Cobb

Fire

For My Young Black Brothers

Every once in a while, I am invited or encouraged to to join an organization aimed at improving the lives of young black men. I am mostly flattered by the invitation, but I almost never join. So I'll take a moment to talk about this and related matters.

I asked some folks, when Cobb was interactive, how many men they would trust with the keys to their house, without a second thought. That's the benchmark. Why? Because it really doesn't matter what happens to 'black men'. You can get up on a podium and proclaim that you are sensitive to the pain of the world, but you ain't Jesus, so what are you trying to say? What really matters is what happens to you, your family, your friends, your people. And that all depends on your ability to handle your business. Unfortunately there's a lot of marketing and not a lot of product that goes under the heading of 'organizing to help'. When we look back at black American history, what stands out are the towering individuals, but those institutions that survive are mostly conventional. A church, a college.

I say to young black men that you must come to understand the difference between weak links and strong love. And my experience tells me that many black organizations end up as weak links and not as strong love, the exception being black fraternities and sororities. In my opinion that's because fraternities are organized only secondarily about abstract uplifting principles, but primarily around relationships. Organization racial uplift fails because such organizations don't scale and they are too abstract to be practical.

There's a couple of caveats before anyone takes it that I am badmouthing black organizations wholesale. The first is that I come from Los Angeles, a big city where people with big mouths try to make big organizations. I haven't seen it work much better than a good church, and well that's already done. In a smaller city, I think there might be a more pressing need and a greater commitment to make strong love out of weak links.

Secondly, the objective progress of black Americans means that on average the organizational ability latent on the black communities is greater than it was when I was a young black man. So the chances of an honest effort ending up okeydoke is smaller today than it was 20, 30 years ago.

All that said, the biggest skeptical brick I have to throw is this. If you are middle class, the chances that you are going to lift poor people into the middle class are slim. Especially in times like this when times are hard and messianic politicians are taxing you back down into the ditch.  If you're rich, the chances are better. What I'm saying is that if you've got a 50k job, it's likely that the time you spend trying to get somebody with a 20k job into a 35k job might often come at the expense of you getting a 75k job. So volunteer your time very carefully, because it's the man with the 150k job who has the time to recognize the ways and means of the rich that paves the greater path. And if you don't believe that, then why aren't you moving to Cuba, comrade? But then again, that's just all about money.

What I do believe we all should be involved in no matter what our background is the principle and practice of advanced civility. What America lacks is a firm sense of practical decorum. The proper way of doing things is in doubt. We haven't completely forgotten our manners, but we've seen them beat down so many times that we think they don't matter any more. And it has practically destroyed our ability to communicate trust and strong love in public. Everybody is putting on a game face. Everybody is self-promoting. The people this hurts the most are those who have not experienced the ways and means of power, because they see the game but they can't tell where the game ends and the realness begins. I think that especially counts for young black men who are not in close proximity to the ways and means of social power in the mainstream. When the mainstream carries power over you and your boss is gaming rather than authentically civil, then you will instinctively reject. You'd be right, but you sacrifice your own promotion. People who come up like that carry the dual consciousness, it destroys confidence in self and society.

Gaming generates many weak links, fans, groupies, hangers on. It doesn't lead to trust.

The author of choice in the ways and means of decorum and civility is Stephen L. Carter. Read him and then read him again. First read his Confessions of an Affirmative Action Baby. I avoided it because I thought I knew exactly what he was going to say. I stereotyped him. It turned out to be a much deeper book than I expected. So then when I read his books Integrity and Civility, I wasn't surprised that they would be so excellent.

Carter is not a man you hear about every day. But he's been out there for years teaching law at Yale. Not many of us are going to get a chance to hang out at Yale University and speak with the man. It is an organization, perhaps of weak links or of strong love, that the overwhelming majority of people will never experience. But we do have the mind of Carter on paper and his lessons to learn. And if you're reading me, you know that reading can be a valuable connection.

So my advice to everyone is the same. Read Carter and know that civil people with integrity are out there, dispersed and often unavailable, trying to express something better than a game face and working with integrity to earn the trust they deserve. That's the civilized world I'm living in, person to person in America, because I don't have time for anything else.

No Black News

I'm not the most diligent reporter in the world, but I went searching for black local news and from what I can tell, ain't no more. From this point forward, when it comes to large enough news, if it ain't mainstream, it ain't happening. 

Ever since I did my TVOne show a couple years ago I was intrigued to find why all of the best black produced political, news and information shows were on PBS and NPR. I didn't find a comprehensive answer today but I think the signs are clear. There's no money in it. Independent black news reporting in the next five years will take place on the web or it will not take place at all. In the words of Angela Bofill, it's time to say goodbye.

Today was the first annual Urban New Media Conference put together by Kevin Ross and the USC Annenberg School of Communication. A panel of notables, including, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Rolonda Watts, Rev Mark Whitlock, Karen Slade and Jasmyne Cannick were on hand to give an accounting of the state of things and what gives for the future. The state of affairs for traditional black media is bleak. I mean really, really bleak.

How Bleak?

Ebony and Jet have only one full-time photographer in the country. Shared between them. Radio One lost 60 million last quarter. Black Enterprise is laying off.  There was a loss of about 20% of black radio stations and markets last year. 

I think we are witnessing with black media what we witnessed with black banks. Understand that this is a particular type of extinction. The money just goes to other banks. Just like people from New Orleans just moved to other cities. But there will no longer be, if the current trend continues, no exclusive purchase of black owned media on black news and information. The entire practice, if not the idea, is going up in smoke. 

I don't mean to suggest that this conference was a failure or some exercise in futility. What was palpably noticeable in this gathering was the absence of desperation. People came to this forum with agendas that did not depend on the forum. There was no feel of 'you people are not doing enough for the community'. It was more like, this is what the challenge is, how are you going to deal with it? If there was any one flaw with the conference itself, it was that sharp people in attendence might have liked to get more time to network in the space provided. 

Of the panelists, it was my estimation that Rolonda Watts got it best. Now while my interest isn't in entertainment, she had an instant grasp of the fact that this new media works very well with her brand, and it is a brand down the long tail. There are only so many people who want to see a dance lesson with James Brown, but Rolonda knows that when she streams that video, her crowd is going to be there and she doesn't have to beg a network for airtime. What she has got may not be a mass market phenomenon, but it is a significant number of eyeballs on the web. So even if she were at the very end of her broadcast career, she has a long soft landing by monetizing her properties in the lower cost medium of the internet. You're not going to get huge media buys for those segments, but they're not sitting in a vault gathering dust either. 

Local Radio + Local Blogging

What's of interest to me, whether or not there's a possibility that our economy and markets will support it, is a link between national news production and local news production in the new media. There's a sort of irrelevance black-owned media has at the national level. My example would be Soledad OBrien from CNN is going to gather all the ratings there are to be had when her special airs. Those black news producers on NPR or PBS if and when they get an opportunity will pale in comparison, and yet I am of the strong opinion that shows like Michel Martin's Barbershop would be a big hit if it could be done locally. What's required is a business model that understands the handoff.

Here's what I mean. 

You take a local black radio station like KJLH. Extremely loyal following, but struggling in these tough times just like everybody else. They might not be able to get Colin Powell to drop by the station, but the Congressman from the district? Sure. There is plenty of pull that radio stations have locally, but when their audience wants them to get serious about news and politics they have to use the web the way the Netroots have. 50,000 listeners might be very small for a radio station, but it's huge for a community website and if you had 50,000 registered folks on a community website, there would be no issue that would escape notice. So how does black radio make the handoff to those bloggers and local politicos in the Netroots? That is what this kind of conference can facilitate.

Let me give you an example of the gap. When Jamiel's Law became a hot topic of discussion here in Los Angeles, I blogged about it and I spoke about it on Warren Olney's radio program. I also followed the issue in the online part of the LATimes. I didn't get an opportunity to follow up at any of the hearings or press conferences, but I think I saw pretty much everything that went on online. There was an energized, activated community around a hot political topic of broad interest and of special concern to blacks and latinos in Los Angeles County. A radio station like KJLH could have increased its connection to its audience and brought a great deal of focus and actual representation if they worked the issue in coordination with bloggers and online communities. I can't say that they didn't spend a good deal of time on that issue in their broadcast, but I don't listen. I do watch the web, and I know they weren't here. 

There are no black issues but local issues. The question is, who owns access to those voices? Local radio working in tandem with online communities are the absolute best way. And the sharpest voices online will naturally syndicate themselves in the blogosphere. That's the way it works. Townhall.com is the proof. If black radio doesn't move soon to use their local cred to cover community politics on the web, they will lose the opportunity. It's really the only thing they have.

In 1984 or thereabouts, the Black Business Association, a bunch of us undergrads, took a field trip to Motown in Hollywood. At the time, only Michael Jackson was doing the video thing, but I'm pretty sure this was before his collab with John Landis on Thriller. Motown was getting no play from MTV, but it was made directly apparent to us that this was a business decision of Barry Gordy. He thought videos were an expensive waste of time and told his artists that they would not be getting any support for that. This was whispered to us in desperate tones. Of course the whisperers were right and Gordy was wrong, and the rest is history. If anybody thought black talent would get no play outside of Barry Gordy's Motown, they were dead wrong.

This relates to the web opportunity of local radio stations in this critical way. Now I might be wrong but I don't see how local radio promotes local talent in the music business. You can make money as a radio station playing hiphop and urban contemporary no matter what your location and if you're not playing the top national hits, you can't possibly be making any money. When it comes to listening to Snoop or whomever, I've got DJs at the club, iTunes, Cable, XM/Sirius, the record store, movies, video games, and cellphones. Eight ways into my ear that ain't radio, not to mention concerts and bootlegs at the barber shop. People are going to get their Beyonce on - music in local radio is a me-too game with a declining market share. But in any and every community, the opportunity to be the local personality on the air is a great driving factor and it is something that a local radio station can have a lock on - and while my focus is news and politics, it doesn't have to be that. 

Still, it seems to me that local community activism and politics that does not get involved with an active online community of the local people is just asking to be co-opted by Soledad O'Brien and her editors and producers. They will decide what the coverage of X is going to be when it hits your neighborhood if the local radio station does not make that move to engage the community online. 

An online community of eyewitnesses cannot be pushed around, but they can be accellerated and energized through synergy with local radio. And that's all the good news there is.

The bad news is that black radio in particular will fail to be significant if they don't make the connection. That means that program directors are going to have to find a way to connect with the right sort of online communities and/or bloggers. They're going to have to find a business model that takes advantage of the dynamics of the web and they're going to have to be smart about the way the technology is configured. It's a separate line of business with different cost structures. 

I am of the opinion as I said above, that without this connection, there will be no black news. There will be no community ownership or control of the comings and goings of those communities, because quite frankly, a website that cannot get 100 comment threads on local issues cannot compete with newspapers which are failing anyway. 

Again. If this particular extinction does take place, it will follow the course of everything else. The unique market and social conditions of communities will be subservient to national policies. Now in some ways that's a good thing. Nobody wants a Big Mac Philly Style. They want a Big Mac. But if all you have is McDonald's, then Philly Style disappears. You have to get critical mass in the convergence or else. 

Let me close with one final word about money, and I want to talk to you mister black newspaper editor who's about to get laid off. If your skills are to mean anything, you need to take them to the web. The web will evolve an economic model that will get you paid a new way sooner than your newspaper will evolve an expanding market that will get you paid the old way. Your question is not if, but when. And if your interest and business has been local political and cultural news at the community level, then you have an obligation to do what you do best in this new medium. I would have liked to believe that there were lots of black news producers just twiddling their thumbs trying to get their content into mainstream and large networks - but I'm coming to believe that those people are few and far between. Meaning for black radio stations, maybe 75 news folks in the whole country. Online, that would be a juggernaut organization. But in declining local news markets, it ain't much. 

Watch GM. They refused to downsize, lower their costs, revise their business models and now it's too late. Their hand has been forced. The internet is over 15 years old, there is no excuse. 

About That Earthquake

I think they are calling it the Inglewood/Hawthorne or the Lennox Quake. It happened last night about 8:45 while we were watching America's Funniest Videos. I could hear and feel it coming and was on my feet in a half second after it was clear that some real shaking was going on. I grabbed my daughter and my wife and pulled them towards the back door after something crashed off of a shelf.

I had to do some quick calculations and guess which way glass might be flying if we were outside rather than inside as I paused in the doorframe. But even as I could hear car alarms going off and see powerlines swaying, I sensed that it was just about over. So I didn't worry about glass. Everybody was fine although my daughter was still cowering a bit. Five seconds after the first aftershock I headed to the computer and began recon.

