Redistricting Prep For Monday Court Scheduling Hearing, Balanced With Some LA Photos

 Consider this like a palate cleansing.  The five court challenges to the Alaska Redistricting Board's Proclamation Plan get their first court appearance Monday, December 20, 2021 at 11:30 am.  That's tomorrow as I write this. Probably today as many of you read this.  Here are the numbers if you want to call in and listen.

I don't think it's going to be that exciting.  Here's a link to the Court's Pretrial Order.  And here's an outline of that order.  

• Pleadings
• lists the five cases - Skagway, Valdez, Mat-su, Calista, and the three Anchorage plaintiffs
• cases consolidated and given the case number 3AN-21-08869CI
• Technical Support 
• outlines who is responsible for what - access to software to view census data
• how to pay transcription service - Dec 27 deadline to agree
• Trial Timelines
• Has to be done 120 days before filing deadline June 1, 2022, thus court's decision due by February 1, 2022
• To give judge time, evidence should be finished by January 25, 2022, Written closing argument and proposed findings by January 27, 2022
• Preliminary estimate - one trial day per plaintiff; board gets 3-5 days for its case, then trial has to begin by January 11, likely sooner.  Parties invited to propose start dates for trial
• Summary Judgment Motions - court permits none
• Witnesses
• Each plaintiff may call up to 3 at trial.  May present up to three video depositions in addition.  Plaintiffs have to ID witnesses in advance and make them available for video deposition by January 11
• Board may call up to seven witnesses at trial, seven more via video deposition testimony.  Same deadline for identifying witnesses and availability for deposition (Jan 11)
• Each party shall file affidavits setting forth the direct testimony of the non-expert witnesses by Dec. 27, 2021.  Witness can be called only for cross exam, redireet, and recross.  
• Each plaintiff limited to one expert witness.  Must identify them and topic of the expert's testimony.   Board limited to three expert witnesses.  Name and topic in by Dec. 27, 2021.
• Affidavits of expert's direct testimony in by December 30, 2021.
• Discovery
• Board has to provide Court, Plaintiffs, and pending intervenors with 'the record' by December 21
• Parties shall be prepared to discuss discovery deadlines and perhaps limits on discovery or deposition at the scheduling hearing on 20 December 2021 at 11:30 am.  Parties will be sent a zoom invitation by chambers.  This overrides he earlier order setting a telephonic hearing.
• Court encourages parties to begin discussions regarding discovery and scheduling before the scheduling hearing. 
• All witnesses must be made available for depositions no later than the week of January 3, 2022
• Sequences of Party and Witness Presentation
• at a date to be determined plaintiffs will discuss and propose a sequence for when each shall make witnesses available for cross exam and redirect.
• Same for the Board
• Judicial Assignment
• Judge to be permanently assigned to the case will be announced shortly after scheduling conference
• Parties will have two business days after distribution of judicial assignment to exercise a challenge
• The assigned judge may revisit these pretrial orders as the case develops.  

Now some dessert.  We had breakfast at the Mar Vista Farmers Market.  It's become an upscale event.  Lots of vendors have booths selling vegetable and fruit, food to eat, and prepared items like honey, olive oil.  There's a place for kids to play - more children's museum stuff than playground stuff - and music.  And lots of people, masked and unmasked.  A bit overwhelming.  We ended up with empanadas and tamales.  

I liked the name and they had Khao Soi on the menu - a favorite northern Thai/Lao dish.  But it was with pork and that's further from my vegetarian presences than I go, knowingly. 

 

I passed the Mar Vista Time Travel Mart on my bike ride home.  

And then there were the trees.  I think this one is an oak.  

I decided this was two pairs of palms visiting, but socially distanced.  

Not sure what kind of tree this was.  I took the picture because of the tree house.  

Trying To Keep The Blog Current On Redistricting While Taking Advantage Of The LA Sunshine

 I'm sitting outside at my mom's house in LA.  Well, she lived in this house the longest, so it's always going to be her house in my mind.  It rained Tuesday, but the sun has been out since.  Today, however, it toasty.  And since clouds and rain are predicted for the rest of the week, I'm taking shameless advantage.  

This is my afternoon office on the deck.  The birds of paradise are right behind me. 

Two legged and winged birds flit around.  The sun is on my filthy laptop screen makes using it an effort.  And I know my friends in Anchorage have no sympathy whatsoever.  

