Mar Vista Wall Art

I Biked over to the Mar Vista post office yesterday and there was a surprising number of murals on the way.  

@madsteez or his website

Philsantosart

Pink Riches

@Poetrylane

It's cool that artists can tag their work now and you can find them easily online.  Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention when I took the pictures and I didn't get all their links.

Article Not Quite Accurate When Comparing California And Alaska [Pot] Taxes

This might seem like a post on pot, it's really a post on journalism and packaging information.  A chart comparing pot taxes and a sentence referencing Alaska caught my attention in this Los Angeles Times article

"One year of legal pot sales and California doesn’t have the bustling industry it expected. Here’s why"

LA Times reports marijuana business in California is below expectations.

The second paragraph offers a list of reasons:

"But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, California’s legal market hasn’t performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say they’ve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade."

The article also has this chart comparing taxes in various states.

Chart from LA Times article

It's not clear from this chart exactly how Alaska's cultivation tax translates into a way to compare with California's sales and excise tax and its cultivation tax (1/5 of Alaska's) impact on prices.  It also leaves out the fact that local governments may add their own tax on marijuana.

• So I did a quick comparison to an Anchorage store and an LA store to see their on-line prices.  :

  Anchorage - Alaska's Green Light District

  Sativa

   Headband - By Parallel 64                       1G  $18

  1/8

  $55
• Cinderella Dream - By Parallel 64  

  1G

  $15

  1/8

  $50
• Pineapple Dream - By Parallel 64   

  1G

  $15

  1/8

  $50

LA's The Pottery offers:

Happy House (s) - KNBIS  1/8 = $52   (says it includes all taxes, though there's a 10% charge for credit cards)

Cherry Sherbert - Passiflora (S)  1/8 = $50loc

Cherry AK (S/H)  Glass House  1/8 $50


[I just picked a store online near me where I'm staying in LA, and an Anchorage store that popped up online. Alaska stores have to use Alaska grown pot so I really don't think I can compare 'brands' like I could with, say, soft drinks.  But I picked Sativas.https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/sativa-indica-and-hybrid-differences-between-cannabis-types    These links probably won't last long as products and prices change.  Here's a guide to the quantities pot is sold in.]

There's one reference to Alaska in the text:

"With nearly a tenth of the population of California, that state has more licensed cannabis shops — 601. On a per capita basis, Alaska has also approved more pot shop licenses than California, — 94 so far. The state imposes a tax on cultivation, but there is no retail excise tax on pot."

First, Alaska approved pot in 2014, it went into effect in February 2015 and the first pot shop opened in October 2016.  

California voters didn't legalize pot until two years later.  The first legal recreational pot shop didn't open until January 2018.


So Alaska had a two year head start on California.  So it should have more licensed shops.  Also it took nine months longer than California to work out its regulations and have the first shops open, so maybe that meant fewer problems.  Though a less populated and more isolated state is probably easier to regulate.

I'd also point out that last sentence, while factual, may leave the sense that the lack of retail taxes might make a difference on prices.  As my quick comparison shows, if there is a difference, it's probably not significant.  It also doesn't mention that in Alaska local jurisdictions may tax marijuana.

What's notable about Alaska (state) marijuana taxes is that it is based solely on volume, not price.  

The other issues listed in the article - local resistance, excess regulation, the illegal market - probably are bigger issues than the taxes in California.

King Tut

My daughter had gotten tickets for the King Tut exhibit at LA's California Science Center.  This was the Museum of Science and Industry when I was a kid.

Here's part of the old facade.

It was all pretty overwhelming.

The Mercury capsule that took the US' first chimpanzee into space is there.

So is the Space Shuttle Endeavor.


The museum itself is free - in contrast to the Science Center in San Francisco.  So that means a lot of lower income families can come in and experience all he exhibits.   And during this holiday break, it was very crowded.

I'm still trying to process the exquisite craftsmanship of the items buried in Tutankhamen's tomb in 1300 BC.  It was really kind of crazy in the darkened rooms full of people and baby strollers crowding around the glass display boxes.

`But I thought I' share a little bit here while I think about it.

So Many Good Movies On Line - This Is A Golden Age - My Favorites For 2018 On Netflix

We only have Netflix.  They have more good movies and shows than we could ever watch.  Truly this is a Golden Age of film.  Not everything is perfect, but there is so many films that offer something worth watching - whether it's great cinematography, great story telling, great acting, great writing, or ideas worth considering.

And there are lots of ways to find the good stuff, For instance someone tweeted a link to this list of art related documentaries.  Fortunately, only a few are on Netflix.

