As projected at its maximum through a spotting scope at 20X magnification from the front porch of our Silver Lake house. It buuuuuuuurns! It buuuuuuuuuuuuurns!

It's NOT the end of the world as we know it, says Griffith Observatory Planetarium lecturer Kelley Hazen, just the daze of our lives.

I got an invite last week to come to a media preview of Time’s Up, the Griffith Observatory’s new planetarium show, so in between Good Samaritan Hospital’s never-miss Blessing of the Bikes yesterday morning and a long-overdue physical exam that afternoon, I biked up the hill to one of my favorite places in Los Angeles to take advantage of the Observatory’s hospitality and see how and why they decided to counter the anxiety being produced by those doomsdayers dead-set in their belief that the Mayans predicted the world to end this coming December 21 and that it’s so going to happen.

The answers are with a provocative and eye-popping new program in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium that opens on the beach next to the Santa Monica Pier, serene for a few moments until meteors start raining explosively down upon the westside, a huge tsunami closes in and a rogue planet grows larger as it bears down on its collision course with earth — accompanied by flying monkeys, of course.

Inside joke: Pictured during this doomsday scene is Lifeguard Station No. 5150. Since most of the station IDs are no more than two digits, I’m betting this was done in snarktastic reference to the police code that’s basically short for bugged-out basketcase kRaAzEe.

But just when all seems lost, Planetarium Lecturer Kelley Hazen steps in bearing a beautifully illuminated and illuminating hourglass to put a freezeframe to all the apocalyptic nonsense and go on with a visually stunning and intellectually compelling show that counters folly with fact and explores what time is all about.

“The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity,” said Observatory Director Dr. E.C Krupp. “Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Dozens of books are marketing fears and exaggerations about the 2012 End Times. Most of what’s claimed relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of the Living Dead.”

Time’s Up does not stop with the lore and false predictions of doom. The show uses the Maya calendar as a gateway to explore what time really is and how we measure it, immersing the audience into its flow, from the Big Bang to the ultimate future of the cosmos.

Fifteen months in the making, Time’s Up will become part of the observatory’s regular schedule starting May 31. But on the evening of May 29, Friends Of The Observatory (FOTO)  are scheduled to host three live fundraising performances for both FOTO members and the public. Tickets are $35 for FOTO members, $50 for nonmembers. Parking is guaranteed for anyone buying tickets, and those attending will enjoy refreshments, the chance to hear special talks, and mingle with the observatory’s astronomers.

WHAT: An Intimate Evening with the Astronomers at Griffith Observatory
WHEN: May 29, 5 – 10 p.m.
WHERE: Griffith Observatory
COST: $35 for FOTO members; $50 for the public
MORE INFO:  www.friendsoftheobservatory.com
CONTACTS: 213.473.0807; fotofriend@friendsoftheobservatory.org

Will Campbell's Manzanar Photo - click through for post

Sure, Angelenos are no strangers to the concept of a makeover. But when it comes to an egregious error on the part of elected officials—decades in the past—is it possible to get a do-over? County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas thinks that it might be possible, at least, for the LA County Board of Supervisors to try to facilitate some healing regarding one serious misstep taken by the board in 1942.

Specifically, when our country decided that certain broad swipes of our populace could not be trusted based solely on their ancestry, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted 70 years ago to pass a resolution urging the President of the US and Congress to proceed with internment as soon as possible. According to one of his aides, current LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas will introduce a motion to repeal that resolution at the 5 June 2012 meeting of the board.

We’ve blogged about the internment at blogging.la before, here and here. (And by “we” I mean Will Campbell!) It is certainly a dark page in the past of our nation, and one that we would like to think is mostly behind us. Alas, in the post-9/11 attitude toward Middle-Eastern Americans and the ongoing atmosphere of racial profiling and harassment that thrives under Joe Arpaio, perhaps that page hasn’t fully been turned just yet.

Still, steps such as this move by Ridley-Thomas—which on its face may appear not to change much of anything—can help to push the dialogue of greater racial tolerance and perhaps prevent further injustice as we progress as Angelenos, as Americans, as humans. In fact, this move will help to highlight the progress Los Angeles has made in overcoming institutional racism, as current Chief Executive Officer of LA County, William Fujioka, and the LA County Board’s Executive Officer, Sachi Hamai, are both Japanese Americans.

That, and everyone’s favorite Japanese-American actor and celebrity, George Takei, will also attend the board meeting and offer testimony in support of Ridley-Thomas’ motion. Goodness knows he’s familiar with the challenges of being a second-class citizen.

In the gallery below, view the board’s resolution as it was passed in January 1942.

