Still Hot in LA

Near the beach it's generally cooler, but it was in the 90's today. Much, much drier than Thailand, but hot nevertheless. Below are some pictures as I visit with my mom.


The Santa Ana winds have been here the whole time I've been here. Those are desert winds that blow warm and blow the smog out into the ocean. As you can see, from these three pictures looking north on Venice Beach, last Thursday when I did my first run down to the beach, it was pretty clear. Monday it cooled down a bit and the wind was off the ocean and I couldn't even see the Santa Monica mountains. Today was the clearest. I could even see Catalina Island - below. It's the lump on the horizon.

You can listen to part of the 1957 Four Preps hit song "Twenty Six Miles Across the Sea" about Catalina, the island owned for a long time by the Wrigley Gum family. I went to boy scout camp out there once or twice. Here's an interesting piece about the island.

This yoga at the beach picture was taken Monday when it was much hazier.

This picture is from last January. The white bands around the tree had a sign saying the tree was going down. These trees have been here forever. I was taller than the trees when we first moved in. In any case, the roots are making natural speed bumps in the street and wreaking havoc with the sidewalk. The link shows what I posted in January.



Sometime between January and now, the city took out my mom's tree and one other down the street. Yesterday the treemen were back with new trees, but they had trouble because the roots hadn't been taken out and they couldn't dig the hole.

Today they were back and here's the new Italian Stone Pine.

Update Feb. 23, 2012:  Here's the tree now, 3 1/2 years later:

 

A collection of gulls at the beach this morning. There were two terns in with them - I think elegant terns - but they flew off before I could get my camera out. They were cool, with a little black tuft on their heads.

Heading back out to the Valley yesterday to visit Frank and "I" once more.

And I've been passing this Indian bike rickshaw on Rose when I do my morning run to the beach.
And I stopped to ask Kayumba what the word means. Hunter, he told me. Both together are "Soft Spoken Hunter." I forgot to ask what language. That is his name. He's originally from the Congo. His buddy laughed and said, "Only one of the words is accurate." He's a contractor working on a house I passed on my run. I told him about Radical Catholic Mom's adopted Congolese family.


And here's another root. At least this one doesn't seem to be messing up the street or sidewalk.

Alaskan Bloggers Are Everywhere

I was reading an LA Times Magazine article this morning over breakfast about the Santa Monica based blog Hullabalu. The article says,

But the Left's second most influential blogger prefers anonymity.

They say the Huffington Post is number one. (The author, Jesse Kronbluth is a HP contributor) I have to confess that that while Digby sounds vaguely familiar, I didn't recognize it when I checked it out. I checked it out because of this:

What could Sarah Palin do to win your endorsement?
I went to high school in Alaska and met my husband there, so I do feel a bit of kinship with Palin. But she'd have to disavow every political stand she's ever taken, denounce McCain, quit the Republican party and become a pro-choice advocate for me to endorse her. I do enthusiastically endorse Alaskan king salmon.

So I checked out the blog and she had a very good post on the Republican attack strategy that so crippled the Clinton administration with a video on how the Republicans are already preparing to fight the election with their Acorn voter fraud nonsense.

I have to say that for years, as a public administration professor, I got the annual report of Acorn. They've worked pretty quietly on projects to help develop community in low income neighborhoods and to improve the chances of poor people to take part in the American dream. Registering such people doesn't endear them to Republicans. Here's the video she has on today's post. It offers a version of this story much more consistent with my limited experience with Acorn.

It's all in the Tapes

The ADN reports today that both the prosecutors and the defense have finished their closing arguments in the Ted Stevens trial and tomorrow the jurors take control.

In the three political corruption charges in Anchorage last year, jurors reported that the audio and video tapes were very important in their decisions. These are crimes that tend to be invisible and the credibility of witnesses is critical. When the jury hears incriminating things in the defendant's own words, that has to have a big impact on their assessment of whom to believe.

