offering this number for concerns from residents: 818-909-3529, as well as an 800 number for noise-specific complaints: 800-560-0010

Ambigous Parking Signage in WeHo Looks Like a Ticket Trap

2009-06-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

There is an alley just north of Melrose Avenue between San Vicente Drive and Robertson Drive in West Hollywood. The alley is located behind several design showrooms and West Hollywood Park. What makes this alley special and beloved by locals (no, not that alley), is that it boasts a line of that most invaluable of Southern California's urban commodities--parking spaces.
Saturday, June 6, some friends and I drove to WeHo for an event near Robertson and Melrose. I found a single parking spot open in the Melrose-adjacent alley and parked.
But one of my passengers noticed something new. The curb had recently been painted red. There was no indication other than the brand-new, red-painted curb that anything else had changed in the alley.
Admittedly, a red curb might be enough to signal parking was no longer allowed. However, the were still dozens of signs--both signs mounted on tall poles over the alley, and smaller signs mounted on poles where there had once been meters--that indicated a four-hour time limit for parking.
Further complicating the matter was the fact that there were temporary plastic signs, many of which had fallen to the ground, that read "temporary: no parking 6/5/09." This was the 6th. The signs said "temporary no parking" for the previous day.
In addition, there were about three dozen or more cars parked in the alley without tickets.
Keep in mind, this is an area dense with restaurants, bars, a civic auditorium, a busy urban park, several community meeting facilities, and the largest design center west of the Mississippi. Needless to say, finding parking can be a nightmare.
Nevertheless, I left the parking spot and found another--four blocks south on Robertson in Beverly Hills, another city altogether--because I really don't like getting parking tickets. (I know, who does?)
It would have been a $70 ticket. I know because we saw one unfortunate driver's SUV sporting a "parking in a red zone" citation on his or her window.
Safely parked, I wanted to know if the situation was an oversight, and if informed, would the authorities do something to remedy the confusion.
I went to the Sheriff's station across the street and got a very snippy, sarcastic non-answer from a volunteer at the counter. Begrudgingly, I was given the after-hours phone number to West Hollywood Parking Enforcement. The shift supervisor on duty when I called at 6:55 p.m. listened to my description of the situation, which I delivered in much the same way via phone as I have here.
I asked if he planned to enforce the red zone on all of the drivers who had obviously been confused by the ambiguous signage, or wait to start ticketing after the incorrect signs were removed.
He said (and this is a quote): "If they're in a red zone, they will be cited."
But, I insisted, obviously there was confusion, and to penalize people who, during the Great Recession, were dining out and contributing to the local economy in other ways, and had parked in a place known to be legal for years, smacked of revenue-motivated entrapment.
I then informed him that I was no longer speaking as a concerned citizen, but now as a journalist. I asked the parking-encorcement shift supervisor if I could have his name, and if it was Parking Enforcement's intention to disregard the information I had provided about the confusing, new no-parking policy at Melrose Alley (click the play arrow at the bottom of the video image above to see what I mean about confusing signs and the red curb), and ticket everyone parked there anyway.
His answer: "I'm the shift supervisor; that's all you need to know. I'm not authorized to talk to the media." With that Mr. Supervisor hung up the phone. I called back, but my call went directly to voicemail. I left a message, but have yet to get a call back.
By my arithmetic, there were about $2500-$3000 in potential parking citations at the time I decided to move my car. If citations were being issued all night and day--all weekend in fact--the City of West Hollywood may have raked in many thousands of dollars--perhaps more than $10,000--courtesy of Parking Enforcement and their dubious citation policies.

L.A. City Services to be Unavailable Every Other Friday

2009-06-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

The AP is reporting that some city-government departments will shutter once every two weeks. Funny how these Band Aids are the best this generation can come up with. The savings will total about $100 million.

But really, how much will be lost by the lost spending power of the furloughed workers? I hear so many complaints about businesses being taxed too much, and thus not hiring people, but what about the fact that the city has about a quarter of a billion dollars owed in unpaid taxes. The Mayor has announced an amnesty program through June 30, and promised there will be an aggressive effort to collect on that money. Yet, the effort will only yield about $10 million.