Flap was the first one to Twitter. He must have been sitting at the terminal when it happened. I first tried for CalTech but could only get to the front page of their website. Slashdotted. Twitter was alive so I sent several messages. My youngest daughter was en route from her best friend's house. She had just sent me an SMS two minutes before the quake asking about who was the artist who recorded 'Man in the Box'. Sent back 'Alice in Chains' and then 'OK?' almost back to back. Her SMS didn't get back to me until she was already home. 'Did you feel the earthquake'.

I didn't even bother trying to use the phone for voice. I figured everything was tied up and so as I sent my fifth tweet, there were voices in the house confirming that suspicion. Facebook seemed to be alive - several message were coming through, Twitter style, from local friends. My brother Doc finally got a text message through. I tried to send a reply but it wouldn't go. There was nothing at Google News yet, but the TV news guys were breaking a story.

LAX area they said. It felt to me like a 5.5 but it was very short. So 5 sounded reasonable. I got to the USGS and filled out a questionnaire for their records. Their site said 5.0. Next I decided to check my XBox Live buddies. One out in Fontana felt it and kept right on playing Guitar Hero. FB friends from San Diego chimed in. Lots of people who never felt one spoke up. This one was really very short which was surprising given the joltiness of the big jolt. It wasn't a surprising earthquake, there was a good number of seconds of twitching before the big shake slammed home, but then it was over. Still, I figured aftershocks would be coming. I felt two.

Some of our paintings were all crooked. I never figured out what fell down off which shelf. But everything was pretty much back to normal within half an hour. And that's the way it was.

Fear and Freedom

Don't tell people what you're going to do. It just gives them an excuse to second-guess you. Shutup until you're done, then tell people what you did.
-- D. Bowen

Doc and Pops treated me to lunch yesterday. It was all Doc really. He's not angry, he's a happy man but you have to listen a long time until you know that. He's deep in the middle of a struggle, the dimensions of which seem to be beyond him and all of us. But that's how he lives. He's the manly man - the one that rushes into the middle of the conflict. He enjoys donning the armor and putting on a heightened sense of awareness so that he's always prepared. He said that we don't understand, that he's made of cork and nothing can sink him, but you can tell that he's surrounded on all sides by deep, dark, cold water. That is the life of one LAPD officer.

The context of the quote comes from Middle America, the America of South Dakota, the one that doesn't exist here. He said that he told people that he was going to buy property in South Dakota, something that is supposed to be a crazy endeavor for a black man, in certain minds. But he got there explaining the dimensions of fear.

He put himself in the shoes of fear. He was walking near his home in downtown LA and a white woman was coming up the street towards him at night. He described himself in silks, carrying groceries - but he knew what was coming. Her jaws were clenched, she was scared to death. What could he say to put her at ease? A second scenario. The Asian woman alone in the elevator with the black man. Scared to death, but he's a cop. She's actually safer around him than anyone else. People in Los Angeles are living with Black Pathology Television in their heads, and that's all they know. It's not America.

Switch gears. What is the black man's greatest fear? He has run out of gas out in the boondocks and is lost. He has to get service at the lone gas station run by Bubba. Out front is Bubba's red pickup truck with the gun rack and inside is Bubba wearing a plaid hunting jacket. What can Bubba say to put him at ease? Doc runs down the specs on the pickup truck - he finds where Bubba's love is and the bond is made in 20 seconds. A second scenario, reality. He's driving from Yankton to Wakonda South Dakota. He talks to the man who tells him a shortcut. Wow, thanks. Takes 15 miles off the trip but you have to go through some cornfields.

One hour later it's dark and he is at the corner of Corn and Stalk. The sky is clear and the land is flat. The stars are out and they come all the way to the horizon - not that he can see it because he's in 8 foot corn as far as the eye can see. He stops the car and puts on the blinkers. He's lost in South Central South Dakota in the dead of winter and it's mind-numbingly cold. The car pulls up slowly. A woman gets out, white woman and she asks what she can do to help. "I'm lost and I'm trying to get to Wakonda". Wakonda is a five block square of houses in the middle of 1000 square miles of farmland.

She says "Follow me".

That's where America is, Doc says. Not here in the Los Angeles where officers of the law are not permitted to look at anyone's breasts lest they get written up administratively. Here, everyone is afraid of men who have to be men. It's enough to defeat the courageous. So he's out to rescue liberty and wondering where everybody's honesty has gone.

Doc has got a fantasy. It's about living where the living is honest and good. Right now he's got some small parts of middle America but in the future it's in Western Australia. Out there where people don't step on each other's feet you understand that you have to look out for your neighbor. Western Australia is like Africa without the Africans. There are no tribal conflicts, no wars. Millions of acres of unpolluted wilderness and gorgeous shorelines in a constitutional republic with liberty. Western Australia is like what America used to be before it got too crowded and hated - where people had to work to make life work rather than spend all their time trying to vote themselves into existence and politick themselves into the receiving end of demographically proportionate patronage.

I don't know much about Kenny Chesney. That's something both Doc and Pops share that I know very little about, but I do know the effect he has on people that love and respect his music. It was on the list of basics that you need for a life of liberty in Western Australia, including the four-wheel drive, the Brazilian wife, the cargo pants, Tommy Bahama sandals, and a year's supply of Chimay Ale. Silly me, I kept wondering if he was going to say broadband access. But I couldn't disagree. I mentioned Bora Bora, but he said no. Not enough land, you'd get cabin fever. You need to see out to the horizon full of land and know that the land is free.

I'm impressed.

Pops still sends all the emails about Obama in 48 point caps. Sometimes he sends them in different colors. On the way to the spot yesterday I saw a poster from the Californian Medical Marijuana League inviting people to Celebrate Change at some rally. At the bottom of the poster was the notice that smoking of medical marijuana was not allowed at the rally. Funny we were just talking about that. Funny they had to mention it. Funny I can't remember when so many people made such a big deal about going to any Inauguration.  But Pops doesn't care really about winning any political battles - really, not any battles at all. All he wants is to spend enough time with his 10 grandchildren to enjoy the fact that they're not engaged either. So that's why there is no method to his madness. He's just being, as the kids say, 'random'. Well he does know how to pick a good ale. 

I'm watching romantic comedies because people knew, back in the days of Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, and before, what their roles were. They knew how to be men and women and not issue administrative citations for improper breast observation. Masculinity and femininity have lost their moorings because the Boomers felt obligated to reject EVERYTHING and celebrate that as freedom. But now all of the descendants who watch television and movies don't know how to deal with each other's passions, and the land doesn't require them to meet people on the road and be something more than 'a young hispanic female', or however the description comes across the network. Because when Americans react to each other in the modern terms, it's based on demographically assigned fears. Walking on downtown streets and riding in elevators and shouting out of cars in traffic doesn't require people to be Americans, and so America is lost here in Los Angeles, which very few people identify as land that goes out to the horizon where the people are free.

So the votes are in and the symbol is in place but life doesn't change. It's no surprise that people of a sort would vote for the man who talks the right game, but the talking is not going to change. The clenched jaws of fear are unable to open and ask "How can I help", not here in the urban jungle. That counts for the Los Angeles with the Latino mayor and for the America with the African president. It's not the adjectives that count, but the verbs. 

Living in fear vs living in freedom is always a matter of reaching out to touch in truth with passion. I sometimes wonder if we do that enough, and today when its 20 below in South Dakota and sunny and bright here in the Southland, I think the difference has to do with the demands of the land. Out here we wear sunglasses and only smile if we've had our dental perfection done.

Loyola Beats Mira Costa

The last time I shed a real tear, as in cried, it was when I realized that I had allowed the application deadline for freshman year at Loyola High School to pass for my son. 'Nuff said on that. Since then, I have gotten used to the idea that Boy will accomplish what he needs outside of that well-wrapped universe, but every once in a while it stabs me like a splinter in my mind.

Whenever that stabbing pain arrives, I console myself primarily with the knowledge that he will be in a better position socially than I was, and that as a Loyola alum myself, I am quite capable of transferring those lessons I got. But then again, he won't live it.

Be all that as it may, I am coming back around into the old high school family slowly but surely. It has gravity. Last night I attended the opener against Mira Costa High one town over from me in Manhattan Beach. It was the second high school football game I've attended in as many nights (Boy's frosh team stomped North Torrance High something like 45 - 7 on Thursday - he got one unassisted tackle.) and also the second in about three decades. I can tell you that it's truly weird not to be able to see the replay or hear the commentary, but extra cool to be one of the few with binocs and see the fumble before the crowd does. Still, I have to bone up on my football observation skills.

What struck me most about this whole deal is that the spirit of the Loyola fan base is monstrous. I can't say that I know what to compare it to, but it was truly pretty awesome to see first hand. I never hated football, but I've always disliked the whole 'fan' thing. I'm not a very good booster. I like to play, I like to make a difference personally. But last night I put on the hat and sat in the bleachers and shared the binocs and met a whole lot of people I hardly expected to meet. It got to the point when I was asking strangers if perhaps I knew them. Marlon and Darryl, I knew and I rather expected to be there, pillars of the Family as they are. But seeing Michael and Kirk and Ty and Frank was pleasantly unexpected.

The game itself was jerky. It had no offensive continuity. As Coach Porterfield said, it looked like a bad soccer match, nothing happened until one team made a mistake. We counted at least five illegal procedure calls. There were about 4 sacks, several fumbles and interceptions. A pass interference and a technical foul within a couple plays of a punt return had everybody scratching their heads. And if that announcer says 'Boom Shacka Lacka or 'punting situation' one more time, I was going to scream. I don't know how bad high school football kicking games are supposed to be, but some of this was straight Keystone Kops. Nevertheless, there were some breakout plays especially by a kid named Jones, I think #84 and especially Loyola's #2, an unstoppable hole-splitting running back who seemed to break tackles just for the fun of it.

Most impressive to me was the energy of the place. It was standing room only from the opening kickoff until pass the closing 'boom shacka lacka'. I couldn't catch the chants that the Loyola student section was doing with their tomahawk motions, but that block of them about 20 wide and 8 rows deep was pretty awesome.

I think I could make this into a habit, that is, when Redondo Union is away. Go Seahawks! Go Cubs!

The Society

The Society met again for the first time Saturday. There were a lot of hugs going around.

I couldn't predict, but I would make a fair guess that something of import is going to come from the collected efforts of this group. Things are just getting started, and the lead dogs have a great deal of enthusiasm. We'll see.

Me, I'm just really glad to get in personal touch with folks I've always gave the benefit of every doubt. I tend to think more about myself as measured by them as anything else in that way we always feel about our hometown.

Among others who showed up (a lot more than I expected) were Jackson, Butler, Pugh, Shields, McKinley, Gabriel, Davis, Martin, Shepherd, Harvey, Houze, Meredith, Thompson, Walker, Sanford, Vicknair, Stewart and Baptiste. I wish I had more time to talk about the present with folks I didn't know very well but I had other commitments that day.

State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas dropped by to say a few words as well. A key group to be sure. Go Cubs!

More on the Homeless in LA

Here is the correct piece of news from the LA Times. The link in that blockquote of Patterico's did not contain the proper information bolstering the arguments I have made on behalf of the police, citizens and businessmen who have to deal with the crime of the dumping zone called Skid Row.
Download los_angeles_times_plan_would_end_homeless_tent_cities.pdf

This was a compromise that hasn't resolved the problem. It remains. Here is another article that illustrates varying approaches to solutions. Joseph Mailander proposed New Yurt City. I like the idea and furthermore I would extend it as a kind of microlending solution. In other words, I would grant a sort of partnership / ownership of a yurt. Let's say that the city owns 51 percent of each yurt and that the city or county also subsidizes a grant for the person 'buying' in. As they get on their feet and have a job, they move out of the yurt and sell it to the next occupant.
Download los_angeles_times_magic_housing_solutions.pdf

We should keep in mind that this is exactly how Brazil has creatively dealt with favelas, or that seems to be the message among some of the blue sky and semi-radical testimony of Robert Neuwirth. It makes sense to me that some sort of financial incentive be given to users of the yurts and that it is made to benefit the city that these turn over - that people don't squat in yurts permanently, but that some provision be made that they are accommodating to people who might take 3-6 months to be restored to normalcy.

Beyond Special Order 40

Times They Are A-Changin'

From today's LAT, emphasis mine:

Hoping to find a successor to popular Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and end the decadelong shellacking that most other Republicans have suffered when running for statewide office, a group of GOP leaders and well-heeled donors Wednesday announced plans to stock a "farm team" of candidates they hope will put their party back in power.

The organization includes former Gov. Pete Wilson and a crew of moderate Republican donors from Orange County.