In the ADN's article today Erika Bolstad and Richard Mauer write:

[Prosecutor] Bottini replayed a now-infamous secret recording of the senator, who told Allen on the telephone in 2006 that the worst that could ever happen to him as a result of a federal investigation would be a little jail time or perhaps excessive legal bills.

I haven't heard the tape, but that description doesn't bode well for Senator Stevens.

Race Matters II

From Elstun over at Celtic Diva

Barack Obama is winning over swing voters because of what is called his "temperament". It turns out that his coolness, calmness and steadiness is just what voters are looking for and those qualities stand in great contrast to the "erratic" and fuming McCain-Palin campaign.

Because of the racism in the United States, Barrack Obama, like every African-American male who wanted to succeed, has learned how to control his anger, to swallow his outrage, and to respond with coolness. Angry black men had to transform their anger into some other socially acceptable manifestation - humor, the blues and gospel, slam dunks, knock out punches, or verbal virtuosity. While open anger no longer results in lynching, it can still cause serious damage to the person who expresses it in the wrong situation.

Obama, because of the color of his skin, had to learn to turn his anger into calm, articulate phrases.

Neighborhood Renewal Journal

I know that some of the people who drop by here now and then are interested in preserving livable neighborhoods, so I'm posting this email I got. Academic journals are a little pricy, but it should also be available through the UAA library and Loussac's journal data bases. It would be interesting to look at this subject in terms of renewing Alaska Native villages that have been so impacted by cultural disruption.

Neighbourhood – The International Journal of Neighbourhood Renewal

www.ijnr.co.uk

ISSN (Print) 1756-8676 ISN (Online) 1756-8684



I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the development of the International Journal of Neighbourhood Renewal which will promote good practice in this field of public policy. The Journal is the only one of its kind to truly support global research in the field of neighbourhood renewal. The first edition of this peer-reviewed Journal is out now and the Contents of Edition One are shown attached. Edition Two is out in December 2008 and the planned contents are also shown attached. If you would like to subscribe now to the Journal, then please note that the costs are as follows:



(a) £149 per annum for a quarterly hard copy and electronic access.

(b) £99 per annum for electronic access.



Subscriptions can be via the Journal website at http://www.ijnr.co.uk/subscription_fees.php?id=1 or by emailing the Journal Office at newyork@ijnr.co.uk Subscriptions can also be taken via subscription agents such as SWETS and EBSCO. If you wish to subscribe please let me know and I will send you the copy of Edition One in advance of receiving your order.



I’d also be delighted to publish any of your work in this field and this can be done via the Journal website at http://www.ijnr.co.uk/submit_papers.html or by emailing the Journal Office at newyork@ijnr.co.uk



I look forward to welcoming you as a subscriber to ‘Neighbourhood’.



With kindest regards,



Ray





Ray Holden

Director of Development

Holden Publishing

UK Office Office
Horton House
Exchange Flags
Floor Five
Liverpool
L2 3PF
UNITED KINGDOM

Phone:+44 (0)845 6025280

Fax: +44 (0)151 2445401


USA Office
405 Lexington Avenue
The Chrysler Building
Floor 25
New York
10174 NY
UNITED STATES



Please consider the environment - do you need to print this email?

Man on Wire raises interesting questions

I saw Man on Wire listed as a movie in town and it triggered something in my brain, but I couldn't remember what it was about. Then I noticed someone googled to here with "Each day is like a work of art to him." When I checked to see what that post was about, I got this post on an NPR piece about Man on Wire.

So, my mom and I drove to the Beverly Center to see it last night. It's a quirky little film about a Frenchman who's goal is to walk a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It's all about his preparations for this feat and carrying it off.



Two big issues (of many possibilities) arose for me:

1. The inability of [in this case] police to just do nothing. They are programmed to take action even if the action is likely to cause more harm. In the clip, they threaten to use a helicopter to get the wire walker down. Our need for action gets us into a lot of trouble. There are lots of situations where doing nothing - at least for a while - is the wisest action. Look at the clip, and then think about the 'do nothing' option as you watch people in daily life and on the screen.

