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6f6c9918653fe9dd13ce35bbbd387c5f | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/house-speaker-paul-ryan-expected-to-deliver-weekly-address.html | Paul Ryan says tax plan outline backed by tax writing committees will be released Sept. 25 | Paul Ryan says tax plan outline backed by tax writing committees will be released Sept. 25
VIDEO3:1103:11Paul Ryan: Tax reform outline will be released week of September 25thSquawk on the Street
An outline of the Republican tax reform plan will be released the week of Sept. 25, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday, offering the most concrete details to date about the much anticipated plan.
The outline will represent a consensus between the two tax-writing committees in Congress, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, and the Trump administration, Ryan said. Once the outline is released, the committees will write legislation to "fill in the details."
Ryan said he is confident that President Donald Trump will push for "conservative" tax reform, despite Trump's recent overtures to Democrats on a range of issues.
Ryan spoke Wednesday morning following a closed conference meeting. The meeting came a day after President Donald Trump upped the pressure on Democrats to support a sweeping rewrite of the nation's tax code following his surprise deal with the party's leaders to raise the debt ceiling, fund the government and fast-track hurricane relief.
Trump tweet
Ryan said that earlier efforts to reform health care, a fraught legislative battle that ultimately failed to produce any new legislation, made clear the importance of achieving a consensus between Congress and the White House, according to a readout of the meeting from a person in the room.
The so-called "Big Six" — a mix of House and Senate leaders, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn — will release a consensus document that will lay out a clear tax reform framework, the person said.
Trump is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss tax reform with members of the House "Problem Solving Caucus," a bipartisan group of moderates.
—CNBC's Ylan Mui and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
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7372dfc2c74fee367bb2055fcb2b9608 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/asia-poised-to-benefit-from-global-wellness-trend.html | Luxury's trendy investment opportunity is something Asia's been doing forever | Luxury's trendy investment opportunity is something Asia's been doing forever
VIDEO2:1302:13Private equity is growing its role in social policiesStreet Signs Asia
Wellness is a huge opportunity in the luxury sector and Asia is uniquely positioned to benefit, according to one of the world's largest consumer-oriented investment groups.
"Looking after yourself is the new luxury ... and Asia has a lot to contribute on that front," Ravi Thakran, managing partner and chairman of L Catterton, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Asia Summit.
Indeed, more middle-class consumers are increasingly splurging more on wellness than expensive items in a sharp spending shift, with market research firm Euromonitor anticipating health-focused purchases to eclipse traditional luxury goods in a short time.
Asians across the spectrum boast a deep relationship with natural practices, from traditional Chinese medicine to Ayurveda to ginseng, Thakran continued. "We can teach the world a lot from Asia."
The region's centuries-old obsession with health has produced some of the longest life expectancies, particularly in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, according to the United Nations' latest World Happiness Report.
Indian Armed Forces personnel take part in a yoga session to mark International Yoga Day at the Mumbai harbor on June 21, 2017.PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images
"Much of Asian heritage is dominated by nature," Thakran said. "Japan is one society that lives in the most harmony with nature, whether it's waste recycling or using less means."
When asked to name one key name in the wellness space, Thakran pointed to manuka honey. Native to New Zealand, the honey is widely regarded as alternative medicine and commands high prices.
"In five-10 years, it won't be possible to sell products without conveying the right message of sustainability," Thakran said. "Doing good can be very profitable as well."
A devout believer in ethical finance, the Singapore-based investor said he believes environmental norms should be applied across private equity. Those in the industry are becoming "custodians of society at large," he said, acknowledging that most PE companies have progressed on social factors such as gender equality.
L Catterton lives up to that ideology, he noted. "Before investing, we do something called a smell test — it's a value alignment test across a wide spectrum of factors, such as ethics."
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58b463c983c227d83d90e4be11f1ca5d | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/oracle-earnings-q1-2018.html | Oracle stock falls on guidance | Oracle stock falls on guidance
VIDEO0:4200:42Oracle earnings beat on both top and bottom linesClosing Bell
Oracle stock rose by nearly 2 percent in extended trading Thursday immediately after the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of its 2018 fiscal year, which ended on August 31. But the stock turned negative after the company gave guidance for the next quarter.
EPS: Excluding certain items, 62 cents in earnings per share vs. 60 cents in earnings per share as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.Revenue: $9.2 billion vs. $9.02 billion as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.
In terms of guidance, the company expects to bring in 64-68 cents in earnings per share and 2-4 percent revenue growth -- with 39-42 percent cloud revenue growth -- in constant currency for the second quarter of the 2018 fiscal year. Analysts were expecting 68 cents in earnings per share on $9.49 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters. Immediately after Oracle CEO Safra Catz gave the guidance, the company's stock fell more than 5 percent below the closing price of $52.79 per share.
Revenue for the quarter was up 7 percent from last year. New software license revenue continued to decline; it was down 6 percent for the quarter, although it did surpass the FactSet analyst consensus, according to StreetAccount.
Cloud revenue for the quarter was up 51 percent year over year, according to today's earnings statement. , Oracle executives said they expected cloud revenue to be up 48-52 percent year over year for the first quarter of the 2018 fiscal year. Cloud revenue slightly exceeded FactSet's analyst consensus, StreetAccount said.
Cloud has become so important to Oracle that the company has decided to only give top executives their performance options if Oracle "significantly grows its cloud business," according to a regulatory filing from earlier this month. That significant growth would require $20 billion in total cloud revenue, $10 billion in cloud software revenue, and $10 billion in cloud infrastructure and cloud platform revenue in a fiscal year.
Also the profit margin for cloud software would have to exceed 80 percent. For this quarter, Oracle's cloud software margin came in at 67 percent when certain items are excluded.
In the cloud infrastructure market, Oracle lags behind , and . Oracle competes with a range of companies including Microsoft, , and in cloud software.
Cloud infrastructure and platform revenue came in at $400 million. For the sake of comparison, Amazon's market-leading cloud infrastructure service produced $4.1 billion in revenue of this year.
Historically Oracle has made most of its money by selling software for on-premises data centers. At this point, the company "appears to be over the hump of its transition" to cloud software, Wedbush analysts Steve Koenig and Joseph Winn noted on Wednesday.
The company had $473 million in capital expenditures, which includes the cost of data center infrastructure to support Oracle cloud services. That figure was up 58 percent year over year.
In June Oracle said will use some of its cloud applications.
As it reports earnings, the company is also preparing for its annual OpenWorld conference, which kicks off two and half weeks from now in San Francisco. Oracle board chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison said on Thursday's earnings call that the company will unveil service-level agreements that will guarantee cost savings for organizations that switch from Amazon's Redshift database service to Oracle's cloud database.
"There's no one left to buy," Ellison said in response to a question about what to expect from mergers and acquisitions going forward.
Oracle stock is up 37 percent since the beginning of the year.
VIDEO4:0404:04Oracle and AT&T Communications CEOs break down cloud dealSquawk Alley
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fd7df89176c47454ccacea3a0d77d0e4 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/apples-safari-11-will-limit-data-tracking-upsetting-advertisers.html | Why the advertising industry is upset with Apple right now | Why the advertising industry is upset with Apple right now
VIDEO0:4500:45Why the advertising industry is upset with Apple right nowNews Videos
Advertising trade groups are admonishing Apple for adding features to its web browser Safari which will limit the user data companies can see.
The move caused six major advertising trade associations to publish a letter on Thursday arguing against the changes, claiming Apple's move could make online advertising worse and deprive media companies of revenue.
Here's what the advertising industry is worried about.
What Apple is doing
Apple's Safari 11 web browser, which is expected to be released Sept. 19, includes an "Intelligent Tracking Prevention" feature. It identifies tools that are tracking users, like cookies, and only lets third-party companies digitally follow people for 24 hours after they visited a website. First-party companies are allowed to track people for up to 30 days, but if the user doesn't return to the website in that time period, their data is erased.
Apple's move is at least partially a response to increasing public concerns about how much advertisers know about them, and what those advertisers do with that data.
"Apple believes that people have a right to privacy – Safari was the first browser to block third-party cookies by default and Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a more advanced method for protecting user privacy," an Apple spokesperson said via email. "Ad tracking technology has become so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to recreate the majority of a person's web browsing history. This information is collected without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the Internet."
The new Intelligent Tracking Prevention will help limit tracking, but it will not block ads or interfere with "legitimate" tracking on websites people visit often, the spokesperson noted.
According to anti-ad-blocking software company PageFair, 615 million devices around the world were using some sort of ad blocker in December 2016. A majority of people surveyed by PageFair also said they would stop going to a website requiring them to turn off their ad blocker.
And while Apple's move provides some protections for user privacy, it also prevents advertisers from targeting specific users — the main attraction of digital advertising — and measuring how well their ads are doing.
Apple's had a mixed relationship with the advertising industry lately. In October 2015 it removed some apps from its App Store which install "root certificates," a security measure that helps ad-blocking software follow its users — a move friendly to the digital ad industry. However, it has also included software on Safari since iOS 9 that blocks ads and pop-ups, among other things.
Why advertisers are angry
Advertising is what pays for most content online. Blocking ads and advertisers hurts media companies, who can't get revenue to pay for articles and other services they provide. Ad blocking reportedly could cost online publishers up to $27 billion by 2020, according to Juniper Research.
There's also concern Apple is placing its own standards on what data can be shared with third-parties instead of letting the users choose.
In addition, advertisers argue allowing access to user data allows companies to show ads specifically aligned to user tastes, based on what they spend time online doing. If Safari 11 limits access to user data, companies fear they won't be able to customize ads. Advertising would become less personalized and more random.
"Apple's unilateral and heavy-handed approach is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love," said the letter the ad industry sent to the tech giant.
Apple's not alone in this. Google has announced plans to add ad-blocking software to its browser. However Google's "Funding Choices" program will prompt ad-blocker users who visit a site that doesn't allow the software to either turn off their ad blocker or pay a pass that removes all advertising content. Ten percent of the pass cost will go to Google, while the rest will go to the publishing company. All eligible companies must have advertising that fits certain ad standards limiting annoying features like pop-up ads, ads that take over the whole web page and ads that automatically play audio.
VIDEO0:1600:16Apple bumps software stocks higherKensho Video
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d97055f58270d090228348518a13291f | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/cassini-spacecraft-flies-into-saturn-in-fiery-end-to-20-year-voyage.html | Cassini spacecraft flies into Saturn, bringing a fiery end to a nearly 20-year voyage | Cassini spacecraft flies into Saturn, bringing a fiery end to a nearly 20-year voyage
VIDEO2:2702:27NASA is preparing to crash a spacecraft into SaturnDigital Original
The Cassini spacecraft crashed into Saturn on Friday in a fiery demise that was planned to avoid harming possible life on the mysterious planet's moons.
The two-decade-long space trip yielded an unprecedented amount of knowledge that will be studied for years. Cassini continued collecting and transmitting data until the very end.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted, "Our Cassini Saturn spacecraft is now one with the planet it studied for so long."
@NASAJPL: Our @CassiniSaturn spacecraft is now one with the planet it studied for so long. The rest is science. #GoodbyeCassini
Launched in 1997, the bus-size spacecraft was overseen by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The project began nearly 30 years ago.
After traveling roughly 1 billion miles, according to NASA, Cassini entered Saturn's orbit in 2004 and began sending information that frequently surprised scientists.
Among those surprises: Cassini revealed a huge six-sided jet stream on the planet's top that holds huge hurricane-like storms within it. There is a lot about this hexagon researchers don't know, such as why it is there and how it has managed to sustain itself for so long.
The craft flew to Enceladus, a tiny moon with ingredients that could make it suitable for life.
Cassini also dispatched the Huygens lander to Titan, Saturn's largest moon, where it discovered a vast underground ocean, and liquid methane on its surface that undergoes a cycle similar to that of water on Earth.
"In order to avoid the unlikely possibility of Cassini someday colliding with one of these moons, NASA has chosen to safely dispose of the spacecraft in the atmosphere of Saturn," Jet Propulsion Lab officials said in a statement. "This will ensure that Cassini cannot contaminate any future studies of habitability and potential life on those moons."
Combined, the Cassini-Huygens mission cost about $3.26 billion, according to NASA. That includes $1.4 billion for prelaunch development, $704 million for mission operations, $54 million for tracking and $422 million for the launch vehicle.
Data gathered by Cassini found that Saturn's rings are made up of odd-sized clumps of particles — some as small as grains of sand, others miles long.
The space between the rings and the planet also is home to another mystery: extremely small, almost smoke-like, particles of dust. Researchers think they may have gotten that way by being ground up, but are not sure what process might have made that happen, project scientist Linda Spilker said in an interview with CNBC.
"The question is, what happened to the larger particles, how were they ground up into dust?" Spilker said.
Since April, the craft has been making a series of dives between the planet and its rings in what NASA has dubbed The Grand Finale.
On Monday, the craft made a flyby of Titan that slowed it down enough to direct it toward Saturn rather than through the furthest reaches of its atmosphere, as it has been doing.
On Thursday, the cameras took their final images of Saturn and its system. Cassini pointed its antenna back toward Earth and begin transmitting data as it slowly sank into Saturn's atmosphere.
In its final days, the ship was set to collect data that may help precisely determine Saturn's current size, understand its magnetic and gravity fields, and learn the mass of the rings and take a sample of their particles, both for the first time.
Asked where in space she would next like to send a spacecraft, Spilker said she would send another craft back to the Saturn system, replete with the considerably more sophisticated technology available today than scientists had when building Cassini and Huygens in the 1980s.
Her first stop would be Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus, where she would take samples of its ocean, which harbors many of the conditions needed to sustain life.
"I would want to know if the ocean of Enceladus is indeed inhabited rather than just habitable," she said.
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decae0b3078e22ec8a5d4e2576d440e4 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/obamacare-repeal-bill-sparks-twitter-tiff-between-gop-senators.html | Obamacare repeal bill sparks Twitter tiff between GOP senators | Obamacare repeal bill sparks Twitter tiff between GOP senators
VIDEO0:4600:46Senator says Obamacare repeal bill close to enough votes to pass, but there's reason to be skepticalNews Videos
With Republicans like these, who needs a Democrat to prevent Obamacare from getting repealed?
A proposed bill to repeal and replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act sparked a Twitter tiff Friday between two GOP senators: one of them a sponsor of the legislation, the other a staunch advocate for total repeal.
The digital exchange between Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana underscores the fact that having control of the Senate does not mean that Republican leaders will win passage of the bill dubbed Graham-Cassidy.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)Joshua Roberts | Reuters
Cassidy earlier Friday had claimed there are up to 48 or 49 GOP senators who have publicly or privately supported the bill, putting it tantalizingly close to passage.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared to see another Obamacare repeal effort as a more realistic possibility on Friday. The New York Democrat tweeted that "Trumpcare is back & Senate GOP has until Sept 30 to pass their bill." He added, "We need your voices more than ever!"
Paul, whose opposition to the bill may effectively doom it to defeat, didn't let the issue go even after Cassidy stopped responding.
Republicans, who hold just 52 seats in the Senate, need 50 GOP senators to support the bill for it to pass.
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While Paul had voted for an earlier Obamacare replacement bill in July, three other Republican senators, John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against it, ensuring its failure in the Senate.
Meanwhile Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., asked the Congressional Budget Office to quickly provide an analysis of Graham-Cassidy. A CBO "score," or projection of how much a bill will cost and affect things including the number of people insured and what they pay for coverage, is traditional for such a bill.
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Because the bill is being considered through a Senate process known as reconciliation, it must be approved by Sept. 30 if it is to become law.
Also Friday, a liberal think tank published an analysis of the bill, which found it "would gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions" if it is signed into law.
The Center on Budget and Public Priorities had previously estimated, in July, that Graham-Cassidy's reduction in total federal spending on health insurance would reduce by more than $3 billion the amount of money Kentucky, Paul's state, would get through Obamacare.
Obamacare, among many other things, barred insurers from either denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions, or charging them higher rates than healthier people.
Both things occurred before the ACA became law, and were blamed for keeping the nation's uninsured rate higher than it would otherwise be.
Senator Bill CassidyAndrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Graham-Cassidy "would give states broad waiver authority to eliminate the ACA's core provisions for people with pre-existing health conditions."
The group noted those waivers would come on top of the bill's elimination of federal aid to help low- and middle-income people buy individual health plans, the elimination of expanded Medicaid benefits to poor adults, and big cuts to overall health insurance spending by the government.
CBPP senior fellow Aviva Aron-Dine wrote that a "little-noticed provision" of Graham-Cassidy that is related to block grant funding to states would allow individual states to get rid of Obamacare's pre-existing rules.
"For example, a state that used a small portion of its block grant funding to provide even tiny subsidies to all individual market plans could then waive these protections for its entire individual market," Aron-Dine wrote.
"Likewise, states that used block grant funding to offer or subsidize coverage for low-income people could offer plans with large gaps in benefits. States seeking waivers would have to explain how they 'intend' to maintain access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, but they wouldn't have to prove that their waivers would actually do so."
Aron-Dine noted that the waiver authority in Graham-Cassidy is similar to waivers contained in an Obamacare replacement bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year.
A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that states that contain one-sixth of the nation's population would let insurers charge sick people higher rates under those waivers in the House bill.
In those states, "less healthy individuals (including those with preexisting or newly acquired medical conditions) would be unable to purchase comprehensive coverage with premiums close to those under current law and might not be able to purchase coverage at all," the CBO said.
And states accounting for half of the U.S. population would let insurers exclude the Obamacare requirement that their health plans cover a minimum set of so-called essential health benefits, the CBO found.
People needing, "maternity care, mental health and substance abuse benefits, rehabilitative and habilitative services, and pediatric dental benefits" in those states "would face increases in their out-of-pocket costs," according to the analysis.
"Some people would have increases of thousands of dollars in a year," the CBO said.
VIDEO1:3701:37Sen. Mark Warner: We perhaps screwed up passing Obamacare with just DemocratsSquawk Box
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2d46192317ac71d2ca6f6e400fdd98bf | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/us-stocks-weekly-gains-fed-retail.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook | S&P 500 closes at record high; Dow posts best week since December | S&P 500 closes at record high; Dow posts best week since December
VIDEO1:0401:04S&P 500 hits 2,500 for first timeTrading Nation
U.S. stocks rose to record levels Friday and posted strong weekly gains.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 64.86 points to close at 22.2686.34, a record. Boeing, 3M and Apple contributed the most to the gains. The index also posted an intraday high of 22,275.02
The also notched record highs, advancing 0.2 percent to finish at 2,500.23. Friday also marked the first time the index broke above 2,500. Information technology and financials were among the best-performing sectors.
The Nasdaq composite outperformed, closing 0.3 percent higher at 6,448.47; it also managed to an intraday record of 6,464.27.
"People are always looking for a reason for the market to go down but stocks keep going up and earnings remain strong," said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.
Tech stocks kicked off the session as the worst performers before turning around in late-morning trading. Shares of Apple and Facebook both closed higher.
Major U.S. Indexes
The three major indexes finished the week at least 1.4 percent higher. The Dow also notched its biggest weekly gain since the week of Dec. 9.
"The market has been digesting its gains in a consolidation phase following Monday's gap up" in the S&P 500, said Katie Stockton, chief technical strategist at BTIG, in a note. "The breakouts that have developed suggest overbought conditions will be absorbed without a significant pullback."
The gained 4.2 percent for the week, its biggest weekly rise since June. The jump comes on the back of stronger-than-expected inflation numbers which increased expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike.
The Labor Department said Thursday that the consumer price index rose 1.9 percent last month on a year-over-year basis. Market expectations for a December Fed rate hike are now at 52.9 percent, according to the CME Group's Fedwatch tool.
Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).Drew Angerer | Getty Images
"Although CPI remains below the FOMC's 2% target, the move back higher should be enough to convince most observers that the Q2 weakening was a temporary phenomenon and that this version of inflation should be able to move back above 2.0% during the 4th quarter," said Michael Shaoul, chairman and CEO of Marketfield Asset Management, in a note to clients.
"Our own view is that current consensus underplays the degree to which CPI has been held back by the long commodity bear market that extended well beyond energy prices," Shaoul said.
The Fed is scheduled to announce its latest decision on monetary policy next week. Most market participants do not expect a rate hike. However, the central bank is projected to announce the unwinding of its massive $4.5 trillion portfolio. The Fed accrued most of its holdings during the financial crisis.
U.S. Treasury yields have also surged this week. The benchmark 10-year yield started the week near 2.09 percent; it traded around 2.19 percent Friday.
Wall Street digested two key data sets Friday ahead of the Fed's meeting.
Retail sales for August fell 0.2 percent. Economists polled by Reuters expected a 0.1 percent gain.
"I think Hurricane Harvey had a bit of an impact on the data," said Christian Magoon, CEO of Amplify ETFs.
Meanwhile, industrial production fell nearly 1 percent last month.
Investors also looked to Asia after North Korea launched a missile that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. Still, world markets had a mixed reaction to the event. The European Stoxx 600 index fell 0.3 percent while the Japanese Nikkei 225 rose 0.52 percent.
"You could spin this as resiliency or complacency," said Magoon. "This market seems a bit out of touch with reality. ... The risk to the downside is not getting as much respect as the upside risk."
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eb5f56656eb27daf4c5abfb898ca209a | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/17/gold-slips-to-two-week-low-ahead-of-fed-meet.html | Gold slides 1% as dollar gains ahead of Fed meeting | Gold slides 1% as dollar gains ahead of Fed meeting
Getty Images
Gold fell 1 percent on Monday, touching a 2½-week low, as the dollar strengthened and U.S. Treasury yields rose ahead of a two-day Federal Reserve meeting, while a world stock market index surged to a record and Wall Street also hit new highs.
Easing tensions on the Korean peninsula also reduced gold's safe-haven bid. On Sept. 8, gold's session high of $1,357.54 an ounce was the highest in 13 months. On Friday, U.S. data showed hedge funds and other speculators had raised net long positions in the precious metal for nine straight weeks.
"There was a lot of speculative froth in the gold market which seems to have receded now," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said in a telephone interview. "Expectations that the Fed will raise U.S. interest rates argue for a correction here."
Spot gold was down 1.04 percent at $1,305.46 per ounce. U.S. gold futures for December delivery settled down $14.40, or 1.09 percent, at $1,310.80 per ounce.
Spot silver was down 2.63 percent at $17.117 per ounce, while platinum fell 0.99 percent to $954.50 per ounce. Palladium was up 1.42 percent at $936.10 per ounce.
VIDEO1:1101:11What options traders are saying about goldHalftime Report
The dollar hit an eight-week high against the yen, as investors increased bets the Fed could raise interest rates in December. Fed policy makers meet Tuesday and Wednesday. Investors expect the Fed will announce plans to start trimming its balance sheet, which should support the dollar and weigh on dollar-priced gold.
World stocks hit a record high. But shares of gold mining companies fell sharply. U.S. Treasury yields rose.
"Gold doesn't do well in a high rate environment," INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir said in a telephone interview, noting that central banks have been tightening or moving toward tightening in Canada, England, Europe and the United States.
Gold's slide on Monday did not bring it as low as $1,300 an ounce.
Meir said gold's support level on the charts was around $1,280 an oz while the $1,300 level "is more psychological."
Investors grew less worried about tensions on the Korean peninsula. Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke about pressuring North Korea with economic sanctions imposed through the United Nations, the White House said. Trump addresses world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday.
Kinross Gold Corp gave the go-ahead to spend more than $1 billion to expand two of its gold mines, including its Tasiast mine in West Africa.
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83fe319c95b81ba3402a3da487bf61a6 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/17/north-korean-missiles-what-south-korea-can-learn-from-israel.html | Israel can teach South Korea lessons about missile defense | Israel can teach South Korea lessons about missile defense
VIDEO0:5100:51Israel can teach South Korea lessons about missile defenseNews Videos
While officials in Seoul try to figure out how to deal with their erratic, missile-launching neighbor to the north, the key to the puzzle may be 5,000 miles away — in Jerusalem.
Officials in South Korea's defense ministry are now debating how they'll spend their budget, on the assumption that the country's parliament will increase it by almost seven percent. But military officials around the world say that even if South Korea's defense forces get the money, it won't be enough to deal with the massive destructive force awaiting them just across the border in North Korea.
"The South Koreans have already established the requirement for low- and medium-tier interceptors," said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He added, however, that "They have yet to move forward."
VIDEO0:5500:55'THAAD' can't protect South Korea by itselfNews Videos
This month Israel staged a massive military exercise designed to simulate war with terror group Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon and Syria, and perhaps as far away as Iran.
Israel fought Hezbollah for five weeks in 2006 in a war that shut down Israel's economy in the northern part of the country, and caused wide-scale damage to Southern Lebanon.
Part of the drill incorporates missile defense, as any new war with Hezbollah would likely bring an onslaught of rockets from the north, as it did 11 years ago. Hezbollah is estimated to have more than 100 thousand short-, mid- and long-range missiles stored in hiding places including the homes of civilians in southern Lebanon.
As Hezbollah's missile arsenal has grown, so have Israel's anti-missile capabilities. Israel now has three rings of missile defense.
The Boeing-made Arrow is designed to protect against long-range ballistic missiles, the kind possessed by Iran.The recently deployed David's Sling (also known as Magic Wand), co-manufactured by Raytheon and Israeli defense firm Rafael is designed to stop mid-range missiles fired from Lebanon and Syria, aimed toward Israel's population centers in the middle of the country.The "Iron Dome" is Israel's answer to shorter range missiles, the kind fired by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. The system now has greater than a 97 percent effective rate against short-range missiles.
Karako suggested a number of steps South Korea could take that have brought Israel success. Among them is "cooperation and co-development with the United States is crucial. The U.S. and Israel have been doing this for a long time, and the fruits of that cooperation are what you see on the ground, robust missile defense."
Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14 is pictured during its second test-fire in this undated picture provided by KCNA in Pyongyang on July 29, 2017.KCNA | Reuters
Karako also credits Israel with applying the concept of traditional defense rings to the larger arena of missile defense. When security forces guard a shopping mall, they deploy internal security, external security and checkpoints further out.
That same theory applies to Israel's missile defense, according to Karako. "Layered defense is something that allows the Israelis to have increased shots at an incoming threat. It also allows them to use more cost-effective interceptors for threats from different ranges."
Iron Dome costs about $25,000 per projectile, while the Arrow missile can cost 100 times more.
Experts on missile defense readily concede there is no 100 percent effective solution, and long-range anti-missile systems are not yet fully battle-tested.
Moreover, important differences exist between the needs of South Korea and Israel, said Uzi Eilam, a retired general with the Israel Defense Forces who is widely considered one of the founding fathers of Israel's missile defense program.
The most important is geographical size. Israel comprises slightly more than 8,000 square miles, while South Korea's territory is almost five times as large. "The limited amount of investment that we needed is much less than what will be needed in South Korea," Eilam told CNBC.
While still vulnerable to many kinds of missile and artillery attacks from the north, South Korea deployed the Lockheed Martin-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) this year.
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d11d8cfeace7ad5368b151f104e0f49e | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/switch-billionaire-taizo-son-on-southeast-asia-start-ups.html | What lured billionaire Taizo Son to Singapore from Tokyo | What lured billionaire Taizo Son to Singapore from Tokyo
VIDEO2:0902:09Why Mistletoe has its sights set on agritechShake it up
The promise of Southeast Asia's tech start-ups recently lured Japanese billionaire Taizo Son to move from Tokyo to Singapore.
The 44-year-old serial entrepreneur is founder and CEO of Mistletoe, a venture capital firm that's also part accelerator and part incubator. The Tokyo-based company set up shop in Singapore this April as Son, the younger brother of SoftBank founder and Japan's richest man Masayoshi Son, looks to invest $100 million in Southeast Asia over the next five years.
Emerging companies in the area are promising "because there are no legacies or traditions to break," he said on the sidelines of SWITCH, the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology.
"Instead of catching up to developed countries, Southeast Asia can leapfrog them ... it's a very attractive region for me."
New businesses in that part of the world boast significant advantages compared to more advanced markets, Son explained, using the example of his home country.
Taizo Son, chief executive officer of MistletoeAkio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
"Japan is a developed and sophisticated society, but it's difficult to make great innovations in a short period of time. In Singapore, on the other hand, we can move very quickly because there's no legacy to break."
Mistletoe hasn't wasted any time since entering the region, recently announcing a new accelerator program in India for agri-tech and food-tech start-ups.
Called Gastrotope, the program is aimed at updating India's food supply chain to the 21st Century, Son said, adding that the idea was inspired by the nation's food struggle and its massive pool of tech talent.
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bbafb67a0f9283c927a2905d0530376c | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/with-tighter-cigarette-rules-ahead-look-inside-big-tobaccos-pipeline.html | With tighter cigarette rules ahead, here's a peek inside Big Tobacco's pipeline | With tighter cigarette rules ahead, here's a peek inside Big Tobacco's pipeline
Getty Images
The Food and Drug Administration shocked many when it announced this summer that it would start the process of lowering nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels. Investors hammered Big Tobacco stocks.
However, with many next-generation products already in development, there are some Big Tobacco companies that could actually benefit from the FDA's new nicotine initiatives.
The two leading concepts Big Tobacco is developing are vaping products and heat-not-burn products.
Most e-cigarettes use vaping technology, which heats liquid nicotine to create vapor. These products do not contain tobacco, potentially eliminating the risks associated with conventional cigarettes. However, critics say e-cigarettes may carry their own risks.
Heat-not-burn products use tobacco, but devices heat it instead of burning it. This prevents combustion, a chemical reaction that creates most toxic chemicals associated with cigarettes. Heat-not-burn products reduce risk by 90 percent or more, companies say.
To be sure, small companies are innovating in big ways. 22nd Century Group's Goodrich Tobacco has created low-nicotine cigarettes. The company modifies tobacco plants' genes in some varieties and breeds plants in others to manipulate how much nicotine the plant produces.
Meanwhile, JUUL Labs' JUUL e-cigarette has soared in popularity among millennials. The sleek device is about as long as the palm of a hand and as thin as a flash drive. It is supposed to provide an experience that's as satisfying as smoking thanks to the use of nicotine salts found in tobacco leaves.
Smaller companies may be generating plenty of buzz, but Big Tobacco is also innovating. Here are some alternative nicotine products some of the world's largest tobacco companies are creating.
Philip Morris International's IQOS productSource: Philip Morris International
Philip Morris International's product IQOS contains a ceramic and gold plate that heats Philip Morris-branded tobacco sticks, such as Marlboro, that are designed specifically for the device. Philip Morris' senior medical advisor Mikael Franzon said IQOS better replicates a traditional cigarette, which is important when trying to convince smokers to switch.
"We can have a product that reduces risk by 95 percent, but if no one accepts that product or likes that, it won't have any impact on public health," Franzon said.
IQOS is available in some international markets, including European countries, Canada and Japan, where it has become wildly popular.
Philip Morris has submitted two applications to the Food and Drug Administration: one that would allow the product to be sold in the U.S. and one that would allow the product to be marketed as one that reduces risk compared with traditional cigarettes. If IQOS receives federal approval, Altria will have sole distribution rights to sell it in the U.S. Philip Morris has another heat-not-burn product in the pipeline. Dubbed TEEPS, it is similar to IQOS but uses a carbon heat source. The company plans to run a city test of it this year.
Philip Morris International's MESH product and cartridgesSource: Philip Morris International
Philip Morris launched a city test of MESH in the U.K. last year, touting it as a "next generation" e-cigarette.
Users buy cartridges that contain a MESH heating system and liquid nicotine and flavors. The heating system uses a metallic mesh and tiny holes, which users activate when they push a button. The device heats the liquid and creates vapor.
The company has another e-vapor product in the pipeline. Called STEEM, it differs from other e-cigarettes because it creates a vapor that contains nicotine in the form of liquid salt. A chemical reaction occurs when users take a drag, creating what Philip Morris says are highly water-soluble particles of nicotine salt that can be easily inhaled. Philip Morris plans to start a city test of the product this year.
Source: Altria
NuMark, a subsidiary of Altria, sells two e-cigarettes: Mark Ten and Green Smoke. Both look like conventional tobacco cigarettes. Both use cartridges that come in a variety of flavors and nicotine levels.
Mark Ten boasts "Four Draw" technology, where the tip of the e-cigarettes contain four holes for vapor to flow out of the device and into users' mouths.
"We have the leading brands in all traditional tobacco products, so we have a deep understanding of adult smokers, and we're building our learning over decades of experience to build products we think adult smokers will be interested in," a spokesman said.
Source: British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco launched its e-cigarette, Vype, in 2013. The brand now offers different product lines that vary in style and function.
Vype sells everything from sleek pens to bulky boxes to compact pebbles. Some products can be replenished with a store-bought cartridge. Others require users to refill them with nicotine liquid.
Vype eBox's liquid nicotine tank can be refilled manually. This allows users to choose how much power the device has by clicking a plus or minus button, which potentially controls the amount of nicotine users receive.
The Vype Pebble, meanwhile, is a tiny device that's available in five colors ranging from black to yellow. Users buy cartridges and swap them out. With Vype, British American Tobacco has grown its presence. British American Tobacco represents about 40 percent of the U.K. vapor market, a spokeswoman said. Vype is in 10 markets around the globe.
British American Tobacco's glo productSource: British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco launched glo, a heat-not-burn product, in Sendai, Japan, last year.
Users insert a tobacco stick into a square device that looks similar to a portable phone charger. The device heats tobacco to about 240 degrees Celsius, causing it to release vapor. The product is now available in three other Japanese markets, one Canadian market, Switzerland and Korea.
Source: R.J. Reynolds
R.J. Reynolds Vapor markets e-cigarettes under the Vuse brand. Vuse Solo uses cartridges, while Vuse Vibe uses a pre-filled tank of nicotine liquid.
The Vuse Solo device includes vapor delivery processor technology. It is designed to monitor and adjust the power and heat that is sent to the nicotine liquid cartridge. The device repeats this process up to 2,000 times per second, which Reynolds says helps create consistently satisfying puffs.
There also are the Vuse Fob and Vuse Connect devices, which use Bluetooth technology to connect with an app. The devices send data about battery and cartridge levels to the app so users can stay updated about when they need to replace a cartridge or recharge their device.
R.J. Reynolds Vapor is a unit of Reynolds American Inc., which is now owned by British American Tobacco.
Logic's Vapeleaf productSource: Logic
Logic, a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco, sells Vapeleaf, a hybrid of an e-cigarette and a heat-not-burn product. The device heats a non-nicotine liquid. Then the vapor passes through a capsule and heats granulated tobacco.
Vapeleaf entered the market last summer, but a spokesman said the company was assessing the best retail and consumer opportunities before making the product widely available. Vapeleaf's availability is now being expanded within New York, New Jersey, Florida and Texas.
"Early indications show that both retailers and consumers are excited about the product and we are optimistic about its future in the USA — even more so following July's announcement from the FDA Commissioner (Scott Gottlieb)," the spokesman said.
Japan Tobacco is selling the technology overseas and branding it as Ploom Tech.The product is available in some Japanese cities and is expected to launch nationally in the first half of next year. It launched in Switzerland earlier this year.
Correction: If IQOS is approved approved in the U.S., Altria will have the sole distribution rights to sell it in the U.S. JUUL Labs produces the JUUL e-cigarette.
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db49bf6a09760f8b5d2db5f0327a2176 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/best-buy-ceo-sees-need-to-reform-taxes-and-nafta.html | Best Buy CEO sees need to reform taxes and NAFTA; wants permanent solution for 'dreamers' | Best Buy CEO sees need to reform taxes and NAFTA; wants permanent solution for 'dreamers'
Hubert Joly, CEO, Best BuyScott Eells | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said the consumer electronics retailer is "very much at the table" when it comes to talks about tax reform in Washington.
Joly was part of a group of retail CEOs who were speaking somewhat regularly to political leaders earlier this year as the industry rallied against the proposed Border Adjustment Tax. Retailers had pushed back on the proposal, as it would have levied a tax on almost all imports, which would have forced many to raise prices. While the so-called BAT is off the table, Joly remains part of the tax reform conversation.
Noting Best Buy's 36 percent tax rate, Joly said he wants a lower corporate tax for his company's sake and corporate America in general.
"My view is that the savings, the tax savings, will be reinvested in jobs, in investments, and get the country moving forward, and create opportunities for a wide variety of Americans," Joly said in an exclusive CNBC interview. Joly is French and runs a business headquartered in the U.S., with operations in Canada and Mexico. That makes both the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the North American Free Trade Agreement key items for Joly both personally and professionally. He said NAFTA should be modernized, as "there are topics that didn't exist 20 years ago that need to be included." Earlier this month, Joly signed a letter along with more than 350 other business leaders calling on President Donald Trump and Congress to pass legislation to permanently prevent the 800,000 so-called dreamers — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as youth — from being deported. "We need to find a permanent solution for [the 'dreamers']. Also from an economic standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. These are hard-working people who contribute to the economy," Joly said. "I'm really hopeful that people will find a permanent solution to this ... issue. We need to do this."
VIDEO1:2801:28Here's what major CEOs are saying about President Trump's decision to scrap DACADigital Original
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13050b8697e006b1e7685b07a96d9aea | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/best-buy-ceo-weve-fixed-what-was-broken-now-focus-is-on-growth.html | Best Buy CEO sees 'growth opportunities' ahead, Wall Street isn't buying it | Best Buy CEO sees 'growth opportunities' ahead, Wall Street isn't buying it
VIDEO2:1702:17CEO Hubert Joly: Best Buy 2020 focused on growthSquawk Box
It's been five years since Best Buy held an investor meeting. And while much has changed since the last one, there will still be skeptics in the audience at its Richfield, Minnesota, headquarters. At its last one, in November 2012 in New York, then-new chief executive Hubert Joly laid out his transformation plan "Renew Blue" to reverse sales declines and improve profitability through cost cuts and growing online sales. Best Buy did just that. "Five years ago the times were different. We had negative comps. Our margins were going down. There were questions about whether we were going to survive," Joly acknowledged in an exclusive CNBC interview. Earlier this year, Joly concluded the transformation was complete. "We've had four years of positive comps. Our margins have expanded. We have been, in the last five years, in the top 10 percent of the S&P 500 from a total shareholder return standpoint. Customer satisfaction is up. We're gaining share," he said.
"We've become relevant again," Joly said, smiling. "And I couldn't be more proud of what our associates have accomplished."
Speaking to CNBC ahead of the meeting, he outlined areas where he sees potential growth, such as in the connected home market and with smartphones. He said the transformation strategy was mainly about "fixing what was broken." The new strategy, Best Buy 2020, pivots and is "focused on growth.
Tuesday morning Best Buy released new financial targets for fiscal 2021 that it will discuss in detail at the meeting, as it outlines its plans for the next phase of growth. Investors were clearly disappointed, sending shares down more than 8 percent.
Revenue is expected to grow to $43 billion in fiscal 2021, versus $39.4 billion in fiscal 2017. Meanwhile, the company will look to realize $600 million in annual cost savings by the end of fiscal 2021.
As a result, Best Buy estimates its adjusted operating income in fiscal 2021 will be between $1.9 billion to $2.0 billion versus $1.7 billion in fiscal 2017. On an adjusted basis, its earnings are projected to be in the range of $4.75 to $5.00 a share, which is an 8 to 9 percent compound annual growth rate from fiscal 2017.
"We've taken the time to look at the strategic landscape. And we think that we are operating in a very attractive environment that's full of growth opportunities," Joly said.
Still, Best Buy will have to sell this strategy to investors. But that's nothing new, five years ago, some had doubted whether Joly was right for the job. While he had turnaround experience, he had spent the last eight years in the hospitality industry and was leaving his position as CEO of hotel group Carlson to lead a U.S. consumer electronics retailer. "We were consistently skeptical of Mr. Joly's lack of retail experience," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said in a note to investors. However, he added, "the company has executed nearly flawlessly since CEO Hubert Joly joined five years ago."
Still, Pachter has an underperform rating on Best Buy shares because he wonders if it can sustain its growth as a price war rages between retail behemoths Amazon and Wal-Mart.
The connected smart home might be the most comprehensive category for the retailer to find opportunity under the new strategy for both service and product sales.
According to various estimates, the global smart home market is expected to grow to $33 billion to $50 billion over the next four years. Piper Jaffray analyst Peter Keith estimates Best Buy could capture 10 percent market share in the connected smart home sector, which would add more than a full percentage point of same-store sales growth through 2021. A big initiative to capture that share is Best Buy's new In-Home Advisor program. After testing the program for more than a year in a handful of cities, it's currently rolling it out nationwide with a workforce of 300.
This program differs from Best Buy's Geek Squad because it's a free service. Best Buy employees with deep knowledge across product categories and brands go to customers' homes and provide technology advice and guidance on anything from increasing appliance efficiency to improving Wi-Fi connectivity to setting up home assistants that speak to the sound system and thermostat. While the program is in its infancy, the In-Home Advisors are already individually profitable. Joly says what's even better is the potential for long-term relationships with consumers. "Economically for us it's attractive because it helps make customers happy, build a relationship and grow the revenue line," he said. The margins are also better as the In-Home Advisors "unlock unmet needs" consumers don't realize they have until someone can assess their homes, Joly said. By the end of October, 450 Best Buy stores will have a smart home powered by Vivint section, and 1,500 smart home employees will join the team. Additionally Tuesday, Best Buy announced it's testing a service it calls Assured Living in Minneapolis and Denver, which uses technology to help loved ones check in on the safety and well-being of aging family members. Joly used an example of a woman he calls an alpha mom, who does everything for everyone, to explain how Assured Living might help her keep tabs on her aging parents. "There's a sensor under the bed or in the medicine cabinet with an app and artificial intelligence, she'll be able to be alerted if something is wrong." But Best Buy is counting on millennials for the biggest opportunity when it comes to the connected home. The retailer's market share with millennials is higher than any other demographic. "[Millennials] are finally leaving their parents' home and so they're actually moving to the suburbs. And so they need to equip their home," Joly said.
Millennials, along with most other demographics, count on their smartphones for more and more in their daily lives. But Best Buy has a relatively low market share in mobile. Part of Best Buy 2020 aims to change that. "Buying a phone can be daunting. It's a very expensive purchase. You have many choices you need to make," Joly said. "We have a number of initiatives and improvements to the shopping experience, making it easier for customers to find out what plan they should buy, making it more efficient to get the phone." Joly declined to comment on his expectations for the new Apple iPhones and anticipated Android smartphone releases this fall.
For years, the narrative surrounding Best Buy and Amazon was that the consumer electronics retailer was becoming merely a showroom for shoppers that ultimately bought on Amazon. This summer when news surfaced that Amazon was building its own Geek Squad-like service, Best Buy shares took a hit. But Joly has shown Best Buy can exist in an Amazon world, and in some cases, the two work together. Best Buy is rolling out new Amazon Alexa and Google Home assistant experiences to 700 stores. Best Buy employees will demonstrate how the smart home assistants work and Geek Squad members can provide help with support and installation, which fits in with the connected home strategy. Joly said his company's mission is to offer customers the best products in the market, and he puts Amazon's Echo devices and its Fire TVs in that category. Joly said that means "showcasing in our stores products from people who sometimes are our competitors." Amazon also indirectly helped Best Buy's online sales in July. Joly told analysts on its second-quarter earnings call that Amazon Prime Day was "quite strong for us." In fact, Best Buy's online comparable sales grew more than 31 percent in the second quarter, the strongest result under Joly yet.
Although Best Buy also posted its strongest same-store sales growth in seven years, its shares plunged more than 5 percent that August day after Joly and CFO Corie Barry laid out their holiday projections.
The executives warned analysts not to get used to 5.4 percent growth as "the new normal."
They also said the holiday quarter is hard to predict because it has very different characteristics than the rest of the year, particularly with the expectation for deep discounts from competitors.The fact is while Best Buy has been on a nice streak, the retailer hasn't turned in positive same-store sales growth during the holidays since 2014. Its current forecast doesn't point to a break in this pattern.Joly wouldn't elaborate on his expectations for the all-important season. He said, he's focused beyond it with Best Buy 2020. Ever an optimist, Joly said "this is an opportunity-rich environment." But he's also a realist, and understands the challenge that comes with the quickly evolving consumer landscape. "It's going to be a journey" Joly said. "We're looking forward to it."
VIDEO4:1704:17Is Amazon's smart home setup a major threat to Best Buy?Power Lunch
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2e254b7c23f6007e244dcb01260d4249 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/uber-sues-fetch-for-ad-fraud.html | Uber just sued one of its ad agencies, and it points to growing mistrust with mobile advertising | Uber just sued one of its ad agencies, and it points to growing mistrust with mobile advertising
Dara KhosrowshahiDrew Angerer | Getty Images
Uber is suing mobile marketing agency Fetch Media for allegedly "squandering" tens of millions of dollars on ads that never were seen or never existed.
The company filed the lawsuit against the Dentsu-owned agency in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday.
(Fetch said in a statement to CNBC: "We are shocked by Uber's allegations which are unsubstantiated, completely without merit, and purposefully inflammatory so as to draw attention away from Uber's unprofessional behaviour and failure to pay suppliers.")
Here's what Uber is claiming and why it is indicative of a growing problem in the advertising industry.
Uber claims it paid Fetch Media millions of dollars between late 2014 and early 2017 to buy mobile ads on behalf of the company. The total amount has been withheld, but the company said that just between 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, it paid Fetch more than $82.5 million.
It alleges Fetch Media spent the money on "nonviewable" ads, or ads that may have loaded on a webpage but were not seen by an actual person. Examples of nonviewable ads have included ads appearing lower on a website that a user never scrolled down to them or ads that are so small that they are indecipherable by the human eye. Uber also claims Fetch purchased nonexistent advertising, or bought ads on websites that didn't exist.
In a statement to CNBC, Uber said:
Fetch was running a wild west of online advertising fraud, allowing Uber ads on websites we wanted nothing to do with, and fraudulently claiming credit for app downloads that happened without a customer ever clicking on an ad.
The agency allegedly knew about these problems, but continued to spend the money as if nothing was wrong. Uber's contract required it to pay for an ad if someone installed the Uber app, they were a new customer and/or they took their first trip after seeing it. To show that these ads were working, Fetch provided data showing Uber increased its number of app installs. Fetch's metrics made the company appear so successful that Uber's advertising spend increased from less than $1 million a month in late 2015 to more than $6 million a month by late 2016.
However Uber claims the new customers would have come regardless if Fetch placed the ads or not because of the popularity of the company.
In response, Fetch had this statement:
Fetch terminated its agreement with Uber months ago after Uber stopped paying invoices for services provided by over fifty small business suppliers, engaged by Fetch to place Uber's mobile advertising. Following months of non-payment, Uber eventually raised unsubstantiated claims relating to ad-fraud as a reason not to pay its invoices, but there is no basis to these claims. Fetch not only delivered Uber's strategic goals, helping it acquire over 37 million new users since 2014, but also achieved an outstanding rating from the client throughout the two-year relationship.
Whatever of the merits of this case, it does highlight a growing concern in digital advertising. As more companies advertise online, more are concerned that they're paying for ads that don't exist, or never get seen by anyone.
Advertising group Media Rating Council (MRC) currently sets the standard for an online viewable ad as 50 percent of the photo or text ad has to be seen for 1 second, or 2 seconds if it is video. Even with these minimal standards, advertising technology company Integral Ad Science estimates only 53 percent of online ads in the U.S. are viewable.
Because so much advertising online is bought automatically with technology — or "programatically" — it is very hard to verify if ads ran where they were supposed to run. Previously people could check and see if an ad was in a magazine or newspaper. But because there are so many websites online and so much advertising being bought each second, there's no way to check every purchase. The same issue is behind why several neo-Nazi and jihadist ads were seen running on Google-owned platforms back in March.
-- CNBC's Deirdre Bosa contributed to this report.
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ddfcc852becca3209f0a33c49186e205 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/amazons-move-into-whole-foods-isnt-going-to-hurt-couriers-fedex.html | Amazon's move into Whole Foods stores isn't going to hurt couriers, FedEx CEO says | Amazon's move into Whole Foods stores isn't going to hurt couriers, FedEx CEO says
Frederick 'Fred' SmithJoshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images
FedEx's CEO had an undaunted response when asked on a call with analysts and investors about how Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods Markets may disrupt retailers and the courier business.
"E-commerce is not going to eliminate the retailing sector of the country," FedEx CEO Fred Smith said Tuesday. "It's about 10 percent now. It's certainly going to grow as a percentage. But will it be half? I doubt it."
E-commerce represented a little more than 8 percent of total U.S. retail sales through the first three quarters of 2016, according to data from Nielsen. The firm has projected that rate will grow by as much as 12.2 percent through 2020.
Deloitte is expecting total retail sales this holiday season to grow by as much as 4.5 percent, up from last year's 3.6 percent increase. E-commerce sales are expected to climb 18 to 21 percent this year, with more shoppers ringing up gifts online.
"I think you're going to see e-tailers become more brick-and-mortar," Smith added. "And I think you're going to see brick-and-mortar become more e-tailers. And how that all shakes out, I don't know."
In buying Whole Foods, Amazon wanted to get into the grocery business, but not with the goal of becoming a business courier, Smith said.
"Groceries are heavy, hard to handle, people like to come and see the produce and so forth," he said.
During the call, FedEx's chief marketing and communications officer, Rajesh Subramaniam, added: "More and more retailers are evolving their business model to compete with pure-play e-tailers, and we see this as an opportunity to provide even better value for our customers — whether it's fulfilling from store or a [distribution center]."
FedEx's share price was up 3 percent Wednesday. After Tuesday's closing bell, FedEx lowered its 2018 earnings outlook to account for the impact of the TNT Express cyberattack in June and said Hurricane Harvey also negatively impacted its fiscal first-quarter results.
FedEx shares have climbed more than 17 percent in 2017, and are up more than 30 percent over the past 12 months. Rival UPS' shares are up about 2 percent this year.
VIDEO4:1004:10Amazon's threat to FedEx is being ignored: StrategistClosing Bell
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8acc8199d052444882ce43b2897d520a | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/apple-ceo-tim-cooks-views-on-immigration-and-daca.html | CEO Tim Cook says Apple is pushing extremely hard on DACA: 'I am personally shocked that there is even a discussion of this' | CEO Tim Cook says Apple is pushing extremely hard on DACA: 'I am personally shocked that there is even a discussion of this'
VIDEO0:5700:57Apple CEO Tim Cook defends DACA immigration programNews Videos
Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday that immigration is the "biggest issue of our time," and that his company is pushing extremely hard on immigration reform.
In particular, Cook defended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary protection and work authorization for young immigrants, brought to the U.S. as children, who are living in the country illegally.
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security said it would phase out the program. President Donald Trump has said that there would be no action over the next six months, but that it was Congress' job to legalize the program.
"This is unacceptable," Cook said in an interview at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum. "This is not who we are as a country. I am personally shocked that there's even a discussion on this. It's not a political thing, at least I don't see it that way at all. It's about basic human decency and respect."
Cook has said that Apple will work with Congress on behalf of its employees that benefit from the DACA program — people that many refer to as "dreamers."
"I wish everyone in America loved America this much," Cook said of the Dreamers that work at Apple.
"If I were a world leader, my goal would be to monopolize the world's talent," Cook added. "Smart people create jobs. ... I'd have a very aggressive plan, not to just let a few people in, but I'd be recruiting."
Michael Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg L.P. and former mayor of New York City, said that Bloomberg employees that are immigrants in the U.S. have been asking to be transferred to foreign offices in light of recent immigration policy proposals.
