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c6fd9ad2761d0e8a14860c9859da4d7d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-01-et-preston1-story.html | Retiree kept art hidden to the end | Retiree kept art hidden to the end
LONDON -- Jean Preston could have bought a lot of frozen dinners with the proceeds of two Fra Angelico altarpieces. But she preferred to keep the paintings in her spare room.
Preston, a retired curator, lived off her pension and ate frozen dinners in a small Oxford home until she died in 2006. When her executors had her artwork appraised, they found that her ordinary two-bedroom home was filled with famous manuscripts and paintings worth $8 million.
Two altarpiece panels painted by Italian Renaissance artist Fra Angelico were sold at auction last year for about $3.9 million. Most of the remaining works will likely be displayed in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, British officials said this week.
“It was her wish that they would go there,” said Guy Schwinge of Duke’s of Dorchester auction house.
Schwinge was able to negotiate an agreement with the government to have the paintings displayed instead of paying inheritance tax.
Preston’s executors hope her works will be placed in the Oxford museum, “which would be a very neat end to the story, as they hung in a tiny house around the corner,” Schwinge said.
Preston’s collection included two valuable pre-Raphaelite pieces: an 1866 watercolor of Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that was found in the kitchen and an oil painting titled “Music” by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, found hanging above Preston’s electric fireplace.
Preston inherited much of her art from her father, a collector who bought the two Fra Angelicos in the 1960s.
Preston’s executors also discovered a rare edition of Chaucer in her dresser drawer. Her collection of manuscripts by the “Spanish Forger” -- who deceived the art world by creating false medieval manuscripts in the 19th century-- will go to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Preston was a curator of manuscripts at the Huntington Library in San Marino, and at the Princeton University Library. According to Michael Liversidge, former dean of Bristol University’s art department, she learned of the Fra Angelicos’ significance five years before she died, when she asked for help at Bristol, her alma mater, in identifying the pictures.
When she discovered they were by Fra Angelico, the monk who is now in the process of sainthood, the mystery was solved. But she kept the altarpieces behind the door of her spare room, which she used as a study.
Preston’s family said she lived a simple life and though she knew a lot about medieval literature, she knew little about art.
The Italian government was outbid last year at auction when an anonymous European bidder bought the Fra Angelicos.
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9f9619ad651ad76bcec929251faa12bd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-01-fg-cluster1-story.html | Israel criticized for cluster bombs | Israel criticized for cluster bombs
In a rare internal critique of Israel’s use of cluster bombs, a government-appointed commission has found a lack of “operational discipline, control and oversight” in the army’s deployment of the weapons in civilian areas.
The panel’s statement, buried in an exhaustive report on Israel’s conduct of the 2006 Lebanon war, did not directly challenge the army’s assertion that its use of cluster bombs in that conflict fell within the bounds of international humanitarian law.
But the five-member panel raised questions about the army’s use of the ordnance against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanese villages from which civilians had fled but to which they would eventually return.
Cluster bombs spray deadly bomblets over a wide area. The United Nations and human rights organizations say that Israel unleashed about 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon during the 34-day war against the militant Islamic group, and that up to 1 million of them failed to explode and now endanger civilians.
U.N. monitors in Lebanon say 26 civilians have been killed in explosions in southern Lebanon since the war ended in August 2006, most of them from leftover Israeli cluster bombs.
The Winograd Commission, named for the retired Israeli judge who has headed it, issued its long-awaited report Wednesday. The panel criticized Israeli leaders’ strategic and operational blunders in the inconclusive campaign, which Israelis widely view as a psychological defeat.
In Israel, attention focused on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s escape from personal rebuke by the panel. Olmert told confidants Thursday that he would resist calls by opposition leaders for his resignation, and he was under little public pressure from partners in his governing coalition to step down.
Many abroad viewed the report’s focus on strategic mistakes as having glossed over the issue of responsibility for wartime civilian deaths.
Amnesty International criticized the report for ignoring what it called “grave violations of international law” by Israel. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s office called the lingering presence of unexploded bomblets in southern Lebanon “a daily war crime.”
At least 1,035 Lebanese, most of them civilians, died in the conflict, along with 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 Israeli civilians. Both Hezbollah and Israel drew international criticism during the war for killing civilians.
The Winograd panel explained that it avoided an in-depth study of such allegations against Israel because it was “inappropriate to deal with issues that are part of a propaganda war.”
The panel nonetheless devoted a six-page appendix of the 629-page report to the issue of cluster bombs, which had also been the subject of a yearlong inquiry within the army.
The army inquiry concluded in December that the bombs were “a concrete military necessity” in Lebanon and did not violate international laws that aim to protect civilians from deliberate wartime attack. On that basis, the army chose not to press charges against several officers who had used the weapons against Hezbollah.
The Winograd panel did not dispute the army’s finding. But it asked the army to clarify how its practice of dropping cluster bombs on temporarily uninhabited villages squares with international law. And it questioned the practice of giving field commanders discretion on when to use cluster bombs in such places.
“Our main concern is the vagueness existing in the [army] throughout the war and continuing today concerning the legality of the use of cluster munitions and the conditions necessary for such use,” the panel’s report said.
It called for a reevaluation of cluster bomb use, with participation by nonmilitary specialists, and public disclosure of the results. New guidelines should be drafted and reviewed by Israel’s attorney general, the report said.
Meantime, it added, the army should develop less-dangerous bombs and better document the whereabouts of unexploded bombs.
A statement by the army said it was studying the report’s recommendations based on lessons of the war, with the aim of correcting failures. It declined to comment on specifics.
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boudreaux@latimes.com
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2fcfb1ec69a51bb4f7472558c361dfd5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-01-me-beef1-story.html | State urges schools ban suspect beef | State urges schools ban suspect beef
The California Department of Education on Thursday urged school districts throughout the state to stop serving all but a few beef products after allegations that a Chino-based meat supplier butchered and distributed weak or ill cattle.
In an alert issued Thursday afternoon, the California Department of Education’s Nutrition Services Division advised agencies not to use beef products from Westland Meat Co. -- a National School Lunch Program supplier -- until further notice.
“In addition, we recommend that agencies not use any processed end-products containing beef pending further instructions,” the alert said. Such beef products would include uncooked ground beef used in hamburgers, meatballs and “teriyaki dippers,” officials said.
The recommendation, however, does not include items such as breakfast burritos that are cooked and packaged before being delivered to schools.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District said cafeterias will temporarily remove most beef products from their menus as a precaution.
The actions follow news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating Westland after the release of a video showing slaughterhouse workers using forklifts and water hoses to move or rouse weak and sick cows before slaughter.
The video was recorded by the Humane Society of the United States at Hallmark Meat Packing. Meat processed there is distributed by Westland Meat Co.
Federal and California laws prohibit the slaughter of “downer” cattle -- those that cannot stand or walk -- for human food supply to prevent animal cruelty and the consumption of meat from unhealthy animals.
The meatpacking company issued a statement Wednesday saying that it had taken immediate action to terminate two employees recorded in the video and had suspended their supervisor.
Susan Cox, a spokeswoman for L.A. Unified, said new items would be substituted for beef beginning today. “They just want to be safe,” she said.
Items such as meatballs and hamburger patties will be temporarily eliminated until the district can conduct an inventory on how much of its beef originates from Westlake.
“We want to make sure that we’re protecting the health of our young children,” said Dennis Barrett, the district’s director of food services. “It’s certainly not going to cripple us. There will still be good nutritious meals every day.”
State education officials said they reacted as soon as they heard of the USDA investigation.
“I am very saddened to hear about the allegations of animal abuse at Westland,” California Supt. of Public Education Jack O’Connell said in a statement. “I want to assure every parent . . . that the California Department of Education will not tolerate anything that threatens the safety of food given to their children.”
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ashraf.khalil@latimes.com
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295a40c9b541e52ba66eb108d890ca03 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-01-me-maciel1-story.html | Catholic order’s founder was rebuked for sex abuse | Catholic order’s founder was rebuked for sex abuse
The Rev. Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of an ultraconservative Catholic order who later became the highest-ranking priest sanctioned by the Vatican for sexual abuse, has died. He was 87.
Members of the Legion of Christ said Maciel died Wednesday of natural causes in Houston, where he had been living with other priests in a group home.
“In 87 years of life, Father Maciel dedicated his energies to fulfill the mission God entrusted in him to continue the evangelizing mission of the church,” according to a statement from the order.
Maciel founded the Legion of Christ in 1941 and saw it grow in influence, with schools, seminaries and thousands of lay followers in 22 countries. The group’s traditionalist bent and fierce loyalty to the papacy made him a favorite of Pope John Paul II. Critics charged that Vatican officials protected Maciel against a series of abuse allegations for decades.
In May 2006, a year after Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican punished Maciel after an internal investigation into allegations that he had abused “more than 20 and less than 100 victims,” including seminarians and boys in his care.
Maciel repeatedly denied the charges. Vatican officials did not say Maciel committed the crimes he was accused of but ordered him to refrain from public ministries and adopt a “life of prayer and penitence.” They said his advanced age and frail health prevented him from being prosecuted under church law.
“He will soon face divine justice,” said Saul Barrales Arrellano, a former seminarian and Mexico City resident who accused Maciel of abuse. “He escaped down the easy road. . . . He never had the humility to recognize that he was wrong.”
Maciel was born in 1920 in the town of Cotija, in the southern Mexican state of Michoacan. He was the nephew of Rafael Guizar y Valencia, the archbishop of Veracruz and a leader of the Catholic resistance to the secular, reformist governments produced by the Mexican Revolution.
His uncle, Jesus Degollado Guizar, was the last commander in chief of the Cristero army, an armed Catholic resistance group.
“I sometimes saw my mother with a rifle in her hands to defend us in case of an attack on the house,” Maciel told the Catholic news agency Zenith in a 2003 interview.
The sight of members of the Cristero army hanged by government troops deepened his faith, he said.
“In my simple logic of a child I would tell myself that they had given their lives for Christ. . . . I too wanted to give my life for him.”
At 15, he began his studies for the priesthood at a clandestine seminary operated by Guizar y Valencia. Not long afterward, while praying, he felt a calling to create “a group of priests who would travel the world without rest, transmitting the love of Jesus Christ,” according to his official biography.
Maciel founded the legion in Mexico City in 1941. In 1946, he traveled with his first group of followers to Spain, later meeting Pope Pius XII and founding a seminary in Rome.
The legion founded preparatory schools around the world, including two dozen in the United States.
The sense of persecution and secrecy that shaped Maciel’s youth could be seen in the organization he led.
Legion members took a vow never to speak ill of Maciel or their superiors and to report any member who did.
Jose Barba, a Mexico City professor, who said he was assaulted by Maciel in 1955, wrote a 2002 essay in which he described the legion’s secretive culture: “If we had been less innocent and docile, we might have understood the dark motive behind those rules of silence and isolation.”
Allegations of misconduct by Maciel date to the 1950s, when he was suspended from the priesthood during a church investigation. He was eventually reinstated.
New charges were leveled against Maciel in 1976, with a Spanish priest and a Mexican priest giving detailed accounts of alleged abuse when they were teenage seminarians in Spain and Rome.
Later, eight men accused Maciel of sodomizing them when they were students under the priest’s supervision from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s. Some said they were as young as 10 when Maciel abused them.
Church officials acknowledged receiving the allegations, but they languished in the Vatican bureaucracy for years. Defenders of Maciel said he was being targeted for attacks by opponents of his conservative ideology.
According to Jason Berry, the author of “Vows of Silence,” a book about Maciel and pedophilia in the church, Maciel was charged in 1998 with “absolving the sins” of his victims in confession, a violation of church law with no statute of limitation.
But in 1999, Ratzinger, then a cardinal and prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ordered the investigation closed.
Five years later, with more people coming forward to claim they were abused by Maciel, Ratzinger ordered a new investigation opened.
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hector.tobar@latimes.com
Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
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0dd93038bc72bd05976abc937c12aaad | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-02-et-artsbudget2-story.html | Arts budget boost dies in committee | Arts budget boost dies in committee
The latest bid to get California’s semi-starved state arts-granting agency off its five-year subsistence diet has died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Backers said the bill would have secured $30 million or more each year for the California Arts Council, which has operated on $3 million to $5 million annual budgets since 2003 after peaking at $32 million in 2001.
Just $1 million now comes from the state’s tax-fed general fund -- the minimum required to qualify for federal matching funds.
With California government facing a projected deficit of $14.5 billion, “it’s just a bad year” for a funding increase, said Dana Mitchell, who worked on the bill as chief consultant to the Assembly committee that oversees the arts.
That committee approved the bill last spring, but it was tabled by the appropriations committee and expired under a law requiring held-over Assembly bills to be passed by Jan. 31 of the following year.
The proposal, introduced by Rep. Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach), called for giving the arts council 20% of the sales taxes consumers pay on artworks, art supplies, musical instruments and audio recordings.
Without increasing taxes, it would have boosted California’s 14 cents per capita arts spending, now last in the nation, close to the average of $1.21, as calculated by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
But Rep. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who chairs the appropriations committee and has championed increased arts funding in the past -- including his own defeated 2005 bill to feed the arts council with a 1% admission surcharge on movies, theme parks, performances and museums -- said that with “our general fund busted flat,” he couldn’t back a proposal to open a $30-million hole elsewhere in the budget.
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cc5632d9755b37b77fb7b453f632e3ef | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-02-et-debate2-story.html | Obama, Clinton nail their parts | Obama, Clinton nail their parts
Forget Super Tuesday for the moment, my political couch potato friends. The delegate jackpot divvy will be here soon enough. In the meantime, there’s something else to consider about Thursday’s California Democratic presidential debate at the Kodak Theatre: The candidates’ road show finally made it to Hollywood, providing the glitziest of venues for the two superstars to remind us that there’s no business like show business.
No, it didn’t turn out to be “the most historic debate of our generation,” as it was touted by politicos before airtime. But after barnstorming through the provinces, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived at the entertainment capital like starlets yearning for multi-picture deals. And as determined as they are magnetic, they shared the stage not just in any one of the city’s cavernous concert halls but at the permanent home of the Oscars.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, mind you, is no Billy Crystal. (He’d be better as the guy who explains the academy’s rules and procedures.) Still, the evening didn’t disappoint. Although the squabbling was written out of the script, the drama was implicit: Who could be more convincing as the new star of the “West Wing” reality series?
Obama is the far better Method actor of the two. Which is to say there’s less of a visible gap between the role he’s playing and the self he has freely exposed since he became a marquee draw. He connects with crowds -- he rouses -- through his comfort in his own skin and story. His past is complicated, but from that complexity he’s discovered the power of honest reckoning and straightforward emotion. He’s a natural performer. Clinton you can imagine rehearsing her lines in front of the bathroom mirror.
Her advantage is that she knows her text inside out. She’s like one of those actors -- Maggie Smith is reported to be one -- who are always studying backstage, underlining and dog-earing their script. Professionalism goes a long way in the theater. (Nothing wearies a director more than “temperament.”) And in politics too, there’s something noble about a candidate who can reel out bullet-point answers on any topic, no matter how insufferably boring or obscure.
Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau chief Doyle McManus -- who, along with Jeanne Cummings, senior correspondent for Politico, joined Blitzer in moderating the face-off sponsored by their three news organizations -- started by asking the candidates to explain to everyone once and for all what their major policy differences were. These distinctions, too nuanced to hold the attention of remote-control quick-draws, have been shunted aside by the tabloid-driven media for more pressing “character” concerns.
This is where Clinton dominated the spotlight, turning in a tour de force of bureaucratic competence that left Obama seeming like, to filch a line from Shakespeare, a “green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance.”
Clearly Clinton could have danced all night to the tune of universal health care, but CNN wasn’t choreographing the show around her strengths. If anything, the network was employing a strategy familiar to mothers of finicky kids: Make them eat the vegetable first before bringing out the cake and ice cream.
Dramatic differences on tax policy and the role of government will have to wait for the general campaign. At this point, the Democratic primary contest remains a theatrical battle of impressions and counterimpressions, and the cameras were poised to pounce on anything unflattering. Unfortunately for CNN, the candidates weren’t about to botch their big close-ups.
Obama may not be as virtuosic as Clinton in flaunting minutiae, but he was savvy enough to know how important it was for him play the gentleman’s role and pull back her chair each time she sat down, after he reportedly “snubbed” her before the president’s State of the Union address Monday. He was also adept at portraying himself as his party’s most popular figure, sneaking the name “Kennedy” in as often as possible to capitalize on his recent endorsements.
Clinton, burned by her blowup in the South Carolina debate, knew just how to laugh off Blitzer when he baitingly asked if she now considers her Iraq war resolution vote “naive.” (Hey, where was Blitzer’s tough questioning in 2002?) Throughout much of the debate, she wore a smile that suggested what she might be like hanging around the kitchen with Chelsea, sipping coffee and dispensing motherly advice on bad bosses and worse boyfriends. She was as beamy as Diane Keaton -- who happened to be in the Kodak audience and who was all radiant in a white ensemble and whimsical hat.
You could call the whole evening a family affair. In fact, the differences between the two candidates emerged with such tranquillity that Peter, Paul and Mary could have set some of the exchanges to music.
But as welcome as civility is for patching up a fracturing base, it’s poison for a soap opera. Alarm bells must have gone off in the head of one of the backstage producers, because after a strong early showing by Clinton, the questions for her became noticeably more barbed. There was the inevitable inquiry about doghouse-bound Bill. Basically, if you can’t control what your husband says during the campaign, how are you going to contain him when he’s in the White House? And earlier, an e-mail from a 38-year-old woman from South Carolina complained that she has never had the opportunity to vote in a presidential election free of a Bush or Clinton
Clinton scored the loudest hurrahs of the evening when she retorted that it took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, and it might take another one to clean up after the second. For an instant, she connected with the crowd not through her superior knowledge but through her crack comic timing.
It’s imperative (to borrow Clinton’s favorite word of the night) that candidates seem likable. Revealing vulnerability -- the inability to string words together grammatically, to take an example from election cycles past -- can sometimes be very effective.
But Clinton is eminently well-spoken, and there are only so many times a future commander in chief can let voters in by choking up. Humor is a good fallback for her, and she has a knack for it.
Obama was too busy acting gallant to spoil her moment. He had his star turns too, most notably when the subject turned to Iraq and his clarity and unbeholden judgment were allowed to shine.
But how the two could help each other’s acts! Clinton’s bright and eager readiness and Obama’s authentic hopefulness would be a formidable combination, which is probably why Blitzer couldn’t resist floating the idea of a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket.
Talk about plot reversals. Wasn’t it just yesterday that they were at each other’s throats?
Democrats are sobering up to the reality that as groundbreaking as it will be to have a woman or an African American man heading their ticket, a white male Republican waits in the wings. This once-heated domestic drama, in other words, is bound to give way to old-fashioned partisan melodrama.
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charles.mcnulty@latimes.com
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b98363d13b101695dc43130aeb5514cd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-03-bk-rifkind3-story.html | One times one | One times one
“I am almost a hundred years old; waiting for the end, and thinking about the beginning.”
Meg Rosoff’s third novel is not about old age, despite its narrator’s advanced years, and it’s not really about youth, although it recounts that narrator’s first teenage love. It is a book about the fluidity of identity: about the ways we assemble our personalities from fragments we perceive about others; and about our disposition to embody all our ages, all at once -- to have, as Shakespeare puts it in “Measure for Measure,” “nor youth, nor age, / But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep, / Dreaming on both.”
These thematic elements, interesting enough on their own, get livelier in the context of Rosoff’s career. She’s a Boston native who has lived in England since 1989, and her debut novel, “How I Live Now,” was the story of a 15-year-old New York girl who goes to stay with cousins in the English countryside, only to be trapped there by a near-future war. Although the London newspapers reviewed Rosoff’s debut as an adult novel, it won the Guardian prize for children’s fiction and sold to children and adults in equal numbers. In America, it was published as a young-adult novel and won the 2005 Michael L. Printz Award, a prestigious young-adult prize.
Rosoff’s second novel, “Just in Case,” starred another 15-year-old -- a depressed boy in suburban Luton, not far from London -- and was published in England as a young-adult book in hardcover, winning the 2007 Carnegie Medal. Its British paperback edition was aimed at adults, who also proved to be a dedicated readership. Her new novel, “What I Was,” has followed a similar publication formula in England, while in the U.S. it’s being marketed to grown-ups, like Mark Haddon’s bestselling “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” (narrator’s age: 15) and David Mitchell’s “Black Swan Green” (narrator’s age: 13).
I’m reporting these publishing strategies not because I pretend to understand them, but because they address the same slippery questions about age and identity as Rosoff’s new novel. At what age, as a reader, does one lose interest in the notion of “coming of age”? Doesn’t this process of self-assessment repeat throughout one’s lifetime after its teenage incarnations, gathering ferocity in middle and even old age? Isn’t the bildungsroman, like every other kind of literature, resistant to classification, flowing across boundaries to absorb young and old readers alike, dreaming on both?
“What I Was” offers a satisfying answer to these questions, beginning, aptly enough for a tale about fluidity, with its watery atmosphere. The place is East Anglia, whose parenthesis of marshy English coastline, through centuries of Roman, Saxon and Viking invasions to the present day, has been sinking into the North Sea. Two miles inland, through a perpetual mist, Rosoff imagines a gloomy school for boys called St. Oswald’s, to which the book’s narrator (we don’t learn his name until the end) has been sent at age 16 after performing poorly at several other boarding schools.
The boy can tolerate the usual indignities of public-school life: the tragic food, the freezing dormitories, the Hobbesian sadism of the students and the droning eccentricities of the teachers, a shuffling band of misfits. What he can’t bear is the regimentation, the smug certainty with which he’s being marched toward an adulthood distinguished only by grim respectability, with a “minor job, minor wife, minor life.”
Even so, he’s most anxious to avoid expulsion, for a most particular reason: He falls in love. During a bout of forced exercise, he’s jogging sorrily along the beach when he comes upon a group of decaying fishermen’s shacks. One of them, it turns out, is inhabited by a boy about his age. Half Crusoe and half wild child, the boy, whose name is Finn, has no evidence of a family and has somehow evaded every bureaucratic regulation set up to ensnare children of the empire. He lives by his wits on the beach and in the sea, expertly piloting a kayak to catch herring and crabs, which he trades for necessities in town.
The independence and solitude of Finn’s life are fiercely intoxicating to the narrator, who flouts school rules to spend time with the boy. Taciturn but physically eloquent, Finn becomes a facsimile for the narrator’s fantasies: Sometimes he’s a reincarnation of St. Oswald, the 7th century warrior king for whom the school is named; or an Anglo-Saxon fisherman from another era, drowned and resurrected by the ceaseless sea; most often for the narrator, in keeping with a teenager’s narcissism, Finn is “a purer, bolder, more compelling version of myself.”
It’s remarkable what a big leap Rosoff has made here. The tact that her earlier novels showed toward their young protagonists was weighed down by an anxious-to-please sensationalism: anorexia, World War III, airport disasters, flying body parts, regrettable sexual impulsiveness. “What I Was” shows us a more confident author whose poetry lies in her elegant, straightforward descriptions of human activity -- cooking crabs, climbing a chalk cliff, learning to sail -- instead of lurid embellishment. The result is a beautifully crafted tale that seems, like its protagonist, both enduringly old and fluently new.
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b10eb2df13359e00eeaaa2f36547b79d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-03-ca-davies3-story.html | It’s him behind ‘Doctor Who’ | It’s him behind ‘Doctor Who’
It was a damp and windy afternoon in Cardiff, and Russell T. Davies had a cold. Also, he had been crying. He had just watched the latest cut of a new “Doctor Who” episode, and one scene really moved him. “I’m going to look really stupid,” he later admitted to worrying. “But it was so beautiful, I was bloody crying.”
Davies has had a long-founded emotional investment in “Doctor Who,” Britain’s beloved science-fiction series about a mysterious time-traveler and his companions. A veteran TV writer who honed his skills in children’s programming and soap operas, Davies grew up watching and adoring “Doctor Who” -- it began airing in 1963, the same year he was born. Characters from his breakout dramatic series, “Queer as Folk” (1999), about gay men living in Manchester, inherited Davies’ earnest affections, sometimes using obsessive knowledge of “Doctor Who” to gauge potential partners’ romantic compatibility. (This approach does, in one episode, backfire miserably.)
In 2003, the BBC approached Davies to revamp “Doctor Who,” and under his leadership, the show’s success has ballooned. It survived what could have been a massive blow when after the first season it lost its lead, Christopher Eccleston. He was succeeded by David Tennant, who has since become a high-profile star here; he will play Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company later this year. An audience of 13.31 million watched “The 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special” (with guest star Kylie Minogue) -- a lot of people for a small country.
Licensed “Doctor Who” merchandise crowds the shelves at Boots and Borders. Eight-year-old boys in gray flannel school uniforms huddle at bus stops furtively trafficking in the show’s trading cards. “Doctor Who” appears -- at least to a displaced foreigner -- to be the most visible of Britain’s current pop culture commodities. Having been sold to 40 territories worldwide, it is also among its most exportable; in the U.S., it airs on BBC America and the Sci Fi Channel.
Even Davies sometimes finds it overwhelming. “Put the ‘Doctor Who’ stuff away!” is how he said he sometimes feels. “It’s weird, isn’t it? You see that logo everywhere.” He paused for a moment, and continued. “It’s the time of our lives.”
When filming, Davies works from a spartan flat overlooking Cardiff Bay and Roald Dahl Plass, the centerpiece of the set for “Torchwood,” one of the two “Doctor Who” spinoffs. The second season of “Torchwood,” about high-level investigators fighting evil in an alien-infested time rift (also known as present-day Cardiff), had its U.S. premiere on Jan. 26. (BBC America airs “Torchwood” and the third season of “Doctor Who” on Saturday nights.)
There are no writers rooms on the shows. “This country simply couldn’t afford that system,” Davies said. “We pay people per script, but within that we try to make it collegiate -- as much as one can.”
“Doctor Who’s” second spinoff is “The Sarah Jane Adventures,” a kids show that airs at an earlier time on the BBC and on the kids digital channel, the CBBC. All three shows swap cast members and villains. (“ ‘Sarah Jane’ inherited some of our ‘Doctor Who’ monsters,” Davies said. “We can’t afford new prosthetics.”)
They also share an increasingly complicated mythology. It falls to Davies “to keep balancing how much continuity there is, how many stand-alone elements there are.” Ever mindful of the shows’ “mainstream audience” (meaning, not just sci-fi enthusiasts) and put off by “exclusivity” in general, he said he is reticent of creating overly inclusive stories dependent on viewers’ in-depth knowledge of ornate histories.
This job is made easier by Davies’ policy of ignoring the voices of those most vigilant. “I think we’re an unusual science-fiction franchise in taking a very big step back from fandom and having nothing to do with them. . . . Every program on the BBC has a message board on the website. I forbid it to happen on ‘Doctor Who.’ I’m sorry to say this, all the science fiction producers making stuff in America, they are way too engaged with their fandom. They all need to step back.”
Spanning generations
What’s striking about the “Doctor Who” franchise is the wide age range it not only speaks to but also seeks out. When Davies embarked on “The Sarah Jane Adventures,” about an investigator and her 14-and-younger companions, he sought to tell younger stories without neutering them. There’s death and despair, he said, but less violence and more fun. Also, Davies added, with a laugh, “more hugs.” (It will be broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel beginning in April.)
The same can be said for “Torchwood,” though hugs on that show usually turn to more. If “The Sarah Jane Adventures” is G to “Doctor Who’s” PG-13, then “Torchwood” is decidedly R. Which is not to say kids here aren’t watching -- and Davies thinks the crossover is to be celebrated. “I won’t even engage in it,” he said of being confronted by parents offended by the open bisexuality of “Torchwood” leader Capt. Jack Harkness (played by American actor John Barrowman). “I won’t apologize for it. I won’t even defend it. Because a defense is an apology.”
In fact, all the main characters on “Torchwood” -- not just Jack -- experience sexual-orientation as more of a notion than a fixed state and are either too forward-thinking or too busy fighting aliens to mention or even think about it. Ask Davies about infusing politics in his work and he brings up “Bob & Rose,” the series he wrote for ITV in 2001 about a gay man who falls in love with a woman. Davies had intended to explore the biases the couple faced but after five pages realized anyone with prejudices was “stupid and wrong,” and since their issues didn’t merit analysis, he’d sooner “take the piss out of them.”
“What was conceived as a very radical and brave bit of political storytelling became, to my surprise, the lightest comedy on Earth. . . . You don’t get on a soapbox. There are other ways of telling the story that are subversive.” He said it’s the best thing he’s ever written.
If Davies regrets anything about the first season of “Torchwood,” it’s how fractured the dynamic among the agents got, he said. “After working on ‘Doctor Who’ for three years, I think we were desperate to explore adult material,” Davies explains. “I think we all interpreted ‘adult’ as backstabbing, angst, treachery and betrayal.” If the second season gets any reboot, Davies said, it’s that they’ll get along better.
It will help that in the season opener, they bonded in hatred over Capt. John Hart, a time agent who shares a complicated and passionate history with Jack. Much has been made of “Torchwood’s” similarity to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which gives a seemingly layered significance to the casting of James Marsters, “Buffy’s” Spike, in the role of Capt. John. But Davies said the choice was just a happy coincidence. He’d given up on finding a British actor to play the role and had temporarily scrapped the character when out of the blue Marsters’ agent got in touch. Still, Sunnydale-starved viewers may have felt that they got a shout-out when Marsters, in a costume half Adam Ant and half Janet Jackson circa “Rhythm Nation,” ended his first scene with the line “I’m thirsty.” It’s a recurring guest spot.
Season 4 of “Doctor Who” airs in the spring here and in the U.S. (on Sci Fi, starting in April). Then 2009 will be what Davies calls a “gap year,” with only four one-hour specials. Although the show has been commissioned for a complete season in 2010, he and Tennant are not yet signed on.
“I can’t carry on like this forever,” Davies said, sniffling -- his cold was acting up. He said that after this, he will likely return to drama about “the epic-ness of ordinary intimate deals of ordinary people’s lives,” which is what he really loves writing. “The only place for me to go here is back to six-parters or one-offs which won’t have the publicity, the merchandise, the budget, the profile.” He took a deep breath. “And I’m so looking forward to it.”
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a3c2e1f4906595c3003f981e0879eb69 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-03-fg-khabab3-story.html | Al Qaeda is said to focus again on WMD | Al Qaeda is said to focus again on WMD
After a U.S. airstrike leveled a small compound in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions in January 2006, President Pervez Musharraf and his intelligence officials announced that several senior Al Qaeda operatives had been killed, and that the top prize was an elusive Egyptian who was believed to be a chemical weapons expert.
But current and former U.S. intelligence officials now believe that the Egyptian, Abu Khabab Masri, is alive and well -- and in charge of resurrecting Al Qaeda’s program to develop or obtain weapons of mass destruction.
Given the problems with previous U.S. intelligence assessments of weapons of mass destruction, officials are careful not to overstate Al Qaeda’s capabilities, and they emphasize that there is much they don’t know because of the difficulty in getting information out of the mountainous area of northwest Pakistan where the network has reestablished itself.
But they say Al Qaeda has regenerated at least some of the robust research and development effort that it lost when the U.S. military bombed its Afghanistan headquarters and training camps in late 2001, and they believe it is once again trying to develop or obtain chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons to use in attacks on the United States and other enemies.
For now, the intelligence officials believe, that effort is largely focused on developing and using cyanide, chlorine and other poisons that are unlikely to cause the kind of mass-casualty attack that is usually associated with weapons of mass destruction.
Intelligence officials say they base their current assessments on anecdotal evidence gleaned from electronic intercepts, information provided by informants and captured Al Qaeda members and the tracking of money flows and militant websites. One international counter-terrorism official said there were indications that some operatives had received immunizations to protect themselves against biological agents.
Abu Khabab, whose real name is Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, is believed to have set up rudimentary labs with at least a handful of aides, and to have provided a stable environment in which scientists and researchers can experiment with chemicals and other compounds, said several former intelligence officials familiar with Al Qaeda’s weapons program.
Recent intelligence shows that Abu Khabab, 54, is training Western recruits for chemical attacks in Europe and perhaps the United States, just as he did when he ran the “Khabab Camp” at Al Qaeda’s sprawling Darunta training complex in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to one senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the CIA’s intelligence is classified.
Some experts questioned how far Al Qaeda could get in reconstituting a weapons program in the mountains of Pakistan.
“They are hemmed in in a way that makes it hard to do,” said John V. Parachini, a senior analyst on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction at Rand Corp. “It’s hard to get the industrial infrastructure together to do these things, and it’s hard to get people that have the expertise to fashion these materials into weapons of mass destruction.”
Several international counter-terrorism officials concurred with the U.S. intelligence assessment of Al Qaeda’s weapons’ effort. Raphael Perl, who heads the Action Against Terrorism Unit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said it is widely assumed that Al Qaeda developed chemical weapons years ago, and that if it doesn’t have biological capabilities already, “they are certainly not far from it.”
Given that Abu Khabab “has the technical knowledge,” he said, “it’s very, very clear that they are working both in the chemical and biological fields.”
Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon refused to comment on Abu Khabab and Al Qaeda’s weapons program, but security officials from three Pakistani intelligence agencies, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that he is alive.
The senior U.S. intelligence official described Al Qaeda’s effort as “a very small, very compartmented program, and not nearly on the scale of what they had going on in Afghanistan, because you don’t have the size, the security, you don’t have the ease of movement” that the Taliban government provided.
Chris Quillen, a former CIA analyst specializing in Al Qaeda’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, said the network’s program in Pakistan could have made significant progress without authorities knowing about it by operating in small compounds, as it did in Afghanistan.
“I am not saying the programs are great and ready for an attack tomorrow,” said Quillen, who left the agency in August 2006 and is now a U.S. government intelligence contractor. “But whatever they lost in the 2001 invasion, they are back to that level at this point.”
That is a source of major frustration at the CIA, which a few years back identified at least 40 people that it wanted to kill, capture or question about their suspected involvement in Al Qaeda’s weapons program, Quillen and others said. They said at least half of those suspects remain at large.
Abu Khabab’s ties to terrorism date to at least the mid-1980s, when he was a prominent member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization led by Ayman Zawahiri, who merged the group with Al Qaeda. Over the years he has trained hundreds of fighters at Al Qaeda’s camps on how to use explosives, poisons and rudimentary chemical weapons, according to FBI documents.
Educated in Egypt as a chemical engineer, Abu Khabab has no formal training in biological or nuclear weapons, intelligence officials say. But he has ended up in charge of the weapons program at least in part because some operatives believed to be more knowledgeable about biological and nuclear weapons have been captured or killed.
Abu Khabab was described by several intelligence officials as a cranky, showboating self-promoter as well as one of its top explosives experts. He has had a stormy relationship with the two top Al Qaeda leaders, Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, and their top command, in part because of his ego and independent streak, those current and former intelligence officials said.
Nevertheless, Zawahiri tapped Abu Khabab in 1999 to head an unconventional weapons program code-named “Al Zabadi,” Arabic for fermented milk. Within months, he had made “significant progress,” according to Al Qaeda computer files found after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
U.S. authorities found materials at the Darunta complex and elsewhere in Afghanistan that showed that Al Qaeda was aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and biological devices, and that it was only a few years away from developing an anthrax weapon. By 2002, Abu Khabab is believed to have fled to Chechnya or the Pankisi Gorge region in Georgia to resume training militants in the use of chemical weapons, before ending up in Pakistan.
In December 2002, Al Qaeda allegedly dispatched a strike team to New York to use a device called a mubtakkar -- or “invention” -- to disperse cyanide gas in subway cars, potentially killing dozens of people, the senior intelligence official said. Several officials said they suspect Abu Khabab played a role in its development.
But Zawahiri scuttled the plot, saying, “We have something better in mind,” former CIA Director George Tenet wrote in his 2007 autobiography. Five years later, the U.S. government still does not know what “better” device Zawahiri was referring to, said Quillen and the senior U.S. intelligence official.
Abu Khabab also developed “contact poisons” that could be rubbed on a doorknob or some other common area, and experimented with adding crushed glass to the mixture to help get it into a potential victim’s bloodstream, a former WMD case officer at the CIA said.
In recent years, Abu Khabab also began lobbying for more funding to pursue what he claimed would be a successful program to build a nuclear device, according to the former CIA officer and other U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence.
“He has for years told Al Qaeda that he could do it, ‘Just give me the money,’ ” said the former CIA officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of rules preventing former agency officials from discussing details of specific cases. “He’s full of crap. He can’t. But he can certainly build a good RDD” -- a radiological dispersal device.
Also known as “dirty bombs,” radiological dispersal devices have conventional explosives wrapped around radioactive material. When detonated, they can cause some injuries, and potentially widespread contamination and tremendous psychological and economic damage.
In June 2004, the U.S. government had tracked Abu Khabab to Pakistan and issued a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. The wanted poster said he had been distributing training manuals for making chemical and biological weapons.
In January 2006, U.S. officials caught wind of a purported meeting in Damadola, near the Afghanistan border, that Abu Khabab and other senior Al Qaeda operatives, maybe even Zawahiri, were to attend.
The CIA fired Hellfire missiles from Predator drones at the site, killing as many as 18 people, including at least 13 civilians. Soon after, Musharraf said a son-in-law of Zawahiri and Abu Khabab were among the dead.
Despite Musharraf’s claims, the CIA concluded several months later that Abu Khabab was alive, based on evidence from human intelligence and electronic intercepts of conversations in which people talked about him in present tense.
The CIA dispatched additional agents into northwest Pakistan in the summer of 2006, including one specifically responsible for finding Abu Khabab, who officials believe had gone deep into hiding, communicating only by courier.
“I and many other CIA people considered [him] particularly dangerous, given his portfolio for Al Qaeda,” said Arthur Keller, one CIA case officer sent to the tribal areas to track Al Qaeda.
“I would have been happy to help him on his way to paradise by any available means,” said Keller, who left the CIA later that year, “but the opportunity never arose.”
josh.meyer@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Laura King in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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d6e7d52ce1cf14501f082043f786aaf5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-03-me-strike3-story.html | Writers, studios outline a deal | Writers, studios outline a deal
Hollywood’s striking writers and major studios have reached the outlines of a new employment contract, resolving key sticking points over how much writers should be paid for work that is distributed over the Internet, people familiar with the negotiations said Saturday.
A final contract could be presented to the Writers Guild of America board as early as Friday, according to three people close to the talks who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.
The 3-month-old strike is expected to end once the board approves the contract.
The tentative deal came after two weeks of talks that culminated in a marathon bargaining session Friday that was attended by News Corp. President Peter Chernin, Walt Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger and Writers Guild of America negotiators David Young, Patrick M. Verrone and John F. Bowman.
Progress had been made in previous meetings on payment for work sold online, but Friday’s session saw a breakthrough on the most contentious issue: compensation for the free streaming of films and TV programs over the Internet.
Representatives of the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, declined to comment, citing a media blackout.
Attorneys from the studios and the guild were meeting over the weekend to discuss contract language for the proposed agreement, which would need to be ratified by the union’s 10,500 members. Even before a vote by members, the strike would probably be called off if board members strongly endorse the deal.
There are some issues that have yet to be resolved, including defining what qualifies as promotion on the Internet. The debate centers on the extent to which networks can run video clips and other materials on their websites to promote TV programs before paying writers.
Both the writers and the studios faced rising pressures to find a way to end Hollywood’s costliest strike in two decades.
Concluding the strike would allow thousands of workers who lost their jobs when television production shut down to return to work. It would also allow the broadcast networks to salvage the upcoming fall season. Production of pilots is scheduled to begin this month.
An end to the strike would also ensure that Hollywood’s most glamorous party, the Feb. 24 Academy Awards, would air on ABC as scheduled. Last month’s Golden Globes were dramatically scaled back after writers and many actors refused to cross the picket line. The Oscars would likely have faced similar boycotts.
The writers began their strike Nov. 5 in a fight largely about securing their future as digital technology transforms the film and TV industry.
Writers fear being shortchanged as the studios rush to distribute their TV shows and movies on the Web, cellphones, video iPods and other devices. The payments they receive when their material is reused, known as residuals, help writers weather the feast-and-famine cycles of the business. Studios, confronted with rising marketing and production costs and flattening DVD revenue, have been reluctant to commit to the guild’s new-media pay demands when the economics of the Internet and other digital technologies are uncertain.
The latest round of discussions began two weeks ago after directors quickly negotiated their own accord with studios.
In Hollywood, the first union to reach a contract often sets the template for the other talent unions in a process known as pattern bargaining.
The tentative writers’ agreement is largely modeled on the directors’ pact, which doubles residual payments for films and TV shows sold online, secures the union’s jurisdiction over shows created for the Internet (above certain budgets) and establishes payments for shows that are streamed on advertising-supported websites.
A number of top screenwriters and TV writer-producers known as show runners had in recent weeks lobbied their leaders to use the Directors Guild deal as template for their own agreement, eager to put the town back to work.
The directors’ deal, however, stirred a debate among striking writers. Many complained that the directors’ contract offered meager residuals on shows that were streamed free on advertising-supported websites. Another criticism was that the directors’ deal limited the union’s jurisdiction over shows created for the Web at a time when online entertainment is burgeoning.
That complaint was echoed a few days ago by the Screen Actors Guild, whose leaders publicly disparaged the directors’ contract.
On Friday, however, studios offered some key concessions to ease those concerns and keep the talks on track. Those included more favorable pay terms for streaming than those offered to directors. Studios also offered “separated rights” provisions for shows created for the Web, ensuring, for example, that writers would receive extra compensation and credit for online shows that spawn TV pilots, two people close to the talks said.
Writers made some important concessions of their own earlier when they dropped demands to unionize work on animated movies and reality TV shows -- both of which had been viewed as non-starters by the studios.
The agreement was negotiated on the studio side by Chernin and Iger, who had been designated by the heads of the other studios to negotiate on their behalf.
That stood in contrast to previous sessions with the writers in which top media executives weren’t at the bargaining table and were led instead by Nick Counter, president of the producers association, and labor relations executives from the major studios.
Having done the heavy lifting, Chernin and Iger will now step back and rely on labor relations executives to formalize contract language this week.
Guild negotiators Young, Verrone and Bowman on Monday are expected to brief the union’s 17-member negotiating committee and board of directors on the proposed contract.
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richard.verrier@latimes.com
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538b6659574671475101a68af43ef430 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-03-na-olympics3-story.html | GOP spat began with Olympics | GOP spat began with Olympics
On Sept. 19, 2000, John McCain rose in the Senate to rail against what he called the “staggering” sums that the federal government planned to spend to help Salt Lake City stage the 2002 Winter Olympics.
“The American taxpayer is being shaken down to the tune of nearly a billion and a half dollars,” McCain said.
The Arizona Republican vowed to “do everything in my power” to delay or kill “this pork-barrel spending” and to end the “fiscal abuse” related to the Olympics. “This is preposterous and it must stop,” he said.
Mitt Romney, who headed the Olympics, counseled calm when reporters from Utah’s Deseret Morning News reached him in Sydney, Australia. Romney challenged McCain’s arithmetic, arguing that taxpayers would provide only $250 million. In any case, he asserted that he already had obtained backing in Congress.
“I’m expecting the funding we need to host the Games,” he said. “I’m quite confident.”
The clash over Olympics spending, which dragged on for two years, helps explain some of the acrimony that now characterizes the race between the two front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination. The dispute provided an early preview of the fissures that still divide McCain and Romney as they face what may be decisive contests Tuesday.
“It may be a source of the sniping between the two,” said Quin Monson, assistant director of the Center for Elections and Democracy at Romney’s alma mater, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Kelly Patterson, the center’s director, agreed: “People have long memories in politics.”
In the background of the dispute lies a long-simmering argument in Utah over whether Romney has overstated his role in saving the Olympics.
In debates and on the campaign trail, McCain highlights his history as a watchdog of “wasteful” government spending. Over the years, he has challenged Senate colleagues who inserted so-called earmarks in legislation to fund “pet projects,” from new courthouses to catfish farms, and to bypass normal budget scrutiny.
Cutting federal aid for the Olympics and other sports events became one of McCain’s goals. He repeatedly denounced “pork-barrel subsidies” for the 2002 Games, identifying earmarks for construction projects, road improvements, new post offices and other infrastructure in and around Salt Lake City.
His bark had little bite, however. As chairman of the commerce committee, McCain held no hearings into the alleged overspending and failed in his one attempt to cut Olympic spending, according to his Senate staff.
In early 2001, McCain proposed shifting $30 million from the Treasury Department, which sought the money for “salaries and expenses of law enforcement personnel” at the Olympics, to the Pentagon. The amendment was overwhelmingly defeated.
McCain’s angry rhetoric put him at odds not only with Romney but with Sen. Robert F. Bennett, the Utah Republican who sat on the appropriations committee and who personally led the fight for federal aid to the Olympics.
In October 1999, Bennett took to the Senate floor to condemn a claim on McCain’s website that called an allocation of $2.2 million to improve Salt Lake City sewers “a direct result of unlimited contributions from special interests.” McCain’s staff had found the sewer aid in an emergency appropriation to fund U.S. military operations in Kosovo.
In a rancorous exchange, Bennett demanded that McCain identify who the special interests were and how they benefited. McCain replied that he was attacking “the system,” not individual members, and refused to amend the website. The sewer money stayed in.
Bennett, who has endorsed Romney’s presidential bid, could not be reached Friday because of a death in the family, according to his spokeswoman.
McCain doesn’t mention his concerns about Olympics spending on the campaign trail, according to aides. Romney, however, cites his stewardship of the Games as core to his candidacy.
The Boston-based business tycoon took over the operation in February 1999 after organizers in Salt Lake City were accused of providing more than $1 million in cash and gifts to members of the International Olympic Committee to secure the city’s bid. The local organizers later were acquitted of all criminal charges.
On the campaign trail, Romney cites his efforts to rescue the Games from scandal, lure new corporate sponsors and fix a huge budget shortfall. The Olympics ultimately proved both a sporting and financial success.
But some critics claim Romney overstates his effect. They argue that federal tax dollars effectively provided huge subsidies for each ticket sold, and that the largest corporate sponsorships were in place before he arrived.
“He had his role, but he didn’t save the Games by any stretch of the imagination,” said Ken Bullock, a former board member of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee and now head of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, a nonpartisan municipal group. “He was very opportunistic in trying to portray himself as the white knight.”
Romney “takes credit for cleaning everything up,” complained Stephen Pace, who helped run Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, a local nonprofit group. “How much he really did, how much initiative he showed, is hard to tell.”
Romney gives his version of events, including early face-offs with McCain, in his 2004 book, “Turnaround.”
At a time when the Games needed “record-breaking federal support,” he wrote, McCain and a few of his Senate colleagues were threatening to revoke the tax deductibility of corporate sponsorships. “That would nail the coffin of the Salt Lake Olympics and future Games,” Romney worried.
McCain, he added, “had earned the unfair reputation of being out to destroy the Games.” After their first meeting, in early 1999, Romney decided that McCain “did not oppose the Olympics -- he simply opposed the federal government paying for the Games, particularly when he saw any waste and abuse. And he had plenty of examples.”
After the Sept. 11 attacks, however, McCain “made clear there would be no problems from him when we came to Congress for the funding necessary to keep the Games secure,” Romney wrote.
In the end, neither Romney nor McCain were correct in their public statements about how much the Olympics cost.
In response to a request from McCain, the General Accounting Office -- the research arm of Congress that is now known as the Government Accountability Office -- reported in September 2000 that federal agencies would spend $1.3 billion in and around Salt Lake City, or less than McCain claimed.
Most of the money was allocated to improve or build highways and transit systems, not expenses directly related to staging the games.
Bennett, Romney’s chief backer, struck back the following year.
He asked the GAO to recalculate the federal tab minus the heavy construction and infrastructure. Not surprisingly, the tally was far smaller: $342 million, but still more than Romney had said.
Additional security measures added after Sept. 11 raised the total to about $400 million, subsequent reports showed.
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bob.drogin@latimes.com
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2bbf2976281928da29e95fc1ee70e9ce | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-04-fi-colawars4-story.html | Cola makers target Mideast | Cola makers target Mideast
In one commercial, Arab pop star Nancy Ajram hands bottles of Coca-Cola to a young couple quarreling, and instantly, the two lovers make up as colorful hearts and flowers flood out from the bottles.
In another, Haifa Wehbe, a model-turned-singer and Arab world sex symbol, turns heads as she walks confidently through a film set in a blue, figure-hugging dress, putting her cool can of Pepsi up against the face of a sweating technician.
Prompted by a recent surge of prosperity in the Middle East, the giant American beverage companies have engaged in a fierce race to win the soft-drink allegiance of Arabs, especially youth. In the last few years, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. have recorded more than 10% growth in their annual sales in the region, and executives from both companies say future prospects look promising.
Though the two soda giants have been global rivals for decades, the Arab world until recently was almost exclusively Pepsi territory. For almost 25 years, Coca-Cola was boycotted in many Arab countries over its alleged support for Israel. It started selling again in the Middle East in 1990 and has built its market share to about 35%, according to Ahmed Rady, the company’s Bahrain-based Middle East marketing manager.
“Coca-Cola has finally found its ground here,” Rady said. “What’s beautiful about this part of the world is its thriving youth, and we are here to get these young people closer to their passions.”
He said his company’s sales exceed $70 million annually in the Middle East, with double-digit growth figures for the last four years. That’s a small fraction of Coke’s worldwide revenue of $27.4 billion in 2007. But with its burgeoning population of Muslim youth who avoid alcoholic beverages for social, religious or legal reasons, the Arab market offers opportunities to soft-drink multinationals.
Middle East markets are also less saturated than those in Europe and the United States when it comes to nonalcoholic drinks, offering greater room for growth, according to representatives of Pepsi and Coke.
Both companies have focused their marketing on young people through association with the region’s pop stars.
“Most of television content here focuses on entertainment and more specifically music,” said Ali Araj, a manager at MBC, a Dubai satellite television media group. “So it is not surprising to see that soft-drink companies look for endorsement by stars with a clear-cut sexual appeal to reach the youth here.”
The two soft-drink firms have sponsored musical events and talent shows in recent years. They have also devoted some of their marketing campaigns to soccer, which is popular as well among youth. The companies also engaged in price wars and dueling promotions and have been supporting community activities: Coke has been sponsoring the planting of cedar trees in Lebanon, and Pepsi is sponsoring educational programs in Egypt.
Recently, Pepsi, which still dominates the region’s soft-drink market, came up with a daring marketing project: producing a full-length musical movie for the Arab world.
The film, “The Sea of Stars,” was shot last year in a quaint village in northern Lebanon and features five Arab pop stars, including the Lebanese Wehbe, who landed in the top 50 of People magazine’s 2006 most-beautiful-people list. The movie is scheduled to hit screens across the region in May.
“We are market leaders in the region and we wanted to offer our consumers fun and hip new ways to communicate with their brand,” said Moussa Mustafa, the Dubai-based regional marketing director for Pepsi Middle East.
The film, which has cost Pepsi $5 million so far, according to Mustafa, tells the story of a teenage boy who goes out of his way to revive his small town. With the help of a group of stars, he manages to bring hope to his village by organizing a music festival -- sponsored by Pepsi, of course.
“Pepsi is all about teens,” said Mustafa, who said that the company’s market share in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf exceeded 80%. “With a growing young population in the Middle East, we see a big potential for us here.”
Still, many Arabs regard Pepsi and Coke as symbols of U.S. cultural and economic hegemony. They remain vulnerable to occasional boycott campaigns in the Middle East. But local soft-drink companies, like Iran’s Zam Zam and Dubai-based Mecca Cola, pose little threat to their global counterparts. They may, however, push Coca-Cola and Pepsi to adopt more local branding strategies.
