Morning Eye-Opener

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I've been at Book Expo America and a little distracted. It doesn't get to town that often anymore, and is abundantly different from the days when it was in Anaheim.

A lot of the talk is how it's not nearly as much fun as it used to be, how the parties aren't as imaginative as they used to be, how nothing is as it used to be, and damn those cellphones. The truth is that exhibition space rents are now absurdly priced and there isn't a lot of money left over in many magazine or academic press budgets for, say, leasing a yacht and setting sail in Newport harbor, as I recall The New Republic's party did in 1988. Also: all but the most giant booksellers themselves have been largely squeezed out by now.

The most interesting books that have come my way so far are both out of the University of Minnesota Press:

• French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States by Francois Cusset.
• The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker

The former has been blogged about by Stanley Fish at his New York Times blog, a newspaper actually interested to push debate about books along. It pays off for all: there are as of last count a whopping 618 comments on Fish's French Theory post. The latter maps the way networks have become "the core organization structure for postmodern politics, culture, and life, replacing the modern era's hierarchical systems."

University of Minnesota Press has kept a couple of seminal French philosophical favorites of yours truly, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, in print since their publication.

g But I do want also to let you know that lots of other events are shaking the town. For instance:

Beginning yesterday, Eagle Rock is hosting the first Los Angeles Accordion Festival. Admission is $10.

Here's one band's name: Conjunto Los Pochos. I'm stepping aside on that one and letting DQ translate.

They play tonight at 6 along with Veronique Chevalier, Sam Mellon & the Skylarks, Jessica Richot, and Phil Parlapiano.

Sunday at 4 you can see Mrs. Hobbs, Mrs. Brown’s Lovely Daughter, La Santa Cecilia, Doug Legacy & the Zydeco Party Band and Ollin.

The festival is at the Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall, Aerie 2188, 1596 W. Yosemite Drive, Eagle Rock. Where else?

Morning Eye-Opener

CityWatch's and Gail Goldberg's dream city: São Paulo, Brazil (see way below)

Hey, Councilwoman Janice Hahn went to Israel already! In February! To discuss port security! So it turns out that the Mayor's trip is a mere sigthtseeing followup. Who's leading this town anyway?

With the City pleading such poverty and so hopeful for tourist cash, it should be content with the Councilwoman's buy-oriented trip. The Mayor should not make another; if he really needs to travel on the City Departments' nickel this summer, he should make a sell-oriented one somewhere else.

I don't imagine Mayor Tony's Summer Vacation can raise even a tenth of the revenue for the City that a trip to Europe or Korea with their strong currencies could. The Councilpeople and Department heads should be the buyers, and the Mayor should be the seller.

g I'd buy a fishwrap that said this above the fold: Four Japanese crime booses got new livers at UCLA. :-) They say newspapers are in trouble, but print will never be toast when it stops investigating itself and starts investigating other things. It's a big messy world, and people want to know about more than how journalists are suffering.

g The Times has a new business ed, by the way. It's Sallie Hofmeister. She says the paper must be aware of "what the web can and can't do."

Hope she tells Russ.

g Also hope you don't have to read the biz news at all. Locally, it's all awful. We have the worst of the worst: a perpetually campaigning Mayor in a country run by a perpetually warring president. Real estate is bad, local financial institutions are bad, stocks have been flat for almost a decade, and the US Dollar is almost looking like an end-of-lifecycle currency. I went to a seminar by a non-institutional-based financial planner last night, and while it sometimes drifted to the fringe, it was more interesting than what most institutional brokers offer.

g Fear of hate crime is either so bad or so politicized in the Valley that Councilman Alarcon is urging worshipers to form "Worship Watch." Didn't the Mayor when he was a Councilman similarly form 80 neighborhood watches when times were bad in Highland Park? Can't quite recall...

g That fire at that Wilmington Church was accidental, arson investigators determined. Yet it was the second fire at the church in a year.

g Over in Pachucoville, this take on yesterday's Times article on the pushing aside of the Mexican "amigo stores" is dead on: "Here in Boyle Heights, in Downtown LA, and what use to be Echo Park you have white Americans moving to these 'ethnic' neighborhoods because of the 'amigo' stores, because of the diversity, because they have a local panederia instead of a Starbucks."

g If you think our Mayor engages in frivolousness, consider São Paulo's. It may be the most dystopic city on the planet, but at least it has no billboards.

The city even prevented an airliner from landing there because stick-on promotional stuff violated the Mayor's billboard ordinance. From CityWatch with attendant anti-billboard agitprop, trying to draw some kind of lesson for Los Angeles.

No real photo of São Paulo over there to show you how "great" that city looks without billboards, so I posted one up top for your consideration. More horrific views here---I don't think this city is a shining example of anything other than the Mayor and Gail Goldberg's vision for LA.

City at Noon: Dog and Doggier

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There's a new canine-centric blogger in town who calls his blog Carter's blog, but that's really the name of his two-year-old, soft coated Wheaten terrier. So I'll just call the blogger Carter père.

Carter père tried to get Carter registered through Animal Services. The process produces some well-meaning if Kafkaesque moments, and he describes them here.

And then there's the payoff pitch:

But here is what did it for me, and it doesn’t have as much to do with the licensing department as it does with the city. One of the councilmen says greater efforts should be made to ensure all dogs have a license, and to do it his suggestion is: “I think we should ask the Boy Scouts to get involved or hire high school kids to help us go door to door and ask people if they have their dog licenses.”

Hold on a second. You are talking about almost a million dollars in lost revenue here. And your answer is to get the Boy Scouts or high school students to try and help collect it? Look, I don’t have the magic answer here but pinning the collection of a million bucks on high school kids or boys in funny outfits?

Why not make the dogs come in themselves and sign up for the license?

Well put. Councilman in question: Bill Rosendahl.

g Meanwhile, our own favorite Dogg scooped [sic] the local fishwraps yesterday and by all accounts is still scooping them on Councilwoman Janice Hahn, medical marijuana, and some DEA harassment of local protestors.

If you missed it, Zuma Dogg states at his blog that Councilwoman Hahn was spotted outside City Hall giving an inspiring, impromptu booster speech to medical marijuana protestors there, and signaling her support.

In short, she out-bonged LaBonge. Good for her. Anyone who knows someone in chemo knows how reassuring the option of medical marijuana is.

And Zuma also reports:

Then minutes later, LAPD was busy busting 6 medical marijuana co-ops -- so Zuma Dogg spent the rest of the evening interviewing people who were there for the bust, including one twenty-something who the DEA choked and threw to the ground for having a camera. (The kid got to keep the camera, so I guess the DEA choked him and threw him to the ground just for some recreation.) Meanwhile, there was less than $2000 cash on hand during the DEA bust -- and the warrant was only for amounts over $2000, so they didn't recover a penny of the expensive Federal raid that used around 20 LAPD for the job.