Your enthusiasm may vary, but the trek was a total once-in-a-dozen-lifetimes blast. And while its moment of arrival in front of LACMA at 4:30 a.m. was cause for celebration among the hundreds gathered in attendance, for me the most dramatic moment happened above in Exposition Park at the bend in Figueroa Street just south of Exposition Boulevard when the 200-foot long, three-lane-wide transport vehicle had to negotiate its first turn of the night, and its right front corner came within what looked to be less than an inch of making contact with a speed limit sign. As the spotter says to me at the end, “If you’ve got a half-inch, you’ve got a mile.”

Gneissly and successfully avoided.

LAANE cause logo

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) is the group spear heading the protest of the small neighborhood style grocery store that Walmart wants to open.  I am familiar with the market as I have seen them in Las Vegas where they have been for a couple of years.  The groc to a degree is similar to Fresh and Easy or Trader Joe’s in size and marketing.

LAANE takes exception to the store on several levels.  First is that the city and its residents can’t afford to subsidize benefits for their employees.  Why?  Because they alleged, and Walmart certainly has been held to scrutiny on this in the past, for paying wages that are so low that their employees qualify for medi-cal, food stamps and similar welfare.  Certainly Walmart hasn’t been accused of paying a living wage nor employing for enough hours to have their employees to be benefit eligible.

Deets: Thursday, March 8, at 1pm., Department of Public Social Services, on 2415 W. Sixth St. Los Angeles, CA 90057  MAP HERE.

Full press release after the jump. For Immediate Release

March 8, 2012

Allison Mannos 323-706-8320 (cell)

**ADVISORY FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7**

Walmart Employees Speak Out About Poverty Wages at Los Angeles Welfare Office

As Retail Giant Pursues First L.A. Grocery Store in Chinatown, Workers to Hand Out Walmart and Welfare Applications to Public

What: Walmart employees will host a press conference at a Los Angeles welfare office to highlight Walmart’s poverty wages following the retailer’s announcement of plans to open its first L.A. grocery store in Chinatown. The employees will discuss how their average wages have driven many of them to apply for welfare and Medi-Cal.

When: Thursday, March 8, 1pm

Where: Department of Public Social Services, 2415 W. Sixth St. Los Angeles, CA 90057

Who: Angie Rodriguez, Walmart employee

Greg Fletcher, Walmart employee

James Elmendorf, LAANE

Cesar Michel, DPSS Welfare worker

Cynthia Brambilia, Vons grocery worker

Warehouse worker

Visuals: Walmart employees handing out Walmart employee and Welfare application packets out to members of the public and large posters of Walmart employees’ Medi-Cal cards.

Background

By proposing its first Los Angles grocery store and first new site in L.A. in nearly decade, Walmart would circumvent the City’s superstore ordinance which was passed in 2004. The ordinance was passed due to popular opposition to Walmart expansion in Los Angeles. The proposed store, to be located at 701 W. Sunset Boulevard in the Chinatown neighborhood, has sparked resistance from community groups who feel that the City of Los Angeles and its residents cannot afford to subsidize the poverty wages Walmart pays while making huge profits. Walmart employees from other stores in L.A. County are also opposing the company’s expansion at the cost of its workers.

Workers from OURWalmart have organized campaigns since 2003 to improve wages, job standards and working conditions in Walmart stores across America. Workers have long demanded that the retailer provide family-supporting wages and benefits and reduce the need for employees to apply for welfare benefits. Over 700,000 Walmart employees nationwide do not receive health care coverage from the retailer and a 2005 UC Berkeley study found that Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail work­ers as a whole.

# # #

Little more than a week later, at the age of 45, Bunkall died after a five-year struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. In shock as I read the perfunctory obituary in the Pasadena Star-News, I mourned his passing somewhat selfishly in that I’d just found his heroic art. As such I wanted both to know more and share that with my readers, and thanks to the grace of his widow Sally during what had to be such a difficult time, she allowed myself and writer Kathleen August to intrude upon the Bunkall home, and access his studio, where he created his amazing works, and where surrounded by family and friends he passed in May 1999.

It was a deeply emotional experience and privilege, to say the least.

Q&A: Curator Peter Frank (center) is flanked by artists Kenton Nelson (left) and Ray Turner (right) as they discuss Bunkall's life and his art.

It was equally emotional to visit the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) last night for a standing-room-only event surrounded by some of his most profound and moving creations, to remember the man and his art and to celebrate the launch of a new book devoted to both, the first publication of the artist’s remarkable 25-year career as a painter and sculptor.

If this is your first time hearing about Richard Bunkall or it’s been a long time since you last thought about him, I’d encourage you to make a trip out to the PMCA to introduce or reacquaint yourself with his remarkable imagery before the exhibit, “Richard Bunkall: A Portrait” closes April 22.

Where: Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union Street, Pasadena, 91101
When: Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 p.m., through April 22.
Cost: $7 adults; $5 seniors and students; free the first Friday of the month

Villaraigosa, you are SO FULL OF SHIT!