Category Archives: Greater Los Angeles

Regulate the Rich. Make them play nice.

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  • Exxon Mobil makes $76,000 per minute.
  • Exxon Mobil paid on $5 bililion dollars in income taxes last year to the US government.
  • Exxon Mobil paid $25 billion dollars to foreign governments.
  • Exxon Mobil made $400 billion dollars last year.

Also take a look at this yesterdays FT(7/29) article pg 18 “Shells sets pace as big oil lifts R&D spend” in the Financial Times by Ed Crooks to see how they are apparently price fixing, which I deduced sense the oil companies are spending far less than they should on R&D. And the article pg 2 “US Treasury blames supply and demand for oil prices” by James Politi that shows how they even have the US Treasury Department in on this deadly game.

Facts from Conde Nast Portfolio, Crude Reporting by Howell Raines 08/08

Hey they pay less of a percentage of their income on taxes than I do? I’m a human being that works.

Exxon Mobile Oil formerly Standard Oil was started by the John Rockefeller and his descendants still sit on the board (puts it all in an interesting historical perspective).

Now Rockefellers is synonymous with arts and NY and some odd looking guy running for various offices and another one who was VP, but that was just a great PR campaign. Pretty easy for them, since they own pretty much own either indirectly or directly everything we read.

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The voice that announces stops on the bus

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A few weeks ago I noticed something odd about the voice that announces the stops on the bus, it was happy. For those of you who haven’t been on the public limo, there is a voice that announces upcoming stops to passengers in a cold and robotic tone of voice, kinda like a Mr. Spell and Speak. I was in Hollywood with a friend and during our ride I noticed that voice was ecstatic when announcing the Hollywood stops. It’s something that stands out right away to any regular bus rider because the voice goes from its boring,deep, low tone to a energetic,happy high tone right away. I pointed it out to my friend and she noticed the difference as well. Well once I got home later that day I sent Metro an email on July 2 asking a few questions about the voice recording and how it works. On July 21 I received the following reply, (Note: I removed my real named and replaced it with my blog name)

Dear El Random Hero,

The stop announcements are manually recorded, but they are triggered automatically when the vehicle comes to a stop. When a stop is established, the stop is geo-coded (lat/long location) that defines the stop. The lat/long location is used to create a trigger box (typically 100-250′ from the lat/long point). Whenever the bus enters the trigger box, the vehicle will make the announcement (assuming the operator is running a schedule that uses that particular stop). Some trigger boxes are longer than others to account for a stop which may be a very heavy transit stop and shared by many lines (transit centers, airports, USG, etc.). We appreciate your inquiry and this opportunity to respond.

Metro Customer Relations

In my questions I neglected to ask about the voice recordings accent and tone of voice because I didn’t think it would be an appropriate question to ask. If I did I would basically have to ask “Why does the voice sound sad and depressed when announcing ethnic streets in more urban areas and sound high class in fancier areas ?” My hypothesis is that it’s because it’s the Hollywood line. I imagine the city wants to keep some sort of quality control to keep tourist coming back and to not scare them away. But honestly, you would think that someone involved in the recording process must have corrected the person recording on how to properly pronounce a simple street name, that’s what dictionaries are for right ? Either way I still get a kick out of that voice botching up names like Cesar E. Chavez, Rampart and of course Hollywood !!!   

 

Far East LA and other sh*t I don’t like.

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I found a new phrase.

Hipster Racism, I found it at Racialicious, the ladies over there are so smart.

“I define hipster racism (I’m borrowing the phrase from Carmen Van Kerckhove) as ideas, speech, and action meant to denigrate another’s person race or ethnicity under the guise of being urbane, witty (meaning “ironic” nowadays), educated, liberal, and/or trendy.”
AJ Plaid, Racialicious

I used to just call it the “tattooed, pseudo progressive, over-educated, asshole” problem, but this is much better.