I guess the local fishwraps find none of these things interesting, but...scribes, if that all pans out, that's not one good story, those are two good stories. If they pan out, I think you owe it to your news org to buy a Zuma Dogg tee-shirt for $20. In fact, everyone in your newsroom should buy one. It's the least you can do to support the local blogosphere you cherry pick from so often.
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Morning Eye-Opener

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Everyone is waiting to see what the last of that Labor money will do for Ridley-Thomas. The fact that a third of it is being spent late may be an error; most people in the district seem to have made up their minds. And this op-ed didn't help R-T, nor did the Times' phantom endorsement of Parks. All eds I've spoken to are for R-T but think Parks will win safely, maybe 55-45.

g Fire damage at a Christian church overnight, this one in Wilmington. Arson team investigating.

g No 2 Home Depot says that Home Depot be a no-show at the next scheduled face-off with the Sunland Tujunga groups that oppose the Foothill store.

g Ron Kaye likes the idea of there being a Judge J.K. Hahn.

g Elvis Costello opened for Sting last night at the Hollywood Bowl, Sting joined him on stage for Alison, and then Elvis headed off to the El Rey for a free set. Sounds like quite a night under the stars in the right sections. But here's an all-too-familiar story of a bummer evening at the Bowl. Be sure you're either not near stoners, or be sure you're one yourself.

g At MayorSam, they agree: the Mayor's announced trip to Israel is more vacation junket than vital journey. One of our rivers is being named the sister river of one of theirs. And maybe H. David Nahai, who's tagging along, is going to teach people how to drain the Dead Sea.

His Summer Vacation

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When Zev Yaroslavsky started making noise about "density hawks" and development run amok in LA, he became the Mayor's top local critic and also a prospective Mayoral candidate for 2009.

So it's not a surprise that the Mayor's going to Israel next month on a seven-day trip that is ostensibly all about port and airport security---which is already good everywhere but here---but is more likely devoted to re-winning hearts within Zev the Apostate's core constituency: the Jewish citizens and leaders of LA's westside and south Valley.

The City of LA's Jewish population is between 500-600,000, with well over half of its Jewish citizens concentrated within Yaroslavsky's supervisorial district.

Proprietary City Departments we generally associate with Councilwoman Janice Hahn---the Port and LAX---will foot the bill for the trip.

The Mayor, who lists his religion as Roman Catholic, has never been to Rome or Italy. In his mayoralty, in fact, he's never even been to Europe, though he's been to both Latin America and Asia---and soon the Middle East. He's not taking along any local notable Catholic or Christian religious figures who may be interested in the Holy Land, but he will be accompanied by Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Wiesenthal Center.

It's not known what stripe of spiritual consolation, if any, the Mayor sought when he notably admitted to violating the Seventh Commandment last summer.

Dog Day Afternoon for Animal Services; Chick very critical

A snip or two from Laura Chick's audit of the Department of Animal Services and summary letter to Council:

My audit of the fiscal operations has uncovered a Department which [sic] is struggling to move forward.

The largest source of revenue for Animal Services is from the dog license fee. The City of Los Angeles has anywhere from 400,000 to 800,000 dogs, however, my audit found that the Department has registered only 123,000. Increasing this number of licensed dogs would not only boost revenues, it would also help the Department achieve its mission.

In addition, the Department, to say the least, is inactive in its collection of monies owed it, to the tune of at least $2 million over the last two and a half years. Delinquent accounts are not transferredto the City Attorney as they should be.

Of course there's a presser, top item here. It's Laura Chick, man.

City at Noon: Lakers menage-a-trois rumbling...or, driving down Laura Lane

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Like a lot of smarmy, apparently sexless city editor types, Kevin somehow has a great eye for the prurient.

And indeed I was wondering yesterday if this juicy LAObserved blogtruffle about Kobe's wife Vanessa, Lakers cheerleader Vanessa, and ESPN's Laker lover Laura Lane would jump to print. No, not yet. But ESPN has taken Laura Lane's blog offline, and you betcha Kevin and lots of others are watching.

It's a shame so few in Mainstream Media can't even turn around without wondering if a) they're going to lose their job for taking a chance or b) wondering in the new environment if a chance taken will generate so many page views it won't matter. That's why all the Internet pages of MSM sites are filled with fluffbally "Last Links!" and go offline when they actually say something interesting.

So stay tuned to the real blogosphere (not the fake fishwrap one) while things get sorted out: Big Blogger is Watching!

UPDATE: USAToday bloggers soft-pedal the story with links and not much else.

UPDATE II: PerezHilton item pretty much assures MSM coverage will be a slam dunk.

Morning Eye-Opener

JM, iPod ad, Sunset and Hyperion, 5.25.08

That was fun. Now back to the mess.

g The sweep comes to LA: 327 immigrants arrested in the southland. The sweeps "focus on fugitives and criminals." They're not all Latin American; an illegal Brit was arrested too.

g More on the land use/abuse front: Any time you see a post with a few font sizes in it, it's usually worth reading all of them. Here's one from Ron Kaye about AB 212, sponsored by Felipe Fuentes of the 39th, which took everyone by surprise on Friday because Council so soundly rejected it.

The politics of the 39th is interesting enough. It's a Sacto Latin machine district. The legislator it produces is always there as a stopover: please the right people while there and you'll end up in favor with the machine. This is the district Richard Alarcon straddled for a mere month before opting to return to his higher-paying City Council gig. This is the district that fresh-face Cindy Montanez held before pissing the wrong people off and losing a State Senate race.

Almost the whole time since Fuentes got to office in May 2007, he's been tinkering with AB 212. (He actually inherited the bill from the Assembly Budget Committee). Fuentes says the bill would fast-track some affordable housing developments around town---he's likely saying to make the bill more appealing to Council. It would also take away the ability of the City of Los Angeles (but not the cities of San Francisco or San Diego) to deny zoning changes by too-hastily amending general plans.

Fuentes has some intriguing developers and others on his four-digit donor list, including Arturo Sneider of Primestor ($2,500), Playa Capital (Playa Vista), John Doerr ($3,000) and Latham & Watkins land use attorney George Mihlstein. As people follow the money and track the projects this week, they'll come up with suitable conspiracy theories. But really, this is a general land use issue that the land use attorneys have pushed for some time, and before Fuentes got to office.

g This CityWatch piece from LA Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher comes straight outta dreamland:

For you to become effective in this process … become partners in this … you can’t be hoodwinked. You have to know just a couple of these basic rules and you have to be able to get into the process earlier than at the public hearing.
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I say it time and again: if you know a project is coming down the line, if you know that an application has been filed … I cringe at the thought that you are going to wait for your two minutes of public comment at a public hearing. That applicant has been involved in conversations with planners for months. You have to be in that room.

