Venice Beach T Shirts and Legal Marijuana - at least for now

Here's a bit of what we saw coming home Wednesday from the Skate Plaza. I'm just reporting and not necessarily supporting any of the sentiment on the T-shirts for sale at Venice Beach.

No, this isn't a T shirt. It's painted on the wall above the T shirt shops.

The man on the left told us this was one of the dispensaries for medical marijuana and the doctor (on the right) could see if we needed a prescription. For some reason, I was pretty confident he'd find some condition that would qualify me if I asked. That was Wednesday. Friday, the top front page story of the LA Times was headlined, "DA preparing to crack down on pot outlets."

. . . In the city of Los Angeles, some estimates put the number of dispensaries as high as 800. The city allowed 186 to remain open under its 2007 moratorium, but hundreds of others opened in violation of the ban while the city did nothing to shut them down.

In August, Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca sent a letter to all mayors and police chiefs in the county, saying that they believed over-the-counter sales were illegal and encouraging cities to adopt permanent bans on dispensaries.

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA and an expert on drug policy, was not surprised that local prosecutors had decided to attack the rapid proliferation of marijuana stores.

"I think it's a natural response to the rather flagrant marketing practices of a bunch of the dispensaries. The medical veneer has been wearing thinner and thinner," he said. "I've always wondered why those things were legal when they didn't look legal to me."

Other front page stories included the Dodgers' victory over St. Louis and the Disney Concert Hall debut of the LA Philharmonic's new superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel. It's nice to the music story getting such high profile coverage.

I guess this was a conductor wannabe who
ended up at Venice Beach instead.

Putting Up, Taking Down, and Taking Off

University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) art professor, Mariano Gonzales, has a show at Alaska Pacific University (APU) which asks the question "Why are Americans still dying in the Middle East?" and asks visitors to put up their answers on a large white poster. According to Phil at Progressive Alaska, apparently this has embarrassed the President of APU who got his own paper to write a response. No, the question isn't neutral, but for those who believe those deaths are serving an important purpose, Professor Gonzales offered a big piece of paper to convince the world they are right.

War does set up a dilemma. People generally justify their enlisting to patriotic reasons - for those who aren't drafted - and then when they die, their families have the choice of believing their soldier died a hero or died in vain (or worse.) For most, that choice is easy. Even if it doesn't match reality. Anything that challenges that choice pushes a very strong emotional button.

Alaska Report blogger Dennis Zaki reports in an email that he keeps having problems with people using his photos without permission. I've written a bit here about photos and copyrights. It seems Dennis got ticked off enough with Dan Fagan for putting up his (Dennis') pictures without permission that he got Fagan's website (the Alaska Standard) suspended for a bit until the offending picture was taken down. Here's what I got when I went to Alaska Standard on Wednesday.


The site was back up when I checked on Thursday.

A final brief note. I saw in the LA Times yesterday a short piece on Levi Johnston's deal with Playgirl to take off his clothes. I'm a little sheltered here in the big city so I hadn't seen this bit of 'news' when it hit the ADN. With all the free nudes available on line, we know that Playgirl isn't just paying him for skin shots, but for Palin related skin shots. Let's see now - abstinence only education leads to teenage moms leads to teenage dad getting paid to pose nude. Isn't America great?

Venice Beach Skate Plaza II

J and I biked over to the new skateboard plaza in the afternoon Wednesday and watched some more. There were a lot more people skating and watching than in the morning. (See previous post.) The palm trees are freshly planted and haven't quite opened up yet on top.

I could just watch these guys (and a few gals) zoom back and forth up and down and around. In the morning I didn't see a single helmet, but in the afternoon a number of people wore them and knee and elbow pads. It won't be long before someone gets hurt. In the previous post I put up the sign that says LA has no liability for injuries.





[I did a post two years ago comparing viddler and youtube. At the time in addition to video quality, viddler had lots of other benefits youtube didn't have - like taking larger and longer files. Youtube now takes larger files, but as a recent commenter on that post said, Youtube quality can't compare. I did this in youtube and viddler. Youtube processed it much faster so I'm putting it up, but the quality is outrageously bad. As soon as I can get the Viddler, I'll put it up too. In the meantime you can compare this to the video in the previous post.]

Skater shoes are a big part of skate boarding.

Here's looking back at the Venice Boardwalk from the skate plaza. (I still want to write skate park, but the sign says plaza. I don't know what the kids call the place.)

