Your Turn At The Getty - You Figure Out The Story

I've already posted what I don't like about the Getty Museum in LA.  I also said people should take advantage of what's good there.  I'm going to post some of the objects I saw at the museum and let you interpret what story is.  Or even try to figure out what the title might be. 

I know most of you aren't going to do that.  It's too much trouble to take a few minutes and look into the picture and imagine what is happening.  I'll put the museum description up below.  (I like being able to write 'up below.')

A

 

B

C

This one is an interesting story.

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

There's an interesting characteristic about the teapot.

2

1

4

3

5

6

7

8

10

9

Do I really need to tell you which is which?  I think you can figure it out.  You can double click any of these to see it larger.

What Does a Wiki Leaks Cable Look Like? Here's One About DynCorp Providing Boys for Sex

I've had plenty of other things to do besides look up wikileaks cables, but someone sent me an article about a wikileaks cable that said that an American firm DynCorp, which has contracts in Afghanistan, funded a party in which young boys danced and were auctioned off to the highest bidder for sex.  This is sort of activity, apparently called bacha bazi is allegedly practiced by a small minority of Pashtuns.  There were articles about this practice last spring, but the Wikileaks cable is supposed to suggest (I say this because I can't - without help - totally get this from the cable) that American tax dollars, through contract funding to DynCorp, has supported this custom which goes counter to not only Western values, but also, Muslim values as well.  As you'll see, if you slog through all this, DynCorp has had a spotty record with sex slaves before. 

I can't find any mainstream media that have published information on this.  I did find a blog post at the Houston Press.

The Afghanistan cable (dated June 24, 2009) discusses a meeting between Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and US assistant ambassador Joseph Mussomeli. Prime among Atmar's concerns was a party partially thrown by DynCorp for Afghan police recruits in Kunduz Province.

Many of DynCorp's employees are ex-Green Berets and veterans of other elite units, and the company was commissioned by the US government to provide training for the Afghani police. According to most reports, over 95 percent of its $2 billion annual revenue comes from US taxpayers.

And in Kunduz province, according to the leaked cable, that money was flowing to drug dealers and pimps. Pimps of children, to be more precise. (The exact type of drug was never specified. 

Since this is Afghanistan, you probably already knew this wasn't a kegger. Instead, this DynCorp soiree was a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, much like the ones uncovered earlier this year by Frontline. .  . [they have the video on the blog]

So, I looked up the Wikileaks post with the cable.  See if you can get all that from the cable.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 001651

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/A, INL, EUR/RPM
STATE PASS TO NSC FOR WOOD
OSD FOR FLOURNOY
CENTCOM FOR CG CJTF-82, POLAD, JICENT
KABUL FOR COS USFOR-A

EO 12958 DECL: 06/23/2019
TAGS PREL, PGOV, MARR, MASS, AF
SUBJECT: 06/23/09 MEETING, ASSISTANT AMB MUSSOMELI AND MOI
MINISTER ATMAR: KUNDUZ DYNCORP PROBLEM, TRANSPORT FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AND
OTHER TOPICS
REF: KABUL 1480

Classified By: POLMIL COUNSELOR ROBERT CLARKE FOR REASONS* 1.4 (B) AND ( D)

¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli discussed a range of issues with Minister of Interior (MoI) Hanif Atmar on June 23. On the Kunduz Regional Training Center (RTC) DynCorp event of April 11 (reftel), Atmar reiterated his insistence that the U.S. try to quash any news article on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it. He continued to predict that publicity would “endanger lives.” He disclosed that he has arrested two Afghan police and nine other Afghans as part of an MoI investigation into Afghans who facilitated this crime of “purchasing a service from a child.” He pressed for CSTC-A to be given full control over the police training program, including contractors. Mussomeli counseled that an overreaction by the Afghan goverment (GIRoA) would only increase chances for the greater publicity the MoI is trying to forestall.

¶2. (C) On armored vehicles and air transport for presidential candidates, Atmar
pitched strongly to have the GIRoA decide which candidates were under threat and to retain control of allocation of these assets. He agreed with the principle of a level playing field for candidates but argued that “direct support by foreigners” 
demonstrated a lack of confidence in GIRoA. If GIRoA failed to be fair, international assets and plans in reserve could be used. On another elections-related issue, Atmar claimed that two Helmand would-be provincial candidates (and key Karzai supporters) disqualified under DIAG rules had actually possessed weapons as part of a GIRoA contract to provide security for contractors.