"Words have consequences," Bloomberg said. "We need a constant source of new blood ... they will go someplace else that's more welcoming."
Bloomberg compared the end of DACA to a bank robbery: If a woman walked into a bank holding a baby, pulled out a gun and held up a bank, we wouldn't prosecute the infant, Bloomberg said.
Critics of DACA have argued that it signals the U.S. is willing to grant amnesty to those that immigrate illegally, which could feed into the larger issue of border control. But Cook said he believes it's an issue of being "human," recalling a trip to historic immigration center Ellis Island in New York.
'You can feel the people in that room," Cook said of Ellis Island. "You can feel the anxiety and the hope. That's where we all started. ... as children of immigrants."
VIDEO2:5302:53US business schools are struggling to recruit international candidatesTV Optimized
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9eaa8917ce87b52d6e49ea14e6a2321d | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/beyond-the-thermostat-googles-nest-rolls-out-home-security-system.html | Alphabet's Nest introduces new home security devices as CEO promises big increase in sales | Alphabet's Nest introduces new home security devices as CEO promises big increase in sales
VIDEO1:5601:56A first look at Nest's new home security systemDigital Original
Alphabet's Nest unit, which makes internet-linked home devices, is entering the security-hardware market as it tries to expand beyond its smart-thermostat business.
At an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, the company unveiled a variety of products for home security, including a smart doorbell with camera and facial recognition and a home security system consisting of motion-detecting sensors and cameras. The company says it's focused on ease of use.
At the event, Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz forecast that the company will ship more products this year than in last two years combined. "Security is an industry desperate for innovation," Fawaz said. Wired also reported that an unnamed Nest executive said the division would be on a $1 billion "run rate" by the end of this year -- meaning it would be on track to book $1 billion in revenue over a 12-month period -- but Nest declined to comment on that figure.
The first product introduced was a "smart" doorbell called Hello that will include a camera and facial recognition to identify visitors. It will ship next year, and Nest did not announce pricing.
The company also introduced a home security system called Secure, which combines motion detectors, a set of cameras, and a passcode-input device called the Nest Guard. Users can unlock the system by swiping a fob called the Tag over the Guard device.
The motion detector, known as Detect, is able to detect all sorts of motions at both short and long ranges. For instance, if it's placed on a window, it can detect when the window is opened, while if it's in a room it can tell if somebody's moving through that room. Nest claims this sets it apart from other products on the market.
A Nest executive introduces the Nest Guard, part of the Alphabet subsidiary's new line of home security products.
The company also announced that its intelligent personal assistant, the Google Assistant, is coming to the indoor camera. That brings Alphabet into more direct competition with the Amazon Echo class of devices, which include Alexa.
The company is promoting these devices as being easy to use, overcoming the traditional view of connected home devices as complicated geeks-only toys. "Tough on bad guys, easy on you," said Nest co-founder Matt Rogers.
Prices vary depending on the combination of products you buy. For instance, the outdoor camera alone is $349, while the complete Secure package with all those products costs $598.
Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion in cash in early 2014. Nest co-founder Tony Fadell stepped down in June 2016, after the company failed to quickly refresh its product line, and the former Apple executive faced criticism over an alleged mercurial management style.
Nest named Fawaz, a cable industry veteran, to replace Fadell. This is the first major new product line for Nest since Fawaz took over, although the company did release a less expensive version of its smart thermostat earlier this year.
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b959602e309b02112a69b02ca90a4f49 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/bill-ackman-says-adp-is-overstating-its-total-return-under-current-ceo.html | Bill Ackman says ADP is 'overstating' its total return under current CEO | Bill Ackman says ADP is 'overstating' its total return under current CEO
VIDEO4:1504:15Bill Ackman: ADP has started to see real competitionHalftime Report
Bill Ackman fired back at Automatic Data Processing's management on CNBC's "Halftime Report" Wednesday.
The investor responded to a question on the company's presentation comparing ADP's stock performance under its CEO versus his hedge fund track record.
"Those numbers are not correct and one of the things we're going to point out in a presentation we're going to release tomorrow is that the company overstates their total shareholder return under the CEO's track record," said the hedge fund manager, claiming ADP starts the calculation of the figure the day after the new CEO began, among other alleged mistakes.
Ackman also cited how the return included the stock performance of CDK Global, which was spun off from the company in 2014.
In a statement on Aug. 4, ADP compared its six-year stock performance under Rodriguez to Pershing Square's hedge-fund returns from 2012 to 2016.
"Since Carlos Rodriguez became CEO nearly six years ago, ADP's total shareholder return of 202% is well in excess of the S&P 500 TSR of 128% - and is many multiples of Pershing's TSR of 29%," the company said.
The hedge fund manager said ADP needed to make changes or it may face challenges like other big technology companies that didn't innovate.
"I'm not saying ADP is IBM today, but it is at risk of becoming IBM if they don't take seriously the competitive threats they face and if they don't run their businesses as efficiently as they can," he said.
His hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management has nominated three directors to ADP's board, including Ackman, for the Nov. 7 annual meeting.
The firm said in a letter to shareholders Wednesday it has a $2.3 billion investment stake in ADP and is "not seeking control of the company."
Last month ADP disclosed it had been approached by Ackman, and the two sides have engaged in a war of words since then.
ADP CEO Carlos Rodriguez told CNBC on Aug. 10 that Bill Ackman reminds him of a "spoiled brat" who wants a schoolteacher to give him an extension. Ackman revealed his "transformation plan" for ADP on Aug. 17 to more than double the company's stock price in an 167 slide presentation.
ADP's profit "margins are vastly below where they should be," Ackman said on a conference call, walking listeners through Pershing Square's analysis and research. "ADP's historical success has made it a lethargic and inefficient sleeping giant," he wrote in the presentation.
His hedge fund has stumbled in recent years with high-profile losing bets on Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Pershing Square Holdings is underperforming the market this year. The fund is down 7.3 percent year to date through Sept. 12, according to its website. By contrast, the S&P 500 has an 11.5 percent return in the same time period.
An ADP spokesperson sent the following statement in response to this story:
"Pershing Square's claim that ADP has underperformed is not based on the facts. ADP has generated total shareholder returns in excess of 200% since Carlos Rodriguez became CEO nearly six years ago, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 and its peers. Over that same period, ADP has increased margins in core operations by 580 basis points, and continues to pursue an aggressive long-term strategy to further improve service and client satisfaction through technology transformation while driving revenue growth and margin expansion. ADP's Board is concerned that Pershing Square's extreme, swing-for-the-fences proposals and unqualified nominees would disrupt client services and damage relationships, putting ADP – and the value of shareholders' investments – at significant risk."
— CNBC's Liz Moyer contributed to this story.
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807b7efde543350dc1ae51690f3251a3 | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/earnings-calls-when-artificial-intelligence-can-do-it-better.html | Why listen to earnings calls when artificial intelligence can do it better? | Why listen to earnings calls when artificial intelligence can do it better?
CBS | Getty Images
Venture-capital backed Prattle will begin offering a new service Monday that quantifies and scores the language used in earnings calls and reports filed by 3,000 U.S. public companies.
The company, which is backed by venture-capital firms including New Enterprise Associates and GCM Grosvenor, uses natural language processing and machine learning techniques to improve on current methods of analyzing text and sentiment. Traditional text analysis often uses a simple calculation of the number of positive and negative words in a report or transcript.
Analysts and fundamental portfolio managers are trying to shift from decision-making that relies on human subjectivity to a quantitative approach or a mix of both quant and fundamental analysis, according to Evan Schnidman, Prattle's chief executive officer.
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"We're quantifying what wasn't quantifiable before," said Schnidman, a game theorist who taught at Brown University and Harvard University before founding Prattle.
After an earnings call, for example, Prattle provides a score, as well as the sentiment of every speaker. Schnidman expects its methodology to be highly accurate based on its experience distilling language used by central banks into quantitative sentiment data that projects policy outcomes. So far Prattle has predicted outcomes from the nuanced language of central bankers with 98 percent accuracy in the year and a half that it has offered the service.
Schnidman says the company is not looking for new patterns or investment insights in big data. Instead, Prattle is making it more efficient to mine proven sources of market-moving information by using advanced computing techniques.
Evan Schnidman, founder and CEO of Prattle.Source: YouTube
For example, if a company's numbers are positive, but the tone is downbeat during an earnings call, Prattle's equity analytics platform can quantify that gap in a way that is difficult for a human analyst to do.
The provider of sentiment data that predicts market reactions understands that as its services become popular, they may also become less effective as investors flock to the same trades. This hasn't yet happened to its central bank service, according to Schnidman, who said Prattle will keep investing in the offering to prevent a loss in effectiveness.
"When does this cease to be alpha and baked into beta?" he said. "There is more risk of crowding in mid- and small-cap stocks than large caps, but we'll just have to become more sophisticated."
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a713c511fadad2fc2a6ca8c88fe7752c | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/thrift-stores-and-consignment-reach-customers-on-facebook-instagram.html | As retailers close, thrift stores and consignment reach customers on Facebook, Instagram | As retailers close, thrift stores and consignment reach customers on Facebook, Instagram
A woman looks over a pair of pants at a consignment shop in Palm Beach, Fl.Andrew Innerarity | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Melissa Baxter started working in the thrift store industry as a teen and fell in love with the business. At 20, she bought a small consignment shop in the Atlanta suburbs.
Now 35, and the owner of Back by Popular Demand consignment shops in Linburn and Marietta, Georgia, she has to adapt faster than ever as e-commerce websites like thredUP and luxury re-seller The RealReal make it easier to buy online.
For traditional, physical stores with less than $1 million in annual sales, resources like venture capital funding aren't typically an option. That's led owners to use strategies such as holding merchandise shows using Facebook's live streaming feature, and stylist services to bring in revenue.
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"We have to just be more creative. We have to use what's at our fingertips," said Baxter whose business also includes what she calls "Prom Headquarters" a portion of her Linburn location that sells prom dresses from size zero to 28. "Most of us have active Facebook followings, we have active Instagram followings. And it's really instantaneous." As traditional mainstream retail struggles and stores such as Gap and J.C. Penney close stores, the consignment clothing and accessory market continues to grow. thredUP's annual report, followed by the industry, forecasts a $33 billion resale apparel market, both in stores and on websites, by 2021. That's up from $18 billion in 2016.
"People don't realize how much online selling brick and mortars do," said Adele Meyer, who has overseen the National Association of Reseller and Thrift Stores for more than two decades. "Now, the newest trend is Facebook Live sales." Supply doesn't seem to be running out. The average American woman doesn't wear 60% of items in her closet, or about $220 billion in potential inventory, according to Fung Global Retail Tech, a consulting firm.
The resale market is resilient in the face of direct online selling sites like eBay and Letigo because consignment shops take the time to assess the quality of the merchandise before they price and sell it. Most people think their item is worth more than it is, especially in apparel, Meyer said. For Vena Holden, owner of Selective Seconds in Greenwood, Indiana, growing means holding events on Facebook Live and even taking customers on overnight bus tours to other consignment shop outlets.
Holden, 58, has run her shop for 20 years and regularly takes customers on overnight bus tours of other consignment shops. She recently began holding live shows on Facebook. "I believe it's going to work, at least temporarily," Holden said.
ThredUp, with about 1,000 employees, estimates it will sell 10 million items this year, putting it on track to double for the fourth year in a row. This year it opened stores targeting cities where it has a concentration of online customers in San Marcos and Austin, Texas and a third in Walnut Creek, California. CEO James Reinhart says the company may open more.
"You're still looking at 10, 15, 20 years where you're still going to sell more stuff offline than you are online," Reinhart said. "So, as a practical matter, it was 'we should have stores because that's where customers buy.'"
The RealReal CEO Julie Wainwright says her company, which sells items that range from $45 M. Missoni leggings to a $40,000 Hermes bag and even has rugs as high as $200,000 apiece decided to open physical stores after the success of a temporary, or pop-up, shop had $2 million in sales over an 18-day period. The company, with 950 employees, is on track to reach $500 million in sales this year, she said. "We found that the pop-up stores helped people think about us differently. It was an exercise in branding," she said. The RealReal employs about 50 experts, 35 of which are gemologists. Watchmakers, a curator that worked at Sotheby's and other experts make up the rest. Wainwright said. To further involve customers with the brand, The RealReal plans classes on how items are priced. Jennifer Mann Hillman, a former marketing executive for retailers like Estee Lauder, and business partner costume designer Lisa Eisler, were going through clothes that were too small for their daughters. They decided they had too many things and both were interested in philanthropy. Hillman had worked closely with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Something clicked.
Last month, they opened the Los Angeles-based website LuxAnthropy , which partners with charities to donate a portion of sales. "We thought 'there's got to be someplace where we can sell things and make money with our items and have some part of it donated to a charity that we love,' and we looked around and there really wasn't anything like it," Mann Hillman said. In its first month, the business has accumulated more than 2,000 pieces from Hollywood insiders and wealthy business people. By partnering with charities such as Los Angeles Children's Hospital and housing provider Help USA, charities see LuxAnthropy as ``essentially creating a new revenue stream," Hillman said. "We've had such a remarkable response," Eisler said.
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def9c1651428abe34cc961853d8a8759 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-15-fi-bloggers15-story.html | Blogging moms wooed by firms : Food giants provide lavish goodies. Parents provide the buzz. Is it ethical? | Blogging moms wooed by firms : Food giants provide lavish goodies. Parents provide the buzz. Is it ethical?
On most days, Andrea Deckard can be found in her home office, digging through stacks of coupons and grocery receipts for money saving tips and recipes that she can share with readers of her Mommy Snacks blog.
That is, when the stay-at-home mom isn’t being wined and dined by giant food companies.
Earlier this year, Frito-Lay flew her to Los Angeles to meet celebrities such as model Brooke Burke and the Spice Girls’ Mel B, while pitching her on its latest snack ad campaign.
More recently, Nestle paid to put her and 16 other so-called “mommy bloggers” -- and one daddy blogger -- up at the posh Langham Huntington hotel in Pasadena, treated them to a private show at the Magic Castle in Hollywood and sent packages of frozen Omaha Steaks to their families to tide them over while the women were away learning all about the company’s latest product lines.
In return, Deckard and her virtual sisterhood filed Twitter posts raving about Nestle’s canned pumpkin, Wonka candy and Juicy Juice drinks.
“People have accused us of being corporate shills,” said Deckard, a Monroe, Ohio, mother of three whose junkets have also included a free trip to Frito-Lay’s Texas headquarters. Deckard, noting that she is up front with her readers about such trips, said they are educational for her and her fans, and “just fun.”
Besides, she added, “it’s not like I sold my soul for a chocolate bar.”
Others aren’t so sure. As food companies big and small scramble to woo parents-turned-bloggers, nutrition activists worry that the food industry is funding an advertising campaign for its products without consumers realizing it.
“This is very shrewd marketing,” said Barbara Moore, chief executive of Shape Up America, an obesity-fighting nonprofit group. “The expectation that the industry players have is that people they are wining and dining will write about their products positively.”
Free-flowing wine and buffet tables laden with crudites are now common features of a company-sponsored function for bloggers. Some companies are even offering free kitchen appliances, vacations, groceries and enough fruity snacks to feed a neighborhood’s worth of kids.
The growing trend is fueling legal and social debate over how bloggers disclose what goodies they get. New guidelines unveiled last month by the Federal Trade Commission say bloggers must divulge financial or product compensation they get in exchange for writing about a company’s products. The regulations are set to go into effect Dec. 1.
But critics worry that the guidelines are too vague and will hold bloggers to a different, or more stringent, standard than traditional media outlets. They say the FTC isn’t being clear about what material needs to be disclosed and doesn’t specify how these disclosures must be made.
“They’re treating blogging like it’s pornography,” said Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of the online community group BlogHer. “They think you’ll know unethical blogging when you see it.”
Whatever one may think of mommy bloggers, there has never been a better time to be a parent with Internet access. An estimated 42 million women in the U.S. take part in social media services each week, and 55% of them are regularly reading, writing or responding to blogs, according to a 2009 survey by BlogHer.
In some ways, this marketing push has been happening for years: Companies hawking a variety of goods, from diamonds to digital cameras, have been eager to get parent bloggers to write posts that tout their products.
But recently, these bloggers say, food companies have upped the ante, bombarding them with free trips to corporate kitchens and mountains of edible swag.
Starbucks, eager to get working parents drinking its Via instant coffee, sent limousines to shuttle bloggers in New York City for a private lunch with executives. They left with bags stuffed with coffee and offers of bottomless future refills.
Fast-food purveyor Taco Bell flew a group of bloggers from Maryland, Michigan and Missouri to California for a retreat this spring, paid for their lodging and let them spend the day creating new taco and burrito concoctions.
Kraft Foods curried favor with mommy bloggers by bringing some to Los Angeles for the Grilled Cheese Invitational, in an effort to get online parents hungry for cheese.
The rationale is pure economics. The food industry -- from restaurants to supermarkets and manufacturers -- has seen sales slide during the recession and is looking for new ways to reach customers. And the people online they want are parents.
It’s a strategy that recalls post-World War II ad campaigns, in which women touted the benefits of certain laundry soaps and the household brands that would make them a domestic goddess.
“They handle the family budget,” said Amanda Vega, an industry consultant who specializes in social media and public relations. “People read them and believe them, because they’re easy to identify with.”
They also rarely are critical. Christine Young, owner of the From Dates to Diapers blog, has a closet full of free baby products she never liked. She hasn’t mentioned them in her blog.
They’re still there, sitting on the shelves, waiting to be donated.
“My business is not to bash companies,” said Young, 32, who lives in the Sacramento area. “My business is to create buzz for the products and services we enjoy.”
That philosophy has created a rift in the parental blogosphere, between those who take freebies and those who don’t. And companies have learned that backlash over corporate pampering can quickly turn explosive.
The recent Nestle trip was designed to let the bloggers “get a better feel for Nestle” in exchange for consumer input, said organizer Becky Chao, director of the company’s Moms With Kids Insights program.
Nestle set up a Twitter tag and created a website with pictures of the invited mom and dad bloggers to encourage them to talk to their readers.
And the company intentionally made its recent event a lavish one “to make the bloggers feel comfortable while they were here, away from their families,” Chao said.
But critics of the company countered that the event was a public relations ploy in reaction to an ongoing boycott of Nestle for marketing baby milk formula as a substitute for breast feeding in developing countries.
In fact, before the trip, critics reached out to the bloggers invited to California and urged them to not go.
No one canceled.
As the event got underway, the online conversation quickly turned into an online battlefield. The company’s Twitter channel was so inundated with anti-Nestle messages, and nasty accusations aimed at the attendees, that it was essentially shut down. The company, caught off guard, let the parents field questions aimed at executives until finally stepping into the fray.
Afterward, thousands of people joined Facebook groups dedicated to boycotting the company, according to critics of the company.
“I do think they should have done a bit of due diligence in researching the company before choosing to be associated with them and to accept a free trip from them,” said Annie Urban, author of the PhD in Parenting blog and the person credited with kicking off the Nestle brouhaha.
“It is one thing to cluelessly pick up a Nestle chocolate bar in the store, but it is another thing altogether to accept an all-expenses-paid trip and agree to have your face and name on a Nestle Family Bloggers page.”
As for those who just say no, they fret about their credibility being tainted. Tales of unreported luxury suites and cross-country trips made Liz Gumbinner cringe so much that she helped launch Blog With Integrity. The goal is to rally support for demarcating the line between personal observations and paid posts.
“It’s easy to paint everyone as product whores,” said Gumbinner, 41, who lives in Brooklyn and has run her Mom101 blog since 2006. “They’re not. I think sometimes they’re just naive.”
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p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com
jerry.hirsch@latimes.com
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6fd500edfae8407d84a21c1bc77ab7e2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-15-na-healthcare15-story.html | Medicare cuts may burden doctors | Medicare cuts may burden doctors
A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.
Medicare cuts, proposed by the House in its healthcare package, were likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare patients altogether, said the report, which was requested by House Republicans.
Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but “so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings” than is currently projected, according to the analysis by Richard Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the healthcare overhaul package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.
More generally, the report questions whether doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.
In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, “exacerbating existing access problems” in that program, according to the report.
Though the report does not attempt to quantify that effect, Foster wrote: “It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would not be realized.”
The report offers the clearest and most authoritative assessment to date of the effect that Democratic healthcare proposals would have on Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health programs.
It analyzes the House bill approved this month, but the Senate is also expected to rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to finance the package that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to take to the floor this week. Like the House, the Senate is expected to propose adding millions of people to Medicaid.
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14b927b9b3512a8082de127c320bf38a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-15-oe-blumenthal15-story.html | Will Palin make it a rogue GOP? : She’s an establishment villain but a hero to the grass roots. | Will Palin make it a rogue GOP? : She’s an establishment villain but a hero to the grass roots.
In a Republican Party hoping to rebound in 2010 on the strength of a newly energized and ideologically aroused conservative grass roots, Sarah Palin’s influence is now unparalleled. She was the one who popularized the notion that Democrats advocated “death panels” as part of their healthcare plan, a charge that helped ignite conservative opposition to reform. More recently, in a special congressional election in upstate New York, Palin’s endorsement of Doug Hoffman, an unknown, far-right third-party candidate, helped force a popular moderate Republican politician, Dede Scozzafava, from the race. And now, although her ghostwritten memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” won’t be officially released until Tuesday, advance sales have kept it in the No. 1 position at Amazon.com for weeks.
But there is another side to Palin’s power. During the 2008 presidential race, some Republican elders warned of her destructive influence. They insisted she was a polarizing figure whose extremism would accelerate the party’s slide. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who had written glowingly of Sen. John McCain, said Palin represented “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party.” Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Reagan and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, blasted Palin as “a dope and unqualified.” Last June, Steve Schmidt, the former McCain campaign strategist, warned that Palin’s nomination as the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee would be “catastrophic.”
New polling data appear to support such doomsday prophecies. According to an Oct. 19 Gallup Poll, the former governor of Alaska has become one of the most polarizing and unpopular politicians in the country. Since she quit the governorship to work on her book, her unfavorability rating has spiked to 50% while her favorability has sunk to 40%, according to Gallup’s figures. (The only national politician who is less popular right now, according to the poll, is John Edwards, the former two-term senator who fathered a child out of wedlock while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.)
If Palin is indeed a cancer on the GOP, why can’t the Republican establishment retire her to a life of moose hunting in the political wilderness? Why has her appeal increased in the wake of her catastrophic political expeditions?
The answer lies beyond the realm of polls and punditry in the political psychology of the movement that animates and, to a great degree, controls the Republican grass roots -- a uniquely evangelical subculture defined by the personal crises of its believers and their perceived persecution at the hands of cosmopolitan elites.
By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the “liberal media,” Palin has established an intimate bond with adherents of that subculture -- one so visceral it transcends rational political analysis. As a result, her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of daily life, assuring them that they represented the “real America.”
Take Palin’s daughter Bristol and her very public pregnancy. Bristol’s drama caught vividly a culture of personal crisis that defines so many evangelical communities. A landmark congressionally funded study of adolescent behavior, “The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health,” suggests that the Palin family’s situation is not uncommon. It found that white, evangelical adolescents lose their virginity, on average, at age 16 -- earlier than any group except black Protestants. In Lubbock, Texas, where abstinence education has been mandated since 1995, the rate of gonorrhea is now double the national average, while teen pregnancy has spiked to the highest levels in the state.
Palin consolidated her bond with the movement by cradling her new son, Trig, born with Down syndrome, on the stage of the Republican National Convention. Palin’s decision to carry the baby to term excited evangelicals and antiabortion activists, including James C. Dobson, who wrote a letter congratulating her for having “that little Down syndrome baby.”
“What a way to emphasize your pro-life leanings there!” he exclaimed during a radio broadcast in which he endorsed the McCain-Palin ticket, even though he had denounced McCain as a “liberal” only weeks before.
After the stock market collapsed in the fall of 2008 and the McCain campaign ran off the rails, Palin untethered herself -- or, as her book title has it, she went “rogue” -- ignoring McCain’s rules on attacking Obama. Instead, she lashed out at candidate Obama in her own distinctive way. “This is a man who launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist,” she insisted. “This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.”
With these two lines, apparently uttered without the permission of McCain or his top aides, Palin opened a deep schism in the campaign while unleashing a flood of emotions from the depths of the party faithful. And by “going rogue,” she instinctively and craftily propelled her ambitions beyond election day.
Palin now represents both her party’s future -- and the greatest danger it faces.
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2accabac9f6a9deccbbd8c1d1171972c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-16-ed-yesmen16-story.html | Under their cyber-skin | Under their cyber-skin
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has emerged in recent years as a vigorous proponent of strong intellectual-property laws, joining the entertainment industry, publishers and software developers in pushing the government to do more to combat counterfeit goods and digital piracy. That’s a natural role for one of the business world’s top lobbying forces, considering how important copyrights, patents and trademarks have become to U.S. firms in the information age. Lately, however, the chamber has resorted to the kind of intellectual-property overkill that only undermines the public’s respect for the rights the chamber is so eager to protect.
A troupe of anti-corporate pranksters called the Yes Men drew the chamber’s ire with a pair of stunts in October that mocked the lobbying organization’s obstructionist position on global warming. The Yes Men’s modus operandi is to impersonate people in order to ridicule their stance on issues. On Oct. 19, the troupe released a statement, purportedly from the chamber, announcing that it had reversed its position and would support a bill to cap carbon emissions. The Yes Men also created a fake chamber website, using the trademarked chamber logo and linking to pages on the real site, to add verisimilitude to the prank. Two members of the troupe then held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to elaborate on the change in policy, posing as chamber spokesmen (and slapping the chamber’s logo on the podium). Minutes into the event, a representative of the real chamber interrupted the conference to expose the deception.
Edgy? Yes. Illegal? Hardly. What the Yes Men did was clearly parody -- an attention-getting practical joke that had (fake) chamber representatives discrediting the (real) chamber’s arguments. And the joke worked only because the hoax was exposed. More important, it was also commentary on public policy, the kind of protected speech that the courts and Congress have long exempted from infringement claims. Yet the chamber swung back hard at the troupe, using one of the most powerful weapons in the copyright arsenal. The day after the mock news conference, an attorney for the chamber sent a letter to Internet service provider Hurricane Electric demanding that the bogus website be taken down because it violated the chamber’s copyrights. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Law effectively compels Internet providers to grant such requests automatically, without examining their legal merit -- otherwise they risk being held liable for the alleged infringements too. But Hurricane Electric wasn’t supplying Internet access directly for the site; it was providing bandwidth to another Internet provider, MayFirst/People Link, that connected the parody site to the Net along with about 400 other organizations’ websites -- all of which were knocked off-line by the chamber’s move.
MayFirst and the parody site got back online shortly thereafter. The chamber then filed suit against the troupe, saying it had violated federal trademark protection and anti-cybersquatting laws. In the chamber’s view, the coordinated stunts were a scheme to promote Yes Men merchandise and ticket sales for a newly released Yes Men movie. “These infringing and fraudulent acts are antithetical to public debate on important issues, because they prevent the public and the press from knowing the true position of the intellectual property owner whose trademarks and copyrights were used without permission,” the chamber’s lawsuit argues.
The chamber needs to develop thicker skin. Rather than confusing people about the chamber’s views on global warming, the “commercial identity theft” at the heart of the Yes Men’s stunt helped call attention to them. That’s what any good parody does. The aim of the bogus news conference and website wasn’t to gain a competitive advantage over the chamber by damaging its brand or deluding the public, which trademark and cybersquatting laws were designed to guard against. It was to raise the heat on the chamber to change its position on cap-and-trade legislation. Granted, the troupe had a movie to promote, but that’s speech too -- in the Michael Moore, corporate-America-as-villain vein. It’s a message that the chamber may not like, but one that the Yes Men should be able to deliver without having to defend themselves in court.
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93cfc682a81c52622d0abc3bf69a3adb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-16-et-broad16-story.html | Cities compete for Broad museum : Santa Monica and Beverly Hills vie for the billionaire’s art center as plans expand. | Cities compete for Broad museum : Santa Monica and Beverly Hills vie for the billionaire’s art center as plans expand.
Art collector and philanthropist Eli Broad has nearly doubled the size of the museum he intends to build on the Westside for his 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, and the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are vying to be its home.
He will also create a $200-million endowment that would generate $12 million a year to operate the privately run, nonprofit institution. The only bigger single cash donation to the arts in Southern California history would be J. Paul Getty’s initial $700-million 1976 bequest to establish the J. Paul Getty Trust -- $2.65 billion in today’s dollars.
Broad said that he isn’t trying to play the two municipalities against each other -- and added that there is a third possible location that he declined to name. The billionaire said he hopes that by talking to several different cities he can accelerate the process of building the headquarters for his Broad Art Foundation.
“We don’t want this to go on indefinitely, which can happen when you’re dealing with cities,” Broad said as he prepared to preside as co-chairman over the local art world’s big event of the season, Saturday night’s 30th anniversary gala for the Museum of Contemporary Art. “It could be three years, and I’m 76 years of age.”
Nevertheless, the move by Broad to fast-track the development pitted officials of the two cities against each other in competition to land a brand-new cultural jewel.
Kevin McKeown, a Santa Monica city councilman, said, “I’ll do everything I can to make this happen.”
He said council members learned about the Broad proposal Friday when they received a report from the city manager.
“I think what Santa Monica has to offer is an incredible audience, a prime location and willingness to work with the Broads,” McKeown said.
Cheryl Burnett, the city of Beverly Hills’ spokeswoman, issued a statement Saturday making it clear that Beverly Hills is in it to win. “While we recognize that the Broad Foundation has many options. . . . There’s no better place than Beverly Hills to showcase this world-class contemporary art collection.”
Broad had approached Beverly Hills about building his museum at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. A year ago, Joanne Heyler, director of the Broad Art Foundation, said two other sites were under consideration, with plans for a 25,000-square-foot museum, plus space for the foundation offices and a storage and research area for the works not on display.
Santa Monica officials approached him several months ago, Broad said, and proposed that he build on 2.5 acres of city-owned land next to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
The plan, outlined in a report by City Manager P. Lamont Ewell, calls for the city to lease the land to Broad’s foundation for a “token” amount, to kick in about $1 million for design and construction, to provide parking, and to plant and continue to maintain the museum’s exterior landscaping.
The report says Broad wants the city to absorb the project’s permit costs and pay for the required environmental impact review.
Additionally, Broad and the city will discuss a possible $6-million sale of the existing Broad Art Foundation building in Santa Monica to the city. The 1927 vintage building isn’t big enough to house all of Broad’s art, and because of parking problems it never has been open to the public.
The tone of the Santa Monica city manager’s report is both enthusiastic and urgent.
“The benefits of the proposal are readily apparent,” Ewell writes -- “a world-class cultural amenity . . . [that] would significantly advance city policies that strongly favor promoting the arts and fostering cultural opportunities.” Broad, Ewell wrote, would hire “an internationally renowned architect.”
The city manager added that, because swift action is important as Broad weighs where to plant his museum, it would be wise to avoid bureaucratic red tape, “consistent with complete transparency and full public review.”
The City Council is scheduled to discuss at its meeting Tuesday whether to launch formal negotiations with Broad.
The conceptual drawings for the Beverly Hills museum, delivered to city officials last month, show a much bigger project than the original proposal: a 126,600-square-foot, three-story building with the footprint of an arrow pointing east.
Of that, a museum of about 43,000 square feet and an adjoining 6,100-square-foot outdoor sculpture court would occupy the top floor, compared with the first proposal’s total 25,000 square feet of exhibition space. An additional 67,000 square feet would provide an “archive” for the art not on display and offices for all three Broad foundations -- for art, education and medical research.
An additional 10,000 square feet of commercial space was requested by the city, Broad said, to spur street life along one of the adjoining streets, Little Santa Monica Boulevard; about a third of that retail area would be for the museum’s restaurant and store.
Broad said that parking is a problem at the Beverly Hills site. The conceptual plan calls for an underground garage with 170 spaces. Also, he said, the city would have to acquire the privately owned property, then lease it to his foundation for a nominal amount. Broad said the city would own the building after the lease is up.
“We don’t know which of those sites are going to work out. None of them are without complications,” Broad said.
He said that establishing another major venue devoted to contemporary art would solidify Los Angeles’ standing as a leading center for works created since World War II.
MOCA -- to which Broad pledged $30 million after a fiscal crisis that had led its leaders to consider merging with another museum -- has about 75,000 square feet of exhibit space in two downtown venues.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which shows art from all regions and times, includes the free-standing, 50,000-square-foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum, which opened in early 2008. Broad paid its entire $56-million cost.
But to the disappointment of museum leaders and many art lovers, Broad decided not to donate his collection to LACMA as well. Instead, 1,500 works have remained under his foundation’s umbrella, and more than 400 others are in the separate personal collection he owns with his wife, Edythe.
All are made available regularly as part of the Broad Art Foundation’s mission as a “lending library” that sends art to museums around the world. Among the artists the Broads have collected in depth are Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns.
L.A.'s third leading contemporary art institution, UCLA’s Hammer Museum, has 14,000 square feet of gallery space.
Broad said that factoring in his museum, at about 40,000 square feet, Los Angeles “would have more contemporary art space for the public than any place in America.”
He said his collection, which he continues to build by buying 25 to 100 pieces a year, is large enough to present a changing array of exhibitions without having to compete with LACMA and MOCA for shows.
John Walsh, former director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said that while Broad’s art philanthropy has been “very public-spirited,” he would rather see the foundation headquarters built and run in partnership with one of L.A.'s existing museums, perhaps fulfilling MOCA’s ambition to have a sizable Westside venue.
A stand-alone Broad Art Foundation museum “might bring a different kind of originality to the scene,” Walsh said. But, he added, “on the whole, I think it’s healthier if he uses this great power both to encourage innovation and to back and support the organizations that really need him.”
LACMA Director Michael Govan said he’s not concerned about overcrowding on the contemporary art exhibition scene. There are “complaints that shows don’t make it to L.A. because there are not enough venues,” he said. “There’s a lot of growth potential. I feel like there’s plenty of room. The thing is for each institution to distinguish itself with a particular identity and way of working.”
Govan said the only drawback would be if Broad were to become insular, focusing only on his own museum rather than helping to fund exhibitions and art acquisitions citywide. “I don’t think that’s the case. I think he’ll continue to support us all.”
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mike.boehm@latimes.com
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d6a47afd6393bcd98a7e642d99734282 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-16-et-them-crooked-vultures16-story.html | These rockers have an understanding : Jelling from their first jam, Them Crooked Vultures’ well-known players like a new role. | These rockers have an understanding : Jelling from their first jam, Them Crooked Vultures’ well-known players like a new role.
Dave Grohl had a new rock ‘n’ roll dream, and it came true in a castle in Orange County. It was his 40th birthday, so the lead Foo Fighter and former Nirvana drummer celebrated with a January evening of jousting and costumed swordplay at the Medieval Times dinner theater, a venue promising a night “where honor was unquestioned and courage was unmatched!”
Cardboard crowns were distributed and roasted chicken devoured with bare hands. Among the guests were his pal Joshua Homme, the singer-guitarist from Queens of the Stone Age, and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, on a visit from London. The two had never met, and Homme made a joke about knights and armor. In reality, he was mortified. Jones remembers him saying something like “We’re not all like this. But Dave is.”
From that unlikely summit came Them Crooked Vultures, the realization of Grohl’s desire for a new band of heavy-hitting rock, melding Zeppelin’s innovation and tradition with the forward-leaning roar of Queens. From their first moments jamming together as a trio in Homme’s Pink Duck Studio in Burbank, they were linked by thunderous improvisation and playfulness.
“We literally switched on amps and just started something,” Jones said. “Already you could feel the beginnings of an intelligent band.”
The recorded results of that collaboration can be heard with Tuesday’s Interscope release of the band’s self-titled debut. It’s celebrated the same night with a performance at the Wiltern, where songs are likely to be stretched out during extended jams.
“We can create those moments where you get the chills, but we can’t choreograph them. They just sort of happen,” Grohl said excitedly. “They happened within the first three minutes that we jammed ever. And they happen every single night.”
It’s a quiet afternoon backstage at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, and Grohl is relaxing with his legs up on a couch. In a few hours it would be the band’s 14th show ever, and from a nearby hallway came the plucking of an eight-string cigar-box guitar by touring rhythm guitarist Alain Johannes.
“When we went in to record this, there was this understanding that anything goes,” Grohl said. “There was no discussion of how it should sound. We just let it happen.”
From the moment news leaked of the trio, it was dubbed a “super group,” a usually dubious category that often promises more than it can ever deliver, though a number of musicians seem to be teaming up on projects lately -- indie rockers Conor Oberst, Jim James, M. Ward and Mike Mogis formed the cheekily titled Monsters of Folk, while veterans (and former Van Halen musicians) Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony teamed with guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Chad Smith for a new group called Chickenfoot.
Them Crooked Vultures emerged from some organic roots. Grohl first became a serious drummer while studying the playing of John Bonham on Zeppelin albums and bootlegs. And he’s been friends with Homme since 1992; they became collaborators when Grohl joined QOTSA as the drummer on 2002’s “Songs for the Deaf” album and a tour. It was his first extended stint behind the drums since the end of Nirvana in 1994.
“Josh and I had been talking about working together again for a long time,” Grohl said. “After I left Queens of the Stone Age to go back to the Foo Fighters, I realized the connection I had with Josh was something special that kind of only comes once in a lifetime -- when you meet that musician that understands your intuition.”
Homme was unsure how the esteemed British bassist would react to his worldview. While recording vocals in Burbank, Jones watched from the control room.
“You’re supposed to be vulnerable, but it’s so naked,” Homme said. “I’m thinking, this song is called ‘Mind Eraser, No Chaser.’ Is he going to be like, ‘You’re an idiot’?” He laughs. “I walk through the door and he goes, [adopts British accent] ‘That’s brilliant!’ . . . I hugged the guy.”
The new band recorded 18 songs, trimming the total to 13 for the album. There is a Zeppelin-like rhythm to the heaviest tracks, including “No One Loves Me and Neither Do I” and “Elephants,” with sparks of sci-fi guitar from Homme and lyrics that are surreal, bleak and comic. Those originals are all that the band has performed onstage since its August live debut at the Metro in Chicago. Nothing by Zeppelin, Queens or the Foos.
“We’re not a cover band,” said Homme, 36, adding that both Queens and the Foos continue as active units. “The point is that this is very now. We happen to each have our own pedigree, but it’s not about that as much as what we’re doing. That’s what makes it vital.”
A year ago, Jones thought he might be preparing for a Zeppelin-related project, following the classic rock act’s October 2007 reunion concert at London’s O2 Arena.
“I remember a thought came to me as I was doing that show, a typical first night of the tour thought: ‘Hmm, I’ll do that differently tomorrow,’ ” said Jones, 63. “Then I went, ‘Oh, this is the first night and the last night of the tour.’ ”
Singer Robert Plant chose not to go on, and there was some thought of the other Zeppelin players carrying on under a different moniker with another singer. They could not agree on that singer, and plans were abandoned. That’s when Jones says he called Grohl and said: “ ‘Remember when you were talking about that band?’ ”
Later at Roseland, the trio (with Johannes) faced 4,000 fans, opening the concert with the heavy boogie-rock of “Elephants,” Grohl head-banging behind the drums. After the extended set-closing wind-out of “Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up” two hours later, there was no encore, but the show felt complete.
“This is, I hope, quite a long-term project,” Jones said.
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calendar@latimes.com
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2389568e5282b8a78bb64cba0f5dedd3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-17-et-melrose17-story.html | Locklear moves back just in time | Locklear moves back just in time
That shaking underneath Hollywood tonight is not from a quake, but from the force unleashed by the return of a TV powerhouse no less than William Shatner reprising his role as Capt. James T. Kirk or Larry Hagman taking over “Dallas” again. Amanda Woodward -- that is, Heather Locklear -- is back on “Melrose Place,” and her arrival couldn’t be better timed.
The first time Amanda appeared at the West Hollywood apartment complex of twentysomething troublemakers and bed-hoppers, Aaron Spelling’s show wasn’t living up to its “Beverly Hills, 90210" spinoff hype. Now, 10 years after Fox’s hit “Melrose” went off the air, the CW finds itself in a similar predicament -- lackluster ratings, despite abundant promotion, the presence of four of the former series’ stars (Locklear makes five), and a choice time slot behind the new “90210.”
It’s unfair that everything seems to be riding on Amanda’s pad-less shoulders again. “Melrose Place” is averaging just 1.9 million viewers, and more worrisome, only 700,000 of them are in the target demographic of 18-to-34-year-old women. So far, the CW has only committed to 18 episodes.
Locklear knows her debut was not designed to coincide with the network’s new creative direction that required firing cast members Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Colin Egglesfield. Seeking a lighter tone, the series will abandon its more sinister story lines to focus at the business at hand: hookups, fancy parties, and career and relationship woes.
“Absolutely, this is on my mind, but hopefully my going there will bring some attention and make people watch because it’s not just about watching Amanda, it’s about bringing awareness to the show,” said Locklear.
“It’s not a teenage show,” said Locklear, who joins the series in the 10th episode. “It just needs to get the attention of people and for people to get hooked because that’s what the original ‘Melrose Place’ was about.”
Co-creators Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer had always wished Locklear, whose portrayal of a sexy, no-nonsense “Melrose” diva became emblematic of ‘90s pop culture, would join the cast. That’s why they named the publicity firm where Ella (Katie Cassidy) works “WPK,” hoping someday Amanda Woodward would be revealed as the W.
“Before I saw the pilot they had asked me and I thought, ‘It’s a whole new network, new writers, how do I fit in?’ ” Locklear said. “I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be messing with this. I saw the pilot and I wasn’t sure, still. But then I saw the second episode and I thought, ‘This is really fun, the clothes are great and now they’re starting to get into some story lines.’ And I went, ‘I’m in. If I’m not the one who killed Sydney, I’m in.”
Ah, the double-edged sword that is Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) hangs over the series until the 12th episode, when police solve her murder. Amanda did not kill Sydney -- let’s get that out of the way -- but their characters, said Slavkin, are connected in the ominous ways that have always bound the beautiful, conniving residents of the famous address.
Sydney’s death has been complicated to handle creatively. Bringing back from the dead a series favorite only to have her murdered in the first 10 minutes intrigued viewers of the original. But viewers who missed the original and were not invested in the character found the noir flashbacks of her relationships to the new characters jarring.
“The question for us became: Should we have taken 12 episodes to slowly unravel the murder mystery?” said CW President of Entertainment Dawn Ostroff. “Initially, I thought it was a very clever idea because, by focusing on a different suspect each week, you really got to know each of the characters more intricately. But then what wound up happening is that it became harder to go to other types of stories.”
Slavkin and Swimmer had always intended for Sydney’s murderer to be caught this season, but abandoning the noir element means saying goodbye to Leighton -- at least, for now.
“We’re not ruling her out in terms of the life span of the show,” Slavkin said. “Even though the actress isn’t there, the ghost of Sydney is still out there.”
This shift doesn’t mean “Melrose Place” will turn into the Happiest Place on Earth.
“We wound up in a place that was darker than we originally thought and we wanted to make this course correction and this was the opportune time to do it,” Ostroff said. “Not to say that the show won’t still have story lines that are intense and not to say that the show won’t have controversial arcs for the characters.”
Apparently, only certain kinds of inner conflicts are welcome in the new “Melrose” world order, which is why recovering/self-defense murderer Auggie (Egglesfield) and emotionally disturbed Violet (Simpson-Wentz) are gone, Ostroff said. Violet’s story line, the producers said, was meant to end when the murder was solved. But firing Egglesfield was the network’s decision “and was very difficult for us,” Slavkin said.
“With Auggie, we boxed ourselves in a corner,” Ostroff said. “He was a very brooding character and we felt it was very hard to unshackle him from his past and redeem him at this point.”
The decision came as a surprise to Egglesfield who, like Simpson-Wentz, exits the series in the 13th episode, which airs in January.
“I’m sad to leave,” Egglesfield said, during a telephone interview his last week of work. “But I don’t blame anyone. . . . I don’t understand why they didn’t give Ashlee and me a little bit more of a shot, but in this business, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”
The departures of Auggie and Violet take place in the same episode that two new characters are introduced: Dr. Drew Pragin (Nick Zano) and Ben Brinkley (Billy Campbell). Pragin, a doctor, likes to make people laugh and -- shockingly -- is harboring a secret. Brinkley is Amanda’s boyfriend, which raises the question: Where is Peter? (Jack Wagner, Locklear’s real-life boyfriend). When viewers last saw the couple, they had faked their deaths and run away to an island.
“They do address it, but you can’t blink,” Locklear said. “You’d think Amanda would be a little more content on that island and change, but she really couldn’t stand it. She is who she is and she had to get off that island. She’s a girl who needs to be in the middle of the action. A woman, actually. Amanda is a woman now.”
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maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com
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32fe982205b1fbaaf43e28b454247051 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-17-fg-iran-nuclear17-story.html | THE WORLD : U.N. agency suspects Iran is lying : A report says satellite photos show a nuclear plant was underway five years earlier than Tehran claims it was. | THE WORLD : U.N. agency suspects Iran is lying : A report says satellite photos show a nuclear plant was underway five years earlier than Tehran claims it was.
The latest United Nations report on Iran’s nuclear program questions Tehran’s credibility regarding a recently disclosed facility built into a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report issued Monday notes Iran’s contention that it began work on the nuclear facility in 2007 in response to Bush administration threats of war as part of a plan to safeguard sensitive “organizations and activities” that could be targeted in an armed conflict.
But according to the agency’s report, satellite photos showed construction began in 2002, well before Iran’s nuclear program became a hot international issue. U.S. officials previously said they first detected the site in 2006.
The U.S. and other major powers worry that Iran’s nuclear research program will ultimately produce weapons, an allegation Iran denies.
The discrepancy in dates is a significant measure of Iran’s sincerity. Iran has long argued that because its parliament refused to ratify the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it doesn’t have to disclose new sites to international inspectors until six months before introducing nuclear material to them, a point strenuously disputed by the West and departing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
But from December 2003 to February 2006, Iran was adhering to the Additional Protocol, obliging it to declare new sites immediately.
The incongruous chronology and the inspection of the site, already fitted with wiring, pipes and other infrastructure, also prompted the agency to question Iran about the possible presence of other hidden nuclear facilities.
“Iran’s declaration of the new facility . . . gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency,” the report says. “Iran’s explanation about the purpose of the facility and the chronology of its design and construction requires further clarification.”
The U.N. watchdog’s quarterly report also says that Iran’s nuclear program is operating at less than half-capacity, inexplicably producing the same amount of enriched uranium as six months ago and perhaps less.
In addition, inspectors found 600 barrels of heavy water at a nuclear facility in Esfahan. The plutonium in the spent fuel of heavy-water nuclear reactors can be used for nuclear bombs. The IAEA asked Iran this month for information on the barrels’ origin, since Iran’s heavy-water production plant near Arak is apparently not operating.
Iran’s envoy to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, dismissed the report as “routine” and “repetitive,” according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report “underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations.”
The revelation of the Qom facility in September raised concerns that Iran had built a parallel nuclear program beyond the sight of international inspectors. But Iran told the IAEA that “it did not have any other nuclear facilities that were currently under construction or in operation that had not yet been declared,” the report says.
Iran has yet to definitively respond to a proposal to swap its enriched uranium for fuel rods to operate a medical research reactor, and world powers have begun buzzing about imposing new economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Russia’s energy minister also announced Monday that its completion of a long-delayed nuclear power plant in the Iranian port city of Bushehr would be pushed back until after this year, according to the Interfax news agency.
Iranian officials say such delays only add to their misgivings about importing nuclear technology. Increasing pressure on Iran will backfire, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Monday.
“Iran is ready for nuclear cooperation with the West, and such cooperation will benefit the Westerners, because their opposition makes Iran more powerful and more advanced,” he said, according to the website of the state broadcaster.
The U.N. report includes the first details from an Oct. 26-27 inspection of the previously hidden Fordow uranium-enrichment facility.
It recounts an Oct. 28 letter by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization that says “threats of military attacks against Iran” prompted it to build a network of “contingency centers for various organizations and activities.”
The letter says this network, called the Passive Defense Organization, allocated the Fordow site to the Atomic Energy Organization in the latter half of 2007 “so that enrichment activities shall not be suspended in case of military attack” on Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility.
However, the report says the facility, which Iran says will open in 2011, is being built to house only 3,000 centrifuges, which scientists say is enough to produce the enriched uranium for about one bomb a year. Natanz has a capacity of more than 50,000 centrifuges.
The report says international inspectors told Iranian officials they had obtained commercial satellite photos showing that work on the site began in 2002, stopped in 2004, and then resumed in 2006.
No explanation was offered for Iran’s apparent slowing down of its nuclear program. Analysts have speculated that scientists are experiencing technical problems or are running out of uranium ore.
Nuclear physicist Ivan Oelrich said he suspected that Iran was easing its consumption of uranium ore as it waited for better centrifuges it had already designed to come on line.
“You don’t go out to buy a new computer when you know a new model is coming out soon,” said Oelrich, acting president for the Federation of American Scientists, a nonproliferation advocacy group in Washington.
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daragahi@latimes.com
Times special correspondent Julia Damianova in Vienna contributed to this report.
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234657ad7781a00a0c541667ab1f03b1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-17-fg-salvador-jesuits17-story.html | THE WORLD : 6 slain Jesuits receive highest award : El Salvador honors the priests killed in 1989, and the defense chief says the army is ready to ask for forgiveness. | THE WORLD : 6 slain Jesuits receive highest award : El Salvador honors the priests killed in 1989, and the defense chief says the army is ready to ask for forgiveness.
In a sign of the remarkable changes afoot in El Salvador, the government Monday bestowed the nation’s highest award on six Jesuit priests slain by the army exactly 20 years ago.
Right-wing governments that ruled El Salvador since its civil war have traditionally relegated the case of the murdered Jesuits to a historic past they preferred to forget. But the election in March of a new president from a leftist political party made up of former guerrillas set the stage for Monday’s recognition.
“We want this to be an act of recovering our collective memory,” President Mauricio Funes said in the ceremony. “For me, this act means [we] pull back a heavy veil of darkness and lies to let in the light of justice and truth. We begin to cleanse our house of this recent history.”
Funes, a former journalist who, like many Salvadorans, was educated by the Jesuits, presented golden medallions to relatives of the priests “for extraordinary service to the nation.”
Stunning the audience, the minister of defense then said that the army was prepared to ask for forgiveness and that he was willing to open military archives to judicial investigators -- something that the priests’ advocates have long demanded but the army steadfastly refused. The Funes government has not ordered such an investigation.
“If the government asks me to open the archives, I will do it,” said the minister, Gen. David Munguia Payes, who fought in the war against the guerrillas and served in the early 1980s as part of the presidential guard.
The 1989 assassination of the priests, along with their cook and her young daughter, was a pivotal event in El Salvador’s long civil war.
The priests were highly regarded intellectuals, promoters of justice for the poor and opponents of the war, and seen by the Salvadoran right as pro-left subversives.
Among them was Ignacio Ellacuria, a Spanish national who was one of the region’s leading intellectuals and rector at the time of the Jesuit-run University of Central America, or UCA, in San Salvador.
Their killings provoked outrage worldwide; the pictures of the priests sprawled face down on the lawn of their modest home after being shot by soldiers were among the most haunting images of the war.