But there are things of import happening with the Alaska Redistricting Board.  I do want to make comment on the various court challenges to the Board's Proclamation.  But first here's a headsup for Monday's initial court hearing in Judge Morse's court room.  The hearing is scheduled for 11:30am and below is the info for calling in. 

[It's an image, so for those of you with visual impairments, whose  text reader can't turn images into audio, I'll add it here too:  First call 1-800 768 2983 or  1 907 206 2349.  Then, enter the access code:  2640425.]

I've also updated the Redistricting Board Page adding this court information and also adding links to all the legal challenges.  So use the Redistricting tab under the orange banner or click here.

What The Headlines Tell Us About The News Organization

I was reading the LA Times online today and there's a story about all the people running for LA mayor next year.  The latest entrant appears to be Rep. Karen Bass, an LA Democrat.  I was confused by this sentence:

"Voters now have a much clearer picture of next year’s contest to replace Garcetti, who faces term limits."  

I thought he'd been named Ambassador to India.  Is he still mayor?  So I googled "LA Mayor Garcetti  India" and got this page.  I've cut much of it and just left the headlines. These are all dated July 9, 2021 or thereabouts.  They're all pretty much the same, except one:

"Search Results    Web results

Biden nominates LA Mayor Eric Garcetti to be ambassador to ...https://dailybruin.com › 2021/07/26 › biden-nominates...

Garcetti is Biden's pick for ambassador to India - Los Angeles ...https://www.latimes.com › california › story › la-mayor...

Mayor Garcetti Selected as Ambassador to India - NBC Los ...https://www.nbclosangeles.com › news › politics › la-m...

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti picked for ambassador ... - CNNhttps://www.cnn.com › 2021/07/09 › politics › eric-garcet...

Biden nominates LA Mayor Eric Garcetti for India ambassadorhttps://apnews.com › article

Biden Chooses Scandal-Plagued L.A. Mayor Garcetti As India ...https://www.forbes.com › sites › joewalsh › 2021/07/09

Biden taps Eric Garcetti for India ambassador posthttps://www.washingtonpost.com › politics › 2021/07/09

Biden picks Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti to be US ambassador ...https://www.reuters.com › world › biden-nominate-los-an...

Joe Biden Taps Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti To Servehttps://deadline.com › 2021/07 › joe-biden-taps-los-ang...

President Biden Nominates LA Mayor Eric Garcetti For ... - LAisthttps://laist.com › news › politics › president-biden-no...

 There are lots of criticisms of the subtle ways that media's choice of words biases a reader's perception of the story.  But there's nothing subtle about this.  I haven't read the articles.  Perhaps the Forbes one is more of an opinion piece than a news item.  It certainly stands out.  

But I was still trying to find out why Garcetti is still Mayor and not in India.  My guess was Senate confirmation backlog, but I couldn't find anything that said that.  Various google searches kept getting me the same articles dated around July.  Even ones that said "When is he leaving office?"

Finally, when I put Sept 2021 in the search, while I still got the same July articles, I did get this one ABC News article  that has a similar focus to the LA Times article - who is running to replace him - but it does include this sentence:

"Mayor Eric Garcetti cannot run again in 2022 due to being termed out. He was nominated in July by President Joe Biden to serve as U.S. ambassador to India. He is expected to leave office early pending the U.S. Senate's confirmation of his appointment."

Why?  According to an August 11 LATimes article:

"Yet [Gentry O. Smith's] April nomination, like many made by President Biden for the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and elsewhere, sat stalled for months in Senate committees, where a few Republican lawmakers blocked approval.

Although nominations were blocked across the board, the State Department was hardest hit: As of Monday night, more than six months into the Biden administration, only one of the president’s ambassador picks had been approved, leaving nearly 50% of all embassies without their top official, according to the American Foreign Service Assn. Early Wednesday, a second ambassador, Kenneth Salazar for Mexico, was confirmed in a marathon Senate session."

It goes on:

Foremost among those blocking nominees is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has held back as many as two dozen State Department appointees, on demands that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken penalize all international firms and individuals involved in the construction of a Russian pipeline to Europe.

Blinken complained last week that 65 nominations were still pending a confirmation vote. Some of those, including Smith’s nomination, this week squeaked through the Senate approval process on the eve of Congress’ August recess after languishing for months.

“These are critical national security positions,” Blinken said, specifically mentioning the assistant secretary of State for diplomatic security, Smith’s designated position.

I've just started reading :KILL SWITCH THE RISE OFTHE MODERN SENATE AND THE CRIPPLING OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, by Adam Jentleson.  He was Senator Harry Reid's top assistant and this book is aimed as dispelling the myths around the 'sacred tradition' of the filibuster. 

