Notes on how things seem to me from out here in Hollywood... As seen from Just Above Sunset
OF INTEREST
Click here to go there... Click here to go there...

Here you will find a few things you might want to investigate.

Support the Just Above Sunset websites...

Sponsor:

Click here to go there...

ARCHIVE
« April 2005 »
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
Contact the Editor

Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







Site Meter
Technorati Profile

Sunday, 24 April 2005

Topic: World View

Georges Feydeau

The new issue of the parent to this web log - Just Above Sunset - is now on line. Check it out – particularly the fancy photography.

And see Our Man in Paris: Hands Off My Holiday! for Paris news and five photographs from Ric Erickson, editor of MetropoleParis. Cool.

This afternoon he sent this along.
Late for this issue of JAS, but Paris has been treated to an unusual film poster this week. The problem is that it was only shown placed high on poles; usually too high to avoid worse reflections that usual. Film is 'Un fil a la patte,' based on a play by Georges Feydeau. Directed by Michel Deville, it starts Wednesday, 27 April. Previewed on France-2 TV news Sunday, 24 April.
Ah…

Avoir un fil a la patte - To be tied down (literally: "to have a thread at the leg").

Feydeau is always fun. Somehow this will get into JAS. Amusing!

There are always productions of La puce a l'oreille – but never Occupe-toi d'Amelie for some reason. Oh well.

Hortense dit: “J'm'en fous” - rendered in English as Hortense says, “I Don't Give a Damn.”

But I do. He’s good.

The website for the film.

The poster from Ric -



Posted by Alan at 15:22 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
home


Topic: Photos

High Noon in Hollywood

A dark day with rain on the way, and what?s this outside my window?






























Oh that!


Posted by Alan at 12:12 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 24 April 2005 12:16 PDT home

Saturday, 23 April 2005

Topic: The Media

Media Notes: The Grownups Will Tell You What You Need to Know

This is what our president said in Washington on April 14, 2005 -
We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make - it would hope - put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."
Fine ? but whatever is he talking about?

We won?t be denied information we SHOULD NOT see ? we?ll see it all ? and will NOT BE SHOWN information we should see? And this is supposed to ?put a free press's mind at ease??

Ah, you get the general idea. He?s not good with words. It?s a Texas thing. Grammar is for sissies ? and in a participatory democracy YOU get to decide what he meant. This keeps citizens involved in how things are run. He presents puzzles. We solve them. It?s kind of fun.

Elsewhere in these pages - in The End of Outage - we find a fellow quoting our president saying that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency." And we take that to mean that we have a government where the public gets to see as much information as possible about its government.

But then there?s the puzzle.

Think about this previously cited -
- Knight-Ridder reports today [April 16] that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has ?decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered."

- When unemployment was peaking in Bush's first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department's regular report on mass layoffs.

- In 2003, when the nation's governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting.

- In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government Web sites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau.

- In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer from government websites. That scientific data was seen by the White House as a direct affront to the pro-life movement.
So the words spoken by our president above may just be to assure us none of that happened, or if it did, it was for our own good. Or something.

We are NOT being not being denied information we shouldn't see.

No, wait. He obviously meant we would never be denied information we SHOULD see. He?s not good with words, but you get the idea.

This is all very puzzling. But he does want put a free press's mind at ease. Or maybe not. You have to guess ? kind of like high school English class where you had to explain what some dumb poem really ?meant.? It keeps you on your toes.

Ah, and this free press is so? pesky?

Eric Alterman has the cover story in the new issue of The Nation and he?s got a different take on things. His title - Bush's War on the Press - says it all. Eric is not happy.

The opening?
Journalists, George Bernard Shaw once said, "are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization." How odd, given the profession's un-equaled reputation for narcissism, that Shaw's observation holds true even when the collapsing "civilization" is their own.