In other words, don't bother, unless you're a retired homeowner.

While land use issues may be the most critical problem facing Los Angeles today, and most especially sinister towards the lives of the City's youth, they are also the most confusing and the most demanding of life experience and time, the stuff of idle retirees. Who in the City has time to get involved at this level: earlier than at the public hearing?

Wouldn't it be better if we simply elected people who made better appointments to City Planning? Pushing off land use issues on a bunch of idle bluehairs is not going to get it done; it's fake, fraudulent, and disingenuous. Pushing land use off on people even less well-equipped to deal with $600 an hour attorneys than our officials themselves are is not a win for the City of LA; voting your Councilperson and Mayor out of office and appointing someone to the Planning Department who can stand up to developers rather than lay out the welcome mat to them is.

g Better Know a District, Daily News version: State Senate 23, where chronic pol Lloyd Levine squares off against serial environmentalist Fran Pavley.

A callarse

JM, Empty chairs, backyard, 5.19.08

[English translation below]

A callarse

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.
Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningun idioma,
por un segundo detengamonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Seria un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estariamos juntos
en una inquietud instantanea.

Los pescadores del mar frio
no harian danio a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraria sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrian un traje puro
y andarian con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccion definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unanimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamas
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos ensenie
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tu te callas y me voy.

--Pablo Neruda (1958)

g g g g g

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.

Memorial Day: Be Mellow

JM, Sunset Nursery: Be the Buddha, 5.25.08

A reminder: Memorial Day Weekend is a period of maximum enforcement for the California Highway Patrol. Through 11:59 p.m. Monday there will be sobriety checkpoints, and hundreds of click-it-or-ticket citations issued. It's best to do what you always do: drive safe, drive sober, and drive in accordance with the law. Maximum law enforcement means maximum law abidance from citizens.

Also expect from gawker block on our own freeways as activists unfurl anti-war banners tomorrow.

If you're in the mood for something different tomorrow, the LA Equestrian Center will host Grand Prix Show Jumping. It's from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., $16.

Looking for an open bakery Monday? Chowhound recommends SusieCakes in Brentwood. Others are also mentioned in the thread.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

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Across the State, 905 undocumented Latinos have been arrested for immigration violations over the past three weeks, the New York Times reports. Twenty-five percent of those arrested had been previously convicted of crimes.

g Autra Adams, an assistant to Lynwood's City manager, was arrested Thursday morning as a result of an investigation targeting East Coast Crips.

g Though the Catholic Church is the region's largest service provider, it will pay out nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars to a few hundred abuse victims. The judgments were enabled by an extension of the statute of limitations on child abuse from fifteen to thirty years. Up until 1985, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual cited pedophilia as a treatable malady. I recently heard of a "victim" who recently bought a new house, a new car, and a motorcycle, and is doing a perfect imitation not of someone scarred for life but of someone enjoying life.

g You generally feel a housing price plunge is almost over over when the beach cities are reporting double-digit drops over a year. That's what the South Bay cities are reporting. Most of the drop now is assigned not to dropping prices but to tight credit. Beaches are "last to drop and first to rebound" in real estate wisdom.

g SoCal journalism rule of thumb: at the point at which you go to Sherry Bebitch Jeffe for a quote, your article's toast. So consider this Daily News article on Parks and Ridley-Thomas burnt to a crisp from the starting gate.

Morning Eye-Opener

JM, It takes all kinds, 5.23.08

The scapegoating has begun: after eight years of ceaseless and escalating failures, the Bush Administration now brings criminal charges against working immigrants as some kind of...new policy on immigration. Two-hundred and seventy undocumented workers in Iowa have been sentenced to five months in prison for not having proper documentation for work. They'll get out in time for election day. Most are from Guatemala.

g Hate crimes are surging in the Valley this year, the Daily News says. In fact, they've almost doubled. We know who the victims are, but no word in the article on who the perps are.

g The COO of the DWP, Raman Raj, who makes well above $200K annually, comes under Zahniser's scrutiny---and Council's. One of the company's he's taken money from likely cut the key cable in the City's worst power outage in recent memory, in 2005.

g Sam Hall Kaplan says that when he had questions about the affordability and feasibility of Grand Avenue...

"My questions were subsequently dismissed and buried in a flood of praise by an undiscerning media and fawning professionals.

But he wasn't really alone and buried. Many complaints appeared and questions were raised around the time of the City's awarding of tax breaks to the development, including some filed by yours truly in the Times.

g If you needed proof that Tom LaBonge won't stand up to anyone, he was the sole against vote on the City's new no-dumping-of-patients law.

City at Noon: L.A. Episcopal Bishop says thumbs up on gay marriage, "an inch at a time..."

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In not one but two letters to clergy and laity, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles signals that his church will sanction gay and lesbian marriages, but also leaves some wiggle room:

There are canonical, prayer book, and pastoral questions which are raised and must be addressed. I have been in contact with the bishops of the Dioceses of California and San Diego and we will be working together with other bishops of California to meet and discuss how we proceed. I will keep you informed and will act with all possible dispatch while attending to the canonical and pastoral issues the decision affect.

In an earlier letter, Bishop J. Jon Bruno said:

We will continue to advocate for equality in the future and will do so at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which will meet in Anaheim in 2009.

I celebrate and give thanks for this decision of the court and look forward with joy and excitement to a future of justice and mercy for all people in the State of California and the Episcopal Church.

To paraphrase St. Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, gay nor straight in Jesus Christ our Lord.

In New Hampshire, an Episcopal bishop who made headlines five years ago for proclaiming himself as gay will go so far as to join his own longtime squeeze in civil union, but one parishoner tells me that that's just him being a bitch.

Morning Eye-Opener

photo by Cuahtemoc Reyes, Univision


Piolín por los Estados Unidos: Holding an American flag and dressed in a well-tailored brown suit, Spanish-language jock Piolín became a citizen of the US yesterday after coming across the border in the trunk of a car twenty-two years ago. He became a citizen along with about 1,800 others. La Opinión snubs the news, even on its inmigración page. But Univisión has a newsy item up: "Piolin se naturalizó." He calls it "a dream made real" and pledges to continue fighting on behalf of immigrants.

g The Daily News digests the degeneration of the AD 40 race in Greater Winnetka. The race has denegerated so much, in fact, that people are actually beginning to pay attention to the Republican side.

g County-USC's bedcount will be sharply down---over 10% down---on reopening in fall, the Times says.