Various sites tell you what's new or what's best or what's leaving Netflix 'this month'.  Just google. I'm finding lots of great foreign films (an ethnocentric way of saying made by someone other than a US citizen).  Some show up in Netflix's lists for me, though Netflix seems to think that no one wants to watch non-English films so they never say in their descriptions "Danish language."  I'm sure I've missed shows I would have watched because I didn't realize it was not made in the US.

Here are some really stellar shows and movies I can think of off the top of my head:

Occupied - this is a truly gripping tv show from Norway.  The Norwegians have discovered an alternative source of energy and have told the European Union they are shutting down their oil production.  The Russians send troops in to occupy Norway and the EU, concerned about their energy source, doesn't object too seriously.  Tense!

Babylon Berlin - a German tv show that takes place in pre-Hitler Berlin.  Great characters, stories, and history.

Fauda - an Israeli tv show about a counter terror unit that doesn't glorify the Israelis and doesn't paint the Palestinians just negatively.  Though it's told from the Israeli perspective and I suspect most viewers will be rooting for them.  But they will see the cruelty and humanity on both sides.

The Good Place - A US show that features a lot of philosophy, humor, and thoughts about the meaning of heaven and hell and being a good person.  Very well done, very funny.

Mr. Sunshine - Not quite as high quality as some of the others, but this Korean series offers a look at a period of history I knew nothing about - as the Japanese and US spar over Korea.   A little more romantic, but interesting characters and a different world view.  And a very good story.

Atypical - The world as seen by a high school kid on the Autistic Spectrum.  Well worth watching this US show.  Funny and enlightening.

Hannah Gadsby - Nanette - This Australian comedian starts out telling jokes like any other stand-up and then somewhere along the way it all changes and becomes one of the most powerful standup act I've ever seen.  This is just a single show, won't take up that much of your time and it will suck you into something you didn't expect.

Sense8 - This show has about eight people living in different parts of the world - US, Mexico, Iceland, India, Germany, Korea, Kenya - who are all connected in a bizarre way.  This series follows how they discover each other and help each other.  Well made and worth watching because the concept is so unique and you connect with people in a variety of countries and sexual orientations.

13 Reasons Why -  I decided to try out the first episode because there were stories that Netflix was going to take it down.  I'd thought it was a documentary about teen suicide, but it isn't.  It's a fictional story about a high school girl who leaves a set of 13 tapes and instructions for who should listen to them in what order.  As I recall, each episode is a different tape as we find out what was happening in her life and the complex lives of the kids and parents in her world.  Gripping and original story telling.  And enlightening.

Dear White People - We see the world through the eyes of the black students at a predominantly white college.  Dear White People is a radio show one of he black students airs that talks about things that normally don't get talked about across races.

Gracie and Frankie - Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are friends only because their husbands Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston have been good friends.  In the first episode, the men take the women to dinner to tell them they want divorces because they are lovers and have been for 30 years and now they want to get married.  The two women, who never liked each other much, now have to learn to share the two families' joint beach house.  This is a funny show, with characters in their 70s, and was a great way to dispel the tension after watching an episode of Occupied or Babylon Berlin.  The characters are NOT poor people.

All but the Hannah Gadsby comedy special are series.  I suspect they stick in my mind more because I saw a lot of episodes over a period of time.  Enjoy this feast of great film.  This is just 2018.  A good year.  Not sure all of these are still available, but enough are.

Merry Christmas.

A Stroll On Venice Pier

It was a hazy day.  People were in shorts and t-shirts.  People had sweatshirts and winter coats.

Below us the surfers were catching waves.

There were lots of birds on the pier hoping for handouts from the humans.

Or posing for the photographers.

Then we made some sand castles on the beach.  A good day to be out and about with the family.   

About Pulling Out Of Syria

[I'm thinking out loud here, trying to bring disparate thoughts together.  Bear with me.]

It's not at all clear to me the costs and benefits of the US having troops in Syria.  I think finding ways to pull out of places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and ending support of the Saudi war in Yemen are important goals.

Ro Khanna, a Democratic member of congress from California, in this Washington Post piece,  supports President Trump's instinct to pull out of Syria, though he argues we need to do it in a way better coordinated with our allies, and in a way that uses leverage over Turkey's Erdogan that keeps him from massacring Kurds in the area.

He also mentions,

"We have spent more money in Afghanistan than we did in the Marshall Plan and continue to spend more than $40 billion each year."

The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe rebuild after the destruction of WW II.  It help lift their economy so Western Europe could help us defend against the Soviet Union as the Cold War ramped up and so they could buy American products, which helped repay what we spent.

Imagine $40 billion a year.  What could the US have spent that money on?  Helping with education and economic development in Central America so that the people there could make a living and build safe lives, so they wouldn't feel the need to flee over the US border.