Back in the day (the 90s) an ethnic minority in Los Angeles only had to stay away from Republican areas and never visit the Southern part of the United States (or the South Bay, oh let’s throw in Covina and Tujunga too) and they would be shielded from being openly mocked owing to what they were ethnically (not from being harassed by the cops, they will always be a problem), but those days are over.

We can now enjoy being mocked by Obama supporting, vegetarian diet, Ivy League graduate liberals, with “multi-colored” sex partners. Well thank god. We’ve come so far.
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Botanitas: July 18, 2008

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Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk, Claremont Museum through Aug 31.

Botanitas is an ongoing feature bringing you stories and news from various sources, upcoming events and other bits of ephemera that might be of interest to LA Eastside readers. Suggestions welcome!

Bridging the grade divide in Lincoln Heights

Residential Food Scrap Pilot Program

Old Los Angeles

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Water Quality?

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I got my yearly “water quality” report from the DWP a few days ago, which is now in newspaper size print. Okay, seems a bit excessive for this lil’ gripping page turner, but what do I know. But did they really need to use a picture of Echo Park and the missing lotus flowers, considering that “poor water quality” is one of the possible reasons for their disappearance? I would have gone with a different image, one that doesn’t make me look at my glass of water suspiciously. But what do I know.

The LA Times cuts Jesus Sanchez

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“And_then_there_were_none With so many good people leaving the paper, it seems unfair to single anyone out. But readers of this blog have come to know Jesus Sanchez, to seek him out for his sly and dry wit, his knowledge of the city where he was born, and his uncanny ability to find and tell the quietly great story. It would be wrong to have his photo vanish from this page without letting you know Jesus has been laid off. “  Veronique de Turenne, LA Now, LA Times, Thank you Jesus.  July 15

It to me is amazing in regards to who is staying and who is going, this is a sad time for LA print media.

Browne

 

Your Stuff to Do!! 7/14-7/20

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Did you wake up one day and realized that you weren’t the most valuable living being on the planet? No, neither have I, but I am making a real effort at getting there.

Maybe you can’t change the world, but you can change a piece of it for at least twenty minutes and if you changed twenty minutes and another person changed twenty minutes, possibly all of you together could have an impact on someone’s day.

If you believe in that kind of concept and you think patchouli smells good here’s a list of your things to do.

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Penny and nicked in LA. A car wash story.

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Barbara Ehrenreich speaking at Mama\'s Hot Tamales

“Tesco is to stop importing about £1m ($2m) of fresh vegetables from Zimbabwe, reversing its previous stance that the trade was essential to support the families of the farm workers who grow crops such as mange tout and baby corn.” By John Willman in London and Tony Hawkins in Harare at the Financial Times.

Tesco owns the recent upstart in the organic food game, Fresh & Easy (which for some odd reason the blogosphere is obsessed with.)

Not that I believe that Tesco was only trying to help, but how far is too far in regards to “helping” and what’s not far enough?

On Friday I went to a get together at MacArthur Park’s Mama’s Hot Tamales in support of the ongoing carwash boycott that first came to the attention of the media with the boycotting of the Pirian-owned Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz.

At the event Barbara Ehrenreicht (author of Nickle and Dimed and the new book This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation) gave the boycott organizers and their supporters her encouragement.

“America has forgotten it’s own history of organized collective action and outright rebellion…” Barbara Ehrenreicht.

That to me is the key. You can’t go too far, but you can screw yourself if you don’t go far enough.

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The dangers of having brass ovaries…

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I was riding the Blueline train the other day and this young black man was trying to get my attention. He wasn’t that cute, he was too young, and I have a boyfriend.

I mean I have a boyfriend; even if he were the right age and was cute I definitely would not have talked to him. I don’t think.

Anyways me ignoring him pissed him off, so he proceeded to call me a “f*cking b*tch.”