Although they insist that potential candidates will be judged by their quality and electability -- not their ideology -- some conservatives are already critcizing the move as an attempt to undermine their leadership in the party.

California Republicans Aligned for Tomorrow will work with the California Republican Party to find candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and state office seats starting in 2010, when Schwarzenegger terms out of office.

Among the potential gubernatorial candidates courted by the group is former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, the 51-year-old billionaire who is now campaigning for Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain and once served as a fundraiser for his rival, Mitt Romney, according to one source.

It gets better.

Hudson noted that a number of the Republican group's board members also belong to the New Majority, which was founded primarily by Orange County executives who for years have tried to nudge the party away from social conservatives and their emphasis on issues such as abortion and gun rights.

Also, many members of the new group have close ties to Schwarzenegger...

That's what I'm talking about.

 

Dennis Zine Does the Right Thing

City Councilman Dennis Zine has read us right. That's responsive and responsible politics. The LA Times actually fairly accurately reports:

"If an officer stops an individual . . . who is determined to be a gang member, and it's determined they are also illegally here, then the department should notify immigration," Zine said. "It directs the resources against the gangs. Immigration needs to use its resources to go after gangs."

Zine's proposal would not overturn Special Order 40, which states that "officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." But Zine's amendment would be more specific as to how officers can inquire into the immigration status of suspected gang members.

LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said such actions were not directly prohibited by Special Order 40. Some officers already check the immigration status of gang members they detain -- but others don't because they believe it's not permitted under department rules.

Diaz said the new rules would spell out how officers deal with such cases.

"Special Order 40 prohibits only two things. It prohibits our officers from arresting individuals for illegally entering the country, which is a federal misdemeanor," Diaz said. "It also does not allow our officers to initiate an investigation solely for the purpose of discovering a person's immigration status."

I was on the radio with Deputy Chief Diaz, and he admitted that jurisdiction and rules can be complex. This clarification is an excellent first step that makes the PD more proactive. It gets more bad guys off the street quicker - a one-two punch.

I still suspect that there's a bottleneck somewhere in the judicial and penal end of this train of criminal custody. That gangbanger can be detained and arrested, but if ICE throws up their hands, as Villaragosa rather flippantly asserted last week, then there can still be suspects floating through the cracks and illegals sent back to American streets. What is not clear is the efficiency with which such persons, identified as in the country illegally are actually deported. I don't think that the reform's most critical feature is in aggressive policing, but in fast-tracking those known Mexican national convicts back to Mexico.

I am glad to see Deputy Chief Diaz do his part in this and I hope and expect that people who are specifically concerned about a chilling effect on other illegal immigrants cooperation with police recognize that the distinction between those who might be on an eventual path towards naturalization and gangbangers is a sound and reasonable distinction. Nobody should live in fear of gangs in America. You can be a good neighbor even if you are not a citizen.

Support your local police.

Special Order 40

I just listened to the show, I think it went very well and gave a fair hearing to what is actually a bit more complicated than was let on. I think I did a pretty decent job.

What was not mentioned in the show was the extent to which there's a great deal of jurisdictional overlap and borders. I could not determine, for example, whose responsibility it is to make the call on whether a Mexican national convict is actually deported or released to the streets of LA. The deputy chief made it clear that LAPD marks the forms that notifies ICE, but not what percentage of those violent or gang criminals are actually deported. Clearly it's not the LAPD's responsibility.

So I'm sure lots of people can say that they're doing their part to share databases and have information, but whose head rolls today? Who should be voted out of office?

Ms Salas said that the LAPD should spend its time apprehending dangerous criminals instead of being advance men for the Migra. I agree. In fact, the thousands of Mexican nationals in California jails and prisons attest to the efficiency of the system in doing part of its job. But if these ex-cons are released back into the California population and then can hide under the cover of the political protections of 'latinos' when in fact they are Mexican nationals, then something is wrong. And I don't think that latinos should be on the hook for being part of that 'community'.

I think it's rather astounding, in retrospect, that the Chief and his deputy are bringing up the matter of arresting jurisdictions. The LAPD in the end can no better hide behind the border of Culver City than Jamiel Shaw could hide behind the US border. And the City Council is not going to be able to hide behind its jurisdictional borders either. All the borders are porous and the political effects of this are going to spill over in all different directions. I'm sure we would want it to be neat and compartmentalized, but it's not.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a hero, but I don't see a lot of guts out there.

Jamiel's Law is a spirit that I think is going to go to the next level. It's not going to end with LAPD policy reform. I know a lot depends upon the willingness of the family to step beyond being a symbol. Who knows the chances of that. It's the worst way of all to become famous. But this is another chapter in the long history of failed immigration policy, a bloody and tragic chapter. The problem will not go away, neither will I.

Jamiel's Law

Here's a law and order issue that deserves a good deal of attention. It's very hot on local radio.

Jamiel Shaw was gunned down by an illegal alien gang member who had just gotten out of jail. Jamiel was not in a gang. If Special Order 40 didn’t stand in the way, the illegal would have been deported, and Jamiel would be alive. It’s as simple as that. We say that Mayor Villar, Chief Bratton and the City Council have blood on their hands! Call City Hall and tell them to support Jamiel’s Law.  Jamiel’s family needs your help.

Here's the story:

Stanford University called about Jamiel Shaw a week or so ago, intrigued by the slight but speedy running back for Los Angeles High School, the Southern League's most valuable player last year. Rutgers University called a few days later.

The Shaw family already had reason to be proud. Jamiel's mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was on her second tour of duty in Iraq.

On Sunday night, it was Jamiel's father on the phone and then his son's girlfriend, Chrystale Miles. Jamiel Sr. called to tell him to hurry home from the mall. The 17-year-old boy was three doors away when someone shot him to death while he was still talking on his cellphone to Chrystale, friends say.

Jamiel Sr. heard the shots almost as soon as he hung up. He ran out of the house, raced around the corner and found his son lying on the sidewalk, bleeding.

The Shaw family is pissed, and they are on the verge of becoming the new face of anti-illegal immigration in California if not the nation. Their son Jamiel was an all-star and a very popular kid. This will not be swept under the rug.

Already, Chief Bratton is being accused of being a lapdog to the Mayor Villaraigosa who already has very bitter enemies over matters of illegal immigration. Nobody forgets how the Mexican flag was waved onstage at his inauguration, and how he has consistently pretended that Mexican gangs are not a real problem in Los Angeles. The recent spate of drive-by murders, killings of blacks by latinos have forced the Chief to say publicly that they are not racially motivated - meaning 'cool it baby'. And now he's waffling on that, semi-off-the-record. The black backlash has the potential to be ferocious, and as I said, local Right Radio is all over this. Talk about chickens coming home to roost.

I have a gut feeling that this story is about to go large and that the City Council is going to have a lot of explaining to do. I expect Ted Hayes to raise the roof. Patterico is on top of the story and the Deport Illegal Alien Criminals First, an idea I support wholeheartedly should gain some headway as well. I'm going to stick this one onto the Kwaku Network, but it's already on YouTube.

USC Credit Union
Foundation for Jamiel Shaw II
1025 W. 34th Street
King Hall, 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90089

Signs & Suits

Right around the corner from my office in West LA is a new jumbotron billboard. This is the new outdoor advertising. It's very impressive to see. The guys with the crane were out here last week and they put this together in just a couple days. On the current rotation are three movie ads. There are two for Sweeney Todd, and this one for a movie called 'Cloverfield'. (Is that the JJ Abrams thing? Yes.) I noticed the crout of suits staring up at the billboard today at lunch. I figure they're from CBS Outdoor or one of the movies or ad agencies involved. This is a marquee sign in a really great location. Next to Sunset Blvd, I can't think of many better places for a movie billboard.

Writers Strike

Today I had lunch at the world's most luxurious food court, the one in Century City at the Westfield. The place was lousy with Hollywood types, as usual. Today there was an additional heaping helping of writers. You could tell because they had on one of four sorts of T shirts that let you know.

"My movie was on You Tube and all I got was this lousy T-shirt".

With humor like that, one wants to sympathize with the studios and producers. In fact, all during lunch as i was eyeballing the crowd, I kept coming up with better slogans. For example, a picket sign with no writing. Or at least one with the small print "This picket sign left intentionally blank". I couldn't help but notice that writers were enjoying lunches at the most luxurious food court in the world. I sat near the wireless powered speakers that were carrying the tunes strummed by the strolling acoustic troubadour. I asked, and he obliged my request for "Hotel California".

As the troubadour played, I wondered about the mentality which would ask for a cut of his tip cup. After all, Hotel California is surely a copywritten song. And I'm sure that somewhere there are entertainment intellectual property lawyers out there who know exactly which clause in the law which allows street musicians to ply their trade of playing and singing popular songs without being forced to fork over a percentage.

Gerard reminds us that most writers, especially in the news business, write to be read, not studied. Hmm. what about bloggers? I know in fact that most of the time, well anytime I write under the category of Critical Theory, I write to be studied. Since I am a syndicated blogger and I do NPR I catch a little money on the side. Something like 170 bucks a month, in a good month. I hardly think that qualifies me as a professional. But I think I'm a good writer nonetheless, and I count myself fortunate that I don't have to work for the kind of asshats that would make me feel as though I needed the benefit of collective bargaining. I don't know, there's something about the very idea of a writer's union that sounds oxymoronic - it is bound to the assembly line of entertainment product. That's all we've heard in the news this week, how this disruption of labor is effecting the economy of Los Angeles. Nothing could be more un-writerlike from my perspective. I suppose that's because of my intellectual bias. I think of a writer first and foremost as an intellectual, a facilitator of an environment for the critical exchange of ideas central to ... yeah well that's my conceit.

In reality, the writer's strike is going to put more people out on the street at night. I mean with nothing good to watch on the tube, people are going to have to face their misery without relief. Good news for bars, taxis and eventually divorce lawyers. Just imagine the ripple effects. That's what they want you to do.

In the end, however, I fall into the same camp as Bill Handel, who explained the deal this morning on the radio. Writers get, from the sale of every DVD, approximately 4 cents. The studios get about 3 bucks. The writers want 8 cents, which is still less than what the guys get who make the box. I think that's reasonable, under the circumstances.

San Diego County Fires

FYI. Google has a map resource up.

Burning Burbs

Not very long ago, the Spousal Unit and I were figuring out how to make sense of California real-estate for us. We have openly speculated about moving to North Carolina and to San Diego. Before I landed this gig headquartered in LA, we were potential short-timers to LA County. Although it hasn't gotten much easier to plot our way through the shoulder crushing expenses we are aiming to bear, we are counting our blessings today for not having moved to San Diego.

All of our friends down that way are doing fine at this moment, one was directly in the path of the conflagration and then the winds shifted. The areas we planned to consider most seriously, Poway and Rancho Bernardo are today under constant threat as are thousands of families.

Like earthquakes, Southern California suffers greatly from wildfires. We call it Red Flag Season, and it also seems to bring out the arsonists as well. We managed to escape fairly well last year, but I've been up close to the scene of tragedy and it's damned scary. Just a few weeks ago, we dealt with a fire on the way to Big Bear. Growing up in Southern Cal is growing up with wildfires in memory.

Last night on the way home from a late evening at work, I stopped at Dockweiller State Beach just north of LAX. I could see the orange flames across the Santa Monica Bay northeast in Malibu stand out in the night sky. Just 200 yards below, folks sat around bonfires at the beach. I have a mustard cardigan that was ruined from bonfire smoke at Dockweiller but the smell is a familiar one. The crisp of manzanita and pine flakes in the air. We don't have limbago in our joints that tell us that storms are coming, in Los Angeles we sniff the air and check the coatings on our cars. Today is our hell time.

There's talk about raising taxes on the Malibu types who suck up fire resources on the regular. Mike Davis is likely waxing elegaic about the cosmic justice we are suffering today. I don't really go for the politics of tragedy, although I must admit that I get a good dose of schadenfruede when Californians lose million dollar homes to the fickle finger of nature's fate. Way back when, I used to wonder, as prompted by Davis, why the homes in Orange County should have such high values. Most of the OC is on sandy ground which is subject to liquifaction during earthquakes whereas much of South Central LA ground is bedrock. Location location location my black ass. But that was then. Now I'm gearing myself to be a proper grandfather and wise man, when every man's death diminishes me. So I don't wish ill for anyone nor retribution against the few. I merely hope we all try not to forget where we live and what we face.

Eleven, Double, Twenty Seven

I took the family downtown for an afternoon at the Music Center. There we enjoyed three dance pieces by the Mark Morris Dance Group. There were three interpretations of Mozart piano concertoes and we most thoroughly enjoyed the second piece, Double.