New blogger at MayorSam

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Michael Higby aka MayorSam teased his readers with the fact that a new voice and blogger would be joining the MayorSam blog.

In what he terms as a "major announcement," Notorious H.I.G. adds in comments to the post that it's a local figure on the verge of becoming a national figure.

If you're cynical of such hype, try to think of the last time a local blog of over 1,000 uniques a day called the adding of a blogger "a major announcement" or something parallel. It could only happen at the LATimes or Arianna's blog; positioning the announcement this way is all by itself an act of defiance and courage.

I think the coupling of "voice" and "blogger" suggests a radio personality.

UPDATE: It's Jamiel Shaw, Sr.

City at Noon: Our problems, their problems

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The differences between having a mayor from the 'hood (LA) v. having a billionaire mayor who worked real estate and media to twice-won fortunes (NY), are made most manifest to public view within the subtext of the local newspaper articles. Not that one's better than the other, but...

Here in LA, the Valley braces for a violent summer, after a shocking night of rampant killings and assaults. The situation is so hopeless that Councilman Richard Alarcon resigns himself to it: '''We are anticipating a hot summer, and things happen when it gets above 100 degrees,' said Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district includes Pacoima, where two shootings Tuesday left three wounded."

There in New York, they're arguing about whether or not mommies have too much suburban-styled strollering entitlement in Brooklyn's Park Slope. "It is, if I may further summarize the bad publicity, overrated and hypocritical. Its glorious brownstone blocks and jaunty cafes are awash in carpetbagger entitlement, ruled by snarling 'Stroller Nazis.' The neighborhood is a ground zero of all that is twee and lame. It is, God forbid, the suburbs."

UPDATE: Alarcon told me today that he'd like to see greater "financial literacy" taught in our schools; he thinks the schools are doing a bad job of preparing people for the financial ins and outs of homeownership.

Just a little bit longer

Strung out.

There's one room that's remained timeless and untouched all my life: the main gallery of the Huntington Library. It's a serene and (to my mind) perfectly skylit room with the familiar Gainsborough Blue Boy and Lawrence Pinkie and the energetic Constable and the viola-da-gamba-professor Karl Fredrich Abel (who performed concerts with Bach's son Johann Christian) with his mellow dog and Ms. Siddons as the Tragic Muse. Remember discovering that the portrait of a Spencer in the hall was a relative of Princess Di? The painting placement has been stable in the room for at least fifty years.

Now the gallery has been upgraded, and it sounds like some of the paintings have been shuffled too, with Blue Boy and Pinkie displacing the old spots on the wall occupied by Ms. Siddons and the Constable, according to the Pasadena Star-News.

But now the iconic pair are gazing at each other from further away. They've been re-hung on the end walls of the long Art Gallery, now covered in dark green damask to give new depth to the grand-manner portraiture lining it as before.

Why?

Thanks to a (rarely seen) moment of acquisition genius by a tasteful robber baron, these paintings are inextricably linked to each other in the public's mind. Shouldn't they face each other on the shortest axis possible rather than the longest one?

The change seems merely gratuitous.

The refurbished gallery will open next Wednesday. O tempora, o mores!

City at Noon: Surf's Up, Call 9-1-1

JM, Hermosa sunset, 9.2.08

Good news: In the weird wind, surf's up, 3-7, careful for rip tides.

Bad news: Our beaches are the worst in the State. Again.

Morning Eye-Opener

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How craven is Clinton? Her campaign debt is now $31 million, according to reports released last night after her phyrric victory in Kentucky.

g The Kodak Theater is getting recognizably snubbed by producers. American Idol opted for LA Live!'s new Nokia Theater near the Staples Center for its final two shows this year, after a long run at the Kodak. Similarly, the Emmys have signed on for the Nokia. The Grammys will go to the Staples Center; on occasion they've been in New York. It cost Kodak $75 million for the naming rights to the Kodak Theater, and you don't hear of the place much more than once a year when the Oscars are there.

g NoHo streets were blazing with gunfire again last night around sundown, and host perhaps to car-to-car gunfire as well. Two murders, more attempted in North Hollywood. How does the Times cover it? Stuff on Manson tops the local news page.

[I know a lot of people from the Daily News look at this blog. You might want to tell someone: The Daily News site isn't reading right through Firefox on a Powerbook. It may not be reading correctly on other Mac browsers. The problem appears to be with pop-ups, which are naturally blocked, leaving a ton of white space between the banner and the text.]

g Capitol Weekly notes that House Rep. Laura Richardson's Sacto home has gone into default. LAObserved suggests she's a deadbeat. She now owes more principal on the home than the place is worth. The Rep has recused herself on House mortgage bailout legislation matters.

g A community activist at Ron Kaye's blog says that the Watts Task Force is succeeding in quelling gang involvement, and in part credits Councilwoman Janice Hahn's challenge to the community to define intervention. The opening of the CRA's Watts office is also credited to the Task Force.

City at Noon: Council quiet about foreclosure bill

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The Senate Banking Committee has passed by a very wide margin a compromise bill that could enable about half a million at-risk homeowners across the country to trade ARMs for fixed government-backed loans.

City Council has barked quite about the mortgage default numbers. Now that a credible bill that could help up to 5,000 City of LA homeowners---far more than any locally proposed package---seems on the verge of sailing through the Senate, what does the City have to say?

Morning Eye-Opener

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In with a bang and out with a whimper: the City budget passes Council without any tough decisions being made. The Mayor declares victory. There's a $300 million deficit built into it.

g The first City Supportive Housing loan to any group building apartments for the homeless went to L.A. Family Housing. They'll build sixty units for the homeless in Sun Valley. The project will knock the City's homeless numbers down from 50,000 to 49,940.

Or from 70,000 to 69,940. Or 10,000 to 9,940. We don't have an accurate homeless census so we don't know. For census taking, homeless count homeless and are encouraged to pad the numbers. One thing is certain: the numbers are high enough that any homeless housing project is a lottery.

g Celeste Fremon joins growing ranks of gang observers who are convinced that the murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr. was not race related but gang-affiliation related. She notes that two other notable observers, Annette Stark and Najee Ali have reversed themselves on earlier judgments.

g High lead levels at an LAUSD site on Virgil. "'This wouldn't be happening on the Westside,' said Virgil teacher Theodora Beltson."

