RLn 12-27-13 Edition

Change Agent: Alicia Carrera Brings People Together for Action p. 2 San Pedro Neighborhood Pans Proposed Density Increase p. 3 Project Censored: Signs of Emerging Police State Under Obama p. 7 t Spielberg’s Lincoln: Possibly the

Best Movie of 2012 p. 11

The Local Publication You Actually Read

The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights — James Madison, fourth president of the United States

T

A Well Regulated Militia/ to p. 6

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

here have been more than 30 mass shootings in the past 20 years in America, but only now does the U.S. Congress seem ready to stand up to the National Rifle Association lobbyists, though it may seem hard tell—with these lawmakers—if any meaningful reforms will occur.

However, this country does not stand alone in this modern day mayhem of inhumanity.

Australia, Norway, Britain and even France have had mass murders of their own. Other countries have significantly reformed their gun laws. America with its Second Amendment is still lost in the debate over gun rights versus legal regulation as the murders of Sandy Hook Elementary School children and staff horrifies the country.

Some, like former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee lays the blame on the “absence of God in civic life.” The nation now has come together to mourn, with the flags halfstaff, not unlike the aftermath of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. This is our national tragedy.

In a nation so awash in 300 million firearms, where 30 percent of American households own at least one gun, it is odd that our perception of violence has increased as the national homicide rate declines. Still, it is disturbing that these weapons turn up in domestic conflicts as well as in

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HARBOR AREA

Committed to independent journalism in the Greater LA/LB Harbor Area for more than 30 years

Change Agent:

Alicia Creates Wonder in Adopted Land

By Zamná Ávila, Assistant Editor

“Energetic,” “enthusiastic,” “giving,” and “doesn’t take no for an answer,” is how Angel Macias, founder of the Long Beach youth services nonprofit California Families in Focus, describes Alicia Carrera, whom she nominated as a change agent.

From filling gift bags for the needy to coordinating events and workshops, and securing resources for women, Carrera gifts her time with several groups in her community.

She is a volunteer director for Comunidades con Poder para el Cambio (Communities with Power for the Change—formerly the Community Partners Council), a group consisting mostly

Community Announcements:

Harbor Area Metro Offers Safe Ride Home on New Year’s Eve

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

Metro will once more be offering free rides this New Year’s Eve to provide safe transportation and reduce holiday traffic congestion. No fare will be charged on all Metro rail and bus lines starting on Dec. 31 until 2 a.m, Jan. 1.

Metro Rail will operate all-night service on New Year’s Eve for those staying out extra late and to encourage easy travel to the Rose Parade in Pasadena. However, free fares only apply until 2 a.m. Those traveling after 2 a.m. will need the TAP card to ride.

Metro rail and bus systems will operate on a Sunday schedule New Year’s Day, which fall on a Tuesday this year.

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Alicia Carrera volunteers with several groups, including coordinating Jubilee Consortium and Comunidades con Poder para el Cambio (Communities for Power for the Change), both of which meet at a space in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach. Photo: Terelle Jerricks.

of Latinas, who network with different agencies that enable women to advocate for themselves, their families and their community. Carrera also is a volunteer coordinator for Jubilee Consortium, a nonprofit formed by the Episcopal Church designed to promote healthy neighborhoods through enrichment opportunities such as workout and healthy eating workshops, and leadership programs.

Her hands-on involvement with those groups, as well as other groups in her community such as California Families Focus, have enabled her

to build relationships and earn the loyalty of people within her volunteer network. So, when one group needs help with volunteers or donations, she often comes swiftly to the rescue by calling on friends and group members of another organization.

“You see how hard working she is and how much she sacrifices, and you can’t say ‘no’ to her,” said Adrián Zarmeño, who has volunteered with Carrera on more than one occasion. “What she contributes is a kilo of rice and you are just grain.”

Recently, California Families in Focus hosted The Spirit of Christmas Brunch, an event designed to give holiday joy to families who are survivors of domestic violence. Carrera helped with securing volunteers, coordinating lines and even serving food at the event.

“She is out there all day long,” Macias said.

“Not only does she have her own family but (also) she works with the community and she has a job.”

“Where do I find time? I don’t know,” said Carrera, who works at night cleaning offices while balancing her roles as a wife, mother and volunteer. “In some way, my body gets relaxed and says, ‘This effort is worth it.’”

It’s that attitude that has inspired others.

Zarmeño’s wife Laura Caporal, a grocery store worker and zumba instructor, said Carrera has helped build her up when she feels overwhelmed with her work and family life.

“She tells me, ‘...You have to be an example to the people who you instruct in your class, who have to see you active, that you work, you have a family and that you also have time for you,” Caporal, 28, said. “That’s what motivates me.”

In tears, Caporal, recalled how one of her students’ life was touched by Carrera, when she brought donated meals this Thanksgiving to her zumba class. Carrera provided two turkeys to the class, which Caporal raffled. The student, who won one of the turkeys, was ecstatic because her

husband had lost his job, undergone surgery and they didn’t have any food for the holiday.

Macias said that there are no barriers that stop Carrera from getting things done, — not even language. In fact, it was her language barrier that propelled her to become a community activist.

Carrera endured a breech labor with her son 15 years ago, when he was born prematurely. Unable to speak English, unaware of her resources and surroundings, nurses at the hospital sent her off telling her everything was OK. A doctor treated Carrera the next day, but by then the baby had lost much of his oxygen.

“The fact that my son was born healthy … motivated me to say, ‘I think I need to find the way to get involved and bring people [together] so they can develop, know and build the aptitude in women to change our way of life,’” said Carrera, a native of Mexico.

So, soon after, she started to take English classes at nearby recreation center. Though Carrera is still not 100 percent fluent in English, she is able to maintain a conversation and ask questions. However, there are many who can’t even do that and that is a challenge, especially once people have reached adulthood.

“It can be done, even if you are 50, 60 years [old],” said Carrera, 43. “You can still learn. It will be a little slower but you can still learn…

If we want your voice to be heard, we also have to do it in their language. So we have to work harder.”

Carrera later became involved with the Community Partners Council. Carrera earned her GED diploma and continued participating in selfdevelopment workshops such as, self-esteem, parenting, dressing for success and leadership trainings. She joined other groups and learned how to find resources, advocate at city hall and speak to local government representatives about the needs in communities. Soon, people would come to her with their problems.

“It was something that nurtured me,” Carrera said. “I felt that I had to go and, with what I was educating myself, I had to take it to other people.”

One of her greatest accomplishments is her work with parents and local health care providers to advocate for the formation of the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. The alliance was able to get the Long Beach hospitals to prioritize patient care of children above filling out paperwork. They also trained school nurses and parents on providing care to children experiencing an asthmatic episode.

Previously, treatment would be delayed until the parents filled out all required paperwork.

She’s also faced many challenges, among those being a Latina, Carrera said.

“It’s an everyday struggle to say, ‘OK, we weren’t born in this country, but we want to be part of it and we are working to make changes,’” Carrera said.

Carrera was reared in a conservative family of six sisters and four brothers. Despite the limitations that were given to women within a Change Agent/ to p. 5

Residents Revolt Against Increased Density at 25th, Western Main Thrust of SP Community Plan Draws Few Comments

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

neighborhood—weighed in with a statement read into the record by an aid, Mike Aguilera.

This was buttressed on the policy level by South Shores Homeowners Association, Jerry Gaines, who summarized a Nov. 30 letter detailing the home owners group’s 5-point objection to the plan (visit www.randomlengthsnews.com).

“The proposed zoning change is unnecessary, unjustified, and will have a negative impact on the surrounding communities,” Hahn’s statement read, in part. “New buildings up to 75 feet or six stories intruding on the existing single-story building, single-family homes would result in serious disruption... This proposed change would neither benefit the neighborhood nor will it serve the goals of the development plan. I oppose the proposed zoning change because it does not keep with the character of the neighborhood.”

The South Shores Homeowners’ objections summarized by Gaines included lack of compatibility with the coastal plan, which calls for preservation of ocean views, the impact of increased traffic flows, the lack of local commercial demand (there’s no significant land for future residential development), and potential negative impacts on existing businesses. Gaines also briefly shared some of his relevant background. Not least, he’s a former member of the Harbor Area Planning Commission, which will review the Community Plan in March, before it goes to Los Angeles City Council. But the multiple points he made had a simple conclusion: “We just don’t see a logic in planning to increase density,” Gaines said.

Similarly to Nave, Gaines praised the plan as a whole.

“There’s a lot of nice work, you’ve done very well, with a lot of good thinking,” He said, but Density Increase Proposed/to p. 4

The Local Publication You Actually Read

With one notable exception—the upzoning of subarea 260 around 25th Street and Western Avenue—the San Pedro community appears to be quite pleased with the overall thrust of the San Pedro Community Plan, which was presented for public comment, Dec. 12, during a meeting at the Boys and Girls Club.

Even Northwest Neighborhood Council President Diana Nave, which has generated the broadest, most systemic criticisms, primarily involving assumptions of growth estimates, said, “it’s got a great vision.” And for good reason.

The community plan includes a brief, specifically articulated vision that helps guide the plan as a whole, and a variety of points specifying the ways in which the plan “provides a high quality of life for its residents, while retaining the community’s small town feel for multiple generations of San Pedrans.”

Points articulated deal with everything from cultural heritage and open space to “clean industrial development.” It also has a diverse range of housing options, “a distinctive downtown,” “a synergistic connection to the waterfront...,” and “an identity as a destination place [for] home residents and visitors alike.”

What’s more, the planning department has been working with community members since 2006 on developing the plan. So there’s a great deal of specific detail fleshing out that vision.

However, the meeting was dominated by a single issue—the proposed upzoning of “subarea 260,” the commercial district centered at 25th Street and Western Avenue. The upzoning will allow significantly denser and higher development.

This feature of the plan drew the vast majority of critical comments at the meeting.

At the heavy-duty political end, Rep. Janice Hahn—a resident of the local South Shores

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

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from p. 3

Density Increase Proposed in Community Plan followed with the reminder. “This is peninsula area that the San Pedro plan is contained in. We come to it, not through it.”

But the majority of the testimony came from residents, some of whom had circulated peti-

tions, talking to dozens—even hundreds of their neighbors—whose perspective was personal, passionate and down to earth.

Mark Smith was the first such resident to testify and the tone-setter for the evening. He lives adjacent to the existing commercial area and said he has experienced “many security and privacy problems,” which he expects to dramatically worsen under the proposed plan.

“I’m really strongly opposed to rezoning property in any way,” Smith said. “A 75-foot height limit on that property is extremely inappropriate.

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

The intersection of 25th Street and Western Avenue in the South Shores neighborhood in San Pedro. File photo.

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It would make the value of my property and the quality of my life significantly decrease.”

Shortly after Smith, Jack Marcenkowski spoke. He began by saying he supported the broad purposes of the plan, but, “The idea to change the zoning of subarea 260 is misguided, and it definitely will not improve our community.

It will destroy it. It will destroy its character and it will lower the property value.”

“I can’t believe that this is even thought about,” Hugh Von Kleist chimed in. In terms of density alone, “I can’t turn left” in the morning

because of the traffic. “We need to lower the density, if anything.”

Von Kleist was one of several present who gathered petitions opposing the zoning change.

“I found out about this less than a week ago…and I spent the last couple of days walking up and down South Shores, getting over 200 petitions signed,” he said. “And, I’m telling you, nobody knew about this…I think the timing of this is perfect. Because if people really did know about this, this gymnasium wouldn’t hold these people.”