This is one more rendition of the ongoing Baby Boomer shell game, which is actually so much more expensive--probably immeasurably more expensive--than just having been paying for a slightly higher straightforward tax regime. Or, maybe even a substantially lower, across-the-board flat tax with ZERO exceptions.

I know my conservative friends will say, liberals (like me) never met a tax they don't like. To that I say: At long last, let's just pay the friggin' taxes we need to pay as we go along; aren't we really paying more this way, anyway.

L.A. Reporters Jailed in N. Korea Need Support of all Angelenos

2009-06-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

There was no doubt in my mind today, as I sought to remedy my day-late (I don't post on weekends) posting to Republic Of L.A. with a meaningful new blog post: I would link to LA Observed. Why? Kevin Roderick has today's most important issue for the Los Angeles journalism community (and, in my humble opinion, that of the entire nation) front-and-center on his home page.

I'm speaking of the plight of two L.A. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. The two Current TV reporters are being held in North Korea and will face what will surely be a kangaroo court soon. Wednesday, there will be vigils, and I implore everyone to come out show strong support for these two.

The thing about a kangaroo court is it can be manipulated for good. If the Koreans see any potential gain in letting these innocent journalists go free, the court may "pardon" them for their "crimes."

Visit LAObserved for details on the vigils: http://www.laobserved.com/ Remember, if you show up for someone else's cause (hint, hint gay community), they will show up for yours.

Why Can't I Stop?!!

2009-05-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

Might the next Super Size Me--the indie film that asked the question 'what would happen if someone ate only at McDonald's for a month--be called Add Shot Addict?

If so, I could be the star of such a cinematic indictment of Starbucks as the kiosk of chaos for so many who had never even drunk coffee before 2000. That was me. I used to say, "my coffee is my shower; nothing wakes me up like a steaming, hot shower in the morning!" Now, the shower is just enough to get me out the door, heading in a yet-to-be-caffeinated stupor to the temptress, the priestess, the baristas down the street.

The problem is I don't want to do it anymore! I don't want to spend four bucks a day on vente soy-vanilla iced (easy ice) or hot lattes.

Why not?

There's a recession. I'm a vegan. Soy milk will supposedly give me breasts (no doubt an urban legend from a worried dairy industry, but still...). I want to eat fruit in the morning, and the sugar and acid in my coffee means the fruit will ferment in my stomach unless I ix-nay the attay-lays.

So why not just stop going to Starbucks and buying the stupid latte?

I did. But then I went back.

I missed it all. I missed the anticipation of spotting the green-white-and-black insignia on the sign of each store as my car seemed to automatically glide into dock with the mother ship--I mean as I located a parking spot.

I missed the camaraderie. You know, that feeling of crossed-arm, patient impatience as you stand amid people with whom you at once have nothing and everything in common. I missed looking for the hotties in line. I missed judging the hottie factor of the person behind the counter. I missed the mild curiosity I experienced each time I waited for my drink to arrive at the comfortingly familiar palette-shaped bar. It's a curiosity that begs the questions, "will I have to enforce the your-drink-should-be-perfect-every-time rule posted on the wall at each store?" I rarely have, but I always wonder nontheless.

However, I didn't miss the four-dollar hit. I hate that hit. I even spent $25 on the "Starbucks Gold Club" card, which entitles me to 10 percent off of every purchase. I assume it's paid for itself by now. Although, I never really did the math. Still, I kind of feel like I'm vested financially in continuing to consume, or to be a connoisseur of, Starbucks--even if it is against my will.

Then there's that other urban legend: the one that we all promulgate when we (half-jokingly) tease each other that we're actually drinking crack. But shouldn't someone be asking seriously does Starbucks have a secret ingredient? For now, only the Preistess knows, and she isn't sayin'.

The Return of the California Republic may Mean the Demise of the Ballot Initiave Movement

2009-05-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

AND REPUBLIC OF L.A. SAYS 'GOOD RIDDANCE'

Californians, and Americans hate taxes. Who doesn't? Every generation has complained about them. But with Proposition 13, one generation decided to do something about it. They decided "enough was enough." They decided only they mattered...only their moment mattered. They decided they would freeze their tax burden in time. To hell with the consequences, they said. We're mad as hell and we have the ballot-initiative process!

