Picked up this little news bit this morning over coffee on CBS morning news. Found the link to the story here on their web page HERE.

First off, applause are due for South Pasadena resident McKay Hatch and his parents for teaching him activisim is a good thing. Young Hatch as he made the jump from elementary school to middle school was not happy with his friends cussing. He formed a “no cussing club”. Not a bad idea, peer pressure to clean up the language. Purely a voluntary thing. The club has taken off with clubs in 32 cities in 11 countries.

Gotta love South Pasadena City Council. They heaped praise on his efforts, and rightly so. They even are looking at a “no swearing ordinance” for the city. Rewind…what, limit speech? C’mon I don’t agree with the constant swearing, but regulating speech by law? Isn’t that contrary to freedom of speech?

What you say LA, is limiting speech as a matter of law ok?

I wrote about Sawpit Trail here a while back and it’s time for an update. Short of it is that the property owner refused to discuss allowing the community access to the Sawpit Trails. The city of Monrovia was left with no choice but to litigate the matter. The announcement was in these weeks Monrovia City Manager Report.
Details of the CM’s report after the jump:
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Sting operations are always a source of controversy no matter what they are about. Part of it always seems, to me at least, like luring someone into something. Obviously crosswalks in LA are an issue of their own, but this seems like a less than productive way to combat the problem. This morning local videoblogger Micki Krimmel was nailed in a “Pedestrian Sting Operation” and she just posted a video about it. From the car, of course.

Look what came in the mail today!

Twenty days ago I posted about getting a spam text message from jokemobi.com. Without my consent or knowledge, THEY got my (already on the national Do Not Call List) cell number and signed me up for their Joke of the Day, which would cost me $9.99 a month. When I called AT&T they told me yes indeedy the first charge was already on my bill. With a lot of coaxing, they eventually reversed the charge but didn’t believe that I never authorized the service.

This pissed me off, and got me thinking about a class action lawsuit – I mean why not? They’re charging a million people ten bucks a month, figuring that even if, say, up to half of them notice, what about the other half that don’t? That’s a lot of green coming in.

What has to change? Phone companies need to require consent before third party companies can bill us!

I complained to the FCC online (email to fccinfo AT fcc.gov) and am going to follow this link toward membership in the class action lawsuit.

Since my original post has been getting comments steadily (about 50 so far!) I would like to encourage my fellow Angelenos to do the same.

UPDATE:

All of you looking for the class action lawsuit, the phone is (415) 434-9000 and the website is http://www.pearcelawoffices.com.

So today was our first “Buy Back Day.” To the uninitiated, a Buy Back day is an official, LAUSD-sanctioned overtime pay day. We all get together and have what amounts to school-wide team-building activities. IOW: Kill me, please.

Now, I am not one to complain about legitimate skill-building professional workshops. Forums on curriculum and lesson-planning, refresher courses on educational psychology, and all that I absolutely adore (…no, seriously).

These meetings feel more like those moments in movies when the bosses ask you, “Is this good for the company?” Yet another day when we teachers are told to raise test scores and keep a positive attitude, while at the same time being told insanely demoralizing tidbits from our superiors.

I can (normally) tolerate the motivational slogans and pump-me-up songs, which (if work-related, high jinks-laden comedies have taught me anything) I imagine take place in corporate America all the goddamn time.

But after a whole nine months of getting paid regularly, I thought I would share the fact that due to LAUSD’s completely stunning and cartoonish-jaw-drop-inducing ineptitude some teachers in LAUSD have still not received a paycheck SINCE JANUARY. I’ll let you mull that over for a bit.
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Amazing. A bit of background, my street is very old and very narrow. It can accomodate safely only 1 parking lane. By statute and municipal code there is no parking on the east side of the street as that east lane is for northbound traffic.

Today coming home from an errand I had to hit the brakes as he was blocking the driving lane and there was traffic on the southbound side that I had to yield to.

This parking tard has a habit of parking wherever, whenever he wants. Today I got to meet him and after brief introduction I learned his name is “Richard”.

I had just snapped this trusty picture and routed it to a variety of sources, including youparklikeanasshole.com when he approached. I introduced myself and thing went down like this…
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Yay diversity! Another reason I love LA:

Someone PLEASE, PLEASE tell me this says Wash Me. That would be too cool.

Los Angeles gets a lot of grief for being home to an inordinate number of celebretards, pseudo-celebretards, star fuckers, and vain VIPs. Although the city is thusly stereotyped, it’s also home to a thriving population of unique and noteworthy people whose pursuits add diversity and depth to a seemingly shallow pool. Each week, LA’s Better Half will profile one distinctive Angeleno doing something remarkable and original. This week: Meet Allison Margolin, LA’s Dopest Attorney.
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Man, some people sure are bored. And by “some people” I mean the officials at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. They have to be so bored that they are just making crap up to entertain themselves. That’s really the only excuse I can think of for their recent proposal to ban wood burning fireplaces in homes to prevent pollution. You read that right, according to these folks the big polluters in the state are factories, machinery, industry… no, the terrible air is all the result of families trying to keep cozy. Because you know, wood burning fires in homes are both brand new and exclusive to Southern California. If you think there is no science behind this claim, just listen to this argument from Jane Carney, a Riverside attorney and an AQMD board member:

Carney said there are “pretty obvious adverse impacts of wood smoke on pollution. If you stand close to a wood fire and breathe, you can feel it in your throat and in your lungs.”