After the meeting, several South Shore residents shared their suspicions with Random Lengths that a specific developer with an alreadyplanned project for the 25th Street and Western Avenue subarea was behind the proposed rezoning. The perception is understandable, given the long history of similar secret backroom dealing at the Harbor Department, which is a semi-autonomous city agency.

But the Planning Department is wired quite differently and, though not immune to developer pressure, a much more straightforward explanation is available: In principle, upzoning subarea 260 can actually be seen as consistent with the plan’s vision, as reflected in the ideas of promoting “well-designed and economically vibrant commercial corridors” and “new development located near transit and integrated with local businesses.”

City planner, Debbie Lawrence, who has lead the process, confirmed that explanation in a follow-up interview.

“When we started our outreach in 2006, we met with various focus groups in the area, and the neighborhood councils,” Lawrence explained. “What we heard from everybody was to leave alone the single-family and the multifamily and all the residential neighborhoods and just put the growth in other places. So what we did is, in accordance with our framework plan, we directed growth into the commercial centers, where there’s already existing services and development.

“We tried to come up with capacity along the commercial corridors and our commercial areas.

That particular area at 25th and Western, was a continued on following page

from prevoius page

Plan

neighborhood commercial area and we thought we could increase capacity there.”

The planners did hear opposition at the neighborhood council level earlier this year, but that was during the summer.

“At that point the EIR [environmental impact report] had already been completed,” Lawrence explained.

Principal City Planner Ken Bernstein, who heads the unit Lawrence works in, stepped in to explain that this sort of planning glitch is not unusual—indeed, it’s part of the reason the process is structured as it is.

“It’s important to point out that the draft plan, and what was presented to the community at the hearing this week, represent preliminary recommendations only,” Bernstein said. “Indeed, the public response and public input is the very purpose of holding a public hearing and open house in the community at this stage in the process.”

As for the dog that didn’t bark—the lack of any serious objections to the intensive work done on downtown San Pedro, Bernstein said, “The entire team that has worked on this plan has done considerable outreach over more than a 5-year period. And the plan is very clear that part of the vision of this new community plan is to reinforce the downtown area and enhance the connections between downtown and the waterfront, and we did not hear any significant objections to those goals and policies.”

Finally, Lawrence explained that the 2010 census information was included in the updated draft EIR, but was not used to recalculate the planning baseline. “We’ve received comments

Change Agent

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

The Port of Los Angeles has selected The LA Waterfront Alliance as the developer for the Ports O’ Call opportunity site, Executive Director Geraldine Knatz told the Harbor Commission at a special meeting on Dec. 20. This means that the Port will enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement, but it does not guarantee that the development will take place. If the process falls apart for whatever reason, the Port would return to the remaining pool of six other developers to select a second option, Knatz explained.

While some also-rans seemed promising, the rejected proposals included two that clearly were not: One for an outlet mall, and another focused on a dozen chain restaurants. Both would ignore and erase San Pedro’s culture and history, a direct violation of the spirit of the Urban Land Institute study on Ports O’ Call redevelopment. A fact, which to its credit, Port staff brought to the attention of all the developers.

The Waterfront Alliance is a partnership between the Ratkovich Company of Los Angeles developer Wayne Ratkovich, which has done major large-scale projects and San Pedro-based Jerico Development company, which has specializes in smaller-scale adaptive reuse of fully restored, historic commercial properties in San Pedro and Long Beach. One such project is the Brown Brothers Building on 6th Street.

For full story, go to www.randomlengthsnews.com.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Rep. Janice Hahn and 33 other members of Congress called on Speaker John Boehner, Dec. 19, to bring legislation banning high capacity ammunition clips to the floor for a vote before the end of this Congress.

Since January, Hahn has been a co-sponsor of H.R. 308, the “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act,” which would ban the types of high capacity ammunition clips used in the recent mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The bill presently has 140 co-sponsors.

“There is absolutely no justification for why these types of ammunition clips are so easily available,” Hahn said. “They were designed to kill as many as people as possible as quickly as possible and they have no business being on our streets.”

Beck Vows to Increase Police Presence at Schools

LOS ANGELES—On Dec. 17, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck announced plans to increase the presence of the LAPD at the city’s more than 540 public elementary and middle schools, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

The idea is to have uniformed officers visit public school campuses daily basis. Charter and private schools that want to participate will be included. Beck said he and his aides are in the process of developing the details of the strategy, which will be implemented when students return from winter break.

The amount of time the LAPD will take at the schools will be brief, because the visits will take place as part of regular patrol duties.

About 1,200 police officers would be diverted to 457 elementary schools and 86 middle schools in Los Angeles, an ambitious goal given that the department already is strained and short-handed. The officers visiting the schools probably would not shift much so that they can build a rapport with students, staff and faculty The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced it too would be increasing patrols around schools in its jurisdiction and making regular visits to the campuses. Most of the schools are in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Long Beach Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell is taking similar measures, having police do foot patrols on school campuses of his city.

Supt. Deasy Pledges Safety Review

LOS ANGELES—On Dec. 17, Los Angeles School District Superintendent John Deasy pledged to review safety protocols in response to the Newtown, Conn. shooting that killed 20 children, seven adults and the shooter.

Would Be Copycats Arrested for School Threats

LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles Police Department arrested Kyle Bangayan, Dec. 16, for allegedly threatening schools in Los Angeles on a Facebook post.

He allegedly made some threats against a number of elementary schools on the social media site.

Bangayan, 24, was taken into custody after police search his parents’ home in east Hollywood area of Los Angeles, where they found nine firearms, including handguns, rifles and a shotgun. Bangayan, a resident of Pomona is in custody in lieu $500,00 for bail. But prosecutors declined to file charges because the comments had been too vague.

The Diamond Bar Police Department also is investigating allegations that a 14-year-old student at Canyon View Junior High School threatened to bring a gun to campus and kill a teacher this past week.

The incidents come on tail of the recent massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where a man killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide.

Other areas in the country are cracking down on similar threats. The Associated Press reported that police in Indiana arrested a high school student who threatened schools, removing six guns from his home. Another teenager was arrested in Tennessee for allegedly posting similar threats online was arrested. Another teenager, also in Tennessee was arrested after allegedly calling an elementary school and threatening it with a bomb, CNN reported.

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The Local Publication You Actually Read December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

machista culture, she completed her second year of studies as an accountant at the Universidad Autónoma de México—an anomaly for women who don’t come from well-off families in that country.

“The opportunity was for the man, not for the woman,” said Carrera, who did not complete her degree. “I think that having a certain amount of education has helped me because it allows me to visualize a better life for my children.”

Dissatisfied with her life in Mexico, she decided to follow her boyfriend, who lived in the United States. Her now husband has become one of best supporters. But not every woman is as lucky, she said.

“We are meant to be mothers, to be wives, to be daughters, to be sisters but we never take time to inspire ourselves in saying, ‘We are women, lets take time for ourselves,’ and that is where there is so much conformity and we stay like ‘unlit,’” she said.

The preparation of women can create change in a system that often keeps women from living life to their full potential, she said. Carrera believes her mission is to prepare more leaders, educate and train others to take the rein and create change.

“I believe in many things but I believe that to accomplish all of my goals, I have to first meet the basic ones, which are my family,” said Carrera, the mother of three. “If (a) woman prepares herself and provides a good direction to the children, she can create a healthy family and at the same time educate other women.”

Port Picks Local Developer For Ports O’ Call

Hahn Call for Ban on High Capacity Ammunition

LAUSD has more than 1,000 schools. Deasy estimated that, so far, it appeared that fewer than 10 campuses lack a secure perimeter. Still, he said, additional measures would be undertaken to make campuses more secure. He sent three school police officers to Connecticut to learn about the tragedy and how the district can better prevents such situations.

DESIGNS

from p. 2

on this and we will be taking a look at all these comments, and responding in the final EIR, and addressing this in the staff report on the plan,” Bernstein added. “These are points we are considering.”

As for what comes next, the staff will complete its report in February, with a hearing before the Harbor Area Planning Commission in early March, followed by a city council hearing before the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, before going to the full city council. That hearing would probably not be held in the Harbor Area, as several commentators had proposed, the planners explained, because more than one project would be heard in a single session.

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A Well Regulated Militia… from p. 1

the hands of our enemies, from the drug cartels south of our border to the Taliban worldwide.

After looking at the details of many of these shootings, we are struck by how many of these shootings took place in the Bible Belt of the United States, where some 50 percent of the homes have guns. But even in California, where gun control laws have been in place for many years and gun ownership is relatively low, mass murders continue.

All the laws and enforcement still can’t stop a person who has lost his mind from performing a kind of public suicide.

The diversity of motives that were at the root of each of the tragedy differs. Many were the result of unresolved anger at past instances of bullying; some were the result of perpetrators suffering from psychiatric issues; and, more often than not, there was a whole combination of factors that resulted in mental health breakdown leading to these murders. But the single most common denominator in December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary Newtown, Conn.

28 dead

Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot his mother then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary, where he shot the glass doors to gain entrance. The principal and therapist heard the gunshots and went to the scene where they were shot and killed on sight. Lanza then proceeded on his killing spree, killing 20 children and four teachers.

Lanza subsequently committed suicide.

October 21, 2012 Azana Spa Shootings Brookfield, Wis. 4 dead

Radcliffe Franklin Haughton shot and killed four people and wounded four others at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wis. Haughton was the estranged husband of a spa worker. He subsequently committed suicide hours after the shooting.

August 5, 2012 Sikh Temple Oak Creek, Wis. 6 dead

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

Wade Michael Page, an avowed white supremacists shot and killed six people and wounded four others at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. After being

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each of these cases was easy access to an abundance of guns.

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” is a line that the NRA so often uses to argue against gun control. The group had been silent in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

But now it is advocating for the placement of armed guards in schools to protect our nation’s children. That is more akin to a police state than any notion of freedom. The “freedom to bear arms” is a curiously relative phrase in this day and age.

Freedom? Which Freedoms are we talking about here? And are we willing to sacrifice one freedom to guarantee another?

The following is a list of the most significant mass murders from the past two years, in memoriam, deep regret and for the public record we publish them for your reflection.

wounded by the police, Page took his own life.

July 20, 2012 Century Movie Theater Aurora, Colo.

12 dead

James Eagan Holmes set off tear gas inside a midnight showing of “Batman Forever” and opened fire with an assortment of handguns and rifles.

May 30, 2012 Café Racer Seattle, Wash.

6 dead

On May 30, 2012, just before 11 a.m., Ian Stawicki walked into Café Racer in the University District of Seattle and opened fire with two .45-caliber handguns, killing four patrons and wounding the café’s chef.

Half an hour later, he killed and carjacked another woman in a nearby parking lot. He later committed suicide as police closed in.

April 2, 2012 Oikos University Oakland, Calif.

7 dead

Forty-three-year-old One L. Goh opened fire at a university campus with a semi automatic handgun. He stood students in line and shot them. He escaped and later turned himself in at a Safeway supermarket.

March 23, 2012 Ingleside Multiple Murders San Francisco, Calif.

5 dead Thirty-five year-old Binh Thai Luc went inside a house and murdered five people. The victims all died from blunt trauma.

October 12, 2011 Salon Meritage Seal Beach, Calif.

8 dead

Forty-one year-old Scott Evans Dekraai walked into a salon where his ex-wife was working and opened fire killing 8 people and injuring another.

He used a 9 mm Springfield, .45 Smith and Wesson, .44 Magnum. He was stopped half a mile from the scene in a white pickup truck without incident and then arrested.

October 5, 2011 Quarry Shooting Cupertino, Calif.