In late 2004, Coca-Cola made a breakthrough advertisement featuring Ajram, then a budding young singer. According to Coke’s regional manager, Rady, the promotional clip, which was the most expensive advertisement in Egypt that year, had an “immediate impact across the Arab region.”
The spot centered on a group of teenagers who create a rollicking party atmosphere in a posh cafe by making music with their Coke bottles, which inspires Ajram to sing and dance.
Pepsi, meanwhile, has opted for ad campaigns mixing local and global celebrities. It cast French soccer star Thierry Henry with Wehbe and Christina Aguilera with another Lebanese singer, Elissa.
Coke has plunged wholeheartedly into its partnership with Ajram, emblazoning her face on cans sold even in the most remote Egyptian villages and displaying huge billboards of the star holding Coke bottles and looking coyly onto traffic along Lebanon’s main coastal highway.
Its ads in the Middle East feature songs from Ajram’s albums. “Nancy and Coca-Cola grew together here,” Rady said. “Today, we have an excellent relationship, and it’s here to stay.”
Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi contributed to this report.
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7f1ccfca748030e230ab4236feed07f4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-04-fi-online4-story.html | Online house calls click with doctors | Online house calls click with doctors
Consulting your family physician is finally moving into the 21st century and out of the doctor’s office.
Since the dawn of e-mail, patients have been pleading for more doctors to offer medical advice online. No traffic jams, no long waits, no germ-infested offices with outdated magazines and bad elevator music.
There was always one major roadblock: Most health insurers wouldn’t pay for it.
Until now.
In recent weeks, Aetna Inc., the nation’s largest insurer, and Cigna Corp. have agreed to reimburse doctors for online visits. Other large insurers are expected to follow, experts say.
These new online services, which typically cost the same as a regular office visit, are aimed primarily at those who already have a doctor.
The virtual visits are considered best for follow-up consultations and treatment for minor ailments such as colds and sore throats.
But some specialists, including cardiologists and gynecologists, also see these e-mail tete-a-tetes as ideal for periodic checkups that don’t require in-person visits.
“People can wait a long time to get in to see their primary-care doctor and longer for a specialist. . . . To have immediate access is huge,” said Dr. Melissa Welch, Aetna’s Northern California medical director.
As more doctors move online, others are looking further ahead and adding webcams to their online arsenal, even if the video quality remains spotty.
Dr. Christy Calderon, a family physician at Kaiser Permanente’s Whittier office, conducts as many as half her appointments over the phone or online with a 3-inch camera affixed to her desktop. “It adds a more personal touch,” she said.
Although actual doctor visits aren’t likely to disappear, the recent moves are evidence that long-delayed efforts to bring American medicine into the digital age may be gaining momentum, experts say.
“Paying doctors to do more patient care over the Internet is a small but important step in a good direction,” said David Cutler, a Harvard University healthcare economist. “It increases patient access and could significantly improve their satisfaction.”
If so, it comes at an auspicious time.
Doctor visits in the United States have surged 20% in the last five years to more than 1.2 billion visits annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even as the population ages, the number of doctors is falling across the country, and experts predict that office wait times will increase in the coming years.
Meanwhile, at-home devices that remotely check patients’ blood pressure and diabetics’ sugar levels are becoming cheaper, and tech leaders Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are expected to introduce products this year to simplify patient care and put medical records online, although neither company plans to assist in online physician appointments.
Some in the medical community envision a day when patients take their vital signs each morning and send the results to their doctor by computer.
But can a doctor really diagnose patients via pixels?
Critics, including many doctors, contend that online medical care carries risks. Some worry that mistakes are bound to happen and that the practice raises several hard-to-answer ethical questions.
“It’s perfectly appropriate that we use 21st century technology in the 21st century,” said California Medical Assn. President Dr. Richard S. Frankenstein, an Orange County pulmonologist. “The concern I have is that [online visits] are simply not a substitute for an actual doctor.”
And experts caution that this may not be a money saver. Healthcare costs could increase if the new technology leads more patients to seek care more often.
By the time San Francisco consultant Meg Young got to Boston on a chilly night last winter, she was running a 102-degree fever. She considered going to the emergency room. Instead, she went online in her hotel room.
The 40-year-old technology expert booked a visit with her primary-care doctor at Stanford University Hospital. After Young filled out a form and described her symptoms, he diagnosed a bacterial infection, prescribed an antibiotic from a drugstore near the hotel and suggested she get some rest.
“I couldn’t have been happier to not sit in some hospital for half the night,” Young said.
Doctors and patients have many ways to communicate over the Internet. Some doctors and their office staffers already e-mail patients free of charge, especially when it involves minor questions or prescription refills.
Most of the new online consultations are far more structured than a simple e-mail. If insurance companies are expected to pay the bill, physicians need documentation of the event, including diagnosis and time spent.
As a result, companies have emerged to help doctors handle this. They typically arrange the online visits, maintain records and handle insurance reimbursements, patient co-payments and other payments.
To begin using these online services, patients visit a doctor’s website or go directly to one of the Internet companies that handle such services -- for example, RelayHealth Inc. or Medem Inc.
Doctors are typically encouraged to respond to patients within a day; they receive an e-mail reminder if they haven’t, with a phone call on the second day. Prices can vary from $25 to $125, which patients pay with a credit card at the end of the session.
Allison Holt, 47, of Santa Ana said she was “completely sold” on online healthcare and didn’t plan to visit her doctor in person anymore if she could help it.
The former human resources manager began using online appointments in May, after a long-simmering back problem flared up.
Holt has had two full check-ups since then and occasionally e-mails her doctor with minor questions or to request a prescription refill.
The visits cost $25 and are not covered by her insurance.
“When I used to call his office, the staff would take a message, wait for a reply and then call me back when they had time,” she said. “Now I get an e-mail by the end of the day.”
Even with major insurers signing on, it remains to be seen whether a large share of the public will embrace Internet medicine. Surveys show that many patients and doctors remain uncertain whether the technology is right for them. Also still on the sidelines is the federal Medicare agency, which pays about half the nation’s doctor bills.
Recently, some smaller insurers that began reimbursing for online consultations stopped doing so because few members used the service.
But Young, the San Francisco technology consultant, predicts that routine doctor visits will eventually go the way of the locomotive or buying CDs at the store.
“It can take me an hour and 15 minutes to drive to my doctor’s office, longer in rush hour,” she said. “Why do I want to do that?”
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daniel.costello@latimes.com
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Saying ‘Ah’ online
Top 10 topics in Internet physician consultations handled through RelayHealth, a provider of online physician services.
1. Medication questions
2. Sinus pain or pressure
3. Back problems
4. Colds and flu
5. Lab or test results
6. Coughing
7. Medical procedure or operation
8. Headaches and migraines
9. Fever
10. Asthma
Source: RelayHealth
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cd0c74df8a6aca04167b9180e52bbbef | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-04-na-maria4-story.html | State’s first lady is for Obama | State’s first lady is for Obama
California First Lady Maria Shriver delivered a surprise endorsement of Barack Obama on Sunday, overcoming qualms about going public because, she said, the Illinois senator was the presidential candidate able to unify the country across racial, ethnic and other lines of division.
“He’s not about himself,” she told a cheering crowd at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. “He’s about the power of us and what we can do if we come together. . . . He is about empowering women, African Americans, Latinos, older people, young people. He’s about empowering all of us.”
Shriver’s announcement -- made at the end of a rally featuring Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and Obama’s wife, Michelle -- aligned the first lady with much of the rest of the Kennedy clan. It also marked a split with her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last week endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“I thought, if Barack Obama was a state, he’d be California,” Shriver said as the crowd of thousands roared in a chorus that rose as she ticked off each attribute: “Diverse. Open. Smart. Independent. Bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspirational. Dreamer. Leader.”
Shriver’s break with her husband was not unusual. The two -- she a fierce Democrat, he a loyal Republican -- have one of the nation’s most famous political mixed marriages.
Shriver apparently wavered until close to the last minute. In fact, aides to Obama were not certain she would come through until she strode onstage -- without makeup and her hair unbrushed, she said, after arriving straight from a daughter’s equestrian show.
Like many, Shriver said, she felt pulled in several directions.
“Every single person can come to you and tell you, ‘You should vote for this person’ or ‘You should vote for that person.’ ‘It’s not right to speak up. It’s not right to speak out,’ ” Shriver said, her voice echoing through the arena. “But this is a moment to have a conversation with yourself, not anyone else. Have a conversation with your own heart. And ask yourself, ‘What kind of America do I believe in?’ ”
Like the Democratic Party in miniature, the Kennedy family has split over the two top presidential contenders. Also supporting Obama are Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts; his son Patrick; and niece Caroline, the daughter of President Kennedy. On Saturday, Obama also received the endorsement of Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has picked up the support of three of Robert and Ethel’s children: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kerry Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Shriver’s endorsement and Winfrey’s celebrity pageant, which included walk-on guest Stevie Wonder, guaranteed Obama extensive news coverage in the final 24 hours of the campaign -- an enormous asset in this far-flung state.
“The drama of it all was just delicious,” said USC political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. Shriver “probably edged out Bill Clinton” -- who spent Sunday morning visiting Los Angeles-area black churches -- “and Oprah Winfrey as the story of the day, at least in California.”
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mark.barabak@latimes.com
Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.
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8884e0ca995e98ac5d18913c5c374840 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-06-et-obama6-story.html | Obama song taps the Web’s energy | Obama song taps the Web’s energy
The Barack Obama-boosting music video “Yes We Can” hit the Net on Friday and by Super Tuesday it had been streamed a staggering 10 million times on YouTube and the website www.yeswecansong .com.
Produced by multi-platinum-selling rapper-producer will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, the elegiac, reggae-tinged composition isn’t a campaign commercial, per se. To hear him tell it, the song is an impassioned plea for social change. But the video’s viral impact also represents an Information Age breakthrough: a virtual real-time response to the current, super-heated political climate that juxtaposes politics and pop culture in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
“This is an ode to inspiration,” will.i.am said. “Barack’s speech inspired me. It changed my life as far as how I look at myself as an American. If that’s what he does, the world could use some of that. It’s about making people think about change and hope.”
The video features clips of the presidential candidate in New Hampshire delivering his Jan. 8 “Yes We Can” stump speech, inter-cut against a cross-section of A-list actors, musicians and athletes: Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Laker great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Herbie Hancock, rapper Common and Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls among them. In black and white, they sing, mouth and recite Obama’s messages about hope, change and social uplift against a plain black backdrop.
Filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of social activist and rock icon Bob Dylan, came on board to film will.i.am and friends in the studio on Jan. 29. The original plan was to record a Los Angeles studio session involving the producer, Legend and Johansson. But dozens of other celebrities (including Tatyana Ali, “Lost’s” Harold Perrineau and actress Amber Valletta) became unexpectedly involved, in an apparently heartfelt outpouring of Obama support.
“I heard [the song] on Tuesday, shot footage Wednesday and Thursday last week, cut it on Friday and it went online,” Dylan said. “It was very organic. It came out of everyone’s belief in Barack’s speech. His speech is so eloquent, Will became passionate about it -- passionate enough to make a song about it.
“That was Will’s intention: These themes dramatize the themes Barack has been talking about.”
will.i.am said he does not plan to sell downloads of the song, preferring to keep it free so that its core messages reach as many people as possible. And trying to come to grips with the video’s out-of-nowhere impact, the normally loquacious rapper-singer-producer is for once at a loss for words.
“This is the nuttiest thing in the freaking world,” he said. “It’s not propaganda. It’s not part of a campaign. There’s no corporation behind it -- the record company couldn’t get involved. I did it on my own. The only thing behind it is the people. And that’s like, wow!”
chris.lee@latimes.com
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afc60f7223898a4fa6edb36b389fdecc | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-07-fg-rwanda7-story.html | Spain indicts 40 Rwandan officers | Spain indicts 40 Rwandan officers
A Spanish judge Wednesday indicted 40 Rwandan army officers on charges of mass murder and crimes against humanity in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, asserting a concept of justice championed by his nation known as “universal jurisdiction.”
Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain’s National Court said he also had sufficient evidence to implicate current Rwandan President Paul Kagame in a long string of reprisal massacres after he and his forces seized power, ending the genocide. But Andreu said he could not indict Kagame because as president he has immunity.
Rwandan officials reacted angrily. An army spokesman, Maj. Jill Rutaremara, said the legal case was “nothing but an attempt to tarnish Rwanda’s image,” according to reports by Agence France-Presse from Kigali, the capital.
The indicted men include a Rwandan military attache stationed in Washington and a Rwandan ambassador in Asia, as well as the army chief of staff, according to people familiar with the judicial order.
The doctrine of universal jurisdiction holds that some crimes such as torture and genocide are so heinous that people accused of committing them can be tried anywhere, even in countries where the crimes did not take place.
Spain has the broadest universal jurisdiction law in the world, human rights experts say. With it, the country’s judiciary has attempted to prosecute late Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Argentine and Guatemalan military officers accused of mass political killings of civilians, and even Osama bin Laden.
And though Madrid wins praise in international-law circles for the effort, the cases have rarely resulted in convictions and have generated some controversy at home among Spanish officials who believe their courts are not equipped to take on such mammoth cases.
Judge Andreu said he had gathered testimony from 22 people, most of them in exile and now in witness-protection programs. One witness had served on Kagame’s elite security team and testified to seeing Kagame machine-gun to death between 30 and 40 civilians “in a matter of seconds” and later order the killing of three bishops.
The 182-page indictment, dated Wednesday and made public in Madrid, contains dozens of horrific accounts, including the dumping of bodies in 173 mass graves and the burning of other victims in national parks and safari game reserves. The witness from Kagame’s security detail was able to compile the names of 104,800 people he said Kagame’s forces killed in the space of one year, according to the indictment.
The genocide in Rwanda began in April 1994, after an airplane carrying the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda, both Hutus, was shot down. An estimated 500,000 people, most of them Tutsis, were slaughtered over a period of 100 days. Tutsi-led rebels commanded by Kagame ended the genocide by defeating radical Hutus in July 1994 but unleashed more atrocities, the Spanish indictment says.
By some counts, 800,000 people were slain before the violence ended.
The Spanish case is potentially groundbreaking because it is focusing on crimes blamed on Kagame and his forces, something that a United Nations tribunal set up in 1994 to prosecute war crimes in Rwanda has not done.
“This will increase pressure on the” U.N. court, said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to the Africa division of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
The Spanish case also goes beyond the work of the U.N. court because it includes crimes allegedly committed in refugee camps in neighboring countries where the Tanzania-based international tribunal does not have jurisdiction.
Kagame has previously been accused of plotting the downing of the presidential aircraft, a charge he denied.
The allegations first appeared in French media in 2004.
Two years later, a French judge indicted nine senior Rwandan officials close to Kagame. But arrest warrants for those men have been routinely flouted in Africa, Des Forges said, and the case has languished.
Andreu opened his investigation based on complaints from the families of six Spanish priests and three Spanish doctors slain in Rwanda. In 2005, several African groups petitioned the judge to include Rwandan victims, and, under the universal jurisdiction doctrine, Andreu agreed to expand the indictment.
“This is the kind of thing that can and should happen when you have massive crimes that have essentially gone unpunished,” said Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch.
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wilkinson@latimes.com
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f745075e2124e7a6f89d7ce06e087062 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-07-me-britney7-story.html | Spears is released from UCLA hospital psychiatric ward | Spears is released from UCLA hospital psychiatric ward
Singer Britney Spears was released from a psychiatric ward at the UCLA Medical Center on Wednesday after nearly a week of treatment and later checked briefly into the Beverly Hills Hotel, trailed by a parade of paparazzi, authorities said.
The release prompted an angry response from the performer’s parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears, who issued a joint statement suggesting that her freedom posed a threat to her life.
“As parents of an adult child in the throes of a mental health crisis, we were extremely disappointed this morning to learn that over the recommendation of her treating psychiatrist, our daughter Britney was released from the hospital that could best care for her and keep her safe,” the statement read.
“We are deeply concerned about our daughter’s safety and vulnerability and we believe her life is presently at risk. There are conservatorship orders in place created to protect our daughter that are being blatantly disregarded. We ask only that the court’s orders be enforced so that a tragedy may be averted.”
The statement came after eight hours of erratic behavior on the part of the performer.
After being released from the hospital, Spears made a brief stop around noon at her gated Coldwater Canyon home.
She then took the wheel of her black Mercedes sports car and headed west.
The paparazzi at times hopped out of their vehicles and surrounded her car in traffic, snapping shots of the 26-year-old pop star, authorities said.
Beverly Hills police went to the hotel about 3:20 p.m. in response to a call “to keep the peace,” Lt. Tony Lee said. Police did not stop Spears or detain any paparazzi, and she later drove from the hotel, Lee said.
Spears was admitted to the medical facility Jan. 31 under Section 5150 of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code, which greatly restricts the ability of government officials to hospitalize an individual against their will, but allows a person to be held for 72 hours for evaluation.
Spears’ hold was later extended to two weeks.
Release in such cases is contingent on a finding the patient is not a danger to herself or others.
A UCLA Medical Center spokeswoman declined to comment, citing patient privacy.
Spears’ father and an attorney have been granted temporary conservatorship over her and her estate. Spears’ mother, in an application for a restraining order, accused her daughter’s friend and sometime manager, Sam Lutfi, of cutting the singer’s phone lines, disabling her vehicles and grinding up pills to place in her food. An order was issued barring Lutfi from coming within 250 yards of the pop star.
According to sources, Spears’ father filed a grand theft report after the singer was hospitalized, alleging that paintings, jewelry and other valuables had been taken from her home.
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andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
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richard.winton@latimes.com
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99601527ef85855bdc390ae7cbc1894d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-07-me-calif7-story.html | How the voting shook both parties | How the voting shook both parties
In the end, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s California campaign was carried to victory by voters like Maria Hernandez of Boyle Heights, who cast her first vote for Bill Clinton and returned Tuesday to do the same for his wife.
Clinton’s victory -- a romp compared with some of the predictions just before election day -- rested on the twin pillars of women and Latinos, groups that overlapped in the person of voters like Hernandez.
The campaign put up a fierce fight for women who vote by mail, calling and re-calling until they turned in their ballots. And then Clinton’s aides aimed their organizational firepower at the Latino community.
The efforts paid off. Women backed Clinton 59% to 36%, contributing to a giant gender gap compared with men, who sided narrowly with Barack Obama, according to an exit poll by a consortium of news organizations.
Latinos went for Clinton by a 2-1 margin. What made that margin even more significant was that Latinos made up a record proportion of the electorate. Three in 10 of those who voted in the Democratic primary were Latino, the exit poll said, almost double the proportion in 2004.
Latino political strength has grown substantially over the last several elections in California, pushed along by the growing Latino population. In 2000, only 7% of the primary electorate was Latino, according to a Times exit poll.
The increased power can also be seen in the number of Latino elected officials in the state, many of whom endorsed Clinton and provided her with an influential base of support.
Clinton -- who had difficulty among California’s non-Latino white voters, splitting them with Obama -- was hoping to press her advantage among women and Latinos in future states. Of the major states with primaries still to come, however, none but Texas, which votes March 4, has a particularly large number of Latino voters.
For Clinton, the California victory marked a reassertion of the power of a traditional campaign, after weeks in which the insurgent, if well-funded, Obama effort steadily cut into her advantage in pre-election polls.
Clinton started with an advantage among three important overlapping sectors of the Democratic Party in California: women, Latinos and voters with lower incomes. She has run well among those groups in other states, and the campaign’s goal was to keep the streak going.
One target was mail-in voters, who tend to be more white, more female and more Northern Californian by residence than voters overall. Women in particular were targeted with mailers, beginning in November. Campaign officials mined data at each registrar’s office to determine who had voted and who had not.
Making more than 1 1/2 million phone calls, “we literally vote-by-vote rounded up” those voters, said Ace Smith, Clinton’s campaign director in California.
While that effort was targeting mail-in voters, another was pressing Latinos, who had backed former President Clinton during his administration, to side with his wife. If gender helped Hillary Clinton among the women mail-in voters, tradition helped her with Latino voters.
Clinton’s early endorsements included United Farm Workers icon Dolores Huerta, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. In the closing days of the campaign, Los Angeles County supervisor Gloria Molina endorsed her. She also had in her corner a number of popular Latina members of Congress.
Among most voters, endorsements carry little weight. But the Latino endorsements deepened Clinton’s volunteer ranks and offered her the borrowed credibility of people who had cachet where it counted.
“There is still a lot of trust and reverence for that community that does not exist in other communities anymore,” Smith said. And, since many of the Latino members of Congress and the Legislature are women, “being a woman of stature is a huge positive,” he said.
Clinton’s emphasis on healthcare and the economy also helped, allowing her to trade on the prosperity that many Latinos enjoyed during her husband’s administration.
The Obama campaign, by contrast, aired Spanish-language radio ads promoting his support for issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. That was a “classic Northeastern assumption” that licenses were the primary concern of Latinos, according to Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC.
“It’s not. I think he would have had much more traction on issues like education, or the loss of jobs . . . issues that resonate with Latino homeowners,” Pachon said.
Obama had some influential Latino supporters, particularly Maria Elena Durazo, head of the 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. She said the Clinton name still carries heft with Latinos because of the relative prosperity of the 1990s.
“There’s no doubt we made tremendous progress in the Latino community, but there was no way we could close the gap. It was just too deep,” Durazo said.
Clinton’s dominance in Latino neighborhoods contributed to a huge margin in the state’s most populous county, Los Angeles. By late Wednesday, vote tallies showed her winning L.A. by more than 162,000 votes. That dwarfed Obama’s margins in his Bay Area power base, where his leads in Alameda, San Francisco and Marin counties totaled only 37,000 votes combined.
State officials were still not saying how many Californians voted Tuesday. Determining turnout was complicated by the massive tide of both precinct voters and mail-in balloters. But turnout was expected to exceed the 54% reached in the 2000 presidential primary, the last in which both major parties had contested races.
Stephen Weir, head of the state association of elections officials, estimated Wednesday that up to 2 million ballots remained uncounted. An additional 450,000 provisional ballots, filed when there is a dispute at a polling place, were also uncounted, according to Weir, the clerk-recorder of Contra Costa County.
Elections officials have until March 4 to complete their tally, on which rests the division of party delegates. Both the 170 Republican delegates and most of the 370 Democratic delegates will be apportioned according to the results in the state’s congressional districts.
Among Republicans, California winner John McCain, the U.S. senator from Arizona, was expected to pick up almost all of the delegates. Democratic delegates, parceled out under a complicated formula, were expected to be more split, with a narrow majority going to Clinton.
The exit poll showed the roller-coaster ride of the Democratic campaign. Those who decided in the last month, as Obama soared after the Iowa caucuses, backed the Illinois senator. Voters who decided a week before election day went with Clinton. Those who decided within three days of Tuesday’s vote went with Obama. Election day deciders went to Clinton.
Untouched by all the tumult were the four-in-10 voters who said they had decided long ago to go with Clinton and had remained loyal. Included in that group was Boyle Heights resident Hernandez, whose vote for Bill Clinton in 1996 was her first as a naturalized citizen.
“He was a confident person,” said Hernandez, who was born in Mexico. “She will be too.”
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cathleen.decker@latimes.com
phil.willon@latimes.com
Times staff writer Paloma Esquivel contributed to this report.
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58fcf0680e9a1d2190beffb6106d9799 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-07-na-movie7-story.html | Anti-Clinton film group challenges funding law | Anti-Clinton film group challenges funding law
Television ads promoting movies are not the normal business of politics or the courts, but they are this month because conservative activists are seeking a wide audience for “Hillary: The Movie.”
David N. Bossie, who made a name for himself as a relentless investigator of the Clintons during the 1990s, has released a 90-minute documentary on the New York senator. His targets include not just her but the campaign-funding regulatory law known as McCain-Feingold, one of the signal legislative accomplishments of another presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Bossie’s group is challenging the law’s limits on its efforts to promote the movie and has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The litigation underscores the difficulty of drawing lines when money, politics and free-speech principles clash.
“Hillary: The Movie” includes a series of interviews with Clinton critics, including Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Dick Morris. “If you want to hear about the Clinton scandals of the past and present, you have it here!” Citizens United, Bossie’s group, says on its website.
The nonprofit corporation is free to promote its movie and sell DVDs on its website. But one provision of McCain-Feingold makes it illegal to use corporate or union money for “any broadcast, cable or satellite communication” if it “refers to a clearly identified candidate for federal office” within 30 days of a primary election or a convention or within 60 days of a general election. That “blackout period,” as it is known, has covered California and much of the nation for the last month as the primary elections were pending.
McCain and other sponsors of the bill wanted to stop the slew of corporate-funded broadcast ads on the eve of an election.
For more than a century, corporations have been barred from spending money to elect or defeat federal candidates. In the 1980s, however, the federal rules freed corporations and other groups to run “issue ads.” In short order, these ads evolved into thinly veiled attacks that mocked a candidate’s stand on an issue and urged viewers and the listeners to “send a message” to Sen. Smith or Rep. Jones.
The McCain-Feingold Act, which went into effect in 2002, was written broadly to bar such election-eve ads. It covered nonprofit corporations as well as moneymaking firms. And it was triggered by the mere mention of the candidate’s name.
That posed an obvious problem for Bossie and his group:
“How can you advertise this movie without mentioning the name ‘Hillary’?” asked James Bopp Jr., a 1st Amendment lawyer representing Citizens United.
In December, the group said it wanted to run 30-second ads on Fox News and other television outlets calling attention to the movie and went to court seeking an order that would shield it from the law. Bopp argued that what he termed “core political speech” deserved full free-speech protection under the 1st Amendment.
This is not a new argument for Bopp. Last year he won a major ruling in the Supreme Court that relaxed the ban on corporate-funded broadcast ads. In that case, he was representing the Wisconsin Right to Life Committee, a nonprofit group that wanted to broadcast radio ads urging its senators, including Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), to support President Bush’s judicial nominees.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court said that such lobbying ads were protected. “The 1st Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it,” wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Now, Bopp is hoping to get the court’s attention with “Hillary: The Movie.”
But his chances may have been dimmed when he won a partial victory Jan. 15. A three-judge panel ruled that the movie itself is akin to a campaign ad and cannot be broadcast on television. It tells “the electorate that Sen. Clinton is unfit for office . . . and that viewers should vote against her,” they said. However, they said that brief ads for the film could be broadcast because “they proposed a commercial transaction -- buy the DVD of The Movie.”
But in a third conclusion, the judges said the ads for the movie are still subject to the law, and Citizens United therefore must disclose who donated money to support the film.
The group has refused to accept that requirement, and Bopp has now asked the Supreme Court to intervene and to strike down the disclosure rules for political ads.
“If you must disclose your contributors, you are subjecting them to harassment and intimidation,” he said. “It also chills their willingness to give money.”
For his part, Bossie said, he was inspired by Michael Moore, a left-leaning filmmaker whose documentaries have targeted Bush, among others. “I saw the impact Moore was having. I realized the long-form documentary could be a powerful tool to deliver a political message,” he said.
Bossie also sought to use the campaign laws against Moore. In 2004, he complained to the Federal Election Commission about Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11" because it was a political attack on Bush. It was also being advertised as the president ran for reelection.
Because Bush did not have to win in Republican primaries that year, the ad ban was not triggered until a month before the GOP convention. And just in time, Moore’s lawyer told the FEC that ads for “Fahrenheit 9/11" would no longer mention or depict Bush. The FEC then voted to drop the complaint.
“This shows the danger of trying to regulate all these things,” said Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC chairman and a critic of the campaign-funding laws. “Do we really want to go down the road of having a federal agency decide whether you can broadcast ads for a movie or a book?”
Still, some election-law experts doubt that the court will intervene in this case. “This does not involve a ban on speech,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “And I don’t think there’s an appetite for weakening the disclosure laws.”
The high court will not decide whether to consider the issue until the end of next week at the earliest. If it takes the case, a ruling would likely come in June.
In the meantime, Bossie and his group will be able to advertise their movie only in states that have already had their primaries, including California, Florida, Illinois and New York.
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david.savage@latimes.com
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6158e9278c9db2c7ccfd1b6543792a41 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-08-me-craigs8-story.html | Craigslist ad linked to alleged plot to kill rival | Craigslist ad linked to alleged plot to kill rival
It was a Craigslist ad to die for.
A federal grand jury here has accused a 48-year-old woman of taking out an ad on the website to try to hire someone to kill her lover’s wife for $5,000.
Ann Marie Linscott, a Rockford, Mich., mother of two teenagers who has been married for two decades, was indicted on three counts of attempted murder-for-hire this week in the foiled Internet plot.
Three people answered her help-wanted ad, titled simply “Freelance,” figuring it was for a home-based business or writing.
But when they responded to the e-mail address “bourne2run,” Linscott said that she was seeking “silent assassins” willing to “eradicate” a Northern California woman named Carol, according to a government affidavit. Carol is the 56-year-old wife of the lover Linscott met online, FBI agents said.
Instead of going along with the alleged murder-for-hire scheme, the three who answered the ad went to the police.
Linscott was arrested Jan. 24 at her family’s home in the suburbs of Grand Rapids. A federal magistrate in Michigan has ordered her transferred to California, but earlier this week David Kaczor, Linscott’s attorney, won a two-week stay in his attempt to reach a plea bargain with prosecutors.
Kaczor said in court papers that Linscott hopes to plead guilty in Michigan and be sentenced there, closer to her family. “It would serve the interest of justice and convenience,” Kaczor said.
“It’s a pretty unusual case,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Michelle Rodriguez, who filed the case in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
Rodriguez declined to discuss details but said “there are discussions” about transferring the case to Michigan.
Linscott’s husband, John Linscott, said at a hearing last week that he intends to stand by his wife, a former Coast Guard recruit who now works as a massage therapist. He denied the two were having marital difficulties.
But court papers filed by the FBI describe how the love Ann Marie Linscott found on the Internet allegedly turned into homicidal obsession.
According to agents, Linscott encountered her lover, identified only as a married resident of Oroville, Calif., while both were taking an online college course in 2004 or 2005.
Their conversations led to a long and intimate cyberspace relationship. They met in July 2005 in Reno, Nev., and then again months later at his home in Butte County.
Linscott told her lover she intended to move to Northern California to be nearer to him, the affidavit said. He told agents that they communicated regularly by phone and by e-mail.
She allegedly began attempting to hire a hit man last November, when she placed the ad on Craigslist. In e-mail messages, Linscott told those who replied to her ad that her only fear was that the murder might lead police to her. She told one of the respondents that she would pay $5,000 plus expenses. “This IS a serious proposition,” she wrote, according to court papers.
Officials at Craigslist said this is the first time the website has been used in such a plot -- and they’re not surprised the people who responded to the ad did the right thing. Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist CEO, said that the vigilance of Craigslist users and the fact that the website provides a trail of “electronic evidence” for any subsequent investigation makes it an “inhospitable place for felonious activity, and an unwise choice for would-be criminals.”
Alerted to the scheme, federal agents questioned Linscott’s lover and then swooped down on her Michigan home.
FBI Special Agent Islam Omar said in an affidavit that when agents showed Linscott copies of e-mails, she told them she had used computers at her home and at Grand Rapids Community College.
Investigators asked Linscott -- who could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted -- what she meant in one e-mail by the word “eradicate.” Her response: “Duh. Well, to have her killed.”
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eric.bailey@latimes.com
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4ba49df3aec03e712c12d55783aa7e86 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-08-me-profiles8-story.html | Officer’s work was a calling | Officer’s work was a calling
Patrolling Watts one day years ago, Los Angeles Police Capt. James Craig spotted a van in the street with a crowd of children gathered around.
The van’s occupant looked familiar. It was his former partner, Officer Randal Simmons, a rising star, in plain clothes and off-duty, doing what few other cops would do: He was trolling the same neighborhoods where he usually made arrests, looking for children to mentor as part of a church ministry.
As Craig watched, he noticed that Simmons knew the children’s first names, their personal struggles and their problems with gangs.
It was a typical effort by an officer for whom police work was more than just a job. The calling extended into the rest of his life -- from mentoring youth in South Los Angeles to charity efforts.
“Passionate about the job and passionate about making a difference in the community” is how Craig described him.
Simmons had been on the police force 27 years, 20 of them in SWAT, when he was mortally wounded early Thursday morning after he and other SWAT team members broke through the front door of a San Fernando Valley home where a gunman had killed family members. Police said they entered the home believing wounded people might be inside and others could be at risk of being shot and killed.
Simmons, 51, had tried as a young man for a career as a professional football player and was active in Police Department sports leagues, playing for the Centurions, the LAPD’s football club, and running in charity races. “He was a very outgoing guy, always smiling, always a kind word for everyone,” said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck.
On the job, the father of two -- a son, 15, and daughter, 13 -- stood out for his kindness and steady temperament. Simmons, originally from New York City, was the son of a minister, according to his former partner, retired LAPD Det. Gregory Grant. Simmons graduated from Fairfax High School in 1974, where he ran varsity track, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said.
He studied criminology at Washington State University, and wore No. 17 as a cornerback in 1976, 1977 and 1978. His final year, he was a varsity starter, according to the university’s sports information office.
Although Simmons was the strongest guy on the team, able to bench-press more than 400 pounds, his friend and college teammate Greg Sykes remembers with a laugh that Simmons “couldn’t catch a ball to save his life.”
Teammates would joke that the ball would hit Simmons anywhere but his hands, Sykes said.
After college, Simmons was briefly a Dallas Cowboys hopeful, friends said. But his pro football dreams were cut short by an injury, and he turned to police work. In 1981, he was assigned as a probationary officer to the LAPD’s Pacific Division, one of three African American probationers in the region at that time, Craig said.
Later, he worked in the South Bureau’s gang squad, known then as CRASH.
Grant said Simmons was a physically imposing officer -- “an Adonis” -- known for his superb physical fitness, for connecting with people and for maintaining his calm. Size alone was not the reason he had so few confrontations on the job. “We just talked to people. We had them laughing on the way to jail,” Grant said. “He was really able to communicate with people -- able to extract information from unwilling people. He made them comfortable, and put humanity into it.”
When he encountered resistance, he appealed to people’s sense of right and wrong, Grant said. Only the most pathological suspects did not respond, he said.
Simmons also worked as an officer in the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, the high-crime precinct that covers Hyde Park and part of the Crenshaw area, and as a vice officer in the Southeast Division in Watts in the 1980s, Craig said. During that stint, Simmons was shot and suffered a minor injury, Craig said. When Simmons was promoted to SWAT, one of the department’s most elite and highly coveted jobs, his calm negotiating style stood out in standoffs with suspects in high-pressure hostage situations.
Rick Massa, Simmons’ longtime SWAT team partner and colleague, recalled Simmons’ cool head under fire during a hostage negotiation in 1992.
Officers were trying to rescue a maid held captive at an airport hotel by religious zealot Rollen Frederick Stewart, better known as Rainbow Man, for the multicolored wigs he wore at televised sporting events. Massa said he couldn’t get through to Stewart, so he called on Simmons.
Simmons chatted with Stewart for hours, dissecting the meaning of various biblical passages from morning through the evening, buying officers precious time to formulate a plan and rescue the hotel employee.
One of his assignments in SWAT was to be the contact person for charity efforts, including an annual toy drive at Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital south of downtown.
He was “not only incredibly friendly, but really interested in being of service. You could tell,” said Jeffrey Klein, former head of fundraising for Orthopaedic Hospital, now with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.
Simmons’ Christian faith was central to his character. Friends recalled him gently prodding them to go to church, to “get right with God.”
He prodded them about health matters too, telling them to drink soy milk and offering workout pointers. At 51, said Det. Donald Payne, a football friend, he looked 31. “Some people defy time,” he said.
Simmons was helping his church, Glory Christian Fellowship International in Carson, build a gymnasium, and would head straight for the facility after working out, Massa said.
With the church’s support, he worked off-hours mentoring youth in South Los Angeles, Craig said.
His youth ministry absorbed his off-hours, said his SWAT partner of seven years, Officer James Hart, 48.
On Sunday mornings, he picked up children from the Hacienda Village and Avalon Gardens housing developments, and drove them to services at Glory Christian. Hart recalled working crime-suppression patrols in the Avalon Gardens area. Simmons would ask, “James, you mind if I go check on my babies?” And they would drive over to visit some of the children he ministered to. “It was amazing, they would see him, and all these kids would just light up and yell, ‘Randy! Randy!’ ”
Simmons excelled at making arrests, Hart said. On patrol, the two men were “like sharks,” Hart said, observing, waiting -- homing in on a drug deal here, a stolen car there.
They disagreed on some subjects -- Simmons’ devotion to the Raiders, for instance -- but in action, they were in sync, communicating in their own secret code of Judo terms.
In the gym, a few days ago, Hart recalled Simmons striding in wearing a blue beanie, white shirt and black high-tops with no socks.
To his co-workers, he looked like a jailbird. And they were merciless.
“I gotta suspect right here outta Folsom!” Hart announced. “Hey, what’s your CDC number?” Simmons laughed and played along.
Hart was at home when he got the phone call summoning him to the hospital. Simmons was already dead.
“He was just a beautiful personality. I never had a brother, an older brother, but he was truly my brother,” Hart said. “Randy would say, even about this man who cost him his life, ‘Pray for him.’ ”
With 20 years on the job, he could have easily retired, colleagues said, but chose not to because he liked the work.
At the same time, he was a devoted family man.
His marriage, to Lisa, over some two decades impressed colleagues in a profession notorious for destroying relationships, Grant said.
Grant recalled Simmons on his wedding day. The athletic, confident, muscular police officer had a whole different mien at the altar, he said.
“He was trembling, tears running off his chin,” Grant recalled.
Simmons is survived by his wife, his two children, his parents and other family members.
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jill.leovy@latimes.com
andrew.blankstein @latimes.com
Times staff writers Susannah Rosenblatt and Sam Farmer contributed to this report.
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e352aa1ecb367d7c77f02598a95a531e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-08-oe-stein8-story.html | The cult of Obama | The cult of Obama
You are embarrassing yourselves. With your “Yes We Can” music video, your “Fired Up, Ready to Go” song, your endless chatter about how he’s the first one to inspire you, to make you really feel something -- it’s as if you’re tacking photos of Barack Obama to your locker, secretly slipping him little notes that read, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Some of you even cry at his speeches. If I were Obama, and you voted for me, I would so never call you again.
Obamaphilia has gotten creepy. I couldn’t figure out if the two canvassers who came to my door Sunday had taken Ecstasy or were just fantasizing about an Obama presidency, but I feared they were going to hug me. Scarlett Johansson called me twice, asking me to vote for him. She’d never even called me once about anything else. Not even to see “The Island.”
What the Cult of Obama doesn’t realize is that he’s a politician. Not a brave one taking risky positions like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, but a mainstream one. He has not been firing up the Senate with stirring Cross-of-Gold-type speeches to end the war. He’s a politician so soft and safe, Oprah likes him. There’s talk about his charisma and good looks, but I know a nerd when I see one. The dude is Urkel with a better tailor.
All of this is clear to me, and yet I have fallen victim. I was at an Obama rally in Las Vegas last month, hanging at the rope line afterward in the cold night desert air, just to see him up close, to make sure he was real. I’d never heard a politician talk so bluntly, calling U.S. immigration policy “scapegoating” and “demagoguery.” I’d never had even a history teacher argue that our nation’s history is a series of brave people changing others’ minds when things were on the verge of collapse. I want the man to hope all over me.
Still, I can’t help but feel incredibly embarrassed about my feelings. In the “Yes We Can” music video that will.i.am made of Obama’s Jan. 8 speech, I spotted Eric Christian Olsen, a very smart actor I know. (His line is “Yes we can.”) I called to see if he had gone all bobby-soxer for Obama, or if he was just shrewdly taking a part in a project that upped his Q rating.
Turns out Olsen not only contributed money, he volunteered in Iowa and California and made hundreds of calls. He also sent out a mass e-mail to his friends that contained these lines: “Nothing is more fundamentally powerful than how I felt when I met him. I stood, my hand embraced in his, and ... I felt something ... something that I can only describe as an overpowering sense of Hope.” That’s the gayest e-mail I’ve ever read, and I get notes from guys who’ve seen me on E!
When I started to make fun of Olsen, he said: “I get that it’s a movement. But it’s not like a movement for Nickelback. For the first time, we should feel justified in our passion. You don’t have to feel embarrassed about it, buddy.” It was a convincing argument until he told me he cried during an Obama speech. That did not help me feel less lame.
So to de-Romeo-ize, I called someone immune to Obama’s hottie dreaminess: a white suburban feminist baby boomer. To get two things done at once, I called my mother.
My mom, a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter, immediately attacked Obamamania. “Some part of me wants to say, ‘People wake up. He has no plans.’ I get frustrated listening to his speeches after awhile,” she said. She also said that the new vacation house in Key West is really great and her vertigo hasn’t been acting up.
I started to feel a little more grounded again. Did I want to be some dreamer hippie loser, or a person who understands that change emerges from hard work and conflict? “People are projecting an awful lot onto him,” Mom said. “Almost like what was that movie with, oh, the movie, oh God. That English actor, he practically said nothing. Oh shoot. He was the butler and everybody loved him and what he was thinking and feeling. Do you know the movie I’m talking about? You don’t.” Hers, of course, is the demographic most likely to vote.
But she’s right. Obama is Peter Sellers in “Being There.” As a therapist, she’s seen the danger of ungrounded expectations. “You feel young again. You feel like everything is possible. He helps you feel that way and you want to feel that way; it’s a great marriage. Unfortunately, the divorce will happen very quickly.” Mom is the kind of realistic tough-talker who isn’t afraid to make divorce analogies to a child of divorce.
“We want what he represents,” she said. “A young, idealistic person who really believes it. And he believes it. He believes he can change the world. I just don’t think he can.”
Thing is, I’ve watched too many movies and read too many novels; I can’t root against a person who believes he can change the world. The best we Obamaphiles can do is to refrain from embarrassing ourselves. And I do believe that we can resist making more “We Are the World"-type videos. We can resist crying jags. We can resist, in every dinner argument and every e-mail, the word “inspiration.” Yes, we can.
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jstein@latimescolumnists.com
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a199661aed19c4c98aa50fbf28cb829a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-09-me-grant9-story.html | Photographer shot indelible images for Life magazine | Photographer shot indelible images for Life magazine
Allan Grant, a Life magazine photographer who got the last photo shoot with Marilyn Monroe weeks before her death and the first pictures of Marina Oswald just hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, has died. He was 88.
Grant died Feb. 1 of Parkinson’s-related pneumonia at his home in Brentwood, according to his wife, Karin.
In their glory days, photographers for magazines like Life had extraordinary access to the glamorous worlds of fashion and Hollywood as well as history-making events.
Grant photographed atom bomb tests in the Nevada desert in the early 1950s, as well as Howard Hughes’ memorable 1947 flight in the H-4 airplane that became known as the “Spruce Goose.” He shot the Academy Awards, photographing Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly poised backstage for the best actress announcement at the 1955 ceremonies.
Colleagues recalled that Grant was also a fine spot-news photographer and captured former Vice President Richard Nixon, dressed in slacks and a tie, atop his rented house hosing down the roof during the catastrophic Bel-Air fire of 1961.
Grant photographed Monroe at her home for a Life magazine profile that appeared in the magazine’s Aug. 3, 1962, issue. She died Aug. 5.
In a statement, Richard “Dick” Stolley, the Los Angeles bureau chief for Life magazine in 1963 who later served as the magazine’s managing editor and was founding managing editor of People, recalled Grant as “very handsome and glamorous, two virtues that made him popular in Hollywood.”
But, according to Stolley, Grant was “a newsman too.”
The biggest assignment of the photographer’s career came Nov. 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot in Dallas
After news of the shooting broke, Grant and several other Los Angeles-based staffers flew to Dallas on a commercial flight packed with journalists. Arriving that afternoon, Grant and reporter Thomas Thompson set out to find the family of the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald’s Russian wife Marina, who spoke little English, was living at the home of Ruth Hyde Paine in the nearby town of Irving. Grant and Thompson discovered her there along with her two children and Oswald’s mother, Marguerite.
They stayed with the family all afternoon and eventually persuaded Marina, along with her two babies, Marguerite, Oswald’s brother Robert and Paine, who spoke Russian and acted as an interpreter, to go with them to Dallas. They put the family up in a hotel and promised to help them get rights to visit Oswald in jail. Grant continued to take pictures for their exclusive story.
Grant later told John Loengard in the book “Life Photographers: What They Saw” that when he left, he gave Marina some money, embraced her and wished her well.
“God, she was so confused by it all,” Grant recalled.
The next issue of Life had numerous photos of Jacqueline Kennedy and her children and just one small photo of Marina Oswald.
According to Grant’s wife, the photo and story of the Oswald family did not see print until years later, when many of the images were published in an obscure German magazine.
Grant was born Oct. 23, 1919, in New York City. He turned to photography as a teenager after trading a model airplane to another kid for a camera.
His early work was in a laboratory, where he printed the images of noted photographers, including Robert Capa and Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Grant’s first Life magazine assignment was as a freelancer in 1945 and involved a story about a Connecticut sailing school for kids. His photo made the cover and, 18 months later, his days of freelancing were over. He was hired by Life in 1946 and stayed with the magazine until the late 1960s.
After leaving Life, Grant produced educational documentaries. He received three Emmy nominations for his TV film “What Color Is the Wind?” -- based on a story about twin boys, one born blind, that had appeared in Life.
Grant told Loengard that during his shoot with Monroe, she was concerned about the lights.
“She asked me if the light was OK, and I said, ‘To tell you the truth, this is the first time I’ve done a portrait, and I really don’t know where the lights should be.’ She took that seriously. Her publicist said, ‘Allan, for God’s sake, don’t fool with Marilyn that way.’
“It’s a joke,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
In addition to his wife, Grant is survived by daughter Kristina, sons Richard and Ronald and three grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held at a later date.
jon.thurber@latimes.com
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18777d41d161c62166fc59c04f8cfc3a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-09-na-tornado9-story.html | Seeing God in storms’ wake | Seeing God in storms’ wake
God is not an abstraction at Union University. Here, business classes might begin with a prayer. Biology students are encouraged to take creationism as seriously as they do evolution.
So what does it say about the nature of God that the campus was shredded Tuesday by a barrage of tornadoes? What does it say that no lives were lost, despite $40 million in damage?
Gregory A. Thornbury is relishing the opportunity to explore those questions when students return to the Southern Baptist campus, perhaps in the next few weeks. Thornbury, dean of Union’s school of Christian studies, says he plans to make the disaster -- and the response to it -- a catalyst for student discussions about responding through faith, and the opaque and sometimes baffling motives of God.
“If we didn’t, we’d have blown it,” Thornbury said Thursday, standing on the squishy carpet of the religious studies library. “We’re preparing people to become teachers of God’s word, to be missionaries, to be the leaders of relief organizations.”
As students returned to the west Tennessee campus to claim their smashed and overturned cars from the 1,000 that were wrecked by Tuesday’s winds, they marveled at the scope of the damage. All but one of Union’s 33 buildings had been hit; some fell to pieces.
They wondered how anyone managed to survive, and they wrestled aloud with the role God may have played in it all.
“I know God kept everyone at this school safe,” said Amber Campagna, 18, a freshman. “I don’t know why God let it happen -- but I really believe he was testing every student here.”
Crediting good fortune to providence is not uncommon at Union. When the $20-million science building was dedicated last year, Roy L. White, the primary donor, said: “I think God has got his hand on Union University.”
But Thornbury, a clean-cut, smiling presence in glasses and a wind-breaker, warned that guessing the mind of God was a tricky proposition for humans. To make his point, he quoted from Deuteronomy: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.”
God’s motive for destroying the school, he said, “is probably in the realm of the things that belong to the Lord. . . . But what we can say is: ‘Look at the solidarity here. Why do we have people from the whole country rallying around this cause?’ I think that says something about what God has revealed to us.”
Though he expects the tornadoes will spark vigorous theological discussions in class, Thornbury said that the true lesson -- that people should respond to suffering with love and compassion -- was already manifesting itself.
Spokesman Tim Ellsworth noted that all 1,800 students living on campus had found a place to stay after they were evacuated Tuesday night. Since then, clothing donations and offers of help have been pouring in.
On Thursday, students and volunteers hustled to pack books and papers and remove them from Jennings Hall. The columned, neoclassical home of the Christian studies department suffered roof damage, broken windows and rain damage.
Young people swarmed other parts of the campus, happy to reconnect with friends as they salvaged what they could out of trashed dorms and wrecked cars.
Thornbury, who is also the campus pastor, interrupted a conversation when his cellphone rang with news of two students who remained in intensive care.
Later he discussed some of the lessons that could be taught. He spoke of Job, the good man whom God allowed to be burdened with great misfortunes.
He spoke of Rodney Stark, the contemporary sociologist who has argued that early Christian communities thrived in Greco-Roman cities thanks to the mutual aid they provided during disasters and plagues. “It’s not a religion of fear,” Thornbury said.
In the parking lot, a serene Alaina Bare picked out a few things from her PT Cruiser. It was dented and streaked with mud, and the windows were smashed. “I’m just thankful I’m alive,” said Bare, 22, who was raised in Ecuador by Christian missionary parents. “These things don’t really matter at all. God completely protected our lives, and that’s what matters.”
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richard.fausset@latimes.com
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71189ed2798aac6128607350940acf6c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-09-na-waiver9-story.html | California congressman subpoenas EPA | California congressman subpoenas EPA
The chairman of a key congressional committee issued a subpoena Friday to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to turn over documents on its decision to deny California permission to implement its own global warming laws.
Escalating the fight over the decision, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, directed the EPA to provide uncensored copies of its staff recommendation to agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson before he rejected California’s request to enact tailpipe emission standards stricter than the federal government’s. The EPA was told to respond by noon Tuesday.
“The committee is simply trying to understand if the decision to reject California’s plan was made on the merits, so I’m especially disappointed that EPA is refusing to provide the relevant documents voluntarily,” Waxman said. “But we will to try to get to the bottom of this.”
An EPA spokesman said the agency has not allowed congressional investigators to photocopy “sensitive internal documents,” but has let them inspect them under the supervision of agency employees. “They’ve seen all of these documents, everything,” said spokesman Jonathan Shradar.
The EPA has also turned over some documents, but they were heavily redacted, so much so that some pages were largely blank. The agency has resisted turning over nonredacted documents to Congress, contending that they are protected under attorney-client privilege. California and more than a dozen other states that want to enact similar laws have sued to overturn Johnson’s decision.
The agency has also argued that releasing the documents could have a “chilling effect” on candid discussions within the EPA. Vice President Dick Cheney also cited the need to keep internal deliberations private in fighting congressional efforts to force him to disclose details of private meetings he held as the White House drafted its energy policy, an initiative sparked in part by another California issue -- the 2000-01 electricity crisis.
The subpoena comes as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has given the EPA until Friday to provide similar records, including correspondence with the White House.
Boxer and Waxman have each launched investigations into whether Johnson acted against the recommendations of his legal and scientific staff.
Twenty-two senators from both parties are sponsoring legislation to overturn the decision.
On Friday, a group of senators, led by Boxer, also asked Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, to launch an investigation into the EPA’s decision.
Johnson has said he reached his decision independently, denying charges that he was swayed by political pressure from the White House or the auto industry.
Shradar said the congressional investigations are “not going to change the administrator’s decision. He still stands by his decision.”
Johnson has contended that fuel-economy rules in the recently enacted federal energy legislation would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the United States, a national approach that he has said is preferable to a “patchwork of state rules.”