How can you argue with that? [photo by torley]

Check it out, no matter how any community tries to paint a picture as the perfect wonder bread city where all is just peachy, remove the crust and it gets pretty crumby.

Sadly the little victories for the little guy are too often buried and hid away.

We had a pretty terrific police officer in town, Michael Solarez. I met him under a variety of circumstances and always thought highly of him. He suddenly disappeared and no mention was made in the local paper. The only notice we had that something was amiss was an article in the Star News out of Pasadena that he was on medical leave and allegedly bringing claim against the city for discrimination for his sexual orientation.

What the hell, in this day and age AND with a growing gay and lesbian community in Monrovia I was surprised to see the allegations. Not surprised by the initial denial and attempt to besmurch his character as an ineffective police officer, but a little stunned to see it made against him.

Now I see that we have an additional officer bringing suit against the city for racial discrimination. What the hell…if true I hope he breaks the bank.
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Whether this becomes an annual L.A. tradition depends on what happens this time around: Once again, immigrants-rights activists are planning a Great American Boycott on May 1.

If it’s anything like last year’s massive, multi-phase march you can count on snarled traffic, grand speeches, flag waving, kids playing hooky in intersections and plenty of hot air and insults flung around regarding L.A.’s favorite pissing-match topic, illegal immigration.

The whole thing kicks off when marchers start gathering at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the corner of Olympic and Broadway but according to this, there’s at least one more march planned for the afternoon, starting in Koreatown …
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[doesn't get much bigger but it's still fun to click]
All this talk about Red Flag zones and no parking on Red Flag days – do you know if that’s you?

Go check it out!

Get a map by clicking on your district number (or search for your address), and prepare to be surprised. You can also sign up to get a call or an email on restriction days.

According to the site, “the Department of Transportation just completed making 1700 new signs that will be in place by January 1, 2006. ”

Hmmm. There sure aren’t any on my street or in my neighborhood, yet wouldn’t you know it we’re smack in the middle of a red flag zone, and until I checked the website we had no idea. Nothing mailed to us, no notice left, and no signs anywhere.

What a lovely surprise to find my car had been towed with no warning – Wherefore art thou, Brian Humphrey?

OOPS!
What I meant to say was, ” What a lovely surprise it would have been to find my car had been towed.” My car has not been towed. Sorry for any confusion.

Oh this is rich! Ancillary and straight outta left field, but rich. Yesterday you might recall I posted an inquiry into the current state of Silver Lake’s Johnny’s Cocktail Lounge and wrote that it seemed the popular watering hole was in all likelihood kaput in large part because the inspection notice that I found posted to its door on April 10 had been prepared by the offices of Dennis Block, the self-proclaimed eviction master of the universe.

I closed the piece with my disappointment that my search for information hit a deadend when I hung up after having been left on hold with Block’s offices for a hellaciously long time. A short while later I visited Block’s website and decided I’d approach from that angle by submitting an email that produced an outrageously awesome response from the King Kicker-Outer himself along with the news that he’s either a chronic self-Googler or a Blogging.la reader (the entire e-thread unspools after the jump):
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Thanks to Xeni for pointing to a recent blog post by Lorna Herf about trying to buy a car from South Bay BMW only to end up walking out when the dealership demanded a fingerprint and wouldn’t budge:

Imagine you’ve gone through a multiple week process to purchase an automobile.
You know the drill. Research every feature, pick your color, then, it’s negotiations for purchase price and for trade-in. Everything is done and agreed-apon, and excited, you are ready to hand over the check and collect your new car.

But wait!

You are handed a slip of paper and told to mark your right thumbprint in a box. The paper says clearly that it’s a request, for your protection, and to prevent your identity theft.

When you politely decline, the dealership refuses to sell you the car.

Well researched and worth the read. Another disturbing tidbit that’s buried about midway through is that South Bay BMW also refused to return or destroy any of the personal data (including copies of her driver’s license and marriage certificate as well as a credit report run without her knowledge) that they had already collected. Instead they’re keeping it on file for seven years just as they would’ve done with the print. Mind you, this is somebody who didn’t buy a car from them.

I just overheard a conversation which got me thinking – There’s a ton of filming going on outside of my office this morning and with it the usual “security” posted on all the surrounding corners. Two onlookers I walked past on my way in were arguing if the security guards were actual police officers or perhaps off duty police officers or just normal guards dressed up to look like police officers. Their uniforms and motorcycles are as close to looking like LAPD issue as they can be without actually containing anything saying they are law enforcement. So the question is, if these guys are not cops isn’t this pretty much impersonating a police officer? And if they are cops, why are they going so far out of their way to look like cops but without actually saying it? I’ve got some suspicions of my own but wanted to pose this to everyone else before I opened my mouth and said something completely wrong.