I'll probably have more on that book later.  

 

Los Angeles Times Mea Culpa

This is from a long confessional apology by the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times: 

"For at least its first 80 years, the Los Angeles Times was an institution deeply rooted in white supremacy and committed to promoting the interests of the city’s industrialists and landowners. No one embodied this aggressive, conservative ideology more than Harrison Gray Otis, the walrus-mustachioed Civil War veteran who controlled The Times from 1882 until his death in 1917. The modern notion that journalism’s core precepts include uncovering hard truths and exposing inequity would have been foreign to Otis and other press barons of the last Gilded Age. Far from a mission of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable,” his newspaper stood for the raw exercise of power, and he used it to further a naked agenda of score settling, regional boosterism, economic aggrandizement and union busting.

Otis was a Lincoln Republican who had fought on the side of the Union and opposed slavery. But his Times was a newspaper aimed at the mostly Protestant white settlers who migrated to California from the Midwest and the Plains in the decades after it was seized from Mexico in 1848 and admitted to the Union in 1850."

Do you think the fact that the owner of the LA Times (he bought it two years ago) is a person of color has anything to do with this statement?  From the Guardian:

"Patrick Soon-Shiong has spent decades trying to cure cancer and made a biotech fortune in the process, making him one of California’s most successful, enigmatic billionaires.

Born in South Africa to Chinese parents, he rose from humble origins and ended up in Los Angeles where he has thrived as a surgeon, scientist and entrepreneur. “The richest doctor in the history of the world,” Forbes magazine declared in 2014."

The apology goes on to spell out examples of the paper's own institutional racism:

"It was not just that The Times saw fit to hire white men almost exclusively for its newsroom; the stories it told were largely for and about white people, which meant Angelenos weren’t getting an accurate account of their city, region and state at a time of rapid change.

Typical of the paper’s attitude was a 1978 interview in which Otis Chandler airily dismissed Black and Latino readers: “It’s not their kind of newspaper. It’s too big, it’s too stuffy. If you will, it’s too complicated.”

Chandler later stepped back from that, saying the paper was looking for readers in the “broad middle class” and “upper classes” regardless of race or ethnicity. “We are not a paper that’s sought after in the lower-class areas,” he said."

I would like to think this would have been written even if this hadn't been the year of BLM becoming mainstream.  But the apology itself acknowledges the influence of George Floyd's murder.  

The brutal death of a Black man, George Floyd, on May 25 while in the custody of police in Minneapolis shocked the world. It also prompted news organizations like The Times to reflect on how they cover, frame and promote stories at a time when the 24/7 news cycle moves faster than ever. Amid nationwide demonstrations over racial injustice, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild established caucuses for Black and Latino employees. The caucuses have called for improvements in coverage, hiring and career development, a public apology for The Times’ poor record on race, and equal pay. They have insisted, rightly, on reframing and recentering our coverage of communities of color.

 I hope it sets an example for other organizations to reflect on their pasts and redesign their futures.  And the future of the United States.  Here's what the Times pledges:

The Times will redouble and refocus its efforts to become an inclusive and inspiring voice of California — a sentinel that employs investigative and accountability reporting to help protect our fragile democracy and chronicles the stories of the Golden State, including stories that historically were neglected by the mainstream press. Being careful stewards of this new company, privately owned but operated for the benefit of the public, is our first obligation. But that stewardship will also require bold and decisive change. If we are to survive as a business, it will be by tapping into a digital, multicultural, multigenerational audience in a way The Times has never fully done.

 

Mystery Spots, Floating Bear, Changing Neighborhoods

The two year old mirror in the back bathroom at my mom's house had developed dark round spots here and there.  A mystery.  And a project.  I loosened the brackets that were holding it up, only to discover there was glue involved too.  Youtube showed me how to remove a mirror with glue.  Fortunately I followed the advice and taped it well because it did break into pieces.  Someone else gave me advice to wear long sleeves.

When I got the mirror off, I found out the source of the mystery spots.  All the spots were where the glue was on the back of the mirror.

Another youtube showed me how to glue a new mirror up.  I needed mirror adhesive.

On the way to the hardware store, I passed this new (to me) mural.  It's much easier to stop and take a picture when you're on your bike.

@TJN3FF did this great bear mural - though it looks more like an otter pose than a bear pose.  If you go to his instagram page you'll see at least one more that I've posted in the past.