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richard.simon@latimes.com
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45b5622da010e0f33a1d657698dd138f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-10-me-yahoo10-story.html | Yahoo is expected to reject offer | Yahoo is expected to reject offer
Yahoo Inc.'s board of directors plans to reject Microsoft Corp.'s week-old $44.6-billion takeover offer, a person familiar with the matter said Saturday, marking the latest move in a chess match over the future of the Internet pioneer.
The board plans to formally notify Microsoft in a letter Monday that it has determined that the $31-a-share bid takes advantage of a recent slump in the stock, fails to reflect the true value of the company and neglects to offset the risk to Yahoo if regulators overturn the merger, said the person, who is close to Yahoo management.
Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at investment firm Oppenheimer & Co., agreed. “The reward has to match the level of risk,” he said.
Microsoft now must decide whether to sweeten its bid or pursue a hostile takeover.
Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment Saturday.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has been prepared to raise its price if necessary, said a person who spoke with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer last week. Ballmer told this person that he wanted to get a deal done before administration changes in the U.S. and the European Union, which could make it more difficult to receive regulatory approval for big mergers.
“Obviously the million-dollar question is: Is this just a negotiating ploy or is it the real thing?” said Anthony Valencia, media and entertainment analyst at investment firm TCW Group in Los Angeles.
Despite investors’ impatience with Yahoo, the bid might undervalue the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, Valencia said.
Moreover, the half-cash, half-stock bid has dropped in value to $29.08 a share because Microsoft’s stock has tumbled since it made its offer public Feb. 1.
Analysts widely anticipated that Yahoo would attempt to wrest a higher bid from the world’s largest software maker even though no other bidders have emerged.
They say Microsoft probably is willing to offer as much as $36 a share. That was reflected in Yahoo’s stock price, which rose 16 cents to $29.20 on Friday, above the value of the offer. Yahoo shares traded as high as $31 as recently as November.
Yahoo is angling for as much as $40 a share, analysts say, an increase of about $12 billion to the offer. That might drive Microsoft’s share price even lower.
“Bottom line, Microsoft will have to work a little harder and pay a little more, but at the end of the day, I am still convinced that this is a deal that happens,” Standard & Poor’s equity analyst Scott Kessler said.
Many senior executives at Yahoo believe a deal with Microsoft is inevitable, said a former executive who requested anonymity.
“I am pretty sure if they can get the offer up into the mid-30s, they’ll take it,” the person said.
The decision to reject Microsoft, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, came out of a Friday board meeting in which directors met by phone. They heard presentations from Yahoo’s management and bankers, who contended that the company was worth more than what Microsoft bid. They also reviewed other options.
Microsoft is expected to try everything it can to avoid a hostile takeover that could increase the odds of regulators opposing the combination. Yahoo has “poison pill” anti-takeover provisions but not a staggered board. That means Microsoft could nominate its own slate of directors and try to oust the board to overturn the provisions.
“This is likely to be a long, drawn-out process,” corporate governance expert Patrick McGurn said.
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jessica.guynn@latimes.com
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3f039f22f3bde6e1a92967b9d3a2c89b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-11-et-channel11-story.html | A fairly happy ending | A fairly happy ending
LET’S not kid ourselves. This town is so desperate to get back to work it’s like that girl auditioning on “American Idol” last week, who would have gladly given Simon Cowell her dog if he’d just put her through to Hollywood.
Well, three-plus months of unemployment can strike the fear of Peter Chernin into anyone. With the Writers Guild of America leaders claiming a “huge victory” on Sunday and recommending that members ratify a new three-year agreement with studios and networks, it looks as if the 14-week writers strike could be over as soon as Wednesday. In fact, many top TV producers will be back at the grind as you read this (OK, some never really stopped, but that’s another story).
Before the euphoria fades and the contractual details of the deal are forgotten like last Sunday’s Super Bowl score, though, it’s an appropriate time to ask: Was it worth it? Did guild leaders gain enough yardage to justify effectively shutting down the TV business and damaging the film industry, putting tens of thousands of people out of work as recession clouds darken on the horizon?
In a word, yes. Against formidable odds, some well-earned skepticism and endless carping from nonwriting workers who viewed themselves as collateral damage in a provincial border war, guild officials stuck to their guns and negotiated a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that, while maybe not a historic win for labor, improves some terms from the recent Directors Guild of America contract, offers a blueprint for future payouts on digital media and even eases some of the pain of the oft-lamented 1988 contract, in which writers failed to achieve their objectives despite a five-month walkout.
“It’s the best deal we could have gotten under the circumstances,” Howard A. Rodman, a screenwriter and member of the guild’s board of directors, told me Sunday. “It accomplished the main goal we wanted when we set out on strike, which was that as the business shifted from television sets and movies to new media, we wouldn’t be left behind. And we got that.”
The main advance for the writers comes in the area of residual payments for material broadcast over the Internet and other digital media. As the market for network TV reruns ebbs, industry players expect Web streaming to start spitting out cash in coming years. The writers were especially sensitive about this issue because they believe they were shafted out of millions of dollars in DVD revenue as a result of home-video deals made during the 1980s.
The DGA agreed to a flat fee for material used on the Web, but the writers, in the third year of their contract, will get something far better: a percentage of the distributor’s gross receipts. Why does this matter? First, it’s proportional. On the off chance that Web streaming does explode into a commercial leviathan, writers will reap the benefits, as opposed to collecting a fee that could wind up looking like a consolation prize. And more important, writers will be paid off the gross that’s actually connected to a retailer’s price -- say, the $1.99 iTunes charges for a TV episode -- as opposed to the less-impressive “producer’s gross,” which entails complicated formulas that require a platoon of accountants to unpack.
As Rodman put it, “If everybody trusted everyone else’s bookkeeping, fine.” But as anyone who’s followed the glorious history of Hollywood “net-profit” deals knows, people who don’t have good contracts with airtight terms usually wind up in tears or in court.
Now, all of this does not mean that the tentative agreement is nirvana for Hollywood’s scribe tribe. Some guild dissenters are already attacking a provision that says the studios don’t have to pay any residual on streamed content for up to 24 days after its initial airing. This term exists because the studios don’t want to have to fork over cash every time a DVR user queues up a show a week or two after its original airdate. But critics say it gives the studio bosses a significant loophole to exploit.
Nor does the deal extend to jurisdiction over reality and animation writers, which Patric Verrone, president of the guild’s West Coast branch, had promised members would be in the next contract. Many in the guild say officials merely used the issue as a stalking horse for the much more vital area of new-media residuals.
But if the guild is really serious about expanding its membership -- as it seems to be -- then it will need to engage in the arduous work of unionizing reality and animated shows one by one and also make moves toward mending relations with its sister guilds, AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), which were seriously damaged in this strike.
Most important, once the relief and giddiness of the strike’s end pass, TV writers in particular are going to confront an altered landscape. There may not be as many opportunities as in the past, and those that remain may simply not be as lucrative, with or without residual payments.
“The TV business will be a different business going forward,” said Jonathan Taplin, a digital media specialist and USC adjunct professor. “It will be slimmed down; there will be less pilots being commissioned and made. It’s just going to be a tighter business.”
Exactly what that will look like, only time will tell. But it’s a safe bet that people who ply their trade on Final Draft aren’t going to go obsolete any time soon.
For now, the important thing to remember is that for the first time in a very long time, a Hollywood craft union struck for an important set of principles and actually came back from the bargaining table with something worth talking about.
Here’s something else: This strike’s almost over! Relax.
Uh, just don’t relax too much. Did we mention the Screen Actors Guild contract expires in less than four months?
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The Channel Island column runs every Monday. E-mail: scott.collins@latimes.com.
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87672f0cf31b7916aec194d022e6024e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-11-sp-crowe11-story.html | Waiting for smoke, and his grandfather’s name, to clear | Waiting for smoke, and his grandfather’s name, to clear
Probably the last thing anyone wants to read these days is another story about drugs and baseball.
But this one’s different.
This one predates by many years Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens and the Mitchell Report, not to mention public awareness of anabolic steroids, androstenedione and human growth hormone.
At the center of this story is not a villain but a victim.
But it’s another sad tale.
And baseball, in the end, winds up smelling badly again.
It’s the story of Babe Dahlgren, a major league first baseman from 1935 to 1946 probably best remembered as the man who replaced Lou Gehrig in the New York Yankees’ lineup on May 2, 1939, ending the Iron Horse’s incredible 14-year consecutive-game streak after a then-record 2,130 games.
Less widely known is that Dahlgren’s career and life were waylaid by an unsubstantiated rumor that he smoked marijuana.
Dahlgren, who lived in Southern California for more than 40 years before dying in 1996, volunteered to be examined by a doctor in Philadelphia in 1943, thus becoming the first major league player to be tested for drug use.
It seemed to matter little that the tests came up clean.
A strong defensive player who batted .261 and hit 82 home runs while playing for eight teams in 12 major league seasons, Dahlgren spent the last half of his life trying to track down the source of the rumor and clear his name, appealing to a succession of baseball commissioners who showed little interest.
The details are spelled out in “Rumor in Town,” a new book written by grandson Matt Dahlgren, a 37-year-old former Southern California College catcher and first-time author who made good on a pledge to bring his grandfather’s story to light.
“I was turned down many times by literary agents and publishers,” says the Irvine-based Dahlgren, who published the book himself. “But what kept me going was, I promised him I’d do it. I know that might sound corny, but it’s the reality. I loved him to no end. I respected him. And I know how badly he wanted this story told. I know how badly this game hurt him. And so I had to do it. . . .
“I just couldn’t let him down.”
Using a 600-page manuscript left behind by his grandfather as a guide, and after tracking down details through interviews and research, Dahlgren says he believes the rumor was started by the late Joe McCarthy, a highly respected Hall of Fame manager who guided the Yankees to a record seven World Series championships.
McCarthy, the book says, was upset that Dahlgren sought batting tips from fellow San Franciscan Lefty O’Doul, a respected hitting instructor, after Dahlgren and O’Doul spoke at the November 1939 wedding of Joe DiMaggio and actress Dorothy Arnold.
Apparently viewing O’Doul as a threat, McCarthy engineered Dahlgren’s sale to the Boston Braves after the 1940 season, explaining to reporters that Dahlgren’s arms were too short to play first base. Never mind that Dahlgren at the time was considered “the cleverest fielding first baseman in the league,” a widely held opinion articulated in a column written by Shirley Povich of the Washington Post.
Later, Matt Dahlgren writes, McCarthy offered a more inflammatory reason for dumping Dahlgren. Speaking with a group of “baseball insiders,” including a New York Times reporter, McCarthy blamed the Yankees’ failure to win the 1940 pennant on a late-season error by Dahlgren. And, the book quotes McCarthy as saying, “Dahlgren doesn’t screw up that play if he wasn’t a marijuana smoker.”
Dahlgren, oblivious to the talk, played for four teams over the next two seasons, bouncing around the majors before running into the rumor head-on early in 1943 during a contract negotiation with Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey.
Rickey, the book says, asked Dahlgren, “Do you smoke marijuana?”
After Dahlgren was then traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, the book says, a former Dodgers coach told him that Rickey was spreading the rumor, explaining to his bosses that he traded Dahlgren because he smoked pot.
Dahlgren, an All-Star with the Phillies, was traded again after the 1943 season, this time to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He retired in 1946.
According to the book, then-baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis told Babe Dahlgren that “castration would be an appropriate punishment for the culprit behind the rumor.” But Landis failed to act.
Nor did any of the subsequent commissioners Dahlgren implored.
Fay Vincent never heard from Dahlgren, who finally tired of beseeching baseball’s hierarchy. But Vincent, baseball’s commissioner from 1989 to 1992, has read “Rumor in Town” and is quoted on the book jacket as saying, “Baseball, like life, can sometimes be a cruel and vicious business. Some of the people in it from time to time are not worthy of the game.”
Babe Dahlgren felt the same way, his grandson says.
Recalls the author, “He would say, ‘Matt, this is a great game, but it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be. At times, it can be a dirty game.’ ”
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jerome.crowe@latimes.com
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40619c92e0a4ee1ffd1bae498e3fe32d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-12-et-thriller12-story.html | How we were thrilled | How we were thrilled
There are two ways to listen to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” 25 years after its release. Scandal addicts will find trace evidence of the obsessions that would sink the greatest pop star of his generation into Hollywood Babylon: the repressed, explosive sexuality in his breathy vocals; the racial ambivalence he’d encode on his body, evident in genre-busting songs such as “Beat It”; the innocence fetish that made ballads like “Human Nature” sparkle but led the singer into a shadowy life among paid-off children in his own Neverland.
The dirty stuff is all there. But so is wonder, pure and complex, and some willful forgetting can bring you back to it. Put aside Jacko, the tragic example. Return to Michael, the musical prodigy who filtered a host of cross-cultural and intergenerational influences through his own weird radar to create music as surprising as it was definitive.
Enjoy that Michael, at play in the fields of new technology with producer Quincy Jones and the best team of studio pros since Brian Wilson roped in the Wrecking Crew. At 24, that Michael embodied the vertiginous power of being young -- his love songs were all longing and playful innuendo, his angry songs half bluster and half nightmare. That Michael believed that pop songs could have the effect that classic tales have on kids, coloring their dreams and staying forever in their memories. “Thriller” was the first Neverland he built -- the one he’ll never lose in bankruptcy court.
The just-issued 25th anniversary of “Thriller” includes remixes by will.i.am and Kanye West and guest appearances from Fergie and Akon. But the classic content is what still resonates, even if younger listeners need to be lured in by names they associate with the Hot 100. Here, nine Calendar staff writers and contributors offer their views of the album’s original tracks -- a trip back into “Thriller” that we hope readers will follow.
“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ ”: Hot as Jackson was after the quantum leap that 1979’s “Off the Wall” brought his solo career, few expected him to match, much less dramatically surpass, those heights so quickly. But “Thriller’s” leadoff track immediately established the new album as another giant step forward. It connected to “Off the Wall” with an irresistible Afro-Caribbean funk dance-floor pulse and peppery horn accents akin to “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” then rocketed to new heights with even more sinewy bass and guitar lines propelling his impossibly nimble vocals. If “Off the Wall” demonstrated that Jackson was a kid no more, “Somethin’ ” signaled the full maturity of his musical acumen. All the more impressive for a song built on just two chords. (Randy Lewis)
“Baby Be Mine”: Imagine if this weren’t the better of the two non-singles from a monster album but a one-shot single by an unknown artist. The sweet midtempo glide of “Baby Be Mine” would have likely bubbled into the R&B; Top 20 and gotten lots of roller-skate play, been included on recent mix CDs by cutting-edge European DJs and been remade as a slow jam at least three times. We’d have wondered at the bionic singer, the effervescent synth arrangements, the popping groove. In short, it would sound like the hidden classic it remains, even in plain sight. (Michaelangelo Matos)
“The Girl Is Mine”: Treacly, insipid, weak, embarrassing -- that’s how detractors describe Jackson’s gentle sparring match with his then-favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney. Borne forward on a beat light as hair mousse and synth flourishes supplied by the guys from Toto, it’s a long way from the paranoid funk of “Billie Jean.” But its spun-sugar vocal line is like the G-rated version of “Unchained Melody,” and the cornball lyrics (I know, “doggone”) invoke a show-tune Arcadia that both MJ and Macca fought to preserve as pop got ever filthier. The lift Jackson gives the word “endlessly” midsong can still make a listener feel like she’s swimming in a sea of Love’s Baby Soft. (Ann Powers)
“Thriller”: If ever a video killed the radio star, “Thriller” was it. The song was adequately groovy -- funked-out beat, lyrics seemingly lifted from some little kid’s “scary storybook” -- but the video was legendary: bearing a price tag of $800,000, the 14-minute mini-film was the most expensive video of its time. Back then it was over the top; to today’s viewer, jaded by bloated-budget videos, it still looks epic -- and deliciously campier than ever. That dialogue (“I’m not like other guys”)! That Vincent Price rap interlude! And, most of all, those choreographed zombies, dancing in a style that -- thanks to Usher, Ne-Yo and Chris Brown -- still gets its close-up on MTV. (Baz Dreisinger)
“Beat It”: A secret not closely guarded: The uncredited guitarist who whipped out the fluttering, squealing solo on this ode to macho cowardice was Eddie Van Halen, whose extracurriculars ranked among the provocations for singer David Lee Roth’s 1985 departure from the megalithic rock band Van Halen. Along with the contributions of jazz and soundtrack legend Quincy Jones as producer, Van Halen’s aerodynamic metal flight pumped crossover fuel that would boost the success of “Thriller” -- a gimmick Jackson would later flog with spots from Slash and Carlos Santana. Without the Van Halen precedent, there might have been no collaboration of Run-DMC and Aerosmith on the 1986 rap/rock version of “Walk This Way.” (Greg Burk)
“Billie Jean”: Twenty-five years later, “Thriller’s” central chamber has lost none of its fevered mystery. This is where the album’s material plane gives way to a haunted interior, excavated by that remorseless bass line and shaped by a taut interplay of instruments -- the arrangement is ingenious, so lean and spare that it’s hard to accept that there are three synthesizers at work. Jackson finds a new voice here, a victim’s voice that shudders in the shadows of this remarkable sonic space, lashing at his own naivete and at the false accusers who were just starting to gather at his door. (Richard Cromelin)
“Human Nature”: Jackson is a sensual vampire flying over the city looking for juicy necks to bite. A template for new jack swing and hip-hop soul ballads, “Human Nature” is comparatively slower and more intimate than “Thriller’s” other songs. “If this town is just an apple, let me take a bite,” quivers Jackson’s voice over a cascading synthesizer and percolating bass line. Though written by John Bettis and Steve Porcaro of Toto, the lyrics resonate with Jackson’s yearning to break free from his tower of celebrity and mingle with young people in a “city that winks its sleepless eye.” (Serena Kim)
“P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)”: It’s all about the chipmunk. The production has a compelling charm already; it’s not as forceful as “Beat It” or as slick as “Human Nature,” but those squiggly synths and chewy bass lines do their work well. But besides the robo-accented “P.Y.T.” hook, what seals the deal is that helium-pitched voice after the bridge. Honestly, to this day, I still can’t decipher what line is blurted out, but just the chipmunk effect has been enough to imprint the song in my head for the last quarter century. Given that Kanye West looped the exact same passage for his Grammy-winning “Good Life” only confirms I’m not alone in my infatuation. (Oliver Wang)
“The Lady in My Life”: And the ‘80s pop big bang ends with a . . . whimper? So it might have seemed at the time, this Rod Temperton-penned and arranged trifle closed “Thriller” on an unconvincingly romantic note -- even pre-scandal. Yet today, “Lady” shines for its classic simplicity and nuanced craft, a verse melody straight from vintage Burt Bacharach (the muted trumpet early on leaves no doubt) topped with a chorus that’s almost a Stevie Wonder homage. And Jackson’s delivery is refreshingly unaffected -- not until shortly before the final fade does he even let out an ooo! No, not a whimper. A sigh. (Steve Hochman)
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566e9657c13a0d3de2c817bfef9e3510 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-12-na-potomac12-story.html | Potomac primaries favor Obama | Potomac primaries favor Obama
A new battleground looms in a state where picnickers still flock to venerated fields of Confederate glory. The campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are gearing up for today’s presidential primary in Virginia, a key Southern state rife with knotty demographics and shifting party loyalties.
Both camps view the Democratic vote in Virginia as their toughest matchup in the so-called Potomac primaries, a stretch of contests that also includes Maryland and the District of Columbia, where large and passionate constituencies among black voters and college students make Obama a heavy favorite.
Clinton aides have tried to dampen expectations, publicly stoking the prospect of an Obama sweep today. But strategic moves by both sides in recent days indicate that Virginia is positioned as Clinton’s likeliest target of opportunity.
Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, said Virginia was “a state along with Maryland and others in February where Sen. Obama has significant advantages. We have long factored that reality into our planning.”
Three Virginia polls released over the last few days, all putting Obama ahead of Clinton by at least 15 percentage points, gave credence to Wolfson’s caution. The latest, issued Sunday and conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, showed Obama leading Clinton 53% to 37%. In surveys last year, Clinton held double-digit leads.
Despite those bleak signs, the Clinton camp has quietly mobilized to exploit “some unique opportunities,” said Mo Elleithee, a national Clinton spokesman who was brought in to work on Virginia strategy. Even if Obama captures the popular vote in Virginia, Clinton aides say, Clinton hopes to carve off some delegates, who are chosen proportionately.
Clinton has rebounded with a surge of donations after she lent $5 million to her campaign treasury to make up for funding shortfalls. The New York senator’s campaign began ramping up media ads Friday on Virginia television stations.
Stressing her focus on the shaky national economy, the ads were a late comeback to Obama’s media blitz, which has dominated local airwaves since the middle of last week. And two days before her commercials began running, Clinton’s automated “robo-calls” were peppering Democratic households in northern Virginia, also echoing her economic emphasis.
Both candidates have appeared across the state over the last five days, as has Clinton’s main surrogate, former President Clinton.
Obama and Sen. Clinton also made separate speeches Saturday at the Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond. But Clinton was the first of the two rivals to appear in Virginia after last week’s Super Tuesday contests, speaking Thursday to 2,000 high school students at a rally in Arlington.
Her debut at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington was a bit rocky. She was more than two hours late, and when she finally arrived to her cheering crowd of fidgeting students, she was introduced by an excited host as “Hillary Rodham.”
Ignoring the apparent slip-up, Clinton worked her young audience like a talk-show host. She alternated stage whispers and hoarse exhortations, gently rebuking presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, “a friend of mine,” for “offering more of the same” in Iraq and on the economy.
She mentioned Obama as well, questioning the Illinois senator’s experience, asking who “would be the best president to start from Day 1?”
There was no talk of friendship with Obama, who is well positioned to win many of Maryland’s and the District of Columbia’s delegates.
Though the nation’s capital has a 56.5% black majority and Maryland’s 29.5% black population is slightly larger than that of South Carolina -- where Obama trounced Clinton last month -- Virginia’s 19.9% African American enclave is not as formidable politically. That forces Virginia Democrats to knit together seemingly incompatible coalitions to win primaries or general elections.
Gov. Tim Kaine and Sen. Jim Webb, both recent Democratic winners, broke Virginia’s long-standing GOP electoral hammerlock by relying on independents and a fragile patchwork of white and minority Democratic voters.
Independents will be allowed to vote with either party in Virginia’s primary. That could be a boon for Obama, who has scored well among independent voters in previous open primaries.
After former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s withdrawal from the GOP race last week and McCain’s virtual anointment, some independents may feel more inclined to vote in the Democratic race, where they would have a greater effect.
For Clinton and Obama, “it’s a real balancing act to win here,” said Paul Goldman, a veteran Democratic political strategist who advised Kaine and Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder. “They’re both coming in with their own natural constituencies. But the wild card this year is turnout. That makes it so hard to predict.”
Although Webb and some key Democrats remain neutral, Kaine and a solid cast of state senators and delegates endorsed Obama early on -- a marked contrast to Maryland, where Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and other top Democrats were working for Clinton.
Political veterans say Clinton’s best shot is to fuse city-dwelling Latino voters, government workers and retired military voters in northern Virginia and horse-country female voters in the southern part of the state.
“Virginia is much closer than Maryland is, in demographic terms, to the border and Southern states she carried last week,” said Thomas F. Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of “Whistling Past Dixie,” a book examining Democratic prospects in Southern states.
Along with independents, Obama’s choicest targets are black voters in Hampton Roads and Richmond, young professionals in northern Virginia, college students and white male “NASCAR Democrats” in coal country.
“The guy’s operation is pretty organized for an insurgent,” said Daniel Palazzolo, a University of Richmond political science professor. “I have no doubt their Virginia team is in full swing.”
Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama’s Virginia campaign, said, “We just plugged into a grass-roots operation that was already up and running.”
Griffis noted that with little prodding from the national staff, Obama’s Virginia supporters amassed 20,000 signatures in November to put him on the ballot -- twice the number needed.
“That gave us a good idea of what we could build on,” he said.
stephen.braun@latimes.com
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d126bb492f128c98dc38266fcf44c2a3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-13-et-cheetah13-story.html | Author’s creation, Disney’s jackpot | Author’s creation, Disney’s jackpot
By all rights, Deborah Gregory should be sitting pretty: As a first-time author, she wrote the Cheetah Girls novels, a bubbly, 16-book series that became hugely popular with American tweens and teens. And she appeared to hit an even bigger jackpot when she sold the dramatic rights to the Disney Channel.
Her breezy, street-smart tales of five girls chasing pop music careers were turned into two hit television movies, and a third is now being filmed in India. Cheetah Girls CDs and DVDs have sold in the millions, and concert tours have hit more than 80 cities. Meanwhile, Disney’s fabled merchandising machine flooded the market with Cheetah Girls shoes, dolls, toothbrushes, video games, backpacks, note pads, pillows, posters, T-shirts and the like.
Gregory expected to get a piece of the action when she signed a 2001 contract promising her 4% of the net from all of this activity. But like many other authors who have signed away dramatic rights, she says she never got a penny of the profits. Unlike screenwriters, who were backed by a strong union in their recently ended strike, most literary writers are at a disadvantage when negotiating with Hollywood. And it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to crack the safe.
Indeed, Gregory said she’s pocketed $125,000 over the last nine years in option fees and payments for her title as co-producer of the movies. Although she’s asked for them, she has never gotten “net profit participation statements” from Disney, spelling out details of expenses and revenues. If anyone is getting rich on this formidable franchise, Gregory noted, it’s not the woman who created it.
“People think I must be living in a palace, when they think of the success of the Cheetah Girls,” she said, sitting quietly in the cramped studio apartment she rents in Manhattan. “But look at this place. It’s a . . . dump.”
Gregory, an imposing and outspoken African American, doesn’t mince words. She has a saucy, cheerfully profane sense of humor that she struggled to keep in check during interviews, and her anger over what has happened is palpable.
Disney officials, asked to explain why Gregory has not received any net profits -- and to estimate the collective revenue that “the Cheetah Girls has generated -- declined to respond. “Disney Channel doesn’t comment on the terms of its contracts,” spokeswoman Patti McTeague said in an e-mail.
“This is an old, old story in Hollywood,” said literary agent Nicholas Ellison, who has represented numerous clients in book-to-film negotiations. When studios are asked why an author has not received any net profits, he said, they often point to expenses that have grown larger than expected and contend that a hit picture has not, in fact, made money.
It’s called “Hollywood accounting,” and in some cases studios may be on solid ground, citing legitimate costs such as promotion and development. But in other cases, contracts contain definitions of “net profits” that make it all but impossible for an author to collect money that once seemed tantalizingly at hand.
In one of the most notorious cases -- when columnist Art Buchwald sued Paramount over its use of his idea for the 1988 film “Coming to America,” a film that grossed $350 million, and then later for its failure to pay him revenues -- a judge ruled in 1990 that the studio’s internal accounting procedures were “unconscionable.”
“Is Disney notorious for having a legal department the size of Western Europe and being particularly ferocious?” Ellison asked. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean they’re unethical. Or different from any other studio.”
The stakes are high because 43% of Hollywood movies in the last five years were adapted from books and other written materials, according to estimates by the Writers Guild of America. What makes Gregory’s case unusual is that she didn’t simply write a book, she wrote bestsellers that led to a movie and marketing bonanza.
And there was no union able to help her. Writers often turn to the Authors Guild, a national organization based in New York, for advice in protecting their rights with publishers. But although the Authors Guild offers a checklist of things to keep in mind when dealing with Hollywood, it does not provide individual guidance or counseling.
“Hollywood deals are a trap for the unwary; they’re almost intended to deceive,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “The best advice we give is that you should try to get as much of your money upfront. You can’t count on net profit deals for anything.”
Even if writers hire the best agents and lawyers, it might not make much of a difference, said veteran literary agent Jane Dystel, who has negotiated option deals on her own and in tandem with agents who specialize in book-to-film contracts.
“Studios are always offering authors take-it-or-leave-it deals, and if they don’t get what they want, they’re prepared to walk away,” she said. “They’ll tell you that there are plenty of other good books out there for them to buy, and they’re right.”
Asked about Gregory’s case, longtime industry observers offered differing takes: She was a first-time author who didn’t know the ropes when she negotiated her deal. Her attorney had only limited leverage because she was an unknown author. Disney officials grabbed whatever advantage they could, just like any studio. And although it’s easy to be bitter about monster profits in hindsight, few could have predicted that the Cheetah Girls would become such a marketing sensation.
Others blame Disney: “What happened to Deborah was unconscionable,” said an insider who is familiar with the Cheetah Girls project but asked not to be identified, citing business considerations. “At the very least, they should have cut her in on the revenue from the DVDs and CDs.”
Because “net profits” are virtually worthless, many agents seek alternatives: One strategy is to request bonus payments regardless of a film’s bottom line. But these are granted mainly to brand-name authors with clout. An even better deal is to win a share of “gross points” from box office revenues.
Yet this is the pot of money used to pay big-ticket actors, directors and other stars, and only the strongest players claim a share. For everyone else, there is a gnawing resentment that they’ve been excluded from the party.
“I never dreamed things would turn out the way they did,” said Gregory, recalling the heady days when she had first written “The Cheetah Girls” and the Disney Channel expressed interest. “I really believed I would be able to share in everything that was created, that I was going to be a participant. Well, honey, that was a sham.”
Born in New York, Gregory grew up in the city’s foster care system. She never knew her mother or father and was bounced from one home to the next. At an early age, however, she displayed an interest in fashion design and creative writing.
She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and began writing freelance stories. By 1990, she had become the fashion and beauty writer at Redbook; she also wrote articles about all-girl groups like Destiny’s Child for Essence, Us magazine and other publications. The seeds of what would become her novels took root during her reporting: She went shopping in Houston with members of Destiny’s Child at the Galleria, which became the name of one of her characters.
The story was called “Shop in the Name of Love,” which became the title of her second novel. Gregory wore leopard-patterned clothes on the assignment -- a personal taste that would become a trademark for the Cheetah Girls.
Her life changed when she got a call in 1998 from Hyperion Books, owned by Disney. The publisher wanted to sign up books aimed at urban children. Did Gregory have any ideas? As a foster child, she was often lonely, yearning for companionship, and the notion of a bunch of girls who stick together as pals and chase their dreams was born.
“This is the core of who I am,” she said, describing the birth of her imaginary group of African American and Latino girls. “I’m someone who grew up in foster care with nothing. I have no family to this day. And what the Cheetah Girls represents to me and others is a chance to get out of the ghetto. It’s a chance to transcend your background through sheer talent.”
Hyperion gave her a $40,000 advance for the first four novels, and Gregory’s first installment, “Wishing on a Star,” appeared in 1998. Hollywood came calling before it was even published. Independent producer Cheryl Hill had gotten wind of the project and instantly saw its potential.
“The material was incredible, it was just jumping off the page,” said Hill, who brought the project to BrownHouse Productions, a company that included pop singer Whitney Houston and producer Debra Chase. After the Disney Channel expressed interest in producing it, the wheels began turning. “You could see the possibilities,” said Hill, who is one of the producers on the films. “I’m always looking for the next Davy Crockett phenomenon, with the jackets and merchandising.” Speaking of Disney, she said, “I’m sure they saw it too.”
Like many authors, Gregory was star-struck by the Hollywood attention. Flanked by her entertainment attorney, Lita Richardson, she signed a 2001 contract giving Disney approval to make a movie or TV series based on the books, as well as additional projects such as DVDs, CDs and other merchandising. In return she would get 4% of the net profits.
“I think authors are blindsided by this,” said Susie Norris-Epstein, a former Disney development vice president who played a key role in helping the company acquire the Cheetah Girls. “They’re impressed by the Disney machine, which is very good at marketing, and what they think it might mean for them. But it doesn’t mean they’ll be participants in this.”
Gregory’s 16 novels went on to sell an estimated 2 million copies for which she got a total of $180,000 in advances. But beyond her title as a co-producer on both films, she had limited creative input as Disney turned her books into a television and marketing phenomenon.
The first movie was broadcast in 2003, drawing an estimated 6.5 million viewers on its first night; the second aired in 2006, attracting 8 million. Two CD soundtracks sold a combined 3 million copies. National concert tours in each of the last three years have played to sold-out crowds. Merchandise made by a flurry of companies who leased the rights from Disney began flooding into malls across the nation.
Yet Gregory didn’t share in this bounty. Asked to explain what happened to her former client, Richardson declined to comment, even though Gregory gave her permission to talk about the case. The attorney said she represented the author long ago and that the files were in storage.
For some, the lessons are clear: “If somebody from Hollywood tells you they love your novel and they’ll take care of you on the back end, run for the hills and double the price,” Ellison said. More important, don’t make the same mistake twice.
In June, Random House will publish “Catwalk,” the first in a new series of novels by Gregory about budding fashionistas in New York. Once again, there has been Hollywood interest. But this time, Gregory vows to be patient in negotiating a contract.
She’s represented by the William Morris Agency and has also retained Lisa Davis, a veteran New York entertainment lawyer, to get her a much better deal this time around.
Davis is reluctant to say what she’ll be looking for, citing confidentiality, but she is keenly aware of what happened to Gregory with the Cheetah Girls.
“I have a close relationship with my clients, and I do consider myself an advocate,” said Davis, who also represents Terry McMillan and director Spike Lee.
“When it comes to authors, they have sweated to create characters that resonate with a large audience. They have created a whole world. And they should be paid for it.”
josh.getlin@latimes.com
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1db9c0b8452c51dceb9ba077349bdc6c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-13-et-cheetahside13-story.html | It pays to take the money and run | It pays to take the money and run
Battles between authors and studios over “Hollywood accounting” are nasty, and almost never resolved in favor of the writer.
Ernest Hemingway once noted that authors should drive up to the California border and throw their books over a fence while studio officials throw bags of money back over the fence. That, he said, should be the end of the transaction.
Some of the biggest names in publishing, however, have ignored this advice.
Olivia Goldsmith, who wrote “The First Wives Club,” was incensed that she received only $250,000 in fees for sale of the film rights, compared with the estimated $181.4 million worldwide gross made by the film. “She got hammered,” literary agent Nicholas Ellison said of his late client.
Winston Groom, author of “Forrest Gump,” was also unhappy when filmmakers said their adaptation of his novel -- which at one point was the fourth-highest-grossing movie ever -- had lost money. The author, who got $350,000 for the rights, had also been promised 3% of the net profits.
Alice Walker, who wrote “The Color Purple,” was entitled to a 3% share of the gross after the break-even point from the film adaptation. She wrote in a 1987 letter to Steven J. Ross, chairman of the board of Warner Communications: “It grieves me even to have to ask about money. But I remind myself that in this case it isn’t merely a question of money, but of justice.” Walker noted that she eventually recovered “a fraction” of the money she felt was due her.
Perhaps the most celebrated case involved the late columnist Art Buchwald, who in 1988 sued Paramount Pictures over money he believed he was entitled to from the movie “Coming to America,” which grossed $350 million. Executives claimed the movie never made enough money to pay net profits. Buchwald won an undisclosed settlement after the judge called the practice “unconscionable.” But the decision applied only to his case.
josh.getlin@latimes.com
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b0f5048e9fb1493fb3e812c51f715da2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-13-fi-gm13-story.html | GM posts $38.7-billion ’07 loss | GM posts $38.7-billion ’07 loss
Times are tough for General Motors Corp., and the mortgage mess isn’t helping.
The world’s biggest carmaker on Tuesday reported a $38.7-billion loss in 2007, a record for any auto manufacturer, after a poor fourth quarter that was made weaker by sliding U.S. sales and exposure to risky mortgage investments.
The massive loss was largely attributable to a third-quarter write-down of tax credits amounting to $39 billion. Excluding the write-down and other one-time charges, GM said it lost $23 million on the year.
The company has not had a full year in the black since 2004. As part of its quest to return to profitability, GM on Tuesday announced a new round of buyouts aimed at reducing costs.
In 2007, the Detroit giant managed to maintain -- by a thread -- its title as the world’s largest seller of automobiles, but saw its sales in the U.S. slip by 5.9%. For the fourth quarter, GM posted a net loss of $722 million, or $1.28 a share, compared with net income of $950 million, or $1.68 a share, a year earlier.
The decline in domestic sales, combined with huge mortgage-related losses from GM’s large stake in lender GMAC, overshadowed some good news: increasing international sales and overall rising revenue. Fourth-quarter revenue was $46.7 billion, up 7% compared with the same period in 2006. Revenue for the year was $178 billion, up $7 billion, or 4%, from 2006.
“We’re pleased with the positive improvement trend in our automotive results, especially given the challenging conditions,” GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said. “But we have more work to do to achieve acceptable profitability and positive cash flow.”
Of particular concern are North American operations, where GM lost $1.1 billion on the quarter, considerably above analysts’ expectations of a $400-million shortfall.
“I was frankly taken aback by the size of that loss,” said David Healy, an analyst at Burnham Securities, who says he expects sales to continue trending down for at least the first half of 2008 as consumers, cut off from lines of credit by declining home values and tighter lending standards, put off car purchases.
“People are afraid to buy cars or can’t afford financing,” Healy said. “GM will be losing the marginal customer because of the mortgage crisis.” Those pressures were already evident in the U.S. market last year, when total sales for all makers declined 2.5% to 16.1 million cars and light trucks. This year, sales are expected to fall below 16 million.
The story is significantly different overseas, where cars are a growth industry in most regions. In Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, GM made $424 million in the fourth quarter, and in Asia it earned $72 million. Worldwide sales for GM increased 3% in 2007, and for the third consecutive year, the majority of its sales were in markets other than the U.S.
GM’s woes did not escape notice in Washington, where White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on Tuesday addressed the company’s financial results. “The report from GM reflects what we’ve known for a long time, which is that the automotive industry in the United States is having some difficulties,” she said. “They are trying to work through those.”
A key is cost reduction. After several rounds of buyouts, GM has reduced its United Auto Workers staffing to 74,000. It will now offer those workers additional buyout packages, including payments of as much as $62,500 for those who retire early and $140,000 for those who agree to also surrender all future healthcare and pension benefits.
Under terms of the UAW contract reached last fall, GM can replace departing workers making an average of $28 an hour with laborers earning much less -- as little as $14 an hour. Those savings, as well as others from the establishment of a UAW-managed benefits fund, are expected to save GM billions of dollars a year starting in 2010.
Perhaps more difficult to address is GM’s exposure to the mortgage crisis. Lender GMAC, 49% owned by GM, reported a $724-million loss for the fourth quarter, largely by its troubled ResCap mortgage lending division. GM booked a $394-million pretax loss for the quarter and $872 for the year from its piece of GMAC
Shares in GM slid 52 cents, to $26.60, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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ken.bensinger@latimes.com
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c2e6977710823e9babc16c7785f3fd60 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-13-me-harbor13-story.html | 2nd county hospital in jeopardy | 2nd county hospital in jeopardy
The honeymoon between the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and its health services director finally foundered Tuesday amid fears that a second county hospital could close.
Dr. Bruce Chernof, who has headed the nation’s second-largest public health system since December 2005, told the supervisors last week that the federal government would be citing Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for placing its emergency patients in “immediate jeopardy” because of overcrowding and long waits.
The citation, which has not yet been formally delivered, comes six months after the county closed all but the outpatient clinics and urgent care center at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in Willowbrook. King-Harbor had failed multiple inspections and lost federal funding.
“I’m very concerned that we’re entering a spiral here very similar to what happened at Martin Luther King,” Supervisor Gloria Molina said.
She pointed out that federal inspectors, when they return to see if a hospital has fixed its problems, can look at anything in the facility.
Waiting times
With King-Harbor, each time inspectors returned, they found something else wrong, she said.
The long-serving supervisors, known for stormy relationships with past health directors, largely blamed Chernof’s predecessor for King-Harbor’s failings. But Tuesday, Chernof was the lightning rod.
The supervisors were clearly frustrated when Chernof could not tell them how waiting times at UCLA-Harbor had changed since King-Harbor closed or how waiting times there compared with those of private hospitals nearby.
There were different ways to measure the wait, Chernof said, and he was working with private hospitals to develop “appropriate data points.”
“You . . . get paid an awful lot of money to know these things, and you’re telling us you don’t know?” Molina said. “We really don’t care about your data points. We care about patients.”
Chernof had prepared a report for the supervisors comparing average waiting times at three county hospitals. County-USC Medical Center, the biggest and busiest with 167,700 emergency room visits a year, had the best average “door to discharge” time: 9.1 hours from the time a patient entered the ER until discharge or admittance to the hospital.
It also had the lowest rate of patients who gave up and left before being seen: 7.5%.
The waiting time at Olive View-UCLA in Sylmar, which sees 31,800 emergency patients a year, was on average 9.8 hours, with 12.5% leaving without being seen.
Harbor-UCLA saw 82,300 emergency patients in the last year. The average wait was 12.2 hours, and 16.6% left without being seen.
Federal scrutiny
The investigation of Harbor-UCLA, conducted by state inspectors on behalf of the federal government, was prompted by the Dec. 22 death of William Harold Jones Jr., an emergency room patient who left the hospital before treatment was finished and was found dead in a parking lot across the street.
Harbor-UCLA is the third hospital owned by Los Angeles County to undergo federal scrutiny in recent months for emergency room deaths.
Federal regulators have threatened to pull funding from the Olive View-UCLA after government inspectors said the center failed to provide prompt medical screening for three emergency room patients last October. One patient died.
Before it closed, King-Harbor was cited for a much-publicized case in which workers ignored a woman writhing in pain on the floor of the ER lobby.
The next step for Harbor-UCLA is for federal officials to approve the county’s correction plan.
Chernof said the facility had already responded to the expected citation by assigning more nurses and adding a physician to do triage.
Patients who are severely ill are seen right away, he said, even if a facility is crowded.
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mary.engel@latimes.com
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6bd8c33b7358b656937d18df5c65c90a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-13-sp-coliseum13-story.html | Coliseum, USC reach tentative deal on lease | Coliseum, USC reach tentative deal on lease
USC and the Coliseum Commission have tentatively agreed on a lease that will keep the Trojans playing football at the historic stadium for the next 25 years, multiple sources said Tuesday.
The commission will vote today on a nonbinding letter of intent that sets the terms of the deal. The sides would then have 60 days to formalize the contract.
The agreement would put to rest talk of USC moving its home games to the Rose Bowl and would give the school veto power on any potential arrangement between the Coliseum and NFL.
So confident are the sides that a final resolution is near, they have called a 5:30 p.m. news conference at the Coliseum that includes elected officials from the city, county and state, and the Trojans marching band.
Todd Dickey, USC senior vice president and general counsel, said that if the commission approves the letter of intent, “it will be the beginning of a new day for both sides.”
The deal calls for major improvements to the venue, which the commission would fund with the sale of stadium naming rights. If that funding proves insufficient, USC would have the right to opt out of the agreement after two years.
The commission also will vote today whether to approve its lease with the state, which owns the stadium. That lease has already been approved by the California Science Center board on behalf of the state.
The proposed deal with USC stipulates an NFL team could not play in the Coliseum without the prior written consent of the school. The commission could still negotiate with an NFL team, but the school would take part in any negotiations.
“We never said we wanted to shut the door on the NFL,” Dickey said. “What we’re saying is it requires the university’s prior written consent.”
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sam.farmer@latimes.com
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4d06aa03b013e555ee4f8b62d3c9fd11 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-14-ed-redwoods14-story.html | Green vs. greener | Green vs. greener
It’s a dispute that could only happen in California. That it’s on the border of a Silicon Valley town called Sunnyvale is the icing on the cake. Or, perhaps, the M&Ms; in the trail mix.
For years now, Mark Vargas of Santa Clara and Carolynn Bissett and Richard Treanor of Sunnyvale have been fighting because two of the couple’s eight 20- to 40-foot-tall redwoods (which they planted for privacy during the late 1990s) are shading the solar panels on Vargas’ roof and trellis (which he installed in 2001 and which, remarkably, keep his yearly power bill around $60). Apparently, owning trees that shade more than 10% of a neighbor’s solar panels from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. violates the California Solar Shade Act -- an obscure 1978 law intended to encourage investment in solar power.
It’s hard to see why the neighbors couldn’t have worked this out on their own. Both parties could have anticipated that the trees, which were smaller when Vargas installed his solar array, were likely to grow and could have dealt with this proactively. (Vargas claims he tried but that years of mediation failed.) The trees reportedly shade only 15.8% of one of Vargas’ 128 panels. A wise judge split the difference on this case, finding the couple guilty of just one count of violating the act, waiving the $1,000-a-day fines and requiring removal of only two trees.
Bissett, who owns a Prius, told the San Jose Mercury News that she was “sad that these two wonderful things are being pitted against each other.” Her sorrow isn’t keeping her and her husband out of court; they’re appealing the judge’s decision, they said, because it will set a bad precedent for the rest of the state. The couple’s legal bills already exceed $25,000. It’s as if California’s traditions of environmentalism, respect for property rights and litigiousness have collided in these two families’ adjacent backyards.
As a web-footed bard once mourned, it is not easy being green. But the saga in Sunnyvale isn’t all bad news. If what passes for environmental crisis here in California is an overabundance of tidy subdivisions bursting with hybrid-driving, redwood-hugging, solar-panel-installing homeowners, we should all pop the cork on a bottle of organic bubbly and join in a toast.
Al Gore might even consider cultivating a new project to follow up his Nobel Prize-winning efforts on climate change. We’re imagining some kind of learning-to-share or cooperation thing. (Kermit? You still there?) Curbing global warming, after all, is a mere technological and economic challenge. But it seems that neighbors, even hemp-wearing ones, will always having trouble mending fences.
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054cc78f937a76614e507aea6faab3a9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-14-me-oxnard14-story.html | Student is declared brain dead | Student is declared brain dead
An Oxnard junior high student who was shot in the head by a classmate earlier this week was declared brain dead Wednesday, and the 14-year-old male suspect now faces a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.
Lawrence King, 15, was declared brain dead by two neurosurgeons about 2 p.m. at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said Craig Stevens, senior deputy Ventura County medical examiner. King’s body remains on a ventilator for possible organ donation, he said.
He was shot early Tuesday in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School.
Authorities initially believed that King was improving. But the boy’s condition worsened early Wednesday, and he was placed on a ventilator a few hours later with his family nearby, said an official, who asked not to be named.
David Keith, an Oxnard police spokesman, said the family would have no comment and asked the media to respect their privacy.
Police said the suspect, whose identity was not disclosed because of his age, shot King at least twice at the beginning of the school day and then fled the campus. The boy was apprehended by police a few blocks away and is being held in Juvenile Hall. He is scheduled to appear in court today.
Ventura County Dist. Atty. Gregory Totten said prosecutors would decide whether the case should remain in Juvenile Court after reviewing the police investigation. Under state law, prosecutors can ask the court to try the suspect as an adult, he said. “In all probability he will be charged in adult court,” Totten said.
Police have not determined a motive in the slaying but said it appeared to stem from a personal dispute between King and the suspect.
Keith and Totten declined to elaborate.
But several students at the south Oxnard campus said King and his alleged assailant had a falling out stemming from King’s sexual orientation.
The teenager sometimes wore feminine clothing and makeup, and proclaimed he was gay, students said.
“He would come to school in high-heeled boots, makeup, jewelry and painted nails -- the whole thing,” said Michael Sweeney, 13, an eighth-grader. “That was freaking the guys out.”
Student Juan Sandoval, 14, said he shared a fourth-period algebra class with the suspect, whom he described as a calm, smart student who played on the basketball team.
“I didn’t think he was that kind of kid,” Sandoval said. “I guess you never know. He made a big mistake.”
“Their lives are both destroyed now,” said student Hansley Rivera, 12.
Several students said that a day before the shooting, King and several boys had some kind of altercation during the lunch period.
If the suspect targeted King because of his sexual orientation, the case could rise to the level of a hate crime, authorities said.
“We’ve heard that and a lot of other things,” Keith said. “But I can’t say what the motive is until we finish our interviews.”
Totten said he could not comment on the specifics of the case until he reviewed the police investigation. But a hate-crime enhancement is something that prosecutors would consider as they move forward, he said.
“It’s something we will look at,” he said. “But the case is going to be reviewed as a murder involving the use of a firearm, and that carries a potential sentence of 50 years to life.”
Jerry Dannenberg, the school district superintendent, said the school’s staff was aware that King had butted heads with other students, including the suspect, and offered both students help.
“They had been doing a lot of counseling and a lot of work with [King] to help him deal with some of his concerns and issues,” Dannenberg said. “But I can’t go into specifics about what was going on.”
Bullying in schools has long been a problem. But recent studies show that a student who comes “out” as gay or lesbian is far more likely to suffer abuse than others, said Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network based in New York.
A student thought to be gay was five times as likely to be threatened or injured by a weapon, a 2002 California Department of Education study said.
Jennings said other studies have found similar results. His group advocates more teacher training on how to handle bullying and harassment, specifically of gay students.
“This Oxnard shooting is very upsetting but not surprising,” Jennings said. “The real issue is not the kid coming out, but the kid sitting next to him. Schools must teach that we may not like one another, but we must respect one another.”
Teachers and counselors at E.O. Green Junior High, meanwhile, sought to calm fears about escalating violence at the south Oxnard campus.
About a quarter of the school’s 1,000 students stayed home Wednesday due to fear of reprisals, Dannenberg said.
He said the school would have extra staff and police on campus for the next few days.
Counselors will be on hand as long as needed, Dannenberg said. The school district will hold a meeting for parents next week to discuss concerns.
This week’s shooting was a first, not only for the school but for all of Ventura County, which has never before seen a classroom fatality.
Dannenberg said school administrators can take steps to keep guns out of schools but that nothing would ever work perfectly.
“It’s not just the schools,” he said. “We have a societal problem. Last week, it was gunfire at a City Council back east. And this week, unfortunately, it was us.”
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catherine.saillant @latimes.com
greg.griggs@latimes.com
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c6b05cbb436dc0c0ac14680913d1af1c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-14-sp-dodgers14-story.html | Dodgers heading into spring training | Dodgers heading into spring training
Who’s new
Center fielder Andruw Jones; pitcher Hiroki Kuroda; catcher Gary Bennett.
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Who’s gone
Left fielder Luis Gonzalez; pitchers Mark Hendrickson, Roberto Hernandez, Chin-hui Tsao, David Wells, Randy Wolf; catcher Mike Lieberthal; first basemen Olmedo Saenz, Shea Hillenbrand.
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Biggest question
Can Jason Schmidt recover from major shoulder surgery?
Schmidt made only six starts in the first year of his three-year, $47-million contract, posting a 1-4 record with a 6.31 ERA. He hasn’t suffered any setbacks in his rehabilitation and will be throwing off the mound at the start of camp. But it’s uncertain if the 35-year-old can regain his velocity, which was down in his limited action last season. If Schmidt can come close to regaining the form that made him a three-time All-Star in San Francisco, a rotation that includes him, Brad Penny and Derek Lowe could be one of the best in baseball. With the club saying it will be patient in moving Schmidt along, Esteban Loaiza or Hong-Chih Kuo could be the team’s fifth starter when the season opens. Loaiza and Kuo also spent significant time on the disabled list last season.
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Job seekers
The addition of Andruw Jones gives the Dodgers four outfielders capable of playing every day, the others being Matt Kemp, Juan Pierre and Andre Ethier. With Jones set to start in center, Pierre will battle Ethier for playing time in left field. Ethier also will compete with Kemp in right. Third baseman Andy LaRoche could push incumbent Nomar Garciaparra. With 35 pitchers in camp, competition for the last couple of spots in the bullpen could be fierce. Of the 13 non-roster pitchers, 10 come to camp with major league experience.