More Simulated Urbanism coming your way

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Angelenic took special interest in the "Concerto" project at Ninth and Fig a few months ago; especially intriguing to the blog was the proposed 14-storey graphic panels on the sides of both 30-storey buildings. The graphic panels suggested Blade Runner LA to both developer and blog.

The buildings haven't topped out yet, but Angelenic revisits with a followup construction post. There's still plenty of enthusiasm for the supergraphics.

This is already a very strange metropolis architecturally, and it's getting stranger all the time. The simulated urbanism in contained environments like The Grove and Americana at Brand, as well as developments like the Medici etc. and lots of local trolley-styled jitneys, all look to the past, and treat urbanism as though it were simple town square or euro nostalgia. Meanwhile, when the City's builders look to build for the future, they take their cues from not from utopian visions, but from dystopian visions, such as Blade Runner and the dark fleet spaceships that suggested 100 Main. New York is guilty too, as the backdrop buildings of Grand Theft Auto IV demonstrate. There is no architectural vision of the future that is merely pleasant; I suppose the architecture is more honest unto the people who live here than we would like it to be.

Also: USC's new architecture dean and nutcase Quingyung Ma is profiled in this months' Dwell., one of the few articles they put online.

Baja slips further into turmoil

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More American tragedy in Baja: four Americans, including a woman, slain execution style near Rosarito Beach.

The comments to KNBC's story, far more incendiary than anything permissible at most blogs, demonstrate both how far Mexico's policing ability has slipped in recent months and how much Anglo-Americans fear Mexico's inability to police itself adequately.

g PREVIOUS ITEM (April 28)

Could Mexican-American relations have had a worse two weeks? It started with the Absolut ad agency's reconquista map. Anti-kidnapping units were found to be kidnapping tourists themselves. A Mexican official visiting Washington stole Blackberries from the White House. And the final immense bloodbath in teejay, San Diego's sister city, where the dead were laid out on a maquiladora road. Things are not well within the already schizo relationship between the two countries that are more different to each other than any that share a 1,000 mile-plus border in the world.

City at Noon: Hooray for Hollywood!

JM, Hooray for Hollywood and Hillhurst, 5.19.08

Noted: Ashlee Simpson, whoever that is, got married and told the wedding guests that she was pregnant. And that's the news, live from Hollywood.

Morning Eye-Opener

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If you're looking to gain some bearings on local politics quickly, read this Orlov roundup: "Times are bleaker than bleak for LA Republicans," etc. Antonio and Council expecting a hard time in asking the voters for more money in November, Zev as always calling for further study on something, Ridley-Thomas registering Obama voters, the usual bedlam in the 40th AD, problems at BONC and DONE, etc. It used to be that good blog writing sounded like good newspaper writing; now, it's more like the better newspaper writing gets, the more it sounds like good blog writing.

g If you follow State politics, the Sacto Bee's Dan Weintraub also writes roundups like this, roundups that get to lots of core issues and key conflicts quickly.

g Everyone has an opinion on keeping animals caged animals in zoos. It's about time that the animals themselves were heard from. An orangutan tried to escape from the LA Zoo this weekend. He was very polite about it.

g The Former Fishwrap Of Record, ever fearless in its local coverage, now tries to blow the cover off of...the California roll. How hard would it be to do a bona fide expose on photo tickets, complete with Council vote records and memos? Everyone knows the City shaved time on the yellow lights to collect more revenue. Even so, the Times is tentative, fiddling with the right-turn offenders, even employing the blogger's trick of adding a question mark to the head when you're not really sure...

g Speaking of the FFOR, if you missed the sourcing background of the Fleischman Hillard / DWP billing story when it was fresh and new, and you somehow care about it, someone left a comment up at Ron Kaye's blog describing some of it. The post says that a key whistleblower was the daughter of a former Times senior editor, and hired at FH by another former Times senior editor, who now spins for UCLA. The stories the Times (ceaselessly) ran about FH billing mentioned neither fact, but it seems worthwhile knowing and stowing.

g Keep checking RonKayeLA.com on your daily rounds---it's a lot of fun over there. And if the local news is sounding more and more like a MayorSam Hotsheet or Exclusive, you can guess that that blog has more influence than is comfortable for most.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

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A parolee fired three rifle shots outside of a Catholic Church at a festival in Granada Hills. His apparent motive was striking back at his ex-girlfriend over custody of their son. His ex-girlfriend was wounded in the assault.

Fernando Diaz Jr. is being held in the Van Nuys Police Station on a lot of bail. A restraining order had been issued against him.

The incident should at minimum resolve the custody dispute, anyway.

g This "opinion" by DJ Waldie on LA transit is virtually opinion-free. Busses are crowded and slow! Who knew? (They also are in NYC and Paris.) He's sort of right but sort of wrong about most drivers not calling the stops; in fact, on most twelve minute-map busses, a recording calls the stops. Any stop on "Hollywood" is even given a special cadence all its own by the voice-over; more simulated urbanism from a town that doesn't really seem to want to know what urbanism is.

g Speaking of simulated urbanism, the examples of trolley bus at the Grove (accident last Friday), the short life of the Holly Trolley, and the limbo of Angel's Flight all demonstrate that jitney-styled transit in LA is not essential, it's simply nostalgic, and we don't have forward thoughts on short transit, but retro thoughts on it.

g Add the Library to the list of Departments that won't really be cutting back after all. The overstated org "Save LAPL" reports that a whopping 36.5 jobs have been saved (about half a job per branch), and there will be no special Sunday closures, so your well-fed librarians can continue to graze through the weekends. The book budget is restored too. "More than 1300 people visited this website and sent passionate messages of support for the Library, messages that went directly to the Mayor, the Budget & Finance Committee of the City Council, and the City Librarian!" MayorSam get more daily visits from Minutemen than that...

Morning Eye-Opener

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The Downtown News is first fishwrap out of the chute on the Parks/Ridley-Thomas race. The Downtown News endorses Mark Ridley-Thomas. Their endorsement does not dis Bernard Parks; it says that there's much to like about Parks as well. This is one of the most issues-driven, weightiest endorsement editorials you'll see in print.

g Also in the Downtown News, something I missed this week, and I suspect a lot of people did: Robert Rauschenberg died on Monday, at age 82. I remember as a freshman in college standing in MoMA's new exhibition wing and seeing 34 Rauschenberg's depicting of the thirty-four cantos of Dante's Inferno, the epic I happened to be reading at the time for Columbia's fabled humanities class. (Back then, MoMA was free on Wednesdays, and I went every Wednesday, especially to see Guernica, because there was talk that it would be going back to Spain soon). So it was with some appreciation that I read that MoCA here in LA rather than MoMA in NYC now possesses the series. Still, it seems that eight of the thirty-four are on display at MoMA right now. The NYTimes calls the series shadowy---I found it more playful.

g The housing crisis affects our city's overcrowded animal shelter problem, as people forced into rentals may move into buildings hostile to pets, the Daily News says. "Pet surrenders" are spiking across the nation.