4 dead

Shooter Shareef Allman walked inside Lehigh Hansons Permenente cement plant during a safety meeting and began opening fire. He killed three people and six were injured. An autopsy revealed he committed suicide.

July 7, 2011 Home Multiple Murders Grand Rapids, Mich.

7 dead

A gunman killed seven people and wounded two others in a mass murder in Grand Rapids, Mich. The deaths took place in two homes, with the two non-fatal gunshot injuries taking place on the road. The suspected, Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, later killed himself after holding three people hostages in a third home following a police chase. Those killed included Dantzler’s estranged wife, their daughter, his former girlfriend and members of the other victims’ families. One of the non-fatal victims was also acquainted with Dantzler.

January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Giffords Shooting, Tucson, Ariz.

6 dead Jared Lee Loughner shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head and 17 others while they were meeting constituents outdoors. He also shot and killed Chief Judge John Roll and a 9-year-old girl. Rep. Giffords survived, but was in critical condition. The 20-yearold shooter was caught and arrested.

The editorial staff of Random Lengths News gathered this list

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By Yael Chan Oct. 10, 2012 ished

Originally publ

1. Signs of an Emerging Police State

The Obama Administration’s continuation of the previous administration’s assault on civil liberties in the name of is “War on Terror” with his signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

2. Oceans in Peril

In a haunting article highlighted by Project Censored, Mother Jones reporter Julia Whitty describes how the current destruction of the ocean’s complex ecosystems to the level that caused mass extinction 252 million years ago.

3. U.S. Deaths from Fukushima

Studies secured from Freedom of Information Act requests showed 22,000 more American deaths as a result of the March 11, 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster

4. FBI Agents Responsible for Terrorist Plots

In an effort to identify and neutralize “lone wolf” acts of terrorism, the FBI have engaged in activities designed to entrap culprits by providing the plot, the means and the opportunity.”

5. Federal Reserve Loaned Trillions to Major Banks

The Federal Reserve, according to an audit loaned trillions in very low interest loans Project Censored/ to p. 19

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

of Corporations Run the Global Economy,” to describe how a network of transnational corporations are deeply interconnected, with 147 of them controlling 40 percent of the global economy’s total wealth.

For example, Philips and Soeiro write that in one such company, BlackRock Inc., “The eighteen members of the board of directors are connected to a significant part of the world’s core financial assets. Their decisions can change empires, destroy currencies, and impoverish millions.”

Another cluster of stories, “Women and Gender, Race and Ethnicity,” notes a pattern of underreporting stories that affect a range of marginalized groups. This broad category includes only three articles, and none are listed in the top 10. The stories reveal mistreatment of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, including being denied medical care and shackled during childbirth, and the rape and sexual assault of women soldiers in the U.S. military. The third story in the category concerns an Alabama anti-immigration bill, House Bill 56, that caused immigrants to flee Alabama in such numbers that farmers felt a dire need to “help farms fill the gap and find sufficient labor.” So the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries approached the state’s Department of Corrections about making a deal where prisoners would replace the fleeing farm workers.

But with revolutionary unrest around the world, and the rise of a mass movement that connects disparate issues together into a simple, powerful class analysis — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent paradigm popularized by Occupy Wall Street—this year’s Project Censored offers an element of hope.

It’s not easy to succeed at projects that resist corporate dominance, and when it does happen, the corporate media is sometimes reluctant to cover it. Number seven on the Top 25 list is the story of how the United Nations designated 2012 the International Year of the Cooperative, recognizing the rapid growth of co-op businesses, organizations that are part-owned by all members and whose revenue is shared equitably among members. One billion people worldwide now work in co-ops.

The Year of the Cooperative is not the only good-news story discussed by Project Censored this year. In Chapter 4, Yes! Magazine’s Sarah Van Gelder lists “12 ways the Occupy movement and other major trends have offered a foundation for a transformative future.” They include a renewed sense of “political self-respect” and fervor to organize in the United States, debunking of economic myths such as the “American dream,” and the blossoming of economic alternatives

The Local Publication You Actually Read

P

eople who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama.

That’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s over-reaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

Project Censored has been documenting inadequate media coverage of crucial stories since it began in 1967 at Sonoma State University. Each year, the group considers hundreds of news stories submitted by readers, evaluating their merits.

Students search Lexis-Nexis and other databases

to see if the stories were under reported, and if so, the stories are fact-checked by professors and experts in relevant fields.

A panel of academics and journalists chooses the Top 25 stories and rates their significance. The project maintains a vast online database of under reported news stories that it has “validated” and publishes them in an annual book. Censored 2013: Dispatches from the Media Revolution.

For the second year in row, Project Censored has grouped the Top 25 list into topical “clusters.” This year, categories include “Human cost of war and violence” and “Environment and health.” Project Censored director, Mickey Huff, told us the idea was to show how various under covered stories fit together into an alternative narrative, not to say that one story was more censored than another.

“The problem when we had just the list was that it did imply a ranking,” Huff said. “It takes away from how there tends to be a pattern to the types of stories they don’t cover or under-report.”

In May, while Project Censored was working on the list, another 2012 list was issued: the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations, whose influence peppers the Project Censored list in a variety of ways.

Consider this year’s top Fortune 500 company: ExxonMobil. The oil company pollutes everywhere it goes, yet most stories about its environmental devastation go under-reported.

Weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin (58 on the Fortune list), General Dynamics (92), and Raytheon (117) are tied into stories about U.S. prisoners in slavery conditions manufacturing parts for their weapons and the under-reported war crimes in Afghanistan and Libya.

These powerful corporations work together more than most people think. In the chapter exploring the “Global 1 percent,” writers Peter Philips and Kimberly Soeiro explain how a small number of well-connected people control the majority of the world’s wealth. In it, they use Censored story number 6, “Small Network

such as community land trusts, time banking and micro-energy installations.

They also include results achieved from pressure on government, like the delay of the Keystone Pipeline project, widespread efforts to override the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the removal of dams in Washington state after decades of campaigning by Native American and environmental activists and the enactment of single-payer health care in Vermont.

As Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed writes in the book’s foreword, “The majority of people now hold views about Western governments and the nature of power that would have made them social pariahs 10 or 20 years ago.”

Citing polls from the corporate media, Mosaddeq writes: “The majority are now skeptical of the Iraq War; the majority want an end to U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan; the majority resent the banks and financial sector, and blame them for the financial crisis; most people are now aware of environmental issues, more than ever before, and despite denialist confusion promulgated by fossil fuel industries, the majority in the United States and Britain are deeply concerned about global warming; most people are wary of conventional party politics and disillusioned with the mainstream parliamentary system.”

“In other words,” he writes, “there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward a progressive critique of the current political economic system.”

And ultimately, it’s the public—not the president and not the corporations—that will determine the future. There may be hope after all.

Here’s Project Censored’s Top 10 list for 2013:

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Guns and Freedom Will the recent tragedy save us from the next mass murder?

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

I distinctly remember my first day on the job at the Pacific View halfway house for the mentally ill. I was 23 and had just taken a part-time job while attending college. I was excited about starting a new job. And, as I recall, the day started out normally, except that within the first hour the young Latino director took me aside to explain that one of the residents, a young schizophrenic man, had somehow snuck a loaded rifle into the facility and blown his brains out in the bathroom. For obvious reasons, he didn’t want me to see the aftermath, and with a bloody rag in hand, explained few details.

Only later, did I come to learn that this mental patient had simply walked into the Union War Surplus shop down on Sixth Street, paid cash for the gun, no questions asked and carried it back to the home, which had no security. This was before the days California background checks became the norm. With today’s gun laws, both felons and the mentally ill are barred from buying weapons at retail stores. In retrospect, I now realize that things could have ended up way different.

Moreover, as I look back on growing up in America, it seems like my entire life has been punctuated with tragic murders that stand out as national historic markers. The assassinations of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy are shared experiences of my generation. I can tell you exactly where I was the moment I heard the news of each of these tragic events, as can most of you.

I am not sure that it ever gets any easier or that any of us can make any greater sense out of these kinds of violent acts, whether they are political assassinations by lone gunmen, conspiracies or mass murders by the mentally deranged.

In the end, the shock of the moment seems to incapacitate our rationale and confront us with our own national hypocrisy.

While we celebrate our secular and religious national faiths, espousing “Peace on Earth,” our most conservative law-and-order brothers contend that posting armed guards at every school is the solution. They even suggest that giving school principals guns could be a deterrent. Even Texas Gov. Rick Perry, expressed support for allowing teachers to carry guns on campus.

8

Knowing the teachers and school administrators in my life as I do, I am not so sure that they are any more capable, or more mentally stable, than any other category of citizen to be packing heat.

Nor do I believe that the presence of Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers in schools, as Chief Charlie Beck has recently ordered, is any more of a deterrent to violence. Much of this seems to be knee-jerk responses for media attention and not well-considered policy. Do we really wish to create the same kind of police state mentality that occurred after 9/11 with the so-called Patriot Act? I still resent being scanned and patted down at every courthouse, government building and airport.

On the liberal side of the discussion, the idea of outlawing or even buying back any significant percentage of the 300 million or so guns in America is practically impossible and particularly ludicrous. We are a nation born of violent revolution, a nation redeemed by the bloodiest of civil wars. As Americans, we continue to enunciate an “exceptionalism” backed freedom, supported by the most technologically advanced war machine in the history of the world. We fundamentally believe as a nation that peace and freedom can only come from the barrel of a gun and that justice is, in part, meted out with the use of controlled violence. Ultimately, we believe that good will triumph over evil by way of the sword. These are powerful beliefs, embedded deeply in our national creed and our brand of freedom and liberty.

Nothing, short of a national catharsis, will ever change any of this.

I don’t own a gun and I have never killed another human being. But I can imagine it. I see it on TV all the time. I have become inoculated to the shock value of blood and violence on screens, large and small. Yet, when it really happens, I am as stunned as anyone. I don’t support the death penalty and have opposed the vast majority of wars our country has fought with the exception of perhaps four. The rest, in my opinion, were unnecessary blood lust for economic supremacy and political gain. But, here we are again, standing with blood on our hands from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And the nation is crying. We are all responsible for this tragedy.

Publisher/Executive Editor James Preston Allen james@randomlengthsnews.com

“A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.”

—Mark Twain Vol. XXXIII : No. 27

Assoc. Publisher/Production Coordinator Suzanne Matsumiya info@graphictouchdesigns.com Managing Editor Terelle Jerricks editor@randomlengthsnews.com

Published every two weeks for the Harbor Area communi- Assistant Editor Zamná Ávila ties of San Pedro, RPV, Lomita, Harbor City, Wilmington, reportersdesk@randomlengthsnews.com Carson and Long Beach. Distributed at over 350 locations Senior Editor Paul Rosenberg throughout the seven cities of the Harbor Area.

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A Hunter’s Perspective on the NRA

By Ari LeVaux, Flash in the Pan Columnist

The National Rifle Association claims to be the largest pro-hunting organization in the world.

But as a hunter, the NRA couldn’t represent me less. And as a human being, I object to being associated with those bullies. The NRA is not for hunters, any more than AAA is for bicyclists.

Sure, some hunters are NRA members, but first and foremost the NRA serves gun fetishists and the firearms industry. In 2011, nearly 14 million Americans hunted, while NRA members number about four million-fewer than half of whom actually hunt.

Unlike a lot of gun fetishists, hunters actually use their guns as the killing tools that they are. I don’t shoot for the joy of killing, or for the thrill of a loud explosion an inch from my head. The gun is not a toy that we have a constitutional right to play with, but a tool to which we’re guaranteed access.