The odd thing about dance is that, well for me, there's not much vocabulary I have to describe it. For me it's all about enjoying the poise and the positions. I will pick out a dancer among the troupe and observe their hair, build and movement then try to understand what the choreographer sees in him or her. Then I reinterpret what I see from that assumed perpsective.

MMDG is largely uniform, but there are four breakout dancers. The first, most obviously was the soloist in the first piece, Eleven. She is petite with a short curly blonde cut and falls into her moves transparently. There is absolutely no effect or cant with her, she simply moves. The second is the darkest man, who is bald and medium thick build. He played the 'prince' in Double. His motions are consistently bold and regal. The third is a man who is visibly more graceful than any of the dancers. His arms are simply perfect and something changes when he is on stage, even and especially in the minimalist settings. The final man is the tall one with the pony tail. Something about him I liked - I can't put my finger on it.

All of these acts, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion took place on a black stage with a Franz Klein-esque swishes on a large white backdrop which was alternately lit in deep green or organge depending on the mood. Mostly the brushstrokes were left on the white. The dancers were dressed in simple togs, rather like what I imagine Greek peasants would wear, close and simple off whites but not too clingy and mostly sleeveless. All were barefoot and oftimes their movements would be accentuated by the squeak of their feet on the matte floor.

There were very signature moves in this set, most notably plain walking, brisk running and the most graceful kind of falling down one might imagine. I tended to recall Morris as the gropey troupe, but they showed none of that orgiastic slithering in the Mozart performance. Rather it was a well balanced set of motions one would expect for allegro-speed concertos. Classic but not too leapy at all, and not too much with the strange feet. Rather a set of unique arm motions done smoothly reminiscent of angular trees, budding flowers and falling leaves.

In our favorite, Double, the dark man wearing a black outfit which reminded me of a minimalist samurai robe began solo. Then the thinner men wearing off white vests would shadow him on angles up and down stage. It was a sort of teaching game at the end of which he marched off stage left. It was the first bit of humor in the performance. Then six men in vests began a complex set of moves across the stage in a prayer circle, finally working a sort of sets of assistance to each other and a seventh man. The seventh man then returns to the prince and these two men engage in a friendly pas de deux. Finally women appear on the edges and the entire village echoes the moves the prince originally performed alone. It was a marvelous entertainment that I found fulfilling on many levels.

The occasion was that we got free tickets from the school and that allowed one of Boy's teachers to gush about his artistic talents. We took photos out front. I rather enjoyed the crowd which I found rather unusual for Los Angeles. LA dowagers deeply freckled and makeupless, or wearing large brass hammered ornaments and oversized tortoise shells. Men in light jackets without socks in deck shoes.  A smattering of students, women in African dress, men in sweaters. Small girls with ballet frocks. It was a perfect afternoon, summery, different. And now there are three new Mozart pieces I can dig which were surprisingly unboring.

The Cultural Tour of LA - Part One

I've been writing restaurant reviews for the past six months and it has been a lot of fun, but what I haven't really done that I've now got an occasion to do is put together an entire cultural tour of the joint. So as I ease into that, I'm thinking of the top ten things you have to do as a tourist in LA. I know the list will grow to 50 but I gotta start somewhere. What things would I just not want to miss?

Lucy Florence
Any trip to LA is really not complete without a stop by Leimert Park Village. So the first stop has got to be the Lucy Florence coffee shop and gallery. The way to get there is half the fun too. I would recommend the back door side which is to take La Cienega to Slauson and come East on Slauson to Angeles Vista down to the village. That would give you a glimpse of the part of black LA few people know or talk about, my old stomping grounds. Or you could come in the front door from the 10 South on Crenshaw right down the strip. Either way is a tour through the core of Southwest LA, as contrasted with the more infamous and often mis-represented South Central LA. A Sunday afternoon is the perfect time since the drummers will be out in the park.

Sunset Cruise
On a Friday or Saturday night, one absolutely must cruise Sunset Boulevard. Depending on the amount of time you want to spend you can do the Full Cruise, the Eastside Cruise, the Westside Cruise or the Core Cruise. If you're going to do anything but the Core, you need to start at least one hour before sunset, especially if you want to head to the beach. The Full Cruise starts downtown at the LA River. There it's called Cesar Chavez. Head East through Silverlake and begin the right hand side of the Core at Vermont. Then drive through the seedy grit of Hollywood in the Core that gets gradually more cool until you're right in the middle of it at around Fairfax. Then drive west on Sunset to the sea, turn that jungle music up, as you go through Beverly Hills past UCLA to the 405, the end of the Core. If you want to continue on, the Westside Cruise goes all the way through Brentwood to Palisades. Then you can take your final left turn at Temescal Canyon and down to PCH.

Beach Time
The ultimate LA beach experience would have to be centered at Hermosa Beach for eyeballing. That is, if you want to check out the dudes and babes, the culture and the glitz, ground zero will be the Hermosa Beach Pier. This is the get out and walk part of the beach, as opposed to the cruise in your car with the windows down on the coast road part of the beach.There are plenty of joints of all sorts to cater to your beachy needs. If you want to get some authentic high quality beachwear, this is the place to be. Grab a beer at the Poopdeck and check out the volleyballers, or take a long walk on the long pier.

Walking, Shopping, Noshing
For urban sophisticates, (read people from NY, Boston & Philly) who feel like they don't want to get too immersed in doing LA things, one can exercise well-rehearsed street walking skills in crowds at the Santa Monica Promenade. There are bookstores, movie theatres, coffee shops, clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, bars, street performers, kids with balloons, babes on roller skates, dudes with tattoos, the entire microcosm of LA urbanity. Now there are alternatives. You could do Citywalk. You could also do the Irvine Spectrum, but my money is on the Promenade.

The Getty
Speaking of sophistication. You really don't know anything about Los Angeles until you have been to the Getty Museum. The first and foremost reason is the view from the South balcony. It is *the* way to view the city, and (if it's a clear day), you can suddenly see the beauty of this place from an angle you have never seen in any movie, photo or painting. The museum itself is spectacular and relatively uncrowded, but you do need a reservation.

Ports O Call
For a flavor of Latino LA, I haven't found anything to match the Sunday brunch at Ports O Call Village in San Pedro. There's something about ordering a huge amount of fresh seafood to order and sitting down with your family on the large wooden tables in the incredible hubbub of the place while mariachis play. It's a great solution for the big hungry. Plus, if you feel like it, you can take a harbor cruise for a fairly reasonable price.

Empress Pavilion
OK I know that it sounds cliche, and yes it's in Chinatown, but man you simply must experience the Dim Sum service at the Empress Pavilion. If you've never had dim sum served in the traditional style.. well it takes a little getting used to, especially if you're a pushover. Women push carts full of steaming delicacies and seduce you into trying a little bit of everything. It's all good from the simple to the adventurous. If you're really feeling wild, ask for the chicken feet. If not, everybody loves shumai and har gow. 

Farmer's Market
Farmer's Market is right in the heart of West LA and it's a perfect way to waste all kinds of time, walking around and gabbing with your buddies. Some nights there is public karaoke, and it's a great place to watch the big game in one of the open air bars. There is every kind of food on the planet, all fresh and delicious. If you can walk through Farmer's Market without eating, either you have the greatest discipline on earth or your jaw is wired shut.

That's all for now. But there is so much more.

 

Bowen Throws the Gauntlet

Sec'y of State Debra Bowen decertified most of the voting machines in California yesterday. OK now you've got our attention. So who's going to fix this mess. I say there needs to be somebody like Schneier and Lessig to sit on a board for an open source project to solve the electronic voting problem once and for all.

Danziger sums it up nicely:

Because the infrastructure - the plumbing - of our society is something we pay very little attention to. And yet when infrastructure fails - as we saw in Minneapolis last week or Manhattan two weeks ago - it fails spectacularly. Our electoral plumbing is also creaky and in bad shape; Florida in 2000 was bad - but at least the votes could be recounted (over and over again). With today's insecure DVR technology, the problem is that we will have more races like the one in Sarasota Florida in 2006 - in which there was a 15% under-vote possibly due to a glitch in the ES & S DVR systems. The final results in the race can never be audited, and the loser litigated to try and get the election run over again. Look, no voting system - no human system - is perfect, or exempt from error, fraud, or challenge. But just as our bridges need to strong enough to ensure that they don't spontaneously collapse, our voting systems need to be robust enough that we're not left in bitter dispute after an election on who voted and how. We don't need voting technology less secure than airport poker machines in Vegas and less auditable than Enron's books. This isn't a partisan issue. It isn't something that 'we can get to later.' A political system everyone agrees is legitimate should last us a long time. And if officials at all levels of government have to work a little harder and spend a little money to maintain and defend the fairness of our political system, I can think of nothing better for them to work on. Can you?

Seaside Lagoon

Seaside Lagoon

200 Portofino Wy
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 318-0681

Seaside Lagoon separates the realists from the dainties. As you know, there are two kinds of people in the world: the kind that know everything about diapers and those who don't know shit. Seaside Lagoon is for the former and our kids.

If you're political and you read Mark Steyn (Beuller? Anyone?) you know that the EU is depopulating and muslims and various other ethnic groups are multiplying. If you don't read Mark Steyn and are single and looking for a new rock band as an accessory to your car and car stereo, then you probably do not have a childproof abode. In either case, you know something about yuppie lines of demarcation and the ability to deal with messy reality. Either you have it or you don't. The good news for those of you on the dainty and young side is that eventually you will have a kid and eventually you will grow to like its smell and chaos, rather like you look for now at nightclubs and bars. At such time you will join with the real human race as opposed to being a market demographic blip for record company execs in Century City. We on the far side of parenthood will thus welcome you.

At that point in your life, unless you have a terminal case of the (eww grody to the max) dainties and decide to turn your offspring into a houseplant, you will realize the funky genius that is Seaside Lagoon, clorinated funky seawater and all.

Yes, you can let your kids run wild. Yes they will pee in the water. Yes they will splash you, throw sand at seabirds, spill mustard on themselves, get pushed off the side, slide down the waterslide backwards, get sand in every orifice, walk around with sunburned shoulders, wrinkle up your beach towel and if you're lucky swim too soon after eating and blow chunks (although I've yet to see it happen in 3 seasons). Still, after all of that, those kids will be five times as cute as Lindsay Lohan and everybody she parties with. Why, because they're your kids, they will have had unadulterated undisciplined wild monkey fun and they'll love you forever for taking them to Seaside Lagoon.

Now go and have some ice cream. You deserve it.

Foregone Conclusions on Foreclosures

People with a few clues and a few grudges against all things Bush seem to be delighting in telling us how bad things are out here in California and how that augers ill for the economy. The keyword of disaster is foreclosure.

I've been seeing ads on telephone poles for many months that promise 100,000 cash on seconds for something like 400 bucks a month. That sounds very tasty, and in fact I have been restraining myself from asking Pops to put up his house so I could have that kind of cash for less than the price of my Beemer note. Alas when I called the 800 number on that telephone pole ad, nobody answered. So I put the notion out of my head. Something fishy is going on.

And yet the advertisements on the AM radio persist, and while I think that the Mortgage Minute Guy is above board, there has been a lot of fakery going on. It's easy to get lost in the fine print and it's in almost nobody's best interest to decipher all that for the average Joe. Still, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand 'buyer beware'.

The California real-estate marked defies description and common sense. That's because there are some of the richest people in the world here, and some of the nation's poorest. The house that I grew up in was purchased in 1966 for about 30,000. The payment, which went to a mortgage company called Lomas & Nettleton, was $177. That house today would sell for something like half a million dollars. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, except in California. I had a chance to buy it for 180K back in 1989, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. In retrospect, I can say that was a financial mistake. On the other hand I know somebody was murdered on that block that year. I rented on the beach instead.

When the king of subprimes, New Century went under a couple months ago, we started looking at the problem seriously. At the time, subprime was about 20% of the market and the default rate was about 13%. The last figures I saw was that they are now about 18% of the market and the default rate is up to about 18%. Even though this is a small part of the overall mortgage market, there are evidently a goodly amount of mortgage backed derivative securities that are at risk and this is hurting the big boys. Over at Tigerhawk, they are saying that the health of all lenders may be in question, but it's too early to tell if this is a big deal that requires tweaking from the Fed or something we can get through without a heavy hand.

So the crisis isn't about foreclosure itself, but my inclination to say that foreclosures are a blip may be premature. I know the craziness in California and so take stories about foreclosures in Northern Cal (having lived through the Dot Com Boom) with a grain of salt. There's more to it than that. It is the cascading effect that foreclosures have on big lenders that should concern us.