¶3. (C) Atmar also was enthusiastic about working out arrangements with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) in RC-South to partner with the Afghan Border Police (ABP) on training and joint operations to extend GIRoA governance south. He is considering giving BG Melham, a highly regarded Afghan officer, responsibility for ABP in Nimruz and Helmand provinces. END SUMMARY. KUNDUZ RTC DYNCORP UPDATE

¶4. (C) On June 23, Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli met with MOI Minister Hanif Atmar on a number of issues, beginning with the April 11 Kunduz RTC DynCorp investigation. Amb Mussomeli opened that the incident deeply upset us and we took strong steps in response. An investigation is on-going, disciplinary actions were taken against DynCorp leaders in Afghanistan, we are also aware of proposals for new procedures, such as stationing a military officer at RTCs, that have been introduced for consideration. (Note: Placing military officers to oversee contractor operations at RTCs is not legally possible under the currentDynCorp contract.) Beyond remedial actions taken, we still hope the matter will not be blown out of proportion, an outcome which would not be good for either the U.S. or Afghanistan. A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish.

¶5. (C) Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video. Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report. Atmar then disclosed the arrest of two Afghan National Police (ANP) and nine other Afghans (including RTC language assistants) as part of an MoI investigation into Afghan “facilitators” of the event. The crime he was pursuing was “purchasing a service from a child,” which in Afghanistan is illegal under both Sharia law and the civil code, and against the ANP Code of Conduct for police officers who might be involved. He said he would use the civil code and that, in this case, the institution of the ANP will be protected, but he worried about the image of foreign mentors. Atmar said that President Karzai had told him that his (Atmar’s) “prestige” was in play in management of the Kunduz DynCorp matter and another recent event in which Blackwater contractors mistakenly killed several Afghan citizens. The President had asked him “Where is the justice?”

¶6. (C) Atmar said there was a larger issue to consider. He
KABUL 00001651 002 OF 003
understood that within DynCorp there were many “wonderful” people working hard, and he was keen to see proper action taken to protect them; but, these contractor companies do not have many friends. He was aware that many questions about them go to SRAP Holbrooke and, in Afghanistan, there is increasing public skepticism about contractors. On the other hand, the conduct of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) is disciplined. Looking at these facts, he said, he wanted CSTC-A in charge. He wanted the ANP to become a model security institution just like the Afghan National Army (ANA) and National Directorate for Security (NDS), and 
the contractors were not producing what was desired. He suggested that the U.S. 
establish and independent commission to review the mentor situation, an idea he said Ambassador Eikenberry had first raised. Atmar added that he also wanted tighter control over Afghan employees. He was convinced that the Kunduz incident, and other events where mentors had obtained drugs, could not have happened without Afghan participation.

*Here is a list of reasons for classification which I've found, though whenever one deals with laws and regulations, one must always be careful not to jump to conclusions. The reasons cited above are 1.4 B and D.

(3) Reason for classification. The original classification
authority shall identify the reason(s) for the decision to classify.
The original classification authority shall include, at a minimum, a
brief reference to the pertinent classification category(ies), or the
number 1.4 plus the letter(s) that corresponds to that classification
category in section 1.4 of the Order.

;(i) These categories, as they appear in the Order, are as follows:
(A) Military plans, weapons systems, or operations;
(B) Foreign government information;
(C) Intelligence activities (including special activities), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology;
(D) Foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources;
(E) Scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism;
(F) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;
(G) Vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism; or
(H) Weapons of mass destruction.

According to DynCorp's website:

DynCorp International is a global government services provider in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives, delivering support solutions for defense, diplomacy, and international development.

We provide expertly conceived and professionally executed services to meet the complex demands of today’s world. We have broad international expertise and over 60 years of experience working in remote, dangerous and austere environments. We integrate our many competencies to provide solutions that fit each customer and situation, and bring a culture of compliance, accountability, and relentless performance to each program and task.

 DynCorp's website also says they have a very good ethics program:

DynCorp International is committed to providing our employees with a safe and productive workplace. As our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct provides, the following principles guide our daily behavior:

• We adhere scrupulously to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and fairness when engaged in any activity concerning the Company and its relationships with customers, suppliers, and the general public.
• We comply with the spirit and letter of all applicable laws and regulations.
• We deliver the highest quality service to our customers.
• We compete vigorously in the marketplace and avoid business dealings that violate antitrust laws, conflict of interest principles, or procurement integrity guidelines.
• We offer equal employment opportunities.

To help us comply with these principles, we have selected EthicsPoint to provide a confidential method to hear your suggestions and concerns. The Senior Leadership Team and the Company’s Directors value and encourage your input. Moreover, if you are aware of a violation of the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct or of any of DI’s policies, you must report your concerns.
EthicsPoint will report all information it receives to the Company on confidential basis. You can submit claims anonymously if you wish. We will review every submission received, investigate all complaints, and, where appropriate, implement corrective action. You have our guarantee that your comments will be heard and addressed.