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Keep your eye on
Jones and Hiroki Kuroda. The Dodgers put more than $70 million into their two prized off-season acquisitions. Jones won his 10th Gold Glove last year but struggled at the plate, batting a career-low .222 in his contract year. He hit 26 home runs, down from 51 in 2005 and 41 in 2006. Under contract for only two years, Jones faces the pressure of having to re-establish his value quickly. Kuroda has yet to throw a pitch in the big leagues. Like every pitcher coming to the majors from Japan, Kuroda will have to get used to a slicker ball, a rotation that includes one fewer pitcher and tougher lineups.
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Reasons to be excited
If Schmidt is healthy and Kuroda can adjust to pitching in the big leagues, the rotation could be outstanding. With closer Takashi Saito, Jonathan Broxton and Joe Beimel back, the core of the bullpen remains intact. Jones provides not only an upgrade on defense in center field but also the kind of pop in the middle of the lineup that the team lacked last season. Rafael Furcal, who was hindered last season by a sprained ankle, looked fully recovered at the Caribbean Series. The team’s promising young players, including All-Star catcher Russell Martin and first baseman James Loney, received ample playing time last season and return a year older.
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Reasons to be worried
Third base. Garciaparra hit only seven home runs and appears to be in decline and LaRoche looked overwhelmed at the plate when called up in September. The potential for power exists but there are no assurances that it will actually be realized, as Jones is coming off a tough season, and Loney and Matt Kemp are still developing. Pitching depth could be a problem if Schmidt, Loaiza and Kuo don’t bounce back from their injuries.
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Projected club
Lineup
Rafael Furcal...SS
Juan Pierre...LF
Russell Martin...C
Andruw Jones...CF
Jeff Kent...2B
James Loney...1B
Matt Kemp...RF
Nomar Garciaparra...3B
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Rotation
Brad Penny...RH
Derek Lowe...RH
Chad Billingsley...RH
Hiroki Kuroda... RH
Esteban Loaiza...RH
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Bullpen
Takashi Saito...RH
Jonathan Broxton...RH
Joe Beimel...LH
Scott Proctor...RH
Rudy Seanez...RH
Yhency Brazoban...RH
Hong-Chih Kuo...LH
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Bench
Andre Ethier...OF
Gary Bennett...C
Delwyn Young...OF
Tony Abreu...INF
Mark Sweeney...1B
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e4ec4a546aebd6dfdbbe27671df2ff1d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-15-et-metro15-story.html | Another Cyrus, another career | Another Cyrus, another career
Trace Cyrus, singer/guitarist of the emo-electro band Metro Station, has the words “Stay Gold” tattooed across the knuckles of both hands. It’s from S.E. Hinton’s young-adult novel “The Outsiders,” a noirish and broken-hearted tale of teenage gang life canonical among tweens making their first rebellions and self-explorations through art.
It’s a natural tattoo for the band’s 18-year-old frontman, one of many that cover his forearms and androgynously skinny chest. Metro Station is positioned to siphon from the millions of fans of Cyrus’ younger sister Miley (whom parents of any pre-adolescent girl will recognize as the star of Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana”), those interested in a band that’s grittier and sexier than their old Disney-packaged pop extravaganzas.
Metro Station, including singer-guitarist Mason Musso, keyboardist Blake Healy and drummer Anthony Improgo, landed a record deal with Columbia and opening slots on A-list pop-punk tours (including Saturday’s sold-out Troubadour show with Cobra Starship) through MySpace hustling and Hollywood word-of-mouth.
Metro Station’s biggest challenge has been to escape its most obvious path to success, given that a Disney pedigree and a country-star adoptive father (Billy Ray Cyrus) are liabilities to winning teenage fans who have outgrown “High School Musical.”
“I wanted to see how long we could go without anybody knowing,” Cyrus said. “It’s not like I didn’t want to be associated with that, but I didn’t want to be put in a genre where I had to be ‘Approved for mothers and 12-year-olds.’ I want to be myself.”
Says Miley: “As you can see by going to his show or seeing a photo, we’re very different. Trace’s success has nothing to do with the family. He worked hard all on his own.”
Cyrus and 18-year-old Musso were set up on a jam-date by their mothers in early 2006. (Musso’s brother, Mitchel, plays Oliver Oken on “Hannah”). Cyrus worked in a Burbank mall on his way to dropping out of La Canada High School, while Musso attended acting auditions and music business classes at College of the Canyons.
After spotting 26-year-old Healy’s band, the Bum Out Eternal, on MySpace, Cyrus and Musso asked him to join. Healy wasn’t convinced at first.
“It felt like I was creepy hanging out with 17-year-olds,” he said. “I had to ask my roommate, ‘Hey, are these songs as good as I think they are?’ ”
The band’s songs usually find Cyrus huffing breathy verses while the shaggier, stockier Musso belts giant choruses. Over lo-fi sugar-rush programming, the duo swap lyrics of youthful exuberance that are sometimes witty, sometimes overeager.
The sound clicked for local fans, who sent the track “Seventeen Forever” rocketing up the MySpace Unsigned charts and packed off-the-grid venues more accommodating to Metro Station’s younger audience.
After enlisting 31-year-old drummer Improgo, Metro Station signed with the Columbia imprint Red Ink in late 2006 and released its debut. But family connections couldn’t save them from the typical stumbling blocks of young rock bands.
“Their first show with us was a disaster,” said Josh Cain, guitarist for Motion City Soundtrack, who co-produced the band’s single “Kelsey.” “Mason and Trace are just kids, and we told them ‘You’ve got to step it up.’ ”
By the band members’ own admission, they needed to be more professional onstage.
Things appeared on track, then Columbia slashed its staff, the band’s publicist included.
Waiting outside the Wiltern before their December show, the band’s members were catcalled by a female UPS delivery driver and leered at by Koreatown locals. Los Angeles seems to be the only city where the son of a country kingpin and the brother of a pop phenomenon can feel like an outsider -- and find a way to turn that into his own kind of fame.
“L.A. is the most accepting city I’ve ever been in,” Cyrus said, belying a youth blemished by tattoos but not irony. “For me to dress like this and walk down the street, everyone’s cool with it. We want to bring that to everyone else.”
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august.brown@latimes.com
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418254841b81597a0a19600d1ce7051a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-15-me-abramson15-story.html | Former national reporter for the L.A. Times | Former national reporter for the L.A. Times
Rudy Abramson, a former longtime Washington reporter for The Times who wrote a highly praised biography of American statesman W. Averell Harriman, has died. He was 70.
Abramson sustained massive head injuries in a fall Tuesday at his home in Reston, Va. He died late Wednesday at a hospital in Fairfax, Va., according to a friend, John Bennett.
A staff writer in The Times’ Washington bureau from 1966 to 1993, Abramson was hired to cover science and became one of the first national reporters assigned to the space program. He covered the development of the Apollo 11 mission and the historic moon landing in 1969.
He wrote two books, “Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891-1986" (1992) and “Hallowed Ground: Preserving America’s Heritage” (1996), about the Piedmont region of northern Virginia, where some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place. He also co-edited, with Jean Haskell, the “Encyclopedia of Appalachia” (2006), the first comprehensive reference work on the region that covers 13 states from Mississippi to New York.
While working on “Hallowed Ground,” Abramson helped organize opposition to a plan by the Walt Disney Co. to build a history theme park near a key Civil War site, the Manassas Battlefield at the eastern end of the Piedmont. As executive director of the ad-hoc group Protect Historic America, he helped recruit prominent writers and historians, including William Styron, Shelby Foote and C. Vann Woodward, to defeat the proposal, which they believed would desecrate a region known for its natural beauty and historical importance. The effort made national headlines, and Disney withdrew the plan in 1994.
Abramson was a native Appalachian, born in Florence, Ala., on Aug. 31, 1937. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1958, he became a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean.
After several years as the Tennessean’s Washington correspondent, he was hired by The Times, where he “had a part in just about every major story for 30 years,” said longtime colleague Richard T. Cooper.
In addition to covering Vietnam War policy debates, the bombing of Cambodia and the Nixon impeachment hearings, Abramson showed a flair for feature writing, finding interesting tales in improbable places, such as his front-page profile of a 90-year-old pilot in Spearfish, S.D., who had been barnstorming for 60 years.
Among the most interesting characters he ever met was Harriman, the tycoon and politician who ran for president twice and lost both times. Harriman had turned down other biographers but agreed to cooperate with Abramson, granting him exclusive access to millions of documents from his personal files and family archives.
The 779-page biography earned admiring reviews from mainstream and academic critics. Michael Beschloss, writing in the Washington Post, called it “graceful, well-researched and unsentimental,” while Howard Jablon, in the journal Historian, found it “engrossing . . . sympathetic but balanced.”
Abramson later turned his attention to Appalachia, joining forces with Haskell, an Appalachian scholar, in a 10-year effort to produce the 1,832-page encyclopedia that covered subjects including geology, agriculture, literature and humor. With a foreword by scholar and critic Henry Louis Gates Jr., it attempts to show the diversity and richness of a part of the country often depicted as backward and poor.
“One of the images of Appalachia that has always existed and has always been wrong is that it’s just a static, unchanging kind of place . . . a lot of white people whose families got stranded there in another century,” Abramson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2006. “That’s always been a misconception. It’s always been a terribly dynamic place.”
Before his death, Abramson was completing a biography of Harry Caudill, a Kentucky lawyer and environmentalist whose 1963 book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” focused national attention on the underdevelopment of Appalachia. Caudill killed himself with a gunshot to the head in 1990 when he was 68 and facing an advancing case of Parkinson’s disease.
Abramson is survived by his wife, Joyce; daughters Kristin and Karin; and three grandchildren.
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elaine.woo@latimes.com
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c1129c96ad10efe9e8dad56c6c878c3e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-15-me-clinics15-story.html | Officials object to clinic closure plan | Officials object to clinic closure plan
A majority of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors raised objections Thursday to plans to shut 11 clinics, even though health officials have quietly floated contingency plans for far more drastic cuts in the coming year.
Three supervisors said the county should look elsewhere for the painful cuts that lie ahead, but severe cost-cutting looks increasingly inevitable as deficits of $195 million to $331 million are projected for the department in the next fiscal year.
Under a worst-case scenario, county health officials have privately suggested closing all six of the county’s comprehensive outpatient health centers along with its medical clinics, according to a confidential draft of the plan obtained by The Times. Under that plan, patients would lose county facilities that provide more than 160,000 urgent care visits and nearly 180,000 specialty care visits a year, mostly from the uninsured and poor.
Yolanda Vera, director of the health advocacy group LA Health Action, said such cuts could have a crippling effect on the region’s healthcare system as patients overload busy emergency rooms because they have nowhere else to go.
“It would be a complete meltdown of the total system,” she said. “It would be the poison pill that we’ve all feared.”
The proposal was drafted in case the county fails to resolve disputes with the federal government over $137 million in funding. Health department officials said they were unsure whether the money would come through and declined to comment on the plan.
“We’re not going to say where we’re going with phase two because we don’t know the size of it at this point,” said John F. Schunhoff, chief deputy director of the county Department of Health Services.
More cuts in future years could also run long and deep. Within four years, the county’s shortfall is expected to hit $1.6 billion.
The county has blamed the deficit on rising costs for treating indigent and uninsured patients, coupled with federal and state reimbursements that have failed to keep pace.
Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, whose South L.A. district includes some of the poorest neighborhoods in the county, said health officials should find alternative savings to cutting county clinics. She expressed doubts that local private, nonprofit clinics could replace them.
“Many of them are on the brink of bankruptcy, because they don’t have people who contribute millions of dollars to them,” she said. “Our clinics are a vital part of our whole system.”
Supervisor Don Knabe said in a statement that he was “shocked by the proposal and deeply concerned.” He cautioned that the county should examine the effects the cuts would have on already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky warned that closing county facilities for good could mean longer travel times for poor patients relying on public transportation to get to care. And he called on the department to slash administrative costs and other services first. “Ambulatory care cannot be the sacrificial lamb for a budget deficit,” he said.
County health executives described their proposal as a “work in progress.” They are expected to make a formal presentation before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. A final vote is not expected until June.
Under the plan made public this week, county health executives say they would retreat from directly providing primary care services and seek contracts with private, nonprofit clinics to provide care for most of the displaced patients.
The county clinics and comprehensive health centers get about 400,000 primary visits a year, nearly two-thirds from uninsured patients. The county also contracts with private clinics to provide more than 700,000 visits for primary care and other services each year.
Supervisor Mike Antonovich was alone on the board in praising the proposal, which he said would help explore ways for the county to cut costs without reducing services. He said a primary care visit costs the county $197 at one of its own facilities. Under current contracts, the county pays private clinics $94 for each visit.
“The department of health ought to evaluate whether they should be in the business of outpatient services when the private and nonprofit healthcare providers are able to provide those services efficiently and cost effectively,” he said.
Should county clinics close, several private clinic operators said they could absorb many of the county’s patients if they were given adequate time and money. Some said private clinics could take over operations at the county facilities as they have in the past.
“I think it’s an idea that’s worth exploring, but in the short term it could have tremendous unintended consequences if it’s done too quickly,” said Kimberly Wyard, chief executive of the Northeast Valley Health Corp., which took over two county clinics during a round of budget cuts in 1995. “The community clinics can’t afford to go bankrupt and need to know where the dollars are coming from.”
Jamesina E. Henderson, the chief executive of T.H.E. Clinic, just south of downtown Los Angeles, agreed, saying that her clinic’s costs for each visit are nearly double the county’s reimbursement rate of $94.
“We would be able to absorb the patients if we’re adequately funded,” she said.
But any closure of clinics is likely to face opposition from union leaders, who said they were concerned that cuts would result in layoffs of county employees and would harm patients.
“The first line of defense is when patients arrive at the primary care clinics,” said Annelle Grajeda, president of Service Employees International Union 721, which represents thousands of healthcare and other workers.
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jack.leonard@latimes.com
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060fa3608c3e0d8d5909a60cafd4f784 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-16-et-mexcenter16-story.html | Putting a spotlight on the massacre of 1968 | Putting a spotlight on the massacre of 1968
MEXICO CITY -- It was like Chicago ’68, only much bloodier, or Tiananmen Square ’89, only more shrouded in secrecy.
Even today there is no definitive count of how many pro-democracy demonstrators were slaughtered by Mexican army troops in the Tlatelolco zone of this capital on Oct. 2, 1968. Was the death toll a few dozen, as the government claimed? Or closer to 300, as some intrepid journalists reported? Did President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz approve the attack? No one knows for sure.
But finally, after decades of government stonewalling, Mexicans searching for answers to these questions have some place to turn: the new Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, a cultural center dedicated to exploring the massacre, its violent antecedents and its brutal aftermath.
Located in a striking mid-century Modernist office tower that formerly housed Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, the center sits smack on the edge of the so-called Plaza of the Three Cultures, where the massacre occurred nearly 40 years ago. The centerpiece is a permanent multimedia exhibition that uses photos, archival film footage, music snippets, yellowed newspaper clippings, taped interviews, poster displays and art installations to tell the murky, tragic story. Many Mexicans say it’s about time the country had a living memorial to this watershed event.
“It takes you by the throat. I think it’s very true to reality, it’s very true to what happened,” says Elena Poniatowska, 75, who as a journalist helped expose the truth of the massacre with her 1971 bestselling book of survivors’ testimonies, “La Noche de Tlatelolco” (The Night of Tlatelolco), published in English as “Massacre in Mexico.” “I think it’s a good memorial and it’s a good way of honoring all these students that were killed and remembering that their life was cut in two.”
The massacre occurred on the eve of the 1968 Olympic Games, which the Mexican government hoped to use as a showcase for the country’s booming economic growth and seeming stability. But this picturesque facade masked growing discontent with decades of autocratic, one-party rule and a persistent gap between haves and have-nots.
After gaining size and strength all that summer, the student-led protests culminated on the evening of Oct. 2, when thousands massed in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, so named because it contains Aztec ruins, a colonial-era church and modern apartment and office towers. The bloodshed began when troops creeping in among the ruins converged on the protesters, and snipers began shooting down on the plaza from the surrounding buildings. Despite international protests, the Olympics went forward a few days later.
For a long time after Tlatelolco, there was no mention in school textbooks or state-controlled television of the massacre. Two independent “truth commissions” appointed in the 1990s fizzled out with few tangible results. So did a pledge by former President Vicente Fox to investigate Tlatelolco, and the government’s subsequent “dirty war” against dissidents also fizzled.
“Sixty-eight practically didn’t exist,” says Sergio Raul Arroyo Garcia, 53, the center’s director general. “On the level of our official history there has been a type of forgetfulness or amnesia in relation to the student movement.”
Then in July 2005, the Mexico City government and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (itself the site of major student protests in 1968) agreed to create a cultural center containing a memorial to the Oct. 2 massacre and the political context surrounding it.
Spread across two floors, the exhibition creates a rich aural and visual environment that immerses visitors in an incendiary era. Snatches of “Light My Fire” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” flow out of speakers. One gallery wall bristles with colorful posters, witty bumper stickers and quasi-psychedelic handbills touting anti-government slogans.
Half a dozen small theaters allow visitors to watch dramatic black-and-white period footage of mass marches (including the summer’s violent climax), interviews with eyewitnesses and reflections by leading writers, artists and intellectuals.
One stark gallery, resembling a prison cell, is lined with police mug shots of arrested protesters, dozens if not hundreds of whom were tortured and “disappeared.”
“We didn’t think that the memorial was going to cancel the discussion about ’68, to convert it into a museum piece,” says Arroyo Garcia. “No, rather what we thought . . . we had to do is to put ’68 at the entrance, at the threshold, that would permit us a new reflection, there would be a new discussion about this.”
Alvaro Vazquez Mantecon, the exhibition’s curator, says that by using a multimedia approach to the subject, and utilizing nearly 60 recorded testimonies, the center offers viewers a pluralistic and “polyphonous” view of the student movement and its effect.
“There isn’t only one vision about the movement,” he says. “Perhaps the model that remains was the movie ‘Rashomon,’ of Kurosawa. There are moments in which the voices coincide, and many times when the voices differ. Clearly, it’s a thing that has to be seen with a great plurality of voices and perspectives.”
Since opening in October, the center has drawn enthusiastic crowds, including many students. Some remain skeptical that the spilled blood of that summer led to an end of repression and greater democracy for their country. “I think that the same thing is going on,” says Norma Zuniga, 29.
But Saray Chavaro Cruz, 15, was impressed after visiting the exhibition by what a previous generation had achieved. “Truthfully, yes, today it’s very different,” she says. “Now we’re allowed to express ourselves.”
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reed.johnson@latimes.com
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f9ce3fb0d656464bd49ea4829e0882d5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-16-me-funeral16-story.html | Thousands pay tribute to a man who touched lives | Thousands pay tribute to a man who touched lives
The police officers arrived by the thousands -- members of a family bound not by blood, but by a uniform and a badge.
They were joined by countless other mourners Friday, inside a cavernous South Los Angeles church and throughout the region, to honor slain Los Angeles Police Officer Randal Simmons. The 51-year-old officer was remembered as a deeply religious man, devoted husband, caring father and model cop in a tearful three-hour funeral service.
Simmons was shot and killed last week during a tense standoff with a San Fernando Valley gunman who already had killed three members of his family. He is the first member of the city’s elite Special Weapons and Tactics unit to be killed in the line of fire since its start nearly 40 years ago.
Ten thousand people -- most of them police and other law enforcement officers -- filled the Crenshaw Christian Center’s Faith Dome on Vermont Avenue. The funeral, attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other elected and civic officials, was the largest in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Simmons’ death reverberated throughout Southern California. Television stations carried the funeral live and uninterrupted for hours. Thousands of people lined closed city streets to watch as the hearse traveled to the Culver City cemetery where Simmons would be buried. At Slauson Avenue near Angeles Vista Boulevard, several hundred people, including the elderly and preschool students holding their parents’ hands, remained long after the hearse had passed. Some applauded. Others held “Thank You” signs.
Villaraigosa, whose children Simmons had once guarded, acknowledged to mourners that the death had hit the community hard.
“It touches a particular nerve way deep in our souls, and it hurts,” Villaraigosa said. “I’ve thought a lot over the last few days about why that is, and I think it has something to do with the fact that the entire city community loses when we lose a police officer.”
A video montage played at the service highlighted the many aspects of Simmons’ life, from childhood through fatherhood, including his work on the streets of inner-city neighborhoods where he ministered to children on weekends. Images of an intimidating, chiseled officer carrying heavy weapons in the midst of missions were set off by others that hinted of a man at ease and with a sense of humor. In one, he was seen hamming for the camera as he and his longtime partner, Officer James Veenstra, playfully put handcuffs on Santa Claus.
Speaker after speaker recounted memories of the man known at the LAPD as “The Rock.”
“ ‘I’ll take care of it, I’ll take care of it,’ ” his sister Gina Davis recalled her brother saying time after time.
“I’m going to miss those words,” she said. “He walked with the confidence of knowing he was capable of protecting you.”
Sharon “Cookie” Sumlin , one of Simmons’ sisters-in-law, said she took comfort in knowing “he is now patrolling the streets of heaven.”
In one of the many wrenching moments, Basil Kimbrew -- Simmons’ roommate at Washington State University, where both men played football -- walked off the stage at the center of the sanctuary-in-the-round to give an old framed photograph of Simmons to Veenstra, whose face was still swollen from the bullet he took to the jaw in the attack that killed his partner.
“That’s how Randy was,” said Kimbrew, emotion overwhelming him. “Randy always gave, he would always give before he gave to himself.”
LAPD Police Chief William J. Bratton told the SWAT officers sitting in the front pews to “console yourselves knowing that he spent his last moments in the company of you, his police family.”
The chief then turned to Simmons’ family. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for sharing him with us all those days and nights that he was away from you.”
Simmons’ son, Matthew, bearing a striking resemblance to his father, recalled praying as a family for his father’s safety moments before Simmons left on the night he was killed.
“He’s the best father any child could possibly have,” Matthew said in brief remarks that drew a standing ovation from the mourners.
A 27-year veteran of the LAPD and a 20-year veteran of SWAT, which specializes in hostage situations and other high-risk confrontations, Simmons was shot in the early morning of Feb. 7. He was among the SWAT unit members who broke through the front door of a mentally troubled man’s San Fernando Valley home, believing that hostages might still be alive inside. He was struck in the neck by a round of bullets that lodged in his brain stem.
The shooter, Edwin Rivera, 20, was killed by a police sniper as he shot at officers and tried to flee his home -- which had caught fire, presumably after tear-gas canisters were launched to force him out -- more than 10 hours after the standoff began.
Simmons’ death shattered an aura of invincibility that had grown around SWAT.
“They all hit you in the stomach,” said Assistant Police Chief Jim McDonnell, referring to the death of a police officer. “But this one . . . it’s the first SWAT officer we’ve had. When officers get in trouble, they call SWAT.”
The solemn day of remembrance started about 8:30 a.m, hours before the ceremony, as a white hearse carrying Simmons’ body pulled up to the church entrance. SWAT officers took turns standing guard at each corner of the vehicle.
By 9 a.m., the front of the church was a sea of blue as hundreds of officers arrived. Three officers from Jackson, N.J., in their light-blue jackets and hats, stood out from the dark shade of the LAPD uniforms. Many embraced and clasped hands, others dipped into a large envelope being passed around to grab small, laminated photos of Simmons that they clipped onto their uniforms.
In a show of solidarity that was extraordinary even in the tightly knit police community, members of SWAT teams and regular police officers from Alaska, New York, Massachusetts and other states, as well as Canada, melded in with the thousands of LAPD officers. Many said Simmons, a renowned tactician, had trained them. Others had never met him, but came nonetheless.
“Its just important for us to be here -- to show support,” said Sgt. A.J. DeAndrea, a SWAT member from Arvada, Colo. “You lose one, you feel it all across the country. I need to show my respect. He would have done the same if it were me.”
Moments before they were summoned, SWAT members serving as pallbearers, their hands cloaked in white gloves, received quiet instruction on something they had never had to do before: carry the coffin of a comrade. As their commander spoke, one stared sadly off into the crisp, cool morning air, his hand clenching and unclenching.
A bagpiper played. Simmons’ wife, Lisa, his two teenage children and other family members fell in behind the deep red, wooden coffin draped with an American flag. Children who had been counseled by Simmons through his youth ministry followed.
As dusk fell at Holy Cross cemetery, the goodbye to Simmons came to an end. Overhead, a helicopter peeled away from three others in the formation that signals a man is missing. On the ground, a trumpeter played taps after a gun salute. Bratton dropped to one knee in front of Simmons’ son and handed him the tightly folded flag from his father’s coffin.
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joel.rubin@latimes.com
paloma.esquivel@ latimes.com
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Times staff writers Francisco Vara-Orta, Hector Becerra , Gary Friedman and David Pierson contributed to this report.
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695e67b3ef101d45b2b139d74d5009c2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-16-me-greenbuild16-story.html | Going green may be L.A. law | Going green may be L.A. law
Los Angeles, known for its choking smog and fuel-burning gridlock, is poised to adopt one of the toughest green building ordinances in the nation.
Two city council committees voted Friday to require that all major commercial and residential developments slash projected energy and water use and reduce the overall environmental footprint, placing the city on the cutting edge of an international movement to address the global warming effects of buildings.
Under the ordinance, privately built projects over 50,000 square feet -- of which there are roughly 200 constructed annually -- must meet a “standard of sustainability” by incorporating a checklist of green practices into their building plans.
The checklist includes a choice of such items as low-flow toilets, paints with low emissions, use of recycled materials, efficient irrigation, solar panels and use of natural light.
The average green building, according to studies, saves 36% in energy, 40% in water, and cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and solid waste by 70%.
The proposed ordinance has garnered unusually broad support, thanks to more than a year of negotiations and meetings between city officials and citizens’ groups.
It is endorsed by some of the area’s biggest developers, along with the Los Angeles Business Council, the American Institute of Architects, several building trade unions and groups such as Global Green and the Green LA Coalition.
“When you do something this big, it can be quite scary,” City Council Chairman Eric Garcetti said.
“But this has been an inclusive process. It will lead to a healthier city and a healthier planet.”
Garcetti said he expects the full council to adopt the standards unanimously within a month.
Nationwide, buildings account for 71% of electricity consumption, 12% of potable water used and 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions that, scientists say, are heating the planet to dangerous levels.
The council’s proposed green checklist -- known as the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design, or LEED -- was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
It is rapidly becoming a national baseline standard, as more than 120 localities have adopted green building rules for public construction, and 12 cities, including Boston, Washington and San Francisco, have extended the rules to the private sector.
Under L.A.'s ordinance, which would take effect six months after City Council adoption, developers who build to an even higher standard, so-called LEED Silver, would get expedited permits.
The incentive has generated great interest among some developers.
“Building green is good for business, building green is good for developers and building green is good for the city of Los Angeles,” Brad Cox, chairman of the Los Angeles Business Council, testified before the council committees Friday.
Cox, managing partner of the local office of Trammell Crow, one of the nation’s largest developers, said his company is building six Los Angeles projects designed to meet more stringent green standards than the city proposes.
However, Holly Shroeder, chief executive of the Los Angeles and Ventura chapter of the Building Industry Assn., which represents mainly residential builders, suggested that the city develop its own rules rather than relying on an outside standard such as LEED.
“This is a pretty significant change in how we build in the city, at a time when the private sector doesn’t need more mandates,” she said.
And Tom Gilmore, a downtown developer, said the LEED standard did not give enough credit in its checklist to buildings located near mass transit.
L.A.'s program, however, is likely to evolve under a new Green Team of city agencies set up under the ordinance, according to Claire Bowin of the city’s planning office. The team would hold public meetings every month to work out kinks and examine proposals.
“This is a baby step for some, but a huge leap for others,” said Bowin.
“We recognize that. The Green Team will remove barriers to innovation.”
For some, the new standard doesn’t go far enough. Jane Paul of Green LA Coalition suggested that the city lower the threshold to 25,000 square feet to incorporate medium-sized buildings in the program in the next two years.
And Ken Lewis, president of the architectural firm AC Martin Partners, advocated raising the baseline “to LEED Silver as the minimum.”
Lewis, whose firm has designed projects for the city, local universities and private developers, said that five years ago it was more costly to build to green standards. “Today, we find no additional project cost to achieve the city’s [proposed] baseline standard,” he said.
The new standard will go a long way toward meeting the city’s pledge to reduce its carbon footprint to 35% below 1990 levels by 2030. By mid-century, two-thirds of the buildings in the city will have been built between now and then.
Pasadena, Santa Monica, Long Beach and West Hollywood have adopted mandatory green building standards.
But Los Angeles would be the largest city in the nation to do so.
margot.roosevelt@ latimes.com
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88ce57f8301c969bb4d8202d5a27b9fe | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-16-me-statue16-story.html | Police strike pay dirt in hunt for stolen statue of miner | Police strike pay dirt in hunt for stolen statue of miner
The bronze miner who stood for 80 years in a Mid-City park suffered the height of indignities.
He was ripped from his pedestal in the park two blocks from Beverly Hills, cut in half above the knees and trucked to a scrap yard on Alameda Street south of downtown. There he was thrown amid the lumpen metal masses -- common copper plumbing, old radiators, transmissions and beer kegs.
Fortunately, police found the miner before he was crushed in the bailer, sent to China and melted in a foundry forge. And they may have ended a peculiar crime spree as well.
Two men were arrested Thursday in connection with the theft and are suspected of stealing other bronze sculptures in the Mid-City area and Beverly Hills between Jan. 29 and Tuesday. Sebastian Espana, 22, and Jessie Hernandez, 23, are likely to face grand theft charges, said Det. Stephanie Lazarus of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Theft Detail.
The thefts are part of a vexing trend: As the price of metals has soared worldwide, people have taken to stealing streetlight wiring, plumbing valves, catalytic converters and fire hydrants. But the pilfering of sculptures for a quick buck has brought the crime to a new level of audacity and waste.
As art, the 7-foot miner panning for gold, sculpted by Henry Lion in 1924 and 1925, was valued at $125,000. As 512 pounds of bronze, police said, it was sold to Central Metals Inc. on Alameda on Feb. 3 for a mere $900.
Supervisors at the facility were suspicious when the statue arrived and held it for an LAPD detective, who routinely scopes the metal yards for stolen items.
“When something like this comes in, we keep it to the side,” said Louis Castro, a manager at the six-acre facility. They also take names. Scrap yards, by law, must record the identifications of anyone dropping off metal.
Police placed a hold on the statue and launched an investigation, setting up surveillance on the two suspects, Lazarus said.
The pair allegedly returned this week with other works of art: modern sculpture resembling two people entwined, stolen from a business on Wilshire Boulevard, and two bronze giraffes and a depiction of children on a swing from a home in Beverly Hills.
The men were arrested about 10:30 p.m. Thursday on suspicion of grand theft. Detectives are trying to locate a bronze bust and another sculpture the two men are suspected of stealing.
Los Angeles officials retrieved the miner Friday morning. They said they intend to have it repaired and restored to its historic perch in the Carthay Circle community. The miner was bolted to a boulder, in the shade of a magnificent pine tree, in a pocket park at San Vicente and Crescent Heights boulevards. The sculpture was once the centerpiece of a grand display of ponds and fountains, with the illustrious Carthay Circle Theater as a backdrop. Officials do not yet know how much it will cost to fix and secure the statue, or whether insurance will pay for it.
Residents of Carthay Circle were delighted to learn the old miner survived, albeit with amputated legs.
“I’m glad he’s only cut in half and not melted down,” said Judy Moore, president of the Carthay Circle Neighborhood Assn. “At least he didn’t go into the witch’s brew to become God knows what.”
Moore said the neighborhood association is willing to help pay to fix the miner.
Sculptures nationwide have been vanishing as the price of metal continues to rise. Scrap yards routinely shell out more than $3 a pound for copper and more than $2 a pound for bronze and brass, both of which are alloys containing copper. Most of the metal is shipped to Asia to be melted down and refabricated.
Last month, at the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park near Astoria, Ore., a thief heisted a 5 1/2 -foot bronze statue of Sacagawea and her baby. Police arrested a man and tracked down parts of the $20,000 statue -- sold for scrap for $250.
Several weeks ago, in Brea, thieves used a cutting torch to remove a 6-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide bronze sculpture from its concrete stand in front of a business -- the third theft of a statue in the city in nine months.
On Friday at Central Metals, pickup trucks filled with all type of metal detritus lined up waiting to get in. Most of the bronze, brass and copper the company buys comes from plumbing and wiring brought in by demolition crews and construction workers. “This is our brass pile,” Castro said, pointing to a heap of tangled pipe.
At the giant bailer -- which compresses the mishmash of metal into desk-size cubes -- workers prepared to load a massive spew of copper wiring.
“That’s the big thing people are stealing right now, copper wiring, all the drug addicts,” Castro said.
In December, Los Angeles police announced that 370,000 feet of copper wire had been stolen in four months, disabling 700 streetlights. The thieves open boxes at the bases of adjacent poles, snip the wire that runs between them and pull it out one end.
Wire is much harder to identify as stolen than, say, statues, and Castro said the bulk of it is legitimate scrap brought in by electricians.
However, he says the company turns people away all the time, mostly because they don’t have identification or refuse to present it.
Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge said Friday that the stolen statues point to the need to strengthen laws that would punish thieves who peddle in metals.
“It’s insulting and violates the public trust,” LaBonge said. He said the thieves deserved to be prosecuted and “bopped on the top of the head,” with the cane carried by the statue of Griffith J. Griffith in front of Griffith Park.
joe.mozingo@latimes.com
andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
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bd62ba64cf37e317e6d6b6fcb9bd7a9f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-17-na-intel17-story.html | CIA spy plan for post-9/11 era crumbles | CIA spy plan for post-9/11 era crumbles
The CIA set up a network of front companies in Europe and elsewhere after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a constellation of “black stations” for a new generation of spies, according to current and former agency officials.
But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars setting up as many as 12 of the companies, the agency shut down all but two after concluding they were ill-conceived and poorly positioned for gathering intelligence on the CIA’s principal targets: terrorist groups and unconventional weapons proliferation networks.
The closures were a blow to two of the CIA’s most pressing priorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks: expanding its overseas presence and changing the way it deploys spies.
The companies were the centerpiece of an ambitious plan to increase the number of case officers sent overseas under what is known as “nonofficial cover,” meaning they would pose as employees of investment banks, consulting firms or other fictitious enterprises with no apparent ties to the U.S. government.
But the plan became the source of significant dispute within the agency and was plagued with problems, officials said. The bogus companies were located far from Muslim enclaves in Europe and other targets. Their size raised concerns that one mistake would blow the cover of many agents. And because business travelers don’t ordinarily come into contact with Al Qaeda or other high-priority adversaries, officials said, the cover didn’t work.
Summing up what many considered the fatal flaw of the program, one former high-ranking CIA official said, “They were built on the theory of the ‘Field of Dreams’: Build them and the targets will come.”
Officials said the experience reflected an ongoing struggle at the CIA to adapt to a new environment in espionage. The agency has sought to regroup by designing covers that would provide pretexts for spies to get close to radical Muslim groups, nuclear equipment manufacturers and other high-priority targets.
But current and former officials say progress has been painfully slow, and that the agency’s efforts to alter its use of personal and corporate disguises have yet to produce a significant penetration of a terrorist or weapons proliferation network.
“I don’t believe the intelligence community has made the fundamental shift in how it operates to adapt to the different targets that are out there,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
The cover arrangements most commonly employed by the CIA “don’t get you near radical Islam,” Hoekstra said, adding that six years after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, “We don’t have nearly the kind of penetrations I would have expected against hard targets.”
Trying to get close
Whatever their cover, the CIA’s spies are unlikely to single-handedly penetrate terrorist or proliferation groups, officials said. Instead, the agency stalks informants around the edges of such quarry -- moderate Muslims troubled by the radical message at their mosques; mercenary shipping companies that might accept illicit nuclear components as cargo; chemists whose colleagues have suspicious contacts with extremist groups.
Agency officials declined to respond to questions about the front companies and the decision to close them.
“Cover is designed to protect the officers and operations that protect America,” CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said. “The CIA does not, for that very compelling reason, publicly discuss cover in detail.”
But senior CIA officials have publicly acknowledged that the agency has devoted considerable energy to creating new ways for its case officers -- the CIA’s term for its overseas spies -- to operate under false identities.
“In terms of the collection of intelligence, there has been a great deal of emphasis for us to use nontraditional methods,” CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in November 2006 radio interview shortly after taking the helm at the agency. “For us that means nontraditional platforms -- what folks call ‘out of embassy’ platforms -- and we’re progressing along those lines.”
The vast majority of the CIA’s spies traditionally have operated under what is known as official cover, meaning they pose as U.S. diplomats or employees of another government agency.
The approach has advantages, including diplomatic immunity, which means that an operative under official cover might get kicked out of a country if he or she is caught spying, but won’t be imprisoned or executed.
Official cover is also cheaper and easier. Front companies can take a year or more to set up. They require renting office space, having staff to answer phones and paying for cars and other props. They also involve creating fictitious client lists and resumes that can withstand sustained scrutiny.
One of the CIA’s commercial cover platforms was exposed in 2003 when undercover officer Valerie Plame was exposed in a newspaper by columnist Robert Novak. Public records quickly led to the unraveling of the company that served as her cover during overseas trips, a fictitious CIA firm called Brewster Jennings & Associates.
Official cover worked well for the duration of the Cold War, when holding a job at a U.S. Embassy enabled American spies to make contact with Soviet officials and other communist targets.
But many intelligence officials are convinced that embassy posts aren’t useful against a new breed of adversaries. “Terrorists and weapons proliferators aren’t going to be on the diplomatic cocktail circuit,” said one government official familiar with the CIA’s cover operations.
Under intense pressure
After the terrorist strikes, the Bush administration ordered the agency to expand its overseas operation by 50%. The agency came under intense pressure from Congress to alter its approach to designing cover and got a major boost in funding to expand the nonofficial cover program, which is commonly referred to by the acronym NOC, pronounced “knock.”
Although the agency has used nonofficial cover throughout its history, the newer front companies were designed to operate on a different scale. Rather than setting up one- or two-person consulting firms, the plan called for the creation of companies that would employ six to nine case officers apiece, plus support staff.
The NOC program typically had functioned as an elite entity, made up of a small number of carefully selected case officers, some of whom would spend years in training and a decade or more overseas with only intermittent contact with headquarters. But the new plan called for the front companies to serve as way stations even for relatively inexperienced officers, who would be rotated in and out much the way they would in standard embassy assignments.
“The idea was that these were going to be almost like black stations,” said a former CIA official involved in the plan to form the companies. “We were trying to build something that had a life span, that had durability.”
In the process, the agency hoped to break a logjam in getting post-Sept. 11 recruits overseas. Thousands of applicants had rushed to join the CIA after the attacks, and many were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. But outside of those war zones, open slots were scarce.
“The embassies were full,” said a former CIA official involved in deployment decisions. “We were losing officers by the dozens because we didn’t have slots for them overseas.”
In separate interviews, two former CIA case officers who joined the agency after the attacks said that 15% to 20% of their classmates had quit within a few years. Among them, they said, was one who had earned his master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University and was fluent in Chinese and another who had left a high-paying job at the investment firm Goldman Sachs.
The front companies were created between 2002 and 2004, officials said, and most were set up to look like consulting firms or other businesses designed to be deliberately bland enough to escape attention.
About half were set up in Europe, officials said -- in part to put the agency in better position to track radical Muslim groups there, but also because of the ease of travel and comfortable living conditions. That consideration vexed some CIA veterans.
“How do you let someone have a white-collar lifestyle and be part of the blue-collar terrorist infrastructure?” said one high-ranking official who was critical of the program.
But the plan was to use the companies solely as bases. Case officers were forbidden from conducting operations in the country where their company was located. Instead, they were expected to adopt second and sometimes third aliases before traveling to their targets. The companies, known as platforms, would then remain intact to serve as vessels for the next crop of case officers who would have different targets.
‘A very bitter fight’
The concept triggered fierce debate within the agency, officials said.
“This was a very bitter fight,” said a CIA official who was a proponent of the plan because it insulated the fictitious firms from the actual work of espionage.
“When you link the cover to the operation, the minute the operation starts getting dicey, you run across the screen of the local police, the local [intelligence service] or even the senior people in the mosque,” the official said. “I saw this kill these platforms repeatedly. The CIA invests millions of dollars and then something goes wrong and it’s gone.”
But critics called the arrangement convoluted, and argued that whatever energy the agency was devoting to the creation of covers should be focused on platforms that could get U.S. spies close to their most important targets.
“How does a businessman contact a terrorist?” said a former CIA official involved in the decision to shut down the companies. “If you’re out there selling widgets, why are you walking around a mosque in Hamburg?”
Rather than random businesses, these officials said, the agency should be creating student aid organizations that work with Muslim students, or financial firms that associate with Arab investors.
Besides broad concerns about the approach, officials said there were other problems with the companies. Some questioned where they were located. One, for example, was set up in Portugal even though its principal targets were in North Africa.
The issue became so divisive that the agency’s then-director, Porter J. Goss, tapped the official then in charge of the CIA’s European division, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, to lead an in-house review of the NOC strategy.
Mowatt-Larssen sided with critics of the approach and began pulling the plug on the companies before he left the agency to take a senior intelligence post at the Department of Energy, officials said. Mowatt-Larssen declined to comment.
The agency is in the midst of rolling out a series of new platforms that are more narrowly targeted, officials said. The External Operations and Cover Division has been placed under Eric Pound, a veteran foreign officer who was CIA station chief in Athens during the 2004 Olympics.
But the agency is still struggling to overcome obstacles, including resistance from many of the agency’s station chiefs overseas, most of whom rose through the ranks under traditional cover assignments and regard the NOC program with suspicion and distrust.
In one recent case, officials said, the CIA’s station chief in Saudi Arabia vetoed a plan to send a NOC officer who had spent years developing credentials in the nuclear field to an energy conference in Riyadh.
The NOC “had been invited to the conference, had seen a list of invitees and saw a target he had been trying to get to,” said a former CIA official familiar with the matter. “The boss said, ‘No, that’s why we have case officers here.’ ”
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greg.miller@latimes.com
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0641241d56f381c72f10cf466c19eba3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-fg-kosovo18-story.html | Kosovo takes a big leap of faith | Kosovo takes a big leap of faith
In a move that inflamed tensions in this volatile region, the ethnic Albanian government of Kosovo on Sunday proclaimed the province independent from Serbia, forming a new and troubled country in Europe.
The United States, biggest sponsor of independence for Kosovo, is expected to quickly recognize the new state, as will some European nations. But Russia is adamantly opposed, along with Serbia, and the United Nations is unlikely to voice support for Kosovo’s unilateral action, setting up a thorny dispute reminiscent of the Cold War.
The declaration of independence was met by wild celebrations in Kosovo, violent protests in Serbia and a hastily called meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which failed to take any action.
The secession of Kosovo marks the latest and presumably final chapter in the blood-soaked dissolution of what was once Yugoslavia. Kosovo joins five former republics that, beginning in 1991 with Slovenia, have withdrawn from Belgrade’s reign and become sovereign states, often through devastating warfare.
Here in the frigid, snow-dusted streets of Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, jubilant ethnic Albanians celebrated what for them was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. All day long and into the night, they marched shoulder to shoulder down Mother Teresa Boulevard, many wrapped in the red-and-black flag of neighboring Albania as fireworks exploded across the sky.
“This is a great day, the best day in our lives,” gushed Elmi Berisha, 37, a real estate broker.
“Happy independence!” friends and acquaintances called out to one another amid hugs and kisses. Cars, their horns blaring, choked downtown Pristina; families danced; nationalist songs filled the air; and people partied endlessly in bars and restaurants offering free Independence Day food and drink. U.S. flags were a common sight, and a few revelers fired guns in celebration. Others chanted the name of the guerrilla army that fought Serbs in the last decade to gain independence for the province, which is 90% ethnic Albanian.
U.S. Embassy attacked
In the Serbian capital, Belgrade, small but determined gangs attacked the U.S. Embassy with chunks of concrete, torched garbage dumpsters, trashed cars and fought with police in frustrated anger over Kosovo’s declaration.
Serbian riot police beat back attempts by demonstrators to invade Belgrade’s only mosque, but two McDonald’s restaurants, the Slovenian Embassy -- Slovenia holds the rotating presidency of the European Union -- and offices of the only Serbian political party advocating recognition of a free Kosovo were ransacked.
The protesters chanted demands for war and attacked TV crews. Authorities said 12 people were arrested, and B92 television reported that 65 people, including at least 30 police, were injured.
The rioters may have been inspired by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who used a televised address to reiterate Serbia’s fierce refusal to recognize Kosovo.
“Today . . . a false state of Kosovo was illegally declared on the part of Serbia that is under the military control of NATO,” Kostunica said. “A destructive, cruel and immoral policy carried out by the U.S. led to this unprecedented act of lawlessness.”
Earlier in the day, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci made official the proclamation that had long been anticipated: “We, the democratically elected leaders of our people,” he said in a special session of parliament, “hereby declare Kosovo to be an independent and sovereign state.”
Thaci made a point of reading a portion of his speech in the Serbian language and emphasized that the new Kosovo would respect the rights of its Serbian minority, many of whom have been harassed and fear for their well-being. The parliament also approved a new flag, a blue background with a yellow map of the Connecticut-sized province.
“We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do,” said Thaci, a former guerrilla leader.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations for nearly a decade, after NATO bombers in 1999 drove out Serbian forces that were attacking ethnic Albanian separatists. An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in that war, and many more displaced.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who commanded NATO at the time, said in a television interview Sunday that the brutality of then-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” made it “inevitable” that Kosovo would never again be ruled by Belgrade.
Most of Kosovo’s nearly 2 million people are Muslim but are largely secular and pro-Western. Serbia is an Orthodox Christian nation with historical cultural ties to the Kosovo region, part of the reason it is so valued by Belgrade.
‘Real challenges’
Beyond Sunday’s jubilation among Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians, and Serb consternation, lies a problematic road ahead for the new state. Despite nine years of tutelage and billions of donated dollars, Kosovo is a long way from operating as a real country.
“We know Kosovo faces real challenges in creating a functioning state,” said Kosovo’s president, Fatmir Sejdiu.
Kosovo has a very young and mostly unemployed population. Its treatment of women is deplorable, according to human rights activists -- Kosovo is a major transit point and sometimes origin for the trafficking of women forced into prostitution. Poverty and official corruption are rampant, and basic infrastructure is so poor that there are daily power outages. Minorities, including an estimated 100,000 Serbs, have been subjected to abuse and discrimination, and fewer than 10% of those forced from their homes in a wave of postwar revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians have returned.
Kosovo relies on a 16,000-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization force for basic security, has virtually no productive economy and instead lives by donations, and will continue, even in independence, to be supervised by a large EU contingent of police and judicial officers.
Moreover, the expectations of average Kosovo citizens that statehood will solve all their problems are widely seen as unrealistically high.
“It’s going to be the shortest honeymoon you’ve ever seen,” said analyst Shpend Ahmeti of Pristina’s Institute for Advanced Studies. “They’ve linked every problem with status. And now, status will not be an excuse anymore.”
Kosovo officials argue that because the status of their aspirant nation was in limbo, it was impossible to make long-term government plans.
“I don’t believe we are ready,” said Berisha, the real estate broker. “We will continue to need support. But they have to teach us to walk. They can’t walk for us anymore.”
Also among the revelers Sunday were cousins Hasam and Gazmend Mehani, who were waving huge Albanian flags, plus one Italian flag for good measure.
“We’re just hoping for things to be better,” said Gazmend, 25 and unemployed for the last nine years. Hasam, 42, said he was confident that independence would bring peace and happiness to Kosovo. But he has no plans to return to live in Kosovo, preferring to stay abroad in Switzerland.
“I’ll wait for things to settle out,” he said.
International diplomacy will also have to settle out in the coming days. European Union foreign ministers will meet today to decide what position to take on Kosovo.
Although Washington is expected to recognize the new country of Kosovo, President Bush did not offer such acknowledgment Sunday. Traveling in Africa, he said resolving Kosovo’s status was key to stability in the Balkans and urged all parties to avoid violence.
Russia calls meeting
Russia, a key ally of Serbia, called an emergency Security Council meeting Sunday, hours after the declaration of independence, and asked U.N. officials in Kosovo to declare the proclamation of independence “null and void.” Russia and Serbia maintain that Kosovo’s action violates international law. The U.N., however, is not expected to intervene.
“We will also strongly warn against any attempts at repressive measures should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with this unilateral proclamation of independence,” Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said before entering the closed council meeting.
He was alluding to Serbs in the divided Kosovo city of Kosovska Mitrovica who are threatening to secede from Kosovo. In the city on Sunday, assailants tossed hand grenades at EU and U.N. buildings, causing damage but no injuries.
Russia and several European countries that oppose independence argue that it sets a dangerous precedent for separation-minded ethnic minorities in other nations. The presidents of the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are scheduled to address a joint news conference in Moscow today, and analysts believe they may declare independence for their regions and seek Moscow’s recognition.
wilkinson@latimes.com
Times staff writers Maggie Farley at the United Nations, James Gerstenzang in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Sergei L. Loiko in Moscow and special correspondent Zoran Cirjakovic in Belgrade contributed to this report.
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bdeec28b7f42cc994d25d77a035b8456 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-fi-chinajobs18-story.html | Degree no job guarantee in China | Degree no job guarantee in China
Sun Yuanping skipped her college graduation ceremony for a job interview. It was an all-day affair and the bookish 22-year-old felt good about it. After all, she has degrees in marketing and botany from a well-regarded school in this central Chinese city, and she ranked in the top fifth of her class.
Sun never heard back from that prospective employer nor from dozens of other companies and government agencies where she has applied since she graduated in June. Recently, after tearful self-reflection and long nights tossing in bed, she pared down her expectations and began sending her resume to small businesses offering salaries as low as $140 a month, a third of what she had hoped to make.
As each jobless day passes and Sun lives off a $100 monthly allowance from her parents, she feels more and more guilty.
“All along, I thought if I went to a good university, everything would be fine,” Sun said on a recent snowy afternoon. Her eyes welled with tears as she went on. “At first, it was hard to believe. I considered myself to be quite excellent. I’m struggling to accept this.”
Until the start of this decade, a college degree in China put you in elite circles. The government arranged jobs for graduates in public agencies or state-owned enterprises. Unemployment wasn’t an issue.
But of the nearly 5 million young people who graduated in June, about 1.45 million were still unemployed in the fall, according to a study published last month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Researchers estimated that by year-end, about 75% of the recent graduates had found jobs.
China’s graduate employment rate compares favorably with countries such as Japan, where 68% got jobs by the end of the year. No such comprehensive statistic exists for the United States. But Yang Dongping, a Beijing scholar who wrote the academy’s report, cautioned that many schools in China were known to exaggerate placement figures. Whatever the true numbers, Yang said, “Without doubt, it’s harder and harder for graduates to find jobs.”
That is evident in Wuhan, a city of about 10 million on the Yangtze River. Based on employment contracts and school certificates, officials said, the employment rate for university graduates in this city by year-end fell from 83% in 2003 to 73% in 2006. Their average monthly take-home pay is $200 to $240 -- compared with about $160 for all Wuhan residents.
In part, the falling hiring rates reflect booming enrollment at Chinese universities and the opening of new schools, many of them second-rate. About 5.6 million Chinese are expected to graduate from two- and four-year colleges this year, five times the number in 2001.
But the rising joblessness also mirrors broader problems in China’s education system and economy, as well as inflated expectations of many graduates. Researchers and company recruiters say too many students are coming out of universities unprepared for the marketplace. Many undergraduate institutions have aggressively expanded programs in fields such as law, where there are relatively few openings for those without advanced degrees.