Local Monets

JM, Jacaranda petals, sidewalk, Rodney, 5.16.08


JM, Jacaranda petals, Rodney, 5.16.08

click images to enlarge

City at Noon: Another Department Head, Navigating by GPS

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I've much criticized Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's penchant for hiring out-of-towners of dubious talent for critical city positions, thereby making key City appointments beholden to his wishes alone. It's reached stratospheric awfulness in the persons of Gloria Jeffs and Gail "GPS" Goldberg, but...

Here's the sad story on yet another Department head who needs GPS to get around town: Olga "GPS" Garay, head of Cultural Affairs.

"On my first 10 days working here last year, I got so lost I was practically crying," she says, turning down the jazz station she normally listens to. Typically, this is a story she tells on herself, not the least embarrassed. "I got one of those GPS things and I told it where I wanted to go. But nothing happened!"

She continues, straight-faced. "So I called the emergency GPS number and spoke to this guy," who couldn't believe she was talking to the device. She throws back her head and cackles: "I'm like a mental midget!"

It's hard to believe the town's current culture czarina could be even modestly effective without knowing the long history and cultural legacy of the Department itself, the Croton years, the Nodal years, the Maggie years, the inherent tensions with Rec and Parks, the diminishing role of the Cultural Heritage Commission, etc. It's hard to believe a cultural grants program could be run effectively, and not simply as the Mayor's personal slush fund, with an out-of-towner at the helm. But more and more, the City's Department of Cultural Affairs is becoming just that, with a department head who can only smile and say, "Who and how much, boss?" when shaping the City's cultural destiny.

Morning Eye-Opener

Left, an NYC skyscraper. Right, a Liberty City skyscraper in Grand Theft Auto IV. Check the whole series of thirty such knockoffs at flickr. And then marvel at the fact that some nerd has enough time not only to play the game, but to source its animation too.

g LAPD depute jefe Michael Moore tells the Daily News that an injunction against the San Fers would control them. But Richard Alarcon takes the opportunity to sound like a crazy man. As though injunction requests are public relations events, he thinks the City Attorney's motion "doesn't take notice of all the good things that are going on in the community." His equally unbalanced claim that "most residents are more afraid of foreclosure than they are of gang members" is of course an outright lie, as most residents are renters, but renters and homeowners alike fear gangs.

g Ron Prentice will be the fundie point-person on the anti-gay marriage initiative. Here's his LA Times Dust-Up from last summer on the issue. It's hostile. California's demographics have changed substantially since 2000, even since 2004; the Christian right's rhetoric hasn't.

g Notes on the sidebar: Larry Mantle and Warren Olney's shows are streamed over the Internet. If you think of it, you can click to them from the sidebar now, where they get special call-outs.

Small brushfire in Griffith Park

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If you're wondering how severe the brushfire in Griffith Park is, I'd have to say: not very.

Tiny wisps of white smoke streaking the sky in the southwest side of the park, west of the Observatory. Last year's fire was heaviest north and northeast of the Observatory.

There are a few helicopters in the sky but at this point the fire looks to be under an acre in size and under control.

Gay Marriage Scorecard

Four years ago, Gavin Newsom opened the door. Today, the California State Supreme Court sealed the deal.

Pundits hoping to assign blame in overturn of the State's ban against gay marriages are going to be profoundly disappointed. Republican lite Arnie's appointment voted AGAINST the overturning of the 2000 initiative banning gay marriage. But two appointments of Republican Governor Wilson and one of Republican Governor Deukmejian joined the sole Democratic appointment on the SC in overturning the ban.

• Ronald M. George, (1991), Chief Justice (Wilson - R) FOR
• Marvin R. Baxter, (1991), Associate Justice (Wilson - R) AGAINST
• Ming W. Chin, (1996), Associate Justice (Wilson - R) AGAINST
• Carol A. Corrigan, (2006), Associate Justice (Schwarzenegger - R) AGAINST
• Joyce L. Kennard, (1989), Associate Justice (Deukmejian - R) FOR
• Carlos R. Moreno, (2001), Associate Justice (Davis - D) FOR
• Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, (1994), Associate Justice (Wilson - R) FOR

It should be hard to call a Court "activist" when six of seven judges were appointed by Republicans.

City at Lunch: $2.38

JM, dos con todo, 5.13.08

What you get for $2.38 at El Sauz, Chevy Chase and San Fernando, Glendale---the taco stand in street-hassle's logo. Jalapeno, dos tacos de asada con todo, radishes and lemon wedge.

g El Sauz, Yelped. "Excellent burritos and tortas but at the little yellow shack titled Sauz Taco you need to get the tacos, even if just a couple on the side."

g El Sauz, The Great Taco Hunt. "These asada tacos were what Los Angeles is all about."

Morning Eye-Opener

JM, Backgammon, Glendale, 5.13.08

For the first time, Arnold opens the door to new taxes, Orlov and Harrison Sheppard report.

g You've likely already heard by now that the Mayor's first choice for CAO, Marcus Allen, has lost interest. Rest assured that anyone who turns down a civil service job because of money has an insufficient sense of civitas to perform it.

g But in LA these days, nobody seems to want to be of service to LA anymore unless they're shown the money. Even Ugly Betty's leaving. That sucking sound you hear is the sound of 150 Angelenos losing their jobs on the show.

g I've never been quite able to figure out what it is that makes the Sagebrush Cantina the Sagebrush Cantina. But this obit explains it all: it was owner Bob McCord's force of personality. If you've been there more than once, you'll recognize the face instantly.

g Jamiel Shaw Sr. is becoming LA's Cindy Sheehan [ed. for sp.]. He's too incautious, and by politicizing his deceased son, he'll likely soon be obliged to encounter real political flak in return. But his charge that District Attorney Michelle Hanisee threatened to depict Jamiel Jr. as a gangster unless Shaw stopped pushing for hate crime prosecution is certainly intriguing and even worth investigating itself. Of course, that's exactly what happened. Hanisee is now off the case.

g Planners say we'll need 32 billion more gallons of water a year here in LA 2030. And that's only to sober up Gail Goldberg.

photo essayette: Atwater

click images to enlarge


JM, Duck in Mulholland Fountain, 5.14.08


JM, Pedestrian Bridge, LA River, 5.14.08


JM, Girl waiting on a 780, Riverside and Los Feliz, 5.13.08

FOLAR, the Friends of the L.A. River, is sponsoring a Great River Clean-Up day this Saturday , May 17, from 9 a.m. to noon at 12 different locations. Mine's at Los Feliz Beach; click this webpage for a link to one close to you.