And who is EthicsPoint?  EthicsPoint's website says:

Hotline Service

Confidential Employee Whistleblower Hotline Services

Fostering a business culture of integrity and compliance and protecting your reputation requires offering your employees, partners, customers, suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders a way to report conduct that may be in violation with your stated code of conduct. As the first company to offer integrated telephony and web-based anonymous hotline reporting services, EthicsPoint provides individuals at all levels with the tools and information necessary to receive, investigate and report and analyze all identified issues.
The EthicsPoint Hotline solution has been designed to enable your employees and other stakeholders to easily and confidentially report any issue or instance of misconduct. While some organizations perceive whistleblower hotlines to simply address incidents of major financial malfeasance, the flexibility of the EthicsPoint system enables you to capture any risk to your business, including:

• Accounting irregularities
• Theft
• Conflict of interest
• Foreign corrupt practices
• And more…

• Discrimination
• Harassment
• Wage/Hour violations
• Insider trading

• Data breaches
• Financial fraud
• Unsafe working conditions
• Substance abuse

So, what does supplying underage boys for sex violate?  Harassment?  Unsafe working conditions?  Foreign corrupt practices?  Did someone call their hotline about this? 

Wikipedia says this isn't the first time DynCorp employees provided sex slaves:

According to whistleblower Ben Johnston, a former aircraft mechanic who worked for the company in Bosnia, DynCorp employees and supervisors engaged in sex with 12 to 15 year old children, and sold them to each other as slaves.^[18] Ben Johnston ended up fired, forcing him into protective custody. According to Johnston, none of the girls were from Bosnia itself, but were kidnapped by DynCorp employees from Russia, Romania and other places.
On June 2, 2000, members of the 48th Military Police Detachment conducted a sting on the DynCorp hangar at Comanche Base Camp, one of two U.S. bases in Bosnia, and all DynCorp personnel were detained for questioning. CID spent several weeks working the investigation and the results appear to support Johnston's allegations. For example, according to DynCorp employee Kevin Werner's sworn statement to CID, "during my last six months I have come to know a man we call 'Debeli,' which is Bosnian for fat boy. He is the operator of a nightclub by the name of Harley's that offers prostitution. Women are sold hourly, nightly or permanently."^[19]
Johnston is not the only DynCorp employee to blow the whistle and sue the billion-dollar government contractor. Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor hired by the U.S. company on another U.N.-related contract, has filed a lawsuit in Great Britain against DynCorp for wrongful termination. DynCorp had a $15 million contract to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia at the time she reported such officers were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex-trafficking. Many of these were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity, but none have been prosecuted, as they also enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia. Bolkovac is portrayed by Rachel Weisz in the 2010 film The Whistleblower.
DynCorp has admitted it fired five employees for similar illegal activities prior to Johnston's charges.^[20] In the summer of 2005, the United States Defense department drafted a proposal to prohibit defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced prostitution and labor. Several defense contractors, among others DynCorp, stalled the establishment of a final proposal that would formally prohibit defense contractor involvement in these activities.^[21]


You can see how one thing leads to another.  We have a corporation that is getting, apparently, significant funding from the US government to train Afghans and they use some of this money to facilitate pedophiles in Afghanistan.  So, who are their Board of Directors?

Wikipedia goes on to report DynCorp problems in Iraq as well.

In February 2007 federal auditors cited DynCorp for wasting millions on projects, including building an unapproved, Olympic-sized swimming pool at the behest of Iraqi police officials.^[24]
On October 11, 2007, a DynCorp security guard in a US State Department convoy killed a taxi driver in Baghdad. According to several witnesses, the taxi did not pose a threat to the security of the convoy.^[25]
A US government audit report of October 2007 revealed that $1.3 billion was spent on a contract with DynCorp for training Iraqi police. The auditors stated that the program was mismanaged to such an extent that they were unable to determine how the money was spent.^[26]

President Eisenhower warned the nation about the industrial-military complex.  How did this company continue to get contracts?  Before we start dismantling social security and other programs that assist Americans maintain a reasonable life, we should be looking at all the corporations who are getting billions of US taxpayer dollars in what appear to be pretty unaccountable programs. 

There are so many different directions one could go.  Here are the DynCorp board of directors.  How much are these people making and to whom are they accountable?  And how does this newly revealed scandal impact any of them?  Not much I'd bet.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Steven F. Gaffney (Chairman). Mr. Gaffney joined DynCorp International as chairman of the board of directors in July 2010, and was named chief executive officer and president in August 2010. Mr. Gaffney joined DI from IAP Worldwide Services, Inc., where he served as CEO. Mr. Gaffney has more than 25 years of leadership experience in the defense industry. Previously he served as senior vice president of ITT Corporation and president of ITT Defense Electronics and Services. Early in his career, Mr. Gaffney led business segments at Litton Industries, AlliedSignal and Smith Industries.  He earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and is certified as a Lean Six Sigma Champion and Green Belt.