Of most concern, company managers say, is that many students lack creativity and analytical ability, having been drilled in memorizing and reciting facts.
“Universities should train students more according to the needs of the job market and encourage them to be more innovative,” said Ji Xueqing, general manager of the Shanghai branch of software maker Ufida Co. Last year, he said, his branch hired about 600 staffers, including fresh graduates. For each position, there were seven to eight candidates.
“With development, our society will need more experienced workers, and companies will have higher requirements,” Ji said. “It’s going to get harder for [new graduates] to find a satisfactory job.”
That worries government officials. “When the employment situation is difficult, relations between teachers and students are tense,” said Yang Yiyong, vice director of economic research at the National Development and Reform Commission, a powerful policymaking agency in Beijing. A year and a half ago in China’s central Henan province, students at Shengda College rioted after they discovered that their diplomas didn’t bear the name of the school’s more-prestigious affiliate, Zhengzhou University. Students, worried that the change would hurt their job prospects, ransacked offices, smashed windows and scuffled with police.
“Education is a very large expense for ordinary families. Of course they want to get a return after graduation,” Yang said.
Since then, the central government has moved to slow enrollment growth. And cities have eased resident permit rules to allow job seekers greater mobility. More universities have beefed up their career counseling and job centers. Still, Yang said, “in the near future, the placement situation for graduates will remain very severe. We haven’t reached the peak for college graduates. . . . Therefore, they should adopt a more modest attitude when looking for jobs.”
Like many Chinese graduates, Cheng Xiaohui is the first in his family to go to college -- the first, in fact, in his entire farming village of 300, about 100 miles northwest of Wuhan. Two years ago, the 25-year-old graduated from China Three Gorges University in western Hubei province, majoring in environmental engineering.
The job market didn’t look good, so Cheng moved here to pursue a master’s degree in environmental engineering at Wuhan University of Technology. He graduates this June but has been applying for jobs since October.
“I want to go to a large design institute, not a small private company,” Cheng said, warming his hands with a cup of hot chocolate. For now, he said, he’s holding out for a salary of at least $300 a month. “I have a lot of pressure. . . . I can’t find some job that any migrant worker can do,” said Cheng, an earnest man with deep lines on his face. “Every year, most of my family’s income is used for tuition. My parents never mention income. They just say, ‘Focus on your studies.’ ”
Undergraduate tuition at Three Gorges University runs $1,300 to $1,800 a year. For living expenses, Cheng said, he borrowed about $800 a year from the government
This month, he went home for the Chinese New Year holiday. The college man expected to get a warm welcome from the villagers. Yet Cheng said part of him was dreading his return. “For sure, they will ask me whether I have found a job.”
By the statistics, Cheng stands a better chance than most. Wuhan University of Technology, although not one of the nation’s “key schools,” ranks in the second tier. Last year, various engineering majors held the top eight spots in placement rates, said Wang Xing, director of Wuhan’s Vocational School & College Graduates Placement Administration.
Wang has been studying the situation since 2002. He has visited and met with job counseling officers at schools in Europe and the U.S., including USC. One key difference Wang cited was expectations.
Sometimes Wang fields calls from students’ parents, who want to know why their sons or daughters can’t land good jobs. They don’t realize, he said, that circumstances have changed. “We’re emphasizing to graduates that finding a job is not the government’s job or your parents’. It’s your own.”
Many students in Wuhan know that. The city center alone has 59 public and private colleges and universities where enrollment keeps growing. Meanwhile, private schools have popped up all over the place, some started by state universities to generate cash, others by entrepreneurs.
Wuhan Hongbo Group, a private firm, originally ran back-office operations for universities. But in the last few years, the group has launched three colleges in Wuhan. The campus of one of them, Engineering & Commerce College of South-Central University for Nationalities, was built on tens of acres of reclaimed land near the stretch of the Yangtze River where Mao Tse-tung staged his famous swim in 1966.
The college started out with 800 students; this year it has more than 8,100. Tuition runs from $1,400 to $2,000.
Zhang Jun, vice director of the school’s career center, said 92% of the 1,514 graduates in 2007 had found jobs. He said their average pay was about $140 a month, comparable with wages paid at factories and restaurants. The few openings posted on the center’s bulletin board were not encouraging: warehouse guard and management trainee at a trading company, starting salary $80 a month; hotel management trainee, $70 to $110 a month.
Hu Jian, a senior majoring in e-commerce at the university, has already lowered her expectations. “When I first started job hunting, I only wanted those famous companies in cities like Shanghai and Beijing,” the 22-year-old said. But after hearing nothing from more than 30 applications, Hu has all but given up hopes of joining a Fortune 500 company.
“For sure, I’m a little frustrated and worried now,” she said.
don.lee@latimes.com
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54d78c1868691ca3f1de6c5c1774f302 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-fi-gasdemand18-story.html | Fewer drivers over a barrel | Fewer drivers over a barrel
Sun Valley legal secretary James Eric Freedner got fed up with high gasoline prices.
He put his 2003 Toyota Tacoma truck in the garage and switched to a Honda Nighthawk motorcycle for weekday commutes to Beverly Hills. He stopped driving to the beach on weekends and cut back on trips to Hanford and Fresno to check on properties he manages. He began grouping errands into one trip each Saturday.
The trade-offs Freedner has made in the last year haven’t necessarily made him happy, but they’ve reduced his gasoline consumption nearly 50%. And although he admits to feeling jittery traveling freeways on the Nighthawk, all the changes are permanent, unless gas returns to $2.50 a gallon.
“The price was just eating up what I earned,” said Freedner, 57. “This is the best thing I can do to make ends meet.”
Americans are getting serious about using less gasoline, confounding some economists who have argued that most people can’t reduce their driving much because they have to get to and from work and make those necessary trips such as shopping and chauffeuring their children around.
The truth is more complicated, according to some energy experts: When the price reaches a certain threshold or the driving reaches a peak point of aggravation, people are willing to give up personal space and independence.
“There is an awful lot of what might be called discretionary driving,” said Edward Leamer, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “Raise the price high enough, and you will see that there is a lot more that people can do.”
For some, the next drop in prices won’t be enough to send them back to their old driving habits.
“The trend will be toward more lasting conservation and longer-term savings if they are not just reacting to prices and have instead made a decision to change,” said Bruce Bullock, executive director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Dallas.
In California, the nation’s biggest fuel market, drivers have been burning through less gasoline than they had the year before for six straight quarters. From July through September, the most recent data available, Californians used 46.2 million fewer gallons, or 1.1% less than in the year-earlier period.
Consider ridership figures for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
For seven years, nothing was able to displace Oct. 4, 2000, when the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics baseball teams were gunning for a pennant. BART set a single-day ridership record with 374,900 passengers.
That peak was eclipsed in 2007, and has been beaten so often that it no longer ranks among the top 10 ridership days. The new record, 389,400, was set Aug. 31.
Ridership on the buses and trains run by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority dropped overall in 2007, but officials said that was the result of a fare increase in July. Before that, boardings had been on the rise.
The MTA’s Orange Line has seen daily ridership grow from just under 15,500 in 2005 to nearly 21,500 last year.
In its annual state of the region report, released in December, the Southern California Assn. of Governments noted that the share of commuters who drove alone had dropped in 2005 and 2006, from 76.7% to 74.1%, reversing steady increases from 2000 through 2004.
With gasoline prices doubling since 2003, motorists nationwide are conserving fuel by taking fewer trips, driving slower and paying premiums for the most fuel-efficient vehicles, the Congressional Budget Office said in a recent report.
Kimra Haskell, a mathematics professor at USC, began bicycling to work six months ago.
She had many reasons. Sometimes she felt a shooting pain in her driving leg. She wanted to make a statement about the Iraq war and U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The California lifestyle of driving everywhere for everything -- even to exercise at a gym -- had left her too dependent on her aging 1993 Honda Accord.
She made her trial run from Eagle Rock to USC on a clunky, old Schwinn mountain bike. On the return trip of the 26-mile ride, uphill, she was ready to abandon the bike by the side of the road. But she persevered, bought a sleek, Italian Bianchi Volpe bicycle and is building up to cycling to work five days a week.
Gas prices were only part of the story, Haskell, 43, said. “It was mainly the effects on my health, on the time it took out of my life, the stress of dealing with the traffic.”
Antipollution regulations are altering habits, too. California’s air-quality rules demand that employers with 250 or more workers takes steps to reach a 1.5-1 passenger-vehicle ratio, or about 34 cars for every 50 employees.
At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, there are perks for ride sharing. About 8,000 full-time and contract employees work on a campus with only 4,000 parking spaces, said John Miranda, JPL’s employee transportation coordinator.
Drive to JPL alone, and you’ll have to walk a few blocks from an off-site parking lot, Miranda said. Sharing the ride with one person earns an unassigned space on the JPL campus, he said. Three or more to a car hits the jackpot: an assigned parking space on campus.
One who didn’t have to be sold was Shadan Ardalan, 39, who serves as navigator of the Cassini space probe’s mission to Saturn. Mornings and evenings, Ardalan navigates a van pool in a leased Ford, taking co-workers to and from the Redondo Beach area.
“Driving alone was a huge stress, a lot of wear and tear on the psyche,” Ardalan said.
Bad news at the pump has been good for business at Troy, Mich.-based VPSI Inc., which leases six- to 14-passenger vans to businesses, governments and transit agencies.
The company charges $900 to $1,200 a month for the vans, which allow employees to leave their cars at home. Employees with good safety records serve as drivers for their pools.
After averaging between 5% and 6% annual growth for much of its history, Chief Executive Jeff Henning said, VPSI has grown 10% or more on average nationally since 2005. Southern California had the fastest expansion in 2007 at 13%, although it takes extra to entice Southlanders.
Although most of the vans leased by VPSI customers in other parts of the nation are utilitarian at best, California van pools tend to carry more expensive accouterments, such as high-backed, individually reclining seats, said Jim Appleby, VPSI’s manager for Southern California.
“It takes a little bit more to get people out of their cars here,” Appleby said.
Sometimes, the answer can be as easy as changing work hours and offering an incentive.
To encourage carpooling, Hilario Navarro, president of 36-employee Bonanza Foods & Provisions Inc. in Vernon, rearranged schedules of six workers who lived in West Covina. In January, he handed out $100 prepaid gasoline cards to the first two drivers of the month.
Now, there are often just two vehicles on the road to work from West Covina, with three riders each.
But less gasoline guzzling isn’t the only fringe benefit, Navarro said. It has changed the climate of his workplace as well.
“They arrive happier now,” he said, “with more energy.”
ron.white@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
74.1%
Percentage of Southern California commuters who drove alone in 2006
$3.11
Average price in California for a gallon of regular gasoline the week of Feb. 11
389,400
Record for single-day ridership on San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system, set Aug. 31
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6a45c94cc40a387669b19872a7370730 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-me-utla18-story.html | Judgment day at teachers union | Judgment day at teachers union
The band of left-wing, dissident back-benchers that took over the city teachers union three years ago faces a verdict this week on its revolution. United Teachers Los Angeles is holding elections, the results of which will affect not only teachers but also school-reform efforts and city politics.
UTLA’s members are the 48,000 teachers, nurses and school psychologists in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The union’s endorsements and street troops help elect city and state politicians, and can carry the most weight in school board elections. And UTLA can impede or propel various efforts to improve the education of the 700,000 students in the nation’s second-largest school system.
The union’s record over three tumultuous years will give members much to ponder. It includes lost elections, protracted contract struggles, an explosion of mostly non-union charter schools, the response to a botched payroll system and a still-evolving power equation involving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Much of the spotlight will fall on 64-year-old A.J. Duffy, the passionate, volatile union president who is seeking a second three-year term. But an entire leadership slate faces a rank-and-file referendum. On bread-and-butter issues, Duffy points to a cumulative 8.5% salary raise and to achieving slightly smaller class sizes while maintaining health benefits. More broadly, his team has championed the idea of individual schools governing themselves -- with teachers in a leading role. The concept plays to mixed reviews among school reform experts.
“We are the most progressive force in education,” Duffy said.
His main challengers are a former union vice president, Becki Robinson, 60, and a current vice president, 56-year-old Linda Guthrie -- who, like Duffy, is fielding a slate of officers. Both challengers have high-level union leadership experience that predates Duffy’s.
They rate Duffy’s performance on standard contract issues as only fair, and fault him for “losing” Locke High School to a charter company and surrendering the school board to a majority endorsed by Villaraigosa. They also echo outside critics, who cast Duffy as frequently an obstacle, someone who can be obstreperous and rude, not to mention unwilling to embrace needed reforms.
“I am notorious,” said Duffy, who also can be charming. “I drive people crazy. I want it done yesterday.”
Teachers’ mailed-in ballots will be collected and counted Thursday. Only 29% voted in the previous election.
Duffy unseated one-term incumbent John Perez, in close alliance with dissidents who had gradually built a following through their writings and activism. The leftward edge in a left-leaning union, this group had opposed many union initiatives as not sufficiently principled or progressive.
Perez said he found it particularly galling that during his tenure they argued against hard-won salary settlements that were among the highest in the county.
“For 20 years, they’ve been haranguing the membership, telling them that the union’s weak, that it can’t protect them,” Perez said of the dissident group that Duffy later allied himself with. “For 20 years, they’ve said no to every effort to develop a union-brand charter school.
“And Duffy -- Duffy’s always been one of those guys who took after the leadership no matter who it was.”
And then Duffy became the leader, promptly walking into the storm of Villaraigosa’s bid for control of L.A. Unified. UTLA opposed mayoral control, but Duffy later agreed to compromise legislation without going first to his membership -- a mistake, he said. His membership ultimately voted to oppose the legislation, and the courts threw it out.
The mayor’s fallback was to elect allies to the school board, which again put him at odds with UTLA.
Until last year, the school board was controlled by candidates the union had endorsed, but it lost that majority to Villaraigosa in two stages. In 2006, the union spent at least $200,000 trying to elect UTLA staffer Christopher Arellano, but his campaign collapsed after revelations about a past criminal record and exaggerated academic credentials. Winner Monica Garcia sided uniformly with Villaraigosa. Then last year, UTLA split two races with the mayor’s allies, while sitting out two others won by his picks.
“Our strong suit was not in the political sphere,” said Joshua Pechthalt, a union vice president, also running for reelection, who teamed his dissident faction with Duffy. Taking over UTLA “was a wake-up call in terms of how much more work needs to be done to organize our chapters and our teachers. And that is something you don’t understand until you are sitting in the position and you have to move the project forward.”
As in the dissident days, said Pechthalt, part of the job is putting up resistance. The union upended a plan to save money by combining classes midyear at schools where enrollment had fallen. Principals, parents and students didn’t like this proposal either, but scrapping it added to district expenses.
So did winning health benefits for part-time cafeteria workers, which had UTLA’s full support. In Duffy’s view, every new dollar spent in the service of teachers, other school staff or students helps starve a spendthrift, largely superfluous central-office bureaucracy. UTLA and the district have yet to settle on salaries for the current school year; Duffy insists that he’ll get teachers a raise.
Much of last year was dominated by the district’s malfunctioning payroll system, which over- or underpaid thousands of teachers. Duffy’s critics fault his response as either tepid or too combative.
The mantra of local control has become the union’s answer to charter schools. And at a handful of schools, the district and union are working together to develop schools with “charter-like” freedoms over budget, hiring and curriculum.
“Even though Duffy came in huffing and puffing, he’s at least respectful of the need for progress and trying to do things differently,” said Janet Landon, a drama teacher at Wright Middle School in Westchester.
But that hasn’t stopped 129 charter schools from opening within L.A. Unified territory. Nor could the union stop the school board from turning over Locke High in South Angeles to Green Dot Public Schools, a locally based charter school organization that is unionized, but not with UTLA.
In the campaign, Duffy and Guthrie, the vice president for secondary schools, have blamed each other for “losing Locke.”
Green Dot founder Steve Barr said the focus instead should be on how to save Locke’s struggling students.
It’s all too little, too late for English teacher Tiffany Holm, 27, who left her job last fall at Belmont High.
“I was extremely burned out,” said Holm, who, during her final semester, worked as a “traveling teacher,” someone who moves with a cart from class to class, because she didn’t have her own room. She has no issue with the union, but teaching became “a lot of stress and pressure with almost no support, while I’m trying to teach my class well.”
howard.blume@latimes.com
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020bec831b508809831ca865f3936a3d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-me-wu18-story.html | Geneticist shaped hybrid rice strains | Geneticist shaped hybrid rice strains
Cornell University geneticist Ray Wu, a pioneer in genetic engineering who developed pest-, drought- and salinity-resistant rice strains that are poised for widespread use throughout the world, died of cardiac arrest Feb. 10 at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 79.
The new strains have the potential to sharply increase the supply of rice, which is the staple food for more than half the world’s population.
“Where rice is grown, everyone knows Ray Wu,” said Cornell geneticist Susan McCouch. “He made enormous contributions to the development of rice transformation systems that are widely used to address crop production constraints throughout the rice-growing world.”
In 1970, Wu developed the first method for determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA. His technique was adopted and made more efficient by Frederick Sanger, who received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his efforts.
During the 1980s, Wu pioneered techniques for transferring foreign genes into rice. In one study, he inserted into rice a potato gene for a protein called proteinase inhibitor II. The rice then produced the protein, which interferes with the digestive process of the pink stem borer, a common rice pest.
In a second study, he inserted a barley gene that enabled rice plants to produce a protein that makes them salt- and drought-resistant so they can grow in salty soil and recover quickly from dry conditions.
A third study increased the tolerance of rice for drought, salt and heat by introducing the bacterial gene for a sugar called trehalose.
Special promoters were inserted along with the gene so that the sugar is produced only when the rice plants need it.
Wu said the technology could easily be extended to a variety of other grain crops to improve their output.
The strains of rice produced by Wu are now being cross-bred with commercial rice varieties in countries to introduce these desirable traits into widely used strains. The resultant varieties could be in commercial use within as few as five years, McCouch said.
Wu also founded the China-United States Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Examination and Application program, which during the 1980s brought more than 400 top Chinese students to the U.S. for graduate study. That program produced more than 100 faculty members for Chinese universities.
In advisory roles to both the Chinese and Taiwanese governments, Wu was instrumental in establishing the Institute of Molecular Biology, the Institute of Bioagricultural Sciences of Academica Sinica in Taiwan and the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing.
He also served as a scientific advisor to several other Chinese institutions.
Ray Jui Wu was born Aug. 14, 1928, in the city then called Peking. He came to the United States in 1948 at the urging of his father, who believed the son could get a better education here.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Alabama in 1950 and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He worked at Penn, MIT and the Medical Research Council Laboratory in Cambridge, England, before joining Cornell in 1966. He spent the rest of his career there, working up until the time of his death.
He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1961, but retained close ties with China throughout his career.
He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Christina; a son, Dr. Albert Wu; a daughter, Alice Wu; and three grandchildren.
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
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9c608868baebd4d99c4654eb6c0a1961 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-19-me-perez19-story.html | Singer worked to preserve fading Islenos language | Singer worked to preserve fading Islenos language
Irvan J. Perez, whose haunting a cappella songs in the disappearing Islenos language told tales of fishing, trapping and life in the swamps of southern Louisiana, died after a heart attack Jan. 8 at Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans. He was 85.
Perez, a 1991 winner of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, sang decimas, distinctive narrative songs in 10-line stanzas. Some of the songs date from the Middle Ages and others Perez wrote to preserve his community’s unusual history.
Perez was a descendant of Canary Islanders who settled in the St. Bernard Parish swamplands of Louisiana in the late 1700s.
He was considered the best singer of decimas in the Americas and one of the world’s few remaining speakers of the Islenos dialect, a combination of 18th-century maritime Spanish, antiquated formal Spanish and snippets of Louisiana’s Cajun French.
Known as “Pooka,” Perez had a high, fluttery tenor voice perfect for singing decimas from 16th-century Spain and 20th-century Louisiana. The decimas offered advice from those who survived hurricanes, unfaithful lovers and hard times.
“If you ever heard Irvan’s singing, you’d never forget it,” said Allison Pena, a cultural anthropologist at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.
Many people heard him during appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Wolf Trap National Folk Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He appeared in a 1999 PBS series, “River of Song: A Musical Journey,” which also features an audio clip of his singing, as does the Louisiana Division of the Arts’ Folklife in Education Project.
Academic researchers from around the world went to his home on Delacroix Island to study the language, songs and culture that Perez worked assiduously to preserve. He welcomed Spanish and Canarian researchers at his home and assisted Samuel Armistead of UC Davis in documenting the words to the old and new decimas.
“He was an absolutely marvelous informant,” said Armistead, who has researched and written about the three tiny remnants of Spanish-speaking communities in Louisiana. “Here’s a guy who grew up with the perspective of a muskrat trapper or shrimp trawler who didn’t know English until he went to school. . . . As soon as I talked to him, I said, ‘Wow, this guy might as well have a university degree.’ ”
A native of Delacroix Island, about 30 miles and a world away from the hustle of New Orleans, Perez grew up with his immediate and extended family around him.
He saw plenty of hard times but “took almost everything in stride,” said one of his four daughters, Carol Nunez.
His grandfather, Mimiro Perez, lost a fortune, $9,000, when the banks failed during the Depression. His father, Serafin Perez, who taught him to sing and carve ducks used as hunting decoys and art objects, lost his home and 80 decoys in 1965’s Hurricane Betsy.
When Hurricane Katrina, which Louisianans simply call “the storm,” came through, Perez lost his home, recordings of his father’s singing and most of his woodworking tools. Through it all, he absorbed the decimas as he did the shrimp jambalaya and crabmeat casserole his wife cooked.
His education in the art came at five local dance halls, where, between the tunes on Saturday nights, someone would sing a decima about his brother-in-law, an aging playboy who never grew up. Another sang the humorous tale of a crab fisherman in February, bedeviled by bees and attacked by a partner who thought he was rabid. One began:
“Farewell, impossible Spain!
Your sons are leaving you
to look for work in unknown lands.
In Brazil, Buenos Aires,
Mexico, Chile and Panama;
Without work, every day,
they are departing.”
Perez, who dropped out of high school to serve in the Army during World War II, fought in the Pacific and went back to southern Louisiana. He worked at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Chalmette, La., from 1950 to 1975. Eventually, he earned a high school general equivalency degree. Through it all, he fished, trapped and hunted.
Perez became an expert wood carver, creating realistically textured wild fowl and songbirds from cypress roots. He painted his work with oil pigments that he mixed. Some were decoys, but many were sold to support his family. Some have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.
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72b2c8a3fecf250a6f448c6eee9b0411 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-19-na-superdel19-story.html | The art of political courtship | The art of political courtship
Before the telephone rang at 10:03 Saturday morning in her Philadelphia home, Carol Ann Campbell was inclined to use her position as a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention to make Hillary Rodham Clinton the party’s presidential nominee.
By the time she hung up, Campbell had been persuaded to throw her support to Barack Obama.
On the other end of the line was Michelle Obama, 44, the Illinois senator’s wife. In that 1-hour, 27-minute call, the would-be first lady made the sale.
She talked about taking her two young daughters to dance lessons later that day. She shared a bit of campaign strategy, laying out how volunteers would be moved into Pennsylvania, which votes April 22, once Texas and Ohio hold their primaries March 4. And when Campbell mentioned that she uses a wheelchair, Obama spoke about her late father, who used a scooter to get around.
“She was talking to me like you would your girlfriend,” said Campbell, a Philadelphia Democratic Party official who also heads the city’s African American ward leaders. “Now, I’m old enough to be her mother, but I like what I heard. . . . I loved that those little girls going to dancing lessons were just as important to her as being out there campaigning. And she told me how her mom slammed her finger in the door the day before. No pretense. Just real.”
With the Democratic delegate count nearly deadlocked, conversations like that one are playing out daily. Candidates, their relatives and their famous supporters are targeting the 800 or so superdelegates -- party activists, elected officials and others whose votes will make the difference if neither Obama nor Clinton wins 2,025 regular delegates in the primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination.
The courting of the superdelegates takes many forms.
Chris Stampolis of Santa Clara has heard from former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, a Clinton supporter. Taling Taitano from Guam got a call from Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. Earlier this month, Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, took college student Jason Rae to breakfast in Wisconsin.
Michelle Obama had been trying repeatedly to reach Campbell. She had left a voice-mail for Campbell earlier last week. “For her to take the time to care about what I thought and try to answer any question I might have, that’s not your normal candidate,” Campbell said.
In committing to Obama, Campbell is taking a position at odds with part of the state’s Democratic establishment. The Clintons have deep ties to Pennsylvania. Gov. Edward G. Rendell, also a superdelegate, has endorsed the New York senator, as has Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter.
Campbell said her support for Clinton was largely based on affection for former President Clinton, who visited the city often in the 1990s.
Now, she said, she is beginning to talk to the city’s two dozen or so black ward leaders, trying to entice others to the Obama camp.
Campbell, a former councilwoman, said she was distressed to see race injected into the campaign. She said she was unhappy that after Obama won the South Carolina primary, former President Clinton compared Obama’s candidacy to that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who won the South Carolina Democratic presidential primaries in 1984 and ’88 but had little support elsewhere.
And she was dismayed by a comment from Rendell that Pennsylvania’s white voters might be reluctant to vote for Obama. “What does [Rendell] think has been going on across this country?” Campbell said, referring to Obama’s recent string of victories.
“This used to be a Clinton city, but I don’t know if this is going to be a Clinton city in this election,” she said. Referring to Obama, she added: “This is the first person I’ve seen on the horizon who is a wonderful example for a little black person -- to set their goals higher.”
In wooing superdelegates, niceties get noticed. And slights, intended or not, can loom large. Campbell did get a call from a Clinton supporter, but not those from whom she wanted to hear.
One person she had thought might call on Clinton’s behalf was Tony Podesta, one of Washington’s top lobbyists and a longtime party activist. In an interview Monday, Podesta said that he was not at a high level in the Clinton campaign and had no such role. “If she is feeling slighted by me, she shouldn’t,” Podesta said, “because I haven’t called anyone else, either.”
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
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77790db93a362b4195165006db8a8771 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-fi-birds20-story.html | Watch out for migratory birds, court tells FCC | Watch out for migratory birds, court tells FCC
When considering new communications towers, a federal court ruled Tuesday, officials need to consider whether they pose safety risks -- to birds.
The Federal Communications Commission must study the effect of rapidly sprouting communications towers on migratory birds and give the public a chance to request environmental reviews on new tower applications, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that millions of warblers, thrushes and other birds die each year because continuously burning lights atop those towers can disorient them in bad weather.
The 2-1 decision affects only towers along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida, a major route for migrating birds.
But environmentalists hope the ruling will spur the FCC to approve proposed rules that would mandate white strobe lights on new towers nationwide. Studies have shown that those lights aren’t as disorienting to birds and could cut deaths by 70%.
“It would be extremely beneficial if the FCC took this as a sign they need to act and do it in a national way,” said Darin Schroeder, executive director of conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy, which sued the FCC over the issue. “We simply don’t want to see species that people have seen for generations out their back windows . . . disappear.”
An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision.
Communications towers taller than 200 feet require lights so that airplane pilots can see them at night. But during bad weather migratory birds can mistake the lights for the stars they use to navigate. The disoriented birds circle the towers endlessly. Some crash into the towers, their guy wires or other birds. Others fall to the ground from exhaustion.
In 2002, the American Bird Conservancy and the Forest Conservation Council asked the FCC to study the environmental effect of the Gulf Coast towers on birds, consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the issue and take steps to reduce the deaths. The groups also asked that the FCC give advance notice of tower applications so that they could be challenged.
The FCC dismissed the requests.
The court ruled that the FCC was justified in not taking steps to reduce bird deaths specifically on the Gulf Coast because it had already started studying the issue nationwide. In November 2006, FCC staff proposed requiring more bird-friendly tower lights. The agency is still considering that proposal.
But the court found that the FCC had erred when it decided it didn’t have to do an environmental assessment or consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service. It sent those issues back to the FCC on Tuesday.
It also said the FCC must determine how to give the public notice of new tower applications. The FCC now publicizes applications only after they have been approved.
“We think it is a very significant ruling because it requires the Federal Communications Commission to carefully consider the environmental impact of these communications towers on bird population, and it ensures the public will have timely notice of applications for tower permits,” said Stephen Roady, an attorney for Earthjustice, a public interest law firm that argued the case.
jim.puzzanghera @latimes.com
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091b05a326bd942f3335d93300dc2365 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-fi-bluray20-story.html | Blu-ray winner by KO in high-definition war | Blu-ray winner by KO in high-definition war
Sony Corp. has finally exorcised the ghost of Betamax.
The Japanese company’s Blu-ray format emerged the victor in the battle to set the standard for high-definition DVDs. Its victory over Toshiba Corp.'s rival HD DVD leaves behind its embarrassing loss to VHS in last century’s battle for the home videocassette market.
Toshiba announced Tuesday it was abandoning its next-generation high-definition disc format, saying it would no longer make and market players and recorders. The announcement followed a series of defections, including Friday’s decision by the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., to stop selling HD DVD hardware and movies and devote its shelves exclusively to Blu-ray.
Toshiba Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida told a packed news conference at the company’s Tokyo headquarters that continuing the fight for control of the high-definition home video market “would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win. Although this is a bitter decision, there would have been a greater impact on our business if we had continued any longer,” he said.
With that, Nishida ended a battle between rival formats that had confused consumers, split the Hollywood studios and retarded the growth of a potential new market for movies and the games and extras that go alongwith them.
Ironically, HD DVD appeared to have an edge over Blu-ray. Its players were cheaper and its movie discs less costly to manufacture. But Sony trumped Toshiba by building broad support for its Blu-ray format among consumer electronics manufacturers and Hollywood studios. It also pursued a risky strategy that paid off: incorporating a Blu-ray drive into its PlayStation 3 video game console.
That decision cost Sony money -- about $300 per console, according to researcher iSuppli. But it helped put more Blu-ray players in the homes of early technology adopters, more than 8 million of whom have bought PS3s worldwide.
By contrast, Toshiba said it had sold about 1 million HD DVD players worldwide.
“The PlayStation 3 was a Trojan Horse,” said Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment President Bob Chapek.
Now that Toshiba has waved the white flag, one question remains: How many consumers will ultimately embrace high-definition digital video discs? Although high-definition offers a sharper picture, the benefits are not as dramatic as the transition from videotape to DVD -- and most noticeable on big-screen TVs. Moreover, the DVD itself is under assault from myriad technologies vying to supplant it as a means for delivering movies into the home.
“The market, it’s moving to downloads,” said researcher Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, referring to services such as Apple’s iTunes, through which consumers can purchase movies online. “Blu-ray may never ramp.”
Toshiba’s Nishida blamed the format’s downfall on the actions of a single studio: Warner Bros. The studio announced on Jan. 4 it would abandon HD DVD and sell high-definition movies exclusively on Blu-ray discs. The shift gave the Blu-ray camp about 70% of the home video market, with Warner, Walt Disney Co., 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Sony Pictures all backing the format.
Nishida said Warner’s abrupt decision dramatically altered the competitive environment that triggered mass defections. In rapid succession, online movie rental service Netflix Inc. said it would exclusively stock Blu-ray discs and electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said it would “prominently showcase” Blu-ray hardware and movies as a way of steering consumers to the format. Then came the final blow: Wal-Mart’s decision to sell only Blu-ray movies and players at its 4,000 discount stores and Sam’s Clubs.
“Warner’s sudden change -- and it came out of the blue -- and U.S. retailers also following, was the reason we lost,” Nishida said.
Until Warner took sides, Blu-ray and HD DVD accounted for an equal share of high-definition, stand-alone movie player sales, according to market research company NPD Group. The following week Blu-ray sales skyrocketed -- grabbing 90% of all next-generation hardware purchased, according to NPD. A last-ditch effort by Toshiba to salvage the format by slashing prices in half failed to stave off the inevitable.
Movie sales quickly tilted heavily in favor of Blu-ray. The latest Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales data showed that Blu-ray represented 81% of all high-definition movie discs sold in the week ended Sunday.
Toshiba’s problems started even before the first players were sold.
Disney dealt it a blow in December 2004, just before the annual Consumer Electronics Show, with an unanticipated switch to the Blu-ray camp. Although Disney was among the studios that initially embraced HD DVD, it opted to go Blu following a series of high-level meetings with Sony executives, including Howard Stringer, who at the time was president of Sony Entertainment Inc. Disney was promised a role in helping shape the format, which could put it in position to collect royalties.
Insiders within the HD DVD camp acknowledged that the combined marketing clout of the Disney and Sony brands proved difficult to overcome. The Burbank studio turned up the heat with Disney’s Magical Blu-ray Tour, a display in malls around the country that gave shoppers a glimpse of high-definition home video releases of the movies “Cars” and “Meet the Robinsons.”
“Our efforts have only just begun,” Chapek said. “We have to get the consumer to make the move from DVD to Blu-ray, now that the risk of picking the wrong format has gone.”
Sony similarly won over Fox by acknowledging its concerns about movie piracy and allowing it to add a layer of copyright protection to the Blu-ray format. The goal was to give the studios an influence in the development of the format alongside Sony and others who contributed to the patents.
Toshiba, by contrast, suffered from the lack of broad studio support for HD DVD. It secured exclusive deals only with Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., and also offered movies from Warner, which were available on both formats.
Toshiba’s studio partners sought to make the best of the format’s demise, saying it would ultimately serve consumers.
“The emergence of a single high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. “While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray.”
Sony Corp. said its ability to secure broad studio and hardware support for Blu-ray was pivotal in its victory. Sony also relied on its traditionally strong-selling game console to give Blu-ray a boost. It bet that sales of the PlayStation 3 would not only establish Blu-ray as the default standard for high-definition video, but also pay off more broadly for Sony Corp., increasing sales of the movie discs sold by Sony Pictures and the Bravia brand television sets made by its consumer electronics group.
“Overwhelming support from all the relevant industries, including Hollywood studios, consumer electronics and IT companies, retailers and video rental stores is clear proof that consumers have chosen Blu-ray as the next generation optical disc format,” Sony said in a statement. “We believe that a single format will benefit both consumers and the industry, and will accelerate the expansion of the market.”
Even before Toshiba’s formal announcement, on the floor of one of Tokyo’s cacophonous electronics stores the war for control over the next generation of high-definition video players was clearly over.
The price of Toshiba’s HD DVD players had already been slashed, bright red stickers announcing a “Surprise Discount.” A customer who had recently bought a Toshiba high-definition player drifted in, wondering if he could get his money back -- though the retailer was having none of that. And up on the fifth floor, in the section set aside for the sale of used electronics, the offering price for a second-hand Toshiba HD player was already tumbling, and surely headed further south, a salesman said.
“Only maniacs will buy one now,” he said, unable to keep a straight face.
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dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com
bruce.wallace@latimes.com
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Wallace reported from Tokyo, Chmielewski from Los Angeles.
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ea13b37b28099f50c6ac3ef957c201e9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-fi-medianews20-story.html | Bay Area newspaper publisher cutting workers | Bay Area newspaper publisher cutting workers
Bay Area News Group, the San Francisco-area newspaper publisher controlled by MediaNews Group Inc., offered buyouts to almost all 1,100 of its employees to slash costs.
The cuts involve newspapers including the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune, publisher John Armstrong said Tuesday.
The company won’t say how many jobs will be cut or how much it hopes to save.
Armstrong, publisher of the company’s East Bay newspapers, said employees had until March 3 to file for buyouts and would be notified soon after of the company’s decision. He said he would fire employees if not enough take the buyouts.
The buyouts are part of a larger program to reduce costs at the unit of MediaNews, which includes the San Jose Mercury News, Armstrong said. In a memo to employees, he wrote that the company planned other steps to reduce costs, such as limiting TV listings.
Revenue at Bay Area News Group has declined with the real estate market and lower retail advertising, he said. The division also has lost advertisers to the Internet.
“We’re taking steps to change our operation that we hope will be as invisible as possible to advertisers and our readers,” Armstrong said.
MediaNews owns and manages the Bay Area Newspaper Group, with Gannett Co. and privately held Stephens Media Group as investors.
MediaNews, meanwhile, reported a 34% increase in fiscal second-quarter net income because of one-time gains, including a legal settlement and the sale of interest in newspapers.
The publisher of the Detroit News, the Denver Post and 55 other papers earned $17.4 million for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, up from net income of $13 million for the year-earlier quarter. Revenue fell to $345.2 million from $372.5 million.
The privately held company, which also owns the Los Angeles Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram, voluntarily files financial disclosure documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
MediaNews is run by William Dean Singleton, its chief executive and vice chairman. He has been criticized in the past for gutting newspaper staffs and even closing the Fort Worth (Texas) Press.
Singleton also is chairman of the Associated Press, a nonprofit cooperative owned by member news organizations.
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4c14bd8c05127e5801b29a9ff30bfac1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-me-envirojust20-story.html | Groups to fight plan for trading carbon emissions | Groups to fight plan for trading carbon emissions
Low-income community groups in five California cities launched a statewide campaign Tuesday to “fight at every turn” any global-warming regulation that allows industries to trade carbon emissions, saying it would amount to “gambling on public health.”
The 21-point “Environmental Justice Movement Declaration” challenges the stance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a national advocate of a cap-and-trade program that would allow heavy polluters, often located in poor neighborhoods, to partly buy their way out of lowering their emissions.
“Under a trading scheme, 11 power plants to be built around Los Angeles could offset emissions by extracting methane from coal seams in Utah or planting trees in Manitoba,” said Jane Williams of the California Communities Against Toxics, which fights pollution in low-income areas.
The defiant tone of news conferences in Los Angeles, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego indicated that political turbulence might be ahead as the state Air Resources Board hammers out a strategy to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as required under a 2006 law.
Until now, the debates over how to implement the law have been conducted in polite workshops with industry and environmental groups offering technical testimony to state air board officials. The agency must design a plan, due at the end of this year, to ratchet down emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, an effort that is likely to affect virtually every industry in the state.
“Cap and trade is a charade to continue business as usual,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, director of the California Environmental Rights Alliance.
Environmental justice groups instead favor carbon fees on polluting industries, a strategy endorsed by many economists as simpler and more transparent, although politically tough to enact.
Williams and Meszaros are co-chairs of the Air Board’s Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, set up under the 2006 global warming law to counsel the state on how to avoid disproportionate effects on low-income communities.
The global warming legislation requires the board to consider cap and trade, and the governor’s strong advocacy of the system makes its adoption likely. The debate is likely to center on how to design such a regulatory regime. One issue is whether to auction off carbon emissions permits or simply give them to polluting industries.
A group of Western states and Canadian provinces is designing a regional trading program. And the climate bill with the most support in Congress, sponsored by Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), includes a cap-and-trade system.
The 18 groups that signed the declaration included the San Joaquin Valley Latino Environmental Advance Project, Oakland’s West County Toxics Coalition, the L.A. chapter of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Delano’s Assn. of Irritated Residents.
Notably absent were any of the big mainstream environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council or the Sierra Club, both of which declined to comment publicly on the environmental justice declaration.
For the most part, national environmental groups are backing cap-and-trade plans, even though many of them would prefer the politically unpalatable carbon fee or tax. The proceeds of auctioning off credits, some groups argue, could be distributed to low-income communities.
Meszaros said she didn’t trust an auction system. “We’re concerned that proceeds from an auction won’t be applied to transitioning us to a zero-carbon future. State law requires that fees be used for the issue for which the fee is assessed. But with budget shortfalls in California, proceeds from an auction are going to be sucked into filling the holes.”
Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the air board, said the global warming law requires “the most cost-effective solution to reducing emissions,” and that her agency would “run the numbers” on various systems, including cap and trade and fees. “This problem is too big and complicated to rule any technique off the table.”
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margot.roosevelt@latimes.com
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2837d2b796061b011d40d1b54036cd6d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-na-evidence20-story.html | Evidence rule to be reviewed | Evidence rule to be reviewed
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to reconsider the reach of the “exclusionary rule,” a doctrine that has been controversial since the 1960s because it requires judges to throw out evidence if it was obtained improperly by the police.
Several of the court’s conservatives, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia, have signaled they would like to rein in this rule.
Every day, police officers stop cars or make arrests by relying on information in the files or on the computers of a police department. On occasion, the information is outdated or inaccurate. What should be done, then, if the officer finds drugs or guns in a stopped car, only to learn later that he relied on faulty information when he stopped the vehicle?
Judges have been divided on that question. Some have said the evidence is tainted and should be suppressed. Others have said the evidence should be used if the officer was not to blame for the error.
The high court said it would hear next fall a drug case from Alabama, Herring vs. United States, to decide the question.
In July 2004, Bennie D. Herring went to a police station to retrieve several items from an impounded car. Investigator Mark Anderson saw him and began calling around to see if there were any outstanding warrants against Herring.
A police employee from a neighboring county said there was such a warrant, and then Anderson and another officer set off in pursuit of Herring. They pulled him over, arrested him and found methamphetamine in his pocket and a gun in his car. Minutes later, the police employee called back to say there was a mistake. The warrant against Herring had been revoked, but the entry in the computer file had not been updated.
When Herring went to trial on federal drug charges, a judge refused to suppress the evidence against him. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed, saying it made no sense “to scuttle a case” when the arresting officer was “entirely innocent of any wrongdoing or carelessness.”
Two Stanford law professors appealed on Herring’s behalf. They argued the that court should not allow arrests and prosecutions that were triggered by computer errors and faulty record-keeping by the police.
The high court first announced the exclusionary rule in a 1914 case involving a federal prosecution for illegally sending lottery tickets in the mail. The rule was meant to enforce the 4th Amendment’s ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Its aim was to deter officers from breaking the law to obtain evidence.
It gained wide attention only after 1961 when the court extended the rule to cover state troopers and local police.
The rule has always had its share of skeptics. As Benjamin N. Cardozo, then a New York state judge, famously put it: “The criminal goes free because the constable has blundered.”
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david.savage@latimes.com
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fdede0e31537b070c2952075f5e8802b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-20-sp-cornerkicks20-story.html | CORNER KICKS | CORNER KICKS
Five things happening around the world:
1Steve Nash could walk into any Major League Soccer club today and make the starting lineup within a few weeks, but the soccer-loving NBA star’s passion lies across the sea, like so many others.
He might play basketball for the Phoenix Suns, but Nash’s soccer heart is with Tottenham Hotspur, the English Premier League club better known simply as Spurs. Talking to England’s Guardian newspaper, Nash predicted that he one day would have a role to play with the 126-year-old London club.
It won’t be about trying to make money, Nash said, separating himself from American investors who have taken over several of England’s leading teams.
“Unlike them, I’ve been a passionate supporter all my life,” Nash said. “My parents are from North London and so it’s not like I’m some Yank who wants to make a profit out of football. I don’t care about making money. I just want to see Spurs succeed. If I can help, that’s great.”
Nash, a Canadian who recently invested in the Women’s Professional Soccer league that launches in the U.S. next year, is a close friend of Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy and director of soccer Damien Comolli. “They know how much the club means to me,” Nash said. “But at this point it’s more a friendship than a business partnership.”
2The Galaxy plays Gamba Osaka of Japan today in the opening doubleheader of the Pan-Pacific Championship in Hawaii, but Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit already has signaled his displeasure over one part of the four-team tournament.
The games, also featuring the MLS champion Houston Dynamo and Sydney FC of Australia, are being played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, where the surface is artificial turf.
“I’m not happy we have to play on turf,” Gullit said. “Some players have issues with it and will only be able to play a certain number of minutes. It’s a disappointment, but we must deal with it and that’s why we have brought a big squad with us.”
3Club America fell into line Tuesday and joined five other Mexican league clubs that have fired their coaches since the beginning of the year.
In this case it was Daniel “El Ruso” Brailovsky who was shown the door, less than five months after taking charge of Mexico’s highest-profile team.
Replacing Brailovsky is Ruben Omar Romano, 49, formerly the coach of Pachuca and Cruz Azul, among others, and a man more famously remembered, perhaps, for having been kidnapped in Mexico City in the summer of 2005 and held captive for 65 days before being rescued by federal agents.
4One of Europe’s worst-kept secrets finally was let out of the bag Tuesday when Ottmar Hitzfeld, the coach of German Bundesliga leader Bayern Munich, officially was named as the next coach of Switzerland’s national team.
Hitzfeld, 59, who coached Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich to European Champions League titles in 1997 and 2001, respectively, will take over immediately after the June 7-29 European Championship that Switzerland is co-hosting with Austria. He will be replaced at Bayern by Jurgen Klinsmann.
5Sam Allardyce, a success at Bolton Wanderers but recently dismissed as coach of Newcastle United, had some pointed words for wealthy and impatient team owners who fold when facing fans’ wrath and take it out on coaches.
They are “huge businessmen, multimillionaires in their own right, very clever men, but never been shouted at,” he told the Guardian. “They can’t stand the pressure, their knees buckle, they don’t stand strong and they use the easy option to take the pressure off themselves.
“They have to be the strongest ones and often they’re the weakest ones. They might like the limelight when success comes, but they certainly can’t put up with the other side of it.”
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STAT OF THE WEEK
When former Wales international winger Ryan Giggs, above, steps on the field today for Manchester United in its European Champions League game against Olympique Lyon in France, he will become the eighth player in history to take part in 100 European games. One of the others to do so was another Manchester United star, David Beckham, who played in 103.
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a5d802becb1267629fce342500fe5b3d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-22-fg-rape22-story.html | Rape allegation raises sensitive issues in Japan | Rape allegation raises sensitive issues in Japan
The Japanese prime minister has described the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl by an American Marine as “unforgivable.” The foreign minister declared that Japan has “had enough” of such incidents. And the government’s most senior Cabinet official promised that Japan would raise the issue of misconduct with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits next week.
Few events have animated the top levels of government recently as much as the alleged rape this month on Okinawa Island, which has a large U.S. military presence that has long been a source of tension with residents. Senior Japanese politicians have continued to berate the United States, citing other less serious incidents involving troops, despite expressions of regret from U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer and new restrictions on off-base travel for U.S. forces in Japan.
The suspect, 38-year-old Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, is in Japanese custody. Japanese news media, quoting police sources, have reported that he denies raping the girl but admits forcibly kissing her.
The intensity of the reaction arises, in part, from a 1995 gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa girl by three U.S. servicemen that provoked massive anti-American demonstrations, and from the desire of the United States and Japan to avoid similar protests.
And the mood was darkened further Thursday with reports of another U.S. serviceman under investigation on suspicion of raping a Filipino woman in an Okinawa hotel.
But many here, though they share in the condemnation of sexual assault, argue that Japanese politicians are speaking out forcefully only because of the acute sensitivities of Okinawa’s status as host to about 42,500 Americans, the bulk of the U.S. military presence in Japan.
Japanese officials privately acknowledge that their recent criticisms are motivated, in part, by the need to assuage Okinawa public opinion, especially at a time when Washington and Tokyo are seeking to relocate a major Marine air base in the face of strong local opposition.
“It’s all a performance,” said Kantoku Teruya, an Okinawa lawmaker in the upper house of Japan’s parliament.
“They are afraid of Okinawa’s growing rage over the base relocation, so they imposed a curfew and promised to tighten discipline.
“But they’ve promised this before. And it is not working.”
Critics of the government say serious crimes committed on Japan’s main island have never drawn such stern rebukes, pointing out that the 2006 slaying of a 56-year-old Japanese woman by a U.S. sailor, later sentenced to life in prison, was handled without fanfare.
Japanese police and U.S. military statistics show that serious crimes committed by American servicemen in Japan have decreased in the last five years. And critics say the lecturing tone of the Japanese government is discordant in a country where rape victims are so poorly treated that there is no 24-hour rape crisis hotline, and the 1,948 rapes reported to police in 2006 are believed to be far below the actual number.
“Most of the clients I see won’t go to the police because of the way they are treated,” said Takako Konishi, a psychologist who assists female victims of violence at Tokyo’s Musashino University. “There is still a concept in Japan that women are responsible for putting themselves in bad situations, and women don’t want to risk criticism from their friends and family by going public.”
Some rape victims in Japan describe their experience with police as deeply humiliating. An Australian woman raped by an American serviceman in 2002 recalls being questioned for several hours without police providing medical care or an opportunity to shower.
They also demanded that she return to the scene of the crime to reenact the rape for police photographers, a standard Japanese police practice. Prosecutors would not press charges, but she won damages in a civil case.
Critics of the government also note that U.S. military authorities continue to investigate allegations of rape against four Marines in Hiroshima last fall, whereas the Japanese justice system refused to press charges. The initial investigation was led by Japanese police, but prosecutors dropped the case without explanation in November.
The problem, many here contend, is that Japanese attitudes toward violence against women remain rooted in antiquated male beliefs.
In 2003, the Weekly Bunshun magazine quoted then- Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda telling reporters in an off-the-record briefing that “there are lots of women who dress in a seductive way. I wonder if they know that half of human beings in the world are male. All men are black panthers.”
He later said his message was intended to be completely different.
Fukuda, 71, is now the prime minister, leading his government’s condemnation in the Marine’s case.
“It’s good to hear their formal condemnation of rape, but I fear our politicians are just behaving paternally,” said psychologist Konishi. “They single out American soldiers because they see this as a matter of Japanese property being violated by outsiders.”
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bruce.wallace@latimes.com
Hisako Ueno of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
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6dd878d4da92c18fd5596a332c2c49ef | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-22-me-ryan22-story.html | Co-writer of ‘60s rockabilly hit song ‘Hot Rod Lincoln’ | Co-writer of ‘60s rockabilly hit song ‘Hot Rod Lincoln’
Charles Ryan, the musician and songwriter who co-wrote the hit song “Hot Rod Lincoln,” died Saturday in Spokane, Wash., after a long battle with heart disease, his family said. He was 92.
Ryan and W.S. Stevenson wrote “Hot Rod Lincoln” and in 1955 Ryan first recorded the song with the rockabilly beat and the vivid lyrics describing a nighttime car chase:
“My fenders was clickin’ the guardrail posts; the guy beside me was white as a ghost.”
It began with the line “My pappy said, ‘Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln.’ ”
The song was inspired by Ryan’s commutes in his 1941 Lincoln from Spokane to play gigs at the Paradise Club across the state line in Lewiston, Idaho.
It has been recorded many times since.
Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen made it a hit in 1972, and it has been a mainstay of popular culture for decades.
Ryan was born in Graceville, Minn., on Dec. 19, 1915, grew up in Polson, Mont., and moved to Spokane in 1943. He served in the Army during World War II.
He worked as a musician and songwriter, touring with Jim Reeves, Johnny Horton and others.
Ryan’s version of “Hot Rod Lincoln” hit the Billboard Top 100 charts in 1960 and stayed there for six months. Many versions exist, with the words often altered by each new group.
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f1701c3b011e9a29281d7856e086b3ac | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-23-ed-icbm23-story.html | Silent, aging guardians | Silent, aging guardians
To the voluminous list of ironies that attended the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction, we can add one more. On its 50th birthday, the intercontinental ballistic missile, that once-commanding symbol of the apocalypse, has become a national security underdog, a defense system whose future is uncertain, whose ranks are dwindling and whose utility in the 21st century is in serious question. That might gladden aging peaceniks whose Volvos sported “Nuclear weapons: May they rust in peace” bumper stickers during the Reagan era, but these days hawks and doves are equally likely to regard the ICBM with suspicion.