New Venice Skateboard Plaza

I did my run down to the new skateboard plaza on Venice Beach today. Wow! Everyone was having a great time. I think about back in the late 50's and early 60's when we made skateboards by nailing a roller skate to a two-by-four. Our street had a good hill and a lot of people skated down it. The next street over was too steep for most people, though I did do it a few times. I'm sure if I were that age now, I'd have taken my skateboard with me.



The plaza opened Saturday and so people are just getting the knack of it. The site is spectacular, with the ocean in the background. If I remember right, it's pretty close to where muscle beach used to be.




It was fascinating to watch these kids - well they ranged from maybe 8 or 10 to one guy probably in his 40s skating with his daughter - zoom all around. You can get a sense of it in the video.



We biked back this afternoon and it was a lot more crowded. I'll post another video of that when I get it done.

[There's a later post with more video here.]

Beverly Hills Outing

My mom had a dentist appointment in Beverly Hills. We found a parking place right in front of the building and went up with her.









We left her as she was getting into the chair. She's walking better each day, but it still hurts sitting down and getting up.




















Then we went walking around the block.





























And then down into a residential neighborhood. This cactus was in a little buffer park between Santa Monica Blvd. and the houses.










The rose was in someone's yard.















Home security is a booming business here.


















The street was lined with magnolia trees.











These looked like plumeria trees with fat trunks. Not sure what they were, but I liked the whole effect.

























We wandered back part way down an alley just to see what things looked like from the back door.








This house wall was much more interesting from the alley side than from the street side.







We picked up my mom and walked a couple shops down to the Camden House which turned out to have great Iranian food.









We assumed eating in downtown Beverly Hills would be very pricey. My lunch was $9.



Lunch would have been perfect except for this woman who used the restaurant as her office and spent most of lunch working out classroom arrangements for a French professor - who apparently was negotiating on the other side in her car - in a voice so loud that it was hard for us to talk. She had no shame whatsoever. WLA College, find some office space for your employees.




My mom said that if you have your handicapped sticker you didn't have to worry about putting money in the meter. She certainly qualifies for the sticker, but I still put money in. But she persuaded me not to put in more for lunch. I noticed all the cars that were there for a long time, including this one, had handicapped stickers and no money in the meters.

Tina Delgado is Alive! Alive! and Other Local LA Times Stories

If you were a kid in LA in the late 50's and early 60's you can hear in your head "Tina Delgado is Alive! Alive!" It was played over and over in between top 40 hits. I certainly could hear it as I read "Talking big and talking back on AM radio" which gives a little history of AM rock stations in LA.

Over at KHJ, the mantra of the "Real Don Steele" was a recorded woman's voice that cried, "Tina Delgado is alive, alive!" The mysterious Steele died in 1997, never having divulged its meaning.

[UPDATE Feb 3, 2011 - when I first posted this I couldn't find any audio for this, but I continue to get hits from people looking for "Tina Delgado is Alive Alive" so I thought I'd check again. There's one TDIAA at the beginning, but hang on for the end to hear the real thing.]



[UPDATE, Aug. 1, 2011:  A reader emailed this link to a KHJ blog with a Tina Delgado is Alive button and another version of the audio.  Thanks GB.]


Another story should resonate with Alaskans. It's about Sunset Beach, a community of 1,200 people resisting being gobbled up by nearby Huntington Beach.

Told by Orange County officials that they will have to become part of Huntington Beach, residents are resisting. They want to keep their distance from the city of nearly 200,000 they've branded a "behemoth" and form their own government.

"Most people want to be left alone and keep the identity of a place that's off the radar," said Conan Moats, 35, a high school history teacher. "People live here because they don't want hype."

Ruben Vives writes about the opening of a new skateboard park on the beach at Venice where skateboarding - at least fancy skateboarding - began:

Set on the beach, the 16,000-square-foot park near Windward Avenue and Ocean Front Walk offers a splendid view of the ocean. It also contains ramps, steps, rails and bowls that resemble the empty swimming pools where many of the Z-Boys -- Venice's hometown Zephyr skateboard team -- reinvented skateboarding in the Santa Monica and Venice areas in the 1970s.

The $3.4-million skate park was paid for by the sale of surplus city property in Venice and development fees, and did not draw from the general fund. It will be named after legendary Z-Boy skater Dennis "Polar Bear" Agnew, who died about five years ago, said Ger-I Lewis, the skate park coordinator and executive director of the Venice Surf and Skateboard Assn.