William L. Ballhaus (Vice Chairman). Mr. Ballhaus joined Cerberus in August 2010. Previously, he was president and chief executive officer and a director of DynCorp International since May 2008.  From 2003 to 2008, he was president of BAE Systems Inc.’s Network Systems, National Security Solutions and Mission Solutions businesses. Prior to that, he served in senior executive roles at Hughes and The Boeing Company.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Davis and master’s and doctorate degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University, as well as a master’s degree in business administration from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He currently serves on the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Board of Directors and the UCLA Anderson School Board of Visitors, and is the vice chairman and a director of DynCorp International. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the British American Project.

General Michael Hagee (USMC Ret.). General Hagee is president and chief executive officer of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation in Fredericksburg, Texas, is a member of several corporate boards of directors and is an independent consultant to corporate executives and business leaders. General Hagee serves as a member of the U.S. Department of Defense Science Board and the National Security Advisory Council for the Center for U.S. Global Engagement and U.S. Global Leadership Campaign. General Hagee served more than 38 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, finishing his active duty career as the 33rd Commandant of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he holds masters’ degrees in electrical engineering and national security studies.

Brett Ingersoll. Mr. Ingersoll has served as senior managing director and co-head of private equity at Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. since 2003. In addition to serving as a member of DI’s board of directors, Mr. Ingersoll is also a member of the boards of directors of ACE Aviation Holdings, AerCap Holdings N.V. and Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. Mr. Ingersoll received his BA in Economics from Brigham Young University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

General John Tilelli (USA Ret.). General Tilelli is currently chairman and chief executive officer of Cypress International, Inc. General Tilelli served two combat tours in Vietnam, commanded the 1st Cavalry Division during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and served four times in Germany. He served as the vice chief of staff of the Army, and concluded his active duty career as Commander in Chief of the United Nations Command, Republic of Korea / U.S. Combined Forces / U.S. Forces Korea. He was then appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer of the USO Worldwide Operations. General Tilelli graduated from Pennsylvania Military College, now Widener University, with a degree in economics and was commissioned as an Armor Officer. He earned a master’s degree in administration from Lehigh University and graduated from the Army War College. He was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by Widener University and the University of Maryland.

You can see that bloggers and reporters in main stream media  have a lot of work to do.  But I think a lot of this will require subpoena powers to get to the bottom of it. 

There's a lot here.  I don't even pretend to know what it all means, whether this is the tip of the iceberg or just a few bad apples.  But we should have competent people following up on things like this so we know for sure.  To me, it suggests there's a lot of people with too much money and too much unaccountable power.  And the US government is giving it to them.  That means - for Americans reading this - you and me, since the Government Is Us. 

Bike Ride Venice and Ballona Creek

I've been wanting to check out the Ballona Creek bike trail, but it's just a little further than I've wanted to ride in the morning.  But today my son agreed to meet me at Venice and we'd do it.  Below are some pictures from the ride.  Summary:  Ballona Creek trail good because it goes a long ways without stops.  Bad because it doesn't go where many people probably want to go and it's pretty much a concrete basin for the LA river to drain into the ocean.  It feels like the trail has been begrudgingly added so "shut up and stop complaining."

Still deep in Venice, here's a mural by R. Cronk on one of the streets ending at the boardwalk.

It turns out the Kush doctor wasn't closed down, it just moved down the boardwalk.  It's a couple shops to the right of this marijuana evaluation center.  Near the skate plaza.

Art with a sense of humor.  These pirates protect an apartment (?) building overlooking the Marina.

Some of the original inhabitants in a small patch of the remaining wetland/grassland that was turned into Marina del Rey.  I don't think they were compensated or given new homes when their space was turned into condos and boat harbors back in the 6os and 70s.

Eventually we got to the turn off from the bike trail in the Marina to the Ballona Creek trail.  There were rock sculptures for about 1/4 of a mile. 

I thought these were surf scoters when I saw them, but now I'm not so sure.  They look a lot like the surf scoters I saw in Juneau, but they have white beaks and not white on their foreheads. [Naomi - comments below - thinks they are coots.]

Eventually, we got to the end of the trail.  I knew we'd passed Baldwin Hills, but I wasn't sure where we were.

LA's new light rail construction was there.  It turned out we were at Jefferson and National.

At this point biking was less pleasant, but J got out his android and figured going back on Venice would be more direct.

Not sure what this is, but we passed it as we rode along National to Venice.  We're still south of Washington here.

