That giant exhale you heard late Friday was not me thanking the sweet Lord that a horrific work week was over – no, that collective breath of hot air was courtesy Chief Bratton and the LAPD who are no longer the overburdened subjects of a federal consent decree.  Eight years ago, hot off various instances couched as “scandals” that turned out to be “standard operating practice and procedure” (think Rodney King and Rampart), the federal government demanded reform and appointed itself referee.  Under its gavel, it has witnessed the LAPD’s renaissance from an undisciplined fleet of ragtag racist officers to orderly, gentile frenemies, or so we are led to believe.  On Friday, the federal court determined that considerable progress had been made (i.e., the LAPD has proven that it does not target minorities (as much as it did 8 years ago)), accepted the joint recommendation of the LAPD and Department of Justice’s attorneys to terminate the decree, and ended federal oversight of the department.   Interestingly, under the transition agreement in place, the federal court reserved jurisdiction to oversee the LAPD’s antigang unit, the sore source of so many controversies, from Rampart to Alex Sanchez.

While I don’t doubt the LAPD’s progress, I also don’t doubt that there’s still much work to be done.  Whether this work may be done – or may be done more effectively – without judicial eye is another question.  Indeed, the ACLU is not terribly happy about the judge’s order; neither is Senator Tom Hayden. But, Eric Garcetti?  As you can see from his tweet, he’s pretty darn excited.   Who wants to garner a guess as to what Walter Moore tweeted from his French lodgings when he heard the news?  Hint: It’s not nearly as exciting as you would hope.

Being that Jefferson Boulevard is often the east/west route that I take biking to/from work/home, I’ve had ample opportunity to discovery the eclectic array of street art lining it. One of the most haunting installations is this severely defaced, west-facing mural just south of Jefferson on 6th Avenue that I first snapped on my way home in April:

(click pic to go big)

Pedaling past it I always find something very haunting about the eyes looking out somewhat resigned over the various layers of tags that have buried the mural’s meaning but also somehow made it all the more profound.

Then coming home from work Friday, I was surprised to find a work-in-progress — a face lift, if you will — returning the art to its previously unmarred state and snapped it (after the jump):

Where was this taken? It was taken here.

Previously:
Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Inter Here
Stunflower
Dueling Coyotes

Read the rest of this entry →

There’s a lot of buzz these days about legalizing marijuana to save Los Angeles and California. Ahhh, visions of an easy tax windfall make us all salivate.  It certainly gives me a cosmic chuckle to know that the ‘evil weed’ society has long shunned, may indeed be our salvation as a city and nation.  Money talks and carries a big stick.

And yet… there is an even better reason to embrace currently ‘illegal’ substances and make them legal.  Watch THIS brilliant piece and see if it doesn’t shed some magnificent light on the whole debate.  Ed Nadelman gave a brilliant talk about human rights to the NAACP that rocked the house.  And revolutionary change comes about for the weirdest reasons.  Check it.

So, I went on a loooong bike ride this weekend to get me some zen time to balance out the disheartening encounter I had earlier in the week with an irate vehicle passenger who I was only able to discourage from attempting to kick my ass by demonstrating the pepper spray and a stungun I carry on my commutes specifically in case  of such ridiculous encounters with mad dogs and motorists. Mostly motorists.

Way too early Saturday I rolled out from Silver Lake through downtown across the 6th Street Viaduct and then pedaled Whittier Boulevard out to the San Gabriel River whose bikeway took me down to Seal Beach. From there I headed across Long Beach to the Los Angeles River and back into downtown and home. Had lunch at Blue Star, and got home before the high heat. All was right in my world again.

And made even better by a unique coyote encounter I had early on. It was on the San Gabriel River Bikeway halfway between Washington Boulevard and Slauson Avenue in Pico Rivera where for whatever reason my eyes were drawn to some fresh overgrowth about a third of the way out from the bank. Among it was two coyotes. After a couple minutes observing them it became pretty clear that I was witnessing something remarkable — not two siblings frolicking in the river’s dry bed or competitively posturing over a fresh kill, but something entirely dire: a mother coyote on the defensive in protection of her unseen pups from a rogue male determined to turn them into a snack. Total life or death stuff, that one would equate seeing play out on the plains of a far less tame west, not out on the bed of a channelized river bracketed by densely urbanized populations.

As my better cam was mounted to the handlebars and timelapsing the ride, my back-up crapcam wasn’t able to get a decent shot of the dance that ensued with the smaller, bobbing-and-weaving  male attempting time and time again to draw the larger female either to attack or at least far enough away from her makeshift den so that he could do an end-run and grab a newborn to go. But momma was having none of it. She’d hold her ground until the male sauntered in to close then she’d lunge at him head down jaws agape and tail between her legs, doing juuuuust enough to drive him back to a minimum safe distance where he’d linger momentarily before moving in again.