While most hunters don’t have the firearms experience or training of law enforcement or military personnel, a hunter’s experience nonetheless imparts a significant level of competence with a gun. Hunters feel the jitters while trying to shoot, and we shoot in all kinds of uncomfortable and less than ideal circumstances. We’ve seen what bullets can do to a body. We can contemplate, in a somewhat informed way, questions like how or if an armed civilian might stop a mass murder.

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And if for some reason a non-government militia had to be organized, it would doubtless be composed largely of hunters, along with military veterans and, of course, the gun freaks.

The NRA wants desperately to welcome more hunters into its ranks, but fewer than one in five hunters are members, and most hunters who haven’t joined by now probably won’t. Like me, many hunters consider the NRA a bunch of paranoid loonies, with an increasing volume of innocent blood on their hands.

When I say “Fuck the NRA,” as I do quite often lately, it’s for a host of reasons both personal and political, but has nothing to do with my feelings for guns or the 2nd amendment.

The the very fact that it’s kind of scary to say “Fuck the NRA” is one of the biggest reasons to say it. It’s a bullying organization, quick to use language like “traitor.” NRA members have a lot of guns, and the organization appears to keep track of who does and says what. Ask any politician or gun-control activist. The Big Brother style intimidation tactics extend to individual hunters like myself.

When I take my gun to the store to get it worked on, the information slip I fill out includes a line for my NRA number-despite the fact that only about 4 percent of gun owners are NRA continued on following page

Random Lengths News editorial office is located at 1300 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, (310) 519-1016. Address correspondence regarding news items and news tips only to Random Lengths News, P.O. Box 731, San Pedro, CA 90733-0731, or email to editor @randomlengthsnews.com.

Send Letters to the Editor or requests for subscription information to james @ randomlengthsnews.com. To be considered for publication, all Letters to the Editor should be typewritten, must be signed, with address and phone number included (these will not be published, but for verification only) and be kept to about 250 words. To submit advertising copy email adv@randomelengthsnews.com or reads@ randomlengthsnews.com.

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Random Lengths News presents issues from an alternative perspective. We welcome articles and opinions from all people in the Harbor Area. While we may not agree with the opinions of contributing writers, we respect and support their 1st Amendment right to express those opinions. Random Lengths News is a member of Standard Rates and Data Reporting Services and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. (ISN #0891-6627). All contents Copyright 2012 Random Lengths News. All rights reserved.

RANDOMLetters Miracles Could Happen for San Pedro Ports O’Call

I have been hoping to get a premium outlet center for this site for years—falling on deaf ears. Now the McArthur Glen Group has far surpassed my thoughts for Ports O’Call Village. They have outlets in Florence, Rome, Naples, Milan, London, Athens—just to mention a few. If this group can build in all those sites, why not here in San Pedro. Whoever will be reviewing the proposals we can pray they will accept their proposal and put San Pedro on the map.

Joyce Hall San Pedro

POCV Tenant Letter to the Port

As a 16-year tenant in Ports O’Call Village and 26 years as a business owner in San Pedro, I find that I must address my letter of complaint to you directly.

Our firm has great concerns about the security, or lack thereof at POCV. I have just been advised that yet another business has been broken into. This is now the third

burglary in the Village in the past 45 days since your department took over management.

I made myself very clear at the Oct. 4, 2012 Harbor Department tenant meeting and subsequently with Jessica Rivie, that the Village is extremely vulnerable to burglary during the night and early evening hours. And I was assured by your staff that proper security would be provided. This obviously has not been done.

The present security, riding around on their motor scooter during the daytime, are totally useless.

The simple solution is to have at least one security person inside the Village from after the businesses close to first light the next day, 7 days per week. This would be less costly than what you have now.

The present situation presents undue hardship on all of the small family-operated businesses in the Village. With the current economy, just being able to break even with sales and expenses each month is a goal. The added cost of a burglary, loss of equipment, stock, loss of sales and damage should not be a concern.

As a proper property manager,

this should be addressed immediately as all the tenants pay for this protection in our monthly rent payments. And as it has not been resolved, I personally, am discussing this with the tenants with my recommendation to not pay the CAM charge portion of our rents until this is settled.

James Zupke San Pedro

Drop a Letter on Congress

Join PDA’s Call Congress Team.

A farmer friend of mine once said: “I don’t mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win.”

His words should be our motto in the coming weeks. We just won the 2012 election. I hit the road with PDA this year from Florida to Wisconsin, North Carolina to California, and it was our votes-progressive votes--that won the day for President Obama, for new Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin, and for Congress Members Alan Grayson and Mark Pocan.

Now it’s time for us to “win the post election,” to win the progressive policies that the people just voted for. It’s time to end the wars, rollback Citizens United, put a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street

speculators (to tax the rich, invest in jobs, education and green energy), raise the minimum wage, end the war on drugs, cut the wasteful military budget, and leave Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid alone.

The people spoke clearly on Election Day, rejecting the walking, talking 1% symbol - Mitt Romney - who proudly declared that “corporations are people.”

Now we need to keep speaking loudly, so the politicians in Washington don’t suddenly get amnesia, and forget what the election was all about.

This is a job for PDA--creating enough “street heat” that it feels like “suite heat” in the Capitol.

And true to form, PDA went immediately into action, already walking the halls of Congress the week before Thanksgiving, leafletting for “Prosperity, Not Austerity.” If you want to help PDA keep the heat on, please donate here.

PDA is once again going to Congressional offices this Wednesday December 19th. Can you help with a letter drop at your Congress Member’s local district office? If you can, please contact Conor@ More Letters/ to p. 10

from previous page

A Hunter’s Perspective

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

$40 million from the nation’s gun manufacturers, according to the Violence Policy Center.

Fear mongering is one of the best ways to create demand for guns, and nearly every piece of NRA propaganda does that. We need guns to protect us from the government, the UN, home intruders, strangers on the street. We all need to be armed! On the Monday following the Sandy Hook shootings, a Utah sixth-grader took a pistol to elementary school, for “protection.”

Obama’s re-election has been an absolute bonanza for the industry, as was his initial election. But he can’t get reelected again, despite what the conspiracy theorists might tell you. That reality, combined with the unprecedented national trauma and soul-searching that Sandy Hook has inspired, could spell tough times ahead for the gun industry. Stock in publicly traded gun manufacturers like Ruger, which makes my hunting rifle, have been punished since Sandy Hook.

On the Tuesday after the shooting, Cerberus Capitol Management announced it was selling its 95 percent stake in The Freedom Group, a privately held conglomerate whose companies include some of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, including Remington, Barnes bullets, and Bushmaster,

The Local Publication You Actually Read

members. Will the gunsmith treat my gun with less love if I leave that line blank? Does the NRA keep track of who services which gun when-even as it decries federal attempts to keep track of guns? I face the same blank field requesting my NRA number when I buy a membership at my local shooting range-some ranges won’t sell membership to non-NRA members.

Among Americans with experience using guns as weapons, rather than as toys, compare 14 million hunters with 3 million active and reserve military, a million police officers, and 7 million military veterans with combat experience. Of course, there is some crossover among these groups.

And again, hunters have the least amount of formal firearms training. But in terms of votes, any way you slice it, there is no larger population of Americans with experience shooting at things than hunters. The NRA doesn’t speak for us; we need to speak for ourselves.

Fewer than one in five hunters is an NRA member. So how is it that the NRA has so much power, and the seeming ability to control politicians like marionettes? Money, of course.

More than can be raised from membership dues and bake sales alone. Between 2005 and 2010, the NRA took in about

which makes the AR-15 assault rifle used by Adam Lanza.

Could a hunter-or some other armed citizen-have prevented the Sandy Hook shootings? Such a thing has not happened in at least 30 years, according to a recent study by Mother Jones, which looked at 62 mass shootings in the last 30 years, “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun....in recent rampages in which armed civilians attempted to intervene, they not only failed to stop the shooter but also were gravely wounded or killed.”

Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence supports the observation that gun owners and their families are more likely to be shot by their own guns than to successfully repel attackers with them. In pretending otherwise, the NRA is selling the myth of security while it sells public safety down the river.

The NRA needs hunters a lot more than hunters need the NRA. And the nation needs the opinions of hunters more than it needs the opinion of the NRA. Hunters are intermediaries between government armed forces and private citizens. We are armed citizens, who know what guns can do, and if sensible gun-control policy is ever to be pursued, hunters need to be part of the conversation.

Follow Art LeVaux on Twitter @arilevaux.

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P

RANDOMLetters

OTUS sits in his private study reading and smoking in the early morning hours as his wife and children sleep. Lacking his usual focus, he moves between piles of papers and books on his desk. A report on grain subsidies goes half digested and a new Charles Lindberg biography sits untouched. He shifts in his chair. Post re-election glee had quickly given way to a game of fiscal cliff chicken. And, while a majority of Americans had voted for him, he’s still stuck with an obstructionist House and a sluggish Senate. He wonders which of the past presidents also suffered stress-related insomnia. He sets aside a report on salmon farming and finds a green file left by his chief of staff. Potus reads a note from the COS paper clipped to the cover.

from p. 9

pdamerica.org. If you can’t do a letter drop, but can make calls to PDAers to support our letter drops, contact fox@pdamerica.org and join our Call Congress Team!

Let’s keep our marchin’ boots on, and our agitatin’ loud. If we do, we’ll win, and then we’ll win again. More important, real people will win better futures.

Your PDA Pal in Agitation, Jim Hightower

Open Letter to UTLA

POTUS, Some odds and ends for your edification. Don’t know how you want to handle this stuff or if we just pretend like we know nothing about it, probably better that we don’t.

Best,

COS

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

POTUS opens the green file and finds a Christmas card that depicts Sinterklass, the Dutch version of Santa Claus getting a piggy back ride on the back of his slave, Zwarte Piet. It reads:

10

Dear Barack, Congratulations on winning re-election. I will do my best to make your next four years a raging hell.

Go fuck yourself,

John McCain “What a pathetic little son of a bitch,” POTUS thinks and smiles. It was similar to the card McCain sent him four years ago. It read: Dear Barack, Congratulations on winning the election. Don’t believe the hype. They voted against Sarah, not for an affirmative action party hack.

I will do my best to make your next four years a raging hell.

Go fuck yourself,

John McCain Making a mental note to visit Arizona as often as possible in the new year, POTUS sets the card aside and moves on to a CIA briefing paper from the Uruguay desk. Apple founder Steve Jobs was spotted in the city of Colonia. A team of U.S. Army Rangers and a tasked satellite confirmed that Jobs was indeed alive and living in a house by the sea with a 23year-old graduate student from Wellesley.

“Well, I guess that’s one option,” POTUS exhales deeply. He wonders if he should forward the information to the Internal Revenue Service. He recalls a sage piece of advice from his predecessor, “Hone the instinct that tells you what is and what is not your business.”

A group of citizens were lobbying hard for the release of Charles Manson so

A fictional look into President Obama’s insomnia.

By Danny Simon, Contributing Writer that they could take him across the border and execute him. A little girl with three functional eyes was born in Watonga, Okla. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wanted permission to test a new hallucinogenic drug on shoppers at a mall in Dayton, Ohio. The aerosolized drug showed promise as a method of crowd control: it incapacitated subjects via laughter and painless vomiting. POTUS recalls that Dayton is Tea Party territory. He scribbles ‘yes’ and then his initials in the margin.

Much that followed had to do with the impending end of the Mayan calendar. As with Y2K, many of the nation’s elite were preparing for something, anything to happen; biblical plagues, zombie-flu, the complete dissolution of the global marketplace. Fortified bunkers surrounded by laser fencing dotted the hinterlands. A few of the names on the list surprise him; Matt Damon and his family rented a Carnival Cruise ship for the event.