UPDATE 7:36pm:  Thanks to Naomi and Pam (MPB) I now know this is by architect Eric Owen Moss:

Samitaur Tower

 Culver City, California

The Samitaur Tower is an information tower, constructed at the corner of Hayden Avenue and National Boulevard immediately across from the new Expo light rail line arriving from downtown Los Angeles in June, 2011. That intersection is the primary entry point into the re-developed zone of Culver City.

Conceptually, the tower has both introverted and extroverted planning objectives. Internal to the burgeoning site area of new media companies, graphic designers, and general office tenants, the tower will symbolize the advent of this important new urban development, provide a changing art display for local viewing, and offer a variety of graphic content and data on its five screens concerning coming events and current achievements of the tenants who occupy that part of the city.

Anon also provided a link to the Dec. 20, 2010 New Yorker article on Moss and his work in Culver City.  MPB also posted the abstract of the New Yorker article in the comments.  Thanks both of you. 

On  Venice we stopped at Emerald Royal Thai Restaurant for a noodle lunch.  It was good.

We passed the Museum of Jurassic Technology before we took our separate ways home.  I've been here before.  It's one of LA's most quirky little museums, with a bizarre collection of items.   Well worth it for those who like the out of the ordinary (in the bizarre sense.)  But we'd had a good ride already and didn't stop. 


And before long I was home.

Will Rogers, Persian Books, Cyrano at Ruskin

Here are a few of the things we did Saturday.  It's late so I'll keep it brief. 

[I put two pictures together above, moving the sign out onto the lawn]

These are the Santa Monica mountains a short walk up from Will Rogers' house.  David Hockney fans may recognize this type of landscape from the Pool with Two Figures.  Though Hockney took some liberties and greened things up a bit - even though the hills in the picture are pretty green after record December rainfall.  And so you folks back in Anchorage don't feel too bad, it was cloudy all day and chilly for here.  High 50s F.

Will Rogers was a horseman and there are stables and polo grounds on his former property which is now the State Park. 

 

 Jumping past some other events, we stopped in a Iranian book store in Westwood.

The Ruskin Group Theatre is on the grounds of the Santa Monica airport which we go through regularly while we're here.  Since it's so close to my mom's house, we thought we should try to catch a play here.  So, on the way home we stopped to see if we could get tickets.  We were put on the waiting list. 

And got in.  Like some of our wonderfully intimate theaters in Anchorage, the audience is almost onstage here.  We enjoyed a well done performance of one of my favorite plays, though I felt almost a little too close during the sword fight scene.  

You should be able to figure out what play by looking at the lead character taking his bow.  Watching the play tonight, I realized the must have been in my subconscious all my life as a role model - with its championing of doing it right, being independent, not selling out.  Not that I've always succeeded, but I've tried. 

The Idea Of The Getty - Homage to Man's Power To Conquer Nature

Early man lived at the mercy of nature. At best, societies found a way to live with nature by learning its cycles and secrets - which plants nourished, which plants healed, how to keep warm, when the fish came and how to catch them without drowning. They appealed to spirits to help them survive. Occasionally, societies would break some barrier - learn to grow crops, tend beasts - and rise up a notch in their level of survival, making a noticeable impact on their local environment.

It was only when humans found the god Science and began to systematically unlock  the secrets of the universe that man moved from living with nature to the idea of conquering nature. Philosophers call this the 'modern' era.

In the 20th Century change was most rapid as humans strove to 'conquer' disease, hunger, and  nature itself by unlocking sources of energy which enabled giant machinery that could cut down forests in days rather than centuries, that could conquer time with airplanes and trains and cars, and could power weapons to conquer the most dangerous creature on earth - other humans. The collective environmental impact is now global. 

Many humans, beginning a post-modern era, are now aware that the systems that support life are far more complicated than we first believed and that we are destroying the earth that nurtures us.  Yet our habits - driving for example - are hard to break so we strive to find ways to keep our habits, but in ways that do less damage.

All this intro is to give background to my reaction to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

My first impressions, years ago when it was being built, were of dismay that they'd taken a natural outpost in the city - a sometimes green sometimes grey-brown piece of relatively natural mountain top - chopped it off and put up a stone monument to man's ability to destroy nature. (In the picture you can see to the other side of the canyon what this hilltop used to look like.)

After wondering at the masses of concrete and lack of natural plants in the new Vancouver waterfront areas this summer and at the massive plazas and monumental architecture of Simon Fraser University, I come back to the Getty with new eyes. (I thought I'd posted about the 'green building' with grass on the roof at the waterfront, but on the ground all the green was replaced by concrete.  And of the massiveness of the SFU architecture, but it seems I only posted glimpses and didn't make the point.)

The Getty too, with its massive flat plazas and monumental buildings, is an example of the modern ethos of conquering nature. All the 'natural' greenery is controlled carefully.