Among the park's features, city engineer Gary Lee Moore touted the "Deep Pool."

"It's 9 feet deep. It has no rails for you to use to get out," he said. "Once you're in, you have to skate your way out."

It's not far, so maybe I can post some pictures of it while we're here.

Both Turkish-Americans and Armenian-Americans are both protesting against the establishment of diplomatic ties between Turkey and Armenia. This came to a head, locally in LA, when Armenia's President was in town Sunday.

Upset over an agreement that would establish diplomatic ties between Armenia and Turkey and reopen their common borders, members of the Los Angeles Armenian community plan to rally in Beverly Hills today.

Organizers of the demonstration say they will call on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to refrain from signing protocols with Turkey that they believe would threaten Armenia's interests and security. . .


"Turkey is giving too much and getting too little in return," said Ergun Kirlikovali, West Coast director of the Assembly of Turkish American Assns.

Some believe the Turkish government is selling out Azerbaijan by reconciling with Armenia before the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has been settled. Others fear Turkey might be forced to give back land.

And Gov. Schwartzenegger says environmentalism and economic development can go hand-in-hand:

"When I came into office there was this kind of belief that you can only protect the environment or the economy, you have to choose between one or the other," the governor said at an event staged to accept $26.5 million in federal clean air grants. He dismissed the argument bluntly: "We don't have to accept that."

Republican candidate for governor, Meg Whitman, though, disagrees:

"I reject environmental policies that do little for the environment and wreak havoc on California's economic future," she told delegates at the party convention, where her fliers featured bright blue sky and green grass. "You know what? Liberal environmentalists may not like jobs or people, but California needs both."

"Palin in Australia"

The email I got from my son was titled "Palin in Australia." This comes via Andrew Sullivan's blog at the Atlantic. It says this is a Senator Collins from the Australian Parliament. Don't have a mouthful of anything when you watch this.

How is this different from piracy?

Pirates take control of a ship on the seas, strip it of its valuables, then abandon it, leaving its crew, passengers, and owners to survive as best as they can. How is the story below (from the NY Times) any different? There's a company instead of a ship.

For most of the 133 years since its founding in a small city in Wisconsin, the Simmons Bedding Company enjoyed an illustrious history.

Presidents have slumbered on its mattresses aboard Air Force One. Dignitaries have slept on them in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But now it is filing for bankruptcy after being boarded and looted by pirates dressed as members of an investment firm.

The owners (investors) and crew (employees) are left holding the empty mattress.

For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.

And the pirates sail off fat and happy.

But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.

Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.

How so many people could make so much money on a company that has been driven into bankruptcy is a tale of these financial times and an example of a growing phenomenon in corporate America.

I'd call this modern corporate piracy. You can read the whole story at the NY Times.


Or you can contact one of these people who work for Thomas H Lee Partners. There's often (not always though) more than one side to the story.

THL has fostered a culture of partnership and teamwork through its 30+ year history. THL has one of the largest complements of senior partners in the buyout business, emphasizing a hands-on approach to investing. THL benefits significantly from the cumulative experience and knowledge resident in this team and believes it has unmatched continuity and depth of experience among these professionals.

Todd M. Abbrecht Richard J. Bressler Charles A. Brizius Margaret W. Covell Anthony J. DiNovi Thomas M. Hagerty David V. Harkins Charles P. Holden Scott L. Jaeckel Seth W. Lawry John D. McClellan Soren L. Oberg Joseph F. Pesce Scott A. Schoen Scott M. Sperling George R. Taylor Kent R. Weldon Gregory A. White Shari H. Wolkon Beverly Berman Joshua M. Nelson Vivek Sharma James C. Carlisle Daniel G. Jones Ganesh B. Rao Jeff T. Swenson J. Lucas Wimer Alex J. Alexandrov Joshua D. Bresler Hobart A. Cook Alexandra L. DeLaite Laura A. Grattan Douglas H. Vandenberg

Michael Beregovsky Kemper P. Diehl David T. Jackson Anil Kumar Brittni E. Levinson Andrew R. Mayer Megan B. Melican Katherine A. Regner Emma C. Somers Justina J. Wang

Unfortunately, the links don't give you their individual contact information. Here's the contact information the THL website offers:

100 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
Phone:	617/227-1050
Fax:	617/227-3514

Media Contacts:
Matt Benson/Robin Weinberg
Phone:	415/618-8750/212/687-8080
Email:	mbenson@sardverb.com/rweinberg@sardverb.com

Sophisticated Spam

I got the following email just now. It is from someone I know, at least the name is. And the email address was very similar to his. But Phil wouldn't be in England right now plus there are a few English errors. Besides, Phil would never put a table into an email. But it's slicker than coming from someone I don't know. But does it mean someone is stealing his email? Or my email? Or someone's email?