While I was at the hardware store, some clouds came over and there were even scattered raindrops. We have drizzle (it wasn't), shower, rain, downpour (none of them), but we don't have a word I know of for 10-15 raindrops per square meter per minute.

I'd notice this boxy modern new house going up on the way.  I was particularly struck by the steps to the roof.  I thought they looked very cool, but I know they're going to get a railing before long, and that's probably a good idea.





But on the way back I was thinking about the way this neighborhood is changing.  Up on this small hill, the houses tend to be bigger than the bungalows in the flatter area, but this one is still bigger and a stark contrast in style.  Here are a couple of the neighboring houses:

This is within a mile of my mom's house, but a totally different neighborhood

Back in 2007 I posted some pictures of some of the original subdivision houses in my mom's neighborhood along with some of the newer, much larger ones that have replaced the originals.

In the 12 years or so since I did the 2007 post, Google and other high tech companies have moved in between these neighborhoods and the beach.  So there are lots of affluent young tech folks buying up old houses, demolishing them, and building much bigger ones.  And there are also developers doing the same and then putting them up for sale.  

I grew up in a three bedroom, one and a half bath house - a family of four.  It seemed plenty big at the time, but it's only about 1200 square feet.  And not cleverly designed to use the space to its fullest.  

And I'd note there was a tent encampment along the sidewalk by the post office near the hardware store.  That hadn't been there last time.  

Bike, Beach, Benny As My Knee And Weather Improve

My knee has a little more range of motion every day.  Lots of ice and anti-inflammatories.  Today, with the temperature in the mid-70s*, I seemed I had enough recovery in my leg to ride the bike.  And the weather was so deliciously perfect.

But things aren't all good in Southern California.  On the way to the beach I passed this small homeless encampment which wasn't here as recently as last July, the last time we were here.

There's about the same amount of stuff on the other side of the camper.










And even at Venice Beach there are more places where homeless folks have settled.  There were people near here in the past.  This is in the richest country in the world whose economy is doing so well that we have lots of multibillionaires.

I didn't want to overdo it, so I didn't go too far along the beach, even though the Sirens were calling me.

On the way home I took a picture of THIS palm tree that's been here a while.  I just  never had a chance to get it posted.  Vox says it's a cell phone tower.  The article also talks about other attempts in other locations to disguise electrical equipment.

"Over the past few decades, as cellphone networks have grown, thousands of antenna towers designed to look vaguely like trees have been built across the United States. Although these towers are intended to camouflage a tower's aesthetic impact on the landscape, they typically do the opposite: most look like what an alien from a treeless planet might create if told to imagine a tree."

That was my take as well.  

I also wanted to go to the cemetery today because the caretaker who keeps the jade plants for our departed family members' alive during most of the year only works there Mondays and Fridays.  And I wanted to thank him.  On the way we stopped for lunch at a Vegan Thai place.

My mom's got some famous neighbors, some of whom I've posted about in the past.  Today while we were looking for R, I found this marker.  Not sure how many of the younger folks even know who he is.  I remember him as a very funny man. But when I looked for some video, it was a different time.  But here's one with Bob Hope and Jack Benny.  





A good day to be here.  It's supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow.

And for those who wondered about the friend I mentioned the other day, who was going on the cruise through the Strait of Hormuz, well I got an email back from him.  He said that cruise isn't until March.  They had arrived in Cabo yesterday.  Still wondering if the March cruise is going to be rerouted.


*Really, just reporting, not gloating.  I hear it's actually cold in Anchorage these last few days.  I miss that too.

LA Shots, Discussion With Waiter At Persian Restaurant [Updated]

Here's from a couple of nights ago.

We've had sunny days and I have not being able to ride the bike.  I can pretend to walk normally now, but the right knee is still bigger than the left.  But now when I do something wrong, I feel pressure instead of serious pain.  The pressure is a buffer that stops me before I get to the pain part.  And I can move the leg more - obviously enough to walk.  Getting into the car required some thinking about how to position my leg to get it in.

It also means that I let J do the driving today, which means I can take pictures.  I had an eye appointment.

We could see the mountains in the distance, but the sun seems to have gotten rid of most of the snow we saw last week.

The doctor's office is in Beverly Hill, but it still costs much less than it would in Anchorage.  Besides, I've been going to this doctor since 1975 as he reminded me today.  "You're one of my oldest, no I should say, longest regular patients."  We were both young back then and we've seen each other once every one to three years or so all this time.  We talked about grandchildren today. He has a new granddaughter as of Saturday.  And I'm also one of the most distant patients he has.  Last year when I asked him how long he'd be practicing, he said as long as you keep coming, I'll be here.  We'll see.  Here's what my eyes looked like today.  Or one of them at least.