City at Noon: Print Ponders Faux Fox Hahn Hackjob

JM, Garage mural, Fairbanks Pl., Echo Park, 4.30.08


We had the story on Fox's flawed attack on Councilwoman Janice Hahn two weeks ago, and wondered when print would get around to it, and someone in print did finally get around to it.

street-hassle, 5.1.08

The Fox news "exclusive" will go on for a second night, and if the second is anything like the first, expect print to ponder what the hell's going on....But beyond that big first-night of Fox sucker-punching, the interview with the disgruntled cops had to take the prize. These are people who are about to sue the City. We should expect these to state a fair case, and take their word for blanket statements they are making about how the Los Angeles Police Department perceives Hahn's intervention efforts?

Daily Breeze, 5.14.08:

But a review of the Fox 11 News story found major flaws that undermine its central allegations....The story was largely based on the allegations of two Los Angeles Police Department officers who contend that Hahn pressured the department to remove them from their foot beats in Watts due to complaints about their aggressive tactics.

This is what happens when you base news on would-be plaintiffs' interviews alone. The FoxNews ed should have seen that.

UPDATE: Orlov notes it too at the Daily News's blog.

UPDATE II: Ron Kaye too.

Morning Eye-Opener

JM, Simulating Urbanism: Americana at Brand, 4.29.08


Moby blogs late-nite from LAX: " the lounge is filled with chinese businessmen eating noodles out of styrofoam bowls and sade (shar-day, remember her?)is playing on the lounge stereo. we're en route to monterey, mexico." Cool. Attention Kareem: this is what a celeb blog should be.

Can you believe the LAUSD is thinking about asking us for more money??!! They're building schools in meridians, they're taking a decade to build some of them, and they want more. How's this for a lead-in to a pitch for more cash: "Even though we are building 132 schools..."

Steve Lopez notes it when local officials like Admiral Brewer read his newspaper. Similarly, we note it when things from the blogosphere pop up in his column without acknowledgment. But if the Admiral really wanted to start communicating with people, he'd talk to bloggers, who are way better dialed into the grassroots (e.g., Neighborhood Councils, No 2 Home Depot movement, CityWatch, etc.) than the former fishwrap of record. We know who people get opinions from; it's not Steve Lopez, to whom they turn for compelling stories, but not for persuasive political polemics.

Markland notes that Matt Welch is in town to talk John McCain. Through Zocalo, the feed-the-hungry lecture series that people sort of show up to for the catering. I liked what Markland had to say about the potential "nightmare ticket": McCain/Clinton. I don't think that one would stand a chance, but McCain/Powell might.

Whoops

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Alarm bells are going off tonight at the RNC. There have been three special elections in the House in which Republicans have left office, and all three have been won by Democrats. This warning came last week when the GOP had lost two of two but still looked to the first Mississippi district, which Bush carried by 25 points in 2004, as a win. They lost that one too tonight. When Travis Childers is sworn in, Demos will control the House by a whopping 37 Reps: 236-199.

The GOP blogosphere is peddling to the increasingly disgruntled base the fact that Childers isn't exactly as liberal as Barack Obama. That may be true, but the GOP smear machine in this formerly-GOP-safe district threw unadulterated Jeremiah Wright at Travis Childers---and Childers won anyway.

This is what's really causing the GOP to wet their britches tonight: in a district that's easily among the 25% most conservative in the country, the Wright stuff was the wrong stuff. Combine that with the fact that McCain is pulling 77% in states in which he's purportedly unopposed, and there is enormous danger ahead for the GOP.

"I'm so over you, Andruw Jones"

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And other afternoon linkage.

Karen Bass is the new Speaker of the Assembly. Right away, she's looking for bipartisan support on raising tax revenue. Good luck. She'll be termed out in 2010. Not a career pol, she deserves all kudos.

WeHo ubernanny Mike Feuer wants the State to make an ignition interlock breathalyzer mandatory on anyone convicted of a point-oh-eight or above. It's currently installed at the judge's discretion. I'd check his contributors list if I had time.

If you wonder if spam is big business, myspace says it just won nearly a quarter of a billion dollar verdict in a fight over it.

I'm so over you, Andruw Jones, and four other things, from the utterly irreverent Dodger blog Sons of Steve Garvey.

Morning Eye-Opener

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Joseph Mailander elsewhere • email

The City responds to the overtime story in the Daily News. But what I wonder: why didn't Laura Chick's office identify this problem? She is so busy sticking her nose into everyone's accounting, and sometimes it seems for political purposes---how is it that she never issued this kind of report? The Daily News had to fight---through her office---for the data.

g A cranky org named Friends of the Taxpayer takes a similar line of inquiry. "The Dailey [sic] News obtained this information under the California Public Records Act. That’s great but this information should be continuously and readily available to all, no request or breaking through bureaucratic red tape required, so that Los Angeles taxpayers can see how their money is spent – just as over 15 ENTIRE states have done or are in the process of doing."

g Why would the former fishwrap of record even bother reviewing James Frey's awful book when they miss so much great local fiction? Oh, I remember: Russ Stanton needs to "capture eyeballs."

g Here's a book they should review: John Shannon's The Devils of Bakersfield. A book which actually took some courage to write.

g While I love reading comments and they are part of the whole purpose of the blog, sometimes I am disappointed in the commenters here, and yesterday was one of those days. When you make me take the time to read comments not only for content but for deletion as well, you cut against your own purposes: the more you bicker with each other, the less the comments get read; eventually you'll make your case to nobody at all, instead of the readers of a well-trafficked blog. You can interact with me all you want, and my email address couldn't be any more available; but if you are here to harass each other, then I have to do what works best for the blog, even for your own voices.

Yesterday I had to take the comments completely offline. Someone had taken the trouble to fake a post as a newsmaker. I did not enjoy being obliged to confirm whether the post was a hoax or not, but I had to do the responsible thing and do so. It blew a tire in part of my day; if I had blown a tire in yours, I suspect you'd be fairly upset. Try to get your acts together and not to mess with mine.

g That said, comments can also be golden. A reader wrote yesterday, Why doesn't the City promote carpooling more? No kidding. The Mayor and all Councilpeople should commute with a constituent into downtown one day a week. They might learn how people are actually experiencing this City.

City at Noon: Gail Goldberg makes $200K and doesn't know where Los Feliz is

JM, Goldberg & Bernstein with some commoners, 1.17.08

Our City's Planning jefe Gail Goldberg makes over $200K a year, according to the Daily News's City salary database.