“What a little bitch,” POTUS blurts aloud.

But then he reminds himself that, coincidentally, he and his family were scheduled to be on “vacation” at Camp Sojourn located in the Arctic Circle on Dec. 21.

The Department of Justice sent a briefing about a company based in Sedona, Ariz. that offered spiritual protection for the End of Days.

For $10,000, Soul Crystal ™offered to encode a client’s soul onto a crystal and store it deep

beneath the ground. Once encoded, the client’s soul would last the estimated thousand years until technological evolution made it possible to read the Soul Crystal ™ and write it onto a fresh host body. POTUS reads an addendum from the attorney general: POTUS, While this con is obviously disturbing, what is worse is the large number of clients who have already paid the fee. I’m not entirely sure any laws have been broken, though as the encoding process requires sleeping with the Soul Crystal ™ stuffed high up in the anal cavity, I feel someone should do something, though what, I do not know. As the company also offers its services for pets, we could possibly argue a form of animal abuse, though obviously that would impugn the owners. Clearly, something needs to be done, but when has it been the position of this government to stop people from stuffing things up their asses?

AG Long spasmodic waves of warmth ripples through his body. POTUS laughs so hard he rips a high pitched fart, and then he laughs some more. The world may be coming to an end, but at least he knows what Christmas present to buy for the senior senator from Arizona.

Dear United Teachers Los Angeles, I would like to congratulate your collective efforts at supporting California Proposition 30, your hard work deserves to be recognized!

On behalf of the more than 12,000 teachers who have lost their jobs since 2008, I am officially requesting a response from United Teachers Los Angeles in regards to The Los Angeles Unified School District’s failure to comply with California Statute AB 114?

Since July 2011, LAUSD has been in violation of this State mandate requiring that all student to teacher ratios be returned to the previous years equivalent.

As a dues paying union member, I am respectfully requesting that you notify all teachers who received a reduction in force notice since 2008 when they can expect to return to work?

What, if anything will UTLA do now that California Proposition 30 has been approved and public schools will finally be appropriately funded?

With the holiday season here, there is a legitimate concern RIF’ed and substitute teachers have, especially those of us with young families and children.

As our union representation, you are obligated to represent your constituency in good faith; what then does UTLA intend to do about those of us who were illegally removed from the classroom?

If UTLA does not advocate for these members, we the teachers who have been RIF’ed since 2008 would like a refund of our union dues for the Holiday season.

If teachers have lost their jobs since 2008, it is safe to assume that those teachers have paid an average of $4800 in monthly dues before being illegally removed from the classroom, in violation of California State Mandate AB 114.

We respectfully request these dues be refunded to ALL RIF’ed personnel or you reinstate each of these professionals to their previous positions without further delay.

David R. Garcia Montebello

We Have Much to Be Thankful

Despite our fears that the post-Citizens United tsunami of dark money would allow the right-wing propaganda machine to buy this election, extremism was soundly defeated.

Even if only for the time being.

The liarrhea on TV and on endless mailers is finally over. Whole forests disappeared for this election circus. (The French spend a few months and $50 million for their presidential election. Our $2.5 billion by comparison can only be seen as a colossal waste of this country’s treasure).

Obamacare, as imperfect as it is, will be implemented. It is a step forward toward providing affordable health care for everybody. More will need to be done.

The American people may finally be waking up to the reality of our planet getting warmer, with violent weather events such as superstorm More Letters/ to p. 19

by: B. Noel Barr, Contributing Writer

teven Spielberg is responsible for some of the greatest films of all time. His eye for telling a story visually is without question the best. His historically based films like Saving Private Ryan, Amistad and Schindler’s List, are epic films in their own right. Here comes Lincoln, which stands to be the best picture of the year.

Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as an actor redefines how we look at Lincoln. This is very different from the Lincoln played by Raymond Massey in the actor’s Academy Awardnominated role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Henry Fonda had a go at Lincoln in the 1939 picture Young Mr. Lincoln. There have been many others who have played the role. None will own this historical character like Daniel Day-Lewis.

Lewis lives and embodies the deeply troubled 16th president during a time when he could have mollified his critics by not amending the constitution. Instead, Lincoln forges ahead to clarify the Emancipation Proclamation by freeing the 4 million-plus slaves in 1863. With the 13th Amendment in 1865, he stated that all men are equal under the law and slavery

would end.

It would take another 99 years for black voting rights to be fully protected, a result of Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Amplifying the rights of the individual and protecting persons of any race, creed, or color from discrimination of any kind. However, amazingly today we still fight for these rights.

What our national understanding of Lincoln is during this pivotal time in American history is looked at with an almost saint-like quality. Daniel Day-Lewis shows a man of flaws and questions who has found a way to galvanize the nation into a country built under God’s laws of equality. Not in the sense of church over state, but in that

ACE: Arts • Culture • Entertainment ACE • Art, Culture, & Entertainment

S

Lincoln Continued on page 16.

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013 December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013 – 15, 2012

11 11

Support Your Community. Shop Local!

Celebrations Around the Harbor

December 31 Brazilian New Year’s Party Celebrate the New Year Brazilian style, starting at 8 p.m. Dec. 31, at the Queen Mary.

The event will feature Katia Morales and Brazilian Hearts, as well as sambistas and dancers. Cost runs from $25 to $75. Dress code: White.

Details: (818) 566-1111; www.BrazilianNites.com Venue: Queen Mary Location: 1126 Queens Hwy, Long Beach

starting at 9:30 p.m., at Harvelle’s in Long Beach.

Driven by fierce independence, unified by family and fortified by the brotherhood of music, the Delgado Brothers deliver topical anthem-worthy songs complemented by call-to-action lyrics and East Los Angeles Soul. Tickets run from $20 to $50.

Details: (562) 951-9701 Venue: Harvelles Long Beach Location: 207 E. Broadway, Long Beach

New Year’s Eve at Carson Center Celebrate the third annual New Year’s Eve party, starting at 8 p.m. Dec. 31, at the Carson Civic Center.

Admission starts from $75. The event is restricted to people 21 years old and older.

Details: www.clubzone.com Venue: Carson Civic Center Location: 801 E. Carson St., Carson

People’s New Year’s Celebration Join the party at People’s Palace with live music

by The Monte Cristos, starting at 8 p.m. with a free dance lesson. Tickets start at $25 in advance and $35 at the door.

Details: (310) 547-2348 Venue: People’s Palace Location: 365 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Brew Years Eve Party The San Pedro Brewing Company will get the year started with a party on the eve of the new year, Dec. 31 starting at 7 p.m. and ending at 2 a.m. DJ zRoe will be providing the tunes that you can dance your way to 2013 with.

Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing Company Location: 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Rick s Jamnesia Enjoy Rick’s Jamnesia, starting at 7 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel in Carson. Tickets start $60.

Details: (310) 722-8430 Venue: DoubleTree Hotel Location: 2 Civic Plaza Dr., Carson

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

New Years Eve with the Delgado Brothers Spend New Years Eve with the Delgado Brothers,

12

Next N Line Band Enjoy Next N Line Band, starting at 8:30 p.m., at Busters Beach House in Long Beach.

Details: (562) 598-9431 Venue: Busters Beach House Location: 168 N. Marina Dr., Long Beach

My Uncle Yehudi, Ravi Shankar & The Mystic East by: Lionel Rolfe, Contributing Writer

Pictured is George Harrison of the Beatles and Ravi Shankar. Harrison’s interest in and promotion of Indian styles into Western music was inspired in part by Shankar. File photo

Curried Brussel Sprouts and Sweet Potatoes: Simply Delicious! by: Christine Rodriguez, Dining Columnist

medically known to prevent colon cancer.

Sounds amazing, right? So now, it gets better. Add baked sweet potato, which is vitamin packed with super beta carotene (known for its use in cancer prevention), and bake those in a curry spice sauce.

The curry spice sauce has tumeric, a spice which is known for its anti-inflammatory healing remedy used for arthritis. Now, we are definitely creating a powerhouse full of health. Healing and wellness just happens to be the premium Farmers Market specials that you will serve for dinner tonight at a very inexpensive cost.

Ingredients: 2 medium sweet potatoes — peeled and cut in 2-inch cubes 15 brussel sprouts — washed and cut in half 2 cups of coconut cream 1 tablespoon of curry powder Directions: 1. Drizzle sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts with olive oil, sprinkle salt and crack some pepper on a baking pan with a loose foil to create some steam at 400 degrees.

2. Roast for 25 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, make the curry sauce by bringing to a simmer the coconut cream and then by adding one tablespoon of curry powder and whisked to a smooth consistency. Season with a dash of salt and pepper.

3. Add the curry sauce to the baking pan in the last 10 minutes in the oven.

Serve while hot.

Serves four to six people.

Shankar played with Yehudi at the Yehudi’s Bath Festival in the early 1960s. For two days, Yehudi was coached by Shankar. He wore a silk tunic and sat cross-legged on the stage for the performance. In 1962, Shankar and Yehudi recorded their first album together, “East Meets West.”

Shankar, of course, was admired by such giants of the popular music world as Dave Brubeck and the Beatles’ George Harrison, and in one joint television interview, Yehudi and another Beatle, John Lennon, had a difference of interpretation about Shankar.

This is a the first two parts of a story in three parts. The full story can be found at our website, randomlengthsnews.com.

Lionel Rolfe is the author of “The Menuhins: A Family Odyssey,” available on Amazon’s Kindle Store. Many of his other books are available there too. His new book, “The Misadventures of Ari Mendelsohn: A Mostly True Memoir Of California Journalism” has just become available in paperback form on Amazon as well.

Fast Delivery!

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

My love affair with brussel sprout stalks takes place at the Farmers Market.

These so beautifully bold and green vegetable are the color of healing, sturdy and strong, yet so sophisticated. They look like imposters of “tiny little baby lettuces,” — well that’s what my friend Tino calls them.

When I heard Tino say, “These are so cute, they look like tiny baby lettuce’s,” I bursted into tears of laughter.

“Nice to know you’re so sensitive Tino.”

OK, so maybe everyone secretly says that the first time they are introduced to brussel sprouts, but what I know for sure is that you will never forget the very first bite of a brussel sprout because it tastes nothing like a “tiny little baby lettuce.”

It’s much more exciting, intense and well just cruciferous! Cruciferous vegetables such as brussel sprouts, cabbage and broccoli, are

T

he death of Ravi Shankar last week made much mention of his close friendship with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who happened to be my uncle, with whom he made three albums, “East Meets West” in the ‘50s before Shankar hooked up with the Beatles.

Yehudi says that George Enesco, who was one of Yehudi’s earliest teachers, could perform great feats with all kinds of music. He could play any opera, symphony or chamber piece “in the most inspired fashion on the piano using various auxiliary means such as whistles, grunts and singing to convey the full impact and breadth of the score.” He orchestrated the horns with his

There is no ego in this music; the Indians have no Beethoven whose genius is honored age by age, for, instead of confining creation to rare, immortal individuals, it is extended to every artist who plays. Gradually, across the ages, our music has evolved from this mysterious form, now so strange to us,” Yehudi wrote.

ACE: Arts • Culture • Entertainment

Editors Note: On the world stage, Ravi Shankar played a pivotral role in expanding musical horizons for the entire Western world, earning the richly-deserved title of “godfather of world music”. For many music listeners, the story was simple: they heard, they were intranced, they fell in love. But the world’s musicians, the story behind the story is good deal more complicated.