Consider the numbers. From a 1969 peak of 1,054, the Air Force now fields 450 missiles. Within the last three years the United States has retired 100 ICBMs, including the entire run of Peacekeepers, which began life as the controversial “MX” missile in the ‘70s. Mighty Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the first nuclear-tipped Atlas rocket facilities were built in 1958, lives on as a spaceport and missile testing facility, but today 22 square miles of mostly undeveloped coastal land in Santa Barbara County look more like a lost opportunity in real estate than an urgent military asset. The last Titan II rocket (decommissioned from missile duty in 1987) took off from Vandenberg in 2003, carrying a payload for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program; the three-stage Minuteman (1962- ) is now the only land-based ICBM in the U.S. arsenal. Much of the action in America’s ongoing wars is conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Air Force is engaged in various great debates about next-generation weapons, including the very interesting question of whether piloted fighters and bombers have any future. How can the ICBM help but seem like the last Hula Hoop in the age of the RipStik?
During a recent visit to Vandenberg to help mark the semi-centennial of nuclear-tipped missiles, Maj. Gen. Thomas F. Deppe made a compelling case for the ICBM. Wearing boots and digital camouflage and speaking without notes or coffee in a windowless office, the burly vice commander of Air Force Space Command at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base acknowledged the waning of the fleet but pointed out that the ICBM remains a vital deterrent, at least to clearly delineated state-to-state war: “The beauty of the ICBM is that it tremendously complicates matters for any adversary attacking this country.”
Is that true, though? After all, the nuclear umbrella doesn’t seem to have complicated the first foreign assault on U.S. soil of the 21st century. But Deppe, who began his Air Force career as an enlisted instrumentation technician in 1967 and has worked in missiles for most of his adult life, points not to the attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, but to the many that didn’t occur in the 50 years before that. “The lesson of the Cold War is that strategic deterrence works,” Deppe said. “There are a number of nations, and unfortunately that number is on the rise, that are developing nuclear capability, that have ballistic missile capability that can reach this country. The question of deterrence, and how much is enough, goes back to my earliest years in the Air Force. And really, it’s impossible to measure how much is enough. You’ll know if you don’t have enough, but you’ll never know if you have too much. Is 450 the right number? Apparently it is, because we’re deterring aggressors. But is 449 not enough?”
Don’t expect to find out any time soon. The Air Force is completing a $7-billion upgrade of its Minuteman assets, a “nosecone to nozzle” spiffing up that will keep the missile in place until about 2030. What will come after that? Strategic Command has been considering the possibility of conventional ICBMs for years. In planning for an eventual Minuteman replacement, the Air Force is looking for smarter, more accurate delivery systems, but it is not ignoring the continuing value of being able to deliver nasty surprises from outer space. “The ICBM remains the single most prompt weapon we have,” Deppe noted. “It can reach out and touch somebody anywhere in the world in 45 minutes.”
Which lends one cheerful note to this grim anniversary: In all these years, the things still haven’t been used. Unlike carrier fleets or rapid-deployment forces, the ICBM was not about power projection or foreign intervention but about persuading a lethal adversary not to attack the U.S. The strangest possible outcome of mutually assured destruction was the one that came to pass: Two political and economic systems competed without coming to blows, and the better system prevailed. That’s no less astounding now than it was in the ‘90s -- or for that matter the ‘50s, when those missileers first went underground with their little keys, awaiting orders that never came.
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a6b1ea542a6b814d310c69aed714ca4d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-23-me-macero23-story.html | Music producer collaborated with Miles Davis | Music producer collaborated with Miles Davis
Teo Macero, whose innovative work as a producer of jazz albums in the 1960s and ‘70s helped define the recorded sound of artists such as Miles Davis and redefine the meaning of studio production, died Tuesday at a hospital in Riverhead, N.Y. He was 82.
Macero, who lived in Quogue, N.Y., had been ill for some time, said his stepdaughter, Suzie Lightbourn of Morristown, N.J. The cause of death was not given.
The thousands of recordings produced by Macero include the original cast album of “A Chorus Line,” Simon and Garfunkel’s album “The Graduate” and numerous gold records.
Beginning with his work at Columbia Records in the mid-1950s, Macero helped make some of the most enduring jazz recordings of the era. He was musical editor for Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus.
Later he became a producer and exerted an even greater influence on the music.
For many years he produced Davis, including albums such as “Bitches Brew,” “In a Silent Way” and “Sketches of Spain.” Although Davis had the final say, Macero was given wide latitude -- and he used all the space given him to express his creativity.
“I mean Miles never came to the editing room,” Macero said in an interview posted on Perfect Sound Forever, an online music magazine. “In 25 or 30 years he was there maybe four or five times. So I had carte blanche to maneuver, do things with his music that I couldn’t do with other people’s.”
Macero spliced tape, used overdubbing and pitch manipulations and employed electronic effects. Columbia Records sometimes had to create the equipment Macero needed in production. The “instant playback” allowed a passage to be played back in defined intervals.
In those days, such techniques were not the common fare they are today.
“Even back then, we were always experimenting,” Macero said in a 2007 edition of Remix magazine. “That was half the fun, to see what you could do with some of this stuff. It didn’t matter if it was a monaural or a two-track tape machine -- if I could help make the music sound different or adventurous, I was right there.”
Macero sometimes had to weave in “bits and pieces” of music that Davis had recorded on cassettes.
“Miles would say, ‘Put this in that new album we’re working on,’ ” Macero said in the Perfect Sound Forever interview. “I’d say, ‘Look, where the hell is it going to go? I don’t know.’ He says, ‘Oh, you know.’ ”
Their collaboration was legendary. But in later years, when the unedited recordings of some of Davis’ works were released, some critics complained that Macero had been too heavy-handed. A writer for Slate magazine referred to Macero’s work as “post-production meddling.” Macero had strong views of some of the reissues.
“They’re discovering the things that we threw out and they’re putting them in,” he said in the Boston Herald in 2001. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. It’s just a lot of blowing. What is that?”
Macero was born in Glens Fall, N.Y., on Oct. 30, 1925. His parents owned a restaurant, said his sister, Lydia Edwards. Early in his life, he took up the saxophone, and music became his passion.
After serving in the Navy in the mid-1940s, Macero earned a bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1953 from Juilliard School of Music. He received Guggenheim Fellowships twice in the 1950s and played saxophone with Mingus and many others.
The list of artists he worked with as producer includes Dave Brubeck, Mahalia Jackson and Leonard Bernstein. After more than 20 years at Columbia, Macero left and continued to work as a producer. He also composed for several ballet companies and was a composer and conductor with several symphony orchestras.
In more recent years Macero worked with Wallace Roney, Geri Allen and Robert Palmer and composed for television and film.
In addition to Lightbourn and Edwards, Macero is survived by his wife, Jeanne.
jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com
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85b38339b97a1bd39e79c0479340d4c2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-24-fg-gaza24-story.html | Israeli missile strike kills 3 Palestinians in Gaza | Israeli missile strike kills 3 Palestinians in Gaza
Three Palestinian men picnicking in a field in the northern Gaza Strip were killed Saturday by an Israeli tank missile, said a Palestinian official and relatives of the dead.
The Israeli military confirmed the cross-border attack near the city of Beit Hanoun but said it targeted Palestinian militants on their way to fire mortar shells at Israel.
A Palestinian Health Ministry official identified two of the dead, Ibrahim Abu Jarad, 25, and Mohammed Hassan, 26, as employees of the Bank of Jordan. The third was Mohammed Talal Zaaneen, 23, a student, the official said.
Khalil Zaaneen, a cousin of the student, said the field is part of his family’s farm and is near sites used by militants to fire rockets and mortar shells across Israel’s border, about 500 yards away. He said the family does not condone the rocket fire.
Relatives said the men were seated in the field drinking tea and were unarmed.
Khalil Zaaneen said he ran to the scene of the blast and found one of the men decapitated. He said his cousin was still alive but died waiting for an ambulance.
Israel frequently carries out missile strikes and raids against militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in an effort to stop the near-daily rocket fire, which has killed 12 Israelis in the last seven years. The cross-border fighting has intensified over the last month.
Of the 137 Palestinians killed by Israeli missile strikes in Gaza last year, 28 were civilians, according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group. Israeli officials say they try to avoid hitting civilians.
This month, an Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian teacher near the agricultural school where he worked. The Israeli army said militants had been firing rockets from the area, and witnesses spotted rocket-launching equipment in a nearby olive grove.
Also Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ordered an investigation of the alleged torture of a Hamas-affiliated preacher who died Friday after a week in the custody of the Fatah-led Palestinian intelligence service, inflaming the bitter rivalry between the Hamas and Fatah movements.
An autopsy indicated that Majed Barghouti, 44, one of hundreds of Hamas activists under arrest by Abbas’ security forces in the West Bank, died of a stroke. Barghouti’s relatives said four released prisoners told them that they had seen the preacher tied up in painful positions and heard him shouting for help while being interrogated about weapons.
Hamas officials called the death a crime.
Shawan Jabareen, head of a Palestinian human rights group in the West Bank, joined several members of the Palestinian Authority parliament in calling for a high-level investigation after the preacher’s relatives protested his death by blocking a West Bank road with rocks and burning tires.
boudreaux@latimes.com
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Special correspondent Abu Alouf reported from Gaza City and Times staff writer Boudreaux from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
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27744a63d24128b5af9f9df64f33633e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-24-fg-iraq24-story.html | Rocket blasts rattle Green Zone | Rocket blasts rattle Green Zone
A barrage of rockets hit Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Saturday, casting doubt on the influence of a Shiite militia cease-fire less than 24 hours after it was renewed.
At least six blasts resonated across the U.S.-protected enclave, which is home to Iraqi government offices, the U.S. Embassy and military bases. An American official said there were no casualties and no reports of significant damage.
Along Iraq’s frigid northern border, Turkish forces pressed their largest ground offensive in years against Kurdish separatist guerrillas, pounding rebel targets with artillery and helicopter gunfire.
The Turkish military command said that as many as 79 rebels had been killed along with seven of its troops since the incursion began Thursday night.
Ahmed Denis, a rebel spokesman, declined to confirm the number of Kurdish casualties, but said rebels had recovered the bodies of 15 Turkish soldiers. He also said rebels shot down a Turkish helicopter Saturday.
Neither side’s account could be independently verified.
The Green Zone attack was the week’s fourth rocket barrage in the capital, where U.S. commanders have touted a decline in violence of more than 60% since June.
Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman, blamed the previous attacks on breakaway factions of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s powerful Mahdi Army militia, groups that U.S. commanders allege receive support and direction from Iran. There was no immediate comment on who may have been behind the latest Green Zone attack.
The other targets last week included Baghdad’s international airport and the U.S. military’s adjoining Camp Victory complex. Five Iraqis and a U.S. civilian were killed in those attacks, which also injured three U.S. soldiers and more than 14 Iraqis.
The attacks took place despite the six-month truce Sadr declared in August and renewed Friday in a much-anticipated announcement read in mosques during midday prayers. They raised questions about the anti-U.S. cleric’s ability to rein in splinter groups, which have ignored his order to stand down.
Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director for the International Crisis Group, said the latest rocket attack could be “an Iranian signal that the Americans shouldn’t over-exult in the Sadrist cease-fire: There won’t be an easy ride.”
Iran denies U.S. accusations that it provides weapons, training and funds to Shiite militiamen in Iraq.
Many in Sadr’s movement are disgruntled about the truce, which they complain has been used by the U.S. military and Shiite rivals within the Iraqi security forces to target his followers.
American authorities promised Friday to treat those who honor the cease-fire with “respect and restraint.” But the military said in a statement that it would continue to pursue “these criminals who violate the law and dishonor the commitment made by al-Sayid Muqtada.”
The statement used a title for Sadr that denotes descent from the prophet Muhammad. The tone was in stark contrast to statements just over a year ago, when the U.S. military identified Sadr’s militia as the single greatest threat to security in Iraq.
Mahdi militiamen helped drive the sectarian killing that once left dozens of bodies in the streets of Baghdad every day; three bodies were found Saturday.
U.S. officials say Sadr’s cease-fire played a key part in the ebb in violence since the U.S. completed a buildup of 28,500 additional troops, most of whom are due to leave this year. They also credit a rebellion by tens of thousands of Sunni Arab tribesmen against the Islamic extremists they once backed.
Sadr ordered his militia to lay down its arms last summer after clashes with a rival Shiite group killed at least 52 people in the holy city of Karbala. He said at the time that he wanted to use the truce to instill discipline in the ranks.
On the Turkish front, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki received a telephone call from his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Iraqi leader warned Erdogan to avoid actions that could threaten stability in the semiautonomous Kurdish region or hurt civilians, Maliki’s spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, told reporters.
Turkish officials have said they are targeting only hide-outs of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which uses the border region to launch attacks on their forces.
There have been conflicting accounts of the scale of the offensive.
Turkish news media reports say about 10,000 troops have pushed more than 10 miles into Iraq in pursuit of the militants, but Iraqi and rebel officials say the invading force is much smaller.
Kurdish authorities Saturday pulled back members of the regional peshmerga security force to avoid a clash with the Turkish troops, but vowed to respond forcefully to any attacks on Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq.
The United States, which has confirmed that it received advance notice of the Turkish operation, has urged restraint. Washington considers the PKK a terrorist organization and has said that Turkey has the right to defend itself.
In other developments Saturday, at least four people drowned when a boat carrying Shiite pilgrims to Karbala for a religious holiday capsized in the Tigris River north of Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. Rescuers continued searching for two missing people.
More than 4 million pilgrims have so far converged on Karbala for this week’s Arbaeen rites, which mark the 40th day of mourning following the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and one of Shiite Islam’s most revered figures.
In Baghdad, Shihab Timimi, the head of Iraq’s main journalists union, and his son were wounded when gunmen opened fire on their car, colleagues said.
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alexandra.zavis@latimes.com
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Times special correspondents Asso Ahmed in Sulaymaniya, Yesim Comert in Istanbul, Turkey, and Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report, along with correspondents in Baghdad.
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76f70353f990d2f35e5b11e70907a80b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-25-fg-eurobama25-story.html | They’re the Obamas of Europe, or so they say | They’re the Obamas of Europe, or so they say
Europe can’t get enough of Barack Obama -- just look at a couple of the continent’s own elections.
Walter Veltroni, until this month the mayor of Rome, is casting himself as the Italian Obama as he runs for prime minister of Italy.
“Yes, we can!” he says in his campaign, to the bewilderment of the majority of Italians, who don’t speak English.
In Spain, commentators do not hesitate to compare Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Obama, for good or bad.
“Zapatero a modo Obama” (“Zapatero, Obama-style”) was the headline of a recent story in the Spanish daily El Mundo, which told of musical stars filming a campaign spot for Zapatero, much as will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas did for Obama.
These European politicians have very little in common with the Democratic presidential candidate; for one thing, they’ve been in office for many years. They do, however, represent the left wing of their nations’ political spectrum and are relatively young, in the local context.
The emulation is testament to how the senator from Illinois has captured the imagination on this side of the Atlantic as he has at home.
Veltroni, 52, especially wants to be seen, like Obama, as a candidate for change.
Possibly the first commentator to refer to Veltroni as “our Obama” was Italian television personality Lucia Annunziata, on her weekly talk show.
It turns out she knew that Veltroni, a big fan of American pop culture, has long admired Obama, whom he met several years ago. Even though Veltroni, a former communist, has been in politics for years, Annunziata said in an interview, he can portray himself as being different because he is slightly younger than the generation that dominates Italian politics. And he has always had different interests.
“When we were all reading Marx, he was studying pop songs. When we were speaking Russian and Chinese, he was identifying with the Kennedys,” she said. “He can claim he was on the sidelines, even though he was very deeply a part of the establishment.”
Polls thus far indicate that Veltroni is trailing his formidable, very-established rival, billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, 71, who hopes to become prime minister for a third time.
Still, Veltroni’s campaign workers will not let the Obama emulation rest. They are printing thousands of T-shirts with the slogan “Yes We Can” in Italian, and with translations into various local dialects.
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wilkinson@latimes.com
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1a6fbdcce996a2f9b76571445eec1231 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-25-fi-ea25-story.html | EA raises the ante for rival | EA raises the ante for rival
Electronic Arts Inc. on Sunday launched a $2-billion takeover bid for troubled video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., stepping up the industry’s torrid pace of consolidation.
EA disclosed that Take-Two, the New York-based publisher of the “Grand Theft Auto” series, had recently rejected two all-cash buyout offers. EA, the world’s largest game publisher, made the higher bid public Sunday and said it would bring the offer directly to Take-Two’s shareholders.
The offer of $26 a share for Take-Two represents a nearly 50% premium over Friday’s closing price and a 64% premium over the closing price when it was made Feb. 19.
Take-Two Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick called the deal “insufficient” and said his company would be willing to discuss a deal only after the release of “Grand Theft Auto IV,” scheduled for April 29.
The move follows a series of high-profile mergers in the game industry. Flush with cash from record sales, publishers are seeking both cost savings and a broad portfolio of franchises to protect themselves from flops in the increasingly hit-driven industry.
Santa Monica-based Activision Inc. is set to close a merger with Vivendi’s game business this year. The combined company, Activision Blizzard, is expected to have market value of $18.1 billion.
Redwood City, Calif.-based EA in October agreed to pay as much as $775 million in cash and stock to acquire two game developers, Pandemic Studios and BioWare Corp.
The bold Take-Two bid is part of EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello’s plan to overhaul his company, whose popular series include “Madden Football,” “The Sims” and “Need for Speed.”
“There’s no other company in a position to make a similar offer, which means the deal is very likely going to happen,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Riccitiello, who assumed the helm of EA almost exactly a year ago, vowed to shake up the publisher, which had been losing market share to rivals such as Activision. He tore down the company’s centralized development style and created more independent labels that focus on specific genres, similar to the music industry. And he has moved quickly to fill gaps in EA’s game portfolio, such as the role-playing games for which BioWare is known.
Buying Take-Two would provide EA with a genre known as “open world action,” in which players have fewer set paths within the game and more freedom to choose what their characters do. It also would give EA control over Take-Two’s 2K Sports label, EA’s only significant rival in the highly lucrative sports game category. “That alone justifies the deal,” Pachter said.
EA had initially offered $25 a share. After being rebuffed, Riccitiello hiked his offer to $26, saying that EA was unlikely to further increase its price.
“There can be no certainty that in the future EA or any other buyer would pay the same high premium we are offering today,” Riccitiello wrote in a Feb. 19 letter to Take-Two’s Zelnick.
Riccitiello indicated his desire to cinch a deal shortly after the release of “Grand Theft Auto IV,” the latest title in Take-Two’s billion-dollar franchise, so that EA could “positively impact the catalogue sales of GTA IV and also the launch and sale of titles released later this year.”
Zelnick said his company proposed talks after April 29 to avoid disrupting the release of the latest addition to the company’s most important franchise.
“They rejected that,” he said. “I find it sort of stunning from a company that’s presenting itself as a friend of creativity.”
Take-Two’s shares have slumped 12% over the last year, closing at $17.36 on Friday. In August the company announced a significant delay in “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which had been expected before the crucial holiday shopping season.
The delay was a setback for the management team that commandeered Take-Two in a boardroom coup last March after a series of executive scandals and poor financial performance at the company enraged investors.
A consortium of shareholders that together controlled 46% of Take-Two’s stock ousted the company’s board and top management and installed its own team, including Ben Feder as chief executive and Zelnick as nonexecutive chairman. Zelnick was named executive chairman Feb. 15.
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alex.pham@latimes.com
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Begin text of infobox
Comparing the players in the field
Electronics Arts Inc.
Popular franchises: “Madden Football,” “The Sims” and “Need for Speed”
Market value: $15.8 billion
2007 revenue (fiscal year ended March 31): $3.1 billion
2007 net income: $76 million
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
Top franchises: “Grand Theft Auto,” “BioShock,” “Major League Baseball 2K8"
Market value: $1.3 billion
2007 revenue (fiscal year ended Oct. 31): $982 million
2007 net loss: $138.4 million
Headquarters: New York
Source: Times research
Los Angeles Times
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306746b7e27f4cadff8b5acfcbe12c12 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-26-fg-peru26-story.html | A new find is the Americas’ oldest known urban site | A new find is the Americas’ oldest known urban site
An ancient stone plaza unearthed in Peru dates back more than five millenniums and is the oldest known urban settlement in the Americas, according to experts here.
Archaeologists say the site, uncovered amid a complex of ruins known as Sechin Bajo, is a major discovery that could help reshape their understanding of the continent’s pre-Columbian history.
Carbon dating by a German and Peruvian excavation team indicates that the circular plaza is at least 5,500 years old, dating to about 3,500 BC, said Cesar Perez, an archaeologist at Peru’s National Institute of Culture who supervised the dig.
That would make it older than the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Sechin Bajo, 230 miles north of the capital, Lima, thus eclipses the ancient Peruvian citadel of Caral, some 5,000 years old, as the New World’s oldest known settlement.
“This has tremendous importance, both in Peru and internationally,” Perez said by cellphone from the area. “We think it’s the oldest urban site found in the Americas.”
Word of the discovery was first published Sunday in the Peruvian daily El Comercio.
“The findings in Sechin Bajo, especially in the buried circular plaza, have demonstrated that there is construction from 5,500 years ago,” Peter R. Fuchs, a German archaeologist who worked at the site, told the newspaper. “Whoever built Sechin Bajo had a good knowledge of architecture and construction.”
Much of the hidden plaza was uncovered this year, and a great deal of excavation remains to be done, Perez said. Relatively little is known about the people who lived there.
The plaza, 33 to 39 feet across, may have been a site for gatherings, perhaps a kind of ceremonial center. It was built of rocks and adobe bricks.
Successive cultures lived in the area and built over the site.
Earlier finds in the Sechin Bajo area, in the Casma Valley of Peru’s Ancash region, had been dated at more than 3,000 years old. But the circular plaza pushes the area’s settlement date back considerably.
Peru is perhaps best known to outsiders as the cradle of the Inca empire, which stretched from modern-day Chile to Ecuador. But the Incas were relative latecomers in Peru’s long history of human settlement, rising to prominence in the 15th century before being conquered by the Spanish in the early 16th century.
Before the Inca, Peru was home to various civilizations that left a rich legacy of ruins, pottery, tombs and artifacts. Teams of archaeologists are at work throughout the country, including the bustling capital.
Scientists say settlements were beginning to grow in Peru about the time of urbanization in such cradles of civilization as Mesopotamia, Egypt and India.
patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com
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79662a1edd4fe28a164ada0461f7be97 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-26-me-duttons26-story.html | For Dutton’s books, it’s the end | For Dutton’s books, it’s the end
Mired in debt and uncertain about the future of his current location, Doug Dutton said Monday that he will close his iconic Brentwood bookstore, where thousands of authors have celebrated their works in the central courtyard and readers such as Dustin Hoffman and Meg Ryan have sought counsel on stocking their bookshelves.
Dutton’s, which plans to close April 30, is one of many independent bookstores that have disappeared in the last couple of decades. Rising rents, the growth of big-box chains and the triumph of Amazon.com as a major force have challenged the indies.
But Dutton’s has a national reputation, a following among authors who appeared at its many readings and, for its two decades of history, a special place in literary Los Angeles.
Many considered it the most literary and high-minded of L.A.'s bookstores, as well as one that felt increasingly, if charmingly, anachronistic.
Dutton, 59, announced the closing on the store’s website and e-mailed the statement to influential newsletters; he then printed out the news for unsuspecting customers at the San Vicente Boulevard store.
Throughout the day, Ed Conklin, a partner in the business, was fielding a stream of condolence e-mails sent by publishers and authors from across the country. In an interview, author John Rechy, who recently appeared at Dutton’s for his memoir, “About My Life and the Kept Woman,” spoke of the store’s importance.
“Every non-million-selling writer has had his coming out there,” he said. “They had every single book that you would want.”
Author Carolyn See described the store’s decline and looming closing as “just sickening.”
She said she prized the spot as a neighborhood meeting place, not just for literati but also for local dog walkers. “If you weren’t the drinking kind,” See said, “you could go there the way you’d go to a bar.”
More than one customer wept after hearing the news. A distraught Jennifer Watling, who described herself as a “passionate writer,” dabbed at her eyes in the store’s sun-splashed courtyard as she absorbed the news.
“This is a tragedy. It solidifies my moving back East,” said Watling, 44, who grew up in Greenwich, Conn., and moved to Los Angeles in 1997.
Dutton said the decision was “devastating after 23 years of goodwill and generally fond memories.” He said he hoped “to keep the business as regular as possible through the end of March,” to satisfy orders for book groups and author signings. The store would then begin liquidating or returning its inventory.
The business is saddled with about $550,000 in debt, primarily from the ill-fated opening of a second store in Beverly Hills, and has been coping not only with tumult in the book industry but also with the planned redevelopment of the structure -- known as the Barry Building -- where the bookstore has been a fixture since 1984. In January 2007, the landlord revealed plans to redevelop the entire site, which includes the three-section, 5,000-square-foot Dutton’s and several other enterprises in a number of buildings.
The property is owned by billionaire investor Charles T. Munger and his wife, Nancy. A founder of the Los Angeles law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, he partnered in 1978 with Warren E. Buffett to run Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company.
Munger was in Washington on Monday and could not be reached. He said in a statement that he would allow Dutton’s to use the space rent-free during the liquidation and that he would cover the $550,000 debt in exchange for the store’s closing. Dutton described the offer as “very gracious and generous.” As part of the deal, Munger said, Dutton would retain the Dutton’s trade name.
The Beverly Hills store closed in late 2006 after Dutton and the city, which had lured the store after a long courtship, disagreed over rent and other financial issues. Customers had been fearing that the Brentwood store would meet a similar end. Because of the turmoil of the last year, Dutton said he had been reluctant for several months to place orders for new books.
Dutton said his decision to close the store mostly had to do with the heavy debt and the vagaries of the book world, with enormous chain stores like Barnes & Noble and online operations such as Amazon sapping the sales of smaller stores.
Conklin said it was difficult to make a profit in an environment “where even a lot of places that sell backpacks sell books.”
But other factors might have helped precipitate the closing.
Munger first proposed a mixed-use condo project for the site and, initially, he planned to offer Dutton’s a smaller space for what he called “ridiculously low rent.”
The neighborhood rebelled against the proposal, which Munger then withdrew.
Then, in October, the Los Angeles City Council voted to grant landmark status to the Barry Building, a Midcentury Modern structure named for the man who commissioned it.
That step created a review process but does not necessarily prevent the owner from developing the property or even demolishing the building.
If an owner requests a permit for demolition or substantial alteration, he is required to go through an environmental review process.
In recent weeks, Munger or his representatives have floated at least two proposals, only one of which would preserve the Barry Building.
Munger said his new plan calls for a small local-serving shopping center with an independent bookstore, with an emphasis on children’s books, that would be staffed, he hopes, by former Dutton’s employees. The store has 40 workers.
Dutton said Munger made it clear that “he thought of me as an old-fashioned businessman who was out of touch with reality.”
Customers said they appreciated Dutton’s warm, gentlemanly personality. Dutton did not rule out the possibility that he might open a store elsewhere.
But he added that plans to relocate would require a “real offer in a real situation, combined with a sober assessment of the realities of the book world.”
Jennifer Bigelow, executive director of the Southern California Independent Bookstore Assn., a trade group, said she spoke with many bookstore people in the area who considered the loss of Dutton’s akin to that of a family member. She added that she expected Doug Dutton to get another chance “to operate in the bookselling world.”
She also pointed out that all is not gloom and doom in the indie book world. Skylight Books in Los Feliz is expanding. Eso Won Books in Leimert Park has bounced back from a near bankruptcy, and Book Soup on the Sunset Strip has survived the loss of its Orange County branch. Vroman’s in Pasadena is thriving, but the proprietors own the building, as do the owners of Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore.
But that didn’t prevent sadness from descending on L.A.'s literary community.
“I think it’s very depressing to think that bookstores might become dinosaurs,” said Karen Mack, coauthor of “Literacy and Longing in L.A.,” a novel whose plot revolves around Dutton’s and its status as a community gathering place and literary launching pad.
martha.groves@latimes.com
scott.timberg@latimes.com
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b3ea2b79191041fafde766f782b023ba | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-27-fg-argentina27-story.html | Argentine ‘dirty war’ witness is found dead | Argentine ‘dirty war’ witness is found dead
A retired Argentine army officer, called to testify about the fate of twins born to a political prisoner, has been found dead of a gunshot to the head, police said Tuesday.
The body of retired Lt. Col. Paul Alberto Navone was found Monday with a handgun near his side in a park near his home outside the central city of Cordoba, authorities said.
Police said evidence pointed to suicide, but some human rights activists expressed concern that he might have been slain, based on the deaths or abductions of other witnesses in cases stemming from the 1976-83 military dictatorship.
Federal Judge Myriam Galizzi had summoned Navone for questioning next week about what happened to twins born in 1978 to a dissident held at a military hospital in the northeastern city of Parana.
The mother, Raquel Negro, remains missing and was presumably executed -- one of at least 13,000 suspected leftists who died or vanished while in military custody during Argentina’s “dirty war.”
Human rights activists say more than 200 babies were born to political prisoners of the dictatorship. Most are believed to have been taken from their mothers and offered for adoption, and 88 of them so far have been identified.
The government news agency Telam said the judge is investigating claims by a former intelligence agent that one of the twins died soon after birth and that the other was abandoned at an orphanage.
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be9563a93ef63f461678ff3d4a10eed8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-27-fi-music27-story.html | More teens dissing discs in favor of online tunes | More teens dissing discs in favor of online tunes
Going to the mall to buy music may no longer be a rite of passage for adolescents.
For the first time last year, nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs, a dramatic increase from 2006, when 38% of teens shunned such purchases, according to a new report released Tuesday.
The illegal sharing of music online continued to soar in 2007, but there was one sign of hope that legal downloading was picking up steam. In the last year, Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, which sells only digital downloads, jumped ahead of Best Buy Co. to become the No. 2 U.S. music seller, trailing Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
That could be hopeful news for the music industry, which has been scrambling in recent years to replace its rapidly disappearing CD sales with music sold online. The number of CDs sold in the U.S. fell 19% in 2007 from the previous year while sales of digital songs jumped 45%, Nielsen SoundScan said.
The number of people buying music legally from online music stores jumped 21% to 29 million last year from 24 million in 2006, according to the study by NPD Group, a market research firm in Port Washington, N.Y.
NPD declined to release figures on individual retailers’ sales or their market shares, so it is impossible to know how close iTunes sales are to Wal-Mart’s. The NPD market ranking of music retailers is based on a study of the music habits of Americans 13 and older over the last week.
The report, which involved 5,000 people who answered questions online, highlighted a generational split. The increase in legal online sales was driven by people 36 to 50, the report said, giving the music industry an opportunity to target these customers by tapping into its older catalogs.
That’s not to say iTunes is not popular with the younger set. Mallory Portillo, 24, an executive assistant in Santa Monica, said she hadn’t bought a CD in five years, but typically spent more than $100 a month buying music online. She will turn to illegal music sharing sites only if she can’t find new releases or more obscure music on iTunes, she said.
Buying online saves her the step of having to load a CD onto her laptop so that she can then transfer the files to her iPod.
Her most recent purchase came two days ago, when she spent $19.99 on iTunes for Michael Jackson’s 25th anniversary edition of “Thriller.”
“Hopefully it doesn’t come back to haunt me one day that my ‘Thriller’ CD is on my computer and therefore not a collector’s item,” she said.
The increase in online spending didn’t offset the revenue lost from the drop in CD sales and from illegal downloading. Last year, about 1 million consumers stopped buying CDs, according to NPD.
There are several ways for consumers to expand a digital music collection. They can buy music at online stores such as iTunes and Amazon.com’s MP3 store. They also can convert their CD collection into a digital format.
What concerns the music industry is illegal Internet file-sharing on websites where people pick up a digital song or album that others have uploaded. They can also do what is known as peer-to-peer file sharing, when people download music while temporarily opening up their computers to others to pick up music. The music industry says people who obtain music free online are breaking the law.
Rachel Rottman, 14, says she hasn’t bought a CD in a year. The Santa Monica High School freshman says she downloads five or six songs a day, using paid services such as iTunes and social networking site MySpace, where bands post songs for free download. Rachel said she had about 2,600 songs stored on her computer.
Before getting a computer in the seventh grade, she always bought CDs. But now it’s too much trouble, she said.
“You have to go to the store and then you have to pay -- I don’t know how much, $12, I’m guessing? -- then you have to put it on your computer,” Rachel said. “When you download it, it’s right there.”
Hunter Conrad, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, says she downloads about 80% of her music from iTunes, “but when it’s an artist I really like, I’ll buy the original CD.”
Out of her group of friends, she’s “one of the few” who still buy CDs, she said. Most of her buddies download for the convenience, to save money and to get only the songs they like.
“Nobody really wants the other songs [on an album],” Hunter, 14, said. “They just want the hits.”
In the last year, consumers paid for 42% of the music they obtained, the report said. That was down from 48% in 2006 and more than 50% in 2005.
“The trend is continuing but it will flatten because there are people who will always want the physical,” said Ted Cohen, managing partner at TAG Strategic, a digital media advisory firm.
Over the last year, the music industry has pushed back. Some companies now permit online music stores to sell songs without copyright protections in hopes of making it easier for consumers to move digital music to different computers and devices, and thus remove the temptation to download it illegally.
Some music companies have thrown support behind Amazon’s MP3 store, which competes with iTunes. The music industry has also sued fans to stop them from downloading and sharing music without paying for it.
The legal efforts may have had an effect. The report said that the portion of survey respondents who shared music on sites that facilitate illegal downloads was 19% in 2007, the same as 2006. But those who do it are doing it more. Some said they got more than 3,000 songs a year this way.
Two years ago, teenagers accounted for 15% of CD sales. In 2007, the figure was 10%. The digital music world has yet to completely capture the attentions of Isaac Kahn and his friend Charlie Williams, both 14. They buy music online but prefer to go to the Amoeba store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and thumb through the CDs. “I like to look at CDs and see if there’s anything else I might want to buy,” Isaac said.
Charlie, who recently bought a device to transform his father’s 300 records into digital files, said many teens download music illegally because they are on computers. But he doesn’t have a computer. And besides, he said, “I’m a musician myself; I prefer to just buy it.”
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michelle.quinn@latimes.com
andrea.chang@latimes.com
Quinn reported from San Francisco, Chang from Los Angeles.
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Begin text of infobox
Leading U.S. music sellers
End of 2007
1. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
2. Apple Inc.'s iTunes
3. Best Buy Co.
4. Target Corp.
5. Amazon.com Inc.
End of 2006
1. Wal-Mart
2. Best Buy
3. Target
4. iTunes
5. Amazon
Source: NPD Group
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b21193984aaf41f7fb99ec3ec5a101f2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-27-me-starbucks27-story.html | Starbucks causes grande upheaval | Starbucks causes grande upheaval
Jose Parilli and Candice Culp walked to a Starbucks coffee shop in Hollywood late Tuesday afternoon only to find the doors locked and a sign proclaiming: “We’re taking time to perfect our art of espresso. . . . We will be closed Tuesday, February 26 from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.”
“That’s not cool, dude,” Parilli said.
“It’s messed up,” echoed Culp. “I’m not going to survive.”
In what has been described variously as an attention-seeking ploy, an outright inconvenience and an effort to impose corporate consistency in the coffee realm, Starbucks coffee shops across the nation closed for 3 1/2 hours Tuesday to drill thousands of barristas on the proper method of pulling shots of espresso, as well as other beverage tasks.
“They want to make sure we’re all on the same page, make sure we’re all doing it the corporate way,” said barrista Richard Kenney, a part-time employee at the Starbucks on St. Andrews Place and Sunset Boulevard. Outside the coffee shop, Ronnie Mervis, 67, of Silver Lake sat with his son Mark, 38, a self-described Starbucks-aholic.
The younger Mervis nursed a venti half-cup of iced Americano with one pump of mocha. The father and son had made it to the shop before the closure, yet they left slightly unsatisfied.
In all, nearly 7,100 company-operated Starbucks stores across the U.S. closed at 5:30 p.m. local time so about 135,000 employees could receive training.
Many wondered why the stores had to close during the afternoon coffee rush and not after hours or any other time.
“That’s crazy,” Ronnie Mervis said. “To close a business to train people. That’s going to cost a lot of money in customers.”
A Starbucks spokesperson declined to say just how much the chain stood to lose in the training shutdown. However, business analysts said it wasn’t likely to amount to much in the overall scheme of things. Because Starbucks has seen its stock slide about 50% since late 2006, E.K. Riley investments analyst Robert Toomey said it made sense to address training issues in one mass session.
“They know they’ve fallen short,” Toomey said. “The quality of the product has deteriorated a bit over the last few years, and they know they’ve got to improve it.”
As for Parilli and Culp, the loyal Starbucks fans who were left to consider other options, Culp drew out a green pack of Kool cigarettes and began puffing on one. “So, that means no Starbucks until 9 p.m. tonight?” she asked Parilli with a hint of anxiety.
“Ahem,” said Parilli, looking about furtively. “Coffee Bean.”
tami.abdollah@latimes.com
Times staff writers Amanda Covarrubias and Deborah Schoch and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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388056372e8ba8a81355b4a8a9b941e1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-27-me-watchdog27-story.html | State political fines drop in chief’s 1st year | State political fines drop in chief’s 1st year
In the year since a former state legislator took the reins of the state’s political watchdog agency, prosecutions and fines for violations have dropped significantly while more cases have been resolved with only warning letters, agency statistics show.
That has some good-government activists worried about the shift at the state Fair Political Practices Commission since former state Sen. Ross Johnson became chairman. The agency is facing a proposed 10% budget cut.
“It’s a concern that there are fewer penalties for cheating or breaking the rules,” said Trent Lange, president of the California Clean Money Campaign. “If people are just get warning letters, that is a slap on the wrist, and of course people won’t pay attention to it.”
But Johnson, who was appointed to lead the commission last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the numbers reflected his philosophy of setting priorities, not a retreat from enforcement.
Johnson, a Republican who represented part of Orange County in the Legislature for 26 years, said in a recent interview that some of the changes reflect a shift in focus by an agency with limited resources.
“I have directed the enforcement staff that I want them concentrating on the bigger cases that have more significance in terms of public harm, and by definition those cases require more time and effort,” Johnson said. “I have also instructed the staff on matters that represent more technical violations, more inadvertent violations, where it’s appropriate in the exercise of their discretion, to close a matter with a warning letter to the individual involved,” he added.
The commission levied $583,474 in fines in 159 cases last year, less than half the $1.2 million in fines imposed the year before in 269 cases. The amount last year marked a seven-year low and was far below the $1-million annual average for the previous decade.
At the same time, the number of warning letters issued by the agency increased from 30 in the year ending Feb.13, 2007, when Johnson took over, to 294 in the ensuing year. Commission spokesman Roman Porter said the numbers also reflect an effort to clear a significant backlog of cases.
Still, the numbers startled some who count on the agency to keep state government clean.
“That does raise some questions for me, particularly because we had understood the FPPC has wanted to sharpen its teeth and be much more proactive,” said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.
The appointment of Johnson was welcomed by many in the political reform field at the time. In the Legislature, he was a leading proponent of Proposition 34, a measure approved by voters in 2000 that put in place some campaign reforms.
As head of the commission, Johnson has impressed some by pursuing new rules to close loopholes in campaign finance reporting laws.
This month, the commission approved rules that will require politicians to publicly explain how meals, gifts and out-of-state travel paid for with campaign money are connected to political or governmental business.
“I do think he has the credentials, and he certainly has been saying the right things,” said Derek Cressman, also of Common Cause.
Johnson said a lot is going on behind the scenes to toughen enforcement against the worst violations.
He said he had ordered his staff to create a task force on political money laundering that will pursue cases in which one donor disguises his involvement by reimbursing several others for the political contributions they provide to his favored candidate.
“I think that’s one of the most serious offenses,” Johnson said.
In one case last month, the commission levied fines of $55,000 against the Latino Builders Industry Assn. in the San Diego area for being the actual source of 11 campaign contributions to candidates for city councils, school district boards and an Assembly seat. The donations totaling $2,600 were made by others between November 2001 and October 2004.
Johnson acknowledged that time would tell whether other big cases result from the shift in enforcement priorities.
“If over the next year I don’t start to see a parade of more significant cases, then I suppose that failure is mine,” he said.
Lange says the governor’s plan to cut the commission’s budget by 10% next year does not bode well for better enforcement.
The five-member commission was approved by voters in 1974 as part of the Political Reform Act, which gave the panel and its staff the role of enforcing rules that restrict political fundraising and lobbying.
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patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
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cb313e8ea9b8bb351d938458dbf95b1c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-27-na-waiver27-story.html | EPA staff turned to former chief on warming | EPA staff turned to former chief on warming
Some officials at the Environmental Protection Agency were so worried their boss would deny California permission to implement its own global-warming law that they worked with a former EPA chief to try to persuade the current administrator to grant the state’s request.
That unusual effort was revealed by documents released Tuesday by congressional investigators probing whether EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson was swayed by political pressure when he decided not to allow California to enact vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government’s.
The documents were released as a battle escalated between a key California Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer, the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Bush administration over her efforts to get correspondence between the White House and the EPA leading up to Johnson’s decision in December.
One of the newly released documents features “talking points” prepared by an agency staff member for former EPA Administrator William K. Reilly to help him build the case for granting California’s request. In the October 2007 memo, the staffer said there was “no legal or technical justification” for the EPA to deny the request. If the agency refused California permission to implement its tailpipe law, the document said, “the credibility of the agency . . . will be irreparably damaged.”
Reilly, who served in the administration of the first President Bush, said Tuesday that he had asked staff who worked under him and were still at the agency to prepare the memo. “I’m a busybody,” he joked. Then, he added, “I really believe in the urgency of addressing climate change. . . . It is the foremost environmental threat to this planet at this time. California was attempting to lead on the premier environmental issue of the day.”
In an e-mail also released by Boxer, William L. Wehrum, a former lawyer for the chemical, utility and auto industries who recently left his EPA job after serving as acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, argued against granting the waiver as far back as 2006.
Wehrum said Tuesday that he didn’t recall the specific e-mail. But he said he had argued against granting California’s request because he did not think the state could show it was suffering uniquely from global warming, a condition required by the federal Clean Air Act.
But in another document released Tuesday, staff of the EPA’s climate change division cited conditions that made the state “vulnerable to climate change.”
Boxer said the documents were further evidence that Johnson acted against the advice of his legal and scientific advisors in denying California’s request. “We see more and more evidence of Administrator Johnson ignoring the science and the facts,” she said. She plans to question the EPA chief when he testifies before her committee today on the agency’s budget.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said Johnson received a “wide range” of advice from inside the agency. “At the end of the day, it was his decision to make, based on the law,” he said. “He made the decision he felt was right, and he stands by it.”
California and more than a dozen other states that want to enact similar laws have sued to overturn Johnson’s decision. Legislation to overturn the decision had picked up 23 Senate sponsors as of Tuesday, including Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.
Johnson has said he reached his decision independently, denying he was influenced by political pressure. He has contended that the tougher vehicle fuel-economy rules required nationwide by the recent energy bill are preferable to a “patchwork of state rules.”
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richard.simon@latimes.com
janet.wilson@latimes.com
Simon reported from Washington and Wilson from Los Angeles.
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73a5f0132a2762f8660e13b8ca6f5eda | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-28-fi-bp28-story.html | BP chief says firm may sell ‘green’ unit | BP chief says firm may sell ‘green’ unit
Oil giant BP’s chief executive hinted Wednesday that the company might offload part or all of its “green” business unit, reversing a central part of its previous strategy as he seeks to turn the company around.
Tony Hayward, giving his first annual presentation to analysts since taking over from former CEO John Browne in May, also said BP could be producing about 4.3 million barrels of oil equivalent a day by 2012.
BP intends to expand its alternative energy business “predominantly for its equity value,” Hayward said. The green unit, much prized by Browne, is worth $5 billion to $7 billion, based on market valuations for similar companies, Hayward said.
“As we go forward we will be looking at how best we can realize that growing value for our shareholders,” he said.
Selling all or part of the business would drop a key plank of Browne’s strategy, the re-branding of the former British Petroleum under the Beyond Petroleum slogan.
BP’s advertising has focused heavily on the firm’s green investments, but environmental campaigners have long said it was little more than a marketing gimmick.
Hayward said the company was making good progress with a restructuring plan aimed at improving BP’s dismal operational performance after a turbulent year in which it was fined millions of dollars for environmental crimes and fraud.
BP has begun cost-cutting and restructuring, including shedding 5,000 jobs, as it seeks to close the gap with rivals like Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp. caused by poor performance in BP’s refining and marketing business.
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7922e5cf573b6f17e9a6b85627a324c6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-28-na-endorse28-story.html | Rep. Lewis switches to Obama | Rep. Lewis switches to Obama
Civil rights leader John Lewis dropped his support for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid Wednesday in favor of Barack Obama.
Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Atlanta, is the most prominent black leader to defect from Clinton’s campaign in the face of near-unanimous black support for Obama in recent voting. He also is a superdelegate who gets a vote at this summer’s national convention in Denver.
In a written statement, Lewis said the Illinois senator’s campaign “represents the beginning of a new movement in American political history” and that he wants “to be on the side of the people.”
“After taking some time for serious reflection on this issue, I have decided that when I cast my vote as a superdelegate at the Democratic convention, it is my duty . . . to express the will of the people,” the statement said.
Lewis’ endorsement had been a coveted prize thanks to his standing as one of the most prominent civil rights leaders of the 1960s.
“John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the civil rights movement, and I am deeply honored to have his support,” Obama said in a statement.
Clinton was questioned about Lewis during an interview with Houston television station KTRK on Wednesday.
“I understand he’s been under tremendous pressure,” the New York senator said. “He’s been my friend. He will always be my friend. At the end of the day it’s not about who is supporting us, it’s about what we’re presenting, what our positions are, what our experiences and qualifications are, and I think that voters are going to decide.”
Lewis’ announcement came on the same day as another superdelegate, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, endorsed Obama, citing the presidential hopeful’s record on trade.
Dorgan said Obama has supported key trade issues.
“He and I feel the same way,” Dorgan said. “We both believe in trade and plenty of it. We just insist it that it be fair to our country -- the rules be fair.”
The North American Free Trade Agreement is unpopular with blue-collar workers whose votes are considered crucial in the Democratic primary Tuesday in Ohio.
Lewis announced his Clinton endorsement in October and has appeared on the New York senator’s behalf on television and at events across the country.
At one point in the campaign, Lewis accused Obama supporters of trying to fan the flames of race against Clinton.
Clinton has frequently cited Lewis’ support in trying to establish her credentials among minority voters, saying she saw her campaign as a continuation of his work.
But Lewis came under intense pressure to get behind Obama after his constituents supported the Illinois senator roughly 3 to 1 in Georgia’s Feb. 5 primary, as did about 90% of black voters statewide, according to exit polls.
Obama’s support among black voters nationwide mirrors Lewis’ Georgia district.
His change of heart follows a similar move by Rep. David Scott, a black Democrat who represents a neighboring district.
The decision also comes a week after the Rev. Markel Hutchins, a young Atlanta minister, announced he would challenge Lewis in the Democratic congressional primary this summer.
Hutchins, 30, has seized on Lewis’ reversal in his presidential endorsement as evidence that the 68-year-old congressman is out of touch with his constituents.
“Today’s announcement by Representative Lewis was clearly prompted by political expediency,” Hutchins said Wednesday. “It is time for a change. It is time to send somebody to Congress who is actually willing to represent the district.”
This month, Lewis’ office disputed media reports that he said he would switch candidates, or was at least reconsidering. But until Wednesday, the congressman had refused to answer questions clarifying his position.
Lewis said Wednesday afternoon that he had called former President Clinton and Sen. Clinton but had not reached them to tell them of his decision.
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f980847a2b6a10cce0f589d1f0121d59 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-28-na-scotus28-story.html | Supreme Court may be split on Exxon damages | Supreme Court may be split on Exxon damages
Nearly 19 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill fouled Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the Supreme Court debated Wednesday whether the world’s largest oil company must pay a record $2.5 billion in punitive damages.
The eight justices who heard the case appeared closely split, although several of them said they were looking for a way to reduce the size of the award. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. sat out the case because he is an Exxon stockholder. His stock holdings could prove costly to the company: A tie vote would have the effect of affirming the $2.5-billion verdict.
No one disputed that the oil spill was an extraordinary disaster. The company’s lawyer described it as “one of the worst environmental tragedies in U.S. maritime history.”
And no one disputed that Exxon was responsible for paying for the cleanup and for the losses suffered by fishermen, cannery workers and other Alaska residents. Exxon paid $900 million in cleanup costs, and a jury ordered it to pay $287 million to 32,000 Alaskans, many of whom lost their livelihoods when the fishing industry was destroyed.
At issue Wednesday was whether extra damages were needed to punish Exxon for corporate recklessness.
In 1994, a jury in Alaska imposed $5 billion in punitive damages, money that would go to the plaintiffs. Years of appeals followed, and the verdict was cut in half. During this same stretch, the Supreme Court began putting limits on punitive damages, believing the amount should be tied to the actual harm.
The case heard Wednesday was unusual because it was apparently the first before the high court involving punitive damages for an accident on the high seas.
In centuries past, maritime law shielded ship owners from being punished for damage caused by their vessels. This made sense during the era of sailing ships, said Justice David H. Souter. “In those days, when a ship put to sea, the ship was sort of a floating world by itself,” he said. It was gone and out of the control of its owner for months, even years, until it returned to port.
Representing Exxon, Washington lawyer Walter Dellinger cited this principle of maritime law and urged the court to throw out the entire punitive verdict. He cited the case of the Amiable Nancy in 1818 as having set a historical precedent shielding ship owners.
But his argument quickly ran aground. “It’s rather, I think, an exaggeration to call it a long line of settled decisions in maritime law,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Souter and others also noted that times have changed. These days, ship owners can control where their ships go.
As a fallback, Dellinger argued that the $2.5-billion verdict was too high. He cited several federal laws that fine those who pollute the environment. Typically, he said, these legal fines may total millions of dollars, but not billions.
He also urged the justices to keep in mind that the spill was an accident: “This was not an intentional act. It was not malicious. The company did not make one dollar of profit.”
But Stanford law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher, representing the Alaskan workers, said Exxon deserved to be punished for “putting a drunken master in charge of a supertanker.”
He said the jury heard testimony that Exxon officials knew Captain Joseph Hazelwood was an alcoholic and had 33 reports that he had gone back to drinking. “Up and down the corporation, for three years, upper management was receiving reports that this man was drinking aboard the vessel,” Fisher said.
On March 24, 1989, Hazelwood had been drinking and left the bridge of the supertanker. The third mate left in charge failed to turn the giant ship in time, and it hit Bligh Reef. About 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled.
Fisher said the captain was an agent of Exxon’s management. “It is perfectly appropriate to expose the corporation to punitive damages based on the reckless acts of such an individual,” he said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia questioned why a corporation should be punished if one of its officials violates its corporate policy. Exxon had a firm policy against drinking.
“What if there is a breach of the corporate policy? What more can a corporation do?” Roberts asked.
Fisher said the company should have enforced its policy. “There was no serious enforcement,” he said, since the warnings about Hazelwood were ignored.
Three other justices -- Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer and Souter -- said they saw a need to reduce the punitive damages.
Kennedy and Souter said it might make sense to limit punitive damages to twice the amount of compensatory damages. If that view were adopted, the punitive verdict in this case would have been limited to about $600 million.
Breyer strongly hinted that he would vote to reduce the award. “This is a very dramatic accident . . . but there are accidents every day,” he said. He questioned whether “negligence or recklessness is now going to be not only imputed to the corporation but subject [to] punitives. . . . It will be a new world for the shipping industry.”