It was a bookend atrocity, in some ways, to the 1980 slaying of San Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot by an assassin as he said Mass. His death is often seen as a marker of the start of the civil war, and the Jesuits’ killings the beginning of the end.
The 1989 assassinations finally broke long-standing U.S. administration support for the Salvadoran army and government, which in turn helped to force the end of the war in 1992.
A national truth commission, as well as several international investigations, established that top Salvadoran army officers had ordered and then covered up the slayings of the priests, whom the military accused of supporting the guerrillas.
Four officers and five soldiers were tried and convicted for their roles in the killings. No one, however, was higher in rank than a colonel, and all were released in 1993 under an amnesty law. No one in the top military leadership was prosecuted.
There is widespread suspicion in El Salvador and among U.S. officials that Roberto D’Aubuisson, one of the founders of the right-wing Arena party that ruled El Salvador until this year, ordered the Jesuits’ killings during a meeting with other party officials in November 1989.
A lawsuit filed last year in a Spanish court is attempting to bring senior military and civilian officials to account.
Next week, attorneys and witnesses on behalf of the Jesuits’ families will present evidence based on hundreds of pages of declassified U.S. documents from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The documents, including cables from U.S. Embassy, military and CIA officials in El Salvador to Washington, describe the Salvadoran army’s “role in planning, ordering and committing the crime and covering it up afterward,” said Kate Doyle, a researcher with the National Security Archive, a Washington-based organization that has been key in bringing much of the information to light.
The ceremony Monday in San Salvador drew participants from all over the world, including activists, religious figures, journalists from the country’s civil war era, and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a follower of U.S. policy in Central America who has long demanded a full accounting of the Salvadoran and U.S. government roles in the killings.
“We’ve had to wait 20 years for this,” said Father Jose Tojeira, the current UCA rector. “This is the first time that a Salvadoran government publicly and officially recognizes the courage, dignity and service of this group of academics and men of faith.”
Still, there are many in El Salvador who are critical of Funes for not going far enough in pushing for a full airing of the Jesuit case.
The Jesuits “don’t need homages,” an editorial on the leading Salvadoran news website El Faro said Monday. “They need, and especially we Salvadorans need, to know the truth. . . . The new government . . . has fled from its moral obligation to demand the opening of an investigation.”
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wilkinson@latimes.com
Renderos is a special correspondent.
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c7ee45127f2753163e08bee16b089303 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-17-fi-ct-neil17-story.html | ADVERTISING / COMPANY TOWN : A foolish fatwa in ‘War on Christmas’ | ADVERTISING / COMPANY TOWN : A foolish fatwa in ‘War on Christmas’
The Mississippi-based American Family Assn. last week issued a fatwa against Gap Inc. -- the retailing giant whose brands include Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic -- calling for a “two-month boycott over the company’s failure to use the word ‘Christmas’ in its advertising to Christmas shoppers.”
The War on Christmas season has officially begun.
Gap “does not use the word ‘Christmas’ to avoid offending those who don’t embrace its meaning,” writes Buddy Smith, executive assistant to the president of the AFA, on the organization’s website. “Christmas has historically been very good for commerce. But now Gap wants the commerce but no Christmas.”
“I interpret Gap’s decision as a warning sign to Christians to get out there and tell people about Jesus Christ,” writes Smith.
And they say nobody likes fruitcake.
It would be easy to get sidetracked into debating the merits of the War on Christmas. Why, for example, is the phrase “Happy holidays” so insufferable to Christian fundamentalists, but not the vulgar, surfeiting exploitation of Christ’s name to sell smokeless ashtrays, dessert toppings, Droid phones and trampolines? I’m not a theologian but I think the Gospels are pretty clear that Jesus was no fan of merchants.
And since China is in the news this week: Why not go after Gap and other retailers for trading in Chinese-made goods, since the Chinese government actively oppresses the Christian faith? Seems like building a case on religious tolerance would have more resonance. Oh, wait. Never mind.
But here’s the real question: Why attack Gap for not using the word “Christmas” in its advertising when in fact it does, and in a big way too?
Surf on over to YouTube and watch Gap’s latest 30-second spot, titled “Go Ho Ho” (Crispin Porter + Bogusky). The spot -- which is in heavy rotation on network and cable TV -- features a group of insanely athletic dancers leaping and twirling and stomp-cheering around a white log-cabin set. They chant, “Go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go Kwanzaa, go solstice. . . . Do whatever you wannukkah and to all a cheery night.”
There it is, right up front, enjoying pride of place: the C-word.
Meanwhile, both Old Navy and Gap sell Christmas-themed merchandise, such as Christmas boxer shorts, which I’m sure can only be removed in the sanctity of marriage.
In other words, Gap Inc. has demonstrably not banned the use of the word from its advertising or stores. So how did AFA get this so wrong?
Gap Inc. has been in the organization’s War on Christmas cross hairs for a while now, and it may well be that the boycott was planned before Gap’s holiday ads were released (phone and e-mail messages to the AFA were not returned). Gap and CP+B just pulled a switcheroo.
It’s unlikely the new Gap ads will placate the psalm-singers in Tupelo. After all, in the spirit of inclusiveness, Christmas is mentioned in the same breath as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and solstice. The winter solstice, as everyone knows, is a pagan celebration, so -- viewed through a peculiarly warped lens -- the Gap ad puts Christians on the same level as a bunch of blue-painted heathens dancing around a Yule log drinking mead out of a stag horn.
How dare they! I call for a double boycott.
Perhaps the AFA did Gap a favor. If you look at the history of the organization’s boycotts -- often involving punitive actions against companies that support gay rights -- you’ll see that they have no commercial impact. Actually, these boycotts seem to be good for business: In the decade of the AFA’s boycott against Disney, which ended in 2006, the world’s largest entertainment conglomerate’s revenue roughly doubled to $34 billion. Likewise for Ford, which just posted a billion-dollar profit in the third quarter of 2009.
I’m not suggesting causality, but condemnation by the AFA does seem to be a kind of lucky charm for big business. Personally, I am inclined to patronize Gap as a statement of cultural tolerance, even though at my age I look like an overcooked ballpark frank in its clothes.
The big loser here is the AFA. The annual War-on-Christmas drumbeat is absolutely not about defending the sacredness of Christmas. It is instead -- transparently -- marketing, a ratings gambit for Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, and for the AFA, the centerpiece of its annual fundraising.
This year, thanks to Gap, the AFA fumbled its boycott ball and in the process managed to look both intolerant and out of touch.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
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dan.neil@latimes.com
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40d08cfdd5b22d48267097699a39f5a7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-17-la-etw-railroad17-2009nov17-story.html | A tour of L.A.'s rich rail history | A tour of L.A.'s rich rail history
It didn’t take much, by modern standards, to dazzle the first movie audiences. Some of the earliest films were simply footage of trains running along their tracks.
The locomotives were vast and dramatic, churning their wheels and spewing steam. As the trains roared toward the camera, looking as if they were about to burst through the screen, panicked moviegoers were said to have screamed and fled the theater.
The 12-minute-long “The Great Train Robbery,” released in 1903, “was the ‘Titanic’ of its day,” says Marc Wanamaker, a Hollywood historian who owns and curates the Bison Archives, a production and research consulting organization. “Going all the way back to the beginning of the film industry . . . many films had plots that involved trains or used trains for crucial scenes. There’s a constant fascination with trains. In some films, the train itself was the star.”
Such movies will be the focus of a Tuesday presentation, led by Wanamaker, in conjunction with the debut of the new exhibit “Hollywood -- Trains, Streetcars and the Movies” from the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation. The night starts about 5 p.m. at Philippe’s, in the rear dining room (a.k.a. the train room), where the exhibit -- a 16-foot long display case filled with 14 archival pictures and 26 models of freight cars, passenger cars, street cars and locomotives -- is located. That will be followed by a 7 p.m. presentation at the MTA Metro Board Room in downtown L.A.
As one of the few railroad enthusiast organizations dedicated to public outreach, the foundation has installed similar displays at six other locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties over the past decade.
“Ten years ago, no one in Los Angeles was reaching out to the public about railroads,” president Josef Lesser says. “And the movies are one of the most common places, especially nowadays, that people see trains.”
Nowhere did the mythography of America’s railroads come into sharper focus than in Los Angeles. While trains hauled in lumber that was crucial for building the burgeoning city isolated by desert, sea and mountains, L.A.'s nascent film industry cemented the train as a symbol of adventure and freedom. All that iconic potential came to a head in the city’s train and trolley stations.
According to Wanamaker, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin used the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad station, located on the east side of the L.A. River on 1st Street, and the Santa Fe Railway station, just across the river on the west side, as sets. When Union Station opened in 1939, that too became a frequent filming location, most famously in 1950’s “Union Station,” starring William Holden as a house detective who tries to foil a kidnapping. With its high ceilings, ornate waiting room and Art Deco flourishes, it seems perfectly made as a backdrop for noirs like “Criss Cross” (1949) and neo-noirs like “Blade Runner” (1982).
“Those were big stations,” Wanamaker says, “but all around Los Angeles there were beautiful little 19th century style stations -- Hollywood, Culver City, the San Fernando Station at Chandler and Lankershim [in North Hollywood], which is still there. I would say that almost every little station that was a railroad station, a trolley car station or both were in a film at some point. Over the years, people around the world really got to see what L.A. looked like.”
The exhibition is not the only chance for locals to get a glimpse of L.A.'s rail history; the foundation will also hold an urban archaeology adventure, a tour by bus -- not train -- of the Pacific Electric Western division from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Led by train buff Ralph Cantos, the tour begins at Union Station before heading to the Belmont Station Apartments at the corner of Beverly and Glendale boulevards, where the foundation has installed one of its satellite displays in the lobby. From 1925 to 1955, that corner was the functioning PE Subway Terminal / Toluca Yard. You can still see the original portal to the tunnels where the trains ran; it’s now painted over with a mural of a train.
The tour winds past Angelus Temple, stops in Edendale and Atwater Village, heads west on Sunset Boulevard past the PE substation near Silver Lake Boulevard, stops at Sunset Junction (formerly Sanborn Junction) where the Hollywood and Santa Monica lines once converged, and heads down Santa Monica Boulevard, one of the only streets in L.A. that had track all the way along its length.
After a pit stop at Formosa Cafe, a portion of which is built out of a working PE passenger car that was in service until 1940, the tour stops in Beverly Hills before returning to downtown L.A. via Venice Boulevard. At every stop on the route, Cantos, who’s an expert on the history of trolleys and public transit in Los Angeles, has prepared archival photos of that location from decades past. Along the way, Wannamaker will hop on board for a brief presentation about Hollywood movie landmarks involving trains and streetcars.
With much of Los Angeles’ rail history largely forgotten or ignored, and with the railroad foundation celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, there was no better time to focus on L.A.'s sometimes hidden rail history.
“There are literally hundreds of miles of trolley tracks buried just one inch below the pavement of one of the many streets in Los Angeles,” Cantos says. “People would be flabbergasted if they knew.”
elina.shatkin@latimes.com
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9c93f50fc5bcd7b2680ac88a1b5567fa | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-18-ed-catholic18-story.html | Church, state and marriage | Church, state and marriage
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is warning the District of Columbia Council that the church will stop contracting to provide social services if the city approves same-sex marriage as planned. To which the only valid response is, “OK.”
The church hopes to change wording in the marriage legislation that could require its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, to facilitate adoptions to gay and lesbian couples and extend employee benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. That, the church says, would require it to go against its religious teachings on homosexuality.
There are times when the aims of government and religious organizations are in sync: bringing food to the hungry, beds to the homeless and medical care to the sick. At other times, their aims veer apart. That’s fine, but at such times, government must not be diverted from its own course. The District of Columbia Council is expected to approve same-sex marriage next month. If it does, those marriages must receive the same recognition as all other marriages, at least in matters under the city’s jurisdiction. The council cannot dictate how a religious organization spends its private money, but it has an obligation to set rules for the use of public funds.
This is a situation the Catholic Church has faced before, most notably after Massachusetts banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. As a contractor with the state for adoption services, Catholic Charities placed hard-to-adopt children in gay and lesbian households until the church hierarchy pressured it to stop. It ended its contract with the state and closed its adoption service. But Catholic Charities could have continued doing private adoptions with church money, as the Mormon Church does. No one was telling the nonprofit how to practice religion -- just how it could and could not use state funds.
So far, the District of Columbia Council is showing more backbone on this issue than the Obama administration. Barack Obama promised during his presidential campaign that he would end the practice of allowing faith-based groups receiving federal money to discriminate in hiring -- for example, by not employing people who hold other religious beliefs. But he has backed off from that vow. In contrast, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said the city would find another contractor if the Catholic Church severed its ties. That was the right response, and we hope it rang loud enough for Obama to hear.
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36fa73b05007b47ca9f1267688ffe8c6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-18-fg-afghan-corruption18-story.html | No easy cure for Afghan ‘sickness’ of corruption | No easy cure for Afghan ‘sickness’ of corruption
Afghans have a name for the huge, gaudy mansions that have sprung up in Kabul’s wealthy Sherpur neighborhood since 2001. They call them “poppy palaces.”
The cost of building one of these homes, which are adorned with sweeping terraces and ornate columns, can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many are owned by government officials whose formal salaries are a few hundred dollars a month.
To the capital’s jaded residents, there are few more potent symbols of the corruption that permeates every level of Afghan society, from the traffic policemen who shake down motorists to top government officials and their relatives who are implicated in the opium trade.
Cronyism, graft and the flourishing drug trade have destroyed public confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai and contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban by driving disaffected Afghans to side with insurgents and protecting an important source of their funding.
With casualties mounting and a decision on military strategy looming, President Obama and other Western leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to justify sending troops to fight for a government rife with corruption.
This month, when Karzai was declared the winner of an election marred by rampant fraud, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan warned that without major reforms, the Afghan president risked losing the support of countries that supply more than 100,000 troops and have contributed billions of dollars in aid since the Taliban was toppled in 2001.
Karzai has publicly acknowledged the corruption and pledged to “make every possible effort to wipe away this stain.” On Monday, the interior minister, national security director, attorney general and chief justice of the Supreme Court joined forces to announce a new crime-fighting unit to take on the problem.
But in the streets, bazaars and government offices, where almost every brush with authority is said to result in a bribe, few take the promises to tamp down corruption seriously.
“It’s like a sickness,” merchant Hakimullah Zada said. “Everyone is doing it.”
In these tough economic times, Zada said, there’s one person he can count on to visit his tannery: a city inspector.
The lanky municipal agent frowns disapprovingly when he finds Zada and five other leather workers soaking and pounding hides in the grimy Kabul River and demands his cut -- the equivalent of about $40.
“He says we are polluting the river,” Zada says. “So we have to pay every day. Otherwise, he will report us to the municipality, and they will close down our shops.”
A 2008 survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan found that a typical household pays about $100 a year in bribes in a country where more than half the population survives on less than $1 a day.
Government salaries start at less than $100 a month, and almost everything has its price: a business permit, police protection, even release from prison. When Zada was afraid of failing his high school exams, he handed his teacher an envelope stuffed with more than 1,500 Afghanis -- about $30. He passed with flying colors.
The corruption extends to the highest government officials and their relatives. Even Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has long been suspected of cooperating with drug barons, charges he denies.
Abdul Jabar Sabit, a former attorney general who between 2006 and 2008 declared a jihad, or holy war, against corruption, said he quickly learned that a class of high-ranking officials is above the law. They include members of parliament, provincial governors and Cabinet ministers.
“I wanted to tear that curtain down, but I could not do it,” he said over tea in his modest sitting room at the top of a rundown apartment block.
As required by the constitution, he said, he wrote repeated letters to parliament requesting permission to investigate charges against 22 members ranging from embezzlement to murder. “Despite all my letters, the issue never made it onto the agenda of either house,” he said.
Sabit estimates that he filed corruption charges against more than 300 provincial officials before he was dismissed in 2008. Few were convicted, and “none of them are in jail now,” he said.
Obama and other world leaders have told Karzai that they expect him to take concrete steps to back up his promises to fight corruption. Karzai counters that donor countries share responsibility for the problem because of poor management of the funds pouring in for development projects, a concern shared by U.N. officials.
Among the practices raising alarm is the so-called flipping of contracts, which are passed along from subcontractor to subcontractor. Each one takes a cut until there is little money left for the intended project. The result is often long construction delays and shoddy workmanship.
Many foreign and local observers think Karzai can’t begin to address corruption until he severs ties with former warlords who helped drive the Taliban from power in 2001 and shored up his administration when U.S. attention was focused on Iraq.
U.S. and other Western officials are pressing Karzai to form a government of competent professionals. But he will have to balance their demands against promises made to ethnic and regional strongmen who helped deliver the votes he needed for a second five-year term.
Western officials were particularly troubled by the recent return from Turkey of Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious former warlord who endorsed Karzai’s campaign. He is accused of overseeing the deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners during the 2001 invasion, charges he denies. Karzai’s two vice presidents, Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili, are also former warlords accused of rights abuses.
“There are also new figures who will try very hard to get their supporters in government,” said Fahim Dashy, editor of the independent Kabul Weekly. “They are coming with empty pockets and they will see this as a golden opportunity to make money, either by legal or illegal ways.”
Karzai has said there will be no place in his government for corrupt individuals. But his aides say that dismissals alone won’t solve a pervasive and systematic problem.
An investigation by the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, set up more than a year ago to oversee the government’s efforts to fight graft, found that on average it took 51 signatures to register a vehicle. Each signature had its price, for a total cost of about $400.
“It is hardly surprising if Afghans prefer to bribe policemen on a daily basis to turn a blind eye to their unregistered vehicles,” said Ershad Ahmadi, the bureau’s British-educated deputy director.
Ahmadi said his office helped streamline the process to four or five steps, and it requires that payments be made directly to the bank, thereby reducing the opportunities for corruption. But without the minister of transportation’s cooperation, he said, his team would have been powerless.
“We do not have the necessary powers and independence to fulfill our mandate,” Ahmadi said. For a start, it was never given the legal authority to investigate or prosecute corruption -- only to refer cases to law enforcement agencies, themselves part of the problem.
“The police are corrupt. The prosecutors are corrupt. The judges are corrupt,” Ahmadi said.
It was not clear whether the new anti-corruption unit, which was set up with the help of U.S. and British law enforcement agencies, would be more effective at pursuing individuals who indulge in corrupt practices. It is the third structure set up by Karzai’s government to tackle the problem; the first was disbanded after it emerged that the head had been convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. on drug charges.
“The main problem . . . is that people have no confidence about the future,” Ahmadi said. “That makes them make hay while the sun shines.
“We need to persuade the people of Afghanistan that there is no returning to the miseries of the past,” he said. “The Taliban is not coming back. The international community is not abandoning Afghanistan, and there is going to be slow but steady improvement.”
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alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
Special correspondent Karim Sharifi in Kabul contributed to this report.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
The most corrupt countries
berlin -- Afghanistan and Iraq, which receive billions of dollars a year in U.S. and other foreign support, are among the world’s most corrupt governments, a monitoring group said in a report released Tuesday.
“The results demonstrate that countries which are perceived as the most corrupt are also those plagued by long- standing conflicts, which have torn their governance infrastructure,” Transparency International said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index report.
The report measures perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries, drawing on surveys of businesses and experts. The United States is listed as the 19th least corrupt nation, with the report raising concerns about the lack of government oversight of the financial sector.
The report found that the most and least corrupt countries were:
The world’s most corrupt governments:
1. Somalia
2. Afghanistan
3. Myanmar
T4. Sudan
T4. Iraq
6. Chad
7. Uzbekistan
T8. Turkmenistan
T8. Iran
T8. Haiti
T8. Burundi
T8. Guinea
T8. Equatorial Guinea
The world’s least corrupt governments:
1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
T3. Singapore
T3. Sweden
5. Switzerland
T6. Finland
T6. Netherlands
T8. Australia
T8. Canada
T8. Iceland
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Source: Transparency International
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999cc0b124ec7a0b3be6beea27ba0d84 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-18-fo-review18-story.html | At home in his own kitchen | At home in his own kitchen
It’s Sunday night and I’ve just come off an 11-hour flight rumpled and cross-eyed after reading the last installment of Steig Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy straight through. When my friend picks me up at the airport, she reminds me that I’d asked her to make a reservation at Eva for their prix fixe Sunday dinner.
What foresight! Because I happen to be hungrier than I can remember having been in a long time. There’s just time for a bath and a much-needed change of clothes before we set off again for Eva, two doors down from BLD on Beverly Boulevard in the space that was once Hatfield’s.
As we settle into one of the tables on the porch that wraps around the small bungalow, a waiter approaches, an apron around his waist and a bottle of wine in each hand. Albarino or a Meritage from Carneros? he asks. It turns out that wine is included with the $35 Sunday night supper, making it quite the bargain. And it’s not just plonk either, but bottles that grab your interest.
Of course, Eva is not the first to have a Sunday night set-menu supper program. Suzanne Goin more or less started the idea at Lucques and got a highly successful cookbook out of it too. Palate does something similar, on Sunday afternoon and evening. And Eva’s Sunday night menu exemplifies everything that is good about the new restaurant from chef-owner Mark Gold.
Any night of the week, the place is fun and relaxed. And, though Gold cooks exceedingly delicious food, he’s not given to taking himself too seriously. He also has something very rare, a generosity of spirit that translates onto the plate.
Walk into Eva (which is named after Gold’s grandmother) and you won’t have to stand around waiting to be noticed. Someone welcomes you right away. If not Gold himself, then one of the members of his staff, dressed in white T-shirts with gray knit sweater vests from Suss Cousins of SussDesign, who has a shop up the street.
The night’s menu begins with Little Gem lettuce, each dainty crinkly leaf separated and cloaked in a velvety green goddess dressing with a good splash of vinegar in it. It’s utterly seductive and refreshing.
On Sundays everything is served family-style, which makes Eva’s supper something of a cross between Lucques’ long-running event and the nightly fare at Thomas Keller’s casual Ad Hoc in Napa Valley. Before we’d even finished the Little Gem salad, a bowl of warm potato salad and a platter of juicy fried chicken straight from the fryer arrives. Piled high on a platter, there’s a meaty thigh for each of us, just what the jet lag doctor ordered. Somebody mentions wings wistfully. And minutes later, the kitchen sends out fried wings, one to a person. A bite of chicken. A bite of potato salad. What more can you ask for on a Sunday night?
Dessert? Not quite yet. Gold is also serving brisket braised in red wine and cut in finger-thick slices to show off its texture. It comes with a thatch of green beans on top and a bowl of spinach in cream so thick it resembles a light custard. As I taste the beef, I’m wondering why more restaurants don’t serve brisket. It’s become a lost art.
Dessert, when it arrives, is a homey buttered bread pudding drizzled with a caramel sauce that tastes just the way it should -- of butter and caramel instead of something from a squeeze bottle. Pastry chef Tess Parker was a home baker until she walked in one day to ask for a job at the precise moment that Gold needed someone. This month’s dessert menu includes a light-as-air lemon pudding cake crowned with meringue and sweetened with thyme honey. She’s doing a 2-inch-high pain perdu (French toast) with barhi dates tucked inside, cloaked in a ginger custard.
Gold is used to cooking at much more high-volume, high-price-tag restaurants. He was last at Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and previously executive chef at Cafe Patina downtown and executive sous chef at Water Grill under then-chef Michael Cimarusti. He’s clearly a skilled executive chef. Whether or not he’s at the stoves, dishes are executed with the skill of a first-class kitchen.
How can he turn out such polished cooking at such moderate prices for the quality? His normal menu, which changes frequently, is focused and small, with a handful of appetizers, the same number of mains. To start, you can get Bagaduce oysters on the half shell simply presented on a pillow of salt in all their briny glory. There’s always a soup. It could be a slurried onion soup embellished with pickled baby chanterelles or a silky smooth potato puree enriched with a little Parmigiano-Reggiano and garnished with miniature croutons.
At Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge, Gold indulged his interest in Japanese cuisine, and here he’s doing a stunning Japanese-inspired first course of a gentle dashi broth with a poached egg, a bundle of spinach and a piece of delectable fried chicken. A melt-in-your-mouth foie gras terrine is topped with diced pineapple guava. The exotic fruit adds a touch of sweet as a foil to the delicacy of the foie gras without being too sweet.
Main courses pull their own weight. Young chicken is cut up and rearranged to look like a landscape on a plate, here a mountain, there a hill, with halved turnips and carrots laying down the color. Each piece of chicken is cooked perfectly.
Scallops, along with short ribs and pork belly, have become a cliche on practically every menu. But Gold’s Hokkaido scallops from the Japanese island are something else again, less sweet and tasting more of the sea than the regular variety. Contrasted with fiery Spanish chorizo, earthy Brussels sprouts and Bomba rice from Spain, this is a dish to make you fall in love with scallops again. Big Eye tuna is delicious too, served in discrete hunks with beautiful Nantes carrots, a swirl of carrot juice and a little whipped tofu.
The occasional dish, such as the dull poached beef or gummy pumpkin ravioli, misses the mark. The first time I had his clams with udon noodles, I loved it. But on second acquaintance, maybe because the noodles had been cooked longer, it didn’t work for me. Everything was too soft and somehow the flavors seemed too close up, missing the play of textures in a traditional spaghetti alle vongole. But most everything else is worth ordering.
While Sunday is an extraordinary bargain, the regular menu is close to a steal, considering the quality of the cooking and the raw materials. Most small neighborhood restaurants at this price level (only two of the main courses are over $20) zero in on simple rustic cooking. But Gold is too seasoned and too skilled a chef to ratchet himself down that much.
Most of all, though, he communicates his love of cooking to his guests. Affable and welcoming, he pops in and out of the kitchen, and roams around the dining room as if he can’t quite believe he’s here in his own little restaurant. He’s so used to pressure and turning out food for big restaurants, that Eva must seem like play for him.
Let’s hope he likes playing, because I’m hoping this restaurant will be around for a good long while. Oh, and he does lunch too.
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irene.virbila@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
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Eva Restaurant ** 1/2
LOCATION
7458 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 634-0700; www.evarestaurantla.com.
PRICE
Dinner appetizers, $10 to $17; main courses, $16 to $24; cheese selection, $14; sides and desserts, $7. Corkage fee, $12. Sunday dinner, $35 per person, including wine.
DETAILS
Open for lunch Tuesday to Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner Tuesday to Thursday from 5:30 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5:30 to 11 p.m. Prix fixe family-style Sunday dinner is 3 to 9 p.m. Wine and beer. Valet parking, $3.50.
Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.
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7c1d838e32bf871c33465bfbf951557c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-18-la-fg-corrupt-box18-2009nov18-story.html | The world’s most corrupt governments | The world’s most corrupt governments
The most corrupt countries -- Afghanistan and Iraq, which receive billions of dollars a year in U.S. and other foreign support, are among the world’s most corrupt governments, a monitoring group said in a report released Tuesday.
“The results demonstrate that countries which are perceived as the most corrupt are also those plagued by long- standing conflicts, which have torn their governance infrastructure,” Transparency International said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index report.
The report measures perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries, drawing on surveys of businesses and experts. The United States is listed as the 19th least corrupt nation, with the report raising concerns about the lack of government oversight of the financial sector.
The report found that the most and least corrupt countries were:
The world’s most corrupt governments:
1. Somalia
2. Afghanistan
3. Myanmar
T4. Sudan
T4. Iraq
6. Chad
7. Uzbekistan
T8. Turkmenistan
T8. Iran
T8. Haiti
T8. Burundi
T8. Guinea
T8. Equatorial Guinea
The world’s least corrupt governments:
1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
T3. Singapore
T3. Sweden
5. Switzerland
T6. Finland
T6. Netherlands
T8. Australia
T8. Canada
T8. Iceland
Source: Transparency International
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ed5151c4494e657d24d796b7c368c40f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-18-me-solar18-story.html | Mojave solar site opposed | Mojave solar site opposed
A solar energy project proposed for development on public land in the Mojave Desert would create jobs mostly for Las Vegas and electricity for San Francisco at the expense of the relatively pristine area of east San Bernardino County where it would be built, San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said.
In an interview, Mitzelfelt, whose district includes the Ivanpah Valley project site, about 20 miles south of Las Vegas, said last week that BrightSource’s proposed 440-megawatt, 4,000-acre Solar Electric Generating System “should not go forward.”
The system is among 130 renewable energy applications to build wind and solar projects on more than a million acres of public land under review by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and California Energy Commission. Companies hope to begin construction on about a dozen of those projects by late next year.
State and federal regulators said the BrightSource project is furthest along in the process and could break ground next year. Conservationists, however, are concerned about its effect on several rare bat, bird, plant and reptile species, including the threatened California desert tortoise.
The development of solar power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and to address climate change.
“Obviously, there is a lot of political pressure to get this project expedited and under construction,” Mitzelfelt said. “But its impacts in San Bernardino County and sensitive and scenic Mojave Desert environment are not worth the benefits.
“I would do everything I could to advance a project that would provide jobs, induce economic investment and increase the tax base in our county,” he said. “This is not that project.”
BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs disagreed.
“Considering the project has been going through a state and federal environmental review process for more than two years, and will generate 1,000 jobs, $250 million in wages and more than $400 million in local and state tax revenue, we’re surprised to see the supervisor’s press release,” Wachs said in a statement.
“We look forward to meeting with Supervisor Mitzelfelt and his staff,” Wachs added, “to clarify any misunderstandings they might have about the Ivanpah project.”
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louis.sahagun@latimes.com
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fbf1d6c6926860f0a9b688a70c455133 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-fg-japan-terminal-man19-story.html | White courtesy phone for China | White courtesy phone for China
He is a man caught between two countries, a political protester who has stubbornly steeled himself inside the sterile purgatory of Tokyo’s Narita International Airport.
Each day, Feng Zhenghu sits on a bench in front of the Japanese customs booths, calmly looking on as tens of thousands of arriving passengers go by, resigning himself to residence in a diplomatic no man’s land.
He refuses to pass through government customs because that would mean entering Japan -- something Feng has decided he simply will not do. He wants to go home to China.
Eight times since June, the 55-year-old activist has been rebuffed by Chinese officials in his attempts to reenter his homeland, with no reason being given.
On four of the occasions, airlines in Japan didn’t allow him to board. On the other four, he got as far as Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport before being dispatched back to Tokyo.
During the last go-round, on Nov. 2, a defiant Feng drew the line: Arriving back at Narita, he refused to enter the country.
Feng, an economist turned human rights author and blogger, was sentenced in 2000 to three years in a Chinese prison for writing a book he said criticized Chinese regulations against foreign company investment.
He also believes a speech he once gave criticizing the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown is being held against him.
Still, he said, officials cannot banish him on mere pretense. Speaking on his cellphone recently, Feng said he would prefer to languish in a Chinese jail rather than live as a free man in Japan or anywhere else.
Although he is angry at his government, Feng misses his homeland -- his family, his friends, the feel of the place he has spent most of his life.
“I just want to go home,” he told a reporter Wednesday, tears welling in his eyes as he spoke. “I’m Chinese. Why can’t I go home? I didn’t do anything illegal. I just wrote a book that didn’t meet with the regulations of the Chinese government.”
Feng’s plight is reminiscent of that of the Tom Hanks character in Steven Spielberg’s 2004 film “The Terminal.” But this unlikely sojourner has no access to food courts or hot showers.
For 17 days now, he has kept a lonely vigil at the south arrival wing of Narita’s hyper-busy Terminal 1. Many workers and travelers are unaware he’s there, staging a protest in a nation where few people question authority.
The days are long. Feng gets to bed about midnight. He sleeps fitfully in a chair, often using his suitcase as a pillow. He rises at 6 a.m., jarred by the first passengers arriving on international flights.
On a white T-shirt, he has scrawled messages about his protest in both English and Mandarin -- pulling the garment over his luggage to create a small billboard.
One message reads, “The Chinese government is shameful.”
He uses his cellphone to accept calls and send text messages. He also keeps a diary on his computer. He hasn’t showered; instead he splashes water on his face in the restroom.
He eats only snacks -- candy, ramen noodles, cookies -- offered by well-meaning passengers and supporters.
Embarrassed airport authorities say they must follow regulations and would prefer that Feng enter Japan so they can be rid of him.
“Every day the officers gently try to coax me to leave,” he said. “They say: ‘It’s a beautiful world out there. There’s lots of good food to eat. All you have to do is walk through those doors.’ ”
For days Feng survived on tap water after Japanese officials refused to accept his money for snacks at airport eateries.
“The authorities obviously want to distance themselves,” said Yang Jianli, a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. “At first they thought if no food or supplies were provided, he would give up and enter Japan. But they miscalculated his determination.”
Yang, a onetime Chinese political prisoner who met Feng this fall at a human rights conference in Washington, is funding a campaign to supply the activist with food and emotional support.
With Feng lodged in a high-security area between the airplane disembarkation point and immigration, airport officials will not allow non-traveling airport visitors to meet with him. The only way to reach him is to arrive via plane at the south wing of Terminal 1 and greet him at customs.
Hong Kong activist Christina Chan learned that lesson the hard way. Arriving at the north wing of the terminal, she was not allowed to see Feng.
So Yang paid her fare back to Hong Kong, where she boarded a different flight she knew would land in the south wing.
“He looks better than I thought he’d look,” Chan, a pro-Tibet student campaigner, said of Feng. “He believes that if he sticks to his struggle, they will eventually have to let him back into China.
“It’s a theme familiar to many: the right to go home again.”
Feng’s sister, Natsuki Suzuki, who lives in Japan, has not been allowed to visit her brother. But she calls him often on his cellphone.
“My brother is stubborn,” Suzuki said. “He insists there is only one way for him to go -- back to China.”
Feng, who has studied law, says he traveled to Japan from China in April after being inexplicably jailed for 41 days there. Chinese officials insisted that he could return to Shanghai in June, after the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he said.
But when he tried to return in mid-June, authorities blocked his path and have rejected him since, Feng said.
One day at Narita, Feng spotted a top official in the Chinese Communist Party’s international department passing by. He slipped a note to a member of his entourage but has not had a response.
Meanwhile, the sleepless nights and long days have begun to take their toll. Feng says he has started to feel weak. He has dark circles under his eyes and an open sore on his lower lip.
But he plans to stay put for as long as it takes to persuade the Chinese government to bend.
“I don’t know how long I will stay,” he said. “It all depends on the Chinese government.”
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john.glionna@latimes.com
Makino is a special correspondent.
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1564a660675b75121e581c6566a2ddcd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-fi-airline-ads19-story.html | AirTran passengers get unimpeded view -- of ads | AirTran passengers get unimpeded view -- of ads
First airlines cut back on in-flight food. Then they added fees to check your luggage. Now one airline is putting ads where passengers can’t avoid seeing them: on the backs of the tray tables that must remain locked and upright during takeoff and landing.
The new advertising plan, announced Wednesday by AirTran Airways, a low-cost, Florida-based airline, is the latest in a trend among recession-battered airlines to increase revenue by charging for extra products and services such as onboard wireless Internet, snacks, drinks and pillows.
Over the next two weeks, AirTran Airways plans to outfit all 138 of its Boeing jets with seat-back advertisements, measuring about 2 1/2 by 9 inches. The advertisements are placed at eye level, so passengers can’t avoid them, except by lowering the tray tables.
Though other airlines have experimented with in-flight ads, AirTran appears to be the first American carrier to put ads on every seat back of every plane in its fleet. The ads are placed in a see-through holder fastened to the back of the tray table, making it easy for ads to be replaced as desired.
Ryan Air, based in Ireland, and Easyjet, based in England, have already tested seat-back advertising. US Airways places ads on the tops of its tray tables, though not on every plane or at every seat. The ads provide extra revenue at a time when airlines worldwide are on track to lose $11 billion by the end of the year.
The first ad on the AirTran seat backs will be for Mother Nature Network, a website devoted to environmental issues that is promoting itself by running a contest for a seven-night cruise.
Mother Nature Network Chief Executive Joel Babbit said his company approved the ad for the seat backs because AirTran offers onboard wireless Internet service, which means passengers can see the ad and then immediately go online to register for the contest.
“We felt that the combination of them being an innovative airline with a new concept was perfect for us,” he said.
An AirTran spokesman could not be reached for comment, but in a statement, Tad Hutcheson, AirTran’s vice president of marketing and sales, said: “We have gone to great lengths to present these advertisements in a tasteful, unobtrusive way that we believe customers will enjoy.”
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hugo.martin@latimes.com
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42cb01af1e7d08b901b36b797df37472 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-fi-big-screen-tvs19-story.html | State mandates power-saving TVs | State mandates power-saving TVs
California is putting big-screen television sets on a diet.
Starting in 13 months, new TV sets will have to meet energy-efficiency standards that slash the amount of electricity they consume. The regulations also will lower owners’ monthly electric bills.
The first-in-the-nation criteria, approved unanimously Wednesday by the five-member California Energy Commission, is aimed at cutting the amount of electricity used by new high-definition TVs of up to 58 inches by a third starting Jan. 1, 2011. More stringent rules that take effect Jan. 1, 2013, would create a cumulative 50% power savings.
The standards don’t apply to any of the approximately 35 million TV sets currently in use in California or units sold in the coming year.
“It’s absolutely undeniable the benefits that this has for the people of California,” said Commissioner James Boyd, an economist and former chief executive of the California Air Resources Board. “Efficiency is the cheapest and simplest way to save our citizens money, to provide a good quality of life and to drive our economy.”
Since the sale of flat-panel televisions began to rocket early in the decade, TV-related power usage has more than tripled to 10 billion kilowatt-hours per year, accounting for nearly 10% of residential electricity consumption, said Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld, a nuclear physicist and UC Berkeley professor.
Opponents called the new rules unnecessary and overbearing, and California consumers gave them decidedly mixed views Wednesday.
Many buyers say they welcome rules that would allow them to enjoy super-sharp pictures without feeling guilty about contributing to global warming.
“It saves energy, which saves the bottom line for the consumer, and for the big picture it helps save the environment,” said Younger Hong, 35, a Web developer and teacher. Shopping at a Best Buy store in West Hollywood for a 40-plus-inch TV, he added, “TVs are one of the biggest energy consumers in the house; it’s a good start.”
But John Mayberry, an audio-video control systems engineer in San Marino, questioned the commission’s priorities. “Their prioritization of what to do seems askew,” he said. The state could find much more energy savings by going after waste in the antiquated electric transmission system, he said. Other critics have denounced the TV regulations as just one more instance of meddling by “nanny government.”
The new regulations were fought by the Consumer Electronics Assn., a leading trade group based in Arlington, Va. “Simply put, this is a bad policy: dangerous for the California economy, dangerous for technology innovation and dangerous for consumer freedom,” the group said.
In a statement, the association argued that the regulations would lead to higher prices, lost retail jobs and a decline in state tax revenue.
Continuing to improve the efficiency of high-definition liquid crystal display, plasma and newer types of TVs should be voluntary, the group argues, saying that arbitrary standards could stifle innovation.
For example, plasma television manufacturers have managed to cut power usage for the popular 42-inch sets by about a fifth in the last year without government mandates, according to the Plasma Display Coalition, an industry group.
The regulations should have little effect on consumers for at least the first two years, commissioners said. About three-quarters of TV sets now in stores already comply with the 2011 standards, and 25% meet the tougher 2013 threshold.
But, the commission, with support from some manufacturers, expects that technological breakthroughs would ensure that consumers have plenty of choices when they shop for high-definition TVs.
“We are in a position to comply with proposed effective dates,” said Kenneth R. Lowe, the co-founder and vice president of Irvine-based Vizio Inc., one of the country’s leading sellers of flat-panel, high-definition TV sets. Technology improvements, he predicted in a letter to the commission, would keep price increases to a minimum, “a few tens of dollars.”
Any increase in the cost of TVs would be offset by savings in owners’ electric bills, the commission said. More efficient models are expected to shave about $30 a year off owners’ electric bills and collectively save Californians about $8 billion in energy costs by 2021.
Making TV sets more energy stingy would save enough power to supply 864,000 single-family homes -- equivalent to the output of a 615-megawatt, gas-fired power plant, which would cost about $600 million to build, according to the commission staff. That would remove the equivalent of 3.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, environmentalists estimated.
The benefits from such “real, achievable policies” as the television energy standards are a hallmark of California’s international leadership in the fight against global warming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after the commission vote. The new standards not only are “cost effective” but are “great for the environment” and “good for consumers,” he said.
California and its Energy Commission, Schwarzenegger said, have since the 1970s pioneered energy-efficiency standards for various appliances that have allowed the state’s per-capita electric consumption to remain flat despite a huge jump in population. During the same period, national per-capita power use jumped by 40%.
The commission was created by state law in 1974 and is charged with such tasks as setting energy policy, siting and licensing power plants and estimating future energy needs. Its five members, who must come from different academic and professional fields, are appointed by the governor to five-year terms and must be confirmed by the state Senate.
Commissioner Rosenfeld said commission regulations have worked well in the past. In the 1970s, he said, the average refrigerator in California consumed 2,000 kilowatt-hours per year of electricity. Now, a typical refrigerator, which costs less and has more consumer-friendly features, uses just 400 kilowatt-hours per year.
Doing the same thing with televisions is crucial because of changing California lifestyles, commission staff members said. Many homes no longer have just one large console in the living room, they said, and often boast three or four other moderate to large-screen sets in bedrooms, kitchens and home offices.
Getting such big savings from more efficient televisions is surprising, said Cory Blevins, 38, another shopper at the West Hollywood Best Buy.
“You think of things like refrigerators or an air conditioner, but you never think of a TV,” he said. “When you look at a flat-screen, it doesn’t look like there’s a lot there. You don’t think there’s a lot of juice, but I guess there is.”
Blevins said he was glad the state was “bringing awareness” to the problem but said he could see both sides.
“We should be left alone to make the right choices,” he said. “It’s kind of like the Hummer argument. Someone says, ‘If I pay for the gas, why can’t I drive my Hummer?’ But there’s other people we have to share the planet with.”
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marc.lifsher@latimes.com
andrea.chang@latimes.com
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81d8331cc25473e93deb049680c1dd2a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-fi-hiltzik19-story.html | School funding process is failing | School funding process is failing
Anyone who has spent time in or around government, from the deeply embedded bureaucrat to the young policy wonk, knows that there are two important issues in funding a public program.
One, is it getting enough money? Two, is the money being spent wisely?
On both counts, California’s method of financing its schools gets a big fat F. On a per-pupil basis, our schools are among the most poorly funded in the country, and no one can be sure that the money they do get serves its purpose.
Ask those who have devoted time to examining the system: The way this state doles out money to K-12 education isn’t merely inefficient and ineffective, it’s insane.
This is the standard opinion of economists, education experts and business leaders. Eric Hanushek, an economist at the conservative Hoover Institution, told me he finds the system “just crazy.” UC Davis education professor Thomas Timar calls it “completely disconnected from reality.”
The system is so infested with complexities, state mandates and unaccountability that Ted Mitchell, president of the state Board of Education and former president of Occidental College, says that “it’s remarkable that school administrators can open the doors of their schools on a daily basis.”
We treat this problem lightly at our peril. California’s economic future depends on the effectiveness of its schools. Corporate managers whine constantly about the declining qualifications of young people seeking jobs.
Hanushek says he has personally warned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that “if California is going to continue to be a hotbed of innovations and entrepreneurship, it’s going to do it with people it imports from other states and other countries, because our schools aren’t up to maintaining the level of innovation we need.”
Adding to the urgency, California’s education policies are so dysfunctional that the state risks being entirely shut out in the competition for $4.35 billion in federal grants to stimulate innovation in education, so-called Race to the Top funds to be handed out early next year.
Although the state funding system is byzantine, explaining how we got here is pretty simple. The first step was a pair of state Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s Serrano vs. Priest case, which required the state to reduce disparities in education funding between rich and poor school districts. Then came 1978’s Proposition 13, which cut the guts out of the property tax, the source of 60% of school funding at that time.
In response to these events, the state largely took over responsibility for school funding from local authorities. Pre-Serrano and Proposition 13, the state provided 34% of K-12 funding, Timar says. Today it’s 67%.
The real problem is that the Legislature dictates how 40% of that state share can be spent -- it’s “restricted,” in educational parlance. By some estimates there are more than 130 separate state mandates, including requirements for teacher training, special education and programs for non-English-speaking pupils. Restricted funds pay for the class-size reductions ordered, during a fiscal surplus, by Gov. Pete Wilson. The state earmarks funds for districts to spend on textbooks, but only on textbooks approved by the state.
Not all of this is bad. Some mandates have broad support from districts, teachers and parents. And district administrators appreciate how earmarking funds rather than providing them as block grants keeps them from being entirely consumed by teacher salary increases in union contract talks.
Yet the Legislature’s tendency to promulgate one-size-fits-all policies puts local administrators in an intolerable position.
“There are a thousand different school districts in California, one with 700,000 students [Los Angeles, actually with 688,000] and 50 with fewer than 100 students,” Hanushek observes. No one could fashion a regulatory scheme applying equally well to each, he says.
Moreover, the system holds local schools hostage to the state’s roller-coaster fiscal cycle and chuckleheaded budget policies in Sacramento.
Consider what happened after Schwarzenegger slashed the car tax in 2003. That money (this year it would have been more than $6 billion) had been going to cities and counties. In the aftermath of the cutback, the state made the localities whole by handing over to them property taxes that had been going to school districts, then covered the districts’ loss from the general fund -- which made it look like the state was giving the schools more money.
Can you follow this? Me neither. “This is the only state where a tax cut shows up as increased spending for schools in the state budget,” says Rick Pratt, a finance expert at the California School Boards Assn.
Possibly the most baleful effect of this system is that it destroys local communities’ interest in their own schools.
“It’s pretty clear that participation in school board elections has decreased, because people feel they don’t have a stake in the game anymore,” Mitchell says. “That’s even true of people with kids in the school district.”
Where does our “pro-education governor” stand on all this? Schwarzenegger’s most recent initiative on school policy came Oct. 12. That day he vetoed a measure creating a panel to draft a finance reform bill, dismissing it, nastily, as “yet another working group” providing “the appearance of activity without actually translating to achievement.” (Does anyone know more about that style of governing than Schwarzenegger?)
The governor’s veto message did touch on one inescapable fact: The state’s school-financing process has been studied nearly to death. From 1999 to 2002, five separate study commissions proposed master plans to improve the administration of public education. In April 2005 Schwarzenegger impaneled the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence, proclaiming that “there is no issue more important to me.” The panel, which Mitchell chaired, helped launch an 18-month survey of state education policies titled “Getting Down to Facts.”
The panel proposed in 2007 to streamline mandates, give local administrators more flexibility in spending to go with their accountability for results (today the state controls the money but the locals are on the hook for performance) and delink the school funding process from the annual budget cabaret in Sacramento. But its program was “DOA” in the Legislature, Mitchell says, because additional spending was needed for a transition to a new funding and governance system, and the state budget was in the red.
The bill vetoed by Schwarzenegger was designed to move the reform process again off square one by creating “a final bill,” says its sponsor, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica).
“For years we’ve said this is a problem, and for years the governor and the Legislature haven’t done anything about it,” she told me.
The need is desperate. Californians don’t understand how badly our schools are shortchanged, because it’s impossible to track the education dollar and determine whether it’s being spent effectively. If we had a more rational and transparent funding process, we’d see not only where our money should go to get the biggest bang for the buck, but also how much more we need to invest to get the world-class education system we deserve.
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Michael Hiltzik’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, read previous columns at www.latimes.com/hiltzik, and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.
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fe0abd69929b291514901901ec4f8418 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-me-ucfees19-story.html | UC ready to raise student fees by 32% | UC ready to raise student fees by 32%
Caught between state funding cuts and rowdy student protests, a key committee of the University of California’s Board of Regents on Wednesday reluctantly approved a two-step student fee increase that would raise undergraduate education costs more than $2,500, or 32%, by next fall.
If the action is endorsed as expected by the full board today, the annual cost of a UC education, not including campus-based fees, would rise to $10,302 -- about triple the UC costs of a decade ago. Room, board and books often add an additional $16,000.
The regents faced a large and noisy rally at the UCLA hall where they met, and demonstrations were held at several other UC campuses across the state. But regents, some saying it was the toughest decision of their tenure, contended they could not avoid the fee hikes without damaging the academic quality of the 10-campus, 229,100-student university.
“I hate to say it, but if you have no choice, you have no choice,” UC President Mark G. Yudof told reporters after the committee vote. He empathized with student anger, but said it would be better directed toward state lawmakers who have cut education funding.
The regents acted despite appeals from students such as Victor Sanchez, president of the UC Student Assn., who urged the board at least to postpone a vote until the outlines of next year’s state budget are clear.
“These proposals are egregious to say the very least,” said Sanchez, a UC Santa Cruz senior. “The dreams of so many are being shattered as we speak. When will enough be enough?”
The meeting was interrupted three times with anti-fee-hike chants and choruses of “We Shall Overcome,” leading to 14 arrests. Outside, some in a crowd of about 500 students and labor-union activists threw sticks and other objects and pushed against a large contingent of campus police in riot gear. Several students and police suffered minor injuries, police said.
“Fees are going to be so high that people are not going to be able to attend this institution,” said Kenia Acevedo, a UCLA law student who attended the meeting. “It is a devastation to what is supposed to be a public institution.”
The UC fee hikes and similar increases by the California State University system earlier this year are part of a national trend. As the recession has brought sharp declines in tax revenues, states have shifted more of the cost of public colleges and universities to students.
The regents’ finance committee approved the new fees for UC’s undergraduates 10 to 1, with only student Regent Jesse Bernal voting no. The full board is expected to endorse the change today, along with even higher increases for students in professional schools such as law and medicine.
In addition to a jump in basic fees for graduate students, those in professional schools will see an increase in the surcharges for their degrees ranging from $280 to nearly $5,700 more a year depending on their major and campus. For 2010-2011, fees for graduate students at UC Berkeley’s business school would be $41,654, not including living expenses; for UCLA’s law school, $40,522; for UC San Francisco’s medical school, $31,095.
If regents approve the increases, undergraduates would first see a $585 rise in UC fees for the rest of the current academic year. With another increase starting next fall, the total cost would be $2,514 higher than it was this fall.
Given large cuts in state financing and grim predictions for next year, the regents said they had to hike fees to avoid further reductions in course offerings, faculty hiring and student services. They also said they do not want to extend into a second year a furlough program that reduces most UC employees’ pay by 4% to 10%.
UC administrators emphasized that a third of the income from the undergraduate fee hikes and half of the extra graduate fees would go toward financial aid, and that more than half of undergraduates would be fully cushioned from the increases. The regents panel also approved a policy that would cover all the basic education fees with UC, state and federal aid for families with annual incomes under $70,000, up from $60,000 this year.
The promises about financial aid did not calm students’ anger at the regents, however. At one point, the crowd outside the meeting hall at UCLA’s Covel Commons surged against the doors and a few people threw sticks, plastic bottles and rags dipped in vinegar at police, according to UCLA police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. She said campus police used taser guns twice in light stun mode. No arrests were made outside the building. Of the 14 arrested inside, 12 were students, Greenstein said.
Critics say UC should first take more steps to reduce wasteful spending, trim the highest executive salaries and use more income from profitable medical centers to aid other programs.
UC often compares its finances to four other public universities: the State University of New York at Buffalo and top universities in Illinois, Michigan and Virginia. With the new fee hikes, UC’s costs for undergraduates for the first time would be higher, by about $300, than the average of those four institutions, according to a UC report.
