Serving families in need in the SGV is the Foothill Unity Center.  They are in need of more help than ever due to the ever increasing demands on them as a resource for families in distress.  Over Thanksgiving they served over 2,000 families up from some 1,600 a year ago.  Things aren’t getting better and they need all the help they can get for this Holiday Season.

They have a nifty page on what they need right now to get ready for Christmas.  They need food items.  They need gifts for kids.  They need to have volunteers to help with the distribution.  That is 3 ways to help them out, not including the constant need for cash donations.

If you have someone on your list that has everything, consider making a gift to the Foothill Unity Center in their name this Holiday Season.

For more complete information on the Foothill Unity Center visit their web site.

Monrovia Center: 415 W. Chestnut Ave., Monrovia 91016 Phone: (626) 358-3486 / Fax: (626) 358-8224 Hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Pasadena Center: 191 N. Oak Ave., Pasadena 91107 Phone: (626) 584-7420 / Fax: (626) 584-7422 Hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Christmas in full swing in my 'hood

Over the next several days the writers here at Blogging.LA will be sharing with you ideas to help those in need in the Los Angeles Area.  We will cover a variety of ways to help from charities to causes that we hold near to our hearts.  And giving doesn’t have to be monetary, it can be your labors, your gifts in kind even raiding your pantry to help others out.  You don’t have to be religious either, much of what we share will strike a cord at least with your humanist and spiritual side.

Of course, feel free to jump in on the comments with your favorite charity or cause that needs a little extra help this time of year…include links where possible so others can help if they are so inclined.

Cadillac ELR formerly known as the Converj coming to us soon.

Wednesday I got to meet up with GM exec Jim Federico, Executive Director of Engineering, Electric Vehicles at the L.A. Auto Show. I got to ask some of my own questions as well as those you readers posed as part of the ticket contest I was able to run. It was an interesting visit, certainly a lot of information with some answers as well. Where to start with the questions and answers is my big dilemma.

Al Pavangkanan posed the question regarding new battery technology. Jim couldn’t give specifics of what they have in store but did say that they are working with the battery suppliers to develop new technologies that will give us more power for the size compared to what we have now. The problem all the manufacturers have run into is that there isn’t a rush to develop batteries as there isn’t really a market demand for them yet in quantities to offset their costs. Those costs affect what we pay for an EV now, but as demand increases, production increases there will be more incentive to develop new battery technology and help lower costs.  Read the rest of this entry →

Who doesn’t love music? And who doesn’t love stories about band camp? Well, the fine folks over at the GRAMMY Foundation are offering a couple band camp options right here in Los Angeles in the coming year for high school students interested in learning more about having a career in the music industry. (You know, for students who aren’t able to find drugs in their own high schools.) Read the rest of this entry →

Bonus points if you look weaker than a small child.

A lot of people in LA are looking for jobs, and today Jezebel picked up on an opportunity right here in our own back yard for any anorexics seeking gainful employment. Well, not “intentional” anorexics, according to the ad. But you know, if you just happened to stumble into your eating disorder by chance, then maybe this gig’s for you.

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Screencap from LA Times' LA Now blog

Bonus points for Best Mugshot Ever and a first paragraph that cracked me up. Story here.

The number of versions of “Blade Runner“, which had already jumped the shark, has now jumped the Loch Ness Monster: director Ridley Scott plans to make yet another “Blade Runner” movie. It is not yet known whether the new “Blade Runner” will be a sequel, prequel, reboot, or otherwise. Either way, what can Angelenos expect if the new “Blade Runner” is again set in Los Angeles?
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Found walking the dog this morning on Occidental Boulevard north of Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. I’m titling it “Street Art.”

During Wednesday’s bike trek up the Arroyo Seco creek bed and back, ’twas found sprayed under one of the bridges, an urgent call for drastic change, whose typo — whether intentional or not (my vote’s for NOT), made for an entirely unassailable pro-pedagogical position:

Some of the RVs and campers along 3rd Avenue in Venice

Consider this a parting shot from homeless advocates who have lost the latest battle in the long-running Venice parking war: the National Coalition for the Homeless has named Venice’s “oversize” vehicle nighttime parking restriction one of The 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws in America.

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Spotted on Fairfax just north of Wilshire. This salad ain’t for you, white boy.

[UPDATE: Photo re-uploaded with higher resolution.]

anarchosyn's photo used through Creative Commons license

LA Observed pointed out yesterday the sad contrast between two recent reports, one which identifies a substantial increase in the number of “high net worth individuals” in LA–people so important they have their own acronym (HNWI)–and the other that gives an overview of the growing demand on LA county food pantries. A number of reports about the economic recovery have claimed that job regrowth has mostly been in low paid and unskilled jobs, and perhaps LA is seeing the effects of that trend.

The number of people accessing food pantries has increased 73% since 2008 while the amount of funds and food supplies are not keeping pace, and in some cases are decreasing (take the LA food bank, which is receiving 800,000 pounds less a month from the USDA than it was at the start of 2011.

At the same time, the number of people whose “investable assets” exceeded one million dollars increased 8.8% over last year. Only Houston saw a higher increase. So if you’re one of the many who feel like the middle is getting squeezed right now and there are more and more people living in one extreme or the other, you may well be right. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…. And people wonder why I persist in calling myself a leftist.

Some of you have been around long enough (and are lucky enough) to have attended SUPERBALL – the crazy, eclectic, celeb-studded (but in a good way) event where damn near anything could and did happen.

Like all gigantic, out of control events, SUPERBALL kind of reached its peak and when the dudes behind it got busy with life, it went away for a while.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and out of the ashes of SUPERBALL came … TwentyWonder! A Carnival of the Mind, and a great cause too.

Plus, TwentyWonder just got featured on GoldStar. Discounted tickets are now $20 for a limited time. Jump on it, and then alert your friends!

Tickets: http://www.goldstar.com/today/los-angeles/2011/7/4

This Saturday! July 9th! From 6pm to Midnight!

21 and older with ID

VIP Tix include a souvenir medallion – very cool!

(hope this image cures the JumboTron effect – was posting from the phone)

The handmade sign on the front door of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger‘s former home on 3rd Street in Santa Monica reads: “Go Away. People Live Here”. That’s the message I’d like to send to mobsters in Los Angeles and across the country. But they seem to keep popping up near where I live, or vice versa.
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Hey Kids – No wait, strike that – Hey Adventurous Non-Squeamish Over-18-Year-Olds!

The inimitable Ori (aka Ashley Blue aka GIRLVERT aka Oriana Small) has written a memoir that will twist your brain better than any Terence Malick movie ever could.

And guess what? She’s reading excerpts (and doing who knows what else) tonight at Largo at the Coronet!

Not sure if scanning the doo-dah in this image will work or not but do please find a way to attend. Knowing what I know, you’ll be talking about this for a while.