Bye-Bye Ballot Initiaves
Well, here's a prediction: The 1978 measure that froze property taxes--the taxes that pay for state education--may have begun a decades-long process that will ultimately limit access to the initiative process itself--if not eventually end it.

Imagine this: A populous decides, with the passage of a proposition (in this case Prop. 13), to stop their government from raising taxes. It also demands their government, oh I don't know, let's say the state government of California, have a balanced budget every year: No deficits allowed. The people also demand an endless ribbon of freeways, and limitless capacity for prisoners, and a three-strikes law that captures hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (for instance, anyone whose third strike was carrying a joint, which was a violation of probation for some other nonviolent crime--life in prison baby!) Then, when a Great Recession hits (as it has) and tax revenues go down as a result, the state starts letting prisoners go because it can't house and feed them all. The state also stops supporting destitute schizophrenics who go off their medications as a result.

Let's not forget the hundreds of new police officers who won't be hired to replace retiring ones. Can you say crime wave? Then of course there's the fire fighters who won't be hired either. Can you say burn baby burn?

At the same time, poor children, whose only square meal is the one they get at school, and the only medical care they get is paid for by the state, start failing at school because of cutbacks in services. Poor: it's that synonym for illegal immigrant in the minds of many taxpayers, even though there are PLENTY of natural-born Americans who grow up in poverty...a lot more than some would like to believe.

You be the Politician
Now, imagine you’re a politician holding a statewide job in California, and you can only have two terms in office. The first term you have to learn where everything is and how Sacramento works. The second term you have to figure out what your next job will be, and how to get the funds and support to get their, rather than getting good at fulfilling the obligations of your office so that your record will get you re-elected.

Now add these things to the fact that, if you're a politician in California, the budget crisis is your fault even if you just got there. The recent raising of the sales tax is your fault. The state of public education is your fault. The fact that it takes months to pass a budget bill is your fault, because no one wants to be the politician who voted for raising a tax that will balance the mandatory-balanced budget, or who had to call for the laying off of teachers or the closing of mental-health facilities.

So what got us here? Special interests whose sole priority is to lower all taxes all the time regardless, REGARDLESS, of the consequences, have applied sophisticated, focus-grouped marketing power to ballot-initiative campaigns, amping them up with manipulated populist fury. I mean come on, how hard do you think it is to get someone made about paying taxes and convincing them that they pay too much. Add some random (and often completely wrong) statistical anecdote or rankings and guess what? We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!

The Catch!
Here’s the catch, eventually everyone gets painted into a corner. We’re in that corner today, 31 years after Saint Jarvis gave a generation of Californian’s the power to freeze their property taxes in time. Now, however, the generation that benefited from Proposition 13 is becoming a small minority. Now, the cuts are coming and everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, will be feeling the real, long-deferred consequences of that self-centered revolt of the Me Generation, i.e., Prop. 13, in the form of higher crime rates, worsening roads, more mentally ill on the streets and believe it or not, even worse public education.

What will we do? We’ll either grow up, shut the you-know-what up and stop whining about “high” taxes and just pay the price of living in a civilized, modern world. Oh yeah, what about the loss of income Californians will suffer as a result of paying a realistically priced state tax bill?

Okay, let’s see, before the crisis our sales tax was 8.25 percent. Remember, if we all just paid less than $40 per year more in state income taxes, we wouldn’t need the new sales tax of 9.25 percent (a figure that includes all county and district sales taxes as well). I’m officially a middle-class earner in California, and my state income tax last year was less than $300. Is that really so bad? I can’t help but wonder how much money is spent by companies, lobbyists, special interest groups, in their efforts to eliminate taxes. And, I wonder just how big the get-out-of-paying-taxes-at-any-cost industry in this state is. I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure is equal to the amount of taxes that could have led to averting the compounded revenue-shortfall mess the state has found itself in now.