2. The general questions that get raised when people do high risk activities and society's response to them. The movie tracks Philippe Petit's preparation to walk between the twin towers. Earlier feats included walking between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. While Philippe's main motivation is simply the challenge of walking across that space and the sheer beauty of that act of human defiance of the impossible, it is also made clear in the movie that the illegality of the act is also a draw. As one person interviewed said, it wasn't wicked or mean, just illegal.

US Americans clearly love daredevils. We have a history of stunts like riding barrels over Niagara Falls and making heroes out of people like Evel Knievil. Yet there is also an element that wants to save people from killing themselves. So, we congratulate the heroes who successfully get to the top of Denali and Everest, but shake our heads at the foolishness of those who die trying. As the film shows, Philippe's act is breathtakingly beautiful - it's a spiritual triumph to do something so seemingly dangerous and outrageous. Yet what if he had fallen to his death? What would we say then? What if he had killed several spectators as he landed?

We continue, as I think we should, to allow people to jump out of airplanes, climb difficult peaks, sail across oceans. But what is society's obligation to rescue such people if they run into trouble? Should public resources be diverted to saving daredevils? Should they be required to buy insurance? Could we NOT rescue them if they didn't? Summitpost.org writes about climbing Denali (McKinley):

If you have to be rescued off the mountain, you will likely be billed for the costs which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Rescue insurance or health insurance (if your rescue is a medical emergency) should cover the costs of the rescue. The park service monitors Channel 19 on CB radios. Cell phones also work well above 14,200 feet.

How do we distinguish between the 'experts' and the 'crazies' and should we? Clearly there is something highly inspirational when someone accomplishes a feat that seems impossible.
We've collectively decided it is worth the risk. The government even support this in programs like the space shuttle.

And I couldn't help wonder, given that this act was done at the World Trade Center, how 9/11 has affected adventures such as this. A group of men smuggling the equipment they needed into a building like the WTC today would immediately raise suspicions of terrorism. Would they got shot first and questioned later?

My mother didn't like this movie. But I thought it was fascinating watching the complexity of the preparations. How do you connect the wire between the two buildings? (They used a bow and arrow to shoot mono filament across. This was tied to a bigger rope which was dragged across, and this connected to the wire.) How do they attach it to the building? Besides the technical problems of getting the wire up, they had to solve the socio-political problems of getting past the guards and doing this illegal act. (In the movie, it appears no one considered asking permission, I assume they thought it would be turned down, and that the element of surprise would be lost.)

I can't say that I remember any news stories about this event. But I have an excuse. The walk was done on August 7, 1974. My son was born on August 6 that year and Richard Nixon resigned on August 8.

Frank and Larry's Hungarian Word Game

When Frank and Larry started telling me at dinner last night about the new word game they had created for themselves, I thought about Ropi and I knew I had to get this on video. So after dinner we went into the other room and we got it on tape.

Frank and Larry are brothers who grew up in Kosice, Czechoslovakia (now the Slovak Republic) in a Hungarian speaking Jewish family. Larry got to the US before WW II to go to college. Frank spent WWII in Europe. At that time Kosice was controlled by Hungary. In Fall 1940 he was conscripted into a forced labor camp attached to the Hungarian army. He was, in his words, lucky enough that the army unit to which his labor camp was attached was stationed and worked always in Hungary proper. Other units were sent out to the Russian Front. Their parents were first sent to a local ghetto and eventually to a railroad station where 80 people were squeezed into a cattle car and deported to Auschwitz in April 1944. (The cars were originally designed for 40 people or 6 horses.) His labor camp was about 150 men and sent to do work for the military such as building roads or whatever military projects were needed. (I was just clarifying background information to put the video into context. Yes, I realize I should video tape this too. But Frank has participated in the Steven Spielberg project to video tape Holocaust survivors, so he does have an hour or more of tape already recorded.)

[This is the corrected version.]