Each tree has a cage around the base and the earth it grows in is hidden from view as though it were a growing statue and not a natural tree.  

 




The grass is caged as well with metal walls and then carefully manicured demonstrating man's control of nature. 


















 They even created metal trees that more graphically cage in the bougainvillea inside.

There's no question that there is a certain beauty in all this.  Humans use natural materials to create images of beauty every day.  But not this massively and controllingly.  Underlying this form of beauty is the notion of power.  This is a beauty that glorifies man's fantasy of conquest over nature.  I would say this is like the beauty some men see when they have a beautiful woman chained to a bed.  This is nature chained to a bed. 

The water at the Getty flows down man-made channels into man-made pools, with 'nature' twisted into unnatural patterns. (OK, these patterns do appear in nature, but no plants grow naturally into neat mazes like this.)









This conquering of nature concept is also matched by the Getty's original goal to become a great international museum out of virtually nothing.  And their methods of getting there were less than honorable.  From the LA Times:

"Under growing international scrutiny for buying potentially looted antiquities, the J. Paul Getty Museum has dramatically tightened its acquisition standards.

The move, announced Thursday, is designed to screen out any item whose history since 1970 is murky. In doing so, two experts said, the Getty is essentially taking responsibility for making sure an item's recent history is clean, instead of challenging critics to prove it's dirty.

The move is not retroactive -- if it were, the museum would have to relinquish scores of ancient items from its galleries and storerooms -- but some authorities see it as a potential turning point in a global confrontation between curators and archeologists over the way museums do business. . ." [emphasis added]

The history of the world is made up of people striving for control.  Some people are content with merely gaining enough control of themselves and their immediate environment to live a decent life.

Others have a need to be dominant over nature and over other human beings.

And we have countless examples of people covering up a dishonorable past of stealing and looting by applying a facade of public monuments such as the Getty museum.  If one tallies up all the good and bad that Getty Oil did to amass the fortune that built and now sustains this museum, I don't know whether humanity would be shown to be better or worse off.



















Since it is here - and admission is free (though parking is $15, but you can also take a bus) - people should go to the Getty and take in its offerings - its beauty, its research facilities, its lessons about humanity, its views of Los Angeles.






But not being so caught up that one forgets the Getty's assault on this hill top perch, from where it shouts to LA and the world - Look at Me!  I Am The Greatest!

Eating Vegan at Leaf Organics with Rod Rotondi

It was time to try Leaf Organics. We'd passed it a few times when it wasn't open. We try to eat mostly vegetarian, and we're always looking for new options. And this one turned out to be way more than we expected.

We had my mom with us - she's game to try new things still in her late 80s - and the place was bright and colorful with people coming and going.

You order at a counter and it took a little time to sort through the menu.  Most of the items were marked R (raw).







I got one of the few C (cooked) items, Vegan Chile which had great tastes hidden in it.













We also got a Vegan Burger, Gazpacho, and Rawsagna. 

But the highlight had to be the chocolate cake, which came as one serving on two plates with raspberry sauce. 

I couldn't help thinking, "We need a place like this in Anchorage."  I'd already had thoughts about how we needed more vegetarian options in Anchorage, but this experience pushed me to talk to the chef.  (As I write this I'm thinking how I'm not saying anything about the Organic Oasis, which we should be going to, but just feels uninviting.  OK, we'll give it another try when we get back and I'll try to figure out why I feel this way.)



Anyway, Rod Rotondi said he does do classes and travels to different places for that.  Now I want to plan a weekend for him to come up, do a class, and prepare a meal.  That was the general picture and I'll have to talk to him again about more details.  But I'd love to do this.  So if there are any of you out there who want to help me figure this out, leave comments and/or email me.

Here's his book, which we bought - when I realized the chef was the author - and we're going to use it to convert some of our friends, maybe.

When vegetarian food is presented as a non-meat version of a carnivore favorite, the eaters will always be disappointed because it doesn't taste the same as the original.  So it's really important to come up with totally different dishes designed to take advantage of the the non-meat possibilities.  India does this magnificently.  There, meat dishes are "non-veg".

The menu here does include choices like the rawsagna and vegie burger, which to new folks may be less daunting.  Perhaps if they had pictures of the dishes it would help.  We saw things being carried out to other tables and thought, we should have ordered that. 



Like with most people, there is far more to Rod than one first sees.  He did mention that he'd spent time in the middle east (he's not fond of cold weather, so we have to bring him up in the summer), but there was a lot more to it.  From the Leafcuisine website:

After graduating with a Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Rod’s life took a dramatic turn. Volunteer work in Morocco and Tunisia as a manager of grass roots development projects was followed by a 6 years in Jerusalem as a Program Management Officer for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) trying to develop the private sector of the Occupied Terretories. Six years and many harrowing stories later, Rod moved to Dahab, Egypt, a Bedouin village along the Sinai Peninsula. . . 