Don’t be surprised if Republic Of L.A. researches those questions.

But more importantly, don’t be surprised if liberal, moderate, and even conservative politicians realize the corner they’re in can only be overcome by applying well-funded sophisticated, focus-grouped marketing techniques to one more ballot initiative…one that ends the easy access to the initiative process itself, and returns some power to the idea of a California Republic. Remember, in a republic, the people elect other people (politicians) to run government on their behalf, so that they don’t have to vote on every single matter directly.

The Red Building Cometh

2009-05-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

Adding another 400,000 square feet to the already monumental space of the two existing buildings of the Pacific Design Center (PDC), the new "Red Building" will complete the triumvirate of edifices promised when the old, blighted rail head property was first redeveloped in 1975.

While it will have taken 35 years for the vision of the original structures' architect, Cesar Pelli, to finally be consummated when the project is completed next year, it will not look the way originally expected. In fact, as first proposed the three buildings would have had a very 1970s, post-modern totality in their exterior aesthetic, as this was the plan as I have been told:

The Blue Building (aka, the Blue Whale):
A long, blue horizontally oriented cylindrical and rectangular blue building encompassing a million square feet. It was built as expected, in spite of a lone holdout--a business called Hugo's Plating--which occupied a postage-stamp parcel of land outside the sleek grand entrance on Melrose Blvd.

The Green Building:
A green pyramid. One could argue that the Green Building is a pyrimad. But it's really pyramid-esque. It's actually more like an upside down pyramid with it's point dipping into a giant shoebox. My favorite part of the Greeen Building is the back wall of the new parking structure that came with its construction in 1988. The structure is a ultra-pale green which, with its several floors of tree-filled terraces rising over the classical WeHo cottages and bungalos, makes me feel cool just by looking at it even on a hot August day.

The Red Building, which I will attempt to give an aka to now, that being The Giant Letter Opener
However, the original plan would not have rendered so apt a nickname, because it called for the final structure at the Pacific Design Center to take the most elemental geometric shape of all time...the sphere. Yes, the red building was expected to be a big round ball 35 years ago.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON PDC:

I believe the City of Los Angeles and the City of West Hollywood; the State of California and the U.S.A are lucky to have been graced by the work and talent of Mr. Pelli, who also designed the renowned Petronis Towers Kuala Lumpur--the first structures to snatch away the from the United States the mantle of home of the tallest buildings in the world--on all three buildings.

I always think of the made-for-tv movie, lipstick, starring both Hemmingway girls, as well as a Jeep CJ-7, and the Blue Whale--all four icons of my childhood.

While the 1990s brought vastly improved landscaping and outdoor public spaces and art, as well as the MOCA cube (actually an annex of the "real" Museum of Contemporary Art, whose primary space is located downtown), it's the massive color-changing lightscapes that adorn the the Blue Building's facade.

However, it is the 1970s, 1980s, and the current decade (has anyone figured out what we're calling this decade yet?) whose stylistic signatures will forever live on in the heart of the nation's most creative cities.

L.A. City Council Adopts Resolution to End Torture of Gays in Iraq: Republic of L.A. Interviews Rosendahl