This vehicle was in the parking lot behind his office.  Is there any hope for global warming when people have enough money they can buy toys like this and they do instead of working to slow down global warming?  But, of course, I know nothing about the owner of this vehicle.  I'm creating a persona based on big wheels.

On the way back we decided to go to a Persian restaurant in Westwood.

While I eat very little meat, Persian lamb shank once a year is one of the exceptions.  And as I was paying, I realized this was a good chance to ask someone with Iranian connections about the US assassination of General Soleimani.  While I kept hearing quotes about what an evil man he is and how many Americans and civilians he's killed, I thought about how the US helped get rid of President Allende in Chile in 1973.  And all the civilians who have died as 'collateral damage' of US strikes in the Middle East.

The waiter said they weren't allowed to talk about this in the restaurant.  And then he did.  I didn't tell him I was a blogger or ask for permission to post his comments, because I didn't think about it until we left.  So I won't.  But did just recently get back from visiting his family and he's worried things will get worse for them because things will get worse for everyone.


Here's the window of a bakery we passed.

And a Persian book store.

Meanwhile I checked and the subways in Santiago are working again, but protestors are still out on the streets.  I guess since they aren't being violent, we don't hear any more about it.

[UPDATED Jan 4, 2020 12:20 am:   Since I shortchanged you on the discussion fo the assassination, I thought I'd offer this insight from Chris Hedges.  Hedges resigned from the NYTimes after an award winning career covering the Middle East and other key areas.  He's way out of the mainstream, but that's because he isn't afraid to take on the taboo subjects of American journalism.  Here's the link to the article  and an excerpt:

"The targeting of Soleimani, who was killed by a MQ-9 Reaper drone that fired missiles into his convoy as he was leaving the Baghdad airport, also took the life of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, along with other Iraqi Shiite militia leaders. The strike may temporarily bolster the political fortunes of the two beleaguered architects of the assassination, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is an act of imperial suicide by the United States. There can be no positive outcome. It opens up the possibility of an Armageddon-type scenario relished by the lunatic fringes of the Christian right.
A war with Iran would see it use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, mines and coastal artillery to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20% of the world’s oil supply. Oil prices would double, perhaps triple, devastating the global economy. The retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on American military installations in Iraq, would leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead."] 

Being A Tourist In Town Where I Grew Up - The Observatory, Travel Town, Visiting Dad

A spectacularly clear day when we left this morning for the Griffith Park Observatory.  The freeway was fairly empty and we made great time, with views of mountains all around with lots of snow.  More than I remember ever seeing.  Not just Mt. Baldy and Mt. Wilson, but all the way around.  Here's just a portion from the Observatory.

 Once we got to Los Feliz, just below the Observatory we hit traffic.  The Observatory doesn't open until noon and it was only 11:45 am, but it was a great day to see views from this spot and everyone was there.  I remember as a kid coming often with my dad and even bringing my son here when we still lived in LA.  The parking lot was where on the right about where that car is.

There is still a lot fairly close, but it was full and most people parked below in the Greek Theater parking lot and walked about a mile up.  A continuous stream of people.  It was like a pilgrimage.  People from all over the world.  You can see a bit of the crowd in the picture below.

Below you can see the Hollywood sign from the upper deck of the Observatory.  

One of the telescope domes.

Inside was pretty chaotic.  But admission is free and there are lots of great astronomy exhibits.  You do have to pay for the planetarium shows

 Here's some of the art deco designs along the roof.

Then off to the other side of Griffith Park to Travel Town.  

Another free attraction.

Although it doesn't call itself a museum, it seems much more a museum than yesterday's visit to the Cayton Children's Museum.




If the photo isn't clear enough, it says:  "DEDICATED TO PRESERVING FOR POSTERITY THE VARIOUS TYPES OF TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT THAT HELPED BUILD OUR STATE AND OUR NATION."

The highlight for the kids was the two loops around Travel Town on the miniature train.  And buying snacks in the gift shop.

I took this picture of the hillside from the train to show how green things are after the recent rains.




And about a mile from Travel Town is the cemetery where my father is buried, so we went to visit him as well.  It too is in Griffith Park, a place that he and I spent a lot of time when I was a kid.

 As we pulled up near the grave site, there were deer visiting too.