In January, the regents reduced freshman fall enrollment for the current year by 2,300 students, or about 6%, because of what they described as insufficient state funding. On Wednesday, they approved a request to the state that would increase funding by $913 million and warned that they might cut the freshman class next fall by another 2,300 if enough money is not available.
Meanwhile, outside a Long Beach meeting of the Cal State Board of Trustees, about 100 students, faculty and staff members from campuses as far away as San Francisco marched, chanted and carried picket signs to protest fee hikes and enrollment cuts.
Trustees of the 23-campus Cal State system approved what they called a “Recovery and Reinvest” budget that seeks $884 million in restored and new funding from the state. Chancellor Charles B. Reed exhorted the governor and legislators to “keep their promise” to support the system, which is struggling with severe funding shortfalls.
The protesters did not disrupt the meeting, but said they were very angry about how the university is being managed and about undergraduate fee increases of 30% approved earlier this year.
Megan Hinojosa, 20, a psychology student at Cal State L.A., said that many of the classes she needs have been cut or are oversubscribed and she fears it will take her far longer than planned to graduate.
“It’s just harder to be a student in this system,” she said.
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larry.gordon@latimes.com
Times staff writer Carla Rivera also contributed to this report.
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82bbcd79b723aa412f5704b1501dbccf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-19-oe-daum19-story.html | He’s hot, he’s cute, he’s playing hardball | He’s hot, he’s cute, he’s playing hardball
I’m not proud of this, but I sort of love Levi Johnston. I know he’s an opportunistic buffoon. I know he’s a grammatically challenged, Playgirl-posing, pistachio-shilling (yes, he made a commercial for nuts) media pawn who’s not only taking the low road but ripping the pavement to shreds.
I also know there’s no proof that anything Johnston says about his former would-be mother-in-law -- the Alaska governor turned Republican vice presidential nominee turned book author Sarah Palin -- is true. But I have to confess: Lately, he’s become a guilty pleasure.
Watching or reading about him is pretty much the equivalent of (sorry to be so graphic, but there’s really no better example) popping an enormous pimple on your chin. You know no good can come of it. You know, in fact, you’re only making things worse by encouraging the growth of more pimples, not to mention inviting a festering scab that will turn into an unfortunate scar. But it’s just too satisfying to turn away from.
In all honesty, I didn’t fully appreciate the carbuncular joys of Johnston until this week. Last spring, when he appeared on “Larry King Live” with his mother and sister, he managed to be simultaneously cringe- and nap-inducing. Instead of talking about what people really wanted to know -- like exactly when Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign became aware of Bristol’s pregnancy -- he waxed monosyllabic about his finger tattoo (“Bristol”) and his enthusiasm for sheep hunting.
“Sheep herding?” asked King at the precise moment that millions of viewers were wondering the same thing.
“Sheep hunting,” Johnston clarified.
He didn’t mean the domestic kind that graze languidly in pastures and provide us with Merino wool blankets and mutton chops. But the association has its uses. Think lamb to the slaughter, or more precisely, newly jaded sacrificial critter kicking and screaming on the way to oblivion. In any case, it’s difficult to look at Bristol’s ex and not see a lamb that has traded his silence for vengeance.
His testimony in October’s Vanity Fair, in which he made numerous unverifiable claims -- that the Palin marriage was on the rocks, that Todd and Sarah did little parenting, that as governor Sarah was known to leave work at noon and spend the rest of the day watching reality TV shows -- was, at least compared with the King interview and a rather overreaching profile the next month in GQ, downright mesmerizing.
Granted, it’s fairly evident that Johnston didn’t so much “write” the article as -- at least the way I imagine it -- lie down on a LeCorbusier chaise lounge in some quiet corner of the Conde Nast building and deliver a stream-of-consciousness purge that was then typed up and edited into a juicy and reasonably coherent 4,000 or so words. It should also be said that Johnston’s television appearances are still on the painfully laconic side. There’s a lot more excitement (albeit in that fleeting, zit-popping way) in reading snippets of his anti-Palin barbs -- “It’s almost funny that she’s like 46 years old and she’s battling a 19-year-old and I’m winning” -- on the Internet than to sit through the halting live-action version.
Not that watching the 45-year-old (she’ll be 46 in February) make the rounds this week promoting her autobiography, “Going Rogue,” is significantly more fun. The much-anticipated “Oprah” segment on Monday resulted in few surprises. As for Barbara Walters’ sit-down with Palin on “Good Morning America,” the most memorable moment was Palin’s use of the word “bullcrap.”
So far on this book tour, no one has asked her much about policy, or about why her account of the campaign diverges so wildly from those of McCain staffers or even, finally, what newspapers and magazines she really does read. (Palin told Oprah she was an avid reader and took Katie Couric’s infamous question about her taste in periodicals as a knock on her intelligence and a slur against Alaska. So why in the world didn’t Oprah ask what’s on her bedside table?)
No one Palin will get within sheep-shooting distance of is going to ask that or much of anything else, of course. And that’s why Johnston, despite being as dumb and bland as he is cute, may actually be the most necessary player in the Palin media circus. With Palin-approved interviewers barely straying from what sound mostly like Palin-approved scripts, Johnston at least provides an avenue for more interesting questions.
Because of him, Oprah and Walters don’t have to be thorny, edgy interrogators themselves. Instead, they can hide behind Johnston the raving wayward teenager: “Levi says this about you; what do you say?” The role of empathic -- not impudent -- TV host is safe.
A sad truth has emerged about the prurient and embarrassing Johnston sideshow. Like him or not, we need this kid right now. Fairly or not, at least he’s playing hardball and not softball. Bullcrap or not, at least he’s keeping audiences awake. Which is more than Walters and her ilk -- not to mention Palin herself -- have done so far.
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mdaum@latimescolumnists.com
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22aaace0cc121876421688d762103758 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-et-blind-side20-2009nov20-story.html | Review: ‘The Blind Side’ | Review: ‘The Blind Side’
Watching “The Blind Side” is like watching your favorite football team; you’ll cheer when things go well, curse when they don’t, and be reminded that in football, as in life, it’s how you play the game that counts -- though winning doesn’t hurt, either.
I’m talking to the jocks here. The rest of you can just bring Kleenex and give in to this quintessentially old-style story that is high on hope, low on cynicism and long on heart. If Frank Capra was still around, director John Lee Hancock might have had to fight him for the job.
Based on the remarkable true story of Baltimore Ravens tackle Michael Oher -- once a homeless black Memphis teenager literally plucked off the road on an icy winter night by a well-heeled white family -- the movie stars Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy. She’s a spitfire of a mom, and it’s the kind of smart, sassy role Hollywood should have given the actress ages ago.
Michael’s story begins in a Memphis project aptly named Hurt Village with a drug-addicted mother, an absentee father and a childhood in and out of foster homes, all of which we get compressed into a few quick flashbacks scattered through the film.
It’s what became of Michael (newcomer Quinton Aaron) that the film is concerned with, and that is framed by something else entirely: the Tuohy family and Washington Redskins’ quarterback Joe Theismann’s career-ending injury in 1985 after a blindside tackle by New York Giants’ linebacker Lawrence Taylor.
The film opens, as does the Michael Lewis book on which it is based, with a breakdown of the four seconds from the snap of the ball to the snap of Theismann’s leg that would change the game, with Bullock narrating the still difficult to see footage from that night. (Theismann has said even he can’t watch it.)
Michael, it turns out, will have the weight, size and speed to block the Lawrence Taylors of the world, an increasingly valuable commodity in the football world. And that’s where the Tuohys come in -- as a football-obsessed family, they nurture his raw talent; as fundamental Christians, they keep an eye on his soul.
Leigh Anne is a force of nature in a Chanel suit, armed with a cellphone and a .22. In the role, Bullock blows in like a tornado, issuing orders in a rapid-fire Southern drawl that defies speed and ruffles more than a few feathers. It’s not her fault, she just knows she’s right and won’t stop until everyone else is on the same page.
And believe me, Bullock makes “join rather than fight” the option you want to take. She nails the character with every click, click, click of her heels and every toss of those perfectly coiffed blond locks. When she stares down a drug dealer while she assures him her Saturday Night Special works just fine on all the other days of the week, you feel like ducking too.
The rest of the clan is made up of husband Sean, played with an easygoing charm by country singer Tim McGraw, teenage daughter Collins (Lily Collins) and young son SJ, with Jae Head pulling off such a perfect mix of Leigh Anne’s cockiness and Sean’s charisma that you miss him when he’s not around.
Michael ends up enrolled in the private Christian school where the Tuohy kids go. His size and agility had caught the coach’s eye and he’s accepted despite having a grade-point average that barely registers. That fateful freezing night when Leigh Anne takes him home comes soon after, and almost overnight he is being absorbed into the family, which has not only an open heart and an open mind, but a serious obsession with football, Ole Miss in particular.
What happens next is a testament to the unique people that both Leigh Anne and Michael are. As she begins to piece together the depressing back story of his life, he begins to trust that she will be there for him. These are emotional colors not easy to get to, but they happen here in moving ways because of the chemistry between Bullock and Aaron. She infuses the role with empathy, not pity; he brings an aching vulnerability and an innocence that are remarkable for someone with no formal training.
You know going in that this is a success story, but it still is deeply satisfying to see Michael’s life unfold. He becomes a decent student in large part thanks to the help of his tutor Miss Sue ( Kathy Bates), another Ole Miss alum. He’s a bull on the field and eventually the object of a college ball recruitment drive so extensive that the NCAA investigates. No one can quite believe the Tuohys would take him in with no ulterior motive, particularly after he chooses to go to Ole Miss.
After the fiasco of “The Alamo,” Hancock is solidly back in his wheelhouse with another compelling sports story that echoes the human touch he brought to the 2002 sleeper hit “The Rookie.” In “The Blind Side,” he’s pared much of the football analysis of the book away to keep the focus on the family. But one of the great treats of the film is the parade of real-life coaches, including such legends as Lou Holtz and Nick Saban, that come to recruit Michael. And there should be enough on-field action to get even the tough guys in the audience through the more emotional moments.
Wisely, Hancock has given the film as much humor as heart, whether it’s Michael bench-pressing SJ or Leigh Anne calling in plays to a very irritated high school coach. By the time Sean points out the irony that they ended up having a black son before they had even met a Democrat (Miss Sue), you’ve long since accepted that there is nothing predictable about this story.
But in the end, this is Bullock’s movie. She is Leigh Anne to such a degree you forget you’re watching one of the best-known actresses around. And while her sass is both endearing and highly entertaining, it is the way she masks Leigh Anne’s “never let them see you cry” vulnerability, especially when it comes to Michael -- the quick retreats when she’s moved, shoulder thrown back, eyes staring straight ahead as she hands out the latest set of marching orders -- that leave you cheering for her too.
betsy.sharkey@latimes.com
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077e8a4c492811ec1e374854ccb9622c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-fg-afghan-karzai20-2009nov20-story.html | U.S. aims to hold Afghanistan’s Karzai to his pledges of reform | U.S. aims to hold Afghanistan’s Karzai to his pledges of reform
The United States is developing a set of benchmarks to ensure that Afghan President Hamid Karzai keeps a promise delivered at his inauguration to fight corruption and inefficiency, U.S. officials said.
Taking the oath of office Thursday, Karzai, whose reputation has been battered by corruption allegations against close associates, pledged to fire any official connected to drug trafficking and “end the culture of impunity and violation of the law.”
To hold him to his word, the Obama administration is instituting a “monitoring and verification” system to judge whether the central government’s ministries and agencies are worthy of receiving direct U.S. aid. If the organizations don’t measure up, they won’t receive any U.S. money, administration officials said.
The Afghan leader also set an implicit timeline for a massive drawdown of the more than 110,000 foreign troops in his country, saying he wanted Afghanistan to be able to handle its own security by the time he leaves office in 2014.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to the Afghan capital of Kabul for the inauguration, one of hundreds of dignitaries at the swearing-in. Her trip apparently was meant to both support and admonish Karzai at a time when the Obama administration is not only formulating its overall war strategy but carefully calibrating its dealings with the sometimes-unpredictable 51-year-old leader.
Clinton praised Karzai’s plans to fight corruption as “visionary” but said attention now turns to his actions.
“Today’s inauguration opens a real window of opportunity between the Afghan government and its people and for a new chapter in the partnership between Afghanistan and the international community,” she told reporters. But she also emphasized that U.S. officials, like the people of Afghanistan, would “watch very carefully to see how that’s implemented.”
President Obama is nearing a decision on whether to expand the U.S. force in Afghanistan, which now stands at 68,000 troops. As part of a push to make Karzai’s second term cleaner and more effective, U.S. officials are preparing a series of benchmarks to judge progress on upgrading government services, improving security, reducing corruption and training Afghan army and national police units.
U.S. officials will pay particular attention to the use of U.S. aid, which has totaled $40 billion since 2001.
Clinton said in an interview with the BBC that American officials monitoring U.S. aid would undertake a “very rigorous analysis of who we can really count on to spend that money the way we intend it to be spent.”
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged limits on the administration’s leverage, because the United States is pursuing its own security goals in Afghanistan. But he said U.S. officials could deny aid to individual agencies and top officials, and they have leeway to channel it instead to provincial and local governments.
Karzai, by saying he wanted Afghanistan to handle its own security by the end of his new term, in part intended to convince Afghans that foreign troops would not be in their country forever.
But the U.S. official acknowledged that it would be difficult for the country’s small and strained military to stand on its own by 2014. “It is quite ambitious,” the official said.
Although Karzai returned to office in the wake of a fraud-marred election, Thursday’s inauguration bore all the trappings of grandeur that this poverty-stricken nation could muster. Wearing his familiar brightly striped silk cape, he trod a red carpet as a white-gloved honor guard saluted and a brass band played a slightly off-key version of Afghanistan’s national anthem. Security in Kabul was extremely tight.
It took almost three months of wrangling over the result of the balloting to formally return the president to office, and the fight was clearly a bruising one.
In his speech, Karzai reached out to his chief election rival, Abdullah Abdullah, but stopped short of offering him a place in the new administration. Abdullah, Karzai’s former foreign minister -- who did not attend Thursday’s event -- dropped out of a scheduled runoff vote this month, declaring that the contest would not be fair. “We must learn from our good and bad experiences in these elections,” Karzai said, calling Abdullah a “brother” and urging him and other rivals to “come together.”
The day brought clear reminders of the continuing threat from a revitalized insurgency that has held U.S. and allied forces at bay for eight years. Two more American troops were killed in an explosion in the southern province of Zabol, military officials said, and 10 civilians died in a suicide bombing in Oruzgan province, also in the violent south. And today, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed at least 13 people, including a policeman, and wounded scores in a crowded area of Farah City in southwest Afghanistan.
In his speech, Karzai touched on issues that have become sore points with Afghans: civilian casualties at the hands of foreign troops and the presence of private foreign security firms that operate as a quasi-military force.
Lowering the number of Afghan civilian deaths has been a key goal of U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took over command of American and NATO forces five months ago.
“I am pleased to see . . . a considerable reduction in the number of civilian casualties,” Karzai said. “We would like to expand and enhance such measures.”
At the same time, he served notice that foreign security contractors had largely worn out their welcome, even though they have been responsible over the years for guarding many senior Afghan officials, himself included.
“Within the next two years, we want operations by all private . . . security firms to be ended, and their duties delegated to Afghan security entities,” Karzai said.
Amid a subdued mood in the capital, some Afghans mustered a measure of hope. “We’ve suffered a lot,” said Ali Ahmad, a 55-year-old unemployed father of five. “I pray to God to give him the ability to bring a good government, so our children can have a better life.”
Although he fought hard to stay in power, Karzai has at times betrayed a weariness with the weight of office. The inaugural ceremony brought one such telling moment.
Toward the end, the president’s speech was interrupted momentarily by the late arrival of the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, who looked mortified as he searched for a place to sit. Karzai gestured at his own empty chair.
“Take my place, please,” he said. “You can even sit there permanently.”
laura.king@latimes.com
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6b04b606deac76f2dd8b3a126e4e7282 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-fi-gambling20-2009nov20-story.html | Recession is in play at California’s tribal casinos | Recession is in play at California’s tribal casinos
This is what a recession looks like at Southern California’s tribal casinos: Nearly every seat at the 25-cent slot machines is filled. Gamblers wait three deep around the cheapest blackjack tables. The reels on the penny slot machines spin almost without interruption.
The Saturday night crowd at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino in San Bernardino County reflects what gaming operators say is the new reality of tribal casinos: The visitors are still streaming in, but they have cut way back on spending.
“We have the same amount of people and they come in as frequently, but they are just spending less,” said Mike Hiles, a tribal information officer for the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, which operates a casino with 2,000 slot machines, 20 gaming tables and two restaurants in San Jacinto.
Analysts say tribal casinos have been hurting for more than a year and are not likely to see a pickup in revenue until the middle of 2010. California’s tribes are so cautious about the future that most have yet to add thousands of new slot machines approved under a controversial agreement negotiated with the state in 2005.
“Everything around us is so depressed, so the tribal gaming is depressed,” said Deron Marquez, former tribal chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.
Tribal representatives say the casinos are surviving the recession, in part, by attracting gamblers who are forgoing trips to Las Vegas and Reno to save money. As a result, the Indian casinos have avoided the huge drop-off in tourist traffic in those cities, which have seen gambling revenue declines of as much as 20% in the last year.
At the California casinos, the most visible sign of tough economic times is the size of the crowds gathered at the lower-limit slot machines and card tables. Crowds are considerably smaller at the higher-limit slot machines and card tables.
At San Manuel on a recent Saturday, gamblers were gathered around the $15-minimum blackjack tables, waiting for seats to become available. Empty seats were also hard to find at the 5- and 25-cent slot machines.
Cigarette smoke and noise filled the air as waitresses, balancing trays of drinks, maneuvered through the boisterous crowds.
On a recent weekday at the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa in Cabazon, crowds were sparse. Still, the gamblers clearly favored the $15-minimum blackjack tables and the 5- and 25-cent slot machines.
Winnie Ng of Los Angeles brought her grandmother to the casino for a few hours of entertainment. But she said the recession forced her to keep her bets small.
“When you lose now you are thinking about it more,” Ng said as she left the casino.
Jessica Schilling of Long Beach said she visited the Morongo Casino because she got a $30 coupon that she thought she could spend on the buffet. Instead, Schilling found that the coupon could be used only for gambling and had to be matched with her own money. She did so and lost.
“I just came here for the free food,” she said.
California tribes are not required to publicly disclose gambling profits, but under federal law the nation’s tribes must submit regular financial reports to the National Indian Gaming Commission, which releases aggregate state numbers for revenue only. The figures combine California’s 58 Indian casinos with data from one operation in Northern Nevada.
Based on the most recent numbers, the tribes running those casinos collected nearly $7.4 billion in 2008, down 5.6% from $7.8 billion in 2007. Figures are not yet available for 2009, but operators say the trend has continued since then.
After years of growth, the first major layoff at a California Indian casino came in August 2008 when the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula laid off 368 workers. Three months later, the Morongo Casino laid off 95 people because of the slumping economy.
Despite an agreement negotiated with the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would allow California’s tribes to operate 62,000 slot machines, the tribal casinos currently operate 58,000 machines.
California’s tribal casinos are not alone in feeling the recession’s pinch. In Connecticut, the Mohegan Tribe in Uncasville ordered salary cuts in January for all employees and suspended raises and contributions to 401(k) accounts.
Inside the Indian reservations, the drop in casino revenue means that tribes must cut the social service programs and infrastructure projects primarily funded by gambling revenue, said William Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Such cutbacks often lead to internal turmoil among the tribe’s leadership.
“It’s not happy times in tribal councils,” he said.
hugo.martin@latimes.com
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5b61c8f34dcfe051c0de4dd27a577518 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-fi-google-chrome20-2009nov20-story.html | Google gives public a peek at Chrome OS | Google gives public a peek at Chrome OS
Google Inc.'s new Chrome operating system, which is designed to bypass computer hard drives and work totally by way of an Internet connection, got its first public preview Thursday.
The system, due out about a year from now, could eventually pose the first real competition for Microsoft Corp.'s and Apple Inc.'s computer operating systems since the earliest days of home computers.
Chrome’s main difference is that applications and other materials that now exist on a user’s hard drive will instead live online.
Chrome will be available, at least at first, only for the small netbook computers that use solid-state drives.
One of the main advantages of the operating system, as extolled by Google product manager Sundar Pichai, is speed. The entire online system popped up on the screen of a demonstration computer less than 10 seconds after rebooting.
Pichai compared it to hitting the “on” button of a TV. “You turn it on, and you should be on the Web,” he said at a news conference webcast from company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
Not surprisingly, the on-screen interface of the operating system looked much like a browser. On top were tabs showing programs for e-mail, documents, a chess game, a book e-reader and more.
Pichai showed how panels that popped up from the bottom of the screen (around Google they’re nicknamed “moles”) can be used to play music, send an instant message or show a quick video while browsing the Web or doing work.
The aim for consumers, Pichai said, is simplicity. “We just want computers to be delightful and work,” he said.
One of the keys to Chrome OS’ success probably will be how much users can actually do with it, given that it won’t be using much of the software in common use now.
To that end, Pichai announced that, as of Thursday, the company was making the system’s computer code public so that outside developers could start making applications for it.
Google released an animated video on YouTube (which it owns) to explain Chrome OS to the public.
david.colker@latimes.com
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7c398a60a6734872325c204af0bb1cfb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-me-catalina-bison20-2009nov20-story.html | Catalina bison going on birth control | Catalina bison going on birth control
Half a dozen men with walkie-talkies and cattle prods set out on foot at sunrise Thursday to coax a herd of 10 feral bison into a corral a mile away at the bottom of a Santa Catalina Island valley.
It wasn’t easy. In the final days of the mating season, a massive bull kept one beady eye on his cows, all of them pregnant, and the other on his human pursuers, who followed close behind shouting and waving their arms as the animals lumbered up steep slopes and into plunging ravines.
It was one of several herding operations that will culminate today with the inoculation of female bison older than 2 years, part of an experimental program designed to limit the population through contraception. The goal: reduce herd size -- which increases by 15% or more each calving season -- to a manageable, healthier, less environmentally damaging and constant 150 or so.
The vaccine is non-hormonal and will not harm the animals or change their social structures, said Carlos de la Rosa, the conservancy’s chief conservation and education officer. It is also reversible after about a year.
“Bison will continue to be bison,” De la Rosa said. “Males will continue to compete for females, and females will continue to go into heat. The only difference is that we can control how many calves they have.
“For bison in love,” he added with a laugh, “this means romance without responsibilities.”
The Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that owns 88% of the island and is charged with preserving its wild state, believes the program will be a cost-effective, socially acceptable and humane method of controlling the herd. In Defense of Animals, an advocacy group, agrees and has donated a quarter of the cost of the $200,000, five-year program.
The idea of using contraception on the bison was first suggested by Debbie Avellana, an Avalon shop owner and animal rights advocate who fiercely resisted earlier efforts to rid the island of nonnative goats and pigs.
“I’m so happy. Our bison don’t have to be shipped out or killed,” she said, “and they will have more to eat.”
The program involves annual injections of the wildlife contraceptive porcine zona pellucida -- PZP for short. When PZP, derived from pig eggs, is injected, it stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies that attach to sperm receptors on the surface of the female’s eggs and distort their shape, thereby preventing fertilization.
“This is the last season the females will become pregnant en masse,” said Ann M. Muscat, president and chief executive of the conservancy. Contraception, she said, “is the next evolution of management strategy.”
That kind of talk worries Darrell Geist, habitat coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting the last wild bison herd in the United States at Yellowstone National Park.
“When you intervene with natural selection,” he said, “you are unraveling a very complex relationship among herd animals, particularly among matriarchal females and bulls who compete for those females.”
The island’s bison are descendants of the 14 shipped here in 1924 to appear in the 1925 silent western “The Vanishing American.” A decade ago, as many as 500 roamed Catalina’s 76 square miles of rugged mountains, lush valleys, streams and grasslands, where the next-largest natural herbivores are ground squirrels.
Locals have come to cherish the shaggy beasts as living symbols of the island’s heritage, and they are a powerful attraction for eco-tourists.
Some homes in Avalon, the island’s tourism and demographic center with a permanent population of about 4,000 people, are festooned with painted images of bison or crowned with bronze bison weather vanes. Gift shops sell furry bison figurines and gold-painted, dehydrated bison droppings.
The Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau sponsored a “Buffalo in Paradise” event in 2003, which featured whimsically decorated fiberglass bison placed outdoors throughout town.
But Catalina only appears to be a hospitable landscape for bison.
In 2003, when there were 350 bison on the island, a scientific survey concluded that “although the bison seem to be doing well, they are significantly smaller than mainland bison, experience relatively low reproductive rates and appear to be in poor nutritional condition, based on blood tests and frequent observations of open sores.”
The health of the bison has significantly improved, conservancy officials said, since the herd numbers were reduced to less than 200 beginning in 2005. They achieved that by sending the bison out for slaughter or to breeding programs elsewhere.
Most recently, however, the animals have been transported, at a cost of $1,000 per animal, to Native American reservation lands in South Dakota to live out their lives.
The study also pointed out that foraging and wallowing bison were trampling native plant communities, altering tree canopies by rubbing against trees, and undermining weed management efforts by dispersing a variety of nonnative grasses through their droppings.
The contraception program is expected to be 90% effective, “so there will be a small percentage that does not respond and becomes impregnated,” De la Rosa said.
In the meantime, the conservancy’s bison wranglers were clambering over the island’s rugged terrain Thursday with a goal of ensuring that every big browser gets a blood test and an ear tag -- and, for females, the contraceptive.
By noon, nearly 50 animals had been rounded up and trucked to a holding facility at conservancy headquarters in the center of the island.
“It’s a lot of exercise for our guys,” said Lenny Altherr, the conservancy’s director of facilities management and trail boss of the roundup.
louis.sahagun@latimes.com
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e34d15adcc5dc515acd5873d2464dd32 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-me-christmas-bongs20-2009nov20-story.html | Customs finds surprising cargo in Chinese shipment | Customs finds surprising cargo in Chinese shipment
Talk about holiday cheer.
Hundreds of boxes that were shipped from China and labeled as Christmas ornaments were seized by suspicious customs officials at Los Angeles Harbor recently. Inside the boxes were 316,000 glass bongs and other drug pipes.
“They’re very colorful and big,” said Cristina Gamez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Some of them are like 2 feet tall.”
Gamez said the bongs and pipes, which were found in nearly 860 boxes of cargo, are worth about $2.6 million.
The package arrived a month ago but was seized Tuesday at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex.
The manifest listed the cargo as Christmas ornaments.
No arrests have been made, Gamez said, and an investigation is pending.
All the items will be destroyed, Gamez said. She said that it was illegal to import, export or sell drug paraphernalia in the United States.
baxter.holmes@latimes.com
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1a0e96daeb13ad70fb199f44ffd36e44 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-oe-holo20-2009nov20-story.html | MOCA renews museums’ mission | MOCA renews museums’ mission
The new anniversary exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art is not only cause for celebrating the financial stabilization of an irreplaceable cultural institution in Los Angeles. It also is part of an important turning point in the modern history of museums -- a renewed focus on permanent collections. With its “Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years,” the museum is the latest to put its own works of art front and center to attract the public rather than rely on traveling art spectacles.
Over the last 40 years, museums gradually moved away from their traditional mission of building and promoting permanent collections in favor of temporary exhibitions. Because museum directors and curators were increasingly judged by how many visitors came through the turnstiles, they staged and aggressively marketed multimillion-dollar shows to attract as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. Exhibits of Tutankhamen’s treasures and Impressionist paintings became regular museum fare.
But this model was unsustainable. The costly exhibitions seldom paid for themselves, and the potential audience couldn’t necessarily afford the ever-escalating ticket prices. Many donors began to wonder why they were putting so much of their passion and treasure into building permanent collections that were seldom on view. And museum-goers groused about not being able to view more of these collections.
An over-reliance on expensive temporary exhibitions was one factor in MOCA’s slide into near-insolvency. Its endowment was tapped to pay for them, and when shows failed to generate the expected revenues and donors were unwilling to come up with the difference, the museum had to go back to its lifeline to sustain operations, a practice that could not be endlessly repeated.
MOCA’s return from financial collapse, signified by its current, glorious exhibition of 500 museum-owned works, should remind museum executives and donors that we need to relearn some basic core values that were forgotten in the frenzy to keep turnstiles turning.
This means recognizing anew that museums were built through major donations of art from devoted members of their local communities -- and that the dedicated display of these works is the measure of museums’ future survival. Surveys conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at USC, which focused on foundations in the Los Angeles area, predict declining donations because of the economic slowdown and uncertainty, undermining the likelihood of more blockbuster exhibitions in the near future.
To better share their permanent collections with the public, museums need to launch more creative programming with respect to their exhibition and interpretation. People want to know how the collections came to their communities, the behind-the-scenes dramas of their acquisitions, their conservation and the history of their ownership or provenance. The tools and techniques -- orientation videos, audio tours and special openings -- that museums used to sell their glamorous temporary exhibitions could easily be redirected to this purpose.
We have already begun to see some examples along these lines. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art commissioned artist Jorge Pardo to design a display of its pre-Columbian collection. The result is a visually stunning exhibition that opens up a collection of works that had been largely overlooked by the general public.
And the Norton Simon Museum has in recent years highlighted its permanent collection by borrowing and showcasing just a few masterpieces at any given moment. Today, one can see the glorious “Comtesse d’Haussonville” by Ingres, and earlier this year the National Gallery of Art’s “A Lady Writing” by Vermeer was on display -- both in the context of the museum’s superb collection.
The principal obligation of museums -- one lost in the orgy of spectacle exhibitions -- is to transmit, principally by means of their permanent collections, their piece of our cultural DNA to their many publics. This is what they were created to do, and this is what they do best. Museums remind us, through their artworks, of our shared humanity, of our shared desire to create beauty, to investigate our past and to excavate our cultural history in pursuit of our origins.
People recall the museums they care about through the prism of specific artworks they have seen and hope to repeatedly see over time. Whether as residents of a city or as tourists, they want to visit the stars of the permanent collection. They seek out Picasso’s “Guernica” at the Reina Sofia in Spain; they look for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris; they stand in awe in front of Monet’s “Water Lilies” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and they love “Blue Boy” and “Pinkie” at the Huntington in San Marino.
We don’t need expensive surveys to know this truth about museums. We just need to follow the crowds and their outstretched arms holding cellphones taking pictures. MOCA has shown the way. And it will not be alone.
Selma Holo, director of the International Museum Institute and the Fisher Museum at USC, is co-editor, with Mari-Tere Alvarez, of “Beyond the Turnstile: Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values.”
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5416330a381ea7ab281a98d5023888df | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-oe-kirchick20-2009nov20-story.html | Homophobia and AIDS funding can’t coexist | Homophobia and AIDS funding can’t coexist
Since its inception in 2003, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- PEPFAR -- has become the largest public health program in history. Created by President George W. Bush, it has distributed nearly $50 billion worldwide, mostly in Africa, to prevent the spread of HIV and to treat its victims. Over the last five years, the fund has provided care for 3 million people and prevented an estimated 12 million new infections. Even Bush’s harshest critics do not deny that PEPFAR has been a huge success in combating the AIDS epidemic.
In spite of all that the program has accomplished, however, a persistent problem remains: the promotion of homophobia by African governments receiving American aid money. In no nation is this problem more acute than in Uganda, one of 15 PEPFAR “focus” countries that collectively account for half of the world’s HIV infections. Homosexuality is considered a taboo in most of Africa, yet few governments have gone to the lengths of Uganda’s in punishing it. The consequences are devastating not only for the people directly affected by these adverse policies but for the fight against AIDS in general.
Uganda’s campaign against homosexuality took a disturbing turn last month when a member of parliament in the nation’s governing majority introduced legislation that would stiffen penalties for actual or perceived homosexual activity, which is already illegal under Ugandan law. According to the proposed law, “repeat offenders” could be sentenced to death, as would anyone engaging in a same-sex relationship in which one of the members is under the age of 18 or HIV-positive. Gay-rights advocacy would be illegal, and citizens would be compelled to report suspected homosexuals or those “promoting” homosexuality to police; if they failed to do so within 24 hours, they could also be punished.
International human rights groups have protested the bill, but their complaints have only made the government more defiant. “It is with joy we see that everyone is interested in what Uganda is doing, and it is an opportunity for Uganda to provide leadership where it matters most,” the country’s ethics and integrity minister has said.
Aside from its evident inhumanity, such draconian legislation will only do massive harm to HIV-prevention efforts. Gay men are an at-risk community, and they already face severe repression in most African countries. Because of conservative social mores and government repression, many are hesitant to come forward to get information regarding safe sexual practices. This bill could make the very discussion of condom use and HIV prevention for gay men illegal. By driving gays even further underground, such governmental homophobia only ensures that HIV will continue to spread unabated.
When a government actively encourages homophobia, the effect reverberates throughout society. Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has accused European gays of coming to his country to “recruit” people into homosexuality. Ugandan newspapers and bloggers have seized on the proposed law to launch their own broadsides against gays, posting the names and photographs of individuals in Wild West-style “wanted” posters in print and online. A major tabloid, the Red Pepper, trumpeted an expose headlined “Top Homos in Uganda Named” as “a killer dossier, a heat-pounding and sensational masterpiece that largely exposes Uganda’s shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the Western evils to our dear and sacred society.”
From 2004 through 2008, Uganda received a total of $1.2 billion in PEPFAR money, and this year it is receiving $285 million more. Clearly, the United States has a great deal of leverage over the Ugandan government, and the American taxpayer should not be expected to fund a regime that targets a vulnerable minority for attack -- an attack that will only render the vast amount of money that we have donated moot.
Earlier this month, members of Congress led by the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), and its ranking minority member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling on the U.S. “to convey to Ugandan leaders that this bill is appalling, reckless and should be withdrawn immediately.” And in an open letter to Dr. Eric Goosby, the new U.S. global AIDS coordinator, Charles Francis, a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS during the Bush administration, asked, “Will we stand by and let national governments scapegoat a sexual minority for HIV/AIDS while receiving major funding for AIDS relief?”
Irresponsible and reprehensible behavior on the part of Ugandan officials should lead to a serious re-evaluation of U.S. policy and an ultimatum for the Ugandan government: It must desist in its promotion of deadly homophobia or say goodbye to the hundreds of millions of dollars it has received due to the generosity and goodwill of the American people.
James Kirchick is an assistant editor of the New Republic and a contributing writer to the Advocate.
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12c54e48f96cde6a1a5b06194f717c96 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-20-la-sp-shaikin-dodgers20-2009nov20-story.html | For Angels, Jason Bay, John Lackey and Chone Figgins are all in play | For Angels, Jason Bay, John Lackey and Chone Figgins are all in play
Matt Holliday is not coming. Jason Bay might be coming. John Lackey and Chone Figgins are not coming back -- not together, anyway.
Those were the highlights of the state of the Angels address delivered by owner Arte Moreno on Thursday, after baseball’s owners concluded their meetings here.
The free-agent shopping season opens today, with owners citing an uncertain economic forecast in suggesting players might linger on the market well into the winter. Yet Moreno left one thing absolutely certain: The Angels have no interest in outfielder Matt Holliday, perhaps the best position player available in free agency.
“He is not going to be an Angel,” Moreno said. “We are not looking at Holliday at all.”
Moreno did not elaborate, but he did say the Angels would look into signing outfielder Jason Bay, in part because of his “great bat and great makeup.”
The same qualities could be attributed to Holliday, but he is represented by Scott Boras and Bay is not. After Moreno tried to retain first baseman Mark Teixeira last winter, the negotiations with Boras left the owner displeased with the agent, according to sources within the organization who were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
Moreno identified a power bat, a starting pitcher and a reliever as the Angels’ primary off-season needs.
Holliday, 29, hit .313 with 24 home runs and a .909 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) last season. Bay, 31, hit .267 with 36 home runs and a .921 OPS last season.
Bay rejected a four-year offer at “close to $60 million” to stay with the Boston Red Sox, SI.com reported Thursday.
The Angels would have to fit Bay into a payroll that appears to have room for one premium free agent. After factoring in raises for players under contract and eligible for salary arbitration, Moreno said the Angels stood at $101 million, with a target of $113 million.
“We’re going to invest what we invested last year,” he said. “We’re not looking to reduce payroll.”
Moreno said he would like to bring Lackey and Figgins back. If both players depart, Scot Shields would be the lone player remaining from the 2002 World Series championship team.
“When you’re with someone as long as they’ve been here, they’ve got an emotional connection,” Moreno said. However, Moreno said he did not anticipate fitting Lackey and Figgins into that $12-million slot allotted for free agents.
“If you look at what they’re asking,” Moreno said, “you can’t bring both of them back.”
Moreno said the Angels could address some needs -- and possibly create more payroll space -- with trades. For instance, he said, the Angels might be able to spare a middle infielder in trade.
Even then, he might not consider any free agent looking for a contract beyond four years. Lackey is believed to have set the contract to which the New York Yankees last winter signed pitcher A.J. Burnett -- five years, $82.5 million -- as a starting point for his negotiations.
“A lot of people are looking for five- and six-year contracts,” Moreno said, speaking generally. “I’m not interested in making what I would consider a long-term contract unless we feel it’s for a franchise player. There are very few franchise players out there.”
Vladimir Guerrero was one when the Angels signed him in 2004. He won the American League most valuable player award in his first year with the Angels, but Moreno suggested he might have reached an impasse in negotiations for a new contract.
“We’ve talked to his agent just recently,” Moreno said. “We talked to his agent two years ago. We could never get close enough. It’s very emotional for us. He’s been unbelievable for our franchise. He’s a gentleman. He should be a future Hall of Famer.”
Moreno also praised perennial top prospect Brandon Wood, who could replace Figgins at third base or at the least replace Robb Quinlan as a right-handed bench player. Wood, 24, has batted .192 over parts of three seasons.
“Eventually, Brandon is going to get his 600, 800, 1,000 at-bats. He’s done everything he can in our minor league system,” Moreno said. “He’s been a very patient guy. . . . I can’t tell you he’ll be guaranteed a job. He’s one of the players that’s earned an opportunity to try to win a job.”
bill.shaikin@latimes.com
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944f13b70179329b650bc8998e9334ac | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-21-la-ed-ama21-2009nov21-story.html | The AMA’s reversal on marijuana | The AMA’s reversal on marijuana
For all the debate over whether marijuana has medicinal value, arguments that the drug has significant palliative properties or that it has none suffer from the same flaw: There’s little scientific proof either way.
This lack of conclusive evidence isn’t accidental. In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, classifying marijuana -- which had been illegal since 1937 -- as a Schedule I drug, which meant that it had a high potential for abuse and no medicinal value. In keeping with this position, the government has allowed only the University of Mississippi to cultivate research-grade marijuana, and has so restricted access to its small supply that determining the drug’s efficacy is for all intents and purposes impossible.
So patients’ advocates celebrated last week when the nation’s largest physicians organization, the American Medical Assn., recommended that marijuana’s schedule classification be reviewed for the purpose of facilitating research and the “development of cannabinoid-based medicines.” It was indeed good news.
But hold the brownies. Although the AMA reversed a long-held position, it also issued a series of caveats: The change does not mean the organization supports state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs. It should not suggest that cannabis meets the standard set for prescription drugs. Nor is this an indication that the organization advocates legalization. Moreover, it has specifically rejected language calling for marijuana to be rescheduled.
That medical marijuana is becoming more acceptable to the mainstream is undeniable -- 13 states now permit its use -- but ideally, major healthcare policy shouldn’t be enacted by popular opinion. In that light, the AMA’s recommendation is all the more powerful for its restraint.
In 1913, California became the first state to outlaw marijuana, and in 1996, it became the first to approve it for medical use. We have been supportive of the California Compassionate Use Act, but we have been equally vocal about the need for research. Small studies suggest that cannabis relieves nerve pain in HIV patients, mitigates migraine headaches, reduces ocular hypertension in glaucoma patients and is effective against various forms of severe, chronic pain. The states that have legalized the drug’s use for medicinal purposes have done so on the basis of a small body of research and a large amount of anecdotal evidence, but more facts are needed. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should heed the doctors’ orders on this matter and open the way to scientific investigation.
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3aee378a9822a32d1c14f5ffff38ddcd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-21-la-et-lacma21-2009nov21-story.html | Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hard hit by recession | Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hard hit by recession
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art saw its investment portfolio lose nearly a quarter of its value during its 2008-09 fiscal year, which coincided with the worst worldwide financial debacle since the Great Depression.
The $254.7-million pile of cash and investments shrank to $196 million, a 23% drop, according to figures in the audited financial statements that LACMA recently posted on its website.
The most worrisome development for LACMA -- as for many nonprofits -- has been the recession’s effect on fundraising. In 2007-08, it raked in gifts and pledges totaling $129.7 million, most of it for the museum’s expansion and renovation campaign, which was in high gear amid strong markets. In 2008-09, donations fell to $29 million. The capital campaign stands at $316 million -- $134 million shy of its $450-million goal.
The portion of its holdings that the museum sets aside as an endowment shrank from $148 million to $99.6 million, a 32.7% decline. (That includes a $7.3-million reduction that was not due to investment losses but was withdrawn to pay operating expenses, in keeping with the museum’s policy of annually spending about 5% of the endowment’s value.)
With the markets brightening lately, the endowment had grown to $109 million on Sept. 30, said Ann Rowland, LACMA’s chief financial officer.
Museum director Michael Govan was not available for comment about the financial situation. Barbara Pflaumer, the museum’s chief spokeswoman, said that LACMA quickly reined in expenses when the economy tanked, instituting a hiring freeze, dropping some exhibitions and postponing a planned $50-million renovation of the former May Co. department store known as LACMA West.
Now the museum staff of about 350 has 16 vacancies, she said, and eight other jobs have been eliminated -- two by retirement and six through layoffs. Among those losing their jobs, Pflaumer said, were three employees in the museum store, a registrar and, most prominently, the director of LACMA’s film program.
Given the extensive layoffs at L.A.'s J. Paul Getty Trust, which this year cut its workforce by 14%, a loss of 205 jobs, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a 14% staff reduction sacrificed 357 jobs, Pflaumer said, “We’ve done better than just about anybody in keeping the wheels on the bus.”
In a silver lining of the flailing economy, LACMA’s attendance rose from 825,000 the period before to 853,000, Pflaumer said, perhaps reflecting people’s desire to save on travel and spend more leisure time close to home. There also was more to see: The Broad Contemporary Art Museum had opened five months before the fiscal year began, giving LACMA an additional attraction to draw visitors.
Meanwhile, as the recession continues, LACMA faces rising costs for its borrowing. If interest rates on LACMA’s $383 million in variable-rate bonds remain unchanged, Rowland said, the museum’s yearly debt expenses will nevertheless rise from $8 million in 2008-09 to $12.5 million to $13 million starting in the current fiscal year. That’s because a reserve fund to help pay borrowing costs has all been spent.
LACMA has been paying about 3.3% on its bonds, Rowland said, factoring in the complex interest rate swap agreements the museum has entered into with Citibank, and the $4 million a year cost of a guarantee by a consortium of banks that they’ll pay investors if LACMA defaults. The guarantee lowers interest on the bonds.
The museum has more fiscal control over its regular operations. There, said Rowland, the chief financial officer, LACMA ran a $400,000 deficit while spending $53 million. But total operating expenditures came to $74.1 million, factoring in depreciation on buildings and equipment, and other costs the museum doesn’t count in its budget -- notably the interest and fees on the bonds.
Overall spending was essentially unchanged from the previous year’s $74.4 million. Los Angeles County provided $22.3 million, or 30.1% of the 2008-09 expenses, not counting construction and art acquisitions. In 2007-08, the county kicked in $20 million, covering 27% of expenses. Rowland said that under a deal negotiated two years ago with the county, LACMA’s base support will be $24 million this year and $26 million in 2010-11, plus other increases pegged to inflation.
Beyond its operating expenses, the museum spent $43 million during the year toward construction of its new Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, which is due to open in 2010. Art acquisitions through purchases and donations were valued at $42.8 million, down from $45.7 million. Sales of works in the collection generated $4.2 million, which will be used for other art purchases.
Two months before the economic meltdown, the financial statement shows, an unnamed LACMA executive joined Govan as the second staff member who has been given extra financial incentives not to jump ship.
Govan’s deal, which The Times previously reported, calls for him to collect an extra $1 million if he stays to the end of his five-year contract in 2011.
Now, another LACMA leader will collect $450,000 in “executive deferred compensation” after fulfilling a three-year commitment that ends in mid-2011. Museum President Melody Kanschat is LACMA’s second-ranking employee, but Pflaumer, saying it is a personnel matter, would not specify who got the deal.
mike.boehm@latimes.com
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d0643917e4a0da661c207804b734dc8d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-21-la-fg-climate-cartagena22-2009nov22-story.html | Rising sea levels threaten Caribbean region | Rising sea levels threaten Caribbean region
The effect of climate change is anything but hypothetical to retired Colombian naval officer German Alfonso. Just ask him about the time his neighborhood in this historic coastal city became an island.
For five years, Alfonso, 74, has watched tides rise higher and higher in the Boca Grande section of Cartagena. This month, tides briefly inundated the only mainland connection to his neighborhood, a converted sandbar where about 60 high-rise condo and hotel towers have been built in the last decade or so.
“Before, people thought it a normal phenomenon. But we’re becoming more conscious that something is going on,” Alfonso said. “If the sea keeps rising, traffic could just collapse.”
According to a recently updated World Bank study on climate change in Latin America, Alfonso and his neighbors have reason to be concerned. Not only are the effects of global warming more evident in Latin American coastal cities, the report says, but the phenomenon could worsen in coming decades because sea levels will rise highest near the equator.
Colombian naval Capt. Julian Reyna, a member of a government task force monitoring climate change, said the sea level around Cartagena, renowned for its Spanish colonial fortifications and beaches, has risen as much as one-eighth of an inch each year over the last decade, an increase that scientists expect to accelerate in coming years.
According to some scenarios that the authors of the World Bank study say are not that far-fetched, Cartagena and the rest of the Caribbean coastal zone could see sea levels rising as much as 2 feet, possible more, by the end of the century. Even at the lower end of projections, parts of this city would be knee-deep in sea water.
One of the authors, climatologist Walter Vergara, cautions that the projections are based on trends and factors that could change, buthe is worried that Colombia’s entire Caribbean coastal zone could see relocations of urban centers. Other Latin and Caribbean cities especially at risk include Veracruz, Mexico; Georgetown, Guyana; and Guayaquil, Ecuador, he said.
“The projections are based on assumptions generally accepted by the scientific community and do not include the cataclysmic effects of possible advanced ice melting in the Antarctic or Greenland,” said co-author economist John Nash.
Even under the most benign of scenarios, Vergara and other scientists are concerned for Colombia’s Cienaga Grande, a mangrove marsh covering hundreds of square miles whose ecosystem could die because of increased salinity from higher tides. The forests could disappear and thousands of fishermen may be displaced.
Agriculture in Colombia and other tropical countries is at greater risk than in the United States, Canada and Europe because temperatures are already relatively high in countries near the equator, and increases will be more damaging to growing conditions, Nash said.
Cartagena’s chief city planner, Javier Mouthon, said the local government is aware of what could be in store and is making plans beyond immediate effects that include a long-term “adaptation process.” That includes new roads and relocating city facilities to avoid permanently flooded zones.
Cartagena is already studying the feasibility of building dikes or collection pools and possibly requiring all construction to have foundations 20 inches higher than currently specified.
“We are quite concerned,” Mouthon said. “It’s a problem that grows year by year.”
Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos has begun convening workshops of coastal governors and mayors to hammer home the possible repercussions of climate change and the need to adjust urban and regional planning accordingly.
Many residents here seem to be only vaguely aware of global warming and its effects. At a new condo tower development called Bahia Grande being built near Alfonso’s house, saleswoman Rocio Buelvas said few prospective buyers raise the issue.
“They see it as a problem only for a couple of months of the year,” Buelvas said. “I think it will get better once they fix the drainage.”
Kraul is a special correspondent.
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858fc2ae18d1ba127a23b1b086aaff0f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-21-la-me-flu-guidelines21-2009nov21-story.html | When to take a sick child to the ER | When to take a sick child to the ER
For parents worried about a child sick with the flu, deciding when to head to the emergency room can be difficult.
Unlike the typical seasonal flu, which is generally most dangerous to infants and the elderly, the H1N1 strain has hit children, teenagers and young adults unusually hard and with little warning.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated earlier this month that more children have died from the H1N1 flu than people over 65, about 540 children as of mid-October compared to 440 seniors. And the agency recently reported that flu-related pediatric deaths were continuing to rise. An estimated 2,900 adults between 18 and 64 have died. Most years, 90% of people who die of the flu are 65 or older, officials said.
Life-threatening cases, however, remain unusual. As concern grows about the danger of H1N1, doctors also are seeing an uptick in what they call the “worried well,” parents who seek emergency care for perfectly healthy children.
So when should you take your child to the emergency room? Doctors say parents and guardians should assess how sick a child is in part based on experience.
“Is there something really different about your child that’s different from the seven or eight viral infections your kid gets every year? Those are the changes to look out for,” said Dr. Mark Morocco, associate residency director for emergency medicine at UCLA.
Warning signs include significant difficulty breathing; inability to drink fluids or urinate for more than six hours; change in the color of the mouth or lips; or unusual behavioral changes, such as a crying child who cannot be consoled, or a child who doesn’t wake up or walk or talk normally.
If any of those symptoms show up in children, parents should take them to the emergency room, Morocco said, noting that “respiratory infections are often things that are the most life-threatening in children.”
Lung inflammation is particularly dangerous to infants and young children because their airways are smaller. According to the California Department of Public Health, the flu virus replicates in the airways and lungs, causing them to swell. The inflammation makes it difficult for the lungs to work, reducing the body’s ability to take oxygen into the bloodstream.
In California, the most common causes of deaths associated with H1N1 flu have been viral pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, state health officials wrote in a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Experts are telling clinicians to treat the H1N1 strain differently than the seasonal flu.
In a Journal of the American Medical Assn. editorial published earlier this month, former CDC director Julie Louise Gerberding wrote that patients who have a five- or six-day history of flu-like illness and whose ability to breathe is worsening “appear to be at risk for rapid deterioration” and should be treated with antiviral drugs and admitted to the hospital.
“Clinicians should not be falsely reassured by previous good health, young age and absence of major comorbidities because these characteristics do not exclude the potential for respiratory failure and death,” Gerberding wrote.
The CDC has also warned that some physicians are not prescribing antiviral drugs to H1N1 patients, pointing to studies that show that about 25% of hospitalized patients with lab-confirmed H1N1 did not receive Tamiflu or similar drugs.
Even among those who did get antiviral drugs, medication was often delayed for one or two days after they were admitted to a hospital, the CDC said. California health officials have also said that antiviral medication can reduce mortality even when given late, which is defined as more than 48 hours after symptoms begin.
Although most people who are hospitalized or have died from H1N1 have underlying medical conditions, a significant proportion of H1N1 victims are otherwise healthy.
“What’s surprising about this flu is . . . we’re seeing patients between the ages of 10 and 47 with no underlying medical problems that are getting into trouble. And that’s scary for us, because it’s hard to know who is going to get in trouble,” said Dr. Gail Carruthers, director of the pediatric emergency department at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children’s Hospital.