Make no mistake: The Bush Administration and its ideological allies are employing every means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their First Amendment function to hold power accountable. In fact, the Administration recognizes no such constitutional role for the press. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has insisted that the media "don't represent the public any more than other people do.... I don't believe you have a check-and-balance function."
George Bernard Shaw aside, Alterman does lay out the evidence, from Bush himself, more than once, telling reporters he does not read their work and, as Alterman puts it prefers to live inside the information bubble blown by his loyal minions.
And yes, Vice President Cheney said a nasty thing about a New York Times reporter and tosses reporters he don?t like off his press plane, although not literally. And John Ashcroft did refuse to speak with any print reporters during his You?ll-Just-Love-the-Patriot-Act travels ? and only spoke to the local television folks. And finally
As an unnamed Bush official told reporter Ron Suskind, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." For those who didn't like it, another Bush adviser explained, "Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered two to one by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read the New York Times or Washington Post or the LA Times."
Trash talk? Alterman thinks it is more than that.

He says these guys are taking ?aggressive action? ? and he has a list!
- preventing journalists from doing their job by withholding routine information; deliberately releasing deceptive information on a regular basis

- bribing friendly journalists to report the news in a favorable context

- producing their own "news reports" and distributing these free of charge to resource-starved broadcasters

- creating and crediting their own political activists as "journalists" working for partisan operations masquerading as news organizations.
Okay, and then we have an Administration-appointed special prosecutor, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, now ?threatening two journalists with jail for refusing to disclose the nature of conversations they had regarding stories they never wrote, opening up a new frontier of potential prosecution.?

It is pretty obvious that there is the obvious labeling Alterman notes ? attaching the label "liberal bias" to even the most routine forms of information gathering and reportage (for a transparent example in today's papers, see under "DeLay, Tom").

So what? They can handle it.

But Alterman says there is a system problem here.
The right wing's media "decertification" effort, as the journalism scholar and blogger Jay Rosen calls it, has its roots in forty years of conservative fury at the consistent condescension it experienced from the once-liberal elite media and the cosmopolitan establishment for whom its members have spoken. Fueled by this sense of outrage, the right launched a multifaceted effort to fight back with institutions of its own, including think tanks, advocacy organizations, media pressure groups, church groups, big-business lobbies and, eventually, its own television, talk-radio, cable and radio networks (to be augmented, later, by a vast array of Internet sites). Today this triumphant movement has captured not only much of the media and the public discourse on ideas but both the presidency and Congress (and soon, undoubtedly, the Supreme Court as well); it can wage its war on so many fronts simultaneously that it becomes nearly impossible to see that almost all these efforts are aimed at a single goal: the destruction of democratic accountability and the media's role in insuring it.
Well, I guess we shouldn?t have been so condescending. The chickens are coming home to roost.

You can click on the link and see the discussion, with evidence, of the three primary components of all - Secrecy, Lies and Fake News. It?s long ? and it?s not cheery.

And the press is losing.
The net result of this one-sided battle is the de jure destruction of the balance that has characterized the American political system since the modern, nonpartisan media began to emerge a century ago. And unless journalists find a way to fight back for the honor, dignity and, ultimately, effectiveness of their profession, the press's role in American democracy and society will continue to diminish accordingly, to the disadvantage of all our citizens. Bush adviser Karen Hughes has explained, "We don't see there being any penalty from the voters for ignoring the mainstream press." And there's been none to date. Speaking to Salon's Eric Boehlert, Ron Suskind outlined what he sees as the ultimate aim of the Administration upon which he has reported so effectively. "Republicans have a clear, agreed-upon plan how to diminish the mainstream press," he warns. "For them, essentially the way to handle the press is the same as how to handle the federal government; you starve the beast. When it's in a weakened and undernourished condition, then you're able to effect a variety of subtle partisan and political attacks."

"Two cheers for democracy," wrote E.M. Forster, "one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism." But the aim of the Bush offensive against the press is to do just the opposite; to insure, as far as possible, that only one voice is heard and that no criticism is sanctioned. The press may be the battleground, but the target is democracy itself.
Really? Most folks don?t much care for it, it seems. They like the guy.

So this NYU professor with his fancy PhD and many books, quoting George Bernard Shaw and E. M. Forster, is worried. Bush is ? perhaps a tad condescendingly - telling him not to worry. Just the words of a parent to an overly sensitive child who feels he?s being left out of things: Don?t worry ? The grownups will tell you what you need to know, so don?t worry about the rest.

Bubba ain?t worried.

Posted by Alan at 19:17 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 23 April 2005 19:24 PDT home

Friday, 22 April 2005

Topic: In these times...