In the rhythms and melodies they play, as well as the spirit that moves them, east and west have have ebbed and flowed into one another for thousands of years, and Shankar’s role was to foster a reawakening of what was already there within. Here is one writer’s reminiscing of how this played out in his own musically prominent family

grunts, the violins with his singing and whistles.

Enesco’s playing had a gypsy quality, an “impetuous, emotion-filled expressiveness.” Again it is interesting to note that Yehudi could just as well have been talking about his own playing, and the music of his Hasidic ancestors. Romania, where Enesco came from is on the very border of East and West.

Enesco also had a fascination with Oriental music and had even sat in on sessions of Ravi and Udi Shankar in the 30s. In Paris, Enesco took Yehudi to hear Balinese music at the great Colonial Exhibit.

Georges Enesco spoke of the way Yehudi played Mendelssohn: “He can give free reign to the Oriental something which is in every Jew, but that won’t do with Bach and Beethoven. They’re emotional, too, but in a restrained, classical way.”

Enesco was the reason Yehudi was first drawn to Europe; he wanted to study with the great Rumanian composer, perhaps because that man represented the Oriental influence Yehudi was searching for. To the child that Yehudi still was, Enesco must have looked like a Roman emperor. In Yehudi’s words, his head was topped by “a shaggy crown of black hair,” and he was “tremendously tall and romantic-looking.” To Yehudi, Enesco could have been one of his mother’s Tartar horsemen, yet his soul was mystical and musical. Not violent.

On one of the trips that my grandfather Moshe, Yehudi’s father, and Yehudi took to Enesco’s Sinaia (Rumania’s summer capital in the Carpathian Alps), they visited a gypsy camp. Yehudi remembers being fascinated by “the absolutely natural way the music spoke, by the way it imitated bird song and other natural sounds.” But Moshe was listening in amazement because the gypsies were playing the “Jewish melodies” he had sung as a child.

Moshe’s wife Marutha, too, was a carrier of the Eastern influence and it most showed in her trunk of costumes. She was fascinated by ethnic clothing and costumes were a part of her abundant fantasy life—the theme of which was a hunt for the exotic. Marutha had always wanted a Chinese grandchild, for instance, and Yehudi’s daughter, Zamira, provided her with a great-grandchild by marrying (and later divorcing) the Chinese pianist Fou T’song, by whom she had a son.

Of course this Oriental essence that all Jews carry and that Yehudi seemed to express so well, has been noted before. The great Martin Buber said that if you peer into the soul of any Jew, you would find there an Oriental element. In Yehudi’s case, the Oriental influence came primarily from his mother.

The intellect came from his father.

••• My mother Yaltah Menuhin, a prodigy pianist, told me that Yehudi met Shankar in the 30s in Indonesia. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I did read that Shankar went to concerts Yehudi performed in Paris in the 30s when he was still a boy.

For sure, Yehudi met Ravi Shankar, famed Indian sitar player, in 1952, and became an early apostle. In 1955 he played with a group of Indian musicians in New York. Since it was such an unusual concert for that time, he was asked to explain it in the New York Times in April 1955.

“The only parallel in our music is that found in the twelve-tone system of Schoenberg, which builds intricate compositions on the unalterable sequence of an established succession of notes.

Fax: 310-732-5804

13

Open New Year’s Eve From 10am–10pm

And Join Us On New Year’s Day from 11am–10pm for Good Food, Drink & Football On Our 7 Flat Screen TV’s.

As Always You Can Dine–In Or We Can Deliver To You!

1110 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro

310–732–5800

San Pedro’s Original ArtWalk— Fine Dining • Live Music Special Performances • Food Trucks!

Gallery 345

Gloria D Lee and Pat Woolley exhibit mixed media and watercolor paintings, books, small works and more. 6-9 pm 1st Thursday, and by appointment. Please call 310 545 0832 or 310 374 8055 for appointments or email artsail@roadrunner. com; www.gloriadlee.com; woolleybear@verizon.net ; www. teddytraveler.com• 345 W. 7th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731

The Loft Gallery

Portraits 20 featuring L.A. Assemblage Group.

Open Studios: Candice Gawne, Carol Hungerford, Sam Arno, Daniel Porras, Murial Olguin, Jan Govaerts, Anne Marie Rawlinson, & Nancy Towne Schultz.

401 S. Mesa St. • 310.831.5757 • Open 6–9pm & by appt.

(310) 831-0003 529 W. 7th Street, San Pedro, Calif. 9o731

Michael Stearns Studio

Currently showing “Sky Ladders” Assemblage works by Michael Stearns. Current works include paintings, papier mache and mixed media sculptures, reflecting interest in the southwestern landscape, spiritual studies and veteran issues.

Open 1st Thursday Art Walk, by appointment, or by chance.

347 W. 7th St. • 562.400.0544 • Michaelstearnsstudio.com

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

Support Your Community. Shop Local!

Richard Lopez Studio

14

Cosmic Abstracts and other Considerations By Richard Lopez: Topics exploring life’s ever-shifting balance of chaos and order. Art classes by appointment.

New works on display.

372 7th St. • 562.370.7883 • Ralopezart.com

Artist Studios & Galleries

Gallery 381 • 381 West 6th St. • 310-809-5082 Dwelling • 387 West 6th St. • 310-547-4222 Neil Nagy • 408 West 6th St. • 310-617-3459 Mike Rivero Studio • 414 West 6th St. • 310-720-3407 Dekor • 445 West 6th • St. 310-831-1800 fINdings Art Center • 470 West 6th St. • 310-489-1362 Arcade Gallery Ovation • 479 West 6th St. • 267-909-0799 Ancient Arts Stained Glass • 333 West 7th St. • 310-832-7613 Studio 339 • 339 West 7th St. • 310-514-1238 Allyson Vought • 356 West 7th St. 424-210-7475 Human Array Gallery • 357 West 7th St. • 408-475-8867 Nancy Crawford • 360 West 7th St. • 310-732-7922 Gallery Ls • 362 West 7th St. • 310-541-4354 Paul Turang • 364 West 7th St. • 310-547-9771 Gallery Neuartig • 366 West 7th St. • 213-973-8223 Jim Harter • 368 West 7th St. • 310-533-8753 Studio MNX • 370 West 7th St. Meredith Harbuck • 372 West 7th St. • 310-528-7184 Yoon Jin Kim • 374 West 7th St. • 310-514-2143 Julia Strickler • 376 West 7th St. • 310-908-3824 Shannon LaBelle • 378 West 7th St. Hiroko • 382 West 7th St. • 310-514-8881 SP Chamber Board Room Gallery • 390 W 7th St. • 310-832-7272 Gallery at the Vault • 407 West 7th St. • 310-548-6585 Shalla Javid Studio • 407 7th St. Unit 119 A • 918-557-2165 Scott Boren Borenstudios • 412 West 7th St. Yong Sin • 414 West 7th St. • 310-221-0283 Medea Gallery • 445 West 7th St. • 310-833-3831 Gallery 478 • 478 West 7th St. • 310-732-2150 Norm Looney • 318 S. Pacific Ave. • 310-548-6293 Warschaw Gallery • 600 S. Pacific Ave • 310-547-3606

302 W. 7th Street • 310. 833.1589 –Entertainment Calendar– Fri 12/28 Fri 1/18

Advertise Here for As Low As

Every 1st Thursday Izon Eden, No Cover, Large Menu, Discounted Specials Celebrate the Arts

327 W. 7th St. • 832-0363 www.whaleandale.com

$35

per Month!

(310) 519-1442

Hindsight MLC Band

9pm 9pm

Mon. 12/31 • 9 p.m.

TJ Rox New Year’s Eve Party

Open New Year’s Day Jazz Jam every Wednesday 7 - 11pm

– www.godmotherssaloon.com –

Street of Dreams Will Influx of New Artists Resolve District’s Identity Crisis? by: Andrea Serna, Contributing Arts Writer

Pictured is Gallery 478 on First Thursday. Photo by Betty Guevara

December 28

Bongo Fury Enjoy Bongo Fury, starting at 9:30 p.m. Dec. 28, at Harvelle’s in Long Beach. : REMIXED Details: (562) 951-9701 Venue: Harvelles Long Beach Location: 207 E. Broadway, Long Beach The Solutionaries The Solutionaries will bring a little bit of the reggae to the San Pedro Brewing Company, Dec. 28, from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. There will be a $3 cover charge at the door.

Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing Company Location: 331 W. 6th St. San Pedro Sono Vero Enjoy Sono Vero, starting at 8 p.m. Dec. 28, at diPiazza’s in Long Beach Details: (562) 498-2461 Venue: diPiazza’s Location: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach End of the World Jam 2012 Come Jam the Blues like there’s no tomorrow, starting at 9 p.m. Dec. 28, the Arcadia Blues Club. Hosted by Robbie King & The Blues Counts the party will feature Tina Jackson with special guests, slide guitar great Stan West and blues master Teddy Lee Hooker.

Details: (626) 447-9349 Venue: Arcadia Blues Club Location: 16 E. Huntington Dr., Arcadia,

December 29

Dirty Ice Cream The rock band, Dirty Ice Cream, will be performing at the San Pedro Brewing Company, Dec. 29 from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. A $3 cover charge to enter will be required.

Details: http://sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing Company Location: 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro Boxcar 7 Boxcar 7, a seven-piece show band from Southern California, will perform, at 9:30 Dec. 29, at Harvelle’s in Long Beach. Their passion is the blues, soul, old school rhythm and blues, classic rock, swing and a taste of funk.

Details: (562) 951-9701 Venue: Harvelles Long Beach Location: 207 E. Broadway, Long Beach Spare Parts for Broken Hearts Enjoy Spare Parts for Broken Hearts, starting at 9 p.m. Dec. 29, at Que Sera in Long Beach.

Details: (562) 599-6170 Venue: Que Sera Location: 1923 E. 7th St., Long Beach

January 2

Whiteboy James and the Blues Express Whiteboy James and his crew will be performing hits from their second album, Whiteboy James and the Blues Express at Harvelle’s, at 9:30 p.m.

Whiteboy James and his band exploded onto the scene in the 80s when jazz was booming in Southern California. After performing through the 90s, they took a break but now they are back. Doors open at 8 p.m. and no one younger than of 21 will be allowed to enter. Minimum two-drink purchase will be enforced. Tickets are $5.

Details: (323) 454-1172; www.longbeach.harvelles. com Venue: Harvelle’s Long Beach Location: 207 E. Broadway, Long Beach

January 3

The Toledo Show The Toledo Show is one of the most entertaining, Calendar to page 16.

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

Linden said. “We now have a visibility and San Pedro has a reputation.”

Photographer Ray Carafano of the wellrespected Gallery 478 has built a strong reputation throughout the years. Recently, Carafano successfully recruited two Venice artists, Ned Evans and Charles Christopher Hill to exhibit their works at the gallery. Both artists are widely collected and have pieces in museums across the United States and Europe. “(Linden and I) both have seen people coming from Long Beach, West LA or Orange County,” Carafano said. “We only get that kind of traffic when we show high quality work. If we went away, what would people come here (to the art walk) to see?”

Linden considers the financial assistance provided by grants from the Community Redevelopment Agency as critical to the improvements in the San Pedro art community.

“The CRA assisted considerably with marketing and advertising in the Art Scene Magazine,” Linden said.

Art Scene Magazine goes out to museums and galleries all across Southern California, and directs collectors to intriguing art shows. Now that the money is gone from that source, a question remains as to who will step up to support the activity.