Sometimes, patients will report flu-like symptoms for as little as three hours or as long as two weeks, then quickly become significantly worse. Their lungs begin to fail and fill up with fluid, requiring intensive care.
Carruthers recalled two recent patients, a teenager and a middle-aged person, whose lungs began failing even though they had no underlying medical conditions.
“It’s almost like watching them drown,” Carruthers said. “They feel like they can’t get any air.” But, Carruthers added, “if you don’t feel short of breath, and you have a dry cough, you’re probably fine staying at home.”
ron.lin@latimes.com
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b624d35b50cec83ef995be1816eafdd4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-21-la-oe-morrison21-2009nov21-story.html | MOCA man | MOCA man
Paul Schimmel doesn’t need much encouragement to squire a guest around the Museum of Contemporary Art’s galleries, which he does with the zest of a house-proud homeowner. And why shouldn’t he? Next month, MOCA’s chief curator celebrates 20 years with the museum, which has just put up a big, gorgeous show of its collections for its own “First Thirty Years” celebration.
Neither anniversary might have happened. Money troubles threw a sincere scare about MOCA’s survivability into the art world and the city. But a last-reel rush to save MOCA raised some respectable dough, most recently $3.5 million that fluttered in from a black-tie gala enlivened by Lady Gaga performing on a pink piano that Damien Hirst had painted with blue butterflies.
Schimmel was always a believer, even in the bad times. On his desk are small books with deliberately blank pages, on whose edges artist Ed Ruscha has summed up philanthropist Eli Broad’s challenge to MOCA: “Make new history.” For Schimmel, that’s the eleventh commandment -- or maybe the first.
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After 30 years of MOCA, has L.A. finally overcome its artistic inferiority complex? Does the city have the confidence to match the collection?
The city has the creative confidence to be among the most admired and influential visual arts communities in the world. One thing MOCA made a profound commitment to was to treat the best and brightest artists of Los Angeles not as provincially important, but to bring them to national and international attention. We have succeeded because the artists we have grown up with have become among the most admired in the world. Sam Francis, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha: They’ve supported the institution; they see both the museum and themselves in a regional context while simultaneously understanding the huge impact that Los Angeles art has internationally.
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Does the regular Angeleno appreciate MOCA?
When you have memberships like we do, when you have exhibitions that can bring in 100,000, 200,000 people, this is a great success. Would we like to have a larger membership and more visitors? Would we like the nature of urban life in Los Angeles to [bring] more people walking in off the street? Of course. But these are broader issues. We have had great success in changing the public’s relationship to art of our time. Contemporary art was highly specialized and a small niche market. Now, some 30 years later, MOCA has provided a kind of town center for the visual arts that’s been very successful.
Our [Takashi] Murakami exhibition broke records here, and at the Brooklyn Museum and in Frankfurt and Bilbao. Shows like “Ecstasy” brought in a whole new generation. One of the most coveted audiences is the first-time museum visitor. You know they’re first-time because you have to watch them much more carefully; they don’t know the difference between not touching and touching! Members are the backbone, but your first-time visitor -- if you open the door for a new generation of museum-goers, it’s extraordinary. The impact -- they carry that for the rest of their lives.
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MOCA just had a near-death experience, financially. Where do matters stand now?
My expertise is clearly the artistic program. That said, MOCA has done a great deal in the last year to bring the endowment back up, and it has occurred much more rapidly than people could have imagined.
There have been two factors: the Broad Foundation [Eli Broad provided a $30-million bailout, tied to a challenge to the MOCA board], and the fact that the board -- people have been unfairly critical of this board -- continued to raise funds to bring the endowment back to where it was.
I’ve never heard from our trustees or the patrons or the artists that they want us to lower the quality of what we do, to be less original, to be any less committed to the kinds of audacious shows that have characterized MOCA from the beginning. What I have heard is that we should do fewer things, but in no way to erode the quality or the ambition of this institution.
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Did you ever think that MOCA wouldn’t make it to 30?
No, and I wasn’t alone. An institution that had done so much to change Los Angeles, an institution and a collection admired as one of the most important, and a membership of 15,000, 20,000 people -- I could not imagine that a depleted endowment would be enough to take it under. I suspect that the world’s perception of MOCA [helped] in saving us. There was a sense well beyond Los Angeles that this would be a terrible, terrible loss.
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Is MOCA in any position to buy art?
We have had a certain significant curtailment of our acquisitions in the past year. But well over 90% of our collection has been donated. Nothing inspires donations more than the opportunity to see the collection itself. As you know, there was a very rapid drop [in art sales] last year. Instead of people selling works, they might very well consider giving them away.
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What does success mean in the art world?
A successful movie has to really reach millions and millions of people. A successful artist ultimately needs only a handful of patrons to truly make a great career. The most famous artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, doesn’t even come close to the reach a Steven Spielberg has. By [its] very nature, art is elite, and yet from this crucible it spills out into the world of journalism, into popular culture, to movies and to music, and the impact is really quite profound. We were downstairs looking at Diane Arbus [photographs]. That scene in “The Shining” -- those little twins at the end of the hallway -- that’s Diane Arbus. She doesn’t get credit, but the impact of her vision, her imagery, through that movie and from that director, is pervasive.
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With such a substantial permanent collection, are the space limitations frustrating?
I don’t think we have space limitations. We have two great buildings. What we have not had is the consistent funding.
A good, proper balance of temporary ex- hibitions and permanent collections is kind of a 50-50 ratio, and that’s something we hope to achieve both in this building and over at the Geffen. A real balance between permanent collections and temporary exhibitions is what we are striving for.
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Why did you fall in love with contemporary art and not, say, old Dutch masters?
I knew from the time I was a teenager I wanted to be a curator. My epiphany was in the basement of the Museum of Modern Art. I was doing research on [the art collection of] Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. The librarian at MOMA arranged to have one of the assistant curators take me down to the basement, where they had a number of these works. Being alone with the work of art, having that kind of intimacy, realizing the incredible connection as a curator you can have with an object -- that is absolutely still the core.
I’ve had opportunities to go in other directions -- the gallery world, artist’s advisor. I come back again and again to the fact that being a curator is uniquely marvelous.
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If some disaster happened and you could save one piece from the whole museum, which would it be?
I know which I could carry under my arms; I know which is the most valuable per square inch, but I couldn’t. . . . Are you a mother?
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What about the controversy over setting up a Louis Vuitton store in the middle of the 2007 “Copyright Murakami” exhibition?
Personally, I have no interest in brands; I’m kind of the anti-brand. But I understood how important [Murakami’s] erasure of the space between high and low, between commercial art and fine art, was. That was essential to understanding Murakami.
And I was wrestling with, how do you do that? You can talk about it; you can write about it; you can take pictures of it; but the best way to do it is to have people experience it, in a very meaningful way. And a way that really represents the artist is experiencing the shop itself.
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And you took a lot of crap for it.
On both sides. A lot of crap for doing it, and a lot of crap for not making money on it.
We’re not a gallery. I didn’t want the Louis Vuitton shop next to our bookshop. I did not want it to be treated as a commercial enterprise. I wanted it to be like a spaceship that had landed in the middle of the exhibition. I also understood that if we opened a commercial shop and [if it] had direct benefits to the museum, it could [call into] question our not-for-profit status. So Louis Vuitton and Murakami developed, financed and fully operated that shop. We had nothing to do with it.
I have courted controversy before, and I understood there were great benefits to the museum by changing the paradigm. It was wildly successful beyond my greatest ambition.
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What happens when Rauschenberg becomes Rembrandt, when “contemporary” is 100 years old and part of the artistic canon?
First of all, Rauschenberg becomes Rembrandt in a much quicker time frame than Rembrandt became Rembrandt. The sense of compression of time, it’s a world phenomenon, and you have changes that take place in a blink, overnight.
Great success can also be limiting, and this worries me. When an artist becomes extraordinarily revered for a certain kind of work, collectors, dealers, critics, curators all want that thing. Enormous success can be a great challenge for an artist to move forward, because greatness is achieved by rejecting your past and moving on. And the more successful you are, the more [it can] hold an artist back. I don’t know what the balance is, but the mark of the great artist is one who can walk away from themselves and move on.
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Is there one artist whose work you covet?
I would like MOCA to have a collection of [California artist Bruce] Nauman that’s equal to MOMA’s collection of Picasso. We’re not there by a long shot. Financially, at this moment, it’s out of our reach. But I would very much like to have the cream of the collection of Bruce Nauman. It’s so clear to me that he is a giant.
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patt.morrison@latimes.com. This interview was edited and excerpted from a longer taped transcript. An archive of Morrison’s interviews is online at latimes.com/pattasks.
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017682a2444c2492d3f32796835552e9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-22-la-ca-pop-divas22-2009nov22-story.html | In search of the perfect diva | In search of the perfect diva
Everyone knows that Taylor Swift can’t sing. The teen star might hold the zeitgeist in her pink satin clutch, but she’s regularly criticized for her live vocal performances, which tend toward wild notes and shortness of breath. Her turns onstage at the recent Country Music Assn. Awards, where she became the youngest-ever Entertainer of the Year, had critics pulling out descriptions like “shaky,” “a train wreck” and (memorably, from Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker) “wobbly as a newborn colt.”
FOR THE RECORD: Perfect diva: An article in Sunday’s Arts & Books about the search for the perfect diva said that Rihanna’s “Rated R,” due this week, was her third album. It is her fourth. —
Such negatives aren’t new: A year earlier, the website Country Standard Time ran an editorial declaring Swift’s voice “her biggest liability.”
It’s nothing new for a young female singer to take slaps for her lack of chops. Remember Madonna’s early days or, really, most of Janet Jackson’s career? What’s different about Swift is that her vocal problems actually play into her strengths.
Ridiculously precocious as a writer, accessibly adorable when it comes to image, Swift benefits from having a flaw. Pretty but gangly, she’s like a Disney heroine before the kiss makes her a real princess; her pitch problems enhance the sense that she’s a work in progress. Swift’s little voice drives adults crazy -- especially country-music lovers, who decry her as inauthentic -- but for the daughters and mothers who are her target audience, it shows she’s as real as they are, with room to grow.
Swift’s case contrasts informatively with that of another young, huge-selling female musician. Leona Lewis, whose second album, “Echo,” was released last week, had the most popular single of 2008 with “Bleeding Love,” a long drink of heartache built around her sumptuously somber vocal lines. An unusually gorgeous 23-year-old Londoner groomed to perfection by Idolmaker Simon Cowell, Lewis has a voice like the young Whitney Houston’s -- massive and sleek, athletic yet ethereal, with a tone that bespeaks the sublime.
But Lewis has a problem too. Her critics perceive her as hollow, inexpressive -- all voice and no personality. Unlike Houston and Mariah Carey, whose marital, chemical and/or psychiatric crises lent them the aura of the real, Lewis seems determined to remain sane and a little bit distant in her devotion to her craft.
Lewis is a lousy tabloid diva, and as a singer, she doesn’t wobble. While her seriousness lends her a certain marketable elegance, it can make her seem more like a product than a person. “Echo” modernizes her sound by taking it to the dance floor, but its center remains still. While the legions who buy it will admire its “dignity” and “class” (words often used by Lewis’ fans), its impact remains elusive.
Between these two poles of Perfect Personality and Perfect Voice lies reality for most female pop stars. The dichotomy also plays out in the life of the average woman, though “body” or “face” substitutes for voice when it comes to what we worry about and try to change.
The female stars who have come to dominate pop in the last decade all express some aspect of this tension -- neatly summed up by Swift in her megahit “You Belong With Me” as “she’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers,” impervious beauty versus touchable, vulnerable charm.
Tension makes a tangle
Two developments in the first part of this century have made this split feminine ideal particularly fraught. On the one hand, it’s become easier for any woman to enhance her body via Botox, liposuction or even reproductive technology -- think of Octomom, apparently self-made inside and out. The kind of “womanly” form that once required great genes or intense discipline now seems, to some, to be a basic right in our consumer’s democracy -- just as, for singers, perfect pitch is something guaranteed through Auto-Tune.
At the same time, the idea of “post-feminism,” which assumes that gender equality has been generally attained and only needs to be individually enacted and reinforced, presents another dream to ordinary women. It’s assumed that they can comfortably sit on the bleachers with the boys -- or run on the playing field, rule in the boardroom and co-parent at home. The ultimate fantasy is to be both a great beauty and a good pal: Angelina Jolie on her motor bike next to Brad Pitt.
The need to reconcile the cheer captain and the bleacher-sitter within is further complicated by what technology has done to the way women relate, both to each other and to men. On the Internet, we can create different versions of ourselves, but we’re also more exposed. The old-fashioned primness that made a comeback in the 1990s through books like “The Rules” has given way to text-message hookups and chat-room threesomes. As women reinvent both romance and themselves online, they explore new dimensions of what it means to be beautiful.
As these changes took place, American popular music reconnected with its feminine side. The male-oriented rock and hard-core hip-hop scenes of the 1990s still had their heroes; Lil Wayne rose, Nickelback made its stand and Eminem managed a comeback. But mainstream’s flavor came from dance music, revitalized R&B, amateur hours like “American Idol,” teen pop and other female-friendly forms. The tension between natural beauty and cultivated charm, big voices and small but smart ones, became a central subject of pop.
We can go back to the end of the last decade to understand how this particular story has played out in this one. The year 1999 saw the debuts of both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and the release of “The Writing’s on the Wall,” the breakthrough album for Beyoncé, then the primary member of the group Destiny’s Child.
Physically, all three of these women worked variations on the classic bombshell persona, foregrounding their sexuality in ways that played into fantasies that men have long enjoyed and women, however reluctantly, have adopted. Spears and Aguilera were hot ingénues and Beyoncé was a Glamazon in training. But their singing told a different story.
It’s hard to remember now, given all her personal ups and downs and her transformation, on recent albums, into a sonic android, but Spears started out in the role Taylor Swift now occupies. Her voice was cute, flawed and highly individual. (Even today, that Louisiana hiccup is impossible to miss, no matter how processed.)
Aguilera had the Perfect Voice, giant in her tiny body. And Beyoncé was a Personality with a Voice in training. An often inaccurate singer in Destiny’s Child, she developed her chops along with her image, both growing more formidable with each recording and tour.
Beyond Beyoncé
The mainstream stars who’ve come along since these ladies set the standard have mostly played variations on the themes they’ve laid out.
Some upend expectations. Susan Boyle, the singing-contest Cinderella whose debut album will be released this week, is the prime example. The stout, double-chinned, middle-age singer is the kind of woman who should have only personality going for her. When she opened up her mouth on “Britain’s Got Talent” to reveal a voice brimming with a golden glow, people’s bewilderment soon gave way to delight, not because she seemed to have worked hard to become so good, but because she didn’t: Boyle was a natural beauty in disguise.
Others seek to defy their designated paths. Norah Jones found record-breaking success with a sound that felt like the easiest form of grace; she possesses a Perfect Voice of an earlier vintage, best represented by the hugely influential but nearly forgotten 1980s star Sade. Jones’ gently phrased but irresistibly seductive 2002 debut, “Come Away With Me,” became the 10th biggest-selling album of the decade.
She’s tinkered heavily with her formula on “The Fall,” a breakup album (Jones parted ways with her longtime boyfriend and producer, Lee Alexander, last year) that greets freedom with a clatter of drums and electric guitars. “The Fall” is more first step than giant leap, and Jones can’t turn off the loveliness of her tone -- but sometimes even reverse makeovers take time, and she’s made a start.
Then there’s Rihanna, who releases her third album, “Rated R,” this week. The 21-year-old Barbadian might be at the first apex of her career, but she doesn’t have the luxury of time. Given her start by the rapping record man Jay-Z, she immediately registered as a younger Beyoncé, acting out the same struggle to find a voice that would suit her tough, perfect, fashion-forward image. She was often (unfairly, I think) accused of being little more than a gold-plated coat hanger upon which her male producers hung their own dreams.
Then, in February of this year, her boyfriend at that time, Chris Brown, assaulted her. Nothing reads as more intimate, or makes a woman seem more vulnerable, than a mug shot of her bruised face splashed across the gossip sites. Until recently, Rihanna’s response to the violation of her privacy was silence; she continued to appear in public, dressed in her armor of couture, but granted few interviews.
“Rated R” is Rihanna’s artistic statement on the incident, and it shows her working to strike a balance between the openness of a “real” voice and the self-protection offered by a perfect one. (A full review of the album will appear in Calendar this week.) “Russian Roulette,” its first single, shocked many listeners; its depiction of love as a deadly game played by peers seemed, to some, to be a case of the victim defiantly blaming herself.
But the song also can be interpreted in light of that shifting and always complicated feminine ideal. If it’s a confession, it’s a very sneaky one, one that also implicates the listener. For all its melodrama, “Russian Roulette” reminds us that actual women -- even pop stars -- are never perfect. They make mistakes, take dangerous risks and learn hard lessons, sometimes not as soon as they’d like. Trying to find herself within everyone else’s version of perfect, Rihanna is giving us a picture of imperfection that’s worth considering.
ann.powers@latimes.com
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9ebd5a0cd6b4bb90b23af02107a57ee2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-22-la-me-then22-2009nov22-story.html | Guerrilla art in the Southland: Remember Pink Lady? | Guerrilla art in the Southland: Remember Pink Lady?
All the world’s an art gallery to some folks -- no matter what City Hall says.
Just the other day an 18-foot-tall dinner fork was set in concrete in a Pasadena traffic median by conspirators wearing fake Caltrans uniforms and hard hats.
Yes, a true fork in the road.
The utensil was a 75th birthday present from artist Ken Marshall to his friend Bob Stane, an area coffeehouse/showroom owner.
Marshall didn’t ask permission to put it there, so Pasadena is pondering whether to allow it to stand for a while or ask Stane to take his gift home.
Given the Southland’s offbeat reputation, it should come as no surprise that guerrilla art has a long tradition here. The creators’ motives, of course, vary.
Don’t try to lick it
The “inefficiency” and high rates of the U.S. Postal Service led La Crescenta artist Mike Wallace to create a giant 1-cent concrete stamp, complete with a visage of Thomas Jefferson, in 1979. He delivered it to the parking lot of the postal service’s Terminal Annex in downtown L.A.
Wallace confessed to the caper a day later, after police seized the 6-foot-by-7-foot stamp and took it to the property division of Parker Center. (Luckily, it had no adhesive on the back.)
Wallace, who had originally constructed the postal designation as an art project at Cal State Northridge, marveled at how he and his confederates were able to deposit it so easily.
“We were wearing hard hats and fluorescent vests so we would look official,” he said. “I even had a clipboard.”
Wallace offered to take back the 800-pound stamp if no criminal or towing charges were assessed. The authorities agreed, apparently relieved to get it off their hands.
Explained one police spokesman: “It’s actually federal property.”
Whereabouts of the giant stamp are unknown. Perhaps it’s in someone’s giant stamp album.
Wild thing
It wasn’t exactly moviedom’s “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
But Department of Water and Power employees were surprised one morning in 1974 to find a strange intruder in a reflecting pool outside the agency’s building in the downtown L.A. Civic Center.
The Times’ Patt Morrison described the object as “a three-pronged, serpentine, green bronze, hollow beanstalk topped by orange and yellow translucent lotuses which alternately lighted up and spouted water.”
It wasn’t alive; it was battery-operated.
Artist Wade Cornell eventually owned up to being the creator and explained he wanted to “give the people something they can relate to in the downtown area with no explanation necessary, instead of those formless things people look at and say, ‘What’s that?’ ”
Still, some people said “What’s that?” about Cornell’s work, with employees likening it to a sea monster, a dragon and something out of the movie “Fantasia.”
It was titled “Lotus Sculpture.”
In any event, the DWP said no thanks. But the City Council agreed to keep Cornell’s “fine work of art” and added it to “the city’s permanent art collection.”
The last entry regarding the sculpture in the city archives said it was in storage in Van Nuys. The entry is dated 1975.
Not tickled pink
In 1966, artist Lynne Seemayer decided she was tired of seeing graffiti on the rocks above a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road.
So she spent several months removing the writing, then painted a pink, naked woman in its place.
For a few days, the 60-foot-tall Pink Lady “made more headlines in Los Angeles than President Johnson and the Beatles,” The Times’ Michael Arkush wrote later.
Seemayer (now Lynne Westmore), who painted the figure while hanging from nylon ropes attached to nearby bushes and pipes, was praised by some, condemned by others. She reported receiving marriage proposals and invitations to join nudist camps as well as death threats.
One woman phoned her repeatedly, certain that her runaway daughter was the model.
In the meantime, county authorities declared the Pink Lady a traffic hazard and said she would have to go.
As onlookers watched, workers sprayed her with high-powered hoses, then pelted her with paint remover. Both methods failed to erase the figure, whom The Times’ Jack Smith described as “exuberant and free,” holding “a sprig of wildflowers” while “her long dark tresses flowed backward.”
Finally, the county dispatched men in harnesses, carrying spray guns and 14 gallons of brown paint.
“Like insects they stood on her ears, her lips, her shoulders, her bosom, her hips, her knees, inch by inch, masking her flesh,” Smith wrote.
Half a century later, you can still see a few faded splashes of pink paint above the tunnel. But the lady with the long tresses is gone, as are her wildflowers.
steveharvey9@gmail.com
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17d3928374862a9a13e4d620c226abb3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-22-la-oe-jacques22-2009nov22-story.html | Understanding China | Understanding China
The dynamics of President Obama’s trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese -- though studiously cautious in their approach -- a rising sense of self-confidence.
Nor should we be surprised by the Chinese response. They may have appeared more conciliatory on previous visits by American leaders, but that was largely decorative. The Chinese have a powerful sense of their identity and worth. They have never behaved toward the West in a supplicant manner, for reasons Westerners persistently fail to understand or grasp.
Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement, and through the various iterations of the Sino-American relationship over the subsequent almost four decades, there has been an overriding belief in the West that eventually China would become like us: that, for example, a market economy would lead to democratization and that a free media was inevitable. This hubristic outlook is deeply flawed, but it still prevails, albeit with small cracks of self-doubt starting to appear.
The issue here is much deeper than Western-style democracy, a free media or human rights. China is simply not like the West and never will be. There has been an underlying assumption that the process of modernization would inevitably lead to Westernization; yet modernization is not just shaped by markets, competition and technology but by history and culture. And Chinese history and culture are very different from that of any Western nation-state.
If we want to understand China, this must be our starting point.
The West’s failure to understand the Chinese has repeatedly undermined its ability to anticipate their behavior. Again and again, our predictions and beliefsabout China have proved wrong: that the Chinese Communist Party would fall after 1989, that the country would divide, that its economic growth could not be sustained, that its growth figures were greatly exaggerated, that China was not sincere about its offer of “one country two systems” at the time of the hand-over of Hong Kong from Britain -- and, of course, that it would steadily Westernize. We have a long track record of getting China wrong.
The fundamental reason for our inability to accurately predict China’s future is our failure to understand its past. Although China has described itself as a nation-state for the last century, it is in essence a civilization-state. The longest continually existing polity in the world, it dates to 221 BC and the victory of the Qin. Unlike Western nation-states, China’s sense of identity comes from its long history as a civilization-state.
Of course, there are many civilizations -- Western civilization is one example -- but China is the only civilization-state. It is defined by its extraordinarily long history and also its huge geographic and demographic scale and diversity. The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence (which is why China could offer Hong Kong “one country two systems,” a formula alien to a nation-state).
The Chinese state enjoys a very different kind of relationship with society compared with the Western state. It enjoys much greater natural authority, legitimacy and respect, even though not a single vote is cast for the government. The reason is that the state is seen by the Chinese as the guardian, custodian and embodiment of their civilization. The duty of the state is to protect its unity. The legitimacy of the state therefore lies deep in Chinese history. This is utterly different from how the state is seen in Western societies.
If we are to understand China, we must move beyond the compass of Western reality and experience and the body of concepts that has grown up to explain that history. We find this extremely difficult. For 200 years the West, first in the shape of Europe and then the United States, has dominated the world and has not been required to understand others or The Other. If need be it could always bully the latter into submission.
The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of that era. We now have to deal with The Other -- in the form of China -- on increasingly equal terms.
China, moreover, is possessed, like the West, with its own form of universalism. It long believed that it was “the land under heaven,” the center of the world, superior to all other cultures. That sense of self, which has engendered a powerful self-confidence, has been persistently evident over the last 40 years, but with China’s rise, it is becoming more apparent as the country’s sense of achievement and restoration gains pace. Or to put it another way, when the presidents of China and the United States meet in Beijing in 2019, with the Chinese economy fast approaching the size of the American economy, we can be sure that the Chinese sense of hubris will be far stronger than in 2009.
But long before that, we need to try and understand what China is and how it behaves. If we don’t, then relations between China and the United States will never move beyond the polite and the formal -- and that will be a bad omen for the future relationship between the two countries.
Martin Jacques is the author of “When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.”
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5a13bf06bf827c4fe7ffeef893331ef2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-ed-sheriff23-2009nov23-story.html | A missing woman and the law’s lost compassion | A missing woman and the law’s lost compassion
Twenty-four-year-old Mitrice Richardson of South Los Angeles walked out of the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station in the wee hours of Sept. 17 and has been missing ever since. Sheriff Lee Baca insists that deputies followed procedures to the letter: Richardson, who was accused of refusing to pay her bill at a high-end Malibu restaurant and possessing a small amount of marijuana, insisted on leaving after being booked and released, despite invitations to spend the night in an empty cell or in the station’s lobby. Deputies at the station had declared her safe to go because she didn’t appear to be a threat to herself or anyone else. Nevertheless, the fact remains that she was 40 miles from home in the dead of night with no purse, cash or cellphone, no buses available for hours, and her car locked in a garage she couldn’t pay.
If that’s following procedures to the letter, something’s wrong with the procedures. Even if deputies acted as reasonably as Baca asserts, the implication is that the department’s responsibility to “safely” release people it takes into custody ends the moment they leave its property.
That’s certainly a pragmatic stance. As Baca’s report to the Board of Supervisors notes, deputies process 180,000 prisoners a year for release -- that’s nearly 500 a day -- and detaining someone for too long carries “tremendous liability.” Special steps are taken only for those “deemed to have medical or mental disabilities.” But as Richardson’s disappearance demonstrates, the department’s blithe lack of concern about people after they walk out the door may be creating new and unnecessary dangers.
The Orange County sheriff’s approach may not be a model for L.A. County, given the differences in size, but it’s still instructive. Rather than taking people to the closest station to be booked and released, Orange County deputies bring everyone to a jail with easy access to public transportation. And unlike their counterparts in L.A., they have health department workers on hand around the clock to look people over before release. That might have been useful in Malibu, considering reports that Richardson had sounded “crazy” and was acting erratically.
The Sheriff’s Department can’t be a taxi service, and the people it arrests have to be responsible for their own welfare once they’re released. Yet the department shouldn’t ignore the difficulties imposed on those it hauls off for booking. Policymakers should explore ways to ensure that people booked after hours with no way to get home, like Richardson, have options -- for example, a shuttle to a public transportation hub or easy access to their car. In limited cases, such as when witnesses see signs of mental illness, it may even be wise to hold suspects until morning. A few extra hours of inconvenience is a reasonable trade-off for avoiding tragedy.
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9024af64090b163a7aded6b04f2b5080 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-fg-iran-war-games23-2009nov23-story.html | Iran begins air-defense drills to protect nuclear sites | Iran begins air-defense drills to protect nuclear sites
Iran on Sunday launched what it described as its biggest air-defense drill ever with the aim of preparing to protect its nuclear sites from possible airstrikes as international talks to resolve the long stalemate over the nation’s atomic research program falter.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi continued to put pressure on the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, praising protesters for turning an annual march against the U.S. into an anti-government rally that was met by violence by security forces.
“What we saw in the streets was a huge campaign against the people,” he said in an interview posted on his website. “Throughout the history of the revolution, I had never seen such a scene and such deployment of so many forces. [It] showed how they fear this movement and what grandeur it possesses.”
Mousavi has been the figurehead of a grass-roots opposition movement that sprang out of Iran’s disputed June 12 election, in which he was declared the runner-up to Ahmadinejad. Analysts say the domestic crisis has complicated international efforts to forge a compromise with Iran over its nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at producing weapons.
The tussle over what Tehran insists is a civilian nuclear program has become wedded to Iran’s domestic politics. Both hard-liners and moderates have criticized an international proposal to exchange the bulk of Iran’s potentially dual-use nuclear material for fuel rods fitted for a medical reactor, though Ahmadinejad and his allies have praised it.
Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that Iran had not rejected the U.S.-backed fuel-swap proposal but needed guarantees that it would receive the fuel rods in exchange for its low-enriched uranium.
“We have enough reasons to distrust the West because of their behavior in the last 30 years,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the magazine.
The Obama administration has vowed to resolve the crisis diplomatically but is threatening new economic sanctions. Others in Washington talk of possible military action.
“If biting sanctions do not persuade the Islamic Republic to demonstrate sincerity in negotiations and give up its enrichment activities, the White House will have to begin serious consideration of the option of a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities,” said a report issued last week by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank that advocates a tough line against Iran.
Iran vowed to come up with the means to protect itself from any attack after complaining that Russia refuses to deliver the sophisticated S-300 air defense systems it promised.
The Iranian military exercise will mobilize rapid-reaction army and air defense units and test antiaircraft and radar capabilities over 230,000 square miles in various parts of the country, the hard-line Fars news agency said. Al-Alam, Iran’s state-owned Arabic-language news channel, said the drills would mimic an Iranian response to airstrikes.
U.S. and Israeli military experts have also proposed the possibility of longer-range ballistic missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites. Iranians say such a move would be met by an immediate response.
“If the enemy tries its luck and fires a missile into Iran, our ballistic missiles would zero in on Tel Aviv before the dust settles on the attack,” said Mojtaba Zolnour, the representative of supreme leader Ali Khamenei to the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In addition to its nuclear program, Iran has taken heat for its human rights record. A United Nations committee recently voted to condemn Iran for its treatment of protesters after the disputed election.
Iranian diplomats have rejected those accusations. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast chided the U.S. for condemning Iran, denying the allegations and pointing to alleged abuses of suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the CIA’s widely condemned program of abducting terrorism suspects.
Across Iran, dozens of people have been killed in the post-election unrest and hundreds arrested. More than 80 have been sentenced to prison and five condemned to death in connection with the protests.
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president accused of trying to undermine the government, was released Sunday on $700,000 bail after being sentenced to six years in prison, Iranian news agencies reported. The reformist politician, who backed Mousavi in the elections, had appeared gaunt and haggard in a televised trial in August that was widely criticized as a sham by legal and rights experts.
daragahi@latimes.com
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d810f16ef7307e9e4a84803b355c2518 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-fi-ct-ross23-2009nov23-story.html | Disney Studios drama might alter the industry | Disney Studios drama might alter the industry
If you thought President Obama moved quickly, that’s nothing compared with the first 50 days of the Ross administration.
In less than eight weeks, Rich Ross has swiftly stamped his imprimatur on Walt Disney Studios. The novice movie chairman and his boss, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, want to create a new business model for Hollywood to address the sweeping changes that are roiling the entertainment industry, including slumping DVD sales and the growing role the Internet plays in movie marketing.
Seeking to recast the studio for the digital era, Ross and Iger have set in motion a plan to dramatically challenge entrenched practices, potentially pitting Disney against theater owners, retailers and other business partners. The gambit, if it works, could be emulated by other studios.
If it backfires, it could undermine what has historically been the creative heart of Disney.
In meetings with producers, filmmakers and agents, Ross attacked the industry custom of spending $40 million on a TV advertising blitz two weeks before a film’s opening, rather than enlisting more targeted campaigns that harness social networks and the broader Web. And he’s raised again the touchy subject advanced by Iger that consumers are demanding that movies become available for home viewing sooner after release in theaters than has traditionally been the case.
Hollywood might finally be absorbing the message.
“Any of us that are sitting around protecting old business models unfortunately are destined to have a hard time succeeding in the coming years,” said Sam Gores, chairman of talent agency Paradigm. “We have to maximize our existing models and, more importantly, build new ones.”
It’s too soon to know whether Ross, a seasoned TV executive, can pull off his ambitious plan as well as successfully transition to the movie side of the business -- the track record in Hollywood is mixed. Ross declined to be interviewed.
In September, Iger stunned the industry when he ousted Disney’s movie Chairman Dick Cook, a 38-year veteran who began as a Monorail operator at Disneyland. By installing Ross, who built the Disney Channel into a global juggernaut, Iger gains more control over a key division he believed had long operated too independently.
Since Ross took over in early October, he has dismissed several top executives and begun restructuring operations. In the process, some say, the hyperkinetic executive displays flashes of brusqueness and impatience. The upheaval has created anxiety for employees and even at times disrupted business dealings. An important meeting with director Tim Burton and producer Joe Roth, who once ran Disney’s studio, to discuss marketing plans for the upcoming release of their film “Alice in Wonderland,” for example, was abruptly canceled pending an executive shake-up, leaving the filmmakers flummoxed.
Since then, Disney watchers have needed a score card to track all the comings and goings.
Last month, Ross flew to New York to fire Daniel Battsek, the head of Disney’s struggling specialty movie label, who, despite the unit’s recent poor track record, was caught off guard. A week later, he pushed out another company veteran, Mark Zoradi, who was president of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, in a prelude to an overhaul of the marketing and distribution operations that he oversaw. Ross next let go marketing President Jim Gallagher and elevated former home video chief Bob Chapek to an expanded role that encompasses all aspects of film distribution from movie theaters to home and digital delivery, breaking with the conventional role of solely booking movies into theaters.
In the coming weeks, Ross plans to hire a new marketing chief -- Disney has retained an executive search firm to find candidates outside and inside the movie business -- who will have an equally broad mandate to handle the promotion of films from multiplexes to living rooms.
Beyond organizational changes, Ross’ vision for the types of movies that will ultimately define Disney is beginning to emerge. His main focus will be developing family-friendly movies under the Disney label. Iger’s overarching strategy is to amass a stable of recognizable entertainment brands -- Pixar Animation Studios and the pending acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. -- and exploit the films across its TV, theme parks, consumer products and game divisions.
“It’s brand over everything else,” said Roth, referring to movies that come with built-in, pre-sold concepts, such as sequels. It’s a strategy, he notes, that although designed to reduce risk is not without a downside. “What may get lost in the shuffle are non-branded original ideas that have no pre-awareness.”
One of the challenges Ross faces is how to navigate the release dates for Disney’s event movies, including those from high-powered producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Bob Zemeckis. “It’s very difficult because there are only X-number of really key release dates and a lot of filmmakers who make big movies,” said Bruckheimer, responsible for Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.
Ross, to a great degree, is doing what every new studio chief does: comb through the list of existing projects to decide those that live and those that die. Last week, he torpedoed director McG’s planned $150-million production of “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” which had been envisioned as a new franchise.
One of the things he’s told agents is that he’s looking to make more movies that appeal to women. In meetings, Ross cited the studio’s upcoming release “Old Dogs,” a comedy starring Robin Williams and John Travolta, as a missed opportunity to further develop the female characters that would widen the movie’s appeal.
“He seems to be open to broadening what it means to be a Disney movie,” said United Talent Agency partner Jeremy Zimmer, “and to have more diversity and stronger execution of movies.”
The new direction shouldn’t come as a surprise: The studio has suffered two consecutive quarters of operating losses, and Iger this year took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the movie choices. Trying to cultivate relationships with talent that has close ties to Disney, Ross has been making the rounds in Hollywood.
Shortly after he took over, he went to DreamWorks’ headquarters to meet with Steven Spielberg and his partner, Stacey Snider, who were enticed into a distribution deal by Cook and were distraught over his ouster. Snider said that Ross assured them that DreamWorks was an “important partner” and “was not going to let any balls fall.” She and Spielberg in turn said to Ross, “We were sad that Dick was no longer there but that we’re completely on board with him.”
Ross also paid a visit to Bruckheimer at his Santa Monica office to see 40 minutes of his action film “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” and attended a preview of his video game-inspired “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” -- both big upcoming summer releases for Disney. “He’s off to a fast start,” said Bruckheimer, referring to his industry networking and studio realignment. Equally important, he said, is that Ross “keep up the morale, which is important when you’ve lost a lot of leaders.” A few weeks ago, Ross and Iger visited director Burton and Roth, who showed them a 10-minute 3-D clip of “Alice in Wonderland.”Ross, who at Disney Channel was known for nurturing talent, apparently hit it off with the eccentric Burton.“Rich was very good with Tim, really enthusiastic,” Roth said
Now, Ross will have to work his magic on the studio’s biggest star, Johnny Depp, who plays the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland” and Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series. Depp was shaken over the abrupt dismissal of Cook and said at the time that the former studio chief embodied the quality he valued most.
“You generally don’t meet people at the studios you trust,” Depp said.
claudia.eller@latimes
dawn.chmielewski@
latimes.com
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20acd68d3744b8c3c8f3ec412b2e68e6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-fi-rustbelt-greenbelt23-2009nov23-story.html | Solar energy industry brings a ray of hope to the Rust Belt | Solar energy industry brings a ray of hope to the Rust Belt
At a recent solar energy conference in Anaheim, economic development officials from Ohio talked up a state that seemed far removed from the solar panels and high-tech devices that dominated the convention floor.
Ohio, long known for its smokestack auto plants and metal-bending factories, would be an ideal place for green technology companies to set up shop, they said.
“People don’t traditionally think of Ohio when they think of solar,” said Lisa Patt-McDaniel, director of Ohio’s economic development agency. But in fact, the Rust Belt goes well with the Green Belt, she said.
In years past, Sunbelt governors recruited Midwestern businesses to set up shop in their states, dangling tax breaks and the lure of a union-free workforce.
Now the tables have turned as solar start-ups, wind turbine companies and electric carmakers from California and the Southwest migrate to the nation’s industrial heartland. They’re looking to tap its manufacturing might and legions of skilled workers, hit hard by the near-collapse of the United States auto industry and eager for work.
For all of green tech’s futuristic sheen, solar power plants and wind farms are made of much of the same stuff as automobiles: machine-stamped steel, glass and gearboxes.
That has renewable energy companies hitting the highway for Detroit and Northeastern industrial states, driven in part by the federal stimulus package’s incentives and buy-American mandates.
Irvine’s Fisker Automotive, for instance, will manufacture its next plug-in electric hybrid car at a defunct General Motors assembly plant in Wilmington, Del.
And Stirling Energy Systems, which is building two massive solar power plants in Southern California, has signed deals with two automotive companies to make components for its giant solar dishes.
Stirling’s 40-by-38-foot SunCatcher resembles a mirrored satellite dish. The SunCatcher’s mirrors focus the sun on a Stirling engine that sits on an arm that extends from the center of the dish. The heat causes hydrogen gas in the engine to expand, which drives pistons that generate electricity.
“The back of the mirror facet is a piece of stamped metal, and if you raise the hood of your car, what you see is a stamped metal frame,” said Ian Simington, chief executive of the solar division of NTR, the Irish company that owns Stirling Energy Systems, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Nobody stamps metal better than automotive manufacturers. So in a sense the choice to go to high-volume suppliers in the greater Detroit area was an easy one for us.”
Stirling signed an agreement with Tower Automotive to manufacture the dishes’ structural components and assemble the mirror facets. The Livonia, Mich., company makes vehicle body parts and other components for the major carmakers but has seen auto orders slow with the downturn.
Jim Bernard, Tower’s vice president of North American sales and program management, said the company had been looking to diversify its operations.
“The market that we thought would fit us was alternative energy,” he said. “Utility-scale alternative energy projects have some of the exact same requirements that our automotive customers do.”
That means Tower can use its existing machinery, with some modifications, and workforce to make SunCatcher components. In turn, Stirling avoids the capital costs of setting up its own factories and gets to tap Tower’s manufacturing know-how to bring down its costs, which will be a key competitive advantage in the race to deploy new solar technologies.
“They have the practices beaten into them since Henry Ford, but more because of Japanese competition, to be able to do several things simultaneously -- improve the features of the product, take cost out and improve quality,” Simington said.
He said his company has spent $30 million to $40 million in the Detroit area over the last year and hired 40 to 50 people from the automotive industry. Stirling has also outsourced the manufacturing of specialized tools to companies in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
About 25,000 SunCatchers will roll off the assembly line annually once production ramps up.
It’s still something of a buyer’s market these days, said Jeff Collins, Stirling’s vice president of global supply chain and an auto industry veteran.
“I hate to say this, particularly as a guy who still owns a house in Detroit, but the downturn in the automotive market corresponded exactly with our requirements,” he said. “We’re not adding our own factories to scale up; we’re just adding a second shift on the assembly line.”
That available manufacturing muscle attracted Skyline Solar, a Silicon Valley solar power plant builder. In October, the start-up announced a deal with a Troy, Mich., subsidiary of automotive giant Magna International to make the long metal arrays that hold its photovoltaic panels.
“Renewable energy trends and forecast data suggest significant growth potential for this market. We expect to participate in this growth potential,” Magna spokeswoman Tracy Fuerst said in an e-mail.
Back at Ohio’s booth at the solar conference, Patt-McDaniel said Michigan was her biggest competitor for solar manufacturing projects.
Her state secured one of the biggest solar companies, First Solar of Tempe, Ariz., to produce photovoltaic modules in Ohio. Patt-McDaniel said wind turbines are already made in Ohio, and Rolls-Royce recently announced it would consolidate its fuel cell operations in the Buckeye State.
“We’re open to anything and everything,” she said.
business@latimes.com
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705d9bc46490c1ef6c441bc88255d143 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-na-troop-costs23-2009nov23-story.html | Pricing an Afghanistan troop buildup is no simple calculation | Pricing an Afghanistan troop buildup is no simple calculation
As President Obama measures the potential burden of a new war strategy in Afghanistan, his administration is struggling to come up with even the most dispassionate of predictions: the actual price tag for the anticipated buildup of troops.
The calculations so far have produced a sweeping range. The Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost $500,000 a year for every additional service member sent to the war zone. Obama’s budget experts size it up at twice that much.
In coming up with such numbers, the White House and the military have different priorities as well as different methods.
The president’s advisors don’t want to underestimate the cost and then lose the public’s faith. The Pentagon worries about sticker shock as commanders push for an increase of as many as 40,000 troops.
Both sides emphasize that their figures are estimates and could change -- in fact, a Pentagon comptroller assessment this month put the number closer to that of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget.
Still, budgeting and politics are entwined, and numbers can always support more than one point of view.
The Bush White House minimized costs as it moved toward war. Obama is weighing skeptically an escalation of a war he didn’t launch. In his campaign, Obama promised not to tuck war costs away, off federal budget books.
“Our resources in manpower, our resources in human lives and our resources in money are not infinite,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in an interview. “The notion that we wouldn’t take each of those things into account does not make a lot of sense to this commander in chief.”
All of those elements are under consideration as Obama wraps up a review of war strategy. He is expected any week now to respond to requests from his commander in the region for a strategy change and for additional forces. The White House could announce an increase of 20,000 to 40,000 troops shortly after Thanksgiving.
During a recent session of his war council -- where one contingent has questioned the wisdom of sending more troops -- Obama asked how much it would cost to pay for the troops Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has requested. The president sought an exact accounting, a request that turned out to be more complicated than anticipated.
The Office of Management and Budget says adding 40,000 troops would cost about $40 billion a year, or $1 million each. White House officials included in their estimate everything they consider necessary to wage war, including troop housing and equipment.
Inside and outside the Pentagon, some suspect an effort to undermine support for a troop increase. “The large-scale message has been, ‘This is going to be hard and expensive,’ ” said Thomas Donnelly, an American Enterprise Institute fellow and defense expert.
The Pentagon arrived at its much lower estimate by dividing its war funding request by the number of troops throughout the region: 68,000 in Afghanistan and up to 95,000 in supporting roles elsewhere, such as on nearby ships or in surrounding countries.
The Pentagon cost includes higher combat wages, extra aircraft hours and other operations and maintenance costs, but omits such items as new weapons purchases -- one-time costs that vary by year -- and support equipment like spy satellites and anti-roadside-bomb technology.
The Pentagon also does not try to estimate costs of new bases for additional soldiers.
But in a memo early this month, obtained by The Times’ Washington bureau, the Pentagon’s own comptroller produced an estimate that broke with the customary Defense formula and did include construction and equipment.
That memo said the yearly cost of a 40,000-troop increase would be $30 billion to $35 billion -- at least $750,000 a person. An increase of 20,000 would cost $20 billion to $25 billion annually, it said -- a per-soldier cost equal to or greater than the White House estimate.
Even determining past spending is a fuzzy endeavor: Big chunks are paid through emergency measures and are not calculated into the total.
Under questioning by the House Armed Services Committee this month, a Congressional Budget Office expert couldn’t say how much it costs to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I find it astonishing that, eight years into this, we haven’t nailed it down with precision,” another witness at the table, David Berteau, director of the Defense Industrial Initiatives Group of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said later.
And yet the effort is necessary, said Stephen Daggett of the Congressional Research Service: “If the budget is going to be constrained, one of the questions we have to ask is whether we can sustain the increases in forces.”
Partisans of all stripes are likely to think first about intangibles, including American tolerance for troop casualties and support for sending new troops to Afghanistan.
Democratic leaders say money won’t determine their level of commitment.
“You have to look at the mission first,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.). “You absolutely start with that.”
Obama’s decision will not be based on money, his press secretary said.
“The president is going to pick the strategy that’s most in our national security interest,” Gibbs said.
“Along the way, the health of our forces, the toll on lives and the financial costs will all be discussed.”
cparsons@latimes.com
julian.barnes@latimes.com
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9f8045085d9c3c1a9ae0e7db7c59ccb4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-23-la-oe-love23-2009nov23-story.html | Weighing the benefits of a mammography | Weighing the benefits of a mammography
Although we all would like to think that public health pronouncements are the unmitigated truth about any issue, rarely is that the case. We can only give our best guess, based on the current available data and our current understanding of the disease. Luckily, research continues, hypotheses are reformulated and new recommendations are made.
The path to the truth in science and medicine is nonlinear. Sometimes clinical practice gets ahead of the data and has to be pulled back. This is what happened with post-menopausal hormone therapy when the large Women’s Health Initiative trial demonstrated that the then-common practice of giving women hormones at menopause was causing more harm than good. How big was the harm? We know that after the report came out, many women abruptly stopped taking their hormones, and that year, the incidence of breast cancer went down 15%.
We saw a similar shift in women’s health when highly touted and extensively used high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue as treatment for aggressive breast cancer was found to not only be no better than the regular-dose chemotherapy we had been using, but to have significantly higher side effects.
I present these examples in an attempt to put the controversy regarding the new mammography guidelines into perspective. The shift in guidelines is not a conspiracy of the insurance companies or the government. It is pure coincidence that they came out while we are in the throes of the healthcare reform debate.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force was formed to periodically review the available data and come up with the best recommendation. A lot has changed since its last recommendations in 2002.
One key shift has been in our understanding of the biology of breast cancer. We used to think there was just one kind of cancer that grew at a steady pace; that when it reached a certain size, it spread to the rest of the body. As a result, it seemed to make sense that we could save lives if a screening test could identify the cancer while it was still “early,” before it had spread. That’s how we developed the notion of early detection. And it works, sometimes.
In the best of hands, mammographic screening in women over 50 will reduce a woman’s risk of dying from breast cancer by 30%. That is a lot, but it is not 100%. Why? It turns out that breast cancers are not all the same. There are at least five kinds, with different growth rates and levels of aggression. Some are so aggressive that they will have spread before they are visible on a mammogram or form a lump. Some are very slow growing or may not even have the ability to spread, so there is no benefit from finding them early. This is because of the biology of the disease, not the limitations of screening.
One of the reasons that mammography is a less effective tool in young women is that they have a higher rate of these aggressive tumors. Younger women also have breast tissue that is more sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of low-dose radiation. Calculations by a research team in Britain published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2005 suggest that it is possible for women to develop cancer because of the cumulative radiation from yearly mammograms starting at 40 or younger. Finally, mammograms are generally less accurate in younger women who have dense breast tissue, which can mask a cancer. Thus the balance of risk versus benefit is not as clear.
Since the 2002 task force guidelines were released, there has been new data from Britain, which was the first study to look at whether there was any benefit to having women start mammography at age 40. The researchers have followed women in this study for more than 10 years, which means they are now over age 50. To date, they have not shown a statistically significant decrease in mortality. This means if there is a benefit, it must be very small.
The new guidelines are based on this information. They do not say that no women under 50 should get mammograms, but that we should not routinely screen women under 50. Less noted by the media, the guidelines also recommend that we not routinely screen women over 75, where the benefits are dependent on the woman’s life expectancy. In both cases, a woman will need to review her situation with her physician.
This has left many young women confused and asking how will we find our cancers if we don’t have mammograms. The alternative to mammographic detection of cancer is not death. The alternative is that a woman will find a cancer herself or her physician will find it. The normal “poking around” that women do has been found to be just as good at finding breast cancer as a monthly self-exam.
That’s why the task force recommended that doctors encourage women to be familiar with the look and feel of their breasts but to stop teaching formal breast self-exam.
Many of the young women we have heard from in the media this last week had mammograms that in fact missed their cancers, and yet they were adequately treated and often cured. All women should become familiar with their breasts and report any change they see or feel to their doctor.
The public anger at these recommendations is understandable. But it should not be directed at an honest effort to evaluate the benefit of mammography, but at the fact that we still don’t know the cause of breast cancer or how to prevent it. Early detection is not our best prevention -- it’s not even prevention. It just finds cancers that are already there.
The guidelines are not ignoring the fact that young women get breast cancer; they are confirming that regular mammographic screening has risks and benefits and should be an individual decision. Our recent success with a vaccine for cancer of the cervix demonstrates that the goal of identifying the cause and prevention of a common cancer is not beyond reach. Let’s redirect our energy from protesting these guideline changes to finding the answers so that no woman ever has to hear the words, “You have breast cancer.”
Susan Love is the founder and president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, dedicated to eradicating breast cancer.
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81b62c2e37c4bdaf8ac6f774f421802d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-24-la-me-outthere24-2009nov24-story.html | Chinese Americans find community on their radio dial | Chinese Americans find community on their radio dial
The caller sounded as if he had just won the lottery. After years of trying, he had finally reached the disc jockey at his favorite radio station, KAZN-AM (1300).
“I’ve been listening to your program for 10 years. This is the first time I got through,” the caller said, adding that he was listening from work and that he and his buddies would love to hear the Mandarin oldie, “Do You Know I’m Waiting For You?”
A few minutes later, DJ Steve Kuo played the romantic ballad. It sounded a little like something by the band Air Supply, except the singer was crooning in Chinese.
“I was very touched; he’s been listening to us for so long,” Kuo said of the caller. “We all face pressures from our daily lives. We all want to hear the familiar language, music and sound of home.”
That helps explain the popularity of Pasadena-based KAZN, the nation’s first 24-hour Chinese-language radio station. Since 1993, it has delivered around-the-clock news, entertainment and music to the fast-growing Chinese population in Southern California.
The station’s owner, Multimedia Radio Broadcasting Inc., runs sister stations: KMRB-AM 1430, which provides similar programming in Los Angeles, but in Cantonese, and KAHZ-AM 1600, a simulcast of KAZN heard primarily in Orange County and parts of Riverside County.