For LA folks,  Leaf Organics is at 11938 W. Washington Blvd a few blocks east of Centinela.

Getting Your Blackberry Repaired

I don't use too many videos from other sources, but while I sort through my photos for the last couple of days, let me post this bit of chuckle a friend sent me:

Does Free Ever Mean Free Any More?

Here's the email subject line I got:

Make 2011 a Smarter Year and Get a Free Wireless Device at Alaska Communications!

But when you open the email it says:

Buy a Smart Phone and get any wireless device FREE*.

Oh, yes, you have to buy a smart phone, first AND there's an asterisk.  That leads to:

Purchase of a Smartphone and a new 2-year contract required to receive free device. Free device must be accompanied by a new 2-year contract. Discount taken on least expensive device if both devices are Smartphones.

TRANSLATION:  Nothing is free here.  The cost of the extra wireless device is built into the smart phone and two year subscription cost.   We're charging so much for the two year subscription that we're still making a fat profit if we don't charge you more for the second device.  You're paying for the extra device, just somewhere else.  And I think it says that you have to buy another 2-year contract for the free device. 


Here's another example:

TRANSLATION:  It's free if you spend $85 or more.  Our markup is high enough that we can absorb the shipping price and still make a good profit.   There may be a discount from what they normally charge, but it's not "free."

Even Skype's offer of 30 minutes of free calls to land line phones (normally a few cents a minute) isn't 'free.'  They were off the internet for hours and so Skype users (especially those who pay) already paid through their inconvenience.  But you don't have to buy anything to get this free 30 minutes, maybe worth $.60 - $.90 for most people who take them up on this. 

Language changes over time.  New words are created, old words are used in new ways.  But the erosion of the word 'free' has been pretty deliberate.  It's a way that public relations people trick the lazy into buying something - by getting them to believe they are getting something free. 

There are still things you get free.  Most of Skype's regular service is free. (Except perhaps for the information they collect about you.) When you get a food sample at a market, it's free for you. (Though it's part of the marketing budget and those costs are factored into the cost of the product.)

It used to be that swindlers had to hide the deception, but it seems Americans are so lazy, that marketers can put all the details out there  in black and white and still get people to go along.  And as long as people buy products that have 'free' offer gimmicks attached, marketers will plaster free all over everything. 

Girls Play Here and Other Bike Ride Shots

As you can see, the sky's blue again and the sun's back.  And it was T-shirt and shorts weather on the bike.  When I pass this sign I think of my friend Thomás in Spain.

I stopped at the Venice skate plaza briefly to watch the skaters.  Yes, it's one at a time now, and just one loop.

Here's the Gehry house in sunshine.  The placement of the light pole is unfortunate.

I wandered down to the breakwater again and through the Ballona Lagoon area.

And when I was almost home, I saw this poster at Penmar - a playground built when I was a kid here.

It's nice the poster is here, it's sad that it needs to be.









UPDATE:  Anon asked what this "Girls Play Here" sign meant.  My response was too long for the comment so I'll put it here:


Anon, reasonable question. I'm guessing it has to do with social and other barriers to girls participating in sports.

I found a sociology article about an LA program called Girls Play Los Angeles, that resulted from a discrimination lawsuit. Here's a bit from “GIRLS JUST AREN’T INTERESTED”: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTEREST IN GIRLS’ SPORT by CHERYL COOKY, Purdue University

BACA V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES: CAN GIRLS PLAY IN L.A.?

In 1998, five years prior to the start of my fieldwork, the California Women’s Law Center worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent the West Valley Girls’ Softball League in a case against the City of Los Angeles, Baca v. City of Los Angeles. The plaintiffs sued the City of Los Angeles contending the city did not comply with California’s Equal Protection Clause and had violated the civil rights of girls by denying the team equal access to the city-owned ball fields, which were dominated by male teams. Baca v. City of Los Angeles was set- tled out of court in 1999. As part of this settlement, the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks was required to implement a girls-only sports league. This league was called “Girls Play Los Angeles” (GPLA), a year-round, gender- specific sports league program for “at-risk” girls, ages thirteen to fifteen. Accord- ing to the Director of Gender Equity for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (a position also required as part of the settlement), the department defined “at-risk” girls as those from low-income families who live in particular

“Girls Just aren’t Interested”: The Social Construction of Interest in Girls’ Sport 265
residential communities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Although it was never explicitly stated what girls were “at-risk” for, based on conversations with staff, coaches, and participants, girls were understood to be “at-risk” for teen sex, pregnancy, and gang involvement. Another factor girls were “at-risk” for was early drop-out from sport. While boys’ and girls’ sport and physical activity par- ticipation decreases once they reach adolescence (Dwyer et al. 2006), the drop-out rate for girls is almost six times that of boys (Garrett 2004). Girls in this age group (thirteen to fifteen), particularly Latina girls (Denner and Dunbar 2004; Jamieson 2005), struggle with the pressure to conform to dominant notions of femininity that often conflict with sport participation (Malcolm 2003). The GPLA program addressed these risk factors by targeting the program to girls transitioning into adolescence.