“The cost of producing an exhibition is not chump change,” Linden said. “We do it quite efficiently because we have a cadre of friends who help us with every detail. It is a collaboration.”

A study by Americans for the Arts documents the economic impact of the arts on national and local economies. Their study reveals that communities investing in art reap the additional benefits of jobs, economic growth and an improved quality of life. Arts related spending by event attendees pumps revenue into hotels, restaurants and local business.

Nationally, the arts generates $30.1 billion in revenue, in return for 4 billion dollars in money invested. That is a 7:1 return on investment that would thrill Wall Street.

The substantive work created by professional artists in San Pedro has created a critical mass.

Michael Stearns and Richard Lopez, two

Entertainment

ACE: Arts • Culture • Entertainment

Old downtown San Pedro is suffering growing pains.

The First Thursday Art Walk is the number one consistent draw to the downtown area and it seems to be going through an identity crisis. Will it be a family oriented monthly street fair, or will they be a meaningful draw to art collectors and enthusiasts?

Artists, retailers and food trucks have been engaged in an ongoing conflict to establish an identity for the area. Professional artists worry the carnival atmosphere will discourage art buyers from visiting. High visibility art walks in Los Angeles and Long Beach have already obtained reputations as youth oriented party events that struggle to exhibit real art. San Pedro artists do not want to see their monthly event suffer the same fate.

Despite this identity crisis, each month more artists are moving to the studio and gallery spaces on 7th Street.

The Art Walk fills the streets of downtown San Pedro with art enthusiasts from Silverlake, Venice and Orange County. Many have put this day on their calendars as an opportunity to view and collect work from artists employed in varied mediums. Into this mix, local families look forward to strolling the streets, listening to music, eating and mingling with friends.

Migrating to this area are painters, woodworkers, photographers, ceramicists and sculptors. In 2012, new artists moved in, galleries adjusted the their aims and, for the first time in recent memory, the building vacancy rates on Seventh Street are almost zero. This is important news, not only for the art community, but for all of San Pedro.

The move to 7th Street continues. This year, San Pedro artist and curator Ron Linden took over a large double sized space that had been empty for years at 365 7th St. Linden curates the progressive Warschaw Gallery at 6th Street and Pacific Ave. His plans are to continue presenting compelling shows in that gallery. In 2012, he exhibited PSST and Industrial/Abstract, significant shows that highlighted the major talent of local artists.

“Since 2000, San Pedro has had a gathering momentum and we have had a kind of success,”

Long Beach artists who moved their studios to 7th Street this year, have brought their considerable following of collectors and admirers to the First Thursdays Art Walk.

Stearns is an artist and the former owner of Gallery 33 in Long Beach. That gallery was known for exhibiting artists who went on to build national reputations. Stearns’ own abstract paintings are focused on his spiritual practices. His riveting sculptures reflect his interests as a Vietnam era veteran. He shows his work in his studio at 347 7th St. and has expressed plans to exhibit some of the Long Beach artists he showed at Gallery 33.

Lopez has occupied a studio at 372 7th St. Lopez works in acrylic as well as pastel to create cosmically inspired, vibrantly colored abstract paintings. Lopez is included in the South Bay Focus show at Torrance Art Museum and has a 30year resume that includes a residency in Yosemite National Park.

The building’s owner, Robin Hinchliffe, has been committed for years to housing working artists. The same building also houses James Harter. Harter is best known as a printer providing fine art reproductions for artists throughout Southern California. Harter is also an artist whose work reflects a conceptual underpinning.

Beate Kirmse of Gallery Neuartig is a gallery owner who has had to shift gears. She is combining her gallery with boutique sales in the area of eco-friendly sustainable green products.

Hemp products are a special interest for Kirmse.

She belongs to an organization lobbying to legalize hemp manufacturing in the United States. Galley Neuartig was well received for its contemporary European aesthetic. The newly added boutique space will be known as Tangerine Kangaroo, while she continues to show art in Gallery Neuartig.

It is impossible to touch on the many talents contributing to the growth on 7th Street in just this one article. Many artists have been living and working in studios for decades. The community has been enriched by their presence.

A major benefit to the art community is SPACE, San Pedro and Arts, Culture and Entertainment.

The Board of Directors is comprised of business owners and stakeholders who recognize the value of nurturing the arts in San Pedro. Each month their meetings focus on maintaining the momentum that was built by the financial support of the CRA. Their plans for cost effective marketing and increased visitor traffic seems to improve the chances that San Pedro will have a vibrant art community well into the future.

The study from Arts in America reminds us “The arts means business.” Business and the arts can support each other, but like any marriage the conflicts must be resolved if the marriage is to survive.

Details: http://www.1stthursday.com/ http://www.spacedistrict.org/

15

Calendar from page 15. creative and breath-taking musical spectacles to hit the stage and is now coming to Harvelle’s in Long Beach. Harvelle’s will host the Toledo Show, a jazz experience that will leave viewers in awe while forgetting they had seats to being with at 9:30 p.m. Doors will open at 8 p.m. and persons younger than 21 are restricted. A minimum two-drink purchase will be required of every member of the audience and tickets will be valued at $10 each.

Details: (323) 454-1172; www.longbeach.harvelles. com Venue: Harvelle’s Long Beach Location: 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach

Stay Home to Salute Vienna by: John Farrell, Theatre Critic

Salute to Vienna returns to the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday, Dec. 30.

January 4

Harlow Gold Show Harvelle’s in Long Beach presents the Harlow Gold Show. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show will promptly begin at 10 p.m. General admission will be served on a first-come basis and tickets will cost $15. The premium front reserved seats, located in the middle of the action, will be priced at $30 a seat with a minimum purchase of 4 seats. A fiery performance by a female dance number, this modern cabaret is acrobatic and is sure to leave the females as well as the males in the audience revved up and ready for more.

Details: (323) 454-1172 Venue: Harvelle’s Long Beach Location: 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach

January 7

Funk Jam Harvelle’s Funk Jam! is the place to be every week.

Cover is $5 and it starts at 9 p.m.

Details: (562) 239-3700 Venue: Harvelle’s Location: 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach

Support Your Community. Shop Local!

January 8

Jack’s Tea Room Harvelle’s in Long Beach will host Jack’s Tea Room, Jan. 8 at 9:30 p.m. Jack’s Tea Room is a jazz and swing dance theatre show with a large wooden dance floor for you and your partner to get groovin.

Can’t dance Charleston style or swing? Don’t worry, free lessons will be employed preceding the show from 8 to 9 p.m. No one younger than the age of 21 will be allowed and there is a required two-drink minimum purchase.

Details: (323) 454-1172; www.longbeach.harvelles. com Venue: Harvelle’s Long Beach Location: 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach

Community/Family December 28

Full Moon Hike Explore nocturnal sights with a wildlife expert under a full moon with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy at the George F Canyon Nature Preserve, Dec. 28. Attendees must be ages 9 and older with an admissions price of $10 a person.

Details: (310) 547-0862 Venue: George F Canyon Location: Rancho Palos Verdes

January 4

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

An Evening with Jane Goodall Join Dr. Jane Goodall, world renowned primatologist, and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute for an inspirational evening of music and stories of a lifetime of adventure, starting at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 4, 2013, at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro.

Tickets range from $20 to $75.

Details: (310) 548-2498 Venue: Warner Grand Theatre Location: 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro

16

Plenty of folks, after the ham and turkey

and highballs and wine and all those presents, think about going somewhere for the New Year’s holiday.

Music lovers might think of Vienna, where the annual New Years’ Concert weaves its special spell of gemutlichkeit in three-quarter time. But be warned: The New Year’s Concert in Vienna is almost impossible to get into unless you plan years in advance. And, winter in Vienna may look romantic and snowy but for most Los Angeles folk who complain when the temperature falls below 50 degrees at night, the cold in Vienna can be a shocking, almost fatal experience. Cold is relative, of course, and the Viennese don’t mind a little ice on their mustaches. But for an Angelino, ice is only for cocktails.

There is a solution. Save the airfare, the coldweather clothes and planning years in advance and go to the almost brand-new Walt Disney Concert Hall to hear Salute to Vienna, the now annual concert dedicated to the music of Vienna, this year with a special treat: it is being conducted by that echt-Viennese Andreas Mitisek, who is director of the Long Beach Opera and was appointed this year director of Chicago Opera Theater as well.

Before that, he was the music director of the Wiener (Vienna) Operntheater. Even Mitisek has a decided liking for warmer climes, though.

How cold is it in Vienna?

“The weather can get cold,” Mitisek said in a recent phone call from his Long Beach Opera office. “It can easily be below zero, but that’s in Celsius. It usually is in the low 30s. This is a great opportunity to hear Viennese music without buying a plane ticket. For two hours you get to hear sparkling music from my hometown. It’s kind of funny: here you can wear shorts to the concert. In Vienna you have to wear long pants.”

Salute to Vienna is patterned after the famous Neujahrskonzert, the New Year’s concert of the Vienna Philharmonic. The concert has been broadcasted on public television for many years.

It features the lively and beloved music of Johann Strauss Jr., Franz Lehar and other Viennese greats.

This is the ninth year the concert has been heard

in the Los Angeles area. It will be repeated on Jan. 1, 2013 in San Diego. Mitisek will conduct both concerts.

“It’s all music that I’m very familiar with,” Mitisek said. “It’s in my Viennese blood; those waltzes I have grown up with, Johann Strauss, Emmerich Kalman. It is kind of a recreation of their world-famous Neujahrskonzert concert that I grew up with. It is hard to get tickets for it.

Sometimes you have to wait years.”

The official concert is on New Year’s Day, Mitisek explained, with a dress rehearsal on New Year’s Eve. Salute to Vienna began 17 years ago when its two founders, Attila and Marion Glatz, presented their first concert in Toronto. That concert was a sold out success at Roy Thomson Hall and inspired the Glatzes to take their show to other major cities around North America. It started with just one concert: now it is the largest simultaneously produced concert series on the continent, with productions in 22 cities from New York to Los Angeles, from Vancouver to Montreal.

All this takes a lot of planning, and the producers regularly travel to Vienna and other European cities to scout out talent for these concerts. They bring some of the best European dancers and singers to celebrate New Year’s in North America for audiences across the United States and Canada.

This performance features the 72-piece Strauss Symphony of America performing waltzes, polkas and other delights. There will also be excerpts from Viennese operettas, featuring Hungarian soprano Anita Lukacs and Hungarian tenor Zsolt Vadasz. Dancers from the Hungarian National Ballet will also be on hand to bring the dance music to life.

“The nuances of this music make it hard to play correctly,” Mitisek said. “ You need to grow up with it. It’s like jazz for an American. It is hard for someone who wasn’t born here to get jazz.

I find it interesting to work with an American orchestra. In Vienna it is clear musically, the orchestra knows the rhythms, they know how to play the music. There is more to it than is written

on the page. But here, they need to find out how to play it the way we play it in Vienna.”

Tickets for Salute to Vienna run from $35 to $115. The concert is at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 30.

Details: (800) 745-3000; www.ticketmaster.com Venue: Walt Disney Concert Hall Location: 111 South Grand Ave., Los Angeles Calendar from page 11.

Lincoln

we are equals under God. Sally Field as Mary Lincoln, played the greatest role of her life. It is on par with her Academy Award-winning role as Norma Rae. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is known for his work in television’s 3rd Rock from the Sun and his various supporting roles, has made him an in-demand leading actor. In Lincoln, he takes a supporting role as Robert Lincoln, son of the 16th president. His character embodies the desire of a son to do what he feels is right, despite that of his parents to keep his son from harms way.

Tommy Lee Jones is among the many character actors that breathes life into history.