Finally I had to unclamp my good digicam and with it, I got this still of a certain lull in the action where momma (the arrow points to her ear) is almost unseen laying down and the male’s contemplating his next move:

(click pic to go big)

After the jump is a video clip of some of the action as I watched it with another cyclist who stopped to take it all in.

Where was this taken? It was taken here.

Previously:

Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Inter Here
Stunflower

Read the rest of this entry →

As someone who works in a hospital, I’m quite familiar with Teleflora’s annual Make Someone Smile Week. This July 19-26, thousands of Teleflora florists nationwide will deliver over 40,000 of their signature Be Happy® Bouquets to hospital patients, children in foster care, nursing home residents and many other people who do not usually receive flowers, but whose day will be brighter because of this surprise gift. It’s a really cool event.

Teleflora is hosting its first-ever Tweet-up tomorrow, Sunday, July 19^th to kick-off to the week long celebration  They will be giving away 100 Be Happy® bouquets for free to LA tweeps.  You can keep the arrangement for yourself or give it as to someone who might need a pick-me-up.

For more event details and to RSVP, click on the twtvite.

The LA Make Someone Smile Tweet-up happens tomorrow, Sunday, July 19th, 2009 from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm at Teleflora Plaza, 11444 Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA  90064.

Follow @teleflora on twitter and the hashtag #smile to keep tabs on the event.

Our estimable friend and blog author, Chal Pivik posted a description of the statement “Prepare to Prevail,” written by three LGBT advocacy groups.  These groups urged advocates of marriage equality to wait.  Or specifically “Going back to the ballot [...] in 2010 would be rushed and risky.“  To me, equality is 2010 is “rushed” in much the same way that it was rushed, by Brown, in 1954. Does it strike anyone else as noteworthy trivia that the Brown decision of May 17, 1954 was 50 years to the day prior to implementation of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (i.e. the first same-sex marriages in the United States)? Read the rest of this entry →

As far back as 1995 when the base MTA fare was $1.35, savvy passengers could hook themselves up with one of the unsung bargains in the city — a bag of 10 tokens for $9 — and save themselves 40 45 cents with every ride. Then came 2003 when the MTA cagily did away with transfers, dropped the fare to $1.25 and debuted the $3 all-day sucker (now $5). As that dreaded Dawn of the Day Pass approached I did a genius thing: I went into my local liquor store and loaded up on several bags worth of never-say-die tokens, and seeing as how I’m only a now-and-again patron, in the six-years since I’ve been enjoying the convenience and discount of a one-coin, 90-cent fare whenever I board a bus or train.

Alas, the eventual day has finally come where I find myself down to my last few tokens, and while they’re still sold in bags of 10 it’s at $12.50, no longer at any discount. With that bargain gone as well as the news that fare gates are starting to sprout up at various rail stations (and I hate having to deal with having exact change), I figured the time was right for me to get myself upgraded to one of them newfangled reloadable Transit Access Pass (TAP) cards that are all the rage.

Wrong.

But off to metro.net I went where I clicked on the TAP card section and was taken to a Base Fares & Tokens page that gave me another link to a TAP Card page that finally assured me I could purchase one online, and gave me another link to do so. Yet when I clicked it up popped this thing of fail, of course:

Read the rest of this entry →

Yesterday, a water main broke and flooded a parking lot + shut down restrooms at some LAX terminals.

They’re still repairing because I just saw @alixito tweet this:

That’s pretty much gotta suck for travelers all around because I’d much rather use the facilities at LAX than on a plane…

Hopefully, @matt_brewer is not in one of those terminals with no restrooms, as he just tweeted this:

D’oh.

Not on this license plate, if my interpretation of its message is correct.

The 53rd most popular dog in LA, the Shiba Inu. Finally, something Idgie does not dominate.

I was playing a bit with the LA Times’ budget calculator when something else on its Data Desk page caught my eye: LA’s Top Dogs.  I know Chal posted about this last year, but for those unfamilar, the paper has culled together the county’s most popular dog breeds and names based on canine registration records.  As they point out, only a fraction of owners actually register their dog, so the results here are naturally skewed … but this doesn’t stop this data set from being a most fascinating (and completely pointless) time sucker now that I have a dog.  For example, I looked up her breed (the headstrong Shiba Inu) and discovered that there are 1,097 registered Shiba Inus, making it the 53rd most popular breed in town, right after the German Shorthair but before the butterfly-eared Papillion.   Most of the registered Shibas seem to be clustered around the southern end of the county for some reason – 42 total in Long Beach, 27 in Torrance, 25 in my hometown of Cerritos.  Seven dogs share her name (Idgie), which is no match for the most popular dog name: a whopping 6,502 dog owners have named their dogs Lucky.  Naming your pup was never so hard.

Unexpected moments define a city. Over the past month, LA has defined itself down.

I’m talking about the city political furor surrounding the costs of the Michael Jackson funeral.

By now, we all know the story. The reigning, if sequestered, king of pop dies at 50. (Not an atypical age of death for drug abusing geniuses–classical pianist Glen Gould and sci fi genius Phil Dick were both druggies who died early in their sixth decades.) And the world shut off and the hype machine turned on, a machine that is only now sputtering down.