It's a funny salary, considering how much she pleads that her hands are tied to accomplish the will of the people in so many matters, like growth, say, or Sunland Tujunga's Home Depot kerfluffle. And that she seems to have problems getting from downtown to Los Feliz without a map. And how the Weekly doesn't seem to think she can plan a cup of coffee.

Her salary means she made $500 by noon today and will make $500 more by 5 p.m. tonight. In between, she'll open doors and roll out welcome mats to as many developers and contractors as possible, in the name of "smart growth," while the City gets more congested by the day.

It's a pretty good salary for the former homemaker who only studied planning late in life and got to apprentice in San Diego thanks to a sex scandal.

If you're wondering, the other half of her song and dance team, Ken Bernstein, who manages five people, takes home $140,000 for heading up the Planning Department's Office of Historic Resources.

Morning Eye-Opener

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Can you believe that someone with a long bus commute now drives a car? Where does the Times find fascinating stories like these?

Fabian Nunez yields his Speaker of the Assembly post to Karen Bass this week, as he's termed out in December. The former fishwrap of record boldly says his legacy is mixed.

Some readers have been telling me that they've noticed changes at the Daily News since Ron Kaye's departure. Their complaint is that the news is fluffier. But the paper's focus on City of LA workers remains sharp, and their delving into City OT could register on the voter's radar if they push the budget shortfall as City-induced, and you aren't going to get stories like this, featured this way, in the Times.

What should we call that budget "deficit" anyway? It seems a bit like spin merely to call it a deficit, when spending in fact is going up so much. Why not call it the "unfunded increase"?

City wonks: I know some of you don't get over to Mayor Sam's second site regularly, but there's a good memo up there from a consultant on what things are like inside DONE.

Word comes from Sunland Tujunga that Home Depot will present their plans for the notorious K-Mart site to the community tonight at 7 p.m. at North Valley City Hall, 7747 Foothill Blvd, Tujunga. The public is invited---and it has been.

Postprandial nightcap

JM, Izzy, margarita, 10.1.07


A brave hirsute underling chronicles his diet---with bravely hirsute diet photos---at...

Four Vices dot Blogspot dot com

Mexico is breaking down fast: two top police officials assassinated Thursday (Mexico City) and Friday (TJ):

CNN's Mexico

LA County is breaking down even faster: Mike Feuer's so desperate to tax someone, he's ready to assess a Global Warming Tax on autos.

So, Mr. Feuer, what global temperature would persuade you that a new tax is unneeded?

The sun came out on Mother's Day even though mainstream media said it wouldn't. Hope you had a nice one.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Self-portrait, Korean consulate, 1.23.08


Janice Hahn blasted FoxNews on her blog on Thursday night for linking her efforts to broker a gang peace to the gangs themselves. Like Chief Bratton, she believes in intervention.

Over 6,000 people on City payroll earn $100,000 a year, the Daily News reports. Here's the salaries database, too. You can even search it by employee name.

After years of criticizing Catholicism and especially the Cardinal, Steve Lopez finds the most whitebread Espicopal church in the County, and gives it the thumbs up. You kind of figured he'd cotton to a church that would lend the pulpit to him to enable him to promote his book and movie.

An Anglo man suffered brain damage in 2005 after a severe beating by non-Anglos in a lockup pen. The man was locked up with violent criminals but had no history of violence himself. He had stolen his father's cap and the father wanted to teach the son a lesson, so he reported the theft. The LA County jail at Castaic took it from there. One of the perps got six years for attempted murder.

Streetgangs.com's Alex Alonso reports that Jamiel Shaw Jr. expressed the hope of meeting some gang members on his myspace page. He suggests that affiliation and not race was the motivating factor in the killing of Jamiel Shaw Jr. He also lists four killings, one in Harbor City and three in Highland Park, over the past eight years where race was the primary motivating factor. He says that Jamiel's myspace page would classify him as a gang affiliate in the eyes of law enforcement, and he suggests that it's wrong to do so.

LA Blog Rescue Department

JM, Good Night Los Angeles, 4.29.08


Just back from carnitas at El Arco Iris and...

Vexing: "There’s been lots of buzz about the upcoming show, Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk at The Claremont Museum of Art."

Short-shelf-life: here's a blog about the housing valuation bubble as it affects the South Bay, written by a permabear who says it does. Well, it should anyway.

Opportunity knocks: own a cafe and wine bar downtown. Price: $200,000.

Irony: Who do you think won the Los Angeles Handicap today at Hollywood Park? Of course: a horse named Street Boss.

No comment: "If you are in the Los Angeles area and you are looking for Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorneys...You should try the law firm of Kestenbaum, Eisner, & Gorin. They are rated in the top 5% of law firms in the United States, and they are former prosecutors. The firm has over 50 years of combined experience so you will be safe in their hands.

Morning Eye-Opener

The above graphic isn't very relevant to you and me in LA, but it's one of the coolest and most telling graphics you'll see. It's a county map of Appalachian states and how they've voted. Green is Obama and Blue is Clinton. Appalachia itself, cutting across all the states mapped out, is outlined in black. You can see at a glance how Clinton dominates Appalachian counties. And how she'll breeze in West Virginia and Kentucky, the two Appalachian states that haven't voted yet.

My own broken record to the City is that affordable housing doesn't make housing more affordable any more than the lottery makes us all richer. Finally, someone who hits an affordable housing jackpot unwittingly says as much in the Downtown News. "Hong Huang said that when he heard the news, it was like winning the lottery. But rather than a seven-figure payout, he had found a place for his family to call home."

Mr. Hong's name was in the hat along with 500 other applicants. The contractors and the developers have made their money elsewhere.

The article as it reads is a plug for agency-organized affordable housing, which in twenty years hasn't made overall housing more affordable at all. To balance the article, the Downtown News should also interview a couple of the 460 losing applicants, and tell us how their lives are going with regards to housing too.

Yesterday's and today's Times' Local page was hilarious: all happy bloggy smiles on top, a bunch of grizzly murders and student brawls on bottom. They even squeezed Manson into the mashup. You get a feeling that the grownup print eds are fairly done with the happy-face kids who get to cap their page.

Eleven years later, Notorious B.I.G.'s family still wants wrongful death money from someone, and U.S. District Judge Florence -Marie Cooper reverses herself and says that a claim against the Feds can proceed. The allegation is that rogue police officers conspired to kill the Notorious one.

Media aren't calling what happened at Locke High School a race riot, but bloggers don't hesitate to. And it took riot police to quell it. Latinos were detained in the school's gym, and blacks in another room.
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