If the justices are evenly divided in this case, Exxon vs. Baker, they could hand down a one-line order next week. More likely, however, they will work on writing an opinion to be handed down in several months.
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david.savage@latimes.com
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ed3e7e7debe017adb901073be405797b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-29-fg-missiles29-story.html | U.S. warns Europeans of Iran missile threat | U.S. warns Europeans of Iran missile threat
With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals.
“They’re already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It’s something we need to think about,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told a conference here on missile defense.
The message was aimed at staving off skepticism in Europe and clinching a deal for radar and interceptor sites in the Czech Republic and Poland. It underscored increasing concern among defense experts that while attention has focused on nuclear proliferation, nations such as China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India have made significant strides in developing missiles that can reach far beyond their immediate neighbors.
“Our short-range defenses could protect Rome and Athens,” Obering said, but he warned that London, Paris and Brussels would remain vulnerable “against an Iranian [intermediate-range missile] threat.”
Many in Europe have expressed doubts that Iran would target European cities. But Obering said it was possible to imagine as little as seven years from now a nuclear-armed Iran shutting off oil shipments in the Persian Gulf, or Al Qaeda militants seizing freighters off Europe and arming them with nuclear-tipped Scud missiles “to punish the West for invasion of Muslim holy lands.”
The timing of the warning was hardly coincidental, as Bush administration officials this week were attempting through talks in Washington to clear the last hurdles for agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic on the U.S.-run system of interceptor missiles and radar in Europe.
The Czech Foreign Ministry official in charge of security policy, Veronika Kuchynova Smigolova, predicted that the deal could be signed as early as next month’s NATO summit in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, and ratified by the Czech Parliament by summer.
But Russia remains vigorously opposed to what it sees as a permanent new U.S. military infrastructure near its borders in Central Europe, and there are concerns on the continent about further alienating Iran and Russia. Some critics have questioned the wisdom of allowing the U.S., rather than the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to take the lead in defending Europe against such missiles.
Malcolm Chalmers, a onetime foreign policy advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the decision to locate the system in former Warsaw Pact nations may have sparked opposition in Moscow that otherwise “would be much less vociferous.”
“Did we only deploy it there because that’s the only place available?” said Chalmers, who is now a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, which sponsored Thursday’s conference.
Some Europeans have questioned whether Iran represents a genuine threat to Europe, and have accused the Bush administration of undermining existing arms control agreements by proceeding unilaterally on missile defense.
“This is firstly and foremostly an American choice and should be taken as such,” said Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. “It has not been requested by any European state and . . . it does not answer the critical need for Europeans to process their own assessment of strategic capabilities.”
Jane Sharp, senior research fellow in defense studies at King’s College London, said the Bush administration had cost the West a once-cooperative relationship with Russia.
“Even if ballistic missile defense did look credible to a potential adversary, they’re still destabilizing, because the logical response for any adversary for a credible defense is to acquire more offensive capability -- this is what the Russians are telling us every day,” she said.
But reflecting the wariness of Russia long present among the European Union’s newest members -- Poland has made it clear that it fears attack from Russia much more than from Iran -- Smigolova said the proposed defense program would restore equality of security on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Russia knows very well that one radar and 10 interceptors won’t change the strategic balance and doesn’t present any real military problem for them,” she said. “But for them, a U.S. presence in Central Europe is the final confirmation of the loss of their influence over this part of Europe.”
Smigolova said the Czech government was “well aware” of widespread public opposition to the system in that country and in Europe, but would be pushing to ratify the agreement after remaining concerns over environmental protections were worked out.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek met Wednesday at the White House with President Bush but withheld his approval for the system, citing remaining differences on environmental standards for the radar equipment. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is scheduled to visit Bush on March 10.
U.S. negotiators are due in Poland today to discuss modernizing that country’s military, a key Polish request in the missile defense talks.
Bush said in a news conference Thursday that he still hoped to persuade the Russian government to drop its opposition. “I believe it’s in our interests to try to figure out a way for the Russians to understand the system is not aimed at them, but aimed at the real threats of the 21st century,” Bush said.
U.S. officials and many European security experts have said the rate at which new nations are obtaining the capability to build longer-range missiles, with increasingly sophisticated maneuvering ability, is greatly expanding.
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kim.murphy@latimes.com
Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.
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68b700aa036b85a7a93cee6c022d714a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-29-me-vietdems29-story.html | Vietnamese voters go left | Vietnamese voters go left
Hoa Van Tran, a lawyer and U.S. Army veteran, has jumped into this year’s hottest election in Orange County.
The battle for a seat on the Board of Supervisors is shaping up as a high-profile, all-Vietnamese field -- a milestone in the Vietnamese American community’s growing political movement. But there’s a glaring difference between Tran and his fellow office-seekers: He’s a Democrat.
Since they first began arriving in the U.S. after fleeing Vietnam’s communist regime in the 1970s, Vietnamese immigrants -- much like the Cuban refugees who settled in Florida -- have developed a political profile that is almost monolithically Republican, identifying with the party’s historic anti-Communist stance.
Now, after years in which they were eclipsed by their more dominant Republican counterparts, Vietnamese Democrats are beginning to emerge in Orange County, home to the nation’s largest Vietnamese American community with a population of more than 150,000.
Republicans continue to outnumber Democrats nearly 2 to 1 in Little Saigon, and the vast majority of elected Vietnamese politicians are Republicans. Few political experts in either party expect that Tran will defeat his GOP rivals for the supervisor’s seat.
But for the first time, registration of new Vietnamese voters as Democrats is outpacing Republicans in Orange County, and the number of newly registered Republicans has declined.
The widening political bandwidth is a sign of change in the Vietnamese American community, where the agenda -- once sharply and nearly exclusively focused on foreign affairs -- now includes domestic issues such as poverty, healthcare and Social Security.
“For so long, there has been a one-party monopoly in the Vietnamese community,” said Kim Oanh Nguyen-Lam, who became the first Vietnamese Democrat elected in Orange County in 2004 as a Garden Grove school board member. “We Democrats are coming out of the shadow.”
Long Dinh Dang, 67, is an example of the shift. Dang became a Republican after he immigrated to Orange County in 1994 and was worried that Democrats had become too cozy with the Communist regime when former President Bill Clinton lifted the trade embargo with Vietnam.
But now, a man who twice voted for President Bush says he has had a change of heart. He switched to the Democratic ticket last month to vote in the presidential primary. More than communism, he worries about the slumping economy, Medicare and the Iraq war.
“Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter,” he said. Particularly in local elections, “I judge candidates more on their ability to be closely connected with our Vietnamese community,” he said.
Last year, a small group of political staffers and community activists formed the Vietnamese American Democratic Club, which has been strategizing with the Orange County Democratic Party about campaigns and registration drives. The group has launched a show on Little Saigon Radio to spread its message and encourage debate on issues including presidential candidates and health policy.
Two Vietnamese American Democrats, including Nguyen-Lam, have been elected to school boards in Westminster and Garden Grove since 2004. And now the county’s Democratic Party is preparing to back Hoa Van Tran in the 1st District supervisor’s race, a seat representing the central county area including Santa Ana, Westminster and Garden Grove.
“I saw Democrats always supporting social issues, working people, the poor, the immigrants, the small businesses, all the ones with no voices,” Tran said in a recent interview. “I felt that was where I was coming from.”
The 1st District includes heavily Latino parts of Orange County and has been the only majority-Democratic part of the county for a dozen years. It’s also home to Orange County’s best-known politician -- Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
The supervisor’s seat was held by a Democrat until 2007, when Janet Nguyen squeaked out a three-vote victory over another Vietnamese Republican. The vote was seen as a political milestone for the Vietnamese community.
Nguyen and her top opponent, Garden Grove schools trustee Trung Nguyen (who is no relation and running again), took nearly half the votes in the 10-candidate field, even though Vietnamese voters constituted just a quarter of the electorate. The result demonstrated the Vietnamese community’s high propensity to cast ballots, suddenly registering it as a political force.
To community activists, the emergence of Vietnamese American Democrats shows growth in a community that used to denounce Democratic voters and even aimed death threats at the few who campaigned for Democrats.
“Before, if you put yourself out as a Democrat, people may say you are not hard-line enough against the Communists,” said Phu Do Nguyen, Tran’s campaign manager. “But that perception is changing because people are facing real issues of everyday life.”
The GOP aggressively -- and successfully -- courted Vietnamese voters early on, far outpacing Democratic efforts.
Jeffrey Brody, a Cal State Fullerton professor who has studied Vietnamese American issues, said Vietnamese voters had become more concerned with domestic issues over the years. That, he said, has driven some to switch parties -- especially as many gave up hope they would ever reclaim their homeland from Communists and as second-generation Vietnamese began to reach voting age.
“Vietnamese refugees were naturally more concerned with foreign policy rather than domestic policy, even though Democratic policies at the time would probably have been more beneficial for them,” Brody said.
Tran, 42, of Garden Grove, came to the U.S. in 1980 after escaping Vietnam by boat when he was 15. He joined the military after high school, serving as a mechanic in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. He worked for the Orange County Public Defender while attending law school.
“The perception is that Republicans are anticommunists and Democrats are communist,” Tran said in a recent show on Little Saigon Radio. “But that is not entirely true.”
Frank Barbaro, the chairman of the county Democratic Party, said the party is planning events to drum up support for Tran’s campaign. Democrats hold an overall registration advantage of about 2,000 votes in the district, according to the most recent figures.
The Democrat has a potential opening because there are multiple Republican candidates. Janet Nguyen is facing competition from Republicans Trung Nguyen and Dina Nguyen, a Garden Grove councilwoman.
Still, as a political neophyte, Tran faces considerable odds. He has little name recognition, and some traditional backers of Democratic candidates, such as the Orange County Employees Assn., say they plan to sit this race out.
Republican leaders in the Vietnamese community say they have little to fear. Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove) said the Republican Party has deep roots in the Vietnamese community that are not easily trumped. The party has cultivated community activists such as Van Tran who went on to elected office. Van Tran’s 2004 campaign ran a massive voter registration drive that brought in thousands of Vietnamese Republicans.
“With the Republicans, there is a level of trust and rapport with the community that has been built for well over two decades,” he said.
“There is absolutely no shortcut to winning trust in the community,” he said.
But Vietnamese Democrats say they are pleased with the inroads they have begun to make.
“Before, it was easy for people to vote based on ethnic ties,” said Khoi Ta, a former Sanchez aide. “You see the last name Nguyen or Tran, and you would vote for that person. Now, the community has a choice.”
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my-thuan.tran@latimes.com
christian.berthelsen@latimes.com
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0cdb4e8750dcb1654374198bbd23f2b0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-29-oe-stein29-story.html | A little something for the ladies | A little something for the ladies
You know how ladies, when they don’t get what they want, can go a little crazy? Am I right, fellas? Right now, they’re pretty upset about losing their first chance at a female president. This would have empowered little girls, shattered sexist beliefs about female incompetence and forced men around the world to view a woman as an agent of power instead of a sex object -- all of which, it turns out, are important to women even though they buy Star magazine. Ladies are complicated.
Because women do most of the voting, and the shopping and the TV watching and the book reading -- porn really must take up a lot of men’s time -- they need to be placated. Which shouldn’t be hard. You know how when your dog dies, your wife wants to get a puppy right away? That’s what America has to do. We need a replacement Hillary.
Because while women are sad that Hillary Clinton seems poised to lose the Democratic nomination, they’re even more dejected that there appear to be no women with enough political stature to run for president next time. That’s why Barack Obama and John McCain need to pick female running mates. Either that or we’re going to have to find some money in the federal budget for 150 million flower bouquets.
Most Americans only notice politicians in a presidential campaign (who’s more famous: House Minority Leader John Boehner or Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Dennis Kucinich?), so a female vice presidential candidate would instantly become a front-runner in 2012 or 2016. This plan is so foolproof it even worked for a little while for Joe Lieberman.
Sure, Sen. Jim Webb, the former secretary of the Navy, might make Obama look a tiny bit more commander-in-chiefy, and Mike Huckabee might make McCain appear a little more gay-hatey, but those are calculations you make when you don’t have a nation of ticked-off women to contend with. In 2003, Kobe Bryant wasn’t worrying about whether he should pass more to Rick Fox or Derek Fisher; he was just looking for the biggest damn diamond he could find.
Luckily, there are lots of good female veep options for both candidates, though they have to be careful not to pick someone so old that they will die in eight years and therefore be ineligible to run for president. That’s usually a tough find in a politician -- the one job we, for some reason, let old people do -- but it turns out women live a ridiculously long time. Sure, Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein will turn 83 in 2016, and Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole will turn 80, but that’s prime aqua aerobics time. If women of that age couldn’t run a meeting, there would be no functional condo clubhouses in Fort Lauderdale.
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But there’s also a pick of young chicks. For Obama, it could be Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, spunky Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill or Washington Sen. Patty Murray. And if he really cared about making ladies happy: Oprah Winfrey. Congressional sessions will be a lot more exciting if the Senate president is pointing at people and yelling, “You get a tax rebate! You get a tax rebate! And you get a tax rebate!”
McCain could go with Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, fightin’ Condoleezza Rice, former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman or -- in a choice designed to please both genders -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is the best-looking non-Romney governor in our nation’s history.
Will a female vice president really satisfy women? Of course not. But what does? The point is that we’ll be showing them we understand that their frustration is legitimate, and that we’re hearing them, and that we’re ready to listen. That stuff will totally buy us until November.
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jstein@latimescolumnists.com
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af60728e1edd1480c89d425dca498e43 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-01-et-saar1-story.html | The works get very personal for Lezley Saar | The works get very personal for Lezley Saar
Lezley Saar is only slightly out of her element in “Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art” at UCLA’s Fowler Museum.
An artist who became known for transforming old books into assemblages, she is now making strange wall pieces that she likens to a new form of language. So, without much hesitation, she agrees to walk through the sprawling exhibition and talk about pieces that pique her interest. That means perusing more than 100 African works that explore relationships between art and written communication throughout history, so she gets right down to business.
“Artists are more interested in what they are thinking about now than what they did in the past,” she says, walking straight through a section on artists’ books and heading for “Samira’s Story,” a big, bold, contemporary wall piece by Fathi Hassan in a gallery devoted to word play. Working in black acrylic on unstretched canvas, the artist has filled all but the border of the fabric with loosely brushed black script that appears to be a form of Arabic. A few large characters stand out against a calligraphic background of smaller “writing,” which spills into the border on the bottom.
“This appeals to me on a visual level, an abstract level,” Saar says. “I have the sense that he is playing with the script, stretching and altering it to create some sort of language. My first impression -- I try to look before reading the labels -- is that this is a bird’s eye view of a landscape. There might be water, rivers going through here. It’s very beautiful.”
Beyond its palette, the painting bears little resemblance to Saar’s recent work. She shoots black-and-white photographs of landscapes and kitschy statuary -- whatever catches her eye -- cuts out circular sections of the prints and mounts them on white paper backgrounds. Then she encapsulates the circles in ink-drawn networks of roots, vines, drips, sprouts and foliage. Like mirrored bubbles or peep-holes, the little round pictures seem to exist in a fantasy world.
But there’s a back story.
A member of a prominent artistic family, Saar is often identified with her assemblagist mother, Betye, and sculptor sister, Alison. But Lezley’s new work reflects the complexities and frustrations of figuring out modes of communication used by her 16-year-old autistic daughter. Titles of works in her recent show at Walter Maciel Gallery -- such as “Well, consider this about villains of the month,” “No guests eating other guests” and “The pail stays in the freakin kitchen” -- are taken from repetitive statements made by her daughter.
“This makes me think of what I’m doing now,” Saar says of Hassan’s work. “Not using text so much, except for titles taken from bizarre things my daughter has said. But I feel that I am creating a language from five sources: botany, anatomy, tattoos, cartoons or caricatures and Japanese landscapes. Instead of drawing in one style, I use different styles or sources as parts of speech. An image from a tattoo magazine might be a noun; something Japanese might be an adjective; something botanical, a verb.
“I start without planning, more like the process of writing and seeing where it leads. I think about it as symbols and graphics and language, and then use photographs related to the idea of another world. There is reality in the photographs, but they are ensconced in the whole. It ends up being like a narrative or a landscape with lots of detail. You have to come up close to get the whole picture and experience.
“Not knowing Arabic,” she says, “I don’t know exactly what this artist is doing, but he is certainly using language to create a form. I’m sure there’s a lot more going on, though. He seems to be questioning the notion of written language and the importance of that.”
Art is always subject to interpretation, but Saar is on target, says Polly Nooter Roberts, an African art scholar who co-curated the exhibition with Christine Mullen Kreamer of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. “The artist is Nubian,” she says of Hassan, whose family relocated to Cairo in 1902, when their homeland was destroyed by the construction of the Aswan Dam. “He comes from the tradition of Meroitic script, which has not been fully deciphered.” Although Arabic speakers find recognizable words in some of his paintings, she says, “he is playing with issues of legibility and questioning to what degree legibility is the key to knowledge.”
Neatly turned out in jeans, knit top and leather jacket, Saar has a gentle manner and a broad comfort zone with all kinds of art. Her next stop is in a gallery that associates writing with power. “This is very strange,” she says, peering at a chimpanzee skull with wads of red and black cloth and braided hemp attached to it. Inscribed with Arabic script and a checkerboard-like pattern of talisman squares, it is thought to have been used in Islamic healing rituals in 19th century Liberia. In accordance with conservators’ instructions, the skull is displayed with the braid stretched out behind it.
“Talk about ‘Inscribing Meaning,’ ” Saar says. “A lot of the meaning can come from how a work is set up. This belt or braid was probably used to hold the skull, but the way it’s laid out, it looks like a tail. This skull of a chimpanzee has morphed into this phenomenal creature. And it has this fabric wrapped around it, which I’m sure has spiritual or religious significance, but to me it looks like a little dress.
“I think about this in group shows. Placing one piece next to another can change the connotation. Art is being continually created and added upon.
“Here, the object itself, a skull, is a very powerful thing, and the Arabic writing on it really makes it intriguing. You wonder how long ago people realized that thought and language emanated from the brain. It’s intriguing to me because of having a daughter who was diagnosed as autistic when she was 2. Language was a big thing with her.
“She had language, lost it at 18 months and gradually got it back at 7. Then, when she was in middle school, she decided to stop talking for a year and a half and expressed herself through signage. Now why would it be easier to sign? She could spell and read and get the words out.
“I find it fascinating, and I question the idea of neurological normalcy. I heard the mother of an autistic daughter saying that after a while other people think you are autistic too. To make your life work, you have to embrace your daughter’s world.”
That said, Saar is off to the Sacred Scripts gallery, where she points out another contemporary wall piece, “Qaf ‘Al Asmie Tales’ ” by Ali Omar Ermes. Working in acrylic and ink on paper, the artist has corralled much of the space with a sweeping reddish-brown gesture and filled in the rest with soft blotches of color and passages of spidery text, including lines of Arabic poetry.
In a catalog essay, Ermes says he “visualizes literature” in his calligraphic paintings. For Saar, the work inspires thoughts about the beauty of written language. “I love the tiny details and how it flows,” she says. “It seems so fluid, as if it’s unplanned. Parts of it are faded, but bright colors pop out. It has an ancient look, but it’s also contemporary.”
A tiny Egyptian statue of a female figure, circa 332-30 BC, is also irresistible. “It’s so delicate and beautiful. I just want to touch it,” she says of the black stone “cippis” -- defined in the wall label as “a stela or tablet inscribed with mystical images and spells that offer protection from illness, including those caused by wounds and poisonous bites.”
“The figure, Isis, is standing on crocodiles,” Saar says. “I guess the story is her son had a scorpion bite and she cured him. But the image of this woman standing on these crocodiles seems so peaceful. The juxtaposition of danger and being very calm -- it’s like standing on danger after curing something life threatening.
“Not to get personal again, but it relates to this idea of encompassing my daughter’s world and trying to understand it. For her to have a feeling of someone understanding her calms her down. Sometimes it feels like standing on crocodiles.”
suzanne.muchnic@latimes.com
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‘Inscribing Meaning’
Where: Fowler Museum at UCLA
When: Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays
Ends: Feb. 17
Price: Free
Contact: (310) 825-4361 or www.fowler.ucla.edu
Also
‘The Word in L.A.: Panel Discussion With Artists Robbie Conal, Alexandra Grant and Lezley Saar’
Where: Fowler Museum at UCLA
When: 2 to 4 p.m. Feb. 3
Price: Free
Contact: (310) 825-4361 or www.fowler.ucla.edu
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ef85c9b6cee904b81f0c18f96888c7f1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-01-fg-nowheristan1-story.html | Virtual state’s utopia clicks with young | Virtual state’s utopia clicks with young
His hand adorned with silver rings, the self-proclaimed emperor of Nowheristan struck his slim iron cane firmly on the table, quieting a group of twentysomething Lebanese gathered around him.
“All great projects in history started this way,” he said, casting a piercing look at his audience while toying with his cane. “Any new, extravagant idea is always considered at first a hallucination.”
Half showman and half intellectual, Michel Elefteriades, 37, was describing his imaginary land of Nowheristan, where boundaries cease to exist and individual identities become scrambled.
“Nowheristan is not a sect,” he said. “I am not some sort of a guru or prophet.”
Over the last two years, Elefteriades, a poet, composer, painter and leftist activist of mixed Greek and Lebanese descent, has attracted more than 50,000 “citizens of Nowheristan” over the Internet.
He also has produced a record album bearing the name of his utopia and conducted a dozen workshops in Europe and the Middle East to convince young audiences that an all-embracing just and warless nation is conceivable.
According to Elefteriades’ vision, decisions affecting the world should be made by hundreds of elites living in special villages. Politicians would be stripped of their powers everywhere.
Wealth would be redistributed, with Europeans able to enjoy revenue generated by Persian Gulf oil while Africans could benefit from the West’s technological advancement.
One of the region’s most acclaimed alternative music producers, he has plunked down $300,000 of his own money to finance Nowheristan, which even has a flag: a blue circle representing Earth, surrounded by a golden halo symbolizing affluence, on a black background that denotes his movement’s anarchistic roots.
An international group of 25 musicians forms “a national orchestra of Nowheristan,” playing fusions of Arab, Gypsy and a dozen other musical influences.
If he’s a crackpot, he’s keeping some high-powered company. He launched Nowheristan in 2005 in Beirut’s UNESCO Palace at a ceremony attended by Lebanese Culture Minister Tarek Mitri and Geir Pedersen, the United Nations secretary-general’s representative to Lebanon.
Elefteriades says he is scheduled to meet in spring with controversial Latin American leaders, including Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
“People everywhere are fed up with the way the world is today,” said Elefteriades, who on this evening wore billowy pants and a silk vest embroidered with 18th century French motifs. “But change is possible.”
For his efforts, he’s also brought on quite a bit of trouble. Last year, he launched a campaign in Lebanon urging people to stop paying taxes to the “corrupt” government, outraging a group of bankers and officials who threatened to ruin his business, he said.
His obsession with Nowheristan has also affected his personal life, almost destroying his marriage.
Undaunted, he says he is determined to spread the word about his utopian nation through mobilization on the Internet and seminars.
“The time will come to go into action,” Elefteriades said. “The march towards Nowheristan, like Gandhi’s movement, is going to be peaceful.”
In the cafeteria of his Beirut nightclub, several dozen Nowheristanis and other curious visitors listened to him as he alternated between light anecdotes and quotes from Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Karl Marx.
“The reason for this general malaise is the predominance of identities: racial, ethnic, religious, political,” he said. “In Nowheristan, people share a common identity.”
Elefteriades says his turbulent youth in a war-torn country with a dizzying array of religious groups as well as his many voyages around the world showed him that all cultures and civilizations share a common essence.
Growing up during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, he rebelled against his parents’ conservative Christian environment. As a teenager who idolized Che Guevara, he was stopped by Christian militias while distributing communist tracts. Later, he briefly joined the army and fought against the Syrians before escaping when Damascus’ troops took over.
He first fled to Paris in 1990 but returned here a year later. Angered by the political reality in postwar Lebanon, he formed a clandestine armed group to “fight against sectarian parties and foreign interference in the country,” he said. The group, which he called the United Movements of Resistance, carried out acts of sabotage against politicians and organized strikes in universities across the country.
In 1993, he escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb placed under his car exploded while he was nearby. Fearing for his life and those close to him, Elefteriades fled to Paris, then decided to settle in Cuba. Disappointed by what he found there, he returned to Lebanon in 1997.
Since then, his music business has prospered -- he owns two recording studios, a music production house and downtown Beirut’s thriving Music Hall. He is working on opening branches of the Music Hall in other cities in the Middle East and Europe.
And, though he put a lid on his former gun-slinging ways, he retained a penchant for political activism.
Four years ago, he came up with the idea for his imaginary nation.
“Nowheristan is my priority today,” said Elefteriades, who is channeling cash from record sales into the movement.
“Revolutions are usually funded by drug-dealing money. I am financing mine from music.”
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2480c33e0dff8b815ce86441e168d70e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-02-et-rutten2-story.html | ‘Slave Ship’ navigates a savage sea | ‘Slave Ship’ navigates a savage sea
Abraham Lincoln famously remarked, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”
In the many years since, something of the Emancipator’s moral point has been lost, along with the memory of what benefiting from slavery entailed. No one who reads Marcus Rediker’s searingly brilliant “The Slave Ship: A Human History” can have the slightest doubt concerning the real point of Lincoln’s aphorism.
Rediker is a distinguished maritime historian whose previous books have used long-neglected primary sources to shed important new light on life around the 18th century Atlantic. In this book, he uses a similar technique to recover in horrific detail an economic system that brought more immigrants to the New World than any other in that era. It’s a beautifully timed book, since last year marked the bicentennial of England’s abolition of the slave trade and this year marks ours.
Rediker’s book makes it possible for us to understand in an entirely fresh and disturbing way precisely what those anniversaries signify.
Part of the book’s power comes from the author’s mastery of sources and part from his sophisticated appreciation of the way technology, economics and avarice conjoined in moral infamy. As early as 1740, the British merchant Malachy Postlethwayt, arguing for parliamentary subsidies for slave trade as essential to English prosperity, described the trade’s “triangular nature.” British ships carried manufactured goods to West Africa, where they were exchanged with local rulers for slaves. Hundreds of these slaves were packed into the ships and carried to the West Indies -- the so-called “middle passage” -- where they were sold and the proceeds used to buy sugar and rum, which the ships then transported back to England.
Rediker uses his experience as a maritime historian and his mastery of the contemporary documents to re-create all three legs of the triangle, often in the very words of the participants -- captains, seamen and slaves. It is a stunningly immediate, brutal portrait and enlightening in unexpected ways. Torture and sexual abuse weren’t simply commonplace but institutionalized. Rebellion was more frequent than conventional opinion allows and the lives of ordinary seamen much harder. Often, they were cheated of their wages by avaricious captains and abandoned after the middle passage, since fewer were needed to bring the ships home.
Rediker devotes a bracingly unsentimental chapter to John Newton, the slaver-turned-Christian-turned-abolitionist, who wrote that famous hymn of the justified sinner, “Amazing Grace.” He draws on Newton’s extensive public and private writings, never with more effect than in the chapter devoted to the slave ships’ maritime masters and titled “The Captain’s Own Hell.” As the author points out, when Newton wrote to and for others concerning the outrages he had “witnessed,” he often was describing acts in which he had taken part, including executions by dismemberment and the application of thumb screws to rebellious children.
As Rediker notes: “Newton developed a theory about why violence, cruelty and terror were intrinsic to the slave trade. . . . He wrote, ‘A savageness of spirit, not easily conceived, infuses itself . . . into those who exercise power on board an African slave-ship, from the captain downwards. It is the spirit of the trade, which, like a pestilential air, is so generally infectious that but few escape it.’ Violence and suffering were so pervasive on the slave that the ‘work’ itself -- meaning the discipline and control of the human ‘cargo’ -- tended directly to ‘efface moral sense, to rob the heart of every gentle and humane disposition and to harden it, like steel against all impressions of sensibility.’ ”
Rediker is one of the most interesting of the American historians who acknowledge their participation in the 1960s New Left as fundamental to their intellectual formation. In part, one suspects, that was because he found in the movement insight that described his personal experiences as the son of working-class Kentucky parents and as a one-time factory worker himself. It’s a background that predisposed him to the so-called “people’s history movement” that sought to retell the Western story -- and good history always is a story -- through the lives of ordinary people, from the bottom up, as it were. In the hands of skilled practitioners -- whose methodology was informed by the French Annales School’s rigorous attention to overlooked documents -- it produces history of great power. It is a view of the past that seeks to recover not just facts, but the conscience that renders them sensible. Rediker is one of those skilled historians.
Still, this also is a history that relies -- unobtrusively in “Slave Ship” -- on a Marxist analysis of society and its economy. There are certain inherent dangers in that, mainly a blind reliance on economic determinism and a tendency to sentimentalize the solidarity of the working class -- indeed, to find that fellow-feeling where it may have never existed. From what he has said elsewhere about “Slave Ship,” it seems that Rediker sees in the history of the Atlantic slave trade not just an appalling sideshow of embryonic capitalism, but one of its foundational building blocks. There is, in fact, a good case to be made for that view -- the prosperity of the great 18th century English seaports was built to a large extent on slavery, and the capital it generated helped finance the Industrial Revolution. In other words, behind William Blake’s “dark Satanic mills” was an even darker specter on which Rediker’s important book sheds new light.
The author also appears to intend “Slave Ship” as a cautionary insight into the ongoing problems created by our increasingly globalized economy. It’s a less convincing point. Still, even if one believes -- as this writer does -- that free trade and globalization are net gains for the human community, it’s vital to keep in mind that every mile of economic progress seems to bring with it attendant human wrongs.
One of the powerfully unspoken points made by “Slave Ship” is how easily those who prosper can ignore all those who suffer in the bargain -- when that suffering occurs out of sight. As Rediker demonstrates with great force, the Atlantic slave trade continued until a committed minority forcefully brought to the attention of a theretofore indifferent majority the physical realities of the business from which so many benefited.
These are points one considers not because ideology deforms Rediker’s history, but because it renders it so thought-provoking. There is nothing programmatic about his work, because Rediker is less an ideological Marxist than he is a phenomenological one. As a scholar and a writer, he is committed to a truth about experience that only can be interpreted through the aesthetic of solidarity.
In an interview not long ago, Rediker said, “To retrieve the bottom-up perspective is, in my eye, itself an act of justice. It is an expression of solidarity with exploited and oppressed people past and present. . . . I also believe there is a poetics of peoples’ history, and that if we can capture the poetry of struggle, the beauty and truth of what people have tried to do for themselves, often under the most difficult circumstances and at the cost of their lives, if we can bring them into the light of speech, we can take their example as inspiration and guidance. . . . This point is a star I steer by.”
In “The Slave Ship” Rediker has followed that star to a compelling, morally urgent destination. Many others ought to follow him there.
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timothy.rutten@latimes.com
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560eed62976b012c46f29d9461cb6a4e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-02-fg-service2-story.html | Israeli Arabs split over national service plan | Israeli Arabs split over national service plan
Seated in the corner of a bustling classroom, school volunteer Hanan Masarwa is barely visible amid a scrum of first-graders.
The 18-year-old Masarwa is teaching the children to add as part of an Israeli national service program created in August. The volunteer program is an attempt to provide avenues, other than mandatory military service from which they are exempt, for integrating Arabs and religious Jews more fully into the mainstream Jewish state.
Civilian volunteers agree to work full time for one or two years. In return, they receive a $150-per-month stipend and qualify for up to $2,000 more in payouts upon completion of their term.
The dark-haired and diminutive Masarwa, one of 600 volunteers to sign up for the program so far, sees it as a way for her to help children in the Arab village in central Israel where she grew up, and as a way to prepare herself for becoming a teacher.
But the initiative has stoked a fierce debate among Israel’s 1.4 million Arab citizens. Arab politicians and activists in Israel have denounced it as a government attempt to co-opt young Arab citizens into serving the Jewish state, erode their sense of identity as a minority group and possibly one day integrate them into the Israeli military, where they could end up fighting their Arab brethren.
For Arab citizens of Israel, the controversy highlights the lingering quandaries over identity and how their community -- a fifth of the Israeli population -- is supposed to fit in to a society they have long accused of discriminating against them -- in jobs, education and political clout.
Supporters of the volunteer program, formally called “national civilian service,” say it could benefit long-neglected communities by mobilizing a small army of helpers, and they accuse Arab political and religious leaders of being out of touch with ordinary Arab citizens.
“What harm is there for a young person completing 12 years of education to give back to the community for a year, in a school or anywhere else?” said Ali Zahalka, the principal of the elementary school where Masarwa and 17 other local teens are volunteering.
But Jamal Zahalka, an Arab lawmaker from Kafr Qara who belongs to the same extended family as the school principal, has referred to the volunteers as “pariahs.”
He said he is not opposed to Arab youths donating their time in schools or hospitals, but said the goal of the government program marks a new attempt by Israel to reshape the identity of young Arabs by trying to “Zionize” them.
Arabs and religious Jews have long been exempt from compulsory army service, often leaving them at a disadvantage in a nation where the army is vaunted as both melting pot and societal glue.
“The word ‘service’ and the verb ‘to serve’ has become almost synonymous with military service, as if there are no other ways to serve the community or the society or the nation,” said Reuven Gal, a former chief army psychologist who heads the new agency.
Gal said the idea was to expand that definition and allow Arabs to earn benefits of the same type earned by Jews who go into the army. Military service has helped many Jews get a leg up in the job market through the skills they learned and social networking.
Since the 1970s, devout Jewish women have been allowed to volunteer for civilian roles as an alternative to the two-year army service requirement; about 9,000 currently take part.
In recent years, a handful of Jewish men, after petitioning the Supreme Court, have won the right to volunteer. That opened the way for a modest number of Arab volunteers, fewer than 300 last year.
The program’s top goal is to reinforce “the connection and identification between citizen and state.”
But that language worries many Arab skeptics, who say the purpose is to weaken their community’s claim to be treated as an indigenous national minority with collective rights, as well as to erode their sense of kinship with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“The young ones who would go into civic service, they would be, as we define it, kind of brainwashed: ‘Yes, Israel is a great state, yes, we all love Israel,’ ” said Nadim Nashif, director of the Baladna Assn. for Arab Youth, a Haifa-based group.
Nashif said that for decades, Israel has excluded Arabs from the mainstream, leaving them impoverished, underemployed and with little political clout. He said the program “gives legitimacy to discrimination.”
Nashif’s group is at the forefront of a public relations campaign to dissuade Arab teenagers from signing up for the volunteer civilian service. The activists have posted videos on YouTube and organized a rolling protest in Arab villages around the country. A popular Arab rap group, called DAM, lent its support with a song called “Wanted: An Arab Who Lost His Memory.”
Much of the campaign revolves around what the program’s foes say is a hidden plan to force Arab citizens into the military, where they might have to fight against fellow Arabs. One poster features an M-16 with a cigarette-type health warning in Arabic script: “They are trying to recruit you.”
But Israeli officials reject such assertions as scare tactics. They say there is no plan to make civilian service mandatory, or to draft Arabs into the military. Israel’s founders decided against drafting Arabs to avoid putting them in a position in which their loyalties might be divided.
“The issue has expanded beyond the issue of civic service,” Gal said. “It’s an issue of the place, the position of Israeli Arabs vis-a-vis the Israeli state. Are they willing to become part of the Israeli state or not?”
But Sammy Smooha, a sociology professor at Haifa University, said the goal of strengthening volunteers’ attachment to the state clashes with a quest by Arab political leaders for more autonomy and power-sharing within Israel.
“They feel they were disregarded,” said Smooha, a specialist on relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. “They are afraid that Israelization will increase to such an extent that they will lose control of the Arab community.”
Ali Zahalka, the school principal, has taken on the Arab political leadership by writing opinion articles, in Hebrew, in the Israeli press in support of the service program. He said he had been criticized during Friday sermons in some mosques, but believes most Arabs agree with him.
“The silence of the Arab public and deference to the Arab politicians has given the Jewish public in Israel the wrong impression that we are all like that, that these positions represent all of us,” Zahalka said during an interview in his office, the playful squealing of schoolchildren audible through the wall.
Smooha found in a new poll of Arab citizens that more than 70% favored civilian service if it offered benefits similar to those granted for the military.
The noisy debate -- and a few reported threats -- has added to the strain for Masarwa and other young Arab volunteers. Masarwa said she was turned down at another school because the principal opposed the volunteer program.
The atmosphere has grown so tense that the nonprofit agencies overseeing the volunteers are refusing most requests for interviews with the youths.
Masarwa, working in a gaily decorated classroom with 36 pupils, said her parents support her decision to take part. She labeled the political brouhaha as “nonsense,” saying that the program would benefit the children -- and, later, her.
“I believe in this service,” she said.
ellingwood@latimes.com
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ae92ad4b6096fe92c396ebf57000d863 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-02-me-converters2-story.html | Thieves target catalytic converters | Thieves target catalytic converters
This holiday season has seen an explosion in thefts of expensive, platinum-laced catalytic converters from parked cars, and authorities report that high-clearance sport utility vehicles are the targets of choice for thieves.
With a common socket wrench and 90 seconds, they leave drivers stuck with cars that sound like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and facing repair bills topping $1,000.
“It’s an epidemic. It’s everywhere,” said Lt. Bob Turnbull of the El Segundo Police Department.
Thefts of catalytic converters have been logged in the last month in Los Angeles, Pasadena, the Bay Area and Sacramento. Arrests have been reported from Seattle to Virginia, near Pittsburgh, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and in Tennessee, where the Highway Patrol busted a thief cutting converters from cars impounded in one of its own lots.
“We’ve had them all over the place; we’ve had them in broad daylight in a Vons parking lot,” said Det. Jason Knickerbocker of the Manhattan Beach Police Department. “Most of them are at night. A lot of times, we never find the victim.”
The prize is a catalytic converter, a device used to reduce emissions. Platinum is more valuable than gold, and the contents of a typical converter are worth $40 to $50 to scrap-metal dealers.
Some thieves use saws, but the preferred weapon in Southern California is a ratchet with a 14-millimeter socket. The thief crawls under the car and unfastens the bolts holding the converter, a process that accomplished crooks can complete in 90 seconds.
Drivers are particularly vulnerable during the holiday season, when masses of shoppers swarm parking lots and when revelers often leave home for several days, returning to discover they have been victimized.
Higher-clearance vehicles such as SUVs and particularly Toyota trucks and 4-Runners are favorites in Los Angeles, authorities report. Nationwide, authorities have reported thieves targeting pickups, Lexus and Toyota SUVs, all types of vans and some passenger cars. Even auto dealers have been hit, according to reports.
Late last month, Turnbull’s detectives apprehended five alleged thieves, and their investigation led to an additional four arrests. Detectives believe that the group was working as a ring, hitting one city and then moving to another.
Before Thanksgiving, detectives broke up a three-man ring that had been hacking converters from the vehicles of commuters who had parked in the Lakewood Station lot of the Green Line. They sold them to a Compton auto wrecking yard.
The brazen thieves cruised around the lot, looking for the model they wanted, and quickly removed the devices, said Gayle Anderson of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
There’s little that can be done, other than catching thieves red-handed.
“There are no identifying marks on these converters,” Turnbull said. “When they take them into a scrap metal place or a mechanics shop, there’s nothing to trace it with.”
Last week, thieves hit an SUV parked in a garage at Mattel, the giant toy maker based in El Segundo. Thanks to surveillance videos, company security officers narrowed the possibilities, and police were able to extract a license plate number, which led to an arrest.
Most victims are not so lucky.
They often don’t realize what has happened, police report. With organized thieves hopscotching the county, reports of thefts and arrests and recovery of stolen converters are sometimes made in different towns, authorities said.
Police say taking simple precautions can reduce the chances of becoming a crime victim. The primary rule is to park in a garage.
The next best safeguard is welding the converter to the body of the car, Turnbull said. At a cost of about $50, the device becomes part of the vehicle: much more difficult -- and time consuming -- to remove, he said.
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john.spano@latimes.com
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d139f0ce4e62f861b4f272ba9c1679b9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-02-me-reclaim2-story.html | Sewage in O.C. goes full circle | Sewage in O.C. goes full circle
As a hedge against water shortages and population growth, Orange County has begun operating the world’s largest, most modern reclamation plant -- a facility that can turn 70 million gallons of treated sewage into drinking water every day.
The new purification system at the Orange County Water District headquarters in Fountain Valley cost about $490 million and comprises a labyrinth of pipes, filters, holding tanks and pumps across 20 acres.
Almost four years after construction began, the facility is now purifying effluent from a neighboring sewage treatment plant run by the Orange County Sanitation District, a partner in the venture.
The finished product will be injected into the county’s vast groundwater basin to combat saltwater intrusion and supplement drinking water supplies for 2.3 million people in coastal, central and northern Orange County.
But before that can be done, state health officials must certify that the reclaimed water meets drinking water standards. Officials expect the approval to be granted before opening ceremonies Jan. 25.
“Our sources from the delta and the Colorado River are becoming unavailable,” said Michael R. Markus, general manager of the water district. “This will help drought-proof the region and give us a locally controlled source of water.”
Last month, for example, a federal judge in Fresno ordered a 30% reduction in fresh water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect the tiny delta smelt, a threatened species. The region, which is facing myriad environmental problems, is the hub of California’s water system.
If the reclamation plant’s full potential is realized, officials say, up to 130 million gallons a day could be added to the county’s fresh water supply, lessening the region’s dependence on outside sources.
Basically, the facility takes treated sewage, which would have been discharged into the sea, and runs it through an advanced filtration system.
Officials say the final product is as clean as distilled water and so pure that lime has to be added to it to keep it from leaching minerals out of concrete pipes, thus weakening them.
The effluent is first pumped into the reclamation plant from the sanitation district’s sewage treatment facility next door. The brackish water, which smells of deodorizer, flows into 26 holding basins equipped with 270 million micro-filters -- thin straws of porous material with holes no bigger than three-hundredths the thickness of a human hair.
From there, the water is forced under high pressure through a series of thin plastic membranes housed in rows of white cylinders. Next, it is dosed with hydrogen peroxide and bombarded with ultraviolet light to neutralize any remaining contaminants.
At this point, the water is free of bacteria, viruses, carcinogens, hormones, chemicals, toxic heavy metals, fertilizers, pesticides and dissolved pharmaceuticals.
Though it is good enough to drink, the scrubbing isn’t finished. Once the state approves, up to 70 million gallons of treated water a day will be pumped into the county’s giant underground aquifer. It will be cleansed further as it percolates through the earth to depths up to 1,000 feet.
“This is as advanced a reclamation system as you are going to get right now,” said Krista Clark, director of regulatory affairs for the Assn. of California Water Agencies, a nonprofit organization that represents 450 government authorities. “It will keep Orange County’s groundwater basin reliable and produce super-quality drinking water in the future.”
At $550 per acre-foot, the recycled water is slightly more expensive than supplies brought in from Northern California. But water district officials predict that the cost of the treated water will become more competitive as the price of imported water rises.
Officials say the reclamation process uses less electricity than moving the same amount of water to Orange County through the state’s system of aqueducts. The California State Water Project consumes about a fifth of the energy used in the state.
The reclamation plant also will dramatically reduce the volume of treated sewage discharged daily off the Orange County coast. The sanitation district now releases about 240 million gallons a day through its ocean outfall -- an amount that could be cut by more than half given the potential of water recycling.
If so, the county might not have to build a new $300-million ocean outfall, said James M. Ferryman, chairman of the sanitation district board of directors.
Sanitation and water district officials hope the new plant will become a model for governments trying to cope with water shortages, drought and the increasing demands of growing populations.
Projects similar to Orange County’s are under study in San Diego, San Jose, Texas, Florida, Australia and Singapore. Recently, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began reconsidering plans to recycle waste water.
More than a decade ago, Los Angeles built a small reclamation system in the eastern San Fernando Valley. The $55-million plant was closed in 2000 because of the public’s distaste over the so-called toilet-to-tap process.
“Cheap political shots have closed some of these efforts,” said Connor Everts, executive director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance, an environmental group based in Santa Monica. “All of Southern California should be doing these projects. They represent an efficient use of local resources. They are cost-effective and one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do.”
In Orange County, water reclamation has not faced much opposition thanks to public awareness and the water district’s extensive marketing campaign: plant tours, neighborhood pizza parties and hundreds of public meetings to explain the process.
The outreach effort has resulted in endorsements from scores of elected officials as well as civic, community and environmental organizations.
Public acceptance was also helped by the fact that since 1976 the county has been pumping about 15 million gallons of reclaimed sewer water a day into the groundwater basin to protect it from saltwater intrusion.
For decades, the aquifer has been plagued by saltwater that flows in as fresh water is pumped out of underground reservoirs along the coast. The condition can be checked and reduced by injecting treated water back into the ground to act as a shield.
District officials estimate that 90% of the treated water from the district’s old reclamation plant -- Water Factory 21 -- has made it into the county’s drinking water supply without a risk to public health.
“We are really just helping ourselves,” Ferryman said. “Communities are waking up, especially those in semiarid regions. They are beginning to realize that you need reliability in your water supplies.”
dan.weikel@latimes.com
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2576317c8f14f980a821112b9cc70a83 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-03-fg-gaza3-story.html | Egypt allows Gaza group’s return | Egypt allows Gaza group’s return
Over Israel’s objection, Egypt allowed hundreds of stranded Palestinian pilgrims en route home from Mecca to return to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday without permitting Israeli authorities to screen them for smuggled cash or weapons.
The decision ended a five-day standoff and drew a sharp protest from Israeli officials. The pilgrims, who had completed the Muslim hajj ritual in Saudi Arabia, got stuck in Egypt last weekend when the Cairo government said they would have to pass through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.
Egypt relented, allowing passage through the Rafah terminal on its border with Gaza, after pilgrims rioted in border camps set up for them and threatened a hunger strike. Pilgrims who are leaders of the Hamas movement, which rules Gaza and advocates Israel’s destruction, were involved in the protest.
Egyptian security officials told the Associated Press that 2,152 pilgrims were being allowed to return to Gaza.
Israeli officials said they feared that some of the travelers were carrying weapons or large sums of cash for Gaza’s Hamas leaders, who are under an Israeli blockade. Israel, like the United States, considers Hamas a terrorist group.
Egypt has cooperated with the blockade by keeping its Rafah border terminal closed. It made an exception to allow Mecca-bound pilgrims to leave Gaza last month.
The standoff over the returning pilgrims put Egypt in an uncomfortable position in the eyes of its Arab neighbors, by calling attention to its cooperation with Israel in keeping Gaza isolated.
Israeli officials said Egypt’s decision violated an understanding reached last week between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Israel also is concerned that Egypt isn’t doing enough to stop Palestinian arms-smuggling into Gaza.
Israeli forces Wednesday killed six Palestinian militants, including three Hamas members, in a clash near Gaza City. The Israeli operation, conducted by ground troops and aircraft, was part of an effort to wipe out militant groups that fire homemade rockets from Gaza at Israeli communities just over the border.
Meanwhile, Israel is holding peace talks with the more moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank under a November agreement with President Bush, who arrives in Jerusalem next week to check on their progress.
Israeli officials said the ambush killings of two off-duty Israeli soldiers who were hiking in the West Bank on Friday raised questions about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ promise to control terrorism and could affect the peace talks.
Israeli officials said two gunmen arrested in the attack by Palestinian security officials are members of Abbas’ Fatah movement and that one of them is a member of his security forces.
Palestinian officials, who condemned the assault, said both men worked for the Palestinian Authority but belonged to no faction. The officials portrayed the attack as a common crime, saying the motive was to seize and sell the soldiers’ weapons.
Barak told Israel Radio that Israel would hold the Palestinian leadership to its promise to prosecute the two suspects.
“These people need to rot in jail until their last days,” Barak said.
Riad Malki, the Palestinian Authority foreign minister, said Israel was trying to use the attack to delay removing West Bank roadblocks and security checkpoints that limit Palestinians’ movement.
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boudreaux@latimes.com
Times special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
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59376a3e870aacea4ae50277682c1670 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-03-na-ciatapes3-story.html | Justice Dept. to probe the CIA | Justice Dept. to probe the CIA
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it had opened a full investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing in the CIA’s destruction in 2005 of videotapes of terrorism suspects’ interrogations.
Signaling resolve to get to the bottom of a case that has touched off a political and legal firestorm, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey announced that he was appointing a mob-busting prosecutor from Connecticut with experience at rooting out official misconduct to oversee the investigation. The unusual move means that the U.S. attorney’s office in Virginia, which normally handles CIA investigations, will play no role in the case.
Though the opening of an investigation does not mean that criminal charges will necessarily follow, it does raise the stakes for the agency and its employees who were involved in or had knowledge of the tapes and how they were handled internally.
Heading the investigation will be John H. Durham, an assistant U.S. attorney in Connecticut for more than 25 years who is known as one of the government’s most relentless prosecutors. Durham has prosecuted an array of mobsters and political figures, including former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden acknowledged last month that in late 2005 his agency had destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives. The tapes, which were made three years earlier, included footage of harsh interrogation methods that had been the subject of intense public and congressional debate.
After the disclosures, the Justice Department and the CIA office of the inspector general began a preliminary inquiry to see whether there was evidence of potential criminal activity.
“The department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation,” Mukasey said Wednesday.
The attorney general did not elaborate on what evidence the department turned up or what potential violations of law were being explored. But the destruction of evidence pertinent to an ongoing congressional or judicial proceeding could be considered obstruction of justice.
“The attorney general’s announcement . . . shows that many of us were right to be concerned with possible obstruction of justice and obstruction of Congress,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency would, “of course, cooperate fully with this investigation, as it has with the others into this matter.”
The agency’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, said Wednesday that he was removing himself from the investigation because he anticipated being called as a witness. Helgerson was involved in reviewing the tapes as part of an internal inquiry of CIA detention and interrogation practices some years ago.
Durham, the Connecticut investigator, is perhaps best known for heading a Justice Department task force that reviewed allegations of criminal conduct by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in Boston. Among other figures, he successfully prosecuted retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. for leaking FBI information to James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi, two leaders of a notorious south Boston gang.
Then-Atty. Gen. Janet Reno turned to Durham in 1999 to head up that investigation because law enforcement in the Boston area had a conflict of interest. Similar considerations apparently drove Mukasey to select Durham to oversee the CIA investigation.
Investigations involving the CIA are normally overseen by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where the agency is located. But Mukasey said that office had removed itself from the tapes case to avoid “any possible appearance of a conflict with other matters handled by that office.”
The attorney general did not elaborate, but the U.S. attorney in Virginia has been in court over the handling of other CIA interrogation tapes in connection with the prosecution of convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. The office is also involved in litigation in which detainees held by the U.S. military claim the government has brought charges based on coerced testimony of other detainees. The existence of taped interrogations could help buttress the defense in those cases.
“The U.S. attorney probably realized that A) he has a continuing relationship with the CIA that must be maintained, and B) if he took the CIA investigation and dismissed it without charges, he would be accused of trying to help the government’s position in the Moussaoui and detainee litigations,” said Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New York.
McCarthy also said it was possible that some prosecutors in the Virginia office could be witnesses in the CIA tapes inquiry, “so the U.S. attorney faced the unsavory prospect of interviewing his own prosecutors in a criminal investigation.”
Formally, Durham will be the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for purposes of the tapes investigation, and will report to the deputy attorney general. He will be assisted by a team of lawyers from the department’s National Security Division and the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.
Durham will not have the same broad powers as did Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who was appointed a special counsel to investigate the 2003 leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. But some observers said there were similarities between Durham and Fitzgerald, who won a conviction of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for obstructing justice.