The stations’ combined audience is more than 250,000, according to a 2005 Arbitron ratings survey. That pales in comparison to some Spanish-language stations, but industry insiders say the Chinese American audience shouldn’t be overlooked.
“Our consumers are educated, brand-conscious, bilingual. . . . These are loyal customers with high buying power,” said Eric Chang, national sales account director for Networks Asia, a division of Multimedia. “The Hispanic market is 10 years ahead of us. But in another 10 years, we’ll be just as strong.”
For now KAZN remains the dominant voice in the Chinese community in L.A. and serves as a clearinghouse for all sorts of general information. On the weekends, one can hear Bible stories, Buddhist sermons, family counseling, celebrity interviews and lectures on immigration law.
Even its infomercials are popular.
“That’s how I find out if there is a new restaurant opening up or summer camp for the kids or programs that help them get into college,” said Jennifer Zhou, 44, an insurance agent in Arcadia who emigrated from Beijing and is a loyal KAZN listener. “A lot of my friends love the station because we don’t always have time to read the newspaper or go online. So they really do help a lot of people.”
Exploring topics
One of KAZN’s most popular and longest-running programs is the morning talk show “Today’s Topic,” hosted by Felix Guo and Nick Gao. The two like to take on one or two hot-button issues of the day, chatting as if they were two friends standing around a water cooler.
“They do it like storytelling, and they provide a lot of analysis,” Zhou said. “Even my son knows when I drive him to school in the mornings that’s Mommy’s program.”
Among the topics the show explored recently were the death of Qian Xuesen, a former Caltech rocket scientist who was deported in 1955 on suspicion of being a communist, and the recent shooting rampage that left 14 dead at Ft. Hood in Texas.
“We want to push the community to understand what’s going on here in America,” Guo said. “We try to encourage them to be part of this country.”
Another listener favorite is Cat Chao’s evening talk show “Rush Hour,” on which guests and callers are known to hurl verbal barbs at one another while discussing sensitive subjects like Taiwan and Tibetan independence.
“In China you are taught to follow orders. The government, the police or the teacher is always right,” said Chao, originally from Taiwan. “But in America, we try to show them that these are just people who can also make mistakes. We can talk about these people and question what they do.”
During a show about President Obama’s recent trip to China, one of Chao’s guests argued that America should stop imposing its values around the world and treat China with more respect.
Another guest countered that if China wants Americans to be more understanding and tolerant of Asian customs and traditions, the communist government there should start by respecting the diversity of its own people, especially its ethnic minorities from Tibet and Xinjiang.
“My show is set up to be controversial,” Chao said. “I want to show the listeners that there is not one correct answer, you can have different points of view and there is always room for debate.”
Vivian Hsu, 53, who emigrated from Taiwan and runs a shoe boutique in Monterey Park, said she leaves the station on in her shop all day. She said patrons enjoy the give and take.
“I like the exciting political debates. Most of my customers like it too,” Hsu said. “They would listen as they browse for shoes and sometimes they would stop to talk to me about the topic of the day.”
Demographic shift
KAZN began tapping into the region’s diverse Asian population in 1984. Calling itself K-Asian, the station offered a few hours of programming a day in eight Asian languages: Korean, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, Polynesia, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.
In 1993, the station’s first owner, Edward Kim, a Korean American businessman, decided to make it an all-Chinese-language station. Five years later he sold the station to MRBI, the nation’s largest Asian American-owned broadcast media company with more than 40 radio stations in the nation, including another 24-hour Chinese station in New York.
During this period, KAZN saw a demographic shift in its audience. Roughly two-thirds of its audience base used to listen to the station in Cantonese and one-third in Mandarin; today those numbers are reversed.
The change reflects a shift in immigration patterns. The Cantonese-speaking people from Southern China and Hong Kong have given way to a new generation of immigrants from the mainland. Most of them speak Mandarin, the official language of China.
But the Chinese audience in America is as diverse as it is large, posing big challenges to DJs like Kuo, who are often inundated with requests he can’t fulfill.
Recently a caller wanted to hear a popular folk song from her hometown in China’s western Xinjiang province, where many of the country’s ethnic Muslims live. Kuo, who is from Taiwan, the island where the nationalist government fled after a civil war 60 years ago, had never heard of the tune.
“Music changes all the time, and L.A. is such a big melting pot of all races and all Asians and all kinds of Chinese people. This is a big challenge to any DJ,” Kuo said.
Most of the station’s advertising revenue comes from mom-and-pop businesses in the Asian community. Only about 20% is derived from large general-market clients. Critics say that’s because despite their strong purchasing power, Asian American consumers are still largely ignored by the mainstream.
But Asian media are expected to keep growing.
Nearly 60 million Americans already get their news and information from TV, radio, newspapers and websites that are published or broadcast in languages other than English, according to a new survey by New America Media, which represents 2,500 ethnic news organizations. That number is up 16% from 2005.
“It’s quite stunning that it is growing at a time when the mainstream media audience is rapidly shrinking,” said Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media. “What is equally interesting is this growth has occurred during the worst recession in modern history.”
These days KAZN and its affiliates have the Chinese market in Los Angeles mostly to themselves. The only other Chinese-language programming in the L.A. area is on KWRM-AM (1370), which shares airtime with Spanish-language news and sports shows. Its reach is also limited by its relatively weak signal.
“I have no other choice,” said Qiu Ming, an immigrant from Beijing who listens to KAZN when she is driving to her job at the Commerce Casino, where she works the graveyard shift. “It keeps me company.”
chingching.ni@latimes.com
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742b906a85c3f6b1c97f38912ba13d49 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-24-la-oe-alkon24-2009nov24-story.html | Screaming kids and airplanes: Mayday! Mayday! | Screaming kids and airplanes: Mayday! Mayday!
Alittle late in making those Thanksgiving flight plans? Wondering how you could possibly afford your ticket -- that is, without putting a kidney up for sale on Craigslist? Good news! You can get a free flight home on Southwest plus a $300 travel voucher. Just do what I plan to -- get on a Southwest flight in the next few days, and when it’s taking off, shout over and over, “Go, plane, go!” and “I want Daddy! I want Daddy!”
Pamela Root got the free flight and the voucher, plus an apology from Southwest, after her 2-year-old kept screaming those things at the top of his little lungs as their San Jose-bound flight was about to take off. In fact, little Adam reportedly screamed so loudly that the safety announcements couldn’t be heard and the pilot turned the plane back to the gate in Amarillo, Texas, where the two were booted off.
Root was appalled when a flight attendant told her something to the effect of “We just can’t tolerate that [screaming] for two hours,” reported the San Jose Mercury News. Root insisted Adam would be “fine once we take off” -- which, in my book, means either “He’ll be fine” or “It would be a serious pain in the butt to be stuck in Amarillo another day.”
Unbelievably, Root demanded the apology she eventually got from the airline (shame, shame, Southwest) and hit it up for the cost of diapers and the portable crib she says she had to buy for the overnight stay. Even more unbelievably, there’s still no word of any apology from Root to the other passengers.
There is a notion, reflected in numerous blog comments about the incident, that other passengers should “just deal” and “give a kid a break.” This notion is wrong. Parents like Root and others who selfishly force the rest of us to pay the cost of their choices in life aren’t just bothering us; they’re stealing from us. Most people don’t see it this way, because what they’re stealing isn’t a thing we can grab on to, like a wallet. They’re stealing our attention, our time and our peace of mind.
More and more, we’re all victims of these many small muggings every day. Our perp doesn’t wear a ski mask or carry a gun; he wears Dockers and shouts into his iPhone in the line behind us at Starbucks, streaming his dull life into our brains, never considering for a moment whether our attention belongs to him. These little acts of social thuggery are inconsequential in and of themselves, but they add up -- wearing away at our patience and good nature and making our daily lives feel like one big wrestling smackdown.
Southwest sent the right message in yanking Root and her screaming boy off the plane. Unfortunately, it lacked the corporate courage to stand its ground, probably fearing a public relations nightmare from the Mommy Mafia. Yet, almost every day, I encounter parents who need to get the same message Root initially did. Trust me -- should I long to hear screaming children, I’ll zip right past my favorite coffeehouse and go read my morning paper at Chuck E. Cheese.
I know, I know -- because I am not a parent I cannot possibly understand how hard it is to keep a child from acting out. Actually, that probably has more to do with the way I was raised -- by parents I describe as loving fascists. As a child, I was convinced that I could flap my arms and fly, but the idea that I could ever be loud in a public place that wasn’t a playground simply did not exist for me.
I hear claims that some children are prone to tantrums no matter how exquisitely they are parented. If this describes your child, there’s a solution, and it isn’t plopping him in a crowded metal tube with hundreds of people who can’t escape his screams except by throwing themselves to their deaths at 30,000 feet.
Granted, there sometimes are extenuating circumstances, reasons parents and their little hell-raiser simply must take a plane. Well, actually, there are two: dire family emergency (Granny’s actually dying, not just dying to see the little tyke) and the need for a lifesaving operation for the wee screamer. In all other cases, if there’s any chance a child is still in the feral stage, pop Granny on a flight or gas up the old minivan. It really does come down to this: Your right to bring your screaming child on a plane ends where the rest of our ears begin.
Amy Alkon’s book “I See Rude People: One Woman’s Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society” will be published this week.
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60e669261236762312f20f9a222f434a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-25-la-na-war-taxes25-2009nov25-story.html | Talk of war surtax for Afghanistan expenses heats up | Talk of war surtax for Afghanistan expenses heats up
As President Obama is preparing to announce a troop increase and new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, several powerful House committee chairmen have proposed a surtax on Americans to pay the future military costs.
Talk of the levy escalated Tuesday after Obama said he soon would deliver a plan to “finish the job” in Afghanistan. “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals,” Obama said, “that they will be supportive.”
The suggestion that a surtax be used to help fund the increasingly unpopular war, though unlikely to pass, illustrated the fiscal anxieties that the president will face if he asks Congress to write another big-ticket item into the budget.
“There is serious unrest in our caucus” over whether the U.S. can afford the war, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a conference call with economists and bloggers. “We have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on.”
With polls showing intensified voter concern about the federal deficit, Democratic lawmakers are feeling more pressure to match new spending with revenue. That is why they are working to live up to Obama’s promise to find tax increases and spending cuts to offset the cost of the sweeping healthcare overhaul.
“For the last year, as we’ve struggled to pass healthcare reform, we’ve been told that we have to pay for the bill -- and the cost over the next decade will be about $1 trillion,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.). “Now the president is being asked to consider an enlarged counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. . . . But unlike the healthcare bill, that would not be paid for. We believe that’s wrong.”
Obey and several other senior Democrats have proposed a graduated surtax, beginning in 2011, to pay for the war. Their bill would impose a 1% surtax on people earning less than $150,000. The tax hike would be higher for people earning between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, and double that for people with higher incomes. The bill does not give exact figures for what upper surtax rates would be, but says that they would be high enough to cover the previous year’s war costs.
It would exempt veterans of combat since Sept. 11, 2001, their families, and the relatives of those killed in action. The president could delay implementation of the tax for a year if he concluded that the economy was too weak.
Aides said that Obama was likely to announce his new war strategy during a televised address to the nation, possibly Tuesday. Obama’s ground commander has said that at least 40,000 additional military personnel are needed to succeed. About 68,000 U.S. troops are already in Afghanistan.
Although it is unclear how much such a deployment would cost, White House budget analysts have estimated that it may be as much as $1 million a year for each additional soldier -- on top of the $227 billion appropriated for the war from 2001 through 2009.
Many Democrats voted early this year for Obama’s first war-funding request with great reluctance, and they have only grown more skeptical of fighting to bolster an Afghan government that is widely seen as corrupt.
“I’m deeply concerned about sending additional troops there,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), a close Pelosi ally who recently visited the region. “I don’t see an honest government; I don’t see a civil society or civil works projects; I don’t see help from neighbors in the region. The level of corruption is incredible.”
In addition to Obey, Rep. John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and the defense appropriations subcommittee chairman, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), have come out in support of the surtax.
In a television interview this week, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also endorsed the idea of increasing taxes on people earning more than $200,000 to pay for sending additional troops.
“There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan,” Obey told ABC News this week. “If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it.”
The idea is not likely to be enacted any time soon. Many Democrats already are nervous about other tax increases they are proposing to finance the healthcare overhaul.
And some Republicans were quick to criticize the idea of a war surtax.
“Americans are already being taxed to death. . . . It’s time for them to understand that we don’t need yet another job-killing tax. We need to better prioritize the resources we have,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands).
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the president would fully count the cost -- and find a way to pay for it -- before embarking on a new strategy.
But another senior administration official said that the president would choose among strategies based on their security merits, not their price tags.
In a public appearance Tuesday, Obama said that part of his strategy would be to make sure Al Qaeda “cannot operate effectively” in Afghanistan.
“We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks. And Afghanistan’s stability is important to that process,” he said.
The president offered no clues on how many troops he would send, but highlighted the need to train more Afghan security forces and increase civilian assistance efforts.
As Obama has considered a new course -- and the cost of the escalating war -- his budget director, Peter R. Orszag, has joined the circle of advisors in the president’s war council.
Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said: “Obviously, costs have been a part of the conversation that has been taking place between the president and his advisors, although the secretary made clear to me it has not been a principal element to this conversation.”
janet.hook@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
Julian E. Barnes and Peter Nicholas in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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2606018e4ca79c82f67508422b405601 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-26-la-fg-waziristan26-2009nov26-story.html | Pakistan Taliban regrouping outside Waziristan | Pakistan Taliban regrouping outside Waziristan
Since the Pakistani army launched a long-awaited offensive last month to destroy the Taliban in South Waziristan, many militants have fled to nearby districts and begun to establish new strongholds, a strategy that suggests they will regroup and remain a potent threat to the country’s weak, U.S.-backed government.
Pakistani Taliban militants have escaped primarily to Kurram and Orakzai, districts outside the battle zone but still within Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border, villagers there say. The military lacks a significant presence in much of these areas, making them an ideal environment for the Islamic militants to regroup.
Newly arrived militants have terrorized Pashtun residents and replenished their coffers through kidnappings and robberies, villagers said during interviews in the Kurram and Orakzai districts. With AK-47s and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, the militants have begun patrols through the new territory and have set up checkpoints.
“They come to our houses and terrorize us,” said Fareed Ullah, a student in Weedara, a hamlet of mud-walled huts in central Kurram. “They are kidnapping our elders and stealing our cars. We have no way of rising up against them, and there’s no government here to help us. . . . Kurram is in trouble because of them.”
Pakistani military commanders say that after five weeks of fighting, they are in the final stages of their offensive aimed at crushing Islamic insurgents in South Waziristan, a rugged expanse of mountains and plateaus that for years has served as the primary base of operations for the Pakistani Taliban and as a sanctuary for Al Qaeda fighters.
When the offensive began Oct. 17, Pakistani military leaders said they faced a fighting force of as many as 10,000 battle-hardened militants. Thus far, however, the army has put the number of militants killed at 500.
None of the Pakistani Taliban’s top leaders have been reported captured or killed. And accounts from villagers in nearby districts suggest that many militants simply fled South Waziristan.
The 30,000 troops involved in the South Waziristan offensive have reported taking control of almost all the villages and roads once held there by Taliban militants. At the start of the offensive, military commanders and government leaders said they wanted to wrap up the operation before winter set in. They now say they are on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.
In some cases, Pakistani troops met fierce resistance from Taliban militants and Al Qaeda-allied Uzbek fighters as they advanced on villages such as Kotkai and Sararogha, a key nerve center for the Pakistani Taliban. In many places, however, troops found that Taliban and Al Qaeda militants had already left.
Army leaders say dislodging Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from their strongholds may be enough to neutralize them.
“Once dislodged, they will be disorganized,” said Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “Their actions will not have that kind of coordination which was displayed when they were attacking our cities and towns.”
However, militants have succeeded in engineering a devastating string of terrorist attacks on Pakistani cities that has coincided with the offensive. Especially hard hit has been Peshawar, a northwestern city with a population of almost 3 million on the fringe of Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas. More than 245 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in 10 bomb attacks in the largely Pashtun city since early October. Authorities believe militants fleeing South Waziristan to their new havens far closer to Peshawar are probably behind many of the attacks.
Taliban and Al Qaeda militants were able to easily flee South Waziristan, experts say, because government and military leaders announced their intent to carry out a major offensive in the region weeks before troops moved in. That gave militants ample time to make their escape.
“The strategy has been bad,” said Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst based in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. “You don’t carry out operations after making such announcements. This area gives them huge space for mobility. So when crunch time comes, they can disperse to safer places, regroup, reorganize and hit the state somewhere else.”
The Obama administration has said it is pleased with gains made by the Pakistani military against the Taliban in South Waziristan. But U.S. officials have nonetheless questioned Pakistan’s resolve to find and eliminate Al Qaeda leaders and commanders believed to have been hiding there.
Villagers in Kurram and Orakzai, as well as two Orakzai-based Taliban commanders, say Al Qaeda-aligned Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters from South Waziristan are now in their villages.
“From their faces we can see they are foreigners,” said Jaleel Rahman, a Pashtun of the village of Marghan in central Kurram. “Sometimes they speak in Arabic, sometimes in English. Their leaders stay at the houses of influential people in our area. And we can’t do anything about it.”
Almost always, militants fleeing South Waziristan arrive at night in large groups piled into Toyota Land Cruisers and pickup trucks, villagers say. The newcomers have established hide-outs in the foothills and mountains skirting the villages, and have been seen digging trenches in mountainsides. Without any troops to confront them, they freely roam through villages, demanding money, food and guns.
“They are in the hundreds here,” said Sher Muhammad, a tribesman in the village of Tandar in central Kurram. “They tell us to do what they do. And whatever they like, they get by force.”
Both the Orakzai and Kurram districts had large sections controlled by Pakistani Taliban militants before fighters from South Waziristan began appearing. However, the Taliban presence in those districts wasn’t considered as large as the militant group’s forces in South Waziristan, long considered the hub for terrorism in Pakistan.
Maulana Zainul Abideen, a Pakistani Taliban commander in the Orakzai region, said during an interview in his village of Dabori that locals have set aside empty houses for fellow militants and their families arriving from South Waziristan.
“They accompany us wherever we go on patrol,” Abideen said. “They contacted our elders, and our elders allowed them to come here.”
Another Taliban commander in the Orakzai region, Mufti Khursheed, said the fleeing militants had to agree they would not “carry out any activity without us, would have to patrol with us and would join us wherever we need them. They will not take any step without our permission.”
Pakistani fighter jets and helicopter gunships have stepped up airstrikes on suspected Taliban hide-outs in Orakzai and Kurram, military leaders say. But analysts say that may not be enough. Once South Waziristan is secured, some say, a ground offensive either in Orakzai or Kurram may be needed to keep the Taliban from establishing strongholds there on a par with what it had in South Waziristan. The military says it plans to keep a sizable troop presence in South Waziristan to hold the ground gained, just as it did in its previous Swat Valley offensive.
“The militants have the capacity to regroup and come back,” said retired Gen. Talat Masood, an Islamabad-based defense analyst. “They should not be allowed to consolidate. . . . South Waziristan has been a tactical success of sorts, but by no means is it a victory.”
alex.rodriguez@latimes.com
Special correspondents Rasheed Khan in the Kurram district and Hassan Mahmood in the Orakzai district contributed to this report.
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e80e90b8b011d31f52053450605b162f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-26-la-fi-fed-ads26-2009nov26-story.html | Federal Reserve tries theater ads to burnish its image | Federal Reserve tries theater ads to burnish its image
The Federal Reserve isn’t too popular these days, what with its failure to predict or prevent the financial crisis and recession, not to mention its involvement in last year’s bailouts. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has a bestselling book out called “End the Fed,” and some lawmakers are looking to cut back the central bank’s power.
It sounds like a perfect time for an ad campaign.
The Fed has made a 45-second public service announcement to help consumers use their credit cards wisely. The spot will run before movie previews at theaters in 12 U.S. cities, including Long Beach, from Friday through Dec. 3.
Over jazzy music, the announcer asks: “Want to use your credit card wisely? Here are some tips you can trust from the Federal Reserve.” With the Fed logo featured prominently, the ad offers suggestions such as paying your bill on time and watching for changes in the terms of the account.
The Fed has been under fire for neglecting its consumer protection authority for years -- particularly for taking 14 years to enact rules protecting consumers from unscrupulous mortgage lending.
In April and September, the Fed ran public-service ads in cinemas in California, Florida and other states devastated by the housing crash advising viewers how to avoid foreclosure scams.
The latest ad, which comes as people are expected to flock to holiday movies, could help improve the Fed’s battered image as Congress weighs an overhaul of financial regulations. Plus, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will be on Capitol Hill on Dec. 3 for a hearing on his renomination for a second four-year term.
With sentiment against the Fed running high, that event promises to be a Washington blockbuster.
jim.puzzanghera@
latimes.com
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7be3ef5a4c991f35312e88ae0d81717b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-26-la-me-marijuana-mayor26-2009nov26-story.html | Villaraigosa urges limit on medical marijuana dispensaries | Villaraigosa urges limit on medical marijuana dispensaries
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged the City Council on Wednesday to adopt a medical marijuana ordinance that would put a limit on the number of dispensaries.
“We have a right as a city to cap the number,” he said, saying that a cap was “without question” needed to reduce the number to a level that the Police Department and city officials can adequately monitor. “Communities have a right to protect the character of those communities and the security of those neighborhoods.”
The mayor declined to say what he thought the cap should be. “I can tell you that the current number of 800, or whatever, 900, is way beyond what any city should be able to accept,” he said.
The council, which debated its draft ordinance Tuesday, instructed city officials to study a citywide cap between 70 and 200 dispensaries, and separate caps, set by population, for each of the city’s 35 community plan areas or 21 police divisions. A number of cities have caps, but most of them are much smaller than Los Angeles. Oakland, the largest city to impose a cap, allows four.
Villaraigosa, who has to approve the ordinance, said the council needs to write one that does not allow dispensaries to sell marijuana in a way that violates state law.
Council members decided Tuesday not to ban medical marijuana sales, disregarding the advice of the city attorney and the Los Angeles County district attorney, who believe the law makes any sales illegal.
Instead, the council adopted a provision that allows cash contributions for marijuana, which was a compromise that members believe will allow sales to continue and the city attorney’s top aides said would not run counter to state law.
Villaraigosa said he had not reviewed the provision.
Although there is debate about whether the law allows sales, the law is clear that dispensaries cannot make a profit. Villaraigosa said he believed many in the city were violating the requirement. “People are trying to drive a truck through loopholes, and when you have that number it makes it very difficult for us,” he said.
john.hoeffel@latimes.com
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c02f97504f8668994e59f50084716387 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-27-la-fg-britain-iraq27-2009nov27-story.html | Blair words on Iraq changed after 2002 visit with Bush, Briton testifies | Blair words on Iraq changed after 2002 visit with Bush, Briton testifies
A meeting between President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq marked a turning point in the march toward war, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States testified Thursday.
Giving evidence on the third day of an independent British inquiry into the war, Christopher Meyer told the five-member investigating panel that Blair’s stance on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appeared to shift after the prime minister met with Bush at his Texas ranch in April 2002.
“I’m not entirely clear what degree of convergence was signed in blood at the Crawford ranch,” said Meyer, who served as Blair’s ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003.
But he interpreted Blair’s hard talk on Iraq in a speech days after the meeting as “a tightening of the U.K.-U.S. alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger that Saddam Hussein presented.”
Referring to Iraq and the need for the West to act on Hussein’s resistance to international pressure, he said, Blair used the term “regime change” for the first time.
In the speech, the Labor prime minister said, “If necessary, the action should be military and again, if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change.”
By early 2002, Britain’s preferred policy of “containment” with regard to Hussein seemed to be failing, he testified.
Asked by a committee member if it was considered a “dead duck” by then, Meyer replied: “Was war inevitable, you mean? What was inevitable was that Americans were going to bust a gut to carry out the mandated policy of regime change.”
U.S. policy toward Iraq had hardened, he said, after anthrax-contaminated mail killed five people in 2001 right after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Anthrax letters . . . really spooked people,” Meyer said. “And the last person they knew who had used it was Saddam Hussein.”
Although there was no proof of Al Qaeda involvement in the attacks, several senior members of the Bush administration remained convinced of the terrorist network’s involvement, Meyer explained, saying he knew the U.S. was trying to find a connection to Hussein.
Bush submitted to the advice of his national security advisor “with a chorus of Europeans and an Australian, of whom Tony Blair was the most significant,” to go “down the U.N. path,” Meyer said.
But the U.S. leader went “against the wishes of his vice president, very vociferously expressed.”
Bush “in his heart . . . just wanted to get over there and kick Saddam out. In his head . . . he realized he couldn’t just do that,” Meyer said.
But “the U.S. military timetable was already in place before weapons inspectors went in,” Meyer asserted, and looking at the timetable of weapons inspections, “it was impossible to see how [former U.N. weapons inspector Hans] Blix could bring the inspection process to a conclusion by March [2003].”
“U.N. Resolution 1441 was a challenge to Saddam Hussein to prove his innocence,” Meyer continued, “but . . . somehow you had to short-circuit the inspection process by finding the notorious smoking gun, and . . . because of the unforgiving process of the military timetable, we found ourselves scrabbling for the smoking gun. . . .”
“It was another way of saying, ‘It’s not that Saddam Hussein has to prove he’s innocent, we’ve now got to bloody well prove he’s guilty.’ And we -- Americans and British -- have never really recovered from that because of course there was no smoking gun.”
After all the witnesses have been heard by early next year, the panel is to issue a final report, probably in late 2010 or early the following year.
Stobart is a news assistant in The Times’ London Bureau.
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53def66b910c7ef5169fff625a7ec376 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-27-la-fg-climate-conflict27-2009nov27-story.html | Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources | Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources
Have the climate wars of Africa begun?
Tales of conflict emerging from this remote, arid region of Kenya have disturbing echoes of the lethal building blocks that turned Darfur into a killing ground in western Sudan.
Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they’ve been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows.
The aim, all sides say, is no longer just to steal land or cattle, but to drive the enemy away forever.
It’s a combustible mix of forces that the United Nations estimates has resulted in at least 400 deaths in northern Kenya this year. Moreover, experts worry that it’s just the beginning of a new era of climate-driven conflict in Africa.
“There is a lesson in Darfur,” said Richard Odingo, vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. “Every dry area has the potential to be a flash point if we are not careful.”
Africa is no stranger to conflict: The continent has been rocked by war, ethnic hatred, post-colonial border disputes and competition for resources, including oil and diamonds. But as the deserts encroach in Sudan, rainfall declines in the Horn of Africa -- a 15% decrease is predicted over the next few decades -- and fresh water evaporates in the south, climate change is transforming conflicts and kicking old tensions into overdrive.
“Climate change amplifies and escalates vulnerability,” said Achim Steiner, director of the U.N. Environment Program. “It doesn’t mean that conflict is inevitable, but it’s much more likely.”
Scientific and anecdotal evidence is mounting that the changes underway here are more than climatic variation. Droughts that once appeared every decade now hit every two or three years. Icecaps atop Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro are evaporating, and Lake Chad has lost 90% of its water since the 1960s.
And Africa is getting hotter. Maximum temperatures in Kenya’s Rift Valley and on its northern coast have risen by more than 5 degrees over the last 20 to 40 years, according to research by the group Christian Aid. Malaria, once rare in Kenya’s central highlands because the weather was too cold for the disease-spreading mosquitoes, has become a major health challenge.
But conflict is perhaps the most alarming symptom. Violence is becoming deadlier thanks to population growth and the proliferation of arms. Thirty years ago, a few dozen tribal warriors with spears might have clashed at a water hole. Today rural communities are armed with AK-47s and even national armies are jumping into the fray.
In October, Kenyan soldiers clashed with Sudanese tribesmen conducting a cross-border cattle raid. This summer, the Ugandan military was accused of using attack helicopters against Kenyan herdsmen attempting to graze their stock in their country.
In Kenya, experts say, the violence has become as unpredictable as the weather. Faced with the extinction of their age-old livelihood because of what appear to be permanent changes in rainfall patterns, many of the 4 million Kenyans who survive by raising livestock are embroiled in a fight with one another and with herdsmen from nearby countries for the remaining viable land.
“The situation is getting out of hand and people are starting to worry about where all this is headed,” said Mohammed Ahmed, a field officer with the British aid group ActionAid in Isiolo, where scores of people have been killed in recent months.
He and others say the violence this year has been more brutal and random than anyone can remember. Women and children have been killed, among them two women slain while collecting firewood in September.
Cattle rustling, which historically occurred after rains when herds were large, this year began for the first time in the midst of the drought, even though bandits had no pasture to keep the stolen livestock alive. In one recent attack, rustlers shot and killed several hundred animals when they realized they would be unable to escape with them.
That has led many to suspect that the motive isn’t just to profit or restock herds; it’s also to strike a death blow at the enemy.
“They want to force us to move off the land for good,” said Romana Nasur, a member of the Turkana tribe who lost 65 goats during an attack in September.
“The first step is to make us poor.”
The village of Gambella has long been a peaceful oasis thanks to a natural spring that enables year-round farming. It became a killing field in July, when scores of attackers, mostly Turkana and Samburu tribesmen, ransacked and destroyed more than 100 huts, shot holes in the water tanks and fled with several hundred animals.
The Kenya Red Cross Society said 11 people died in a nearby village during a similar attack this month.
Six people were killed during the daylong July raid and a schoolboy was shot in the leg while fleeing his classroom. Two-thirds of Gambella’s 1,500 residents, all from the Borana tribe, are too afraid to return, said Abduba Serera, a father of eight and village leader.
“They want to scare us away to take our water,” he said.
The Kenyan government has largely ignored the brewing crisis, dismissing it as the usual tribal clashes. But the drought has pushed Kenya’s cattle-raising tribes to the point where they feel they have nothing to lose, experts say.
“It’s a recipe for a major disaster,” said Choice Okoro, humanitarian affairs officer for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noting the prevalence of AK-47s and other arms in northern Kenya. “We are seeing a militarization of their livelihood.”
Okoro said it was a mistake to assume that tensions will abate if the drought ends. “It’s different now, and it’s alarming,” she said. “It’s not going back to normal anymore.”
Sudan’s Darfur region is perhaps the best example of what can happen when Africa’s climate-related conflicts are mismanaged, exploited or left to fester. Desertification in northern Darfur over the last 50 years drove herdsmen south, pitting them against farmers. The Sudanese government is accused of exploiting the conflict by siding with the herdsmen, mostly of Arab tribes, and giving them virtual immunity to attack farmers, mostly non-Arab tribesmen.
More than 35,000 died in the fighting and at least 100,000 more died in the subsequent humanitarian crisis, according to the International Criminal Court. The U.S. has described the attacks as genocide.
Most climate-related conflicts in Africa have been localized, but experts warn that “climate wars” between neighboring countries could be on the horizon.
“If there will be any wars, they will probably be over water,” said Odingo of the climate change panel.
Potential hot spots include the Nile River, which is the source of rising tensions between Egypt, which uses most of the water, and countries such as Sudan and Ethiopia, which are fighting for bigger shares.
Likewise, a new Ethiopian dam is causing the water level to drop at Kenya’s Lake Turkana.
Odingo said he is confident that African governments will keep their heads and work together. But in Kenya, the government is accused of aggravating the violence through a series of questionable decisions.
In February, security forces raided a Samburu tribe stronghold, seizing more than 12,000 head of livestock and redistributing them to rival tribes. Government officials said they were trying to rectify previous thefts by Samburu raiders, but Samburu leaders alleged government bias. They launched retaliatory attacks.
The government has also armed the tribes, handing out more than 2,000 rifles over the last year to untrained “reservists,” tribal leaders and government officials say.
The guns were intended to help remote villages defend themselves, but elders say that the government gave preference to certain tribes and that the weapons are being used in offensive attacks.
“The government is not being neutral,” said Lawrence Ewoi, a Turkana leader. He said his tribe received only five of the 300 rifles recently distributed in Isiolo. “Now the other tribe is using the guns against us.”
Mohamed Abdi Kuti, a Kenyan parliament member from the Borana tribe, denied that his tribesmen got most of the weapons around Isiolo, but he agreed that the spread of small arms was dangerous.
“There is a plan to recall all the guns because it’s getting out of hand,” he said.
But experts predict that few will heed the disarmament call.
Kuti said climate change had made tribes more susceptible to political manipulation.
“Because of the drought, people are desperate and they’re willing to do anything,” he said.
“It’s easy to thrive on people’s weaknesses.”
edmund.sanders @latimes.com
One in a series of occasional articles about the effects of climate change on people around the world.
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6b855523f4dd59e16b85830d7e0bdf23 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-27-la-fi-ct-advertising27-2009nov27-story.html | Advertising resurgence hits the spot for TV networks | Advertising resurgence hits the spot for TV networks
There’s finally some new life in old media.
After pummeling traditional media companies for nearly two years, the advertising recession is showing signs of a recovery. TV networks -- including Fox, CBS and ABC and such leading cable channels as TNT, TBS, USA, Bravo and Fox News Channel -- have benefited the most as advertisers have been snapping up available commercial spots and agreeing to pay significantly higher prices than they did just five months ago.
“In challenging times, people go back to what they know, and what they know best is television,” said David Levy, president of sales for Turner Entertainment, which includes TNT and TBS. “It is a little too early to declare victory, but the market is definitely improving.”
The welcome news is the result of stronger-than-expected demand for TV advertising in the “scatter” market, in which advertisers frequently have to pay premiums for scarce available commercial time. It also represents something of a win for the networks, which gambled this summer that demand would pick up later in the year and held back a larger percentage of their inventory than in previous years, hoping to capitalize on the improved economy.
Fourth-quarter commercial sales have been propelled by retail chains hoping to ignite their holiday sales; technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., which have new products to promote; cellphone carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, which are battling for customers; and even such financial firms as American Express, according to television executives and advertising buyers surveyed this week.
Such strong demand has made up for the weaker orders from other mainstay advertisers, including automakers, still reeling from weak sales, and Hollywood movie studios, which have fewer new movies to hype.
A fourth quarter described by one top network sales executive as “gangbusters” amazed even veterans who have lived through several economic cycles. Only five months ago, the industry was bracing for another dismal year as TV network sales teams were engaged in protracted negotiations with advertisers that were demanding that the networks roll back prices as much as 20%. Networks eventually agreed to trim rates about 5% to 8% to mollify advertisers and begin unloading their time.
But now, in some cases, advertisers have agreed to pay rates 10% to 35% higher than the prices established in June and July, when the networks sold the bulk of their time for the new TV season. In addition, advertisers that placed their orders in the summer are honoring their commitments. Network executives said that few advertisers have canceled their orders for commercial spots, in contrast with a year ago.
“We have all been surprised that the ad market has come back this soon,” said Gary Carr, executive director of national broadcast for the advertising firm TargetCast. The networks, he said, also face easier comparisons because last fall, with banks failing and the economy on the skids, companies were afraid to spend on advertising.
“A year ago, people thought the world was coming to an end, and the U.S. economy was falling apart,” Carr said. “But the world did not come to an end. Cars still have to be sold, and studios still need people to go see their movies. Advertisers have begun releasing the money that they have been holding onto all year.”
Even local TV stations -- among the hardest hit by the slump in advertising spending -- have received a lift, primarily fueled by stores that unleashed their holiday sales campaigns earlier in the season, according to television executives.
Not all media outlets have rebounded, however. Many small cable TV channels and Spanish-language television networks are still hurting, according to television executives. Newspapers, magazines and radio stations also continue to struggle.
“In many sectors, the news is still grim,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president for research at TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks advertising spending. “And there is still a fairly large hole for these companies to dig out of before they get back to the levels they were a few years ago.”
Unexpectedly, online advertising also has taken it on the chin.
Many advertisers are no longer as eager to buy Internet display ads as they were two or three few years ago, when firms were steering millions of ad dollars to online sites.
“There is still a big push toward digital and online video, but the Internet display advertising market is challenged,” said Greg Kahn, senior vice president of strategic insights at advertising firm Optimedia. “There is so much clutter in the space, and advertisers have begun to question the effectiveness of those display ads.”
No one knows for sure how next year will shake out. Many advertisers are waiting for the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday and weekend shopping sales totals to be released next week before they make their decisions for the first quarter of 2010.
The strength of the November retail sales is viewed as important insight into the psyche of consumers.
“That’s when the decisions are going to be made about advertising for the first quarter,” Kahn said.
Some executives worry that the economy might sputter again once the government’s stimulus programs wind down, prompting consumers to rein in spending even further, and advertisers along with them.
Television executives, however, in a significant attitude change, say they are cautiously optimistic.
CBS, for example, already has sold 90% of its commercial time for the Super Bowl, which will be broadcast Feb. 7.
A year ago, NBC had to claw to find advertisers who were willing to shell out Super Bowl rates of $2.5 million to $3 million for a 30-second spot.
What’s more, few advertisers have canceled their orders for the first quarter. TNS’ Swallen also noted that there has been “a slight uptick” in spending recently by Detroit automakers General Motors and Ford.
But, he said, foreign automakers are not spending more than they did last year. And other executives said carmakers were a long way from reclaiming their mantle as leading advertisers.
“It’s not going to be a uniform recovery,” Optimedia’s Kahn said. “Some industries are picking up while others are decidedly down.”
meg.james@latimes.com
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c3acfd40a38ecf9c1ac0b0314e9da155 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-27-la-na-arizona-budget27-2009nov27-story.html | Arizona struggles with budget crisis | Arizona struggles with budget crisis
When the Arizona State Senate broke into disarray last week during its fourth special session in four months to deal with this state’s seemingly perpetual budget crisis, Senate President Robert “Bob” Burns told his colleagues: “It amazes me we’re having this much trouble. This is the easy part.”
It took until Monday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to pass $300 million in spending cuts, ones they had already approved in June but which were vetoed by the state’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer.
Even so, Republican lawmakers still argued among themselves over how to close what is a relatively small part of the state’s deficit. Looming on the horizon is a nearly $2-billion gap that remains in this year’s $10-billion budget. Next year the deficit rises to $3 billion.
In percentage terms, Arizona’s deficit is nearly as big as California’s, and although the state may lack a movie-star governor, there has been no lack of drama in Phoenix for several months.
The state has put its Capitol buildings on the block to raise money. It is trying to privatize its prisons, and some legislators are talking about a four-day school week. This month, the Pew Center on the States ranked Arizona as having the second-worst budget crisis in the nation, just behind California.
“There are actions they can take, but none of them are easy or pleasant,” said Dana Naimark, president of the Children’s Action Alliance, a local group fighting budget cuts.
Noting that legislators have already cut more than $500 million since February, she worried that the state is already reeling from reduced services. “It’s very disturbing, going backwards on so many fronts,” she said.
Most states need to have budgets in place each July 1, when the fiscal year begins. But with the economy in the tank, many states are watching new deficits pop up as tax receipts plunge and more and more people demand social services to alleviate their own financial woes.
Arizona and California -- which still faces a deficit of $20 billion -- are only two of the most extreme examples. Thirty-five states are still scrambling to balance their books for the current fiscal year.
“We’re seeing this in several states across the country because the revenues continue to drop faster than projected,” said Sue Urahn, managing director of the Pew center.
Arizona’s revenues are 16% lower than projections made as recently as this summer. Unlike California, the state grew rapidly this decade. Legislators, awash in tax money, cut taxes and expanded government.
But that growth was fueled by booming real estate. Now Arizona has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, and its economy has ground to a halt.
For months, Brewer battled with members of her party, arguing that an emergency tax hike was needed to save vital programs. But conservative Republicans refused to raise taxes, saying it would devastate Arizona’s already weak economy.
This summer Brewer vetoed cuts in education and social services, insisting that the Legislature live up to a deal to place a penny sales tax hike on the November ballot. But the referral to the ballot failed by one vote, and Brewer signed cuts into law this week.
On Monday, Brewer and GOP legislative leaders are scheduled to meet to discuss how to get a possible tax increase on a future ballot. Kim Sabow, a spokeswoman for the governor, said the delay has been because “every single Democrat and a handful of GOP extremists have prevented solutions from passing -- choosing only to vote ‘no’ instead of being responsible for participating in solutions that have a chance of passing.”
The budget battle has so far been an all-Republican affair. The GOP holds commanding majorities in both houses of the Legislature. Democrats, who have voted against every major budget bill, complain that Brewer would not negotiate with them until days before the July 1 budget deadline.
“She has been unwilling to work with the Democrats to get her proposal through,” said David Lujan, minority leader of the House of Representatives. “The problem’s so big we can’t cut our way out of the crisis. We have to raise revenue.”
Steve Pierce, majority Senate whip, said the state may be able to come up with ways to raise money -- by cutting taxes. He said that cuts in business taxes may raise tax revenues, an argument made by believers in supply-side economics, a theory that most economists say is flawed.
Pierce said Arizona would have to find a new way to govern itself. “We’re going to have to redo government here,” he said. “There are good programs that were created in the past that we just can’t afford anymore.”
He floated the idea of cutting both the government workweek and the public school week to four days, and of violating the minimum funding levels the state needs to meet in K-12 education and healthcare to qualify for stimulus funds.
Burns, the Senate president, said that lawmakers would be unable to take decisive action until voters gave them direction. “We need to let the voters tell the Legislature what is your choice,” he said. “Do you want taxes or what some people call ‘draconian cuts?’ ”
Of course, putting that question on the ballot would require another special session of the Legislature, possibly as soon as December.
“This year, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to end,” Burns said. “It just keeps going.”
nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
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52e5b958a2ca14c59802b687aa57acf1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-a0666.us--obit-birnbaum-2009nov28-story.html | Longtime CBS News producer Bernard Birnbaum dies | Longtime CBS News producer Bernard Birnbaum dies
By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News producer Bernard Birnbaum, who helped shape the public’s view of issues ranging from poverty to the Watergate scandal while working alongside Walter Cronkite and Charles Kuralt, has died, the network said.
Birnbaum died on Thanksgiving Day at Stony Brook University Medical Center in Stony Brook, N.Y., after having a heart attack while visiting relatives nearby, CBS News said in a statement Saturday. His death had been announced on the network news broadcast Friday. He was 89.
Birnbaum’s CBS career won him seven Emmy Awards and took him to places ranging from Vietnam to the small-town America seen in “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.”
He and Kuralt first joined forces on the acclaimed 1964 documentary “Christmas in Appalachia,” about unemployed miners in Kentucky. Released as President Lyndon Johnson mobilized his war on poverty, the program spurred $70,000 in unsolicited donations for the families it featured.
As a producer for “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” and other programs, Birnbaum covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War and Watergate in depth.
His warm, candid demeanor made people feel comfortable talking to him, said his daughter Amy, also a CBS News producer.
“He could ask people anything” and forge enduring friendships out of interviews, she said.
Birnbaum joined CBS as a lighting director in 1951 and worked into this decade, producing short documentaries for “Sunday Morning.”
“What kept him going was an insatiable curiosity, so it really was a perfect fit to be a news broadcaster,” Amy Birnbaum said.
Born in Brooklyn on Oct. 18, 1920, he began learning photography by working at a studio, she said. He served as a U.S. Army Air Corps combat cameraman during World War II and earned a film degree from New York University, CBS News said.
Survivors include another daughter, Deborah Birnbaum-Kocay, and four grandchildren. His wife, Ronnie, died in 2005.
A funeral is scheduled Tuesday in Larchmont, N.Y., where he lived.
AP-WS-11-28-09 1912EST
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cf652a658a1cf2ae52ec0078785b9ca0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-ed-disobedience28-2009nov28-story.html | Christian leaders’ stance on civil disobedience is dangerous | Christian leaders’ stance on civil disobedience is dangerous
Philosophers have argued for centuries over whether it is ever justifiable to break the law in the service of a higher cause. The question acquired a new complexity with the advent of societies such as the United States, in which laws were enacted by elected representatives and not decreed by a monarch or dictator.
Few today would criticize civil rights activists, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., for participating in or condoning the violation of laws that perpetuated white supremacy -- with the understanding that they would face punishment for their actions. But such civil disobedience is rightly regarded as the exception that proves that the proper redress for unjust laws lies in legislation or in court rulings based on the Constitution.
That cautious approach has been thrown to the wind by Christian religious leaders who, even as they insist on their right to shape the nation’s laws, are reserving the right to violate them in situations far removed from King’s witness.
Last week, a group of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox leaders released a “declaration” reminding fellow believers that “Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required.” Then, after a specious invocation of King, the 152 signers hurl this anathema at those who would enact laws protecting abortion or extending the rights of civil (not religious) marriage to same-sex couples:
“Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality. . . . We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”
Strong words, but also irresponsible and dangerous ones. The strange land described in this statement is one in which a sinister secularist government is determined to force Christians to betray their principles about abortion or the belief that “holy matrimony” is “an institution ordained by God.” The idea that same-sex civil marriage will undermine religious marriage is a canard Californians will remember from the campaign for Proposition 8, as is the declaration’s complaint that Christian leaders are being prevented from expressing their “religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.”
This sweeping claim is supported by anecdotes of the sort radio talk-show hosts purvey. For example, the declaration says that “a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax-exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions.” (In 2007, New Jersey did strip a Methodist camp of its tax privileges under a state recreation program because it no longer was open to all.) For other examples, it must search beyond the United States: “In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality.”
The impression left is that the legal environment in which churches must operate is reminiscent of the Roman Empire that threw Christians to the lions. Never mind that advocates of same-sex civil marriage and legal abortion have made significant concessions to believers or that religious groups have recourse to courts, which have aggressively protected the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, exempting believers in some cases from having to comply with applicable laws.
This apocalyptic argument for lawbreaking is disingenuous, but it is also dangerous. Did the Roman Catholic bishops who signed the manifesto consider how their endorsement of lawbreaking in a higher cause might embolden the antiabortion terrorists they claim to condemn? Did they stop to think that, by reserving the right to resist laws they don’t like, they forfeit the authority to intervene in the enactment of those laws, as they have done in the congressional debate over healthcare reform? They need to be reminded that this is a nation of laws, not of men -- even holy men.
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a47275d53d1a5cea5bdfee5bd445e642 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-ed-nuclear28-2009nov28-story.html | No new nukes -- plants, that is | No new nukes -- plants, that is
As the Senate debates climate legislation that could reinvent the country’s energy infrastructure, it is richly ironic that lawmakers who consider themselves rock-ribbed fiscal conservatives are among the strongest backers of nuclear plants -- a vastly expensive, inefficient and dangerous source of energy that requires massive taxpayer bailouts.
Senate Republicans and many moderate Democrats are seeking to lard up prospective climate and energy bills with billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other subsidies for nuclear power, even though it makes no sense as a solution to climate change and is a terrible option from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose bipartisan effort to restructure the cap-and-trade climate bill (which Republicans like to deride as “cap and tax”) offers its only hope of passage in the Senate this year, signaled their intent to add more nuclear pork to the bill in a recent Op-Ed article. Meanwhile, Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) recently introduced their own alternative climate bill calling for up to $100 billion in clean-energy loan guarantees, most of which would end up going to nuclear plants.
Nuclear energy is not a reasonable solution because plants take too long to build and cost far too much. Actually, it’s been so long since one has been built in this country that no engineering firm will even provide an estimate on the cost, but it’s safe to say that each new plant would run to several billion dollars. Because lenders aren’t willing to put up the money on such a risky investment, the nuclear industry is looking to Uncle Sugar. The last time there was a wave of nuclear construction in the United States, it took an average of nine years to build a plant, meaning we wouldn’t see the first one until at least 2018 -- too late to play any significant role in meeting the Senate climate bill’s goal of cutting emissions 20% by 2020.
Renewable power sources such as solar, wind and geothermal are getting cheaper over time, even as nuclear gets more expensive. And renewable-power plants can be built almost immediately, without the long permitting delays faced by nuclear reactors. Some clean-energy strategies, such as energy efficiency and combined heat and power systems, actually end up saving money rather than costing it. Nuclear advocates claim that reactors are needed because solar and wind power are intermittent -- generated only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing -- but that’s a smoke screen.
The nation’s fleet of 104 nuclear plants supplies nearly 20% of our electricity. Building 100 more, as nuclear proponents have proposed, would supply a vast amount of carbon-free energy, and do so 24 hours a day without interruption. But then, so would geothermal power plants. Electricity can be generated by pumping water into hot, permeable rocks deep underground, and as the technology improves, the potential for geothermal is enormous. According to an MIT study, in fact, geothermal plants could eventually supply as much power as the nation currently gets from its nuclear reactors -- without producing any radioactive waste. And geothermal isn’t the only non-intermittent source of renewable power; others include solar thermal storage facilities and plants that generate electricity using biomass.
Most of the countries that have acquired nuclear weapons over the past quarter of a century have done so by adapting nuclear energy technology and materials, making reactors a primary cause of weapons proliferation. It would be the height of hypocrisy for the United States to make nuclear energy a mainstay of its clean-energy infrastructure while telling countries we don’t trust, such as Iran, that they can’t do the same. Further, no nation on Earth has yet met the engineering challenge of safely storing waste that will emit dangerous levels of radioactivity for hundreds of thousands of years.
Nuclear power is a failed experiment of the past, not an answer for the future. Every dollar invested in it is a dollar misdirected, one that should have gone to more efficient, cheaper and cleaner power sources.
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553d06118f4f212823b536efe6489bd8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-fg-iran-nuclear28-2009nov28-story.html | IAEA board votes to censure Iran | IAEA board votes to censure Iran
Russia and China joined the United States and its European allies on Friday in formally rebuking Iran over its nuclear program at a meeting of the United Nations nuclear technology watchdog.
By a 25-to-3 vote, with seven abstentions or absences, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, adopted a German-drafted resolution condemning Iran’s nuclear program. The measure also called on Tehran to halt enrichment of uranium, resolve lingering questions about its past nuclear activities, open its nuclear facilities to further inspection and provide assurances it is not operating secret atomic research and development sites.
U.S. officials said Friday that construction has continued at one nuclear site near the Iranian city of Qom, a facility that CIA analysts have concluded would be too small to be of use in supplying nuclear energy but capable of producing enough enriched uranium to arm one nuclear warhead each year.
The project “raises obvious concerns, ones that the international community has voiced in no uncertain terms to Tehran,” said a U.S. counter-terrorism official who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
Friday’s vote was the first time the 35-member IAEA board has taken formal action against Iran since February 2006. It was triggered by Tehran’s admission in September that it was building the previously undisclosed enrichment facility inside a heavily protected mountain near Qom.
Although Moscow and Beijing joined the push for the resolution, they have in the past been reluctant to cooperate in what might be the next step: approving tough sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, where both wield veto power. Friday’s censure measure did not threaten any immediate action. Russia and China have significant trade ties with Iran.
The Islamic Republic reacted vehemently to the censure, threatening to cancel unspecified “voluntary” cooperation with international inspectors.
But both Iran and the West left the door open to further negotiations. The U.S. envoy to the IAEA said the censure was not “punitive” but signaled frustration with Tehran. The U.S. remains ready “to engage Iran to work toward a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dilemma it has created for itself, if only Iran would choose such a course,” Ambassador Glyn Davies said in a statement.
His Iranian counterparts, though condemning the resolution, ruled out the possibility of withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and barring inspectors from the nation’s nuclear facilities.
Iran acknowledged the Qom site two months ago in a cryptic letter that was sent to the IAEA after it had become clear that the Obama administration was aware of the compound and poised to expose the secret at the outset of negotiations with Tehran.