The Jungle

The Jungle got its name in a positive light in the 60s. It was a neighborhood of brand new apartment buildings just adjacent to Baldwin Hills. When they first opened, they were 'themed' apartments, mostly with tropical and island themes. They had swimming pools and banana & palm trees, so it was affectionately named The Jungle.

Around the mid 70s it started to go downhill, like the rest of America at the time, and then they opened up some of the apartments to Section 8. By 1980 it was ugly. Shortly thereafter, during the Crack Wars, it got dangerous as well as ugly and became the defacto headquarters of the Bloods.

The Jungle singlehandedly reduced the demographic profile of South West LA and negatively affected all of the surrounding middle and upper middle class communities. Affluent residents of View Park and Baldwin Hills during the 70s wanted to shop somewhere closer to home and lobbied to get an upscale shopping center built at what is now the Baldwin Hills / Crenshaw Plaza which was one of the very first shopping malls built in America.

Infamously a politician named Ruth Galanter lobbied for a new shopping center to be built in largely white Culver City, a couple miles to the west. It wasn't until Magic Johnson became a force in local politics and real-estate that the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza was upgraded. Still, the high end anchor tenants pulled out because of the Jungle. Instead of an Ikea or a Nordstrom, both of whom announced early interest because of Baldwin Hills, we got Sears, and later Wal-Mart.

Upscale black families continued to shop at the Fox Hills Mall, where I got one of my first summer jobs as a teen, but 'The Element' was never far behind. In more recent times, it has been taken over by the Westfield company and updated, but people still call it the Fox Hills Mall and you are very likely on any weekend to find styling black teens (and their cell phones) hanging out.

Magic Johnson did finally bring a first-run movie theater to Crenshaw. After the loss of the long lamented Baldwin Theater which was catty corner to one edge of the Jungle, the community waited for about 15 years to get those black dollars recycled.

About 7 years ago, a serious economic revival took place in the Crenshaw district spearheaded by Magic's investment as well as Wells Fargo and Bank of America and some of the promises made by Rebuild LA, the organization founded after the riots. The Jungle is still what it is, dangerous and dirty, but other parts of the Crenshaw community are doing better including Leimert Park Village.

Antonio Fesses Up

The AP reports the secret story.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is in the midst of divorce proceedings with his wife, acknowledged Tuesday that he is in a relationship with a Spanish-language television reporter.

The leader of the nation's second-largest city insisted at a news conference that his relationship with Telemundo newswoman Mirthala Salinas would not interfere with his job, and he pleaded for privacy for his family.

"I have had a relationship with Ms. Salinas over time. It has evolved, and today I have acknowledged that relationship," said Villaraigosa, who announced his separation from his wife, Corina, last month after 20 years of marriage.

Told ya.

Villaraigosa's Baby

The other day Doc told me a shocking rumor. He told me that word around the LAPD is that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's wife filed for divorce last week. The reason is that one of the local TV reporters for the Spanish language station Telemundo is pregnant. Evidently, the LAPD is about to prank him by putting a plastic stork on the City Hall lawn. Doc says, all hell is about to break loose.

Nobody is talking about this, but a lot of people know. You heard it here first.

All the LA Times said was this. They shouldn't print rumors, but I really never even heard a hint of the story until he told me last Friday.

Michelle Delgadillo: Threat or Menace?

We all expect a little graft from politicians. Fixing tickets is probably the first lesson in Corruption 101. We also expect that family members might get a favor from time to time, but the situation with Rocky Delgadillo's wife is getting ridiculous.

After stonewalling for more than a week, Delgadillo finally admitted Monday that his wife needed to get to her doctor's office in a hurry in 2004, while he was out of town. Her car wasn't running, he said, so she took his city-owned GMC Yukon and accidentally banged it into a pole.

This little escapade could not have surprised anyone familiar with Michelle Delgadillo's driving history, which has included license suspensions, failure to show proof of insurance and in 1998, a bench warrant for her various misadventures.

Rocky Delgadillo's staff handled the paperwork on his wife's 2004 accident, and the city attorney said he was unaware that a required report on the accident was never filed with the city.

Of course that doesn't explain why he thought you and I should pay for the repairs. Delgadillo said he thought it was OK for his wife to use the car. The city's policy, he claimed, is ambiguous.

Good story. Wife has to get to the hospital.  Let's hope that her doctor is dead and that she has a new doctor now, that way if somebody asks for a note from the doctor, she doesn't have to provide one. In fact she can say that particular trip, well the next one, is the one the finally cleared up the condition she no longer has, since there will be no record of it at the next doctor.

It's really time for this sucker to go, and this is exactly the prurient level of comedy to which the situation must descend for apathetic LA voters to contribute towards a solution. 

The Biggest Parties Ever

Back in the day, Uncle Jam's Army was all that. Google would tell you that Cobb is the only place on the whole of the internet that talks about those days. But I just found something else:

This month I am going to tell you how it was in the 80's when Uncle Jam's Army gave dances for 10,000 party people. It all started with High School dances at lunch time, then local parties at Hotels, then auditorium parties that held 2,500 people, then the Big One The L.A. Sports Arena. The main guy in Uncle Jam was Roger Clayton and he was the brains behind the way we promoted the dances. He made the commercials (That was off the Hook) and also programmed the music for the parties. He was the one who taught me about how to rock a party.

Yeah I remember those days.

Wellington Reunion

The trip to my old neighborhood was just great. We started out over at Virginia Road  where all of us went to  elementary school. Sat down, had a picnic. Freaked people out, I think to see the lot of us all camped out on the front lawn. Of course when we were kids, the front lawn of the school was always the place to be, this was where we had the big football games. It's kinda crazy when you think of it, that we actually generated an NFL quality player playing as we did in this little narrow patch of grass and on the front yards and streets of my old neighborhood.  Of course everything looks smaller than it used to.

The kids had a ball, running and chasing each other around before we got a real football game going. D. was the star and even though she already had her wrist in a cast, she burned everybody in the secondary and caught the first long bomb of the game.  Previous to that our rush had caught Deet five yards behind scrimmage. I only wish I had audio of that trash talk. But he was redeemed by the bomb, except that D tripped over her own large feet as if she were in a horror flick and banged up her knee on the sidewalk. Game over. She walked it off in ten minutes but had everyone shaking their heads and sucking their teeth. She's got grit, and when the football got stuck in the tree before the game, she was the first one up the tree. We got us some women in our family.

They managed to surprise me with a birthday cake served out of the bed of Pop's truck. It was lemon, my favorite. Well, lemon banana creme is my favorite but nobody makes that kind of cake. Then we started our trivia questions and headed to the old block, which was two blocks away. It looked like a pilgramage. Doc was the first one to see somebody we recognized. It was Beverly. Beverly was the first person I ever knew from outside of my family. She adopted me when I was just a little guy and we lived upstairs in the back apartment at 3013. So she was just shocked to see all of us together.

We had to line up and show whose kids belonged to whom. It turned out that when her folks died, she sold that house and then bought old Mr. Green's house. Mr. Green was the meanest man in creation and if you ever walked on his grass he'd get after you with a pitchfork. I think I might have tried to make a friend of Mr. Green just to prove it couldn't be done, but the details of that story elude me. I'll make one up that I can tell when I'm 60. She's getting ready to head out to the Antelope Valley. A lot of folks from the old neighborhood went that way, and some to other parts of Central California like Camarillo. We got the phone numbers for her two daughters too. Deet and Doc remember them better than me. See the neighborhood was packed with kids back in the day and everyone had at least 4 friends in their age bracket, so those were central. We walked back across the street to the Ivory's old house and I stood on my favorite rock. It was the first thing I played on when I was a kid. I wonder if I could buy it off of those folks. My rock. Wow. 

Next thing you know we find Ray. Man where has he been? He came down for the Dorsey 70th anniversary just like Doc and Deet. Susan Miller Dorsey was the first female superintendent of schools for Los Angeles. They built the school in 1934 and designed it to look like an airport - very streamlined and industrial. Paula, one of our first babysitters showed up. She graduated in 1960. Deet was in the class of 84, I think. Ray was '82.

What trip to Wellington would be complete without Mrs. Stanley? Somebody ranked on her saying that Pops should take a picture of her peeking out between her window shades. She was the neighborhood busybody but got much love from all of us. Well, now. She has the most unforgettable voice and like many of the folks from the old 'hood, came out here from Dallas. Her husband Ocell died about 20 years ago. Couldn't tell him nothing about football as the Cowboys would smash the Rams every year, but at least we could beat him in basketball. He got to talk smack, we got to beat him on the court. Lilly slammed Doc by telling him that both Deet and I scored homeruns in our marriages and ahem... Had us all bustin' up.  Some things never change.

Right about now the kids were getting restless, as kids do when the adults start telling jokes about things that happened before they were born. Over at the school I kept their attention talking about how we used to rock-climb the brick walls up to the second storey and how to properly hop a chainlink fence, but now they were starting to get weary. I can't believe they even took the boombox back and put it in the minivan. We were jammin' some ConFunkShun and Bar Kays. Oh well, by the time we started talking with the old neighbors it was a distraction anyway. Dorothy Arnold showed up as we looked at 3026 and described the way to climb up the chinaberry trees. Big hugs all around. None of the Arnolds were around but Deet said he ran into Teresa a couple months ago. It turns out that the guy who owns our old house is some kind of actor. He was on The Shield last season, but I haven't seen him in anything else.  But the old house looks like it's doing OK. I mean nobody kept it up as well as we did, and I can see that some of the tiles on the roof need painting, and the old gate needs a lot of work, but at least they've got the plants doing ok.

Next on the list was the Myers house. Last stop actually. Rosetta was there and so was Burt. Burt and his brothers were the oldest kids on the block. Burt is now 54, and he's still cut. That's him in the tank top third from the left. Burt taught me how to slapbox. I always did want to play with the big kids. He's a personal trainer down in Laguna and a vegetarian. What? And there's Ronnie Woods. He came down for the Dorsey reunion too. Man he looks exactly the same. I asked about his sister Terry. I haven't seen them in decades. I heard Donny was coming by too. I completely forgot about Hazel and Audrey. Ebon was my friend. I wonder where he is now. I gotta catch up more often.

So needless to say the trip was a huge success and we caught up with a lot more folks than we expected to, even though 'Lonzo wasn't there. Oh well. One day we'll get the word out and have everybody come down. That would be very special. This is a birthday to remember.

Mayday! Mayday!

I've been out of town and therefore not under the direct influence of media barrages regarding the clash between protesters and police in McArthur Park on May first. But I did hear the first interview with Larry Mantle and Mayor Villaraigosa on Airtalk the other day.

The mayor cut short a trip to get back to LA and he has expressed complete confidence in Bratton. Of course there's a lot of bloviation going on but the general consensus seems to circle around the following factoids.

• 17 injuries. 10 civilians. 7 cops. Originally misreported in the LAT, and naturally caught by Patterico.
• Supervisors probably not on scene, and a rather obvious set of tactical errors made by officers.
• A female news reporter shoved.
• A small family shoved around while trying to retrieve picnic items.
• First such incident in 30 years of dealing with this particular event.

That's about all I know about the facts, and about all I have attempted to discover.

What I know is that a great deal of smoke is going to blow around this controversy and dead bodies and conspiracy theories will be exhumed for the benefit of the Coalition of the Damned and whatever coalitions coalesce around them this time around. Patterico also singled out John Mack for criticism for not attending a commemoration of officers who were to be commended in an unrelated event, but will be loud on matters of police failures here.

Since I'm not a cop, I have the liberty of pointing out the irony of celebrating May Day and complaining about police misconduct. There were no greater police states in the history of mankind than those that made May Day into national celebrations. It's one of those amazing blind spots  - you know, like the celebration of Mayan heritage in Mexican culture when we know that they practiced ritual sacrifice.

All that is to get to the political point of agitating on May Day and the resonance the intent of those agitations will carry in those who are interested more in the symbolism of LAPD screwups than the actual performance of the organization. It gets right back to what we were talking about last week with regard to institutional reform and the fire and brimstone politics that distort the actual process of reform.

So all I'll say is this. All the exclamation points coming out of official mouths points to the fact that this was an aberration. And of course I use that word purposefully. The standard and professional procedure to deal with hostiles within a crowd of protesters is for experienced commanders to direct officers towards the agitators and separate them from the innocents and thereby limit their capacity to unduly influence the crowd. This is the best practice in policing. Guess what. It's also the best practice in policing the police. Let's see if critics of the LAPD are capable of not trampling on innocents in their politics. 

Latigo Flint: Dead or Alive?

Not long ago I meditated on the death of the blog and character of Latigo Flint. I was attempting to make a point about metaphorical and artistic suicides. It is clear to me now via several emails that folks took my words more literally.