After the US got involved in WW II, and Larry was finishing school, he was given the option to be drafted into the US army or be among the first to be returned to Europe after the war. He joined the army and became an American citizen about 90 days later. He was sent to basic training in Camp Roberts, California as an infantryman, and during one of the exercises an American officer appeared who was looking for him. "They were interested in my educational background and high intelligence scores and took me out of infantry and sent me to officer training in Fort Benning, Georgia." After four months he became an officer - 2nd Lieutenant. He was scheduled to go to the Japanese theater of operations. Life expectancy there was very short so he contacted the intelligence officer and explained that the army would get better service from him in Europe because he spoke German, Hungarian, French, and understood Slovak, and had studied Latin. All this in addition to English.

They trained him for the European theater and send him for training in Maryland where he became a POW (prisoner of war) interrogator, mostly Germans. They also sent him to counterintelligence school and he successfully finished that and became a CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) officer. He was sent to Germany. The war ended, and there were a lot of German prisoners of war he had to interrogate. He was helping to chase Nazi bigshots, and the most important Nazi he arrested was Ernst Ittameier.

Larry returned to LA in 1946 and Frank was able to join him in 1952. They have lived in Los Angeles ever since. Frank is now 92 and Larry is 88. They talk on this video about how they keep their minds sharp by tracking down the meanings of old Hungarian words and translating them into English.


For those who want to know why I was having dinner with them, well, it's a little complicated. My parents were divorced when I was five. My father didn't remarry until after I got married. After he died, his widow, my second mom, married Frank. I guess it wasn't that complicated.

Doonesbury Competing with Millions of Narcissists

OK, this is the last post on today's LA Times. But I can't pass up Doonesbury's take on bloggers. If you don't have a Sunday paper with Doonesbury, you can double click the picture to enlarge it enough to read it.

John Adams, Composer Autobiography - This is especially for Phil

While I'm looking (I'm still looking, this is a quick break) through the LA Times today, this story jumped out at me too. I know a composer. I never thought about composer autobiographies before. So, Phil, this one's for you.

BOOKS
John Adams explains how he found his voice in his memoir 'Hallelujah Junction'
The composer's autobiography shows how indirect his path has been.
By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 19, 2008
BERKELEY -- WHEN John Adams, the celebrated composer who is to his adopted California as Sibelius is to Finland, decided to write a memoir of his life and music, he realized there was virtually no model for his project.

"Most composers," he said over lunch at an upscale Italian cafe near his home here, "are composers because that's the way they want to communicate with the world. Even those who can write well, they don't want to express themselves in words."

The few existing examples didn't inspire him. "Most of them were really awful. I was painfully aware of the fact that the few composers who set out to write something wrote a boring then-I-did-this, then-I-did-that thing. The only one I thought was tasty and interesting was [Hector] Berlioz, but unfortunately the Berlioz is only good for the first 50 pages." [The rest is at the link above.]

Colin Powell Endorses Obama for President

From Voice of America
By Paula Wolfson
Washington
19 October 2008

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he is backing Democrat Barack Obama for president.

VOA's Paula Wolfson reports Powell made the announcement during a nationally broadcast television interview.

Colin Powell (2008 file photo)

Powell says Barack Obama has the ability to transform America and American politics.

"He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage. And for that reason, I will be voting for Senator Barack Obama," he said. [All the above including the photo from Voice of America]

.
I think this one is important because there was actually any doubt that Powell would do this.

As the most prominent African American in US politics before Obama, as a Republican who was burned by the Bush Administration over his Iran testimony at the UN, as a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell was probably pulled in different directions, but I just don't see how he could do anything but endorse Obama. If Obama were a Palin type candidate, there's no way Powell would have endorsed him, simply because he was black. But a very credible candidate like this? How could he not?

If Obama is elected (yes, I know, I just don't count my chickens early) just his election will change the landscape of the United States and the world. We'll have a president whose consciousness is open to the future, not the past. Powell has to know this.


Don't hold you breath waiting for Clarence Thomas' Obama endorsement, though.