“Since the Qom site was publicly revealed,” said the counter-terrorism official, “the Iranian government has repeated what is for them a familiar pattern: commit to share information and then find ways of delaying and deflecting.”
Iran and much of the international community are at odds over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear research program, which Tehran contends is solely for civilian purposes but its adversaries suspect is meant to eventually produce weapons.
The Obama administration has sought to reach out diplomatically to Tehran as a way to overcome three decades of hostility and mistrust and resolve the standoff between the two governments.
U.S. officials have told Western allies that the administration wants to wait until the end of the year before pushing for new sanctions against Iran.
But Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said in a statement Friday that the “overwhelming” IAEA vote on Iran reflected a “growing international deficit of confidence in its intentions.”
He warned that “if Iran refuses to meet its obligations, then it will be responsible for its own growing isolation and the consequences.”
A senior administration official told reporters that “we’re committed to putting together a package of consequences if we don’t find a willing partner.”
Diplomats have been disappointed by Tehran’s failure to respond definitively to a U.N.-backed proposal to swap Iran’s enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods needed to operate a Tehran medical research reactor. Iran says it wants more guarantees before it signs on to the deal, and dismissed the censure as an attempt to strong-arm the country into giving up its rights.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast described the resolution as “a formal, showy and purposeful gesture, aimed at exerting pressure” on Iran, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
“Such behaviors are [in] vain,” he said.
Tehran’s envoy to the Vienna-based U.N. agency accused Western powers of having a “hidden agenda” in promoting the censure, which followed strong words a day earlier by the agency’s outgoing chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who said Iran had not met its international legal obligations.
“Do you have any doubt that this resolution is destructive?” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, asked reporters. “It is not helpful. It destroyed the existing conducive environment.”
Davies, the U.S. envoy, said Friday’s measure was designed to persuade Iran to accept the fuel swap proposal.
“What you will get from me is a signal, and this is the signal that I sent in the boardroom: that patience is running out,” he told reporters. “We can’t continue talk for talk’s sake. We can’t have round after round of fruitless negotiations, circular negotiations that don’t get us where we need to get.”
In recent months, Iran has launched a diplomatic offensive, hoping to curry favor with developing countries. But only Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia voted Friday to support Iran. Other Muslim and developing countries -- Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, South Africa, Brazil and Azerbaijan -- abstained or were absent from the voting. Their non-votes probably were a disappointment to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who arrived home Friday after a five-day trip to Africa and Latin America.
“A new movement has started to free the world from domination of a few bullying states,” Ahmadinejad told reporters Friday. “Signs and evidence show that a few domineering governments have not been able to solve problems and address public demand.”
Israel, believed to be the Mideast’s sole nuclear-armed nation, though it has never formally acknowledged possessing such weapons, praised the rebuke of Tehran’s nuclear program and called for further action if Iran refused to bend.
“The international community . . . must ensure that this resolution has practical implications by determining binding schedules for its implementation and weighty sanctions against Iran if this resolution is violated as well,” said an official statement posted on Israel’s Foreign Ministry website.
daragahi@latimes.com
greg.miller@latimes.com
Special correspondent Julia Damianova in Vienna and Paul Richter in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
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fed5ff0125c17ce75040afca3757594e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-me-schwarzenegger28-2009nov28-story.html | IRS has filed $79,000 lien against Gov. Schwarzenegger, records show | IRS has filed $79,000 lien against Gov. Schwarzenegger, records show
The Internal Revenue Service has filed a federal tax lien against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for nearly $80,000, public records show.
The lien was filed May 11 at the Los Angeles County recorder’s office for $79,064, according to a record in an electronic database that includes lien filings. The record lists the debtor as Arnold Schwarzenegger and the address as the governor’s home address in Brentwood.
The matter apparently is related to “a minor paperwork tracking discrepancy,” Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said in a statement released Friday afternoon. He said Schwarzenegger is resubmitting information to the IRS and expects the lien to be expunged without penalty.
The lien was first reported Friday by TMZ.com, which posted a copy of a lien document that says it is from the county recorder’s office. That document shows that Schwarzenegger owes $39,047.20 from 2004 and $40,016.80 from 2005.
The document also lists a section of the IRS code that suggests the debt may be penalties for a failure to report certain business transactions.
McLear said the matter had not been brought to Schwarzenegger’s attention until Friday. “The issue is completely unrelated to the payment of taxes, which the governor has paid in full and on time,” the spokesman said.
IRS spokesman Victor Omelczenko said he could not discuss the agency’s dealings with individual taxpayers.
michael.rothfeld@latimes.com
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84f429509923a57923bf59d03d87d4e9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-oe-mehlman28-2009nov28-story.html | OK, I confess. I finagled my way out of jury duty | OK, I confess. I finagled my way out of jury duty
Let’s say three moments per week an average American concludes that, in this life, you just can’t win. I’ll follow up on that later.
Recently, I was Juror No. 6 in an Inglewood courtroom. Late into a third day of jury selection, the prosecutor, whose questions had been crisp and pointed, suddenly went off script, asking, “Does anyone feel they cannot judge the facts fairly?”
My hand disobeyed my brain and flinched -- then backed down like an umpire deciding the pitch wasn’t really a strike.
“Juror No. 6?”
Caught. “You know . . . ,” I began.
Wait. I’ll follow up on that too.
This is the story of how fast the justice system mutated people who wanted to hear the facts, deliver a verdict and make America great into citizens hellbent on shirking our duty.
I love trials. While living in New York, I attended the “yuppie murder” and “Central Park jogger” trials. For the “subway vigilante” trial, I brought a date.
Maybe I was spoiled by sexy trials, but on Day 1 in Inglewood, I wasn’t the only one of 42 prospective jurors who drooped at the news that we were up for a misdemeanor case. OK, it was two misdemeanors. And yeah, yeah ... one involved a gun.
The judge welcomed us, explained stuff a poodle would know, then dumbed it down: Five minutes on “no cellphones.” Stolen glances in the jury box said: “You’re the judge. Say no cellphones and end it.”
We also heard a surefire way to dodge jury duty: Renounce your American citizenship. In all, the judge’s one-hour monologue featured seven laugh lines prompting one rogue “Heh.” Then he told us to come back tomorrow.
And oh, the trial should last between six and eight days.
How hard can it be to get a French passport?
On Day 2, we jurors didn’t get into the courtroom until 2:10 p.m. When we heard that two people had been excused for hardship reasons, you could almost hear the rest of us glumly calculating how our odds of being chosen inched up from 29% to 30%. Day 1’s idealism fluttered.
The judge began the voir dire. “Juror No. 6?”
I responded with name, occupation, jury experience and “Yes, in 2007, my home was burglarized, and my mother was carjacked at gunpoint.” Pause. “Otherwise, I had a pretty good year.”
The whole courtroom laughed. The defendant flashed me a smile.
At 3:20 p.m., the judge said that if he gave us a bathroom break, it would be late by the time we all finished. So he excused us for the day.
Outside the courtroom, a juror said, “After an hour we need to go to the bathroom? Are we children?”
Another juror whispered to me, “You made a big mistake in there.”
“Really?”
“See, your mom was the victim of a gun crime, so the prosecutor liked you. But your joke about it exposed your humanity, so the defendant also liked you. You’re screwed. We think you’ll definitely be picked.”
Apparently, many jurors who started off with good attitudes had boned up on the finer nuances of ducking jury selection. It was like they’d been spun back to 1969, reduced to kids trying to dodge Vietnam. Due to budget cuts, courts are closed the third Wednesday of every month. Due to heavy caseloads, Thursday was no good either.
When we returned on Friday, the prosecutor and defense attorneys got to question jurors and eliminate anyone they pleased with no explanation. Only there was no defense attorney. The defendant represented herself. When the judge gave her instructions, she’d respond, “Gotcha.” Patience in the jury box trickled down around empty.
When questioned, some jurors gently told her she was foolish to represent herself, others less gently. She bounced chastisers with a cheerful “Juror No. __, you’re free to go.”
During breaks, the remaining jurors stood around saying things like, “Juror __ played it so smart! The second she cursed, you knew she was free. Why didn’t I think of that?”
The pool was soon cut in half. From a hallway window, I could see my car on the garage roof. Would going on the lam be a misdemeanor or . . . ?
We all liked the young prosecutor. When the defendant asked if any of us had lost a child, the prosecutor calmly said, “Objection. Relevance.”
As a “Law & Order” fan, I smiled at the familiar courtroom lingo. The defendant somehow saw me smile and smiled back.
Right then, I began rescheduling the next two weeks of my life. The word “sequestered” pockmarked my thoughts. But wait . . .
Remember when I said that the prosecutor suddenly went off script and my right hand rebelled?
“You know,” I began, the creepy self-righteousness of a soapbox rising in me, “three of our state’s biggest problems are deficits, crowded prisons and backed-up courts. Well, this case is a microcosm of all three. All this time and money wasted on a misdemeanor case. It’s all incredibly frustrating.”
Moments later, the defendant scanned the jury box deciding whom to set free. I locked my baleful eyes on her. Remember the theory of three moments a week making you think you just can’t win?
I fled the court holding a little diploma for having finished jury service. But instead of feeling ecstatic, I felt like garbage. I had gamed a system I believed in my whole life.
Driving home, I saw four police cars surrounding three kids facing a wall, hands cuffed behind their backs. I’d be up for jury duty again in 12 months.
Peter Mehlman, a former writer on “Seinfeld,” is a screenwriter and essayist.
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e8e1d8c7bcd99f5140887261b5c386d1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-sp-tiger-woods28-2009nov28-story.html | Tiger Woods hurt in car accident in front of his Florida home | Tiger Woods hurt in car accident in front of his Florida home
The initial media reports that instantly spread around the globe sounded dire: Tiger Woods had been “seriously” hurt in a car accident early Friday and was hospitalized.
It turned out the superstar golfer’s injuries, first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, weren’t as dreadful as the word “serious” implied in the police report. But as additional details emerged, it appeared Woods certainly suffered more than a fender bender.
Woods, 33, was backing out of his driveway in the Isleworth community near Orlando, Fla., at 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant and then hit a neighbor’s tree, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
It was almost 12 hours before the police issued an accident report, and it is still unknown why Woods was out driving at that hour and much about the incident remains unclear.
After the first news reports about the accident, Woods’ website in the afternoon issued a terse statement saying he was in “good condition,” after being treated and released from Health Central Hospital in nearby Ocoee, Fla.
The Associated Press later Friday quoted a local police chief as saying Woods’ wife, Elin, used a golf club to smash the back window to get Woods out of his 2009 Cadillac sports utility vehicle after she heard the accident and came outside.
Woods had cuts to his lips, blood in his mouth and was lying in the street, with his wife nearby, and was in and out of consciousness when officers arrived, Windermere Police Chief Daniel Saylor said. At one point Woods woke up and tried to get up but lost consciousness.
FHP Sgt. Kim Montes said troopers arrived at the Woods’ home early Friday evening to talk to the golfer, and that his wife told them Woods was resting and asked them to return this morning, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The troopers agreed to do so.
The FHP’s news release said alcohol was not considered a factor in the accident, and that the crash remained under investigation.
The airbags in Woods’ SUV did not deploy, according to the FHP, and it was unknown whether Woods was wearing a seat belt.
Saylor said his responding officers did not hear anything about an alleged argument between Woods and his wife, according to AP.
“Right now we believe this is a traffic crash. We don’t believe it is a domestic issue,” Montes said.
But owing to the authorities’ technical language in the case of accidents, the world was stunned with headlines of Woods’ “serious” injury that appeared on media websites from Los Angeles to London, aired on television and arrived on fans’ Blackberrys and mobile phones.
The news release listed the injuries as “serious” because patients’ conditions are always classified that way if they are transported to a hospital, FHP spokesman Jorge Delahoz told the Orlando Sentinel.
The media frenzy the word “serious” ignited was “illustrative not only of Woods’ global fame, but of the rapidity with which the media can spread news whether it is entirely accurate or not,” said David Carter, executive director of USC’s Sports Business Institute.
Woods, of course, is the world’s No. 1 golfer. He has won 82 times worldwide and captured 14 major tournaments, and this year he also became the first athlete to reach the $1-billion mark in career earnings through prize money, endorsements and other income, Forbes magazine estimated.
Woods can make or break TV ratings simply by choosing to play in a tournament. He has a net worth of $600 million, according to Forbes.
While authorities “may characterize [the injuries] very technically,” today’s instant media communication “leads to banner headlines, which makes everybody wonder what the impact could be if, for any reason, he was to miss a series of tournaments,” Carter said.
In fact, the accident occurred leading to next week’s Chevron World Challenge, an 18-player tournament hosted by Woods at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
The four-day tournament starts Thursday, and Woods is scheduled to hold a news conference there Tuesday.
Woods missed last year’s tournament, which supports the Tiger Woods Foundation, because he was recovering from surgery on his left knee.
He was scheduled to rejoin the field this year, but Mark Steinberg, Woods’ agent, told the Associated Press on Friday that he did not know if Woods still planned to play.
Tournament officials did not elaborate on Woods’ appearance beyond the golfer’s statement on the website tigerwoods.com.
Woods won six times this season. Although he did not win a major tournament, he said he considered the year successful because he wasn’t sure how his knee would respond after months of rehabilitation.
james.peltz@latimes.com
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cc72f321f563b5b85c3c50f07682774d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-28-la-sp-usc-ucla-charticle28-2009nov28-story.html | For Bruins and Trojans, it’s all about L.A. | For Bruins and Trojans, it’s all about L.A.
For the first time since 2001, Los Angeles’ crosstown football rivalry doesn’t have implications for a major bowl game. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t important things to play for. USC leads the series, 43-28-7, and has won nine of its last 10 games against the Bruins. Times staff writers Gary Klein and Chris Foster examine some of the issues involved in this year’s game:
Freshmen quarterbacks: Rise and fall
Both teams start freshmen at quarterback, though UCLA’s Kevin Prince is in his second full year with the Bruins.
Statistically, it’s a tossup.
USC’s Matt Barkley has completed 146 of 252 passes. Prince has completed 147 of 255.
Barkley has thrown for 2,035 yards with 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Prince has thrown for 1,739 yards, and his touchdown-to-interception ratio is 6-5.
But lately, their performances have been headed in opposite directions.
Prince’s stock is up, Barkley’s down.
In his last 11 quarters, Prince has completed 64 of 101 passes for 885 yards and four touchdowns.
In his last 10 quarters, Barkley has completed 33 of 71 passes for 357 yards and two touchdowns -- with five interceptions.
Leaders of the pack
This game will feature two national leaders -- both from UCLA.
Free safety Rahim Moore leads major college football with nine interceptions, and Bruins kicker Kai Forbath is No. 1 with 26 field goals and 11th in scoring with 99 points.
UCLA tackle Brian Price is tied for third with 20.5 tackles for losses, and the Bruins are tied for ninth as a team, averaging 7.8 tackles for losses a game.
Also for UCLA, Jeff Locke is ninth in the nation in punting, averaging 44.0 yards.
USC is tied for third in quarterback sacks, averaging 3.2 a game, and defensive end Everson Griffen has eight. He is 14th in the country, averaging .89 a game.
Trojans junior Damian Williams has returned two punts for touchdowns, and his 16.3 yards-per-return average is second in the nation. However, Williams will be playing with an injured ankle, so Joe McKnight is expected to handle punt return duties for USC.
Last chance
USC safety Josh Pinkard and center Jeff Byers are sixth-year seniors playing in their fourth USC-UCLA games. Both were sidelined by injuries in 2006, when the Bruins upset the Trojans, so they are 3-0 in the rivalry series.
Pinkard, 23, used to know some of UCLA’s players, but not anymore.
“My friends are pretty much all gone -- they’re all in the NFL right about now,” Pinkard said, chuckling. “They’ve been in for about three years plus.”
Offensive tackle Charles Brown and safety Will Harris, who both originally committed to UCLA, and cornerback Kevin Thomas are fifth-year seniors at USC. The Trojans also have a senior safety in Taylor Mays.
UCLA has five senior starters on defense -- linebackers Reggie Carter and Kyle Bosworth, end Korey Bosworth, tackle Jerzy Siewierski and cornerback Alterraun Verner.
Verner, wide receiver Terrence Austin and running back Chane Moline all broke in as true freshmen with an upset victory over USC in 2006.
Before that, USC had won seven straight in the series. “But we beat them eight straight once,” Korey Bosworth said.
That record UCLA streak was from 1991-98.
USC has won the last two games.
Last chance?
Defensive tackle Price is a junior, but this could be his last rivalry game because the former Crenshaw High star -- who was the subject of an intense recruiting battle between the Bruins and Trojans -- might make himself available for the NFL draft.
USC also has some juniors who could be tempted to jump to the pro ranks: Receiver Williams, defensive end Griffen, tailback McKnight and fullback Stanley Havili.
Watch these guys
This rivalry has had more than a few unsung heroes step into the spotlight and become difference-makers.
With that in mind, keep an eye on UCLA’s Locke and USC’s Havili.
Locke is among the national leaders in his specialty, but who remembers the punter?
USC might.
Locke is always a key part of UCLA’s game plan.
“When you have a young team like we have, you almost do it like you do it in the NFL,” said Norm Chow, UCLA’s offensive coordinator. “You play for field position and you try to get to the fourth quarter.”
Havili missed two games after suffering a shoulder injury against Notre Dame, and he’s been barely noticeable in the two games he’s been back.
But the junior fullback has popped up with big games before -- he caught four passes for 66 yards against UCLA in 2007 -- and he is always capable.
Havili has 16 receptions this season.
Friends now foes
Barkley and UCLA’s Andrew Abbott used to star for Santa Ana Mater Dei High, Barkley on offense, Abbott on defense.
Now Abbott, a cornerback, will be part of several special-situation pass schemes UCLA has designed to stop Barkley and the Trojans.
Only in a crosstown rivalry would so many former high school teammates be on opposite sides of the field. No wonder so many Southland high schools have split allegiances. A few other examples:
Birmingham High: UCLA freshman tailback Milton Knox and freshman linebacker Donovan Carter; USC sophomore defensive end Malik Jackson and freshman receiver Da’Von Flournoy.
Compton Dominguez: UCLA freshman cornerback Aaron Hester; USC freshman linebacker Marquis Simmons.
Sherman Oaks Notre Dame: UCLA kicker Forbath and freshman cornerback Jeff Dickmann; USC senior receiver Garrett Green, sophomore linebacker Shane Horton and freshman defensive end Wes Horton.
Mater Dei: UCLA freshman tight end Andrew Yelich; USC freshman receiver Robbie Boyer and freshman offensive lineman Khaled Holmes.
Long Beach Poly: UCLA senior wide receiver Austin, freshman cornerback Stan McKay and freshman defensive lineman Iuta Tepa; USC junior receiver Travon Patterson and sophomore defensive lineman Jurrell Casey.
Venice: UCLA freshman receiver Jerry Johnson; USC freshman running back Curtis McNeal.
Good bye
USC had an open date after its humiliating 55-21 loss to Stanford at the Coliseum on Nov. 14.
So what are USC’s chances of bouncing back?
Pretty good.
According to USC’s sports information department, the Trojans are 91-44-4 in regular-season games after open dates. Since 1955, USC is 52-15-1 following a week off -- with six of the losses and the tie coming against UCLA.
Those percentages are even better since Pete Carroll has been coach of the Trojans.
USC is 15-4 after an open date since the start of the 2001 season.
360-degree turn
More than enjoying knocking second-ranked USC out of the national title hunt, UCLA fans might have hoped the Bruins’ 13-9 upset win over the Trojans in 2006 was a sign of their football program’s rejuvenation.
But it hasn’t turned out that way.
UCLA is 16-21 since that game, and with losing has come additional apathy.
For “Senior Day” against Arizona State last week, UCLA drew an announced crowd of only 46,151 to the Rose Bowl. And this week, the Bruins failed to defend the school’s “bear” statue, leaving it susceptible to a dousing with red and yellow paint -- close enough to cardinal and gold -- presumably by USC supporters.
Streaking
UCLA has won three straight since losing five in a row to start the Pacific 10 Conference season.
So are the Bruins getting better . . . or is the opposition simply getting worse?
The victories were over Washington, Washington State and Arizona State -- teams that are 0-13 since Oct. 24.
Bruins bet-tor
UCLA is a 13-point underdog today.
If recent history is an indication, take the Bruins with the points.
Bettors taking UCLA and the points would have been winners in four of the last five years -- a 66-19 blowout by USC in 2005 the only exception.
The other four situations:
2008: USC a 33-point favorite. Trojans win, 28-7, at Rose Bowl.
2007: USC a 20-point favorite. Trojans win, 24-7, at Coliseum.
2006: USC a 10 1/2 -point favorite. Bruins win, 13-9, at Rose Bowl.
2004: USC a 21 1/2 -point favorite. Trojans win, 29-24, at Rose Bowl.
Injury report
UCLA: Receiver Morrell Presley (shoulder) is out. Guard Ryan Taylor (foot) is unlikely to play.
USC: Receiver Williams (ankle) is probable. Tight end Blake Ayles (knee), linebacker Jarvis Jones (neck), receiver David Ausberry (calf) and cornerback Brian Baucham (foot) are out.
By the numbers
gary.klein@latimes.com; twitter.com/latimesklein
chris.foster@latimes.com; twitter.com/cfosterlatimes
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bf93172e3f933ecee86b7f601862f4a7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-ca-conversation29-2009nov29-story.html | Jesse Ventura searches for coverups | Jesse Ventura searches for coverups
Jesse Ventura is back. The former pro wrestler, who served as Minnesota governor from 1999 to 2003, is the host of “Conspiracy Theory,” an investigative series that premieres Wednesday on truTV.
On “Conspiracy Theory,” you investigate secret societies and supposed government coverups. Such theories are everywhere, but really, what big conspiracy has ever been proven?
How can you prove it? That’s the point. The better part would be to ask, “How many of the government’s points have ever been proven?” I find what’s most interesting about doing this show is how the government will not participate or allow you in or answer any questions. We’re not allowed to question our government.
But you’re allowed to have this program, which is more than could be said about many countries.
We’re not on the air yet, are we? I never believe anything in the world of entertainment until it actually happens and the check clears the bank. I’ve had a gentleman’s bet with my crew that these shows would never air.
Originally, the show was going to show both sides of the conspiracy. But the show then evolved while we were doing it, because it’s very difficult to show both sides when one side won’t cooperate at all.
Then how can you be sure the side that does cooperate isn’t just a bunch of crackpots?
I’m not sure. But how can I be sure the government’s not?
One of the alleged coverups you investigate involves 9/11. Do you believe the terrorist attacks were an inside job?
I believe that the government has not been truthful with us about it. Yes, absolutely. That there’s massive holes in the story they’ve told. That none of these questions have ever been adequately addressed.
Saying you have doubts is different than saying you think it was an inside job.
You can’t prove anything. All evidence has been destroyed, pretty much.
Why would the government want to do such things?
Well, what changed after 9/11? We’re in two wars, passage of Patriot Act and all that. Our entire society changed that day. We’ve become paranoid. We think there’s a terrorist behind every tree. I live in Mexico half the year. And when I’m down there, for six months, I never hear the word “terrorism.” When I’m up here, I can’t go a day without hearing it.
On another episode, you investigate the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an Alaska-based facility that bombards the ionosphere with high-frequency signals and that conspiracy theorists say is used for nefarious purposes, like weather control. You go to HAARP and can’t get in, yet the facility offers open houses to the public. How secretive could they be?
Every other year, they invite people in for coffee and doughnuts. If that’s all it is, an unclassified research project, then why wouldn’t I be allowed in? It gets its funding from DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], the most secret part of the Pentagon. That doesn’t raise concern with you?
It doesn’t seem like in that episode you really got to the bottom of anything.
How can you get to the bottom, with a one-hour TV show and the limited resources I have? Hey, I’m doing a lot better than you guys are! How’s that for you?
You don’t think journalists investigate anything?
Not much. They investigate the death of Anna Nicole Smith, which I won’t be covering.
This is not your first venture into TV hosting since leaving the governorship. What happened to “Jesse Ventura’s America,” which ran briefly on MSNBC in 2003?
It was awful. I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: “Is it true Jesse doesn’t support the war in Iraq?”
My contract said I couldn’t do any other cable TV or any news shows, and they honored and paid it for the duration of it. So in essence I had my silence purchased. Why do you think you didn’t hear from me for three years? I was under contract. They wouldn’t even use me as a consultant!
When you live in Mexico, your houses all have names. I almost named my house Casa MSNBC because they bought it. I was paid like a professional athlete, and I got very wealthy. For doing nothing.
Speaking of Mexico, what’s a patriotic guy like you doing living there?
The weather’s nicer. You ever live in Minnesota in the winter? Come on up and do it for 30 years in a row and see how you enjoy it.
When you were governor, you disliked journalists, whom you dubbed “media jackals.” But being a TV host means a lot more media jackals in your life.
I don’t mind it. I’m not accountable now for my state, only for myself. I can live with that a whole lot better. I don’t have to muzzle myself when I’m a civilian. When you’re a governor, you kind of have to do it, because you represent the whole state. You have to leave your personal opinions to yourself a lot. I learned that.
scott.collins@latimes.com
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241132bf4d2486ab39d7b07803c8328a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-ca-workinghollywood29-2009nov29-story.html | Danielle Moné Truitt, ‘The Princess and the Frog’ | Danielle Moné Truitt, ‘The Princess and the Frog’
Princess Tiana from Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” might have gotten her regal voice from Anika Noni Rose, but she got her royal moves from Danielle Moné Truitt, who worked as the “video reference” for the animated character.
“I did all the body movements and facial references for the cartoon,” Truitt said. “I got dressed in costume, and they videotaped me doing the scenes that were going to be in the film. The animators are amazing, but the video reference helps them bring the characters to life and give the cartoons more of a realistic appearance.”
As a young girl growing up in Sacramento, Truitt, 28, never imagined that she would lend her gestures and expressions to Disney’s first African American movie princess. She sang in her church choir from age 8, started dancing in junior high and got involved in cheerleading, basketball and theater in high school. It was after she took a theater class at Cal State Sacramento, where she was majoring in psychology, that she fully realized her knack for being expressive.
“My theater professor said, ‘You should think about doing a major.’ So I did my first play, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m changing my major.’ After that, I became a theater girl,” she said.
Truitt has appeared in several regional theatrical productions, including “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Aida” and “The Music Man.” She’s also acted in such independent films as 2005’s “Fugitive Hunter.” “The Princess and the Frog” marks her first experience with video reference; she also voiced the character of Georgia for the film.
“I had a friend in high school, and he was an amazing animator,” Truitt said. “And he always used to say, ‘When I do my first cartoon, I’m going to cast you as a voice.’ But I never thought I’d actually be doing work with cartoons. I just feel so honored to be a part of the film, because it is a really big deal for me, my family and my community.”
Cel theory: Truitt spent a full year doing video reference for the film. “They put together a stage, and they had a video camera,” she said. “Before I shot a scene, they would send me slides that would just be a rough sketch of what they wanted to get across for the scene. Then they took the voice of Anika Noni Rose, and I would basically lip talk her lines and act all the movements and facial expressions. I also did a lot of dance for the film. We went scene by scene. We would shoot a scene, and then the next time I would come back, the animators would show me what they took from that shoot and how they put it into the character. It was amazing to see me in a car- toon. I would just be screaming.”
Motion picture: Truitt drew heavily on her theater background to create the animated princess. “They wanted Princess Tiana to have a very natural type of movement like a regular human being, and they wanted her to have the essence of a black woman,” she said. “She definitely has that. But for a cartoon, all your movements also have to be very exaggerated so that the cartoon will come to life. So it has an element of theater where you can be bigger than life.”
Trait secrets: Truitt lent Princess Tiana some of her own personal quirks. “People are always teasing that when I don’t like something, you definitely know, because I cannot hold my face,” she said. “And if I like something, you know, because I’m just bigger than life. So I definitely gave her that gift! She’s very expressive with her face. And she was a hands-on-the-hips-type girl. And [there are] certain things she does with her hands, little things. When I’m nervous, I twiddle my fingers together, and there’s a part where she’s doing that right before she kisses the frog. My mom and I went to the premiere, and whenever something would happen, she would nudge me like, ‘That is so you!’ I feel like I added my own touch and a part of me.”
Croak monsieur: Truitt kissed her fair share of frogs. “When we did the scenes where Princess Tiana was talking to the frog, I had a stuffed frog,” she says, laughing. “There was a recording playing so you could hear the voice actor saying the frog’s lines. It was sitting on this little table, and I was talking to it and acting like it was real. It was super small. That made it funnier, because it was so tiny.”
Falling with style: Truitt also got to tap her inner Charlie Chaplin for some real-life pratfalls. “There’s a scene where she first sees the frog, and he talks to her,” she said. “She runs backward into her room, and she falls into a bookcase. And so to simulate that, there was this wall that had a cushion on it. I was running backward, and then I had to run into the cushion that was behind me like it was the bookcase. After our shot, all the directors and producer and crew people were taking turns running backward into the cushion. We had a lot of fun.”
calendar@latimes.com
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e78875878747d60c2a60a87336523f07 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-fg-korea-abortion29-2009nov29-story.html | In South Korea, abortion foes gain ground | In South Korea, abortion foes gain ground
For nearly two decades, obstetrician Shim Sang-duk aborted as many babies as he delivered -- on average, one a day, month after month.
“Over time, I became emotionless,” the physician said. “I came to see the results of my work as just a chunk of blood. During the operation, I felt the same as though I was treating scars or curing diseases.”
Shim, 42, eventually came to despise himself, despite the money he earned from the procedures. So, two months ago, he founded an activist group of physicians who refuse to perform abortions and advocate prosecution for doctors who continue to do so.
The group’s stand has brought a tidal wave of criticism from the Korean Assn. of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents more than 4,000 physicians in this country where abortions, although technically illegal, are so prevalent it has been tagged as “the Abortion Republic.”
Unlike in America, where doctors have been threatened and even killed for performing abortions, Shim says he’s received death threats for deciding to stop performing them.
The controversy illustrates the stark differences between South Korea’s attitude toward abortion and that of many Western nations. While often couched elsewhere as a battle between religious activists and those defending a woman’s right to choose, the issue here carries no such emotional freight.
“Western societies see abortion as one of benchmark battles between conservatives and liberals -- while here there has not been even any academic discussion,” said Lee Na-young, a sociology professor at Seoul’s Chung-Ang University.
In South Korea, religious groups and women’s rights advocates have remained largely silent on the issue, analysts say.
“During church sermons, we barely talk about abortion, which is considered an individual matter,” said Hwang Pil-gyu, a minister on the life and ethics committee of the National Council of Churches in Korea. “Many churches have put this issue on the back burner.”
Shim has critics even outside the medical field. Some say he’s grandstanding. Others criticize his emphasis on the financial incentive of performing abortions.
“The whole discussion seems to be about his giving up profits from the abortions he doesn’t do,” Lee said. “This isn’t the issue.”
But Shim’s campaign has triggered a rare public debate on abortion. Lawmakers now call for tougher enforcement of existing laws, and are asking parents to reassess the cultural value of childbirth.
Beginning in the 1970s, officials advocated fewer births as a way to fuel economic productivity. The policy was perhaps too successful: Birthrates in South Korea plummeted. A decade ago, officials reversed their stand, calling for residents to have more babies.
Yet the declining fertility trend has proved difficult to reverse. The country’s birthrate is now among the lowest worldwide, with just 1.19 live births per woman.
Meanwhile, abortion rates have kept their pace, many say. Every year, 450,000 babies are born here; Health Ministry officials estimate that 350,000 abortions are performed each year. One politician says the number of abortions is actually four times higher -- nearly 1.5 million.
Now there are calls to strengthen a 1973 mother-child protection law, long criticized for containing loopholes and for being rarely enforced. Some lawmakers want to prosecute more physicians for performing abortions and close down underground clinics where the procedures cost as little as $70.
For the first six months of 2009, only three of 29 abortion-related cases were prosecuted, said Chang Yoon-seok, a member of the ruling Grand National Party, who supports tougher sanctions.
“Even though illegal abortions are widespread . . . it is true that everyone keeps quiet and does not say anything about it,” the politician said in a statement.
Dressed in his white lab coat, the bespectacled Shim embodies a new public consciousness against abortion.
In the lobby of his Ion clinic, a sign explains his new philosophy. “Abortions, which abandon the valuable life of a fetus, are the very misery for the nation and society as well as pregnant women, families and ob-gyn doctors,” it reads.
For years, Shim rarely, if ever, even used the word “abortion.” Rather, he said, he sought to “erase” or “prevent” the fetus.
“I bought into the government’s argument that it was OK to do this,” he said. “It was good for the country. It boosted the economy.”
Still, Shim was often baffled by his patients’ behavior: After receiving their abortions, he said, most women cried.
“Many patients cry when they give birth,” he said, “but these were a different kind of tears.”
Although Shim’s clinic made one-quarter of its profits from performing abortions, he tried harder to dissuade patients from choosing the option.
He started a website where he was contacted by other physicians. Although he claims support from 700 doctors, he acknowledges that only 30 have stopped performing the procedure.
Many others have withdrawn their support under pressure from peers. But for Shim, the benefits were immediate. “I feel like a young doctor again,” he said.
The decision was difficult financially. His clinic has lost so many patients that Shim says he may soon be forced to close.
But Shim won’t reconsider. The physician recalled his final abortion.
He had already sworn off the procedure when a longtime patient called him, distraught. He met with the mother of two for hours and begged her to go home and reconsider.
The following morning, she still wanted the abortion. So Shim relented. After the procedure, he said, she cried.
john.glionna@latimes.com
Ju-min Park of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.
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477363b5feebd40da46984891ca008d9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-me-cal-state29-2009nov29-story.html | Budget cuts hit broad swath of Cal State | Budget cuts hit broad swath of Cal State
Rochelle Corros is passionate when she speaks about her college major: Recreation and leisure studies is not just fun and games, she says with conviction. Graduates run city and state parks, recreation departments, hospital clinics, theaters and cruise lines. They help keep kids off the streets.
So the Cal State Dominguez Hills senior was floored by an August letter from administrators telling her that admissions to the program would be suspended and courses slashed as the campus grappled with steep budget reductions.
Corros, 25, had to scramble to replace one canceled class this fall and no longer knows if she will be able to complete her studies by next winter as planned.
“It’s really stressful and really frustrating,” she said. “Some college students may just want to get by, but others want to plan their education semester by semester and have an eye on a deadline. . . . Now I don’t know if any of the classes I need are going to be offered.”
Corros is hardly alone as she tries to plan for an uncertain future. These days, the California State University system -- the nation’s largest with 23 campuses and 450,000 students -- seems like a ship unmoored. With its lifeline of state funding cut more than half a billion dollars this fiscal year, Cal State, along with other California schools, has been unable to avoid unprecedented student fee hikes, staff and faculty furloughs, and deep reductions in enrollment.
Many campuses are planning for historic program reductions that could greatly narrow academic options, alter the career plans of thousands of students and, ultimately, further harm California’s shaky economy, experts say.
The Cal State cutbacks are not uniform. Each campus was allocated reductions based on various criteria, including enrollment. Allowances were made for smaller campuses and those with large proportions of financial aid students.
Among recent cost-saving measures across the university, Cal State Stanislaus is canceling its winter term and will move next year to a more traditional two-semester schedule. The school, in Turlock, near Modesto, cut 50 part-time faculty and 192 course offerings this fall; several hundred more classes will probably be eliminated in the spring.
Humboldt State closed its popular Natural History Museum. It was the only such museum in largely rural Humboldt County and attracted thousands of visitors annually. The campus is the county’s second-largest employer; the economics department estimates that twice monthly staff and faculty furloughs have sapped the local economy of $8.6 million.
Administrators at Dominguez Hills closed the student newspaper and may eliminate some small academic programs, including music, art and Chicano studies.
The Cal State system often does not get the same attention as the University of California, but in the state’s master plan for higher education, Cal State is the workhorse of undergraduate academics, producing 60% of public school bachelor’s degrees, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“It serves a more diverse population than UC; it’s more representative,” said Hans Johnson, an associate director at the institute. “It’s very large, very important and a key component in producing our workforce.”
California already faces a skills gap, with demand for educated workers outstripping supply. Cal State’s cuts will only exacerbate the problem, Johnson said. The system reduced enrollment by 4,000 students in the fall and expects to cut 40,000 more in the next two years. The state will suffer from those decisions, he said.
The following student, faculty member and administrator are among those on the front lines:
Student’s plight
Corros, of Lakewood, earned an associate’s degree in liberal studies from Cypress College before transferring to Dominguez Hills last year. But for as long as she can remember, she has loved spending time with children, finding their energy and creativity an inspiration.
She worked in a program helping autistic children learn academic and play skills and decided that recreation studies would provide opportunities beyond the typical 9-to-5 desk job. It didn’t matter to her that it wasn’t a big program at the campus, unlike business, for example.
“When you think about recreation, you’re not going to think high enrollment. But if you say it’s not important to the world, that’s wrong,” she said.
At a meeting early in the school year, lower division recreation students were advised to consider changing majors because it was unclear which classes would be available, she said. She had just enough credits to continue.
The uncertainty has added to the usual college stress of tests, homework and squeezing in a social life. Corros, who says she was not serious about her studies in high school, is now vice president of the campus recreation club and has spoken about the plight of recreation students at a community forum. She also addressed a recent meeting of the Cal State Board of Trustees, urging them to save academic programs.
Corros receives financial aid, and her parents, who attended the forum, struggle to provide support. Part of her drive to get her degree on time is to find a job and begin helping them, she says.
“For my parents to actually see me . . . choose a major, go to classes and take things seriously, I’m quite proud of that,” she said. “Now, this is happening.”
Worried lecturer
As a precocious 6-year-old in Italy, Giulio Della Rocca earned the nickname “Prof” from his friends because he was the go-to guy for help with homework. Teaching has always been his dream.
When he earned a PhD in mathematics from UCLA, he thought he was prepared for a secure future. He’s been a lecturer at Cal State Long Beach since 2001. But lately, when he hugs his young daughter, he wonders how he’ll continue to be able to provide for her.
This fall, the university canceled one of his math classes, cutting his income by 20%. Like other faculty and staff, Della Rocca also must take two unpaid furlough days a month, lowering his pay 10% more. His mortgage and bills, he points out, did not drop commensurately.
“Now I have to get money from an equity line of credit or I literally wouldn’t be able to pay all my bills and [would] be in jeopardy of losing my house,” he said. “This is what the budget cuts are doing.”
Della Rocca, 47, is trying to find outside income to fill the gaps, even asking a contractor friend about odd jobs, he said. His family tries to stretch their budget: They walk or use bicycles for errands. They forgo parties and movies and go to the beach for entertainment. They grow tomatoes, carrots, celery and cucumbers to save on grocery bills.
Della Rocca’s math classes cover basic skills, and the cuts come at a time when the number of students needing such courses is rising, he said. His four remaining classes are full, and he turns no students away.
The furloughs have disrupted his life and those of his students, who are losing momentum and motivation with shifting class schedules, he said. Because classroom hours have been reduced, some topics can’t be covered and students can’t be tested on the material.
He tries to ease the effect on his students. “I usually do some work and increase the number of handouts for students so that even though they see me less, they continue to have work to do,” he said.
Della Rocca said he also tries to be optimistic that the budget crisis will end quickly and the lost funding be restored. “I’m hopeful they will find a way.”
A provost’s angst
In his seventh-floor office with a view of the San Gabriel Mountains, Provost Marten L. denBoer is trying to close a $30-million budget shortfall at Cal Poly Pomona.
That will involve eliminating many programs, a process he says is like triage: Resources must be focused on programs that get the most bang for the buck, using criteria such as the number of students enrolled, the number of graduates, whether the program serves a unique function and its effectiveness in placing students into the workforce.
Engineering, for example, is a core part of the school’s mission and is not threatened; nor is architecture, which is one of only two such programs in the Cal State system and is nationally recognized. But plenty of smaller programs, such as philosophy and history, may be on the chopping block.
These are the toughest, most wrenching decisions he will make in his academic career, said DenBoer, who came to Pomona last year. He said he wants consensus from faculty and deans on the cost-cutting measures, but knows the actions aren’t likely to win him applause.
He said administrative functions will be reviewed and probably pared, but he rejects the argument that significant cuts can be made in that area. “The lights have to stay on, and someone has to maintain the computer system,” he said. “These are people who work very hard and have to be properly compensated.”
Cal Poly will not emerge undamaged, he said.
“Faculty express concerns about whether we are changing the nature of education at Cal Poly Pomona, and my honest answer is that it’s going to be very difficult to reverse these changes,” he said. “The people of California have made the decision that they don’t want to invest in higher education as they have in the past. That means we will be a smaller university and will not be able to offer all the programs we’ve been offering.”
Born in France to Dutch parents, DenBoer, 59, grew up mostly in Canada before earning a PhD in physics and serving in various academic posts at New York institutions, including associate provost in the City University system. While at Queens College, he had to consolidate academic programs during the financial crisis that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.
The economy and enrollments there eventually recovered. But he doesn’t expect that Cal State will ever completely recoup its losses from this downturn.
He recalls the time, while training for the New York City Marathon, that he was struck by a car and spent three months in the hospital with a broken neck and legs so shattered that his doctors expected he would never walk again. He recovered, but the experience of helplessness and dependence led him to switch from research to more active academic roles.
Now DenBoer hopes that his legacy at Pomona will be one of helping keep the school alive.
“I think we’re in a better position than some campuses because we have a pretty well-defined and supported mission,” he said. “We’ll survive and do well, but the future will not be the same.”
carla.rivera@latimes.com
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4ae1d82a56686ff38903e4be7e55a049 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-sp-angels-dodgers29-2009nov29-story.html | Angels and Dodgers face similar payroll situations | Angels and Dodgers face similar payroll situations
When the last out of the American League Championship Series was made in October, the Angels trimmed almost $51 million from their payroll, as Vladimir Guerrero, Kelvim Escobar, John Lackey, Bobby Abreu, Chone Figgins, Darren Oliver and Robb Quinlan headed for free agency.
Knowing his 2010 budget would be roughly the same as 2009 -- the Angels finished last season with a payroll of about $113 million -- the savings would seem to have given General Manager Tony Reagins all sorts of flexibility this winter.
He could look to retain some of the Angels’ highly coveted free agents such as Lackey, Abreu and Figgins. He could aggressively pursue a marquee free agent such as Matt Holliday or Jason Bay.
He could look to trade for a high-priced ace such as Toronto’s Roy Halladay, who will make $15.75 million in 2010. Heck, with the kind of money he had, Reagins could add a big bat and a front-of-the-rotation starter and have some left for another move or two.
Then again, maybe not.
“There was a nice chunk that came off the 2009 payroll,” Reagins said, “but when you have young players who perform well, you’re going to have increases to your payroll.”
Big ones, sometimes.
The Angels have eight players eligible for salary arbitration this winter -- pitchers Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders, catchers Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis, infielders Erick Aybar, Maicer Izturis and Howie Kendrick and outfielder Reggie Willits -- and some were among the team’s top performers in 2009.
Though the players are under club control, the considerable jumps in salaries for many of the eight probably will add $13 million to $15 million to the team’s 2010 payroll.
Combined with raises to returning players such as Scott Kazmir, Ervin Santana and Juan Rivera, huge contracts of veterans such as Torii Hunter, Gary Matthews Jr. and Brian Fuentes, and the signing of Abreu to a two-year, $19-million deal in late October, and Reagins went from a GM with lots of wiggle room to one operating out of a phone booth.
A look at the team’s payroll for 2010, with projections for raises to arbitration-eligible players and those with less than three years of big league service, shows that the Angels already have roughly $94 million committed to 21 players under contract or club control.
Throw in the $5.25 million the team owes released reliever Justin Speier, and salaries for another four players who will make at least the major league minimum of $400,000, and that pushes the payroll to almost $101 million.
So, instead of having $51 million to play with, Reagins has something closer to $12 million, which isn’t much in baseball’s financial stratosphere.
“We do have money available to be active in free agency, and there are some areas we can work with that will give us more flexibility,” Reagins said. “We feel we can take on some payroll, but we’re going to have to be creative.”
Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti is working with similar restrictions.
The Dodgers started last season with a payroll of around $100 million, but that figure could decrease next season.
While the salaries of Jason Schmidt ($12 million), Randy Wolf ($8 million) and Orlando Hudson ($8 million) are expected to be removed from the books, a group of arbitration-eligible players that includes Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley, Russell Martin, James Loney, Jonathan Broxton, George Sherrill and Hong-Chih Kuo are expected to earn raises totaling some $20 million.
The soaring salaries of the Dodgers’ young players will prevent Colletti from spending the kind of money he did heading into last season, when he signed Manny Ramirez to a two-year, $45-million deal and Rafael Furcal to a three-year, $30-million contract.
Several agents said they aren’t expecting the Dodgers to be serious players in the free-agent market, particularly with ownership in the midst of divorce proceedings.
The Dodgers could do what they did a season ago to fill out their roster -- that is, wait until late winter or early spring and pounce on players who misread the market. The wait-and-see method landed them Wolf and Hudson at bargain prices.
Acquiring Halladay appears to be a longshot at this point, as Colletti has dismissed the idea of parting with a current member of the rotation in a trade.
The Dodgers are expected to explore the possibility of dealing fourth outfielder Juan Pierre for an overpaid back-of-the-rotation pitcher in a trade that would essentially amount to a swap of bad contracts. Pierre is owed $18.5 million over the next two seasons.
The Angels will look to trade Matthews but probably will have to eat much of the $23 million left on his contract, so a deal might not net significant savings.
A trade for Halladay probably would cost the Angels one of their three young starters -- Saunders, Weaver or Santana -- so some of Halladay’s hefty 2010 salary could be offset by the departure of a pitcher.
If the Angels retain Lackey, Figgins, or both, they could try to backload their contracts, giving them some payroll relief in 2010.
Reagins also has a bit of a wild card up his sleeve: Owner Arte Moreno has often said that he is willing to go over his budget for a potential “franchise” player, so if the Angels have to push the payroll beyond $113 million to add an arm such as Halladay or a bat such as Bay, they might do it.
“We have a few different scenarios we’re working with,” Reagins said. “There are ways to get to where we want to be, and we’re going to go through all of them. It’s a challenge, but this is a fun time of year. It’s exciting.”
mike.digiovanna@latimes.com
dylan.hernandez@latimes.com
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4702fb50db382309e4773eb4524a17fb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-29-la-tr-citycenter29-2009nov29-story.html | Vegas is gambling on CityCenter | Vegas is gambling on CityCenter
Even along the Las Vegas Strip, where extravagance and overindulgence are the norm, people are wondering this about the new CityCenter project: Has it blown the lid off the definition of “over the top”?
“My first impression was, ‘This was either completely crazy or the greatest project in the world,’ ” said Daniel Libeskind, the renowned architect who designed the exterior of the project’s Crystals retail center.
“It turned out to be the latter,” Libeskind said as he wandered through CityCenter, the $8.5-billion behemoth of hotels, private residences and super-chic retail that begins its debut this week. Conceived well before “recession” became a household word, CityCenter is touted as the largest privately funded construction project in North America.
Square feet: 18 million
Construction cost: $8.5 billion
Hotels (three set to open in December): 4
Total rooms opening in December: 5,891
Total hotel rooms when completed: 6,291
Spas: 4
Restaurants, lounges and bars: 42
Casino (150,000 square feet): 1
Residences: 897
Almost as important as the enormousness of it, the project represents a turning point as Vegas leans away from themed resorts and instead focuses on creating a welcoming environment amid a metropolitan hubbub.
“It’s a re-branding of the whole idea of Vegas,” said Libeskind, among the many top-tier architects whose touches you can see throughout CityCenter.
During the planning of CityCenter, its developers, the gaming gurus at MGM Mirage, traveled from Chicago to Shanghai and from Denver to Dubai to try to capture the essence of the urban vibe.
“That kind of energy is what we’ve tried to harness,” said Sven Van Assche, vice president of the MGM Mirage Design Group. “We really had to think outside of our own box. . . . This is a whole new ballgame we’re playing in.”
The 67-acre property is full of parks and plazas lining broad boulevards in the heart of the complex. Sculptures from such world-class artists as Maya Lin (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial) and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen add to the metropolitan mood.
In recent months, however, the mood hasn’t been as frenetic as it once was. Visitors haven’t forsaken Vegas, but they haven’t embraced it with the same fervor, either. Although September’s visitor count rose more than 4%, thanks largely to more traffic from Southern California, it followed 17 straight months of declines. Gaming revenues through September were down 12% year over year in Clark County.
Far from ignoring the bad news, MGM Mirage Chief Executive Jim Murren thinks CityCenter is a giant life preserver for southern Nevada.
“I can’t think of a better time to launch the most important development in the state’s history,” he said. “It’s a gift to the community . . . at a time when the community needs it.”
Here is a look at the components of CityCenter. The first set of room rates contains introductory offers; the second set, researched in mid-November, reflects the lowest rates available for Jan. 16, a three-day weekend for many.
Vdara
Dec. 1
Vdara will be the first property to open at CityCenter. This 57-story hotel is at the back of the development, just a few steps from the northern lobby of Aria Resort & Casino and linked to Bellagio by a covered walkway. Gaming- and tobacco-free Vdara will likely appeal to those who want the feel of Vegas without the noise and smoke.
Vdara’s 1,495 suites, from 500 to 1,650 square feet, all with full kitchens, are available to rent by the night or to purchase.
The hotel, which has a bright, contemporary feel, features the standard Sin City amenities, including a pool and an 18,000-square-foot spa on two levels.
Silk Road, its ground-floor restaurant, will evolve throughout the day from a quiet place for coffee and a croissant in the morning to a full-service restaurant for lunch and dinner to a hip nightclub during the wee hours. Some guests will recognize the hotel’s executive chef, Martin Heierling, from Sensi, his restaurant next door at Bellagio.
2600 W. Harmon Ave.; (866) 745-7767, www.vdara.com. Opening specials from $129; Jan. 16 weekend from $229. Purchase prices begin at $443,000.
Crystals
Dec. 3
The eye-catching Crystals, a shopping and entertainment district that fronts Las Vegas Boulevard, features A-list stores, said general manager Farid Matraki.
“God knows that Las Vegas doesn’t need another mall, so Crystals is going to be a very, very unique destination,” Matraki said.
Its half-a-million square feet will feature the boutiques of such designers as Roberto Cavalli, Carolina Herrera and Ermenegildo Zegna.
“Even if you don’t want to go to Lanvin [opening in 2010] and buy an $800 T-shirt, you still can come here,” Matraki said. “You still can eat. You still can people-watch.”
A great place for doing that is from the terrace of Mastro’s Ocean Club. The terrace, situated in an abstract “treehouse,” overlooks carpets of real flowers and an innovative water fountain with ever-evolving ice sculptures.
A monorail will link the shopping center to neighboring Bellagio to the north and Monte Carlo to the south.
Mandarin Oriental
Dec. 4
Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas will be the Hong Kong-based chain’s second West Coast property. (The other is in San Francisco.) The sky lobby on the 23rd floor divides the tower, with residential units above and hotel rooms and suites below.
The rooms feature modern, Asian-inspired design. General Manager Rajesh Jhingon expects the hotel to draw discerning customers who appreciate “the mystique of the [Mandarin] brand.”