Both are seen as tireless, relentless and apolitical. “Think of him as the second coming of Patrick Fitzgerald,” said Jeffrey Meyer, a professor at Quinnipiac University law school in Hamden, Conn., who worked alongside Durham as a federal prosecutor for many years. “So far as I could tell, he does not have a political bone in his body. He is nothing but thorough and dogged in the way he pursues cases.”
The CIA interrogation tapes were destroyed in late 2005 at the direction of Jose Rodriguez Jr., who was then the chief of the agency’s clandestine service. One motive was to protect the identity of the undercover CIA interrogators who were involved in the questioning.
At the time, Congress was seeking to put new limits on CIA interrogation techniques. The former co-chairmen of the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks have asserted that the agency obstructed their investigation by not producing the tapes for their review.
Robert Bennett, an attorney for Rodriguez, said the investigation would show that his client had done nothing wrong. “I am sure that at the end of his investigation, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia will confirm that Mr. Rodriguez totally obeyed the law and acted in the full interests of the United States,” Bennett said.
The launching of the formal investigation is likely to slow fledgling congressional investigations into who destroyed the tapes and why. The Justice Department had asked members of Congress to put off their investigations pending a decision on whether to proceed with a criminal inquiry.
Legal experts said it was unlikely that witnesses including Rodriguez, who has been requested to appear before Congress at a hearing Jan. 16, would be willing to testify with the Justice investigation now in high gear.
Congressional leaders said they would not be deterred.
“Atty. Gen. Mukasey has made the right decision to begin a criminal investigation and place it in the hands of a career prosecutor,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “We, however, have an obligation to continue our own congressional investigation, and that is exactly what we will do.”
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rick.schmitt@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
John H. Durham
Position: Justice Department prosecutor will oversee investigation of CIA destruction of videotapes of interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Career: Deputy U.S. attorney, District of Connecticut.
Also a special attorney for the Massachusetts District, heading a task force that has prosecuted FBI and other law enforcement corruption in Boston.
Previously headed New Haven, Conn., field office of Boston Strike Force of Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, and was assistant state’s attorney in New Haven.
Education: Colgate University, 1972; University of Connecticut School of Law, 1975
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Source: Los Angeles Times
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655a8209131637711ce47d68c7764a5c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-03-oe-schnur3-story.html | George Allen’s curse | George Allen’s curse
The most important word uttered in the Republican presidential primary has not been “terrorism” or “taxes,” not “faith” or “family.” Rather, it was “macaca.”
Two years ago, conventional Beltway wisdom had Sen. George Allen of Virginia easily winning reelection and becoming the presumptive front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. He had been embraced by the Republican business and fundraising establishment, as well as by the social and religious conservative voters who represent the strength of the party’s grass roots.
But when he uttered what many considered to be an ethnic slur against an opponent’s staffer, Allen’s Senate reelection campaign began a downward spiral from which he never recovered. Instead of touring Iowa and New Hampshire as a conquering hero, he returned to his home state as a private citizen, leaving a vacuum atop the GOP field that fundamentally shaped the race.
Unlike Democrats, who seem to enjoy the muddle of a free-for-all primary season every four years, we Republicans have generally been much more hierarchical as we choose our presidential standard-bearers. Early in the campaign cycle, we identify the party’s establishment candidate, shower him with money and endorsements, and anoint him as the likely nominee months before any primary. It’s a very efficient process: Seven of the last 10 GOP nominees have been elected president.
But Allen’s premature departure from the field left us without a front-runner. And unlike our friends across the aisle, we’re not very good at chaos. The result has been a string of candidates, each not entirely comfortable with either the party establishment or grass roots, each attempting to remake himself to fit the preferences of those two groups. John McCain started out with the inside track to becoming the likely Republican nominee, followed in turn by Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. (Romney and McCain have had multiple shots at front-runner status, while the jury’s still out on whether Giuliani will get another chance.)
Each of the five leading Republicans has stumbled at some point because of his efforts to position himself as someone other than what his biography would suggest. If Allen had entered the race as the preferred candidate of both the party establishment and religious conservatives -- as George W. Bush did eight years ago -- the nature of the campaign would have been very different.
Romney would have run as the pragmatic problem-solver whose business experience allowed him to save the 2002 Winter Olympics and later govern Massachusetts by working with Democrats to reform the state’s healthcare system. Giuliani would have run as the solid centrist who combined inspirational leadership, strong anti-terrorism credentials and social moderation. Both have instead struggled to convince religious conservatives of their purity on a range of cultural issues that have been incidental, to this point, in their political careers. Huckabee would have long since retreated to the sidelines, and Thompson might very well have skipped the race altogether.
Most intriguing was the effect that Allen’s absence had on McCain, who could have reprised his role as the reformer and outsider who tilted at Washington windmills in his 2000 campaign. Instead, McCain attempted to run a gold-plated campaign designed to appeal to the Bush-Cheney donor base, an effort that resulted in his political near-death experience last summer. Ironically, it was that meltdown that forced him to abandon his efforts to run an establishment-oriented campaign and return to the straight talk and populist strategy that have brought him back to the front of the pack in New Hampshire public opinion polls.
The temptation for all of these men to remake themselves is understandable: It’s been almost half a century since the Republican nominee was not selected by the party leadership. But although the opening that presented itself was alluring, it’s a political version of fool’s gold. Voters are smart enough to recognize artificiality when they see it, which is one of the primary factors for the comparative lack of enthusiasm among GOP partisans.
It’s far too soon to tell whether McCain’s decision to run as himself will gain him the nomination. But if he is defeated, it’s going to be at the hands of an opponent who will have made the same decision -- realizing that voters will always pick a leader who’s comfortable in his own skin over someone who tries to fit into somebody else’s.
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9ee95f831e2fdbc3d0e428182fbfb28c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-04-fi-amgen4-story.html | Amgen’s anemia drugs take fresh hit | Amgen’s anemia drugs take fresh hit
Anemia drugs sold by Amgen Inc. took another hit Thursday when government regulators said two new studies indicated that the drugs may increase the risk of death in some patients.
Based on the studies, the Food and Drug Administration may further restrict the use of the drugs, which already carry the agency’s strictest “black box” warning.
“This new information further underscores the safety concerns,” said Janet Woodcock, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. She said the agency “is reviewing these data and may take additional action.”
In recent years, six studies have found that the drugs -- all manufactured by Amgen and marketed by Amgen as Aranesp and Epogen and by Johnson & Johnson as Procrit -- can lead to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and cancer tumor growth in some patients.
Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, until recently enjoyed an unusually charmed life in the often treacherous biotech industry, with profit and a market value higher than many top-shelf pharmaceutical companies. A large share of the company’s fortunes came from Aranesp and Epogen, which accounted for more than half of its net income.
Since the summer, Amgen’s stock has fallen to a five-year low and has lost $17 billion in value. The company laid off 14% of its employees late last year.
Known as erythropoietin-stimulating agents or ESAs, the anemia drugs are bioengineered versions of a natural protein made in the kidney that stimulates bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. Cancer and dialysis patients use injectable ESAs to treat anemia and boost energy.
Fallout from the earlier studies’ findings rankled patients and regulators. The FDA added the black box warning last year and the federal Medicare agency followed with limits on what dosages of anemia drugs it would reimburse, severely affecting the company’s sales.
The results of the two most recent research studies appear to reinforce concern that some cancer patients die sooner when taking the drugs than those who don’t.
The first involved 733 women who received chemotherapy before undergoing surgery for breast cancer. After three years, 14% of the patients who received Aranesp to treat their anemia had died, compared with 9.8% who didn’t receive the drug. Tumors also grew faster in patients receiving Aranesp.
Amgen informed FDA officials about the findings in late November and regulators have been reviewing the data since.
A separate trial by the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Oncology Group, the results of which Amgen disclosed to federal regulators in December, reviewed patients receiving chemotherapy and radiation for advanced cervical cancer. The patients were administered either Procrit or blood transfusions as needed. After three years, 66% of patients who did not take Procrit were alive and free of cancer growth, compared with 58% given the drug.
The FDA previously said it would hold a meeting early this year to look at the safety of the drugs in cancer patients, but a date has not yet been set.
Roger M. Perlmutter, executive vice president of research and development at Amgen, said in a statement in December that “as new information, including additional study results, becomes available, Amgen will communicate the data and, where appropriate, work with the FDA to update our product labels.”
Wall Street appeared to take Thursday’s news in stride, perhaps because many of the risks facing the company had already been priced into the stock. Shares of Amgen fell 91 cents, or 2%, to $45.69.
Joel Sendek, senior biotechnology analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, said in a note to clients that “we continue to forecast revenue decline in 2008 and limited [stock price] growth to 2010.”
Sendek upgraded the stock to a “hold” recommendation from a rare “sell,” saying he believes that the company’s shares are fairly valued at this level.
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daniel.costello@latimes.com
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5c355e3ffdf1dd926bf2f665d3f4a385 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-04-me-compacts4-story.html | Gov.'s TV ads tout slots deal | Gov.'s TV ads tout slots deal
In television ads that began running statewide Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urges voters to endorse gambling expansion deals he struck with four Southern California Indian tribes.
The deals were approved by the Legislature last summer and were to take effect this week. But competing gambling interests and other opponents gathered enough signatures to ask voters to repeal them by rejecting Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 on the Feb. 5 ballot.
The governor’s agreements allow four Riverside and San Diego tribes -- the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, which has casinos in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage; the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in Temecula; the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, with a casino near Banning; and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation near El Cajon -- to add 17,000 slot machines to the 8,000 they now operate. In exchange, the tribes are to give the state 15% to 25% of the revenue from the additional slots.
Last May, Schwarzenegger estimated that the compacts would generate $293 million in fiscal 2007-08. In the new television ads, the governor says the agreements “will mean billions and billions of dollars over the next two decades.”
The nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office has estimated that annual income to the state from additional machines would be less than $200 million a year in the next few years and that in the long run the compacts would bring the state less than $500 million a year. The deals last until 2030.
The tribes with the new compacts have raised $54 million since August to promote passage of the four propositions. The tribes paid for the television ads, in which Schwarzenegger urges: “Vote ‘Yes’ for billions of dollars for California families. Vote ‘Yes’ for California.”
Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell also appears in the ad, saying the compacts will be good for California schools.
“These compacts represent a very good agreement for the people of California and the California Indian tribes,” said Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn, “and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger believes strongly in them and will get out and defend them.”
An unusual coalition has raised $15 million to try to get voters to rescind the compacts. It includes a company that owns the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood and the Bay Meadows racetrack near San Francisco, which have lost business to tribal casinos.
Two tribes with competing casinos, the United Auburn Indian Community near Sacramento and the Pala Band of Mission Indians in San Diego County, are also contributing to the repeal effort.
Scott Macdonald, communications director for “No on the Unfair Gambling Deals,” said voters “will listen to what the governor says, but they’ll also listen to us when we tell them that these are bad deals, they’re unfair deals, and they need to go back and renegotiate deals that are better for all Californians.”
Compact opponents launched television ads Tuesday that say the deals “give away too much to the richest, most powerful tribes.”
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nancy.vogel@latimes.com
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b35d06bb88f5fa7a2f91519c4c75dc50 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-04-me-ladou4-story.html | California chef pioneered gourmet pizza revolution | California chef pioneered gourmet pizza revolution
In the days when pizza toppings mostly consisted of pepperoni, sausage, onions and peppers, chef Ed LaDou was a pioneer, adding gourmet toppings that had never before graced the face of pizza.
As the first pizza chef at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and a developer of the first menu at California Pizza Kitchen, LaDou was an instrumental figure in a distinctly Californian phenomenon: the revolution that gave the world such innovative creations as the barbecue chicken pizza, pizza with breast of duck and hoisin sauce, pizza with marinated shrimp.
LaDou, who later opened his own restaurant, Caioti, died of cancer Dec. 27 at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. He was 52.
“Ed really set the tone for the pizza,” said Mark Peel, a former chef at Spago who now owns Campanile in Los Angeles. “Wolfgang had a great sense of taste, but he was not a pizza maker by any means. Ed was highly skilled, fast and clean; he was an intelligent guy who made a great, great crust. There are people who have built empires on less.”
By most accounts, the history of the California pizza begins with Alice Waters and her Chez Panisse in Berkeley, with its wood-burning pizza oven and exotic toppings. But LaDou was a player in some of pizza’s key innovations.
LaDou was born Oct. 9, 1955, at McChord Air Force Base in Washington state, the son of a pilot. He spent part of his childhood in Los Altos, Calif., and worked his first restaurant jobs while still in high school, said his mother, Patricia Gallinetti of Moss Beach, Calif.
By the mid-1970s LaDou was working at restaurants in San Francisco, where he was known as an experienced pizza maker given to experimentation, topping pizzas with items such as eggplant and clams. Such experimentation was not always welcomed by his bosses, David Kamp wrote in his 2006 book, “The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation,” but it appealed to diners, including one who would change the future of pizza.
One day while dining at Prego in San Francisco, Puck tried a LaDou original -- pizza topped with ricotta cheese, red peppers, pate and mustard. Puck offered him a job in his yet-unopened restaurant in Los Angeles.
In January 1982, Spago opened with LaDou as pizza chef, carrying out the visions of Puck. There was pizza topped with smoked salmon and pizza topped with duck sausage. Puck also allowed LaDou to select toppings.
“It was like being an artist who’d worked with 10 colors all of his life and then got to use 300,” LaDou once said.
The success of Spago was stunning. The Hollywood crowd, the rich and famous, packed the place to eat pizza made by LaDou.
“That was his pizza program,” Nancy Silverton, who was pastry chef at Spago, said in an interview Thursday. “Wolf certainly gave Ed the toppings that he wanted, but it was Ed that ran that department single-handedly in the beginning. . . . I think Ed definitely got a kick out of all of the stars that ate his pizza.” She now co-owns Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles.
With Spago’s food in such high demand, getting a reservation there was tough. That gave two lawyers an idea.
“We saw the success he was having with the pizza up at Spago, so we decided to bring it to the masses,” Larry Flax, who in 1985 co-founded California Pizza Kitchen with Rick Rosenfield, said in an interview Thursday.
Flax had taken a pizza-making class from LaDou at Ma Maison in Los Angeles, where Puck was chef before opening Spago. But the attorneys were not cooks. “And so we had Ed come in and work with us at the beginning of the restaurant,” Flax said. “You’d have to say Ed was a pioneer in the California style of pizzas from his work with Wolfgang and us.”
LaDou helped develop the menu for California Pizza Kitchen, which went on to become a huge success, with restaurants throughout the nation. LaDou’s most enduring creation, the barbecue chicken pizza, is still on the menu, and now can be found at many other restaurants. LaDou seemed keenly aware that pizza was in the midst of an evolution.
“We are at the threshold of a new epoch in pizza dining, an epoch that will transform convention into invention and open up an infinite spectrum of pizza possibilities,” LaDou said in a 1985 Los Angeles Times article.
Shortly after designing the menu, LaDou left California Pizza Kitchen and eventually opened his own restaurant, Caioti, first in Laurel Canyon and later in Studio City, where his pizzas and other menu items continued to win fans. He found unintended success with an unlikely group of diners: pregnant women.
LaDou’s romaine and watercress salad, with its strong balsamic vinegar dressing, became the stuff of urban legend after overdue pregnant women said it induced labor. He shipped thousands of bottles of the dressing to mothers and fed others at his restaurant.
LaDou’s creations earned him recognition, including an invitation from the Smithsonian to demonstrate his expertise at the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
“Not everything I’ve ever done has been wonderful,” LaDou said in a 2004 article at pizzamarketplace.com. “People used to ask me if there [is] anything you can’t put on pizza, and my answer still is, ‘Anything that doesn’t taste good.’ ”
In addition to his mother, LaDou is survived by his wife, Carrie LaDou, and their daughter Cassidy Rose, of Winnetka; his father Edward M. LaDou, stepmother Barbara LaDou and brother Christopher Gallinetti, all of San Diego; brother Gary Cavanaugh of Waldport, Ore.; and two half-sisters, Lani Cahill of Bakersfield and Lisa Cherry of Minnesota.
Services are pending.
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jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com
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d8dba3cd464f557b54b982b8579ab14a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-04-na-demassess4-story.html | A vote cast for change | A vote cast for change
Barack Obama’s surprisingly convincing win in Iowa on Thursday upended the Democratic presidential race and overturned some of the fundamental assumptions of modern-day American politics.
Voters in an overwhelmingly white state embraced an African American candidate.
Women, given the chance to vote for the first credible female White House hopeful in Hillary Rodham Clinton, voted in larger numbers for a man.
And the Democratic Party’s most formidable political machine, drawing on deep-pocket donors and the celebrity of former President Clinton, was beaten by a man who just three years ago held an office no higher than state legislator.
Amid it all, Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, changed the rules of the Iowa caucuses.
Long viewed as an insular process dominated by longtime political activists, Thursday’s first-in-the-nation voting event of the 2008 campaign turned out to be a forum for unaffiliated voters and first-time participants to say they were looking for something new and different.
One-fifth of the Democratic caucus participants were independents, according to a media survey taken as voters entered precincts Thursday night -- and of them, 41% backed Obama and just 17% opted for Clinton. Moreover, 57% of caucus-goers said it was their first time taking part, and first-time caucus-goers made up two-thirds of Obama’s supporters.
Even among Democrats -- who Clinton strategists have long argued would be her saving grace -- Obama and Clinton essentially tied, winning 32% and 31% respectively.
The entrance survey of 2,136 Democratic caucus participants, called the National Election Poll, was conducted for a consortium of media organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, by Edison/Mitofsky.
The results helped answer a question that has lingered for nearly a year: Would a desire for experience in a time of war outweigh voters’ desire for change in national leadership?
According to the media survey of Democratic caucus-goers, just one in five considered experience to be the most important factor, compared to more than half who said an ability to bring “needed change” mattered most. And among those who embraced change, more than half backed Obama while Clinton and John Edwards split most of the rest in that category.
For the New York senator, the results stood as a sharp rebuke by voters to a central argument of her candidacy: that she, more than her rivals, was prepared to assume the responsibilities of the presidency.
Surveys have long found that Clinton, the second-term senator and former first lady, was viewed as the most experienced and best-qualified to lead on matters of national security and war.
But voters instead endorsed Obama’s primary argument for “turning the page” in Washington, an argument that essentially painted Clinton as a status quo candidate.
“Change is the driving dynamic of the race, as opposed to who has the most conventional resume or who voters see as the ‘strongest leader,’ ” said David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager.
The results are especially damaging for Edwards, the former North Carolina senator. Even though he barely edged out Clinton for second place, the Democratic race is very much a two-person contest, pitting Obama against Clinton.
Edwards was the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee thanks in part to his surprisingly strong second-place finish here in that year’s caucuses.
But after campaigning in the state nearly nonstop since then, Edwards was thought by some to have the strongest organization and the best chance at victory.
Despite gaining steam in recent weeks with sharply populist attacks on “corporate greed” and lobbyists’ power, Edwards on Thursday failed to win his core base of union households and lower-income people.
He placed third among union households, winning 24% of that group, compared to 31% for Clinton and 28% for Obama, according to the entrance survey.
Edwards vowed on Thursday to compete in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and beyond, but strategists for his rivals said they do not view him as a threat, mostly because of his lackluster fundraising and the expenditure limits imposed on his campaign because of his decision to accept public financing.
Clinton, however, has the national support base and resources to forge ahead.
She retains double-digit leads in national polls and in most of the big states that vote in late January and early February.
She has raised more than $100 million and, though her once-daunting lead in New Hampshire has dwindled in recent days, she enjoys advantages there that she did not have in Iowa.
It was a stronger-than-expected finish in New Hampshire in 1992 that allowed her husband to declare himself the “Comeback Kid,” and strategists say many voters there remain loyal to the Clintons.
One bright spot in Iowa was her strength among older voters, a strength that could help her along the way.
“Of all the candidates, her support is the most solid, and they will be with her come hell or high water,” said Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
As a result, the Democratic race has gained more sharply defined contours.
Two Democratic candidates, Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Christopher J. Dodd, both of whom made experience a central pillar of their campaigns, dropped out Thursday night. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who touted himself as the most seasoned executive, has been diminished.
Now Clinton will be the sole candidate of experience, and Obama, with Edwards in trouble, can grab the mantle of change.
If voters in other states match the mind-set of Iowa, the Clinton nomination long considered inevitable by top Democratic and Republican strategists could be in serious jeopardy.
She may encounter trouble winning additional donors, while Obama’s win is likely to spur more online giving to his campaign.
Polls in other early-voting states, some of which have tightened in recent weeks, could grow even closer.
And Clinton strategists will wonder if she should have taken the advice of an aide who, last year, advised that she skip Iowa.
The aide wrote in an internal memo that competing in the caucuses, with more than 20 states including California making up a decisive national primary on Feb. 5, could “bankrupt the campaign and provide little if any political advantage.”
On Thursday, former President Clinton argued in an interview in the downtown Des Moines Starbucks that his wife had to go to Iowa to “show that she could compete everywhere.”
The danger for Sen. Clinton is that, instead, it shows the opposite.
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peter.wallsten@latimes.com
Times researcher Nona Yates contributed to this report.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Iowa caucus results
Democrats
Obama: 38%
Edwards: 30%
Clinton: 20%
Republicans
Huckabee: 34%
Romney: 25%
Thompson / McCain: 13%
Caucuses are precinct-level open meetings of voters to select presidential candidates. There are 1,781 precincts in Iowa’s 99 counties. Republicans have a straightforward process of one person, one vote. Democrats have a more intricate process of dividing into preference groups to support their candidates. More results, A16
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Presidential debates
The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will meet Saturday in back-to-back debates at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. The forums, each scheduled for 90 minutes, will be broadcast on ABC at 4 p.m.
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e2dcbe6d1334adb4217cab693cff7526 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-06-bk-lynch6-story.html | Life lines | Life lines
LIKE Susan Sontag, my mother died of cancer. Soon after that, my father died. So, just as Sontag’s son, David Rieff, had been orphaned in his early 50s, I was orphaned in my early 40s. We both took up our family trades and inherited, likewise, a version, however modified, of our mothers’ core beliefs. Mine was a “Bells of St. Mary’s” Irish Catholicism. I am more devoutly lapsed but hearken to the language nonetheless, hum some of the old tunes and identify with what James Joyce called its “logical and coherent” absurdities. Rieff describes himself as a “militant atheist,” whereas his mother seemed a more indifferent skeptic, more devotedly rational than anti-theist. He describes her thus:
“My mother loved science, and believed in it (as she believed in reason) with a fierce, unwavering tenacity bordering on religiosity. There was a sense in which reason was her religion. She was also always a servant of what she admired, and I am certain that her admiration for science (as a child, the life of Madame Curie had been the first of her models) and above all for physicians helped her maintain her conviction -- and again, this, too, was probably an extrapolation from childhood -- that somewhere out there was something better than what was at hand, whether the something in question was a new life or a new medical treatment.”
“Swimming in a Sea of Death” is Rieff’s brief record of how high priests of the body and blood sort -- whether oncologists or monsignors -- must so often disappoint. And how they disappointed his mother. In the end, neither science nor medicine, reason nor raw intellect, “avidity” for life nor her lifelong sense that hers was a special case -- nothing could undo her death. Susan Sontag “died as she had lived: unreconciled to mortality.” And there is the sadness at the heart of Rieff’s testimony: that mothers die, as fathers do, regardless of what they or their children believe or disbelieve. It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds or their antitheses.
All of us swim in the one sea all our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such lifelines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination. And in the end, we all go “down, down, down” as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, “into the darkness,” although she did not approve and was not resigned. Some lie back, float calmly and then succumb, while others flail about furiously and go under all the same. Some work quietly through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ tidy, too hopeful stages; others “rage, rage” as Dylan Thomas told his father to. But all get to the “dying of the light.” Some see death as a transition while others see it as extinction. Sontag studied in this latter school and tutored her only son in its grim lessons. What is clear from his book -- an expansion of an essay that first appeared in the New York Times Magazine a year after her 2004 death -- is that while she battled cancer, she waged war on mortality. That we get sick was acceptable to her. That we die was not. Pain, suffering, the awful losses her disease exacted, were all endurable so long as her consciousness remained animate:
“For my mother, whose pleasure in her own body -- never secure -- had been irretrievably wrecked by her breast cancer surgery, consciousness was finally all that mattered. I believe that if she had been offered the possibility of an immortality that consisted of nothing but consciousness, that is, of continuing indefinitely to know what was going on, even if it was the science-fiction immortality of the disembodied head, she would have accepted it with relief and gratitude -- perhaps even with appetite.”
Just such an immortality of disembodied consciousness -- “a soul,” some call it -- is the consolation of believers. And while Sontag could imagine it, she could not believe. She remained, according to her son, “inconsolable.” Her son’s decision to remain an accomplice in this “positive denial” of her mortality is one of the vexations that informs his book. He remains, by this testimony, inconsolable too.
And there’s his guilt -- some garden-variety “would’ve, should’ve, could’ve” second-guessing that places him firmly in the human race:
“I have preferred to write as little as possible of my relations with my mother in the last decade of her life, but suffice it to say that they were often strained and at times very difficult.”
And this darker, more disturbing sort:
“There are times when I wish I could have died in her place. Survivor’s guilt? Doubtless that is part of the story. But only a part. . . .
“Between someone who is in love with the world -- and how she loved just . . . being! -- and someone who is not, the appropriate outcome, were such a thing on offer, is self-evident. And to say that my mother both enjoyed and made better use of the world than I have ever done or will do is simply a statement of fact.
“This question of how unfair to her it is that she is gone and why I’m still here for a bit longer comes into my head at the most improbable moments.”
Whether her narcissism or his, such sentences sound disordered and out of tune, like sad false notes at odds with the chief gifts of science and medicine, and the answer to prayers -- achieved fairly recently in human history -- whereby more children outlive their parents than vice versa. Rieff quotes an item from his mother’s journal:
“ ‘Death is unbearable unless you can get beyond the “I,” ’ she writes. But she who could do so many things in her life could never do that.”
One hopes he can.
Beyond the story of belief and disbelief, of consolations and despairs, there is a medical critique. Just as prisoners become experts in legal briefs, leukemia patients and their families learn the arcana of medicine and pharmacy. In the end, however, a death in the family is more than a medical or religious or scientific or intellectual event. It is for humans a signature question about being and ceasing to be. The portions of Rieff’s memoir that confront these existential mysteries make the other portions seem like diversions, interesting but not instructive.
One need only read “Regarding the Torture of Others,” Sontag’s essay on the photographs of Abu-Ghraib, written for the New York Times Magazine only months before her death, to know the world is poorer since she has ceased to be. As she was part provocateur, part seductress, hers was the ethical and articulate testimony of a free-range writer and thinker whose great gift was to connect the dots between things that seemed otherwise disconnected: art and war, intellect and emotions, politics and cinema, personal disease and public metaphor.
And one need only read the remarks of Rieff, another free-range intellectual being interviewed days before the outbreak of the war in Iraq in 2003, to know that he is his mother’s son:
“But the terrorist war has a particular difficulty, which is that the temptation to break the rules -- to torture, to execute in a summary way, to assassinate, etc., all the tools of dirty war -- are almost inevitable in a terrorist war, partly because in a terrorist war there is a fundamental erasing of the boundary between war and crime. What’s interesting about war, what’s in a way admirable about the soldiers’ vocation, is that there are rules. I mean, soldiers really can’t do certain things. Do they sometimes disobey those rules? Absolutely. Are those rules always what they should be? Probably not. But a soldier can’t just do anything. Whereas, once you’re fighting people you don’t accept are also enemy combatants; once you make them illegitimate the way the administration has declared our enemies in the terrorist war illegitimate, then anything is possible. And I see a kind of moral disaster.”
His mother did not live to see the “heckuva job” that was done in New Orleans or hear the specious quibbling of attorneys general, congressional leaders, presidential candidates and sitting presidents over whether water-boarding was torture. And more’s the pity. Still, her work in words will outlive her.
Grief work, like birthing, is a common labor, done by geniuses and ignoramuses; and just as mothers suffer their sons into the world, so sons must suffer their mothers back into the earth. The etymology that links womb to tomb puts “grave” and “gravid” on the same page of the lexicon with “gravity” -- for we are surely grounded, certainly bound, we humans, by our weighty subjects, love and mortality among them. It is serious work this book keeps track of, and Susan Sontag would approve.
In the end, David Rieff goes the distance with his mother, taking her body back to Paris to be buried at Montparnasse Cemetery among her kind: artists and thinkers and trophy intellectuals. As a boy, he’d been left with his father’s parents when his father, Philip, went off to his studies in California and his mother went off to hers in Paris:
“If you enter it through the main gate on the Boulevard Edgar Quinet, you will find Simone de Beauvoir’s grave almost directly on your right as you head toward my mother’s burial plot. Whatever remains of Samuel Beckett lies under a plain gray granite slab a hundred meters from the black polished slab that covers the bones and whatever else now remains of the embalmed corpse that was once an American writer named Susan Sontag, 1933-2004.”
“I know.” Reader and writer will agree. “But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.” *
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37b18530dfb95291ac7a996e409acfe5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-06-bk-proctor6-story.html | Make-up sessions | Make-up sessions
Anthologies are awkward literary beasts, mottled, slightly schizophrenic, fitful -- compelling the reader to stop short between stories, as one author’s voice, style, pacing sinks in and then subsides. Those failings aside, I once loved the anthology as a form of aesthetic manifesto, the editor’s self-expression reflected through choice works or writers.
To wit: I was working at a literary event shortly after Phillip Lopate published the seminal “The Art of the Personal Essay” (1994). As I neared him with a plate of appetizers, I mustered up the impudence to challenge his inclusion of “He and I” by Natalia Ginzburg, which I, sagely, considered among her least gorgeous works. He amiably countered that my problem was that I (unlike he) was neither middle-aged nor married and so could not appreciate that essay’s particular brilliance. With which Lopate was illuminating the personal logic that informed his choices, a logic that in some subtle, unwritten way was itself a kind of personal essay.
The latest trend in anthologies is to commission work on a given theme from an assembly of writers; the art is in the byline and the pairing of vision and voices. Produced in that vein, Zadie Smith’s “The Book of Other People” is hardly self-expression; the bulk of the introduction is, in fact, a meditation on computer fonts. The bylines are alluring -- Miranda July, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, to name a few, and the work is all donated, with proceeds benefiting 826NYC, a children’s literacy program founded by Dave Eggers. The theme is playfully random, a literary conceit: Smith asked her contributors to “make someone up,” and title the story for its protagonist. The result, says Smith, is a “lively demonstration of the fact that there are as many ways to create ‘character’ (or deny the possibility of ‘character’) as there are writers,” as if the characters and their creators were, together, the “Other People” of the title.
The stories included here are wonderfully various, the styles wide-ranging, the tempers diverse. Some “people” are monsters (Toby Litt’s “The Monster”) or grassy knolls (Eggers’ “Theo”). Some “stories” are more sketches or studies (ZZ Packer’s “Gideon” or Foer’s “Rhoda”). And some of the sketches are remarkably good: Andrew O’Hagan’s “Gordon,” a Calvino-esque dissection of a character by virtue of eight qualities, is one. Another is Vendela Vida’s “Soleil,” about an 11-year-old girl’s first encounter with adult sexuality.
Chris Ware’s graphic short story, “Jordan Wellington Lint to the Age of 13,” about a little boy who loses his mother, is acerbic and devastating: “Don’t touch me! Don’t call me Jordan. You’re not my mother . . . I am Jason.” Whereas Aleksandar Hemon’s treatment of the Crucifixion is acerbic and kind of . . . funny.
Adam Thirlwell’s “Nigora,” about a young immigrant contemplating adultery, has a compellingly restrained emotional lustiness: “Since she thought that the kiss might be her cure, she tended to believe that a kiss was innocent. It was just on the right side of morality.” Hari Kunzru’s stunning “Magda Mandela” -- one of those stories about the village idiot that is more a story about the village than the idiot -- has an early-1990s raucous volume to it: “Magda is coated in something that I suspect is coconut oil. She has the air of a woman who has roused herself from titanic erotic exertions to be here with us on Westerbury Road tonight. She has been INTERRUPTED. She has THINGS TO DO.”
Ultimately, any anthology is only exactly as good as its best stories, and two in this collection are outstanding: Colm Toibin’s “Donal Webster” and George Saunders’ “Puppy.” “Donal Webster” is about a man meditating on the sixth anniversary of his mother’s death. It is simple and complex, moody, intimate, gorgeous and terribly sad. It’s also entirely impossible to figure out who the “made up person” of the title is, the narrator or the man being addressed -- and it hardly matters.
“Puppy” similarly blurs the lines: A mother and her two children go to see a puppy advertised for adoption in the newspaper and discover that the family giving up the puppy has a difficult child who is kept on a leash in the backyard -- “Tapping with his bat, happy enough.” The two mothers dominate the narration, as they ultimately also dominate the fates of both boy and puppy: “Pushing the words killing puppy out of her head, she put in her head the words beautiful sunny day wow.”
Henry James once posited: “What is character, but the determination of incident? What is incident,” he continued, “but the illustration of character?” Given the bounty of absorbing, transporting, delightfully readable great writing in this collection, it is curious that the simple charge to make someone up should nonetheless produce so many stories that blithely deviate from James’ narrative tautology -- so many stories that divorce themselves from incident or are manifestly disinterested in the relationship between the two. It is as if the invitation to focus on character absolved the writer from interest in consequence and incitement. If James is right (he so often is), then it seems that the mission -- to make someone up -- should be greeted with stories. Here, instead, the pretense just dissolves into a game of titles; other people, some people, some writers, some characters, some names, some stories. *
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d360dbc6973773b25ed77eca888594eb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-07-na-obama7-story.html | For black skeptics, Obama cites Iowa | For black skeptics, Obama cites Iowa
Volunteers for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign fanned out into black neighborhoods over the weekend with new instructions: Tell undecided voters that Obama “proved the cynics wrong in the Iowa caucuses.”
The message about Obama’s decisive Iowa victory Thursday is familiar to those who have heard his theme of transcending old-style politics. But for many black voters, the warning against cynicism carries a special and somewhat different meaning: Let go of old fears that white America will never elect a black man to the presidency; Iowa has proven doubters in the black community wrong.
The fear that Americans will not accept a black president has loomed as a persistent obstacle to Obama’s chances in South Carolina, where blacks are expected to account for at least half of the voters in a crucial Jan. 26 Democratic primary, and in other states with large black populations.
A survey taken late last month for CBS found that nearly 40% of black voters in South Carolina believed the country was not “ready to elect a black president,” compared with 34% of whites -- a sentiment that Obama aides viewed as a far greater impediment to his election than flat-out racism among those who would never vote for him anyway.
The campaign has spent months trying to address these fears, using surrogates such as Obama’s wife, Michelle.
“Now, I know folks talk in the barber shops and beauty salons, and I’ve heard some folks say, ‘That Barack, he seems like a nice guy, but I’m not sure America’s ready for a black president,’ ” she told a black audience recently in Orangeburg, S.C.
She asked the crowd to “cast aside the cynics,” and urged: “We’re going to have to dig deep into our souls, confront our own self-doubt. . . . Let’s prove to our children that they really can reach for their dreams. Let’s show them that America is ready for Barack Obama.”
For much of last year, surveys showed most black voters in South Carolina supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, whose husband, former President Clinton, is popular among blacks. Several new polls show Obama has closed that gap and leads among blacks in the state, suggesting that the campaign’s outreach efforts have begun to work.
Now, Obama and his team have their most potent argument yet to counter black fears: Election results in which Obama has won support from tens of thousands of whites in an overwhelmingly white state, and the likelihood that on Tuesday he will do well in mostly white New Hampshire.
Over the weekend, Obama’s campaign sent volunteers out to take the news of Iowa to black voters in South Carolina. They were armed with lists of undecided African Americans, some of whom have been concerned that his race would hold Obama back in the general election. Obama, 46, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother with roots in Kansas.
One pair of volunteers knocked on dozens of doors Saturday in a working-class neighborhood near downtown Columbia, the state capital. They carried a new memo, drafted after the Iowa victory. The cynics, it read, “said our country was too divided and disillusioned to come together. But Obama rallied Americans of every background, belief and party around a common purpose.”
Some clearly still struggled with the racial question.
“Race matters,” said Darcus Gordon, a 49-year-old postal service worker. “I was right on the edge of the civil rights movement, and I thought we’d come a lot farther, and I guess in some respects we have. But there are some strong feelings people still have about skin color.”
Gordon said she had been leaning toward Clinton, but was ready to take a closer look at Obama because of Iowa and the ensuing celebration.
At another house, Margaret Mitchell, a 78-year-old retiree, said she could not decide among Clinton, Obama and John Edwards. She too said she did not know how much white support Obama could win.
“I don’t know if you kept up with the Iowa caucuses,” said volunteer Winston Lofton, 20, a Stanford University junior who was in town to help with the campaign. “But he won there.”
Mitchell had seen the news. “That really got me more into voting for him,” she said. “I said, ‘Now all these people are going to go that way, so maybe I’m going to lean [that way].’ ”
The volunteers’ new talking points are being used for canvassing black and white supporters alike. They carry one meaning for younger voters of both races, who have responded to Obama’s efforts to paint himself as a champion of hope, but they are calibrated to send a somewhat different and reassuring message to the many older black voters who experienced segregation and the struggles of the civil rights movement, and who still fear that racism is deeply rooted.
Robert Ford, a state senator and veteran civil rights activist, last year became one of South Carolina’s first black leaders to caution publicly that nominating Obama could ensure a Republican general election victory in November. He said Saturday that the Iowa results had done nothing to prove that the world had changed. The vast majority of black elected officials in the country, he said, must be elected from districts that are carefully mapped to include a majority of African Americans.
“Of course you’re going to have white liberals in a Democratic primary vote for Obama. That’s why I’m concerned,” Ford said. “You’ve got people in this country who wouldn’t even vote for a black for dogcatcher, and now you want to ask them to vote for one for president of the United States?”
Obama strategists argue that the more these skeptical African Americans see images of Obama winning support from whites, the more comfortable they will feel. Obama aides say that many whites also want to see that Obama is viable before they decide to back him -- meaning that the early-voting states may serve as an important indicator for millions of voters who could decide the nomination on the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday string of primaries that includes California, New York and about 20 other states.
“Each state along this path will be this same kind of historic test, to decide whether or not America is ready for a black president,” said Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand.
At times, the campaign has used subtlety to make its point. In one television ad that has aired in South Carolina, Obama speaks about his past as a community organizer in Chicago’s largely black South Side, and then as a civil rights lawyer working to protect voters.
“In each instance, there were naysayers who said it couldn’t be done,” he says. Images appear that show Obama mingling with an admiring group of white supporters, and Obama adds: “But in each instance, when millions of voices join together and insist on change, change happens.”
The unspoken message of the pictures is that white voters are flocking to Obama.
An ad on radio stations with large black audiences, featuring Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., son of two-time presidential candidate Jesse Jackson Sr., was more blunt. It cast Obama as the logical choice for black voters who two decades ago backed the elder Jackson’s candidacies for president, even though few gave him a chance of winning.
“You can send more than a message,” the younger Jackson said in the radio ad. “You can launch a president.”
This is a powerful idea for Margie King, 70, who runs a family-owned funeral parlor in tiny Chester. Her son, John, a Democrat, lost a state legislative election to a white Republican, though the district was dominated by Democrats. She concluded that whites would not support black candidates. In the presidential race, she decided to back Clinton.
But her son became an Obama volunteer, and she has decided to join him.
“It’s the way white America stood behind him,” she said, referring to Obama’s win in Iowa. “I’m just overwhelmed by it.”
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peter.wallsten@latimes.com
richard.fausset@latimes.com
Wallsten reported from Manchester, N.H., and Fausset from Columbia, S.C.
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3762720bad52c42e18c2808a52e7992e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-08-et-cruise8-story.html | Cruise camp rips Morton’s biography as ‘tired old lies’ | Cruise camp rips Morton’s biography as ‘tired old lies’
NEW YORK -- A lawyer for Tom Cruise attacked an unauthorized biography of the star Monday, calling it “outrageous, sick stuff,” even as publisher St. Martin’s Press defended the book.
“Tom Cruise, an Unauthorized Biography,” by British author Andrew Morton, best known for his top-selling 1992 book on Princess Diana, is due on U.S. bookshelves this month.
“His book is a rehash of tired old lies about Tom and his religion, some new grotesque lies, like the sick comparison of his child to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and the nutty assertion that he’s the No. 2 head of the Church of Scientology,” said Cruise’s longtime lawyer, Bert Fields.
“He [Morton] has made a number of claims that are false and demonstrably so,” said Fields, who added that he had read Morton’s book. “Clearly the book is actionable, but I’m not commenting on anything to do with legal issues.”
The Church of Scientology in London did not reply to an e-mail asking for comment.
In a brief statement Monday, St. Martin’s Press spokesman Steve Troha said, “We stand by our book and our author.”
Fields said Cruise has no plans to read the book, and the lawyer also slammed Morton’s claims that Cruise’s former wife, Australian actress Nicole Kidman, was worried she would be blackmailed or not see the couple’s two adopted children if she spoke out against the Church of Scientology after their divorce.
Kidman’s spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
“The man should be ashamed of himself and so should his publisher,” said Fields. “He pretends to be writing a biography without ever talking to anybody who has really known Tom for the past 30 years.”
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188ec23fc72ccb7953e3836b7c7b5c70 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-08-me-911stress8-story.html | Heart ailments linked to worries about terrorism | Heart ailments linked to worries about terrorism
Stress and fear about terrorism after 9/11 are giving Americans heart problems, even if they had no personal connection to the attacks, according to a UC Irvine study released Monday.
UCI researchers linked psychological stress responses to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a 53% increase in heart problems -- including high blood pressure and stroke -- in the three years after Sept. 11, 2001.
It is the first study to show the effect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on cardiac health.
Most of those surveyed had watched the attacks on live television, and one-third had no personal connection to them.
Most of them had no preexisting heart problems, and the results persisted even when risk factors such as high cholesterol, smoking and obesity were taken into account.
“It seems that the 9/11 attacks were so potent that media exposure helped to convey enough stress that people responded in a way that contributed to their cardiovascular problems,” said Alison Holman, an assistant professor of nursing science at UCI and the study’s lead researcher.
The three-year study took a random, nationwide survey of more than 1,500 adults whose health information had been recorded before the terror at- tacks.
Researchers then asked participants about their stress responses in the weeks after the attacks and issued yearly follow-up questions ending in late 2004.
Participants were asked in the online surveys to report doctor-diagnosed ailments and assess their fear of terrorism by rating on a scale how much they agreed with such statements as “I worry that an act of terrorism will personally affect me or someone in my family in the future.”
The study was written by six researchers and published in the January edition of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Chronic worriers -- those who continued to fear terrorism for several years after the attacks -- were the most at risk of heart problems.
They were three to four times more likely to report a doctor-diagnosed heart problem two to three years after the terror attacks.
Those who reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms nine to 14 days after the attacks were more than twice as likely to report heart problems up to three years later.
Previous research has found that rescue and recovery workers who helped with the months-long cleanup at the World Trade Center had a higher incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder than the national population.
But this study shows that even people with no direct experience with the attacks may be psychologically and physically affected by potentially serious health problems, Holman said.
In a study released in 2002, the same UCI researchers found that 17% of the U.S. population outside New York City reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder two months after the 2001 attacks.
Some of the most common triggers of terrorism-related stress have been images and videos of the Sept. 11 attacks, the rise and fall of the terrorism alert levels issued by the Department of Homeland Security, and reports of terrorism in other countries, researchers said.
“There have been a variety of events since 9/11 that have continued to reactivate concerns about terrorism, and people that worry are at the greatest risk” of developing a heart condition, said Roxane Cohen Silver, one of the study’s authors and a professor of psychology and social behavior and medicine at UCI.
Researchers say the findings may help medical and mental health workers predict within several weeks of a terrorist attack when a patient’s psychological response is likely to translate to a physical ailment.
“Now you don’t have to wait months to find out if a person has post-traumatic stress disorder to find out if they’re vulnerable to later heart conditions,” Holman said.
“If I know I have a patient who is having an acute stress reaction, I may want to intervene.”
--
tony.barboza@latimes.com
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da23e2d25ad77d1c950d19f7b40f350d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-09-fi-ces9-story.html | HD DVD camp stands by format | HD DVD camp stands by format
Had pundits bet on the HD DVD camp folding its hand in Las Vegas, they would have lost their shirts.
None of the corporate giants that back the next-generation DVD format have jumped ship at the Consumer Electronics Show here. But the huge momentum shift toward the Blu-ray format has at least one studio strongly considering a switch.
Warner Bros.’ decision last week to start making movies exclusively for Blu-ray players, rather than HD DVD, triggered an “out” clause in Paramount Pictures’ contract with the HD DVD camp. An industry source said there was a significant possibility that Paramount would exercise that clause. It plans to decide within a month.
Paramount officials said they would continue to support HD DVD, a format for displaying videos in higher quality whose backers include Toshiba Corp. and Microsoft Corp. Universal Pictures, which has been a strong supporter from the beginning, issued no public statement on the matter here.
Toshiba said Tuesday that retailers have expressed their commitment to HD DVD during private meetings at the show, which is the world’s largest consumer tech gathering.
Still, the Warner Bros. move -- announced just before the show began -- dramatically changed the balance of power in the competition to set the new DVD standard.
The Blu-ray contingent, led by Sony Corp., all but claimed victory before a standing-room-only presentation Monday, saying: “The Future Is Blu.”
The Blu-ray Disc Assn. claimed a significant edge over HD DVD, with 85% of all next-generation players purchased since Blu-ray hit the market late in 2006. The group also said 66% of all high-definition movies sold in 2007 were Blu-ray.
Danny Kaye, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s executive vice president of technology strategy, predicted that Blu-ray players -- including Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles, which also play movies in the format -- would jump from 3.5 million sold by the end of 2007 to 10 million by the end of this year. He forecast a similar surge in movie sales, from $170 million to $1 billion in consumer spending.
Kaye said 2008 would be “a year of very strong, explosive growth.”
Steve Beeks, president of Blu-ray supporter Lions Gate, said that after two years of “wasted energy” devoted to the bruising format war, the industry could begin to focus its efforts on expanding the home entertainment market.
“We believe 2008 will be a watershed year for Blu-ray’s ascent in the marketplace,” Beeks said.
That enthusiasm appears to be shared by the show’s attendees, who flocked to the numerous Blu-ray displays on the show floor. The numbers were noticeably thinner at similar HD DVD displays.
Jodi Sally, vice president of marketing for Toshiba America’s digital audio video group, emphasized the continued retail support for its HD DVD format, which has sold more 1 million players since its introduction.
“I’ve been here for two days of back-to-back meetings with retailers,” Sally said. “We are really encouraged by our meetings and the response of retailers that they will continue to offer consumers a choice.”
Industry executives said it would be unusual for retailers to abandon any format so soon after Christmas, for fear of sparking a flood of returns.
Here’s a roundup of other news and observations from the convention:
--
Even gadgets for the pacifier set
Gadgets for grown-ups may be chock-a-block at CES, but the electronics market for the juice-box set is expanding fast. Sales of so-called youth electronics grew 22% in 2006, contributing $1 billion to the $22-billion U.S. toy market that year, according to market research firm NPD.
Some gizmos target children even before they can walk, such as the V-Smile Baby Infant Development System, a push-button lap console for tots.
Because Junior is unlikely to have a credit card, gadget makers don’t worry about marketing to him; they pitch their products to parents by boasting that the products can turn kids into the next Stephen Hawking. Yet many have no scientific basis for making these claims, according to a report released Tuesday by the Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center.
Of the 300 video games released in 2007 as “edutainment” titles, only 69 contained any educational value, according to the report. Just two were based on any type of curriculum, such as math, science or literacy.
Unless the endless beeps and songs drive parents nuts, they don’t necessarily have to chuck these gizmos because children learn from them in other ways.
“Technology is another material for children to actively explore,” Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children’s Technology Review, said during a talk at the Sandbox Summit here.
The event, put on by the Parents’ Choice Foundation, explored the question of what kids are doing with technology and what they’re getting out of it.
Some of the answers were provided by the Sesame Workshop report. Others were provided by a video Buckleitner shared of a 2-year-old playing with the V-Smile, which hooks up to a TV. The toddler ignored the big colorful buttons that controlled the action on the screen (in fact, he ignored the screen altogether), and fixated on the on-off button before crawling away.
Clearly, these companies still have a lot to learn.
-- Alex Pham
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Comcast shows off super-fast modem
Brian L. Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast Corp., dazzled the hard-to-impress tech set in Tuesday morning’s keynote speech, during which he demonstrated the breathtaking speed of the coming generation of cable modems.
He says they’re capable of downloading a two-hour, high-definition movie (Warner Bros.’ “Batman Begins” was used) in four minutes. The same task, Roberts said, would take six hours via a high-speed DSL modem or seven days -- more time than it actually took to make the movie, celebrity guest Ryan Seacrest quipped -- over dial-up.
Roberts’ promise to have millions of these modems (that’s Docsis 3.0 for you geek-speakers) in homes by the end of the year prompted spontaneous applause from the audience (more than “American Idol” host Seacrest managed to elicit).
Roberts also showed off a new Web offering called Fancast, which allows Comcast subscribers to use their PCs as virtual remote controls.
It recommends TV shows and movies the viewer can watch, on demand, on the home computer. They also can elect to record using the DVR.
-- Dawn C. Chmielewski
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e8c9f076f99e730057b8dd932dd16177 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jan-10-hm-dress10-story.html | Bridesmaid dress: from the closet to the table | Bridesmaid dress: from the closet to the table
THE bridesmaid’s dilemma: What to do with that dreaded, costly, unfortunately colored dress after the big day? In the movie “27 Dresses,” which opens next week, a serial bridesmaid played by Katherine Heigl clogs her closet with billowing chiffon, crepe and crinoline.
Wear that stuff again? Interior designer Susan Maxwell has another idea: Cut it up and decorate. Maxwell says each layer of a long gown represents three to five yards of fabric. That’s enough to cover bar stools or an ottoman. Satin, silk and other fine fabrics can be put to good use as a valance, headboard or pillow shams.
“Since we were young girls, we have fantasized about our wedding day, and in an effort to make it special, we sometimes go over the top in trying to make it unique in pattern, style, fabric and color,” she says. “And that idea snowballs into this big, ballooning thing with huge trains, capes and puffy sleeves.”
Frilly prints can be used sparingly as runners, place mats or other tabletop accent pieces, she says, or as curtain tiebacks or swags on small windows. Ruffles can wrap around a lamp, and beads can glamorize a picture frame.
“Or make a kitchen apron and wear it at parties,” says Maxwell, who says she got the idea to recycle clothes after consulting with too many clients about their overstuffed closets.
For sentimentalists, the Chicago-based designer suggests using swatches from the dress as a liner for a shadow box, a fabric-bound portfolio or a photo board. If, like the character in the movie, you have stood next to brides several times, consider making a patchwork quilt or a throw to drape over a sofa. Use raw or washed silk on one side, cashmere or some other thin, soft fabric on the other.
Feel guilty about cutting up the bride’s carefully chosen design? Just remember that you’re preventing the dress from going to waste, and reinvention is one way to keep alive any good memories associated with the original, Maxwell says. “Reusing it makes sense.”
If the dress is pretty but impractical for you, she suggests donating it to a group such as the Glass Slipper Project or CASA of Los Angeles’ Glamour Gowns program, which provide prom dresses to high school girls.
--
janet.eastman@latimes.com
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