Think of the US veterans who wouldn't be suffering from PTSD and other serious ailments, not to mention missing body parts.  War is only good for people who make money selling guns, planes, tanks, technology, and all the support items needed for soldiers to live and fight and die.

Think about all the fossil fuel that would not have been used. And how global warming would have been a little bit slower.   The Union of Concerned Scientists write:

"The U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of oil in the world. Every year, our armed forces consume more than 100 million barrels of oil to power ships, vehicles, aircraft, and ground operations—enough for over 4 million trips around the Earth, assuming 25 mpg."

According to Wired, $40 billion a year is only 2/3 of what's needed to rebuild our infrastructure.

" $1 trillion sounds great, but it ain't enough, not if the country wants to keeping fixing roads ten years down the line. According a US Department of Transportation report, just maintaining current highways and bridges through 2030 will cost a cool $65.3 billion—per year. That’s being conservative."

You get the point.  If the Soviet Union, which borders Afghanistan could take control, how can the US do it from half-way around the world away?

Unfortunately, few people, and I know this includes many members of congress, don't have a comprehensive understanding of the factors involved in wars like the ones we're involved in.  We originally went to Afghanistan to punish those who killed 2,955 people on 9/11, 2605 of whom were American citizens.

Brown University's Cost of War study offers this summary of what we've unleashed* in return:

SUMMARY

• Over 480,000 have died due to direct war violence, and several times as many indirectly

• Over 244,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting

• 21 million — the number of war refugees and displaced persons

• The US federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $5.9 trillion dollars

• The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 76 countries

• The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad

READ ALL FINDINGS

*I say 'unleashed' because the US forces didn't kill all these civilians, but the wars we've engaged in have.

Saddam Hussein was a ruthless leader.  Getting actual figures of the number of people his regime killed - civilians and and conscripted soldiers - is not easy.  As I look, numbers range in the hundreds of thousands - at least 300,000 and probably significantly more than that.  Some sources:

• State Department Summary
• The Scotsman
• Wikipedia

Surely, there are people alive who wouldn't be if we hadn't invaded Iraq.  But there are also people who are dead, who wouldn't be if we hadn't invaded Iraq.

I'd note this Brookings Institute (a liberal leaning think tank) prediction from 2002 about the costs of getting into a war with Iraq which I found while getting data for this post:

An invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein would likely cost the United States about $50 billion, though it could plausibly range from $25 billion to $75 billion or so, with likely annual U.S. costs of maintaining order in Iraq ranging from $5 billion to $20 billion for a number of years thereafter. The latter costs of winning the peace, and associated wear and tear on American military personnel, may actually turn out to be a greater concern than the one-time cost of winning the war.

If only it had been so 'cheap.'

My point is, again, that the number of people who actually have looked closely at all the costs and benefits - economic, human, political, opportunity costs - is relatively few.  I'm not in that group.

It's clear to me though, that the money spent "fighting terrorism" could have been better spent creating opportunities for human beings - education, health care, economic development.  These kinds of initiatives would have created positive changes in people's lives and put the United States and the world in a much better place than it is now.

It's time people went back and read some of the old stories we were supposed to learn simple truths from.  For instance the story of B'rer Rabbit and the Tar Baby might be an apt story for the United States' war on terrorism.





I'd note that many such old stories are seen today as sexist or racist.  I suspected people hadfound reason to question the Uncle Remus stories.  So  I checked and they have.  But it's hard not to be racist if you grow up in the United States even today.  Joel Chandler Harris was born just before the Civil War in the South, so surely he had lots of racist tendencies.  But all that considering, it seems he was pretty progressive for his times, and the Uncle Remus stories seem to be a tribute to an old black slave Harris looked up to.  See this Pittsburgh Gazette article on Harris' life.

In The Unbelievably Racist World of Classic Children's Lit,   Malcolm Jones writes:

"The case of Joel Chandler Harris is particularly relevant in this regard. A lifelong southerner and an Atlanta newspaper editor (and incidentally a friend of Twain’s), Harris was probably as enlightened as a white person could be in his time and place. If you read his Uncle Remus stories, you’ll see that to Harris, Uncle Remus was a hero. He’s certainly the smartest and kindest person, black or white, in the narrative that frames the folk tales collected by the author from former slaves.
More important, had Harris not collected those folktales, we almost surely would have missed much of a vast trove of oral storytelling (“our most precious piece of stolen goods,” Twain called them—so that’s what we were getting away with!), because before Harris, no one else had the sense to realize how wonderful those stories were, much less that they should be recorded for posterity. Whatever sins he may have been guilty of, Harris knew at least that much. James Weldon Johnson called the 185 stories published by Harris 'the greatest body of folklore America has produced.'”  