I CANNOT CONFIRM THAT THE ACTUAL PERSON WHO CREATED THE LATIGO FLINT BLOG IS ALIVE OR DEAD.

I have received no news about the author and only know him through the blog and personna of Latigo Flint. I have come to learn that his first name is Brian. If anyone out here in LA knows the real Latigo Flint, please let us know that he is OK. Anonymity will be preserved etc. If anyone knows his full real name, I would gladly make inquiries to the authorities.

I very much know the feeling of regret and sorrow about suicides. I have experienced it myself and I recognize that tone in the most recent email. Let us remain optimistic that Brian has merely gotten bored with blogging and is going about his life in healthy spirits.

I apologize to anyone I have misled and I will try to be more precise with my metaphors in the future and leave no question as to whether I am speaking of a person or a work of art.

UPDATE: I CAN CONFIRM THAT THE AUTHOR OF LATIGO FLINT IS ALIVE AND WELL.

Cali Goes For Clinton

According to TownHall and the Field organization:

THE RACE: The presidential race for Democrats in California.

THE NUMBERS - DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton 41 percent

Barack Obama 28 percent

John Edwards 13 percent

(all other candidates below 5 percent)

___

The Field poll was conducted March 20-31. For the Democratic candidates, 417 voters who say they are likely to vote in the Democratic primary in California were asked their preference to win the Democratic nomination. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 points.

OF INTEREST: When Al Gore is added to the field, Clinton gets 31 percent, Gore gets 25 percent, Obama gets 21 percent and Edwards gets 8 percent.

Clinton gets the strongest support among Hispanics, older voters, those with less education and those in Los Angeles County. Obama does well among young voters. Edwards did better among voters in Northern California than Southern California.

Now that's a damned shame. Obama gets less than Gore and Gore's not even running. But I can vouch for the youth vote turning out for Obama. I think he's got a lock on the new media. He's doing a very good job on that.

My brother Deet held an Obama party at his crib this past weekend and raised some dollars for Barack. If I remember correctly, there was a webcast of some sort associated with the fund raising. So the Obama campaign most definitely gets the power of the net and that of distributed networks. He's going to be very strong in '12.

Pasadena for Obama

This intrepid ragtag crew is small in number but great in spirit owing to the presence of Deet, my very tall brother.  I know, I have to read his emails.

When Citizenship Takes a Back Seat

The LA Times reports:

Immigrant rights rallies staged Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of last year's massive Los Angeles march and to call for reform legislation were marked by low turnout and a rowdy counterdemonstration denouncing illegal immigration.

Nearly 5,000 immigrants and their supporters gathered at the Los Angeles Sports Arena for an event dubbed Justice for Our Families, featuring mariachi music and speeches by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other politicians.

Carrying American flags and waving banners that read, "We are America," the participants signed pre-written letters to Congress calling for legalization of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and an end to deportations and raids. Organizers said they received about 6,000 signed letters.

Although the crowds fell far short of the 10,000 expected, participants were hopeful that this would be the year for immigration reform.

What a surprise. Last year I predicted that One March Don't Make No Movement, and here we stand one year later pretty much in the same place. There is no forward organization to take up the cause of illegal immigrants, and so this low turnout is to be expected. When the cause of citizenship takes a backseat to idle threats of racism, you can expect illegal workers to get screwed. Those whose political desire last year was to push the Mojado cause at the top of their lungs find themselves winded now.

There is but one solution to illegal immigration and that is to end it and start fresh. That means putting citizenship first. Then and only then will the rule of law and ethical politics follow. We in the Old School will not have our civil rights diluted, and we will not tolerate slavery. These are the inevitable consequences of having millions of residents in America who are not citizens and must exist in a netherworld inside of bleeding hearts but outside of the law.

Eight Bucks

A thoughtful reader passed along the following:

The United States National Slavery Museum is launching a cutting-edge viral video campaign with Bill Cosby – the “Bill Cosby Green Screen Challenge” in support of the museum’s “Why $8?” campaign.  The video of Dr. Cosby can be found on www.eightbucks.org where aspiring individual videographers can create funny, unique videos of Cosby and share them online via YouTube.

The program supports the “Why $8?” campaign which urges all Americans to donate $8 to the museum.  In fact, a donation in this amount is very relevant to the museum and the topic of slavery:

• $8 is the shape both of shackles (the symbol of slavery) and, if turned on its side, of infinite freedom.

• $8 is a reasonable sum of money that allows every American to be a part of this incredible project. 

• $8 buys recognition for millions of enslaved African Americans who helped build America.

• $8 will help remove shackles that still divide our nation and replace them with a new symbol for a more united America.

If I were born into a richer family I would have been a concert pianist or a museum curator. So I have always had dreams of being responsible to the arts and letters. I may not be a big time philanthropist today but I can afford eight bucks. Give 'em some love people.

Dealing With Murder

As you may know, the LA Times is keeping track of the homicides in LA as reported by the LAPD. Of all the things to deal with, there are few things more overwhelmingly frustrating than dealing with the worst thing that can happen to somebody.

As I read through the names, descriptions and locations, a series of images flash through my head. I know that area of town, or there's someplace I know about but never go. I imagine the man walking home from the bus stop, or in the barfight out in the parking lot, or surprised by a shot in the back. I imagine the woman smothered in her sleep by the son she threatened to kick out of the house. Or just these slim two:

Lewis Carter, 35
Lewis Carter, a 35-year-old black man, was shot at 1119 East 88th St. in Florence and died at 10:22 a.m. Feb. 13.

Fred Luna, 50
Fred Luna, 50, a Latino man, was shot several times at 1236 East Avenue Q in Palmdale, and died at 8:05 p.m. Feb. 12.

That's all we know. Fill in the blanks. How, why, who?

I mailed the Times to suggest that they get with the times and paste red spots on Google Maps when they have the addresses. Maybe a pattern would emerge and we could say 'here is a bad neighborhood - lots of murders'. Maybe. Murder doesn't take much of a reason, but whatever reason it takes, geography isn't going to matter much. Maybe I'm out cruising and I see somebody who looks like the man hitting on my girlfriend. Maybe that kid on the bicycle looks like he's from the wrong gang. The bullet has your name on it, not your address. More importantly, it has a killer's motive behind it and that is not subject to our desire to abstract it onto maps.

Whether we like it or not, people find wholly random reasons worth killing for. Every day. It's something that's easy to forget when we are engaged in the political intrigue that surrounds the prosecution of a war halfway across the globe. The death and destruction of war far outstrip the terror of murder, but a war is always more clearly arguable. There's always a foreign policy agenda. There's always a failure of diplomacy. There's always a pro and con debate where the two sides talk about the same thing. There's always a clearly defined arena in which that talk about the war takes place. The URL, the TV channel, radio stations, will all be on schedule and take up the topic. But nobody knows you when you're Lewis Carter. Nobody even knows how you were shot, much less the reasons why.

Patton said of war that all of mankind's other inventions pale beside it. War appropriates all rationale. Every reason eventually attaches itself to war, therefore war belongs to civilization. Murder belongs to the two and only a few can know, or will care to know the reasons why.

I am struck this morning about the human ability to find a reason, to give a name to every passion. I note with sadness how much we do together, how much we do apart and how little it means to the dead.

                             

I am struck this morning about the human ability to find a reason, to give a name to every passion. I note with sadness how much we do together, how much we do apart and how little it means to the dead.

Essay Contest

From the Pen & Ink Collective:

What comes to mind when you see pictures of Huey P. Newton holding a shotgun? Or the images of mass marches against the Vietnam War? Or how about the students taking over Columbia University in '68?

Our generation has grown up in the shadow of the 1960s. The War on Iraq strongly parallels the situation this country faced as it was bogged down in Vietnam. The Bush administration continues its attack on a woman's right to choose, a victory that arose from the Feminist Movement. And many people are calling the current struggle for immigrants' rights the modern equivalent to the Civil Rights Movement.

But how does our generation of political activists view the 1960s? What were its strengths? What were its weaknesses? What did it achieve and what was left out? Why did the momentum of that time finally die? And what happened to that generation of activists and revolutionaries? There has yet to be a collective voice from our generation that has openly attempted to answer those questions.

Young political activists today face a complicated political climate. Change is possible, but not easy. What lessons, both good and bad, can we learn from the social movements of the 1960s to make sure our contemporary activism does not go in vain?

Our goal is to compile a thorough analysis of this era. That's why we in the Ink and Paper Collective are calling for young (30 and under) activists, organizers, and revolutionaries of all stripes to submit letters that are serious reflections on the 1960s. We want submissions to cover all the particular parts of that era whether it be the Black Power movement, the French revolt of May '68, SDS, the fight for ethnic studies in our schools, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Feminist movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement or whatever issue you feel most passionate about. If you have something to say, we want to hear it!

Send your submission (anywhere from 1,000 to 3,500 words), along with a brief bio (around 75 words) to:

inkandpapercollective@gmail.com

Submissions due:    February 20th, 2007

The Ink and Paper Collective is Sam A., Javier A., and David Z.  We were founded out of anti-war, labor, and independent media activism in our local communities.  Some of this activism includes our participation with and dedication to work done by groups like UCSC Students Against War, the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice, the Labor Film Collective, and Colectivo Media Insurgente, as well as many others.

Yeah well. I'm probably going to follow up on this to see if we have healthy competition or if that side of the aisle is really as lame as they sound. This is from the Kwaku Network.

 

The Last Word on Devin Brown

Patterico rips the LA Times again and thus settles the last of media forensics required of people not sustaining conspiracy theories. Devin Brown was dangerous and wrong, cops were in policy and right. Do read the whole thing.

The bottom line is this: the paper has been dragging this officer through the mud for almost two years in numerous stories on the front page. But when he’s vindicated, the paper spins the vindication as secret — and when it’s no longer secret, then they simply bury it.

Clearly, the LA Times is in cahoots with the sustaining of the foolish claims and politics of the Coalition of the Damned. That's what a biased newspaper does.

As for the Coalition itself, there aren't really any strong advocates for them around here, so I'm not going to swat at flies that aren't present. But clearly their continued influence only demonstrates how off base is a segment of black protest politics. For whom? For what?

Once Again Without Feeling

The LA International Auto Show needs something. I don't know what it is, but it needs it bad.

We're already in LA where cars are king. You've got to do better than metalflake purple Cadillacs, Corvettes hanging from the ceiling and Hummers at 45 degree angles. We can see all of that any day at the nearest car dealer. We need something really, really exotic. More than one monster truck for example. More than just 4 Ferraris, for example. How about some radically tricked out street racers? It is inconceivable that Nissan would have a car show in Los Angeles and not have one Skyline. Well, no it's not because that's exactly what they did. Even the Porsche exhibit was boring.

Now it must be said that somebody screwed up. And that somebody was whomever decided to hold two LA Auto Shows in less than one calendar year. Almost every exhibitor was exactly in the same location as last year, and some of them used the same props, although you can hardly blame Bugatti because all they have to do is one thing. But before I winch up the gripes let me give you the good news. There actually were some interesting highlights.

 

The Good

Spyker D12
The Killer App of the show was an SUV. Yes that's what I said. The Spyker D12 Peking to Paris. It was one of the most stunning vehicles I've ever seen. Imagine an Infiniti FX with a 500hp W12 engine, suicide doors, and a scaled up interior in that inimitable chrome and leather Spyker tradition. Porsche Cayenne, eat your heart out. This thing is awesome.

I just have to give you two pictures so you can wrap your head around this monster. And then if you want more pictures, check out my Flickr stuff.

Dodge Challenger
This is all you need to see to know that Detroit is back in the muscle business. It looks rather like the Charger, but it's a coupe. It's a real retro combination that doesn't look quite as smooth as the Chevy Camaro concept that rolled out early this year, but it does look built to burn rubber. If you would have asked me yesterday if I would ever drive an orange car, the answer would have been no. I want to floor this monster just once before I die.

Audi S
Audi was the choice of Jason Statham in The Transporter Two, and this generation is really showing some smackdown. I was fairly impressed by the A4, A6 and A8 of yesteryear. Now I'm impressed to that point at which I'm thinking that the M5 is boring by comparison. What's done it? The Audi S Class autos. It really has that much style. A 340hp V8 in a silver convertible? I like it, and that's just the puny one. The S6 has a 435hp V10. Lordy! They are sleek and elegant. Like BMWs used to be. They look fast in silver, just like Mercedes are supposed to. But most of all, they don't seem to be over-engineered. They're still not spaceships, they're cars. Cool cars.

Altima Coupe
There was a very pedestrian car at the show that has a chance of being the ultimate 21st century street rod. It looks like a modder's dream - something that can handle power, something that will give the Scions a run for their money. If Nismo plays their cards right, this can be the chassis. Its got the look.