2009-05-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

In an impassioned presentation, which included the testimony of Hossein Alizadeh, from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, L.A. City Council Member Bill Rosendahl (pictured to the right), introduced a measure to urge President Barak Obama to demand action from the Iraqi government to do more to stop the systematic torture and murder of gay men in that country.
“I was extremely gratified with the vote, which was unanimous with 12 members present,” Rosendahl told Republic Of L.A. “And I want to give special recognition those members who spoke with great passion: Council members [Wendy ] Greuel, [Herb] Wesson, [Tom] LaBonge, [Tony] Cardenas, and [Richard] Alarçon.”
Rosendahl said the entire council chambers was moved by the information presented by Alizadeh, who is Persian (from Iran).
Iran’s torture, mutilation and murder of gays is institutionalized by court sentences of execution as punishment for homosexuality. There, executions are carried out en masse in soccer (football, for the rest of the world) stadiums filled with jeering spectators.
One assumes the same would be happening in Iraq without American funding and the presence of U.S. media. For now, it’s all unofficial—carried out by civilians, or police in plain clothes.
“The IGLHRC has more than 600 documented cases of murder of gays,” Rosendahl said before the vote, which created an official Resolution issued by the City of Los Angeles condemning the Iraqi situation, and demanding action to protects gays in the Muslim nation.
“Some folks misinterpret the Koran,” said Rosendahl, who insists his research shows no condemnation of gays by the prophet Muhammad. “They believe they have to kill their own child if they are suspected of being gay.”
Rosendahl’s measure went beyond the condemnation of some Iraqis’ behavior.
“I went further on this and amended my motion, saying we need to get our president up to snuff, by saying our president needs to make a statement condemning the inaction by the Iraqi government to stop the torture and murder of gay men.”
According to Rosendahl, tough-looking labor union leaders present in the gallery of the council’s stately chambers we’re seen to be clearly moved, some with tears in their eyes as practices, such as the stitching up of the anuses of gay Iraqi men, who are then filled with liquids and solids until their internal organs literally explode.
“I asked for a show of hands from the audience, and everyone showed their support for the resolution,” said Rosendahl.
Asked why a local resolution matters, Rosendahl said this:
“We are the second largest city in the United States of America. We unite and speak up for something, believe me, Washington listens—and so does the rest of the world.”
Past City of Los Angeles resolutions include support for the recognition by Turkey and the world community of Armenian genocide, and opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

L.A. City Council Votes to Urge Obama, Congress to Demand Iraq's Gov't. Stop the Murdering of Gay Men

2009-05-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

Councilman Bill Rosendahl's gut-wrenching presentation about the way gays are slaughtered and tortured in U.S.-backed Iraq in Council Chambers provokes tears and anger from a mass of tough union leaders (there for labor issues), regular citizens of Los Angeles, and fellow council members. Visit tomorrow for an interview with Councilman Rosendahl I conducted today, minutes after the 12-0 vote in favor of his resolution....and find out why it matters on the world stage.

"Our Seats Suck" .................................................................................. - IMAX Staff Introducing Star Trek

2009-05-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

(Photo courtesy innersource.com)

So, my friend Josh and I came out of the closet to each other in the line to see Star Trek at the IMAX at Universal Studios last weekend. Yes, we admitted to each other that we were both, indeed, closet Trekkies.

We spent a solid 45 minutes in line discussing the aesthetics of the 1960s Star Trek series, vs. the 1970s animated series, vs. the decidedly Clinton-era sensibilities and aesthetics of the 1990s Next Generation, all the while nursing our anticipation of getting reacquainted with NCC-1701 (that is, the USS Enterprise for non-Trekkies) face-to-face on a megalopolis-sized IMAX screen (hopefully one that would wrap around the periphery of the theater, as we both believe we have experienced and some--but not all--IMAX venues in our lifetimes.

Now, however, I'm not sure I have actually seen an IMAX theater with a wrap-around IMAX screen (feel free to comment and educate me if you know the answer). Josh says he definitely has in Boston, in seats that recline. But, I'm wondering if it was actually a planeterium showing a film in IMAX that he actually saw. But I digress...

Once inside the theater, we were a little disappointed that the screen was indeed not at all curved. Instead it seemed almost bluntly flat, and somehow only sort of gigantic. The fact that the bottom sixth or so of the screen was obscured by the heads of the people in the rows ahead of us made the "sort-of" qualifier worse. We knew that either the film itself would be marginally obscured by those heads, or that the only sort-of gigantic screen would not be utilized by the projector anyway. The latter turned out to be the case.

The worst came, however, when a staff member announced that the sold-out crowd should leave toute suite to accomodate the midnight showing, followed by an acknowledgment that the theater's seating was uncomfortable. It went something like this:

"...as you leave, please take your trash with you; ushers will greet you at the exits with plastic trash bags. Also, we have been hearing that our seats are not as comfortable as we would like. The good news is we just got approval for a funding request to buy new seats, so be sure to come back again later this summer when we will have comfortable seating. Now, enjoy Star Trek!"