Sport and physical activity have been, and continue to be, viewed as a pana- cea for girls’ physical and psychosocial problems. Research has found positive correlations between (some) girls’ sport participation and academic performance (Miller et al. 2005; Videon 2002), self-esteem (Tracy and Erkut 2002), and body image (Crissey and Honea 2006). Research has also found a negative correlation between sport participation and the risk of teen pregnancy (Miller et al. 1999). This body of research provided empirical support for women’s sport advocates, who vociferously fought for Title IX and for continued support of girls’ sport programs. During the 1990s, many school and recreation sport programs were developed to increase opportunities for girls to play sport, given the correlation between sport participation and pro-social outcomes.

From a 2004 women's sports foundation web article:

A bill prohibiting gender discrimination in youth athletics programs run by cities and counties passed the state legislature in late August, and Schwarzenegger has until September 30 to sign it. He has not taken a position on the bill, his spokesperson said.

Advocates for youth sports and fitness programs say that most local parks departments don't provide girls nearly as many activities as boys, and that boys are more likely to get better equipment and playing fields. .  .

I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know.

Who Owns Auto Black Box Data and Related Questions

Sunday's LA Times had an interesting article about a topic I didn't even know existed:  black boxes in cars.  That is, the auto equivalent of airplane black boxes that store data that can be used to figure out why an accident occurred.

It seems that

• Some car manufacturers do put black boxes in cars
• They don't record a lot of data
• The car companies claim they own the data and don't need to make it public

The article is about two men - Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and Tom Kowalick, a college professor whose dad died in a car accident - who had both learned about these boxes in the early 1990's, met each other, and teamed up to develop a protocol (as co-chairs of an IEEE committee) for mandatory black boxes.

Hall and Kowalick did succeed in publishing a 171-page standard under IEEE sponsorship in 2005 that described how automakers should design an EDR. An update was approved in 2010.

Under their standard, automakers would record 86 different streams of data — including whether a motorist was using a turn signal before a crash, and the acceleration forces in every direction that affect a vehicle in a rollover. (LA Times online article p. 2)

As mentioned above, some companies do put black boxes in their cars, but they have very little information which they don't share.

Toyota was among the most aggressive automakers in claiming control of the encrypted EDR data in its vehicles, and refused to provide downloads to its customers. After catching national attention last year for sudden acceleration problems, the company agreed to provide 10 EDR readers to federal officials. But the tools are not yet available to accident investigators across the country.

The obstacles are listed in the article:

But their quest has led into a thicket of legal, constitutional and economic issues. They encountered arguments about

• who would own the data, 

• its impact on defect lawsuits, 

• whether computers would incriminate drivers, 

• the cost effect on manufacturers and 

• patent rights over the design of the systems.

[I've reformatted this into bullets so it's easier to read]

It seems that everyone agrees that black boxes in airplanes have yielded valuable information for making safety changes which have saved countless lives plus the costs of lost airplanes and all the collateral costs.

But what interested me most was the issue of ownership of the data.  You buy a car.  It has a little computer in it that records information about the vehicle which could be useful after a crash (for you individually and for all car drivers collectively).

But the automakers claim the information on the computer they sold with the car, belongs to them. 

That's problematic to me.  Clearly this is related to what you can do with with the content of movies and music you buy.  And your rights to your own medical data. 

I think the real answer is that people know about these things and have an opportunity to choose between vehicles that have black boxes with

•  just a little info, or
•  the Hall and Kowalick standards

And whether the data is

•  corporate owned, or
• purchaser owned

The auto companies have developed an alternative system, but it isn't mandatory.

In response to Hall and Kowalick, automakers developed their own standard under the authority of the Society of Automotive Engineers. It aimed mainly at standardizing existing practices.

"Everybody in the industry buys into how valuable more information about crashes can be," said Brian Everest, a General Motors manager who chairs the engineers society's committee for EDRs. But, he added, "They really haven't been around that long."

In 2006, the NHTSA issued its own regulation for EDRs that would take effect in 2012. It did not require automakers to install the devices; if an automaker voluntarily puts one in a vehicle, it would have to record only 15 data elements, not the 86 envisioned by Hall and Kowalick.

These devices are estimated at 50 cents per vehicle.  So cost isn't the issue. 

The whole article is here.