Mercedes CL
The new Mercedes looks nice, finally. That whole arc thing on the side and the slanty front grill was just making this car too swoopy. It didn't look fast standing still, it looked stupid from more angles, kind of like a bendy 1977 Cadillac Seville. That was this, this is now and it looks much better. Thank you Mercedes. Now it looks aerodynamic and stately. Tough job well done. 

I walked with Boy until my feet hurt, non-stop for about 3 hours at this years LA Auto Show. All the wags on NPR have been boasting that this is the greenest autoshow ever. Yes I saw Honda's fuel cell car. Great paint job, but uuuuugly. Just imagine a stretch Prius with an even larger windshield. In fact, this year I saw some of the ugliest concept cars ever. Ever. But first, the bad

Pierce Ain't Your Average Ordinary Hound

Tennie Pierce thought he had it coming but the light at the end of the tunnel was a train. He being a 6 foot 4 black ex-firefighter who used to call himself Big Dog. Apparently, somebody put dog food into a plate of spaghetti and so he tried to sue the City of LA for racial harassment. For 2.7 million dollars. The City Council approved the settlement and then it came to light that the Big Dog used to do some of the same tricks.

Would you eat a can of dog food for 2.7 million dollars? I know I would. In fact, I would eat over the course of a month, an entire 50 pound bag of dog food. The retiree in question, 'Big Dog' surely didn't have more than a bite, but hey he's a victim. At this point in the saga, the settlement has been denied and it goes to trial in the arguably incompetent hands of Rocky Delgadillo, the LA City Attorney who is fast losing the confidence and respect of the City Council. Rocky was incompetent to find the mitigating circumstances and was the one to wring his hands over the possibility that a black jury would find for the plaintiff and therefore cost the city even more than 2.7.

Integrity? Lacking.

Pierce has got a lot of nerve and I'm sure he was counting on spineless bureaucrats like Delgadillo's staff to wuss out. I'm disgusted with the pair of them.  Let's see if we hear whimpering from the Coalition of the Damned this time around.

Non Compete

Man I've been signing my life away. Sorta. I just realize that non-compete clauses are unenforceable in California. Sez Wikipedia.

Unlike the situation in other states, non-compete agreements are illegal in California and against public policy. (California Business and Professions Code Section 16600).

[edit] Out of State Agreements are Not Enforceable

The preeminent court decision discussing the conflict between California law and the laws of other states is Application Group, Inc. v. Hunter Group, Inc., 61 Cal.App.4th 881 (1998). In Hunter, a Maryland company required that its Maryland based employee agree to a one-year non-compete agreement. The contract stated that it was governed by and to be construed according to Maryland law. A Maryland employee then left to work for a competitor in California. When the new California employer sued in California state court to invalidate the covenant not to compete, the California court agreed and ruled that the non-compete provision was invalid and not enforceable in California. Business and Professions Code Section 16600 reflects a "strong public policy of the State of California" and the state has a strong interest in applying its law and protecting its businesses so that they can hire the employees of their choosing. California law is thus applicable to non-California employees seeking employment in California.

Whether California courts are required by the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution to enforce equitable judgments from courts of other states, having personal jurisdiction over the defendant, that enjoin competition or are contrary to important public interests in California is an issue that has not yet been decided.

I've actually been in several situations where such dicey questions are raised, and I'm almost positive that I've signed contracts with non-compete language in them, specifically about customers that I've consulted with. Not that there are any particular customers I've had in a while that I would really want to work for full time, but there are some I wouldn't mind stealing away as clients. Up until today I've never considered the possibility.

Best Political Ad this Season

LAPD Blog

I've been a subscriber to the RSS feed to the LAPD Blog for a couple months now and I have to say that I'm very pleased so far. It has kept me right on time with the local crime and notable incidents without the lurid ghoulish fascination of the 6 OClock news. High fives to the officers and professionals making this possible. That's responsibility to your community. Good Job.

There still haven't been any major events that have kept us all riveted like the shooting of Devin Brown or the arrest of Stanley Williams, so the blog has yet to pass its first trial by fire, but I expect that if LA is LA, we'll be seeing something major before next summer. Fingers crossed.

David Brewer III: The Transformer

"To everybody in this community, you can expect one thing: I am not a reformer; I am a transformer. I am going to transform this district into — not a No Child Left Behind Act district. That is a low star. This is a global, global economy. This is a world in which our children have to compete globally. We're going to shoot for world-class."
-- David L. Brewer III

David Brewer has a distinguished military career, and now he's transforming into the latest hope for the public schools of Los Angeles. In a rather extraordinary political move, The LA Board of Ed has made their choice for the new Superintendant of the LA Unified School District and as the LA Times reports, they're very excited about him:

"Almost everything we threw at him, it seemed, he was able to relate to some experience he had had," said board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte. "He had a presence, a take-charge attitude…. He talked about potential solutions for many issues and was brutally honest about the few things he didn't know."

Hours later, a giddy board President Marlene Canter announced Brewer as the next superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.

Brewer's surprise selection culminated a seven-month search that saw scores of candidates — many of them well-known educators considered at the outset to be likely choices — fade, flop or withdraw. Although he was an ostensibly unlikely choice, several board members and others said that by the end, Brewer showed leadership skills, intelligence and a commanding, infectious personality that made him what they considered the obvious choice to lead the nation's second-largest school district.

Everything I've seen about this guy so far, bristles of Old School, and I look forward to see a no-nonsense attitude from this man. He seems feerless and not so worried about politics as he is about results, and when the man says 'world-class' I think he means it.

He promises to go to the communities of sub-standard and dysfunctional and request increasing participation between parents and school. Brewer wants to know what goes on after 6pm. He's a fan of Kozol's book Shame of the Nation. He's also got a 'drop squad' mentality with regard to getting kids outside of their environment and letting them see everything out there so that they become familiar with the world of choices they will have.

On this last point, I agree with him 110%. In his interview he said 'field trips' and he gave some personal examples of experiences that bear him out. It is my experience as well, in doing community service that often the best thing you can do for folks in susbstandard communities is get them out of their comfort zone and show them that they will have to learn how to experience other parts of the world. Even if it scares them to death. My kids here in the Redondo School District all look forward to going to Camp Keep. In the South Pasadena elementary school the kids walked to the Post Office (incidentally in the wake of 9/11, there were a lot of questions about anthrax) But even trips much simpler can be life changing. I still remember field trips I took in elementary school, to a science lab and to a bakery.

You can listen to his interview with Patt Morrison here.

Brewer walks into a politcal poop storm with the usual suspects voicing usual complaints:

The top local teachers union official was in no mood to celebrate. "The idea that he has no grounding in K-12 is disturbing," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "And the idea that UTLA and the broader community were not consulted. I don't want to hear that his wife and family were teachers. That doesn't do it."

"A classroom is different from a battlefield," he added. "The goals and objectives are completely different. And it's disconcerting to a certain portion of teachers who are fighting against military recruitment on campus."

Others took no issue with Brewer but faulted the process.

"What they did was just another mistake," said Luis Sanchez, executive director of InnerCity Struggle. Board members said they don't need legislation to collaborate, but "there's no collaboration that happened here. They basically told the mayor you have to agree with who we choose."

The Rev. Frederick O. Murph, an African American and a Villaraigosa ally, said that it was a "low blow" for the board to act while Villaraigosa was out of town. But he called Brewer "an excellent choice" and a man of integrity.

So, let us watch and see. This is going to be interesting.

Cobb Sez Vote This Way

Cobb's rule on voting for California initiatives. When faced with reasonable doubt, vote no. You save us all money, and you limit the ability of these airheads to believe they can solve all our problems for us. Let's see how we stare down this go-round's crop of wishful thoughts.

PROPOSITION 1A: TRANSPORTATION FUNDING PROTECTION. LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
* Protects transportation funding for traffic congestion relief projects, safety improvements, and local streets and roads.
* Prohibits the state sales tax on motor vehicle fuels from being used for any purpose other than transportation improvements.
* Authorizes loans of these funds only in the case of severe state fiscal hardship. Requires loans of revenues from states sales tax on motor vehicle fuels to be fully repaid within the three years. Restricts loans to no more than twice in any 10-year period.

Cobb Sez: OK. Sure. Why not?

PROPOSITION 1B: HIGHWAY SAFETY, TRAFFIC REDUCTION, AIR QUALITY, AND PORT SECURITY BOND ACT OF 2006.
* Makes safety improvements and repairs to state highways; upgrades freeways to reduce congestion; repairs local streets and roads; upgrades highways along major transportation corridors.
* Improves seismic safety of local bridges.
* Expands public transit.
* Helps complete the state’s network of car pool lanes.
* Reduces air pollution.
* Improves anti-terrorism security at shipping ports.
* Provides for a bond issue not to exceed nineteen billion nine hundred twenty-five million dollars ($19,925,000,000).
* Appropriates money from the General Fund to pay off bonds.

Cobb Sez: 20 Billion? Ha! It won't stop the earthquakes nor the damage. I'd like to believe this could work, but I've seen CalTrans in [in]action. This looks way too broad and I don't trust it.

PROPOSITION 1C: HOUSING AND EMERGENCY SHELTER TRUST FUND ACT OF 2006.
* Funds may be used for the purpose of providing shelters for battered women and their children, clean and safe housing for low-income senior citizens; homeownership assistance for the disabled, military veterans, and working families; and repairs and accessibility improvements to apartment for families and disabled citizens.
* The state shall issue bonds totaling two billion eight hundred fifty million dollars ($2,850,000,000) paid from existing state funds at an average annual cost of two hundred and four million dollars ($204,000,000) per year over the 30 year life of the bonds.
* Requires reporting and publication of annual independent audited reports showing use of funds, and limits administration and overhead costs.
* Appropriates money from the General Fund to pay off bonds.

Cobb Sez:  No. No. No. This is one I simply don't trust. 2 Billion is not enough to solve any single problem and notice how it's being spread around six different ways. This is the incrementalism of indecision. I guarantee that it's ugly spaghetti law.

PROPOSITION 1D: KINDERGARTEN–UNIVERSITY PUBLIC EDUCATION FACILITIES BOND ACT OF 2006.
* This ten billion four hundred sixteen million dollar ($10,416,000,000) bond issue will provide needed funding to relieve public school overcrowding and to repair older schools.
* It will improve earthquake safety and fund vocational educational facilities in public schools. Bond funds must be spent according to strict accountability measures.
* Funds will also be used to repair and upgrade existing public college and university buildings and to build new classrooms to accommodate the growing student enrollment in the California Community Colleges, the University of California, and the California State University.
* Appropriates money from the General Fund to pay off bonds.

Cobb Sez: Here we go again with the earthquake safety. That's just another excuse to keep somebody's pocket lined. I wonder how one gets to be an earthquake certified construction firm... hmm.

PROPOSITION 1E:  DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND FLOOD PREVENTION BOND ACT OF 2006.
* This act rebuilds and repairs California’s most vulnerable flood control structures to protect homes and prevent loss of life from flood-related disasters, including levee failures, flash floods, and mudslides.
* Protects California’s drinking water supply system by rebuilding delta levees that are vulnerable to earthquakes and storms.
* Authorizes a $4.09 billion dollar bond act.
* Appropriates money from the General Fund to pay off bonds.

Cobb Sez: Flood prevention? I wonder where that levee rhetoric came from. No thanks.

PROPOSITION 83: SEX OFFENDERS. SEXUALLY VIOLENT PREDATORS. PUNISHMENT, RESIDENCE RESTRICTIONS AND MONITORING. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
* Increases penalties for violent and habitual sex offenders and child molesters.
* Prohibits registered sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of any school or park.
* Requires lifetime Global Positioning System monitoring of felony registered sex offenders.
* Expands definition of a sexually violent predator.
* Changes current two-year involuntary civil commitment for a sexually violent predator to an indeterminate commitment, subject to annual review by the Director of Mental Health and subsequent ability of sexually violent predator to petition court for sexually violent predator’s conditional release or unconditional discharge.

Cobb Sez: Not on your life. GPS tracking for life? Where do these idiots get their ideas?

PROPOSITION 84: WATER QUALITY, SAFETY AND SUPPLY. FLOOD CONTROL. NATURAL RESOURCE PROTECTION. PARK IMPROVEMENTS. BONDS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
* Funds projects relating to safe drinking water, water quality and supply, flood control, waterway and natural resource protection, water pollution and contamination control, state and local park improvements, public access to natural resources, and water conservation efforts.
* Provides funding for emergency drinking water, and exempts such expenditures from public contract and procurement requirements to ensure immediate action for public safety.
* Authorizes $5,388,000,000 in general obligation bonds to fund projects and expenditures, to be repaid from the state’s General Fund.