Meanwhile, the city bureaucracy, headless, since the mayor was in Africa on a mission of inconceivable importance, functioned well, if a bit over-conservatively. It put far more police on the street than the occasion, which brought out on the whole about as many people as did the average Lakers game, warranted. This seemed like good planning to me. Far better to over prepare than under prepare. Michael Jackson having not died before, it was hard to know just how many people would stand outside and mourn.

It was an orderly and respectful bunch who attended, in and out. There was a lot less public disorder than you’d have had at the above sports event. The only disorder was at City Hall, where, you would have thought to hear the attention grabbing noise, the runoff elections were going to happen next month instead of the last. Newly sworn City Attorney Carmen Trutanich vowed to investigate the purported $1.4 million policing costs, as though he suspected that most of the cops ordered out for the event had in fact ditched their uniforms and gone to the beach. Controller Wendy Greuel, of whom I frankly expected better things, vowed to investigate the out-of-county provision of sandwiches to the troops, at what seemed to me to be the fair market price of $7 a piece, plus power bars and gum (Do cops get to chew gum on the job these days? What would LAPD Chief Bill Parker think?). She scooted back into her City Hall den, however… Read the rest of this entry →

Mayor Villaraigosa’s Press Secretary Matt Szabo has definitely embraced the use of his new Twitter account to spread City Hall’s message – whatever that is. But, he may want to watch what he tweets.

We already know about the twagic mistake of tweeting for MJ donations in the name of Tony. Now, there’s this:

This “meanest city” report really is weak on the facts and methodology. Casey Hernandez (a woman btw) gets it right. http://bit.ly/XNvjs

The Twitter update is at least consistent with the Angry Matt Szabo theme. It’s the “a woman btw” comment that bothers me. What exactly does that mean? Is he amazed that she got something right, in spite of the fact that she is a woman?

It certainly raises an eyebrow. It could become a political nightmare for a mayor whose own Twitter account is more of a Szabo Retweeter than anything else.

2010 seen as “rushed and risky.”

Should marriage equality supporters push for a ballot initiative in next year’s November election that would repeal Proposition 8? Not according to three gay advocacy groups in California that jointly released a statement urging a delay until 2012.

The statement, “Prepare to Prevail,” was released this week by the Jordan/Rustin Coalition, an African American LGBT advocacy group; API Equality-LA, an Asian and Pacific Islander LGBT advocacy group; and HONOR PAC, which advocates for empowering Latina/o LGBTs.

The groups implore supporters of same-sex marriage “to forego a rush to the 2010 ballot box to repeal Proposition 8″ and “start now in building the campaign infrastructure and robust public education efforts needed to win back marriage equality.”

Going back to the ballot to remove the voter-imposed ban on same-sex marriage from the state constitution in 2010 would be rushed and risky. We should proceed with a costly, demanding, and high-stakes electoral campaign of this sort only when we are confident we can win.

Popular support for marriage equality for same-sex couples has not changed since the last election. Today, California voters’ opinions on a constitutional amendment to overturn the voter-imposed elimination of marriage equality remain evenly split, according to all recent polls.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, based in Washington, DC,  has signed on to the statement by the California groups:

Build solid majority support for the freedom to marry before returning to the ballot.  Multiple polls have shown that support for marriage equality has remained flat since November 2008. The LGBT community will be in a stronger position to win if we’re defending, and not attempting to create in the midst of a campaign, majority support at the ballot box for the freedom to marry.

Architecture was more about civic pride than individual ego. It was a testament to the men and the mark they would leave on a city. It was their Los Angeles legacy.

On this day, it was the cornerstone laying ceremony at the Chamber of Commerce Building at First & Broadway. Spectators, dressed in their finest, came to see the marching band. They came to witness history in the making.

The year was 1903.

Photo from the USC Digital Archive

But what about the competition?

A friend of mine on a recent visit to Los Angeles was surprised to see so many medical marijuana dispensaries as I chauffeured her around the city to see the sights. I explained to her the ease of getting documentation from a doctor to purchase pot legally. Living in Pennsylvania, where even buying alcohol is severely restricted compared to CA, needless to say she was amazed. But maybe PA could learn something from CA.

Yesterday, CA’s Board of Equalization said the state could see as much as a $1.4 billion per year increase in revenue, thanks to a bill introduced in the Assembly that would further legalize marijuana and impose on buyers a $50 per ounce tax, in addition to sales tax. With CA in dire financial condition, the tax is seen as  a much needed revenue generator.

Fun facts: Federal authorities consider CA to be the top pot-producing state in the country and say the 8.6 million pounds grown here make it one of our largest agricultural crops.

But a $50 tax on an ounce of pot if CA legalizes it? Won’t this spur buying it outside of legally sanctioned outlets, say via Mexican drug cartels, to avoid the tax? Would it affect prices of illegal pot or lead to competitive pricing?