He's not as kind to Disney's Song of the South, from which this clip was taken.

None of this changes my belief that the sooner we get Trump out of the presidency the better for the world and the United States.  And the Republicans who have had control of both houses of Congress since Trump became president, share the blame, because they haven't done their job as a check on the criminal* who is in the White House.

*I think that anyone who looks at the Trump organization and Trump objectively has to acknowledge that he has abused our laws repeatedly.

Scooter & Bike Shares And Other Transportation Around Venice And Santa Monica - Updated

Over the last couple of years when we visited LA, I've notice the scooter thing.  First it was my bewilderment at seeing scooters just sitting, seemingly abandoned, on the bike trail along the beach.

The bikes had stations like this one, where you could use your phone to rent a bike and you had to return it to another station.

But the electric scooters had gps and could be left anywhere and rented anywhere you found one.

This didn't go without controversy.  People complained about scooters menacing pedestrians or being abandoned where they block sidewalks.  There have been reports of vandalism against the abandoned scooters.


The picture shows two Jump scooters (Uber) and a Bird scooter.  I've seen Lyme and Lyft scooters as well.







When the bike trail along the beach goes from Venice (a neighborhood that is actually in Los Angeles) to Santa Monica (a separate city), there's the sign banning scooters.









I've seen some scooters left there at the border,




like this Bird and the others in the background just before this sign.















But I also see a lot of folks riding their electric scooters along the Santa Monica beach bike trail.

Two riders on this scooter.

An electric skateboard.

 An electric mini bike.

Selfie bikers

A speed biker overtakes someone just cruising along.

Non-motorized tricycles.

 Just for fun I'm adding in a couple of forms of transportation that don't actually take you anywhere - the rollercoaster on the Santa Monica pier,



and this guy who was swinging so high and for so long that I was wondering if he was chemically high as well.

And a non-motorized race to the top.   

Besides the beach, there are lots and lots of people riding around the streets of Venice and Santa Monica on these scooters and bikes.  I think it's a great idea whose time hasn't actually come yet.  That is - the streets, bike trails, and sidewalks aren't geared for all these different vehicles going at different speeds.  The idea that you can pick up an easy means of short transport - say two or three miles or less - and just leave it where you end up, is a great alternative to the car.  And a great connector from buses to your final destination.

People are working out how to do this without endangering pedestrians or blocking people's way.

Here are some Jump scooters that found a good spot to park, not far from my Mom's house.

I think this could be a big part of everyone's future.  We just need to redesign streets to accommodate these slower options.  I'm a bit concerned by the lack of helmets among riders.  I haven't seen anyone crash yet, but I've seen a few people looking scared as they come around a curve faster than they were ready for.  

And I'm not sure what the City of Santa Monica intends to do about motorized scooters on the beach bike trails. There sure doesn't seem to be any enforcement at the moment.   When rules are not enforced and then suddenly enforced or selectively enforced, they're a lot easier to challenge.  

I don't know what's happening in the rest of the LA area.  I suspect because of the beach, Venice and Santa Monica have more scooters, but I'm not sure.  I haven't noticed them much when we've been out of the area.  

[UPDATE Dec 22, 2018 7:50 pm - well, it seems the scooters are doing well in the Westwood area where we had a Persian dinner tonight.  

It turns out there's a company doing the same thing with electric cars.  My granddaughter and I passed this place this morning near the Santa Monica Saturday market. 

I looked up Ioniq and got this website for Waive cars.  It says you get the app, locate a car nearby, book it, and drive it for two hours FREE!  They say they make their money from advertising.  After two hours it costs $5.99 per hour.]  There were six or seven more in this lot.]

Old Music - German Swing In My Mom's Garage

Going through my mother's garage, I came across this case that contains old 78 records.  I've seen it before, and put away for another time. Well, it's another time. I've taken it out again.

I knew that these were basically German records that my step father must have brought with him when his family fled Nazi Germany.  So they would have been late 1920s and early 1930s.  But I didn't know what they sounded like. I have a turntable, but it doesn't play 78s.   I did ask a few people about what I should do with them, but got vague responses.

So I did what everyone does these days.  Google.


And I found some of the records that I have on Youtube.








Here are a few:


Telefunken Musikus M 6359  Truxa-Fox.

Telefunken R 1910  Links sitzt das Herz (Left sits the heart)

















There's even Frank Sinatra and Doris Day - Let's Take An Old-Fashioned Walk.  It says "Berlin" on the label - but I think that's for Irving Berlin who wore the song.  Did this get added to the collection later?














Here's one more - Richard Tauber and Dajos Bela - Ich Küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (I kiss your hand, Ma'am)

And there were others I couldn't find online.

Thank you to the YouTube folks who have put this music online.