Earth Day: Number Thirty-Five with Baked Alaska

A nod to Earth Day ? and as no one much noticed, the thirty-fifth annual Earth Day was April 22, this last Friday. Thank you, Wisconsin ? as in 1970, former Wisconsin governor and United States Senator Gaylord Nelson founded the first Earth Day.

There?s too much hot political news for this to get much coverage. But Mother Nature knows what?s up. See this ?

Thundery Earth Day Keeps Bush Out of Park
Michael A. Fletcher, The Washington Post, Saturday, April 23, 2005; Page A06

Ah ha!
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., April 22 -- President Bush was to have celebrated Earth Day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Friday, pitching in on a trail restoration project and giving a speech touting his environmental record with the park's majestic peaks serving as a compelling backdrop. But Mother Nature did not cooperate.

Severe thundershowers posed a danger for the president's visit to a grassy meadow deep in the park, where an audience had gathered earlier, so Bush delivered his remarks from an airport hangar here in Knoxville.

Bush said that since he took office, the environment has improved in many areas: more wetlands are protected; and water quality is slowly improving; as is air quality, including the oft-smoggy air that blankets many of the nation's national parks.

"I'm proud to report since 2000, the ozone levels have dropped -- but there is more to be done to make sure the Smoky Mountains and the Smoky Mountain national park is as beautiful as possible," said Bush, who was joined by other officials, including Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and Steve Johnson, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It is a record seen far differently by environmental activists, who believe Bush is too cozy with industry and that some of his proposals would undermine environmental enforcement. "The job is far from complete," said Michael Shore, a senior air policy analyst with Environmental Defense, an advocacy group. "We need President Bush to commit his administration to clean up mountain haze, to deal with global warming and to create cleaner air for our children and children's children." ?
Well, there is some disagreement about what our leader is up to.

As mentioned elsewhere in these pages the National Council of Churches is going after Bush and Cheney and the evangelical Republican right over the theological issues regarding the environment and drilling for oil and all that stuff. Really. There does seem to be a theological issue. Read all about it in this: Theologians Warn of 'False Gospel' on the Environment.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, gives us a sense of the mixed nature of where things stand, if you will forgive the pun -
In many ways, this Earth Day is a particularly somber occasion. After all, in the past year, we've seen repeated environmental debacles - most notably, the decision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to drilling for oil. But, with the determination of environmental activists and state legislatures that refuse to bow down to Bush, there are, as always, reasons for hope. Here are five of our top environmental victories in the last year.
And she lists a few.
- Clear Skies Initiative Dropped: Thanks to a 9-to-9 vote by the Environment and Public Works Committee, Bush's Orwellian-labeled bill - which would have loosened air pollution restrictions for power plants, factories and refineries - did not advance to the Senate. Without Clear Skies, we'll be much more likely to see, well, clear skies.

- Colorado Passes Renewable Energy Initiative: Colorado's Amendment 37, a precedent-setting victory for renewable energy, requires the state's largest electric companies to increase their use of renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and small hydro from less than two percent today to 10 percent by 2015. Amendment 37 is expected to save Coloradans $236 million by 2025, create 2,000 jobs, and significantly reduce gas prices in the state.

- Cleaner Cars: Clean Car legislation - requiring the reduction of harmful auto emissions - is being adopted in California and seven other states, and is gaining traction in five more states. With Canada adopting a similar program, a third of North America's automobile market will require clean cars. Meanwhile, heavy-hitters on the right, including former CIA head R. James Woolsey and uber-hawk Frank J. Gaffney Jr., have been lobbying congress to implement policies promoting hybrid cars, hoping to cut oil consumption in half by 2025.

- Challenging Mercury: In March, the EPA issued a loophole-laden policy that, in effect, deregulates controls on mercury emissions from power plants. In response, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey have implemented stronger controls on mercury--which is linked to nerve damage and birth defects--than the EPA, Meanwhile, nine state attorney generals have filed lawsuits against the agency, arguing that the lax rules jeopardize public health. ?
Okay, not entirely bad.

But appearing in Grist magazine, and republished in SALON.COM and elsewhere, is the dismally titled Dearth Day. Well, it?s not that bad. And we learn lots of things actually happened on Earth day this year.