Subject: Help Me Please!!! From: "Philip Munger" Date: Mon, October 5, 2009 8:59 am To: undisclosed-recipients:; Priority: Normal Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | Download this as a file | View Message details | Report as Spam

Hello, How are you doing? hope all is well with you and i pray this email finds you in good health, i am sorry that i didn’t inform you about my traveling to England for a Seminar. I need a financial favor from you because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money and other valuable things were kept i will like you to assist me with a loan urgently. I will need the sum of $2,800 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home. I will appreciate whatever you can afford to help me with, i’ll pay you back as soon as i return. Kindly let me know if you can be of help? So that i can send you the details to use when sending the money through western union. Your reply will be greatly appreciated. Phil

[Update 4pm Anchorage Time:

All,

As you figured out, my gmail and blog were briefly hijacked this morning. Whoever did it also destroyed my gmail address book and contacts, but did not erase my gmails sent or received on that account, so the address book can be rebuilt. I've changed the password and added a new level of security. It does appear that my gmail account is not receiving incoming mail at this time, though, and the scammer deleted all information on the exchange that led up to the
password being compromised.

Thanks to all who alerted me by email, phone calls and texts. I was happily surprised at how quickly google was able to help get things back to what I hope will be normal.

Phil Munger]

A Funeral

I tend to write obscurely, if at all, about family. They shouldn't have to fear they will show up here. But going to a funeral is bound to provoke feelings and I think they are legitimate here. When I got married, I became the brother-in-law of Sylvia's daughter and so I came into Sylvia's sphere. There are certain people who make everyone they come into contact with feel like they are very special people. Sylvia was one of those people. She was always interested in what we were doing, always making sure I wasn't hungry, and offering to share something from her garden. She listened so that you talked. Whenever we came to LA we were always very busy, but Sylvia was one of the few people we always tried to visit. And I got an hour with her and Mose when I was here in June.

I'm sure there are lots of funerals where at least a few people are thinking "good riddance." But I doubt anyone felt that way about Sylvia. She was 94 when she died Tuesday. No one's complaining her life was too short. She served with the Red Cross in Africa during World War II and had two masters degrees and was a psychiatric social worker by profession. She touched many, many people's lives. She also was fortunate to travel the world. We were fortunate to be able to receive her and Mose when we were on sabbatical in Hong Kong and also a couple of times in Anchorage. J and I stayed at her house when our son was born and our newly bought house was being cleaned up and repainted. When we had several cars in a row stolen while I was a grad student, she gave us her old dodge dart to use. We have so many good memories. She had a good, long life and a number of people spoke about her this afternoon.


After the service in the chapel, there was a brief graveside service. Everyone was instructed to get into their cars. We asked if we couldn't walk and were pointed to a tent less than a quarter mile away. I know there was one gentleman there today whose 100th birthday is in January who really did need a ride to the graveside. (Though I did whisper to his wife that she couldn't sit in the chairs because they were reserved for the elderly and she immediately jumped up and said, oh I can't sit here then.) But it seems in these days of growing environmental awareness, the Memorial Park could encourage most people to walk.


We got to the grave in about 4 minutes, well ahead of the cars. A wind picked up and it was almost chilly. The service was very short.

J and our niece and I also went to visit the graves of J's parents (our niece's grandparents) and my brother and others there.




And then we went to a reception at a very nearby hotel. At the last funeral I was at among this generation - my mother-in-law's - we returned to someone's house and had food that everyone had prepared. But that was over ten years ago. People have aged and all of my generation live out of town. And so the gathering was at a hotel and all the normal home cooked food was replaced with institutional food. But the company was good and people we hadn't seen for a while and others in Sylvia's sphere that we sort of knew and certainly had heard of became real as we reconnected.

And I was inspired by all the remembrances of Sylvia to try to live my life as fully and as generously as possible.