“Bellagio and the Aria and the Wynn -- etc., etc. -- are casino hotels with 4,000 to 5,000 rooms each. They have a different model,” he said. “I have a 392-room hotel. It’s got a totally different paradigm.”
During a Nov. 13 interview, Jhingon acknowledged that the hotel, then advertising a $545-a-night rate that was more than twice that of his closest competitors, might need to be more flexible in pricing. Two days later, the price had dropped to $325.
“People will want to pay that extra premium [for] the tangible and intangible service elements that they actually receive,” he said.
3752 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; (702) 590-8888 or (888) 881-9578 (reservations); www.mandarinoriental.com. Opening rates from $295; Jan. 16 weekend, $325.
Aria Resort & Casino
Dec. 16
With 4,004 rooms, Aria is the largest hotel at CityCenter and the only one with a casino. Guests are welcomed at two bright and bold entries. The reception lobby features a Maya Lin silver sculpture of the Colorado River, and the northern lobby showcases four brightly illuminated translucent walls of water.
The hotel features nine restaurants, some of them by top chefs making their first forays into Las Vegas.
“The chef talent out here is pretty inspiring,” said Shawn McClain, who, for the first time, is venturing outside Chicago, where he has three distinctive restaurants. Unique offerings at Sage, his Vegas property, will include a scallops-and-oxtail dish and a foie gras custard brûlée.
Aria is also home to “Viva Elvis,” Cirque du Soleil’s seventh Las Vegas production-in-residence.
Nancy Nitchse, the chief concierge, said this feature is generating the biggest buzz. The production is a tribute to Presley’s life and music and will include rare, never-before-seen footage of the King, she said. Ticketmaster says “Viva Elvis” performances begin Dec. 18. Ticket prices start about $95.
3730 Las Vegas Blvd. S., www.arialasvegas.com, (866) 359-7757. Opening rates from $149; Jan. 16 weekend from $259.
Veer Towers
Mid-January
The aptly named Veer Towers is CityCenter’s sole “residents only” property and possibly its most architecturally interesting: The two structures lean in opposite directions. Architect Helmut Jahn designed them that way so the 37-story towers are infinitely more stable than their distant Italian cousin in Pisa.
Only owners can access amenities such as the infinity pools atop both buildings. But the lobbies will be open to the public. Units are priced from $348,000.
Harmon Hotel
Late 2010
The lights are on at the Harmon Hotel, but nobody’s home. With its curvilinear exterior of blue glass, it’s a knockout. Originally planned to rise 49 stories, the hotel was downsized to 28 floors after building inspectors discovered improperly installed rebar on some of the upper floors. Hotel officials decided earlier this year to eliminate the Harmon’s condo component, leaving a 400-room hotel.
When the property opens, it will be a stubby stepsister to other members of the CityCenter family. The hotel will feature a Mr. Chow restaurant and “whenever, wherever” butler service.
travel@latimes.com
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0b39a008f3d16d6cf746eadd54daaa6d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-30-la-me-solar-panels30-2009nov30-story.html | Solar panels causing some storms | Solar panels causing some storms
Ready to chuck his electric bills, Camarillo resident Marc Weinberg last year asked his homeowners association for permission to put solar panels on his roof.
When the Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. said no, Weinberg sued the group. Under the state’s Solar Rights Act, he argued, a homeowners association can’t unreasonably block solar installations.
Weinberg won, and the Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. was ordered to not only permit the solar panels but to cover the tens of thousands of dollars that Weinberg had spent on legal fees. Since last fall, when he installed a double row of matte black panels, three other homes in the hilltop neighborhood of luxury estates have added panels.
“We didn’t set out to be green activists,” said Weinberg, 39, a real estate attorney. “That’s not where we’re coming from. We honestly looked at it from a financial standpoint.”
Whether motivated by pocketbook or environmentalism, similar battles between homeowners groups and property owners are cropping up across the state as the installation of solar systems becomes more affordable and utility costs rise.
Homeowners boards insist that they are protecting property values by enforcing rules that govern everything from paint color to how early trash bins can be set out for collection. But residents say their right to invest in alternative energy trumps the sensibilities of neighbors who don’t like how the panels look.
Results of the battles have been mixed even as the nation is being urged by the Obama administration to embrace alternative energy.
Santa Clarita homeowner Marty Griffin put solar panels up anyway after his homeowners association rejected his application. The Tesoro Del Valle Homeowners Assn. sued him, and in early November a jury told Griffin the panels should be moved to a more discreet spot on his property.
Solar installer Bradley Bartz earlier this year threatened a Palos Verdes commun- ity group with legal action after it denied three clients permits to install solar panels. He filed a claim against the city of Torrance after it rejected another client’s application. In all four cases, Bartz said, he prevailed.
Homeowners’ main defense is the Solar Rights Act, adopted by California in 1978 to protect consumers’ right to install solar energy technology. The law makes it difficult for homeowners groups to reject solar energy equipment unless it creates a safety hazard or a modification can be made without great cost.
Now, solar advocates are pushing for a federal version of the California law. Energy legislation that moved through the House earlier this year included a provision that would make it illegal for HOA rules, leases or private contracts to prohibit the installation of solar systems.
It’s uncertain whether the Senate will keep the language in its version of the bill, said Raymond Walker, a government affairs spokesman for Standard Renewable Energy, a Houston-based solar installer. As debate continues, solar industry advocates are forming a lobbying group to make sure their voices are heard, Walker said.
Industry officials say fewer regulatory hassles would speed the growth of jobs and move the nation closer to energy independence, he said.
“We want to make this into a real industry, and we’re trying to make sure the regulatory landscape is clear so this can take off,” he said.
Homeowner and commun- ity groups haven’t taken a position on the bill yet. Commun- ity Associations Institute, an education and advocacy group based in Alexandria, Va., said such “green issues” arise regularly in the estimated 300,000 community groups nationwide.
The institute advises striking a balance between conservation and aesthetics, said spokesman Frank Rathbun.
Advocates say those who invest in alternative energy should be applauded instead of punished. They ultimately benefit ratepayers by reducing demand on the state’s grid, said Adam Browning of Vote Solar, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that promotes the use of solar energy.
“It’s somebody doing their part to reduce peak load,” Browning said. “That’s the most expensive electricity utilities have to buy.”
California two years ago launched a $3.3-billion effort to increase the use of solar statewide, offering rebates and tax credits to consumers who install energy systems. Since then, the number of homes and businesses with installed solar has more than doubled, growing from 23,000 in 2006 to 52,700, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
The cost of small solar systems declined 9% in the last year and larger installations have fallen 13%, the PUC said in an October report. Still, the state is far from being on track to its goal of adding 3,000 megawatts in solar panels by 2016, sufficient to power 600,000 homes.
Property owners who install panels can sell excess energy back to the power companies for credit on their monthly bills.
Weinberg, the Camarillo resident, said he no longer pays electric bills that rose as high as $500 a month for his 3,000-square-foot home during hot summer months. He’s already earned a $60 credit for sending excess energy to the state’s grid, he said.
“There is now a greater financial incentive for people to adopt this stuff,” Weinberg said. “So I’ve got to think there’s more incentive to fight.”
The heightened activity has produced more battles, not just in California but across the nation. A Woodbury, Minn., man was reportedly denied permission to install solar panels on his roof because his homeowners association found them too obtrusive.
In Somerset County, N.J., a homeowner was reportedly ordered to remove 28 installed panels. In Avondale, Ariz., retiree Hank Speak has been fighting for more than six years to keep his solar equipment. Arguing that the panels were ugly, his homeowners group imposed huge fines.
But last year, an Arizona judge ruled that the association’s restrictions were contrary to the state’s support of solar power.
Walker, the Houston solar installer spokesman, estimates that his firm has lost $2 million in jobs this year because homeowners groups have blocked installations in several of the states where the company operates.
Several states, including California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, have laws that prevent homeowner groups from imposing too many restrictions. But as the California cases demonstrate, homeowners sometimes have to fight for their rights.
Weinberg took on his homeowners group, he said, because the law appeared to be clearly on his side, he said. The Spanish Hills Homeowners Assn. wanted him to move the panels from the front of his house to the back. But that orientation would have caused him to lose about 40% efficiency, a violation of the act, he said.
Griffin, the Santa Clarita homeowner, said he installed his panels without his homeowners group’s permission because it was taking too long to respond. His attorney, Michael Ribons, said delay is often a tactic.
“Homeowners associations stall, they say they want more information,” Ribons said. “But everyone knows it’s all about looks.”
The jury’s finding that Griffin should relocate some of the panels to a newly built platform would cost him about $8,000, Ribons said.
Bartz, who’s run ABC Solar in Rancho Palos Verdes since 2000, said he regularly runs up against homeowner association boards -- and even city planning departments -- that throw up roadblocks. They usually back down once they learn about the Solar Rights Act, Bartz said.
“Some homeowners groups are just unaware,” he said. “But they also like their control.”
The community board for the Palos Verdes homes rejected the permits because the proposed solar panels were blue, Bartz said.
“They wanted it black. It just was arbitrary,” he said. “I don’t care how they feel. I know every time the meter spins backwards, I feel good.”
catherine.saillant
@latimes.com
Times staff writer Ann Simmons contributed to this report.
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4a6788d5f11fe1246299af8e5a12b8fd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-30-la-na-police-shooting30-2009nov30-story.html | Four police officers fatally shot near Seattle | Four police officers fatally shot near Seattle
Four Seattle-area police officers were shot to death Sunday morning in a coffee shop in what officials called a brazen ambush by a lone gunman.
At least one officer apparently fought his way to the coffee shop door and returned fire, possibly wounding the shooter, authorities said.
The shooter is likely to seek medical treatment for a gunshot wound, officials said.
The officers, three men and a woman attached to the Lakewood Police Department, were conducting a routine pre-shift briefing over their laptops at the Forza Coffee Shop in Parkland, Wash., near McChord Air Force Base, about 35 miles south of Seattle.
“It was definitely an ambush, target situation. . . . It was not a robbery,” said Pierce County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Troyer, whose department is investigating the killings. “We have our work cut out for us.”
The slain officers, who were in uniform and wearing bulletproof vests, were pronounced dead at the scene. They were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards, 42.
Two baristas and several other customers were not injured during the 8:15 a.m. attack. It was not known whether the gunman -- described as a scruffy-looking black man in his mid-20s to mid-30s, 5-feet-7 to 5-10, wearing a black jacket, a gray hooded sweat shirt and blue jeans -- said anything as he opened fire with a handgun and then ran out. His motive was a mystery.
“We know he left the coffee shop on foot, and after that we don’t know what happened,” Pierce County spokesman Hunter George said.
A possible getaway car “is one of the things we’re looking into,” George said.
Another Pierce County spokeswoman, Sheri Badger, said a white pickup was found abandoned not far from the scene and was impounded for investigation.
Late Sunday, Troyer said investigators were looking for a person of interest in the shooting: Maurice Clemmons, 37. The Seattle Times reported that Clemmons had a long record of violence, including at least five felony convictions in Arkansas. It said that then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had commuted Clemmons’ prison sentence nine years ago, and that Clemmons had been jailed in Washington until six days before the shooting.
The four officers “are known by everybody,” Troyer said. “They’ve all worked in law enforcement in western Washington for their entire careers.
“It appears they were doing paperwork and getting ready for their shift to start -- going over who they would be looking for and what they would be doing during the day,” he said.
Earlier, authorities offered a $10,000 reward for information, began searching for surveillance video and sent 100 or more officers and dogs throughout the surrounding area.
“We’ve got multiple people showing up on their days off. Every person you could think of is out here,” Badger said.
Badger said officers took a person of interest into custody shortly after the shootings but had not identified the person as a suspect.
“By the way they’re talking, it doesn’t look like they’re any more than a witness,” she said.
Police also took into custody a man who called 911 and claimed to be the shooter. He was ruled out as a suspect but faces charges in connection with the false report, Badger said.
The slayings stunned a community that only recently buried another police officer, who was shot to death in his parked patrol car in Seattle. The suspect in that case was shot during his arrest and remains hospitalized.
Investigators said there had been no threats against the Lakewood Police Department or any of the officers killed Sunday. Lakewood has had its own police force for five years. (Previously it contracted with Pierce County.) It had 102 sworn officers.
“Something very terrible happened today,” Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor told reporters. “This is an example of the danger that police officers and deputy sheriffs and state troopers face every day. The person or people who did this not only harmed us, they harmed the good that we can do in the community.”
Before the shooting, Pastor had published a statement on the department’s website pointing out the “uncharacteristically large” number of officers in Washington state killed recently in the line of duty. Four were killed in the 18 months before Sunday’s shooting.
“Perhaps the most lasting tribute we could make and the best thing that we could do for our own safety and well-being is to find ways to make their work safer and more effective,” Pastor wrote.
The previous shootings were unrelated to each other, and authorities have not connected any of them to Sunday’s attack.
The most recent of the previous shootings was Oct. 31, when Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton was killed in his parked car and an officer trainee was slightly injured.
Police say they have linked the suspect in that case, Christopher J. Monfort, 41, to the Oct. 22 bombing and arson of a Seattle maintenance yard, which damaged four law enforcement vehicles. A note threatening to kill police officers was found at the maintenance yard.
Monfort, a former security guard, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in 2008 and completed a project for the McNair Scholars Program called “The Power of Citizenship Your Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About: How to Change the Inequity of the Criminal Justice System Immediately, Through Active Citizen Nullification of Laws, as a Juror.”
The coffee shop where the four officers were killed is in a quiet, semi-industrial unincorporated area of Pierce County next to a Coca-Cola bottling plant.
Michael Bostwick, a retired computer worker who has his coffee every Sunday morning at a tavern nearby, said he arrived just as the first emergency vehicles showed up. He said law enforcement officers frequently have coffee at one or another of the businesses in the area, which he said is not known for serious crime.
“There haven’t been any gang issues here for years, that I’m aware of. The police have had real good control of it, and have had since the early ‘90s,” he said.
The idea that a gunman, or gunmen, is now at large is “traumatic” for the community, Bostwick said.
“It is awful. But they will get him. He picked the wrong state to do it in. We’re a very well-armed state; they haven’t quite taken away all of our rights yet,” he said. “I can tell you that most people have probably got their weapons loaded right now. And they’re waiting. Somebody will get him.”
But Troyer warned citizens to be wary.
“We have somebody who shot four police officers in uniform. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” he said. “Somebody that’s out there and has already done that probably isn’t afraid to do anything else to somebody else, and that’s somebody who’s very, very dangerous.”
Gov. Chris Gregoire said she was “shocked and horrified” at the killings and offered the state’s help in tracking down the culprits.
“Our police put their lives on the line every day, and tragedies like this remind us of the risks they continually take to keep our communities safe,” she said in a statement.
“My heart goes out to the family, friends and co-workers of these officers, as well as the entire law enforcement community.”
kim.murphy@latimes.com
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1ec26cb9562f512b2a1f45e4d6c1e16b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-et-polanski1-story.html | A cultural divide over Polanski | A cultural divide over Polanski
From Michael Moore’s politics to on-screen sex and violence, the movie business is constantly being assailed for not sharing the country’s values. Rarely has the morality argument been as rancorous as with the Roman Polanski case.
Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker. Top filmmakers are signing a pro-Polanski petition, Whoopi Goldberg says the director didn’t really commit rape, and Debra Winger complains “the whole art world suffers” in such arrests.
The rest of the nation seems to hold a dramatically different perspective on Polanski’s weekend capture. Even if decades have passed since he fled Los Angeles before his 1978 sentencing, Polanski must be extradited and serve his time, the thinking goes. There’s no excuse for forcing sex on a 13-year-old girl. People who defend him have no principles.
In letters to the editor, comments on Internet blogs and remarks on talk radio and cable news channels, the national sentiment is running overwhelmingly against Polanski -- and the industry’s support of the 76-year-old “Pianist” Oscar winner.
How can Hollywood (where it’s almost impossible to find anyone publicly condemning Polanski) and almost everyone else see the same story in an opposite light? Is it proof that the movie business is amoral, or just that it believes that Polanski has suffered in his personal and professional life and paid his debt to society? Is Hollywood’s position that we’re-better-than-you elitist while the rest of the country’s is everybody-obeys-the-law populist?
“The split between what the rest of the world thinks about Polanski and what Hollywood thinks about Polanski is quite remarkable,” said film historian David Thomson. “It proves what an old-fashioned and provincial club Hollywood is. People look after their own.”
When Mel Gibson launched into an anti-Semitic screed following his 2006 arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence, hardly any Hollywood leaders -- agent Ari Emanuel and Sony studio chief Amy Pascal among the few exceptions -- publicly rebuked the actor. The criticism of Hollywood at the time was that in a business contingent on relationships and currying favor with the powerful, no one was willing to denounce such a prominent artist.
Melissa Silverstein, who runs the feminist movie blog Women & Hollywoodanti-Semitic screed and does online marketing for films aimed at women, was angered by the industry’s reaction to Polanski’s arrest and found the silence of disapproval “deafening.”
“I think people are afraid to talk in Hollywood. They are afraid about their next job,” she said. “I don’t know where the women of Hollywood are. This is an opportunity for them to stand up for their daughters.”
Jonathan Kuntz, a visiting professor in UCLA’s Cinema and Media Studies school, said the local reaction may be a version of the “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” “I think that there are a lot of folks in Hollywood in the late ‘60s and ‘70s who may have done a lot of things they weren’t really proud of, and may have been participating in very similar things,” Kuntz said. “And it touches on a question that’s been around for a long time: whether the celebrity is above the law.”
Some of the industry’s most prominent women said they believe Polanski, who faces a sentence as low as probation and as high as 16 months in prison for pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, should be freed. “My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things.”
The victim, Samantha Geimer, who reached a private settlement with Polanski, has said the charges against the director should be dismissed.
Film executives and artists who support Polanski say the director of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown” was unfairly targeted twice: first by the since-deceased Superior Court judge who reneged on a sentencing deal, and second by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office for arranging his arrest when he arrived for the Zurich Film Festival, where Polanski was to receive a lifetime achievement award.
More than 100 industry leaders and prominent authors -- including directors Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Mike Nichols, Woody Allen and Neil Jordan -- have signed a petition asking that Polanski be released from Swiss custody. “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision,” the petition says.
On the television show “The View,” Goldberg said, “I think he’s sorry. I think he knows it was wrong. I don’t think he’s a danger to society.”
In an opinion piece in London’s the Independent, Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition, wrote: “Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal is not being honored. . . . This is the government of the United States not giving its word and recanting on a deal, and it is the government acting irresponsibly and criminally.”
In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He’s not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion,” Weinstein said. “We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe.”
Producer Bo Zenga (“Scary Movie,” “Soul Plane”), is one of the few executives taking a different view. “I don’t actually believe that people in Hollywood would put protecting their own above a 13-year-old girl who was raped,” he said.
“I think these people have honestly forgotten what this is really about. Everyone needs to go back and read the grand jury testimony to remember how vicious this rape was because right now everyone thinks we’re debating whether or not Polanski got a raw deal. It irritates me that people around the world think that all of Hollywood is saying that the rapist is the victim. Because I don’t feel that way, and neither do most of the people I talk with.”
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john.horn@latimes.com
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11844bffc395f98e1a476d02452cb99b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-fg-afghan-voices1-story.html | Afghans say U.S. is off track | Afghans say U.S. is off track
Take advice from locals instead of trying to impose your own ideas on a tribal society. Invite the Taliban to the negotiating table. Use traditional governing structures rather than reinventing the wheel. And spend a lot more money on plowshares than on swords.
Afghan shopkeepers, women wearing head scarves, day laborers, analysts and former mujahedin fighters are exhausted by three decades of war. Now they worry that conditions are deteriorating again. Violence has increased and fraud allegations shadow the August presidential election. Huge sums of foreign money are being spent with few tangible results.
Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly frustrated after eight years of military involvement. President Obama has launched a reassessment of the war effort, and he met with top national security officials Wednesday.
Afghans interviewed in their shops and on the streets have plenty of advice for the U.S. president and his allies: Don’t necessarily leave, but for your sake and for ours, you’d better get a lot smarter about what you do here.
Several said they welcomed the presence of U.S. and NATO troops, whom they view as far more benign than the Soviets who occupied the country in the 1980s. They fear that a rapid withdrawal of foreign forces could throw the country into another civil war.
But they don’t necessarily think a foreign military buildup is the answer.
“I’m afraid the Taliban will only get stronger,” said Obiadullah Zahir, 30, a dress merchant, standing beside a row of attired mannequins with broken noses and missing arms. “I’m afraid America will leave and war return.”
A better approach, said Mohammad Usman Nawabi, 53, a policeman, is to boost training and equipment for the Afghan army and police. Additional manpower and training for Afghan forces are key elements of the plan recently sent to Obama by the U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
“If armed insurgents are in control of villages, the whole U.S. Army can’t keep the peace,” Nawabi said. “Foreign powers must work more closely with Afghans.”
Some said the country needs as much investment in economic and social development as is spent on the military. It is getting a small fraction of that amount, 10% or less, according to estimates. Only when such a shift occurs, they said, can real democracy begin to take root.
Though foreigners could do a lot of things better, many Afghans heaped blame on their own officials, who they say think of themselves before the nation.
The Aug. 20 election is a case in point. Preliminary results give incumbent President Hamid Karzai 54.6% of the vote, and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah 27.8%. But allegations of fraud are rampant. By some estimates, 20% of the 5.5 million votes cast may be suspect.
“Our system is miserable,” said Nawabi. “If we don’t have the will to solve this ourselves, we’re lost.”
Violence has increased along with the political uncertainty. As suicide bombings become a near-daily event, the draconian Taliban years are looking better, particularly to poor people who weren’t the primary target of the extremists.
“It’s not just me saying this,” said Gul Mohammad, 60, a shopkeeper reclining contentedly beside his bicycle in Kabul’s Shar-e-Now park. “Whoever can bring security to Afghanistan will make a lot of people happy.”
In a land of centuries-old tribal suspicions, where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s ally, some see the West’s black-and-white approach as naive.
In particular, they cite its preference for dealing with what they consider the country’s weakest players -- the likes of Karzai and Abdullah, who don’t control much beyond Kabul.
Either you try to get the Taliban to buy in, said Amin Khatir, 24, a student in the capital, or you face an enemy that is increasingly entrenched, organized and more broadly distributed. That’s a big problem, no matter how many pieces of fancy equipment foreign armies may wield.
“The Americans only want to deal with those they meet with, who speak English, not the ones farther away,” Khatir said. “An election can’t solve more than 1% of our problems. We must find a new way, and the main issue is security.”
Kabul University professor Wader Safi is a great believer in the rule of law, and he spends a lot of time training Afghan judges and Justice Ministry officials. But many Afghan officials just tell foreigners what they want to hear, he said.
Rule of law imposed on a shaky, traditional structure topped off by a dubious election is hardly a recipe for social stability, he said. Too many Afghan ministers have links to drug dealers or warlords and pass laws granting themselves amnesty, he said.
“They realize, if you make ill-gotten gains, what’s the best way to hold on to it?” Safi said. “Go into politics.”
Rather than sanction some minimally acceptable election, he said, Afghanistan should convene a traditional loya jirga, or meeting of power brokers from around the country, as it did after the Taliban was ousted.
“If you pile more bricks onto an unstable house, the whole thing will collapse,” he said.
Some Afghans say the country also badly needs a census. The last substantive head count was in 1979. Without accurate information, Afghanistan’s ethnic groups all argue that they’re entitled to greater representation in parliament, further destabilizing the political structure.
For others, the worries are much closer to home.
Ahmed Fawad, 50, a construction engineer, credited Karzai with building schools and roads. There is more food in the shops than there was seven years ago when Karzai came to power, Fawad said.
“Life is getting better,” he said.
Peddler Abdul Shokhor is less sure about that. People used to come in droves to buy his plastic flowers, he said. With rent and food costs rising, there are fewer takers for the $2 fluorescent orange, green and pink arrangements.
The country needs industry and people need jobs, he said.
“They all come from China,” he said, pointing to his array in front of the Microcryan Market. “Better we make things here and help the economy.”
A woman shopping with her four children said the violence in the countryside has discouraged her family from leaving the relative security of Kabul. “All we can hope is that things get better,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.
Habib Khan, 39, who breaks rocks for use in construction projects, worries about having to take up weapons again.
He shows bullet scars in his arms, thigh and head -- the cost of fighting the Taliban for years as part of the Northern Alliance.
The life of a fighter isn’t easy, he said. You earn almost nothing, you face death or imprisonment at any moment and have no family life. It was a great relief to put down his gun, get married and settle down. But now he’s worried that he might have to fight again if foreign troops leave and the Taliban returns to power.
“As much as I don’t want to, I’d have to pick up a gun again,” Khan said. “I’d be a wanted man if they returned.”
Former mujahedin commander Ustaz Abdul Hakim, who fought the Soviets, now watches the Americans.
The NATO and U.S. forces are running scared, he said, because they don’t understand many of Afghanistan’s rules. Outsiders need local allies to interpret complex, rapidly shifting tribal politics, he said.
In the 1980s, Americans provided funding while the mujahedin directed much of the struggle. Nowadays, foreigners don’t listen to the locals much when battling the Taliban, he said, and that will be their downfall.
“The Americans are spending so much money, and all they get back is body bags,” he said.
“Slowly, surely, the patience of Americans is getting squandered. The danger is that it will end for the Americans the way it did for the Russians.”
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mark.magnier@latimes.com
Special correspondent M. Karim Faiez contributed to this report.
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8b1a31ada3f54ccb138345fbfa190965 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-na-cargo-planes1-story.html | In bipartisan vote, Senate protects funding for Boeing C-17 cargo planes | In bipartisan vote, Senate protects funding for Boeing C-17 cargo planes
The Senate on Wednesday shot down an effort to kill funding for Boeing C-17 military cargo planes that President Obama says are not needed, underscoring the turbulence the White House faces in trying to cut money for politically popular projects.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading critic of pork-barrel spending, sided with his Democratic opponent in last year’s presidential election in pushing to end the production of additional planes “that we don’t need, the Pentagon doesn’t want, and that we can’t afford.”
But a bipartisan group of senators, in a 64-34 vote, thwarted the effort to strike $2.5-billion for 10 additional C-17s from the annual defense spending bill. McCain vowed to continue to try to strip the funding from the measure.
“Some of my colleagues have attacked the C-17 as a special-interest item,” said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.). “I agree. Investing in the C-17 is in the special interest of our war fighters. It is critical to our national security interests.”
The measure must be reconciled with the House bill, which includes $674 million for three more C-17s. Whatever the final figure, the bill sent to the president is certain to include money for the planes, which are assembled in Long Beach. That would be on top of the $2.2 billion for eight C-17s included in a war-spending bill approved this year.
The vote was a victory for Chicago-based Boeing, which has gained broad political support on Capitol Hill through the purchase of the C-17’s parts from 650 suppliers in 44 states.
“You can’t walk through these hallways without bumping into a lobbyist from Boeing,” McCain complained, challenging Obama to veto a bill that includes additional C-17s. “And, of course, there are subcontractors all over America.”
Boeing has spent more than $4.9 million on lobbying for the first six months of this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.
The vote was a reminder that Congress intends to fiercely guard its prerogatives -- especially the power of the purse. The $636-billion Senate defense bill includes more than 700 earmarks, items sought by senators for their home states, at a cost of about $2.7 billion. Included are $25 million to expand the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and $20 million for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Massachusetts.
The watchdog groups Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Project on Government Oversight, in a letter to lawmakers, called the C-17 “the earmark that will not die.”
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, joined McCain in opposing the additional funding.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a letter to lawmakers that the department has enough cargo planes in the fleet or on order and that buying any more would come “at the expense of other priorities.”
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, supported the additional planes.
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richard.simon@latimes.com
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17050a9bca415edad722306fac649f5c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-na-senate-climate1-story.html | EPA proposal sends message | EPA proposal sends message
The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a detailed proposal Wednesday for using the government’s regulatory powers to curb greenhouse gas emissions -- reassuring foreign allies of the U.S. commitment to fight climate change and warning Congress that the administration will act on its own if lawmakers fail to address the issue.
The proposed regulations would apply to large-scale industrial sources of heat-trapping gases, including power plants, factories and refineries, but not to smaller sources such as new schools, as some critics of EPA action had feared.
The rules would force new or substantially modified industrial plants emitting at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year to employ “best available control technologies and energy-efficiency measures” to minimize emissions. That would cover the sources responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., the EPA said -- primarily carbon dioxide created by burning fossil fuels.
The agency unveiled its proposal hours after Senate Democrats introduced their version of the global warming bill that passed the House in June, and as international climate negotiators gathered in Bangkok, Thailand, to prepare for global warming treaty talks in Copenhagen in December.
The EPA and Senate actions stoked optimism among environmentalists and others. Some had voiced concern that reaching agreement in Copenhagen could be difficult if the Senate failed to act, because other countries might conclude that the United States was not prepared to take the steps it has urged other developed nations to take.
Both the new Senate bill and the EPA’s proposed regulations address that concern.
“We are not going to continue with business as usual while we wait for Congress to act,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told a climate conference in Los Angeles.
She said that the proposal “allows us to do what the Clean Air Act does best: Reduce emissions for better health, drive technology innovation for a better economy, and protect the environment for a better future, all without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy.”
Senators also were aware of the global implications.
“We’re geared to move this and hopefully get it to the floor before” the Copenhagen summit, said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who co-wrote the climate bill with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “I think we’re going to make it.”
The EPA rules would mimic how the agency forces power plants and factories to install “scrubbers” and other means of limiting many types of air pollutants. But it’s unclear exactly how it would apply to greenhouse gases, which scientists blame for climate change. Researchers are still investigating commercial-scale methods to capture and store carbon emissions from coal plants, for example.
The new proposal follows one announced by President Obama and automotive executives in May to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The automotive regulations, which would take effect in 2012, stemmed from a 2007 Supreme Court decision that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.
Therefore, the EPA said, it was required to control greenhouse gases from industrial sources too. Industry groups disputed that logic.
The latest proposal must move through a lengthy process of comments and reviews, and will probably encounter legal challenges.
“The real question is whether this would stand up in court,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, who headed the EPA air office under former President George W. Bush and now is a partner for the law and lobbying firm of Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington.
Politically, though, the Senate bill appears headed for the same challenges that nearly toppled the House climate bill -- GOP opposition and demands from the coal and petroleum industries.
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jtankersley@latimes.com
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ef50e759bb2fd321bdb0dae99de4e8f8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-na-supreme-court-guns1-story.html | Supreme Court takes gun case that will test reach of 2nd Amendment | Supreme Court takes gun case that will test reach of 2nd Amendment
The Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday to hear a 2nd Amendment challenge to Chicago’s handgun ban could open the door to similar lawsuits in cities and states across the nation.
At issue is whether the right to keep and bear arms is a full-fledged constitutional privilege that can be invoked by individuals against the government at all levels, or a freedom that applies only as it concerns the federal government.
Last year, the justices in a 5-4 ruling said for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protected an individual’s right to have a handgun at home for self-defense. Though that ruling struck down a handgun ban in the nation’s capital -- which is a federal enclave -- it did not decide whether the right extended to states and cities.
After the Civil War, the Supreme Court on several occasions ruled that the 2nd Amendment applied only to national laws. In the last year, gun rights advocates in Chicago and New York went to court to challenge local or state gun restrictions but lost. Judges said they were bound by the high court’s 19th century rulings.
On Wednesday, the justices said they would decide the issue in the fall term, which begins Monday.
Legal experts have said that gun rights advocates are likely to prevail in the Chicago case. The five justices who ruled against the District of Columbia handgun ban, led by Antonin Scalia, are likely to extend the same gun rights to states and municipalities.
But lawyers disagree on the practical effects of such a ruling.
Chicago and the nearby village of Oak Park, Ill., are thought to be the only municipalities that enforce a ban on the private possession of handguns. Several other cities, including New York, make it difficult to legally register a handgun. But many other communities have regulations that could be challenged.
Alan Gura, a Virginia lawyer who won last year’s ruling and now represents the gun owners in the Chicago case, said Americans had the right to carry guns in public for self-defense, including across state lines.
“This case will not be the end of all gun control, but it means politicians must be aware this is a fundamental right,” he said in an interview.
Under the 1st Amendment, restrictions on free speech are suspect and need a strong justification, he said, adding that “the same should be true with gun restrictions.”
Gura sued on behalf of four Chicagoans, including Otis McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer who said he had been threatened by drug dealers in his neighborhood.
“I only want a handgun in my house for my protection,” McDonald said when the suit was filed. “This lawsuit, I hope, will allow me to bring my handgun into the city legally.”
Even if McDonald and the others succeed in striking down the city’s ban, a lawyer for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence predicted the ruling would not result in the overturning of most other gun control measures. “It will likely lead to more challenges to state and local gun laws. But when the dust settles, the vast majority of the existing state and local laws will survive,” lawyer Dennis Henigan said.
In last year’s decision, Scalia agreed that laws restricting felons or the mentally ill from having guns were constitutional. He also agreed the government could keep guns out of airports or government buildings.
The gun rights cause is not limited to conservatives. Libertarians and some self-proclaimed progressives say the court should rule that the Bill of Rights’ protections are a privilege of U.S citizenship.
The 14th Amendment says that states may not “abridge the privileges” of a U.S. citizen. At the time the amendment was written, this was seen as extending the rights -- such as freedom of speech or freedom from unreasonable searches -- to protect citizens against state and local officials. However, the Supreme Court disagreed in 1873, and this provision was left unenforceable.
In the Chicago case, the justices agreed to rule on whether the 2nd Amendment and its right “to keep and bear arms” was a privilege of citizenship.
“The correct answer to this question should be important to all Americans, not just those focused on gun rights,” said Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal think tank. He and other scholars argue that reviving the privileges clause would strengthen other constitutional rights.
Lawyers for the city of Chicago, however, have urged the justices to turn away the challenge. They said easily concealed handguns posed a special danger in cities.
“Homicides are most often committed with guns, especially handguns,” they said, citing a Justice Department report. They also stressed it was legal for homeowners to have a rifle or shotgun for self-defense.
The court said it would hear arguments in the case, McDonald vs. Chicago, in February.
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david.savage@latimes.com
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60f1d99bb59cdc73a8061c9a10e1e3ff | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-oe-daum1-story.html | Pain isn’t penance | Pain isn’t penance
How lousy has Roman Polanski’s life been? His mother died at Auschwitz; his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson family; and in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse and serving an evaluation period in the Chino state prison, he says he learned that a judge who had led him to believe that he would serve no more jail time actually was considering a long sentence, followed by deportation. On the eve of his sentencing, the acclaimed director of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown” fled the U.S. and never returned.
OK, that’s pretty lousy. But lousy enough?
Polanski exiled himself to France, where his citizenship protects him from U.S. extradition. When he was arrested in Switzerland en route to the Zurich Film Festival, by request of a suddenly energized Los Angeles justice system, officials in France appeared to chalk up the incident to a uniquely American combination of Puritanism and punitiveness. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called the arrest “a bit sinister.” And Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said he was “dumbfounded” by the arrest and “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.”
Also in play is a certain fetishization of artists and artistry -- the kind that lends itself to the notion that when a regular person commits a crime, it’s a crime, but when an artist commits a crime, it’s an act of understandable passion (think Norman Mailer stabbing his wife or Caravaggio fleeing after killing a man in a brawl). Debra Winger, jury president of the 2009 Zurich Film Festival, called Polanski’s case “all but dead” and said “despite the philistine nature of the collusion that has now occurred, we came to honor Roman Polanski as a great artist.” For his part, Kouchner, after the “sinister” remark, added: “A man of such talent, recognized in the entire world, recognized especially in the country that arrested him -- all this just isn’t nice.”
Non, ce n’est pas gentil, but, to put it mildly, neither is illegal sex with a 13-year-old, who testified before a grand jury that Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude before sodomizing her over her protests.
Sure, Polanski may be a great artist. He appears to have been living a quiet, non-criminal family life in France all these years (he’s married to actress Emmanuelle Seigner and has two children), and there may be some truth to the theory that he fled his sentencing in the U.S. partly because of residual trauma from the Holocaust.
And yes, Polanski’s victim, Samantha Geimer (formerly Gailey) has publicly said he should serve no more time (after settling her civil suit against him for an unknown sum) and even joined his attorneys in requesting the dismissal of the case. She wrote an Op-Ed article on this page when Polanski received an Oscar nomination for best director in 2003 (for “The Pianist”; he won in absentia) saying “his film should be honored according to the quality of the work. What he does for a living and how good he is at it have nothing to do with me or what he did to me.”
But are personal ordeals tantamount to prison time? Does artistic greatness explain away criminal behavior? Is justice served if the victim is willing to let the whole thing drop?
Part of what makes the Polanski case fascinating -- as well as repugnant -- is that it’s infused with these sorts of existential questions about what evens the scales. The family of a murder victim might ask, isn’t a lifetime of coping with the brutal killing of your pregnant wife penance enough? A certain breed of American might ask, doesn’t being forced to live in France constitute punishment? Geimer has asked, isn’t Polanski’s inability to work in Hollywood sufficient punishment? (Hmm, try that on all the struggling directors out there who’ve never raped anyone but also cannot work in Hollywood.)
No one has suggested Polanski is innocent, but the notion that he paid for his crime, perhaps even before he committed it, somehow sways opinion. (It is this argument, not the possible misconduct of the judge and the prosecutor in the case, that motivates Polanski’s loudest defenders.) Yet as emotionally compelling as his travails may be, they’re simply not relevant from a legal standpoint. Just as our justice system is not designed around victims determining the appropriate punishments for the victimizers -- otherwise, Geimer would have set him free years ago -- it does not substitute a hard time in life for hard time in jail.
No matter what happens in the extradition case, the compassionate exile the U.S. effectively granted Polanski by not pursuing him more forcefully merits review. As for the great man himself, it’s worth noting that his arrest came just before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. It’s hard not to see some justice in that. And -- please -- there is one sin at least that Polanski should be atoning for on American soil.
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51931d9cb4bf63adab5973d0a5605d89 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-02-et-larry-david2-story.html | Larry David’s unique domain | Larry David’s unique domain
Larry David didn’t want to shake hands.
Nothing personal -- no hard feelings at work here. It was, in fact, a very pleasant, amiable lunch between the three of us -- me, and the two Larrys, the funny, neurotic, cranky, fictional star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and the funny, neurotic, less cranky, real-life man who created the celebrated HBO show, now a couple of episodes into its seventh season.
But what made the “no-shake” stance unusual was the introductory handshake. No hesitation there. Firm, direct. “Hi, I’m Larry David,” said one of the Larrys who was dressed casually like the character -- blue long sleeve T-shirt, khaki pants, glasses.
Then, at a corner table inside the upscale Stefan’s at L.A. Farm in Santa Monica, the famous 62-year-old recognizes some television executives. He wanders over, says hello, and quickly returns. “I just shook four hands,” said Larry, grimacing. That tally includes mine. “You have any Purell?” he asks, looking for hand sanitizer.
Not on me. He politely excuses himself to wash his hands. “How could a guy like me not be carrying Purell?” he wondered aloud.
The moment is the stuff “Curb” (or “Seinfeld,” Larry’s other baby) is made of. It’s like being forced into a double goodbye from a party, violating the 10 p.m. cutoff for phone calls or any of the hundreds of other mountain-out-of-mole-hill social situations that routinely play out on what is arguably the funniest show on television.
Larry, whose hypochondria functions as a critical plot device in Sunday’s highly anticipated kickoff to “Curb’s” so-called “Seinfeld” reunion story arc, has reasonably good intentions, but they’re misconstrued. With the H1N1 virus lurking around every corner and whatever else lingers on the human hand, he’s not being rude, simply being health conscious.
“He means well,” said one of the Larrys, probably the real one. “He tries to do the right thing and gets in trouble for it.”
Some “Curb” seasons, Larry doesn’t do any press interviews. That’s only one of the advantages to having a critically beloved hit show on a premium cable channel. It also doesn’t hurt to have a small fortune -- even after a 2007 divorce from environmental activist ex-wife Laurie -- thanks to co-creating “Seinfeld.” No offense intended, but speaking to a journalist isn’t his idea of a fun afternoon.
“I don’t like reading what I have to say, so I don’t like other people reading what I have to say either,” he said. “I’m not in control of it. I can’t edit this conversation and if I could it would be a lot different than what you’re going to do with it.”
It would certainly be funnier.
But Larry wants to promote his show’s end to the “Seinfeld” diaspora, after once famously swearing that he would never stage a reunion. While Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld have all been on previous “Curb” episodes as individuals, the “Seinfeld” gang has never appeared together on the show. Now, the foursome, including Michael Richards, returns as their reunion story line unfolds over five episodes.
Hence, Larry is willing to submit to some media torture over a lunch.
“I don’t see any upside. I see all downside,” he told me, raising his voice, then reining it back in. “I could say something and then I’ll get phone calls, ‘Why did you say that about me? I thought we were friends.’ Who needs that?”
So, here we are talking about the non-reunion reunion on his almost entirely improvised comedy show. The conceit for Sunday night’s episode is comically simple: Larry’s desire to win back his (on-screen) ex-wife, Cheryl, now an actress, overrides his utter disdain for a “Seinfeld” network special. The reunion show will go on, after all, and he promises to cast his ex in it. Of course, problems ensue. Many, many problems.
Other than that, Larry remains mostly reticent on specific plot details. Are you going to handle Richards’ 2006 racist comedy club tirade? “People are wondering how we’re going to address it,” he said. “Yeah, we address it.”
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No normal moments
As “Curb” viewers know, a good portion of Larry’s life takes place in nice restaurants, which like any experience for him can be fraught with peril. When he walks into the main dining room, a couple of patrons exclaim, “Larry David! Larry David!” He admits he’s gotten used to it with a shrug, but still finds the shout-outs annoying.
In person, he’s as trim as he looks on television. That 10 pounds television is supposed to add hasn’t in his case. And despite knockin’ on senior citizenship’s door, he appears not to have aged since “Curb” began in 2000.
I offer him my hypothesis regarding balding (a club of which I’m member). Bald guys pay up front in the age and appearance department. A bald 30-year-old can look 40, even 50. But once the hair is gone, you can be ageless for a few decades, or until you start looking like Yoda.
I figure he’d probably be sympathetic since male pattern baldness is a strong motif in the show. In one early “Curb” episode, Larry refuses candy to a sullen teenage trick-or-treater, who later vandalizes his house, spray-painting a bald-person epithet on his front door -- an act he decries to a police officer as a hate crime.
“Interesting theory,” he said.
Time to order. He wants a salad. Meg Ryan of “When Harry Met Sally . . .” fame, who by the way is in Sunday night’s episode, comes to mind.
“You may not like this,” he starts with the waiter. “But is the egg chopped up? Or do you just put half an egg in there?”
Any way you’d like, answers the waiter.
“OK, do it with the egg whites, no bacon or ham. And very light on the blue cheese. That’s the Larry David salad. And throw some cucumbers in there too. Tell the chef I apologize, but that’s the only way I can eat.”
Then, Larry explains he’s a vegetarian -- most of the time.
“When I get bored and when I can’t take it anymore, I’ll eat chicken,” he said. How long does it take to get bored? “Ten days. No, a week.”
He adds that he can’t eat hot food for lunch. It doesn’t agree with his stomach. In fact, he advises, hot food is not good for you anyway.
How does he know that?
“When I go to the doctor’s office, I read the magazines.”
He knows he has issues. When asked about Dr. Phil’s brief appearance on “Curb’s” second episode this season, he declares: “I like him. I would definitely go to Dr. Phil if I could. You know what? I’m putting this out there right now that if he would take me, I’m going. Does he still have patients? I don’t know if my problems are big enough for what he’s used to.”
A more immediate problem surfaces, and Dr. Phil is nowhere in sight. Larry spots something in his salad.
“Is that a scallion?” he frowns. “I’ve got a date tonight.”
When informed he’s probably one of the most eligible bachelors in town, he laughs.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said.
You’re rich, you’re famous -- you got a great sense of humor.
“Women don’t like the humor when it’s combined with inconsideration and insensitivity,” he corrects.
In real life, to some, his actions may be taken for inconsideration insensitivity, but in the world of “Curb” it’s always hilarious and, to Larry, completely authentic.
“This show is the only chance that I have to be honest about anything,” Larry said. “Your life generally is so dishonest. Your dealings with your fellow human beings are so dishonest, everything is so dishonest, to have this opportunity to be honest is very refreshing to me.”
Later, in the parking lot, the farewells are said. No handshake.
“Yeah, this was fun,” Larry said.
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martin.miller@latimes.com
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d5a1550cf69a73559a8077f9ac38c0ca | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-02-me-prisons2-story.html | Thousands of cellphones are confiscated in prisons | Thousands of cellphones are confiscated in prisons
State prison officials have confiscated 4,130 contraband cellphones this year, more than all those seized in the previous three years combined, according to an internal report released Thursday.
The findings sparked concern among legislators that the proliferation of cellphones in state lockups is a growing security problem.
More than 100 illegal phones were discovered at the California Institution for Men in Chino, including 10 in August, according to the report from Matthew Cate, head of the state prisons system. But he said there is no evidence that inmates used the devices during a riot that occurred there Aug. 8.
“Investigations conducted within California prisons have supported allegations [that] cellphones have been used by incarcerated felons to participate in criminal activity,” wrote Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Crimes committed by inmates using cellphones have included the planning of escapes, restraining order violations, use of stolen credit cards to purchase inmate quarterly packages and the coordination of smuggling contraband into prisons, Cate said.
Two years ago, state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) proposed legislation that would have made it a crime for inmates to possess cellphones in prison. He also proposed subjecting all prison visitors and employees to more rigorous screening, including the use of metal detectors. His ideas were shelved because of the state’s budget problems.
“We knew this was a problem two years ago, and it seems to be growing exponentially worse,” Padilla said.
In his report, Cate acknowledged that a test program that planned to use “airport-style screening” at prison entrances had been planned. But he said that “due to the current budget crisis, this pilot program has been placed on hold.”
Other prison officials said one reason for the increase in confiscations is Operation Disconnect, in which guards have stepped up searches for cellphones, in some cases with the assistance of a phone-sniffing dog, Caesar.
“Our detection methods have definitely been increased and various, which has helped,” said Paul Verke, a spokesman for the prison agency. “But it also appears there is a higher incidence of this sort of activity.”
Visitors and prison staff have been caught bringing cellphones into prisons, but existing criminal laws are not clear enough to prosecute them, officials said.
Cate said he supports pending state legislation, SB 434 by Sen. John Benoit (R-Palm Desert), which would make it a misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to $5,000, to possess or intend to deliver a cellphone in a state prison.
He also said he backs a federal bill that would allow governors to petition the Federal Communications Commission for wireless signal jamming within a prison.
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patrick.mcgreevy @latimes.com
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d5e9c1c19c566d526ccd309c76da0b62 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-02-oe-gabler2-story.html | America’s unholy holy war | America’s unholy holy war
For decades now, liberals have been agonizing because conservatives seem to win even when polls show that the public generally disagrees with them. In their postmortems, liberals have placed blame on the way they frame their message, or on the right-wing media drumbeat that drowns out everything else, or on the right’s co-opting of the flag, Mom and apple pie, which is designed to make liberals seem like effete, hostile foreign agents.
It’s understandable that liberals prefer to think of their subordination as a matter of their own inadequacies or of conservative wiles. Theoretically, you can learn how to improve your message or how to match wits with adversaries, and a lot of liberal hand-wringing has been dedicated to doing just that. But it is becoming increasingly clear that liberals haven’t just been succumbing to superior message control, or even to a superior political narrative (conservatives’ frontier individualism versus liberals’ communitarianism). They are up against something far more intractable and far more difficult to defeat. They are up against religion.
Perhaps the single most profound change in our political culture over the last 30 years has been the transformation of conservatism from a political movement, with all the limitations, hedges and forbearances of politics, into a kind of fundamentalist religious movement, with the absolute certainty of religious belief.
I don’t mean “religious belief” literally. This transformation is less a function of the alliance between Protestant evangelicals, their fellow travelers and the right (though that alliance has had its effect) than it is a function of a belief in one’s own rightness so unshakable that it is not subject to political caveats. In short, what we have in America today is a political fundamentalism, with all the characteristics of religious fundamentalism and very few of the characteristics of politics.
For centuries, American democracy as a process of conflict resolution has been based on give-and-take; negotiation; compromise; the acceptance of the fact that the majority rules, with respect for minority rights; and, above all, on an agreement to abide by the results of a majority vote. It takes compromise, even defeat, in stride because it is a fluid system. As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once put it, the beauty of a democracy is that the minority always has the possibility of becoming the majority.
Religious fundamentalism, on the other hand, rests on immutable truths that cannot be negotiated, compromised or changed. In this, it is diametrically opposed to liberal democracy as we have practiced it in America. Democrats of every political stripe may defend democracy to the death, but very few would defend individual policies to the death. You don’t wage bloody crusades for banking regulation or the minimum wage or even healthcare reform. When politics becomes religion, however, policy too becomes a matter of life and death, as we have all seen.
That is one reason our founding fathers opted for a separation of church and state. They recognized that religion and politics could coexist only when they occupied different domains. Most denominations, which preach and practice tolerance, have rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Religious groups may have found a community of interest with a political party to further their aims; they have not, by and large, sought to convert the political system into a religious one. Until now.
The tea-baggers who hate President Obama with a fervor that is beyond politics; the fear-mongers who warn that Obama is another Hitler or Stalin; the wannabe storm troopers who brandish their guns and warn darkly of the president’s demise; the cable and talk-radio blowhards who make a living out of demonizing Obama and tarring liberals as America-haters -- these people are not just exercising their rights within the political system. They honestly believe that the political system -- a system that elected Obama -- is broken and only can be fixed by substituting their certainty for the uncertainties of American politics.
As we are sadly discovering, this minority cannot be headed off, which is most likely why conservatism transmogrified from politics to a religion in the first place. Conservatives who sincerely believed that theirs is the only true and right path have come to realize that political tolerance is no match for religious vehemence.
Unfortunately, they are right. Having opted out of political discourse, they are not susceptible to any suasion. Rationality won’t work because their arguments are faith-based rather than evidence-based. Better message control won’t work. Improved strategies won’t work. Grass-roots organizing won’t work. Nothing will work because you cannot convince religious fanatics of anything other than what they already believe, even if their religion is political dogma.
And therein lies the problem, not only for liberals but for mainstream conservatives who think of conservatism as an ideology, not an orthodoxy. You cannot beat religion with politics, which is why the extreme right “wins” so many battles. The fundamentalist political fanatics will always be more zealous than mainstream conservatives or liberals. They will always be louder, more adamant, more aggrieved, more threatening, more willing to do anything to win. Losing is inconceivable. For them, every battle is a crusade -- or a jihad -- a matter of good and evil.
There is something terrifying in this. The media have certainly been cowed; they treat intolerance as if it were legitimate political activity. So have many politicians, and not just the conservative ones who know that if they don’t fall in line, they will be run over. This political fundamentalism has also invaded the general culture in deleterious ways. The ugly incivility of recent months is partly the result of political fundamentalists who have nothing but contempt for opposing viewpoints, which gives them license to shout down opponents or threaten them, just as jihadis everywhere do.
Those who oppose the religification of politics may think all they have to do is change tactics, but they are sadly, tragically mistaken. They can never win, because for the political fundamentalists, this isn’t political jousting, this is Armageddon.
With stakes like that, they will not lose, and there is nothing democrats -- small ‘d’ and capital “D” -- can do about it.
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