Every single person who worked on this film demonstrated a true labor of love in making this as real and believable as possible.

Lincoln is the first of the holiday season movies with a chance of sweeping awards at the upcoming Academy Awards.

This is one of the greatest films made to date.

It should be compared to movies like Inherit the Wind, or the more contemporary Saving Private Ryan and should be seen by all.

For a different perspective, focused on Lincoln’s downplaying of the primary role of blacks in their own liberation, see “‘Lincoln’ versus history: Screening out the past,” by Senior Editor Paul Rosenberg at Al Jazeera English. Link available at Random Lengths’ website.

Big Nick’s Pizza Tradition, variety and fast delivery; you get it all at Big Nick’s Pizza. The best selection of Italian specialties include hear ty calzones, an array of pastas and of course, our amazing selection of signature pizzas, each piled high with the freshest toppings.

Like wings or greens? We also offer an excellent selection of appetizers, salads, beer and wine. Call for fast delivery. Hours: 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Sun.-Thurs., 10 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Fri. & Sat. 1110 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro • (310) 732-5800 BEACH CITY GRILL A culinary adventure—no passport required. Famous for Cajun sweet potato fries, garlic French fries, fresh fish, shrimp, salads, vegetarian, Cajun and Caribbean specials. Tr y the awesome desserts created by Chef Larry Hodgson. Celebrating 25 years. Open for Lunch: Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. and dinner: 5-8 p.m. Closed Sun. and Mon. 376 W. 6th St., San Pedro. (310) 833-6345.

Boardwalk Grill

Catalina Bistro & Express Grill The soaring span of the V i n c e n t T h o m a s Bridge above and bustling vessel traffic on the Main Channel alongside, Catalina Bistro and Express Grill in the new Catalina Express terminal is the most exciting place to eat

L.A. Harbor’s famous floating restaurant, surrounded by boats in Leeward Bay Marina. Dine inside by our fire place, or outside on our deck. This unique spot serves great sandwiches, burgers, fish & chips, wings and of course, the BEST clam chowder anywhere! Try our sourdough bread bowl and daily specials. Wine and beer on tap or by the bottle, featuring our 34oz Captains Mug! The new owners have kept the “funkiness” of the old barge, and stepped it up several notches. Watch the games on our big screen TVs, utilize our WiFi and enjoy our XM tunes. THE place for your next party. Hours: Mon, Tues 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Wed, Thurs 11 a.m.–8 p.m.

Fri, Sat, Sun 9 a.m.–8 p.m. 611 N. Henry Ford, (at Anaheim) Leeward Bay Marina, Wilmington • (310) 830-7937 • www.ChowderBarge.com Mishi’s Strudel Bakery Mishi’s is a fragrant landmark on 7th Street, where it is possible to find Nirvana by following your nose. The enticing aroma of baking strudel is impossible to resist, and the darling café is warm and welcoming like your favorite auntie’s house.

Aniko and Mishi have expanded the menu to include homemade goulash soup and a variety of sweet and savory Hungarian strudels, crepes and pastas. The best indulgence is taking a frozen strudel home to bake in your own kitchen and create that heavenly aroma at your house. Mishi’s Strudel Bakery and Café, 309 W.7th St., St., San Pedro • (310) 832-6474 www.mishisstrudel.com NIKO’S PIZZERIA Downtown San Pedro’s newest restaurant features a full Italian menu, as well as pizza, and a beer and wine bar. We carry a wide selection of beers on tap and by the bottle. Watch sporting events on plasma TV screens throughout the restaurant. Delivery service to all of San Pedro, Port locations, and hotels. 399 W. 6th St., San Pedro (at the corner of Mesa and 6th sts.) • (310) 241-1400 PORTS O’CALL WATERFRONT DINING Since 1961 we’ve extended a hear ty welcome to visitors from every corner of the globe. Delight in an awe-inspiring view of the dynamic LA Harbor while enjoying exquisite Coastal California Cuisine and Varietals. Relax

San Pedro Brewing Compnay SPBC has an eclectic menu featuring pastas, steaks, seafood, sandwiches, salads, delicious appetizers, and great BBQ. Handcrafted ales and lagers are made on the premises. A full bar with made-fromscratch margaritas and a martini menu all add fun to the warm and friendly atmosphere. WIFI bar connected for Web surfing and e-mail—bring your laptop.

Hours: From 11:30 a.m., daily. 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro • (310) 831-5663 • www. sanpedrobrewing.com SPIRIT CRUISES An instant party! Complete with all you need to relax and enjoy while the majesty of the harbor slips by. Our three yachts and seasoned staff provide for an exquisite excursion every time, and “all-inclusive” pricing makes party planning easy! Dinner Cruise features a 3-course meal, full bar, unlimited cocktails and starlight dancing. Offering the ultimate excursion for any occasion. Free Parking.

1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor - Berth 77, San Pedro • (310) 548-8080, (562) 495-5884 • www.spiritmarine.com

The Whale & Ale San Pedro’s British Gastro Pub offers comfor table dining in oak paneled setting, featuring English fish & chips, roast prime rib, sea bass, rack of lamb, beef Wellington, English pies, venison, salmon, swordfish & vegan/vegetarian dishes. Open for lunch & dinner, 7days/wk; great selection of wines; 14 British tap ales, & full bar. Frequent live Music. First Thursday live band & special fixed price menu. Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri. 11:30 a.m.midnight Sat. & Sun. 1-10 p.m. Bar open late.

327 W. 7th St., San Pedro • (310) 832-0363 • www.whaleandale.com

San Pedro’s Best Guide To —Fine Dining—

Brochure Pick Up Your 2012 Copy Today While they Still Last!

(2013 Coming Soon.)

Think Café Think Café is giving downtown San Pedro a taste of sophistication fo r b r e a k f a s t a n d lunchtime, and dinner.

Located in the heart of downtown on 5th Street, Think Café’ has been a magnet for local s and business types alike for over 15 years.

The special secret of Think Café? Dining outside on the patio. Lovely for latte’ in the morning or soup and salad at midday, the patio is a wonderful rendezvous in the evening, perfect for enjoying a selection from the wine list. The Café’ also boasts a selection of imported beers. Breakfast at the Café’ runs the gamut from bacon and eggs to eggs Benedict, with a wide variety of dishes to awaken the taste buds. Think Café’s sandwiches are hard to beat. 302 W. 5th St. Suite 105, San Pedro • (310) 519-3662 Trusela’s

Southern Italian & California Cuisine • Bob and Josephine Trusela have been awarded the “Most Promising New Restaurant 2010” award and three stars 2011 and 2012, by the Southern California Restaurant Writers Association.

Catering available for all ocassions. Hours: Sun. 5 p.m.–Close, Lunch: Tues–Fri 11:30–2:30, Dinner: Tues–Sat 5 p.m.–Closing. 28158 S. Western Ave., San Pedro • (310) 547–0993 www.truselas.com

To Advertise in Random Lengths News’ Restaurant Guide for the Harbor Area, Call (310) 519–1442.

December 28, 2012 – January 10, 2013

Buono’s Authentic Pizzeria A San Pedro landmark for over 40 years, famous for exceptional awa rd - w i n n i n g pizza baked in brick ovens.

Buono’s also o f fe r s c l a s s i c Italian dishes and sauces based on triedand-true family recipes and hand-selected ingredients that are prepared fresh. You can dine-in or take-out. Delivery and catering are also provided. Additionally, there are two locations in Long Beach. Hours: Sun.-Thurs.

11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. 1432 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro • (310) 547-0655 www.buonospizza.com

The Chowder Barge

in the Plank Bar or Outdoor Patio for the best Happy Hour on the Waterfront. With the AwardWinning Sunday Champagne Brunch, receive the first SPIRIT CRUISES Harbor Cruise of the day FREE. Open 7 days, lunch and dinner.

Free Parking. 1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor Berth 76, San Pedro • (310) 833-3553 www.

Portsocalldining.com

ACE: Arts • Culture • Entertainment

C a s u a l waterfront dining at its finest! Famous fo r s l a b s o f Chicago-style baby back ribs, fish-n-chips, rich clam chowder, cold beer on tap and wine. Full lunch menu also includes salads, sandwiches and burgers. Indoor and outdoor patio dining available. Proudly pouring Starbucks coffee. Open 7 days a week. Free Parking. 1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor - Berth 77, San Pedro • (310) 519-7551

in the Harbor. The Grill is a wonderful surprise of great coffee and great food. The Bistro and accompanying bar have made the terminal a go-to place for drinks and food with a view at the outdoor tables with umbrellas. From 1/3lb Angus Burgers, homemade soups daily and clam chowder on Fridays you can’t go wrong.

Join us for breakfast and lunch daily and dinners on Friday & Saturday nights. Catalina Sea & Air Terminal, Berth 95, San Pedro 310-707-2440

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CLASSIFIED ADS Reach 63,000 Harbor Area Readers

Employment

Sales Random Lengths is looking for an experienced advertising/ print salesperson. We are the Los Angeles Harbor Area’s oldest independent newspaper. We are a stable and growing company, open for over 30 years. The candidate should have 2 or more year’s experience in outside sales. Bi-lingual is a plus. Please email resume and cover letter with salary history to james@ randomlengths news. com. Monthly base salary and commission. EOE Help Wanted!!! Make $1000 a week mailing brochures from home! FREE Supplies!

Helping Home-Workers since 2001! Genuine Opportunity!

No experience required. Start Immediately! www.mailingcentral.net ACTORS/MOVIE EXTRAS Needed immediately for upcoming roles $150$300 /day depending on job requirements. No experience, all looks needed.

1-800-560-8672 for casting times /locations. (AAN CAN)

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area

Movie Extras, Actors Models Make up to $300/day.

No Experience required. All looks and ages. Call 866339-0331

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$$$HELP WANTED$$$ Extra Income! Assembling CD cases from Home! No Experience Necessary! Call our Live Operators Now! 1-800405-7619 EXT 2450 http:// www.easywork-greatpay.com (AAN CAN)

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Career Training EARN $500 A DAY. Airbrush & Media Makeup Artists For: Ads - TV - Film - Fashion. Train & Build Portfolio in 1 week. Lower Tuition for 2012.

AIRLINE CAREERS – Become an Aviation Maintenance Tech. FAA approved training.

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Business Opp

REACH 5 MILLION hip, forward-thinking consumers across the U.S. When you advertise in alternative newspapers, you become part of the local scene and gain access to an audience you won’t reach anywhere else. http://www.altweeklies. com/ads (AAN CAN)

Education Teach English Abroad! 4-week TEFL course in Prague. Job assistance worldwide. We have over 1500 graduates teaching in 60+ countries! www.teflworldwideprague. com info@teflworldwideprague.com Academic and occupational consulting and guidance assistance with the college admissions process, admission essays, resume revision and job searches. Call for a free consultation! 424-210-5771.

For more info: http://guidedachievements. info.

ATTEND COLLEGE ONLINE from Home. *Medical, *Business, *Criminal Justice, *Hospitality. Job placement assistance. Computer available. Financial Aid if qualified.

SCHEV authorized. Call 800481-9472 www.CenturaOnline.com (AAN CAN)

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PERSONALS MEET LOCAL SINGLES: Friendship, 1-888-777-2235.

Love, 1-877-333-2863. 18+.

Psychics

GOD GIFTED PSYCHIC Love Specialist, Stops Divorce, Cheating, Reunites Separated Partners, Solves Severe Problems. Never Fails.FREE 15 MINUTE Reading By Phone 254-4206794 (AAN CAN)

Pets Adopt a pet from