Cobb Sez: You know, I don't know where all these parks are that are supposedly getting improved. Do you?

PROPOSITION 85: WAITING PERIOD AND PARENTAL NOTIFICATION BEFORE TERMINATION OF MINOR’S PREGNANCY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
* Amends California Constitution to prohibit abortion for unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor’s parent or legal guardian, except in medical emergency or with parental waiver.
* Permits minor to obtain court order waiving notice based on clear and convincing evidence of minor’s maturity or best interests.
* Mandates various reporting requirements, including reports from physicians regarding abortions performed on minors.
* Authorizes monetary damages against physicians for violation.
* Requires minor’s consent to abortion, with certain exceptions.
* Permits judicial relief if minor’s consent coerced.

Cobb Sez: That sounds reasonable to me. Doesn't cost any money either.

PROPOSITION 86: TAX ON CIGARETTES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
* Imposes additional 13 cent tax on each cigarette distributed ($2.60 per pack), and indirectly increases tax on other tobacco products.
* Provides funding to qualified hospitals for emergency services, nursing education and health insurance to eligible children.
* Revenue also allocated to specified purposes including tobacco-use-prevention programs, enforcement of tobacco-related laws, and research, prevention, treatment of various conditions including cancers (breast, cervical, prostate, colorectal), heart disease, stroke, asthma and obesity.
* Exempts recipient hospitals from antitrust laws in certain circumstances.
* Revenue excluded from appropriation limits and minimum education funding (Proposition 98) calculations.

Cobb Sez: Whatever. Half of a cigarette price is tax already. What has that done? Sin taxes are stupid. There I said it. But you know what? I'm going to back this one, because it looks like it will get the state in the habit of funding emergency health care services and maybe even building hospitals that work.

PROPOSITION 87: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY. RESEARCH, PRODUCTION, INCENTIVES. TAX ON CALIFORNIA OIL PRODUCERS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
* Establishes $4 billion program with goal to reduce petroleum consumption by 25%, with research and production incentives for alternative energy, alternative energy vehicles, energy efficient technologies, and for education and training.
* Funded by tax of 1.5% to 6% (depending on oil price per barrel) on producers of oil extracted in California. Prohibits producers from passing tax to consumers.
* Program administered by new California Energy Alternatives Program Authority.
* Prohibits changing tax while indebtedness remains.
* Revenue excluded from appropriation limits and minimum education funding (Proposition 98) calculations.

Cobb Sez: Hell no. Once again with the sin taxes. Our gas is already a dollar more expensive than in Georgia. Forget about it.

PROPOSITION 88: EDUCATION FUNDING. REAL PROPERTY PARCEL TAX. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
*  Provides additional public school funding for kindergarten through grade 12.
* Funded by $50 tax on each real property parcel.
* Exempts certain elderly and disabled homeowners.
* Funds must be used for class size reduction, textbooks, school safety, Academic Success facility grants, and data system to evaluate educational program effectiveness.
* Provides for reimbursement to General Fund to offset anticipated decrease in income tax revenues due to increased deductions attributable to new parcel tax.
* Requires school district audits, penalties for fund misuse.
* Revenue excluded from minimum education funding (Proposition 98) calculations.

Cobb Sez: Sounds reasonable to me.

PROPOSITION 89: POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. PUBLIC FINANCING. CORPORATE TAX INCREASE. CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION AND EXPENDITURE LIMITS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
* Provides that candidates for state elective office meeting certain eligibility requirements, including collection of a specified number of $5.00 contributions from voters, may voluntarily receive public campaign funding from Fair Political Practices Commission, in amounts varying by elective office and election type.
* Increases income tax rate on corporations and financial institutions by 0.2 percent to fund program.
* Imposes new limits on campaign contributions to state-office candidates and campaign committees, and new restrictions on contributions by lobbyists, state contractors.
* Limits certain contributions and expenditures by corporations.

Cobb Sez: This one sounds very strange. Rather like a rehash of stuff we voted on last time. Can't trust it.

PROPOSITION 90: GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION, REGULATION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
*  Bars state and local governments from condemning or damaging private property to promote other private projects or uses.
* Limits government’s authority to adopt certain land use, housing, consumer, environmental and workplace laws and regulations, except when necessary to preserve public health or safety.
* Voids unpublished eminent domain court decisions.
* Defines “just compensation.”
* Government must occupy condemned property or lease property for public use.
* Condemned private property must be offered for resale to prior owner or owner’s heir at current fair market value if government abandons condemnation’s objective.
* Exempts certain governmental actions.

Cobb Sez: Ahh. Kelo backlash. About time.

So there it is. Now you don't have to think. I did all of your thinking for you. Ain't democracy grand?

Murder in the Jungle

From the LAPD blog:

On Sunday, Sept. 24, three-year-old Kaitlyn Avila was shot and killed by suspected gang members in front of her Baldwin Village home.

The gunman, described as a black man in his early 20s, first opened fire on Cesar Avila, 24, the girl’s father. Today, Avila remains hospitalized in critical condition. The afternoon attack took place as Avila was helping his two daughters get out of their car. Kaitlyn’s five-year-old sister witnessed the shooting but was uninjured.

Chief Bratton, City and community leaders and several of the victim’s family members rallied Sept. 27 to condemn the violent act and seek community support in the apprehension of the assailants.

"This past Sunday a child was brutally murdered," said Chief Bratton. "By all accounts, this murder was in fact an execution. This senseless, unprovoked and cowardly act is a clear reminder that there are some among us whose only intention is to harm others."

The Jungle used to be a nice place, but that was 35 years ago when it was new. By the mid 70s it slid downhill and soon became the home of the Bloods. This blighted neighborhood has been a stain on this area of Southwest LA which has nice homes on all four sides. Something has got to change.

On Skid Row

From the LAPD Blog:

Our patrol force is understaffed and overburdened.  The primary car designated for Skid Row can barely be in the area.  When you have under two hundred forty officers responsible for policing 8 to 10,000 people it is impossible to help everyone or make a lasting impact.

There are groups who do not care if their causes are right or wrong, as long as they win or “Stick it” to the police department.  These groups, who claim to be advocates for the homeless, watch as gang members brutalize, exploit and sell poison to them, and then call us as monsters for trying to curb the problem. They would rather label me an “Uncle Tom” than take on drug dealers for poisoning the community.  An example of this is the recent 9th Circuit ruling against the Department, regarding sleeping on the sidewalks.

When I began enforcing the sidewalk ordinance in my area it had less to do with sitting or sleeping on the sidewalk.  In reality it had to do with the crime it produced.  In Skid Row most people are not sleeping or sitting for “life sustaining” reasons. During the day, many are sitting so they can use narcotics.  When they are sleeping, it is more likely due to crashing from a four-day cocaine binge or a bad heroin overdose.   While they sit, the drug dealers we can’t keep in jail, see the sidewalks as prime real estate for their trade.  The homeless become victims as well as suspects.  There are excellent programs on Skid Row to help the homeless beat their addictions. But when drug dealers are waiting right outside of the doors, it’s difficult for the homeless to succeed. Unfortunately political agendas won out over common sense, and now the homeless are becoming victimized in my area at an even higher rate. 

Dead King Walking

From the LAT:

Federal regulators notified Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center late Friday that it had failed what was billed as a "make or break" inspection and would lose annual funding of about $200 million — more than half the hospital's budget — at the end of the year.

The move is likely to force Los Angeles County to close the long-troubled public hospital, give it to someone else to run or turn it into a clinic, as officials have repeatedly acknowledged.

It's over.

Lomax Dead

LA Observed reports:

The Wave reports that the civil rights attorney and former police commissioner died last night when her car plummeted down a slope near her home in the Hollywood Hills. Lomax was 56. According to the story, Lomax was behind the wheel of her 2005 Jaguar when the car drove off her driveway, rolled down an embankment and landed upside down on Outpost Drive. Paramedics found her in full cardiac arrest. She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai at 8:37 pm.

Lomax was on the police commission during the Tom Bradley administration at City Hall, served for a time as its president, and made an unsuccessful move in 1991 to oust LAPD Chief Daryl Gates that led to her resignation. Bradley tried to appoint her in 1992 to the DWP commission, but her confirmation was rejected by the City Council over the Gates issue. She later represented Willie Williams when he sought to regain his job as chief of the LAPD. In 2001 Mayor James Hahn appointed Lomax to the Information Technology Commission. She had also been vice-president and general counsel for the Los Angeles NAACP.

Lomax could be counted on as a voice of reason during all of the squabbles between LA's various black communities and City Hall since way before the riots. She was always in command of the facts and could be counted on to be blunt when plain talk was needed. I can never recall her mau-mauing for headlines. A responsible party, she often spoke out on Airtalk with Larry Mantle. She'll be missed.

Spirit Chorale

African Marketplace 2006

I took the 80% Family to the African Marketplace yesterday over at Rancho Cienega Park. Nobody calls it Rancho Cienega Park, or at least nobody did when I grew up. It was either 'Rancho' or 'Dorsey', more often Dorsey after the High School right next door.

We parked on Dorsey's grass and paid $6 a head and proceded directly to the food court. I'll tell you straight that the BBQ from Stones was the most popular. Second came the Louisiana cuisine, then the Caribbean and finally the West African. Not surprising.

There was a whole lot more gospel in this year's occasion. It was somewhat surprising, but the difference was clear. The Youth Stage, of the three stages in the park was 100% Gospel Hiphop. OK well 90%. There was some dancing to an old school tune 'Bust a Move' and one on Chris Brown's 'Run It', but they clearly took the time to do some thinking about the themes. Not so however with the filthy, and I do mean filthy petting zoo. I have this nightmare vision about what the planners must have been thinking about when they ordered that up.. like yo brother do you know any rednecks with a goat and a llama? Yeah but he doesn't bathe and the animals are kinda pathetic looking. But we gotta have animals...

Thed did also find a fairly skillful juggler who was performing at the single most commercially themed area at the park. Some water thing that I studiously avoided.

Sometimes the most obnoxious hawker has something actually worth it. I am eating, finally, my Peach Delight which is like a combination of cobbler and dump cake with a pecan crust. All afternoon you could hear this guy yelling about his desert. "It's what peach cobbler wants to be when it grows up!". Over and over and over. He was right. It's the absolute bomb. I should have eaten some yesterday instead of saving it. I would have been in a much better mood.

Instead, I checked out a spacey group called Essence. They were a trio. The woman sung in a style reminescent of the lead female singer of the 5th Dimension with a slight touch of Neko Case twang which worked quite nice. The man sounded very much like Jeffrey Osborne. The other woman did an improvisational dance that was straight out of experimental theatre - like a combination of yoga and full-body sign language. The dancer, in black jeans and a flowing brownish / leopardish flowing sari & scarf emoted with these facial expressions that defy description. She gave the act an eerie emotional depth. But it was on their second song where they blew the doors off by adding a lanky rapper who looked like the Palestinian antagonist in 'The Siege'. Mind you, this is a gospel group. So their rap about Zion was rather staggering. I was reminded, as I watched this spectacle, of the exploits of the Diggers. This was theatre.
As it stood I found that there really isn't much to be said for buying African baubles, bangles, beads, scupltures, clothing, carvings, masks, food and music. We have been there and done that. We have got the flavor nicely done. What wasn't in that list was African culture, politics, religion, and philosophy. Instead, you had people wearing the clothes and jewelry selling audiotapes of various loud voices screaming about white people. I'm too much inured to that to even pay enough attention to it in order to make a proper criticism. If I had a good camera, I'd merely take a picture and move on.

I did stop at the Islamic tent and cracked open a copy of an English & Arabic Qu'ran. I can't tell whether or not it was abridged. But next to it was a six volume set for $75. Too rich for my blood. There was only one other person there besides the proprietor, but I didn't engage. It was just good to know that there's that book I have to own sooner or later. Later there were two others having an animated discussion, but I was done for the day and in a hurry to leave.

 

The irony of the afternoon was found for me that the most rewarding moment of the day came as I decided to leave early. I was prepared to go back to my car and listen to the last CD of 'Fiasco' and it just so happened that there were a couple dozen Africans warming up for a soccer game on Dorsey's field. So I went to have a seat and watched the game. This was a pickup game in a style I've not seen, not that I watch so very much. But it definitely had a different flavor from the Latin games I've seen around the city. These guys are fast, and they play tight with a lot more control on the run than what I typically see.

This is my first YouTube and I took the video with my PDA. They took out the sound. But I think watching real African immigrants playing a real game was a whole lot more interesting than looking at old Jim Crow signs or thinking about buying a mask to hang up on my wall.