It was weird, because I haven’t been called a bitch by a black guy (that wasn’t homeless) in years. The last time a black man called me a bitch was when I brought a white guy friend on accident (sort of) to a coffee shop that was very heavy on Nation of Islam types. Well this guy didn’t so much call me a bitch, but pulled out a gun and threatened to kill the guy I was with (he said he didn’t believe in hurting black women,) that actually happened. Awesome story, but that’s another post.
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Just another BLT

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The 24 hr Cafe is a western themed place in the industrial part of Long Beach. This family owned establishment has been serving customers with home cooked meals since the early days of diners and coffee shops.This place pretty much is considered a truck stop and by all means has the elements of one, but I say it’s a truck stop with some character!

I’ve passed by this Cafe many times, but I never really thought about eating in there. One day I just happen to be riding around taking pictures and stopped right in front of it, just like a magnet I was somehow drawn in.


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In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Dollar—The Archdiocese Sells the Self Help Graphics & Art Building to Developers

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It was like a bad B-movie with the powerful, evil conglomerate evicting the struggling protagonists—for a profit. Once a PR tool used by the Los Angeles Archdiocese to portray themselves as benevolent benefactors to Self Help Graphics & Art’s internationally acclaimed Chicano/a art center—the unmasked and crumbling religious foundation appears to no longer have a need for Self Graphics. Without warning, in a clandestine underhanded maneuver, the Archdiocese has sold the Self Help Graphics building to the odious developers who have been circling in on the east side.

Since the closure of Self Help Graphics by the then Board of Directors (June 7, 2005), Self Help Graphics has begun to rise, aided by artists, volunteers, community members and the spirit of founder Sister Karen Boccalero. Maintaining the small integral staff, getting back in the black, restoring the building to a safe functional level, protecting the art collection, reconnecting with artists, continuing the tradition of artistic center with community based cultural celebration, has been the focus of a group of diligent Self Help Graphics volunteers. It has been the visual, performance, written, crafts, culinary and musical artistic communities, as well as individual community supporters that have sustained Self Help Graphics these past years—without public funding, without grants, and without the local politicians’ help.

Over the last few years the Board of Self Help Graphics had met with the Archdiocese, the nuns from Sister Karen’s order and their representatives to strategize on a comfortable plan to transfer ownership of the building to Self Help Graphics, Inc. More like a ping-pong game—with Self Help Graphics as the ball—these entities each claimed to have no power to reach any decision with respect to the building—urging Self Help Graphic reps to ask one of the other entities—but not them. At the same time, they vehemently assured Self Help Graphics that the occupancy of the building would continue as always—there was no need to feel nervous about the relationship, if anything were to change or the building were to be up for sale, Self Help Graphics would be notified first.

Then suddenly last week–(predicted by many disillusioned community members) the call came, “The building has been sold and escrow closed—you have until December 31 to be out.” Shock, injustice, betrayal, wounded, angry and incredulous are not strong enough words to express what one feels, because you wanted to have hope in the process of the spirit, in truth, in common decency, in the respect for Sister Karen’s idealism.

As a volunteer at Self Help Graphics during the Sister Karen years, the Tomas Benitez years and post 6/7/05, I have seen the various seasons of change. Witnessing Sister Karen’s commitment to Self Help Graphics, a dedication with pressures and worries that cut her life short—I find it hard to believe that she did not make any provisions regarding the continuation of Self Help Graphics, after she was gone. Self Help Graphics was her life and her passion. Could she have also entered into a verbal agreement with her not-so Christian family—that also conveniently got forgotten? Half files, incomplete documents, select meeting minutes, empty drawers left by the pre-6/7/05 Board of Directors—also tell a story.

I don’t believe in hell, but I do believe in the dark forces that work feverously to destroy anything good. Those that work to create beauty, goodness and righteousness in the world must work doubly hard to wipe out the injustices that have taken place and at the same time take a step forward into a better humanity.

A public press conference is scheduled to take place at Self Help Graphics & Art on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 10am. Members of the Self Help Graphics Board of Directors will be present to answer questions about the future of our beloved and historical art center.

For those that are not able to attend the press conference, please know that your input and thoughts are direly needed. For updates on upcoming actions, please keep checking on the Self Help Graphics website at www.selfhelpgraphics.com