The light was great as the sun was getting lower in the west.  Sunset in LA has been right about 5pm these days.  (LA is on the east side of the Pacific Time zone, so it's light at 6am, but dark early now.  Check a map.  LA is further east than Reno, Nevada!)

Lots Of Kid Time

We went to the Cayton Children's Museum in the Santa Monica Mall.  It was crowded and noisy and I'd say that museum is a pretentious name for this indoor playground.

A recently refined definition of 'museum'  from the International Councils of Museums

"Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.
Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing."

Well, that certainly sounds like a definition created by a committee.  I imagine that many of the great museums of the world wouldn't qualify as museums under that definition.  I think the intention is good, but I'd probably separate those things that have been traditionally considered the basic of a museum  "hold artifacts and specimens in trust for society" etc. as the broad definition.  Then I would have listed the aspirational democratic standards (not for profit, participatory, diverse, transparent, etc.) as qualifications for museums that want to be members of the International Council of Museums.

I didn't notice any artifacts and specimens in this museum, unless they were thinking of this as a museum of children's play spaces.  I didn't notice too much addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present.  OK, I don't want to belabor the point.

There were great net tunnels hanging from the ceiling with kids climbing through.  And other fun spaces to navigate, but it wasn't much more than a glorified playground.  I didn't see any conflicts between kids, they all seemed to have enough to keep them busy.  And there was a diverse array of people enjoying the play space.

I've got lots of pictures, but most have my grandkids in them and I don't post their images on the blog.  Here's a picture of my son and myself as rendered in some sort of electronic wall.  I'm on the left.

And the quietest room had low tables with water colors and papers.

Car seat rules make life much more difficult than it was when I was a kid.  Even when my kids were kids.  Some of us drove home and some of us took the bus which had a pretty direct route for us and the SF kids are very used to riding the bus and we had lots of fun.

The weather has been kind.  The two rainy periods this week were during the night.  It was another sunny day, though the temperature only got up into the low 50s.

Gramping Trumps Blogging

Grandkids are a great source of energy.  LA has defied the weather predictions.  Yesterday there was just the slightest drizzles.  Today there were ominous clouds off on the horizon as we set out for the Page Museum at La Brea Tar Pits.

This is one of those places I spent a lot of time as a kid.  Before the museum and the other neighboring museums.  Before most of the big buildings along Wilshire.  When there were just a few fenced off tar pits and concrete replicas of giant sloths, saber tooth tigers, and other critters.

For those who don't know, these tar pits, smack in the middle of Los Angeles, trapped many, many Pleistocene Era animals.   Here's a the largest tar pit there with a replica of three mastodons, one trapped in the tar.

 From Live Science:

The Pleistocene Epoch is typically defined as the time period that began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago. The most recent Ice Age occurred then, as glaciers covered huge parts of the planet Earth.

I guess those folks who believe in a literal bible and that the earth is only 6000-15,000 years old just don't take their kids to places like this where their beliefs will be challenged.


Dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period.  From the Natural History Museum (London):

". . .  66 million years ago, over a relatively short time, dinosaurs disappeared completely (except for birds). Many other animals also died out, including pterosaurs, large marine reptiles, and ammonites."

So this was after dinosaurs were gone and there's no dinosaur bones at the La Brea Tar Pits.

I was very skeptical about them messing up "my park" when they began the Page Museum, but they hid most of the building under this build up grass hill that kids can climb up.  And the frieze on top depicts the various large animals found here.









It's hard to pick favorites.  The saber tooth tigers have to be up there.

This is still a very active excavation and you can see workers meticulously cleaning bones that come out of the hard asphalt.  They also find insects and even seeds of plants.










Then we regrouped at Santa Monica Beach so the kids could play at the sandy playground near the Santa Monica pier.  Unfortunately the carousel was closed for a private party.

The clouds were moving in and the wind was blowing, but the kids had a good time.  It still hasn't begun to rain, but it's coming surely.

I remember Christmas Eve being a day of horrible traffic in LA, but today it was almost a ghost town.

Some LA/Venice/Santa Monica Views

We're at my mom's house in LA. The bike still gets me around and things are in decent shape. Here are a few photos.

Venice Beach at Rose.

Santa Monica is doubling the bike path along the beach so there will be separate space for pedestrians and bikes

Pelicans at Santa Monica Pier.


















When you bike, you get to see signs like this.  We're going to see if we can get in tomorrow.

This is at a Persian ice cream shop in Westwood.

Back at the beach, this is a view looking north toward Santa Monica from the Venice Pier.











Looking south now from the pier.