I guess the bad news didn't need mentioning. But I'll mention it anyway: The only thing missing from the seating "devices" at Universal's IMAX Theater, for now anyway, is the buckets of water, the rags for stuffing down moviegoers throats, and Dick Cheney to oversee the torture of sitting still in a hard-surfaced, straight-back plastic chair for two and a half hours.

Still, the movie was so good, in this humble out-of-the-closet trekkie's opinion, that it was worth it in the end.

Hubble Space Telescope Changed Everything; Watch Online, Last Mission to Keep 'er Goin'

2009-05-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

Watch a live, six-hour (or at least parts of it) webcast of STS-125, Monday, May 11, at 12:30 p.m. PDT at spaceflightnow.org, hosted by Robert Crippen, former space shuttle astronaut, who will give viewers truly unprecedented access and a virtual presence of nearly every aspect of a shuttle launch and spacewalk.

The mission is to further improve the Hubble Space Telescope, and refit it to survive another four to five years. The web event is unique for a couple of reasons. First, Crippen, who has performed many extra-vehicular activities (EVAs), or spacewalks, will give special insight into this, the last shuttle mission scheduled to work on the space telescope. Second, the show will offer full-length, live coverage of the entire operation, which involves hundreds of people on the ground, during an uninterrupted continuum, with no edits or censoring for national security reasons. Presumably, NASA will have hidden away all the really cool stuff that nobody else has. (LOL).

What's so important about Hubble, anyway?

The big answer you will usually hear is that Hubble has helped us understand where we come from by looking back in time through space, getting us closer and closer to the Big Bang. However, I honestly think the big thing that people really care about is closer than that. I think Hubble's big story has been the finding of planets, and with it, finding that it is more likely now than ever before that we may one day meet E.T.

Before the Hubble Space Telescope Launched with it's bad case of astigmatism (a mirror had been ground with an imperfection a fraction of the diameter of a human hair), there was no evidence that planets existed outside our Solar System.

In fact, there were credible astronomers who said it may be likely that our star system was an aberration--unique and alone--in having a system of regularly orbiting planets. Without planets outside our Solar System, forget about life elsewhere.

However, since the advent of Hubble, and the addition of its corrective lens (yes, it's a giant contact lens), astronomers have discovered nearly conclusive evidence of thousands of planets around hundreds of stars in our galaxy, intimating the likelihood of billions of similar results possible throughout the universe.
----------
As a refresher, a star system--such as the Solar System (Sol being the name of our star, which we call the sun), is a system of planets or other bodies orbiting a star or group of stars. It turns out that many if not most systems are binary star systems, or systems with two suns at their centers.

But, I digress.

A galaxy is a gigantic conglomeration of billions of stars, planets, and innumerable other bodies, such as the Milky Way Galaxy, in which our planet and Solar Sytem live. The Universe is, of course, everything in the cosmos (cosmos is the everything of everything), in which billions of galaxies and untold trillions of stars reside. I know; it makes me fell dinky too.

First Gay Supreme Court Justice?

2009-05-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

Will Prof. Kathleen Sullivan (pictured, center; photo courtesy Georgetown Law School), who teaches law at Stanford University be the first openly gay nominee for the highest court in the land? Politico.com is reporting a push by some prominent gay and lesbian advocacy groups are pushing for the president to make up for his failure to appoint any (openly) gay men or women to his cabinet by doing so to the bench of the United States Supreme Court.

If he does, it may be the most controversial thing the new president has done to date. There is a potential corollary to Bill Clinton's effort to end discrimination of gays and lesbians in the military at a time that was later deemed too early, and in a manner that was too visible. The end result was one of history's worst "compromises:" the policy known as (and still in effect) Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell.

However, there is no way to time a Supreme Court opening and no way to fill a vacancy on the high court in a discrete manner. It will be interesting to how Obama acts. If he makes a bold move, such as nominating Prof. Sullivan, who is a lesbian, or fellow Stanford law professor, Pam Karlan, who is also a gay woman, it will put this president down in the history books for one more first...and why not; it's beginning to feel like the 21st Century has finally arrived.