You see, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) announced they are sponsoring a campaign with the slogan "Plant Trees, Stop Bush." This is a fund-raising effort asking people to send in forty dollars (and who knows why that particular amount) "in honor of Earth Day and to protest the Bush administration's abysmal record on the environment." What do you get for forty bucks? A white oak sapling. And we are also told this - "Please bring your family and friends together and plant it in your yard," LCV President Deb Callahan exhorts in her outreach letter. "Tell everyone who asks that you're 'planting trees to stop Bush.'"

Yeah, and they?ll slash the tires on your car.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has big plans. They have launched what they call their "Re-energize America" campaign ? and their aim is to meld steelworkers, evangelicals, national-security leaders, ranchers, and others to advocate for clean-energy investments and conservation practices.

And good luck to them. And don?t think those groups are talking to each other.

And this too - television producer Laurie David this weekend is launching a "virtual march on Washington" on StopGlobalWarming.org, hoping to rally a million Americans over the next year to demand action on climate change. It?s a Hollywood thing.

But my favorite is this -
? Well, then, for a certain crowd-pleasing diversion, we'll turn away from environmental groups to everyone's favorite lefty ice-cream company, Ben & Jerry's. On Earth Day, in front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., B&J will unveil a massive Baked Alaska (touche), four feet by eight feet and filled with 75 gallons of Fossil Fuel-flavor ice cream, part of the company's "Lick Global Warming" campaign and its efforts to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Baked Alaska? Fossil Fuel ice cream? "Lick" Global Warming? Oh, those wags in Vermont!

I didn?t see that on the Friday news shows.

The environment is no small issue. And this got a little play a few weeks ago.

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'
Tim Radford, science editor, The Guardian (UK), Wednesday March 30, 2005
The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.

The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself. ?
Ah but there was the Pope business to worry about, and Michael Jackson, and Tom DeLay and John Bolton, and?

I guess it?s all a matter of priorities.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. - Henry David Thoreau

Nope. Done that.

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. - Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

Working in it.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. - Ansel Adams

The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. - Chief Luther Standing Bear

Posted by Alan at 22:24 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 22 April 2005 22:31 PDT home


Topic: Photos

Venice and its Canals ? 21 April 2005

Yesterday the editor of Just Above Sunset and the staff ? and that is just me and Bob Patterson - did a photo shoot in Venice, California. But not at Venice Beach. We explored the Venice Canals.

You will find a photo album with sixty the one hundred thirty-nine of the pictures we took at Venice and its Canals - 21 April 2005

This year in the centenary ? these canals were built one hundred years ago and opened to the public on July 4, 1905. Bob and I beat the July rush and took our shots this week.

For some background (with historic photographs) see this -
Venice California originally was to be a copy of Venice, Italy, canals and all. Few of the original canals remain today.

The original sixteen miles of canals were dug in 1904 under the direction of Abbot Kinney. Man and mule worked around the clock to dig the canals in time for the grand opening of Venice on July 4, 1905. Kinney was displeased with the progress so he deployed steam dredging equipment to complete the canals on time.

When Venice of America was first conceived by Kinney, life was literately in the horse and buggy age. By the twenties, the automobile had made its mark and was here to stay. The canals were not practical for the horseless carriage. In 1929 the majority of the canals were filled in and converted to roads.

In the sixties the canals were home to beatniks and artists which soon gave way to the hippies. Rock bands and pot parties were the norm. Jim Morrison of The Doors called the canals home during the 60s. ?

As real estate prices sky-rocketed in the late seventies, the houses along the canals were remodeled and homes were built on the numerous vacant lots. Soon the affluent home owners replaced the artists and Bohemians. In 1994 after nearly thirty years of talks, Los Angeles refurbished the six remaining canals for $6,000,000. Some of the most beautiful homes on Los Angeles? West Side line the canals maintaining a unique community atmosphere. The canals today provide a sense of serenity that Venetians and tourists alike greatly appreciate.
You decide?

Abbot Kinney was a local tobacco magnate who honeymooned in Venice and never got over it.

Oh, and by the way, a list of movies using this and the surrounding area can be found here.




























Posted by Alan at 16:32 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 22 April 2005 16:37 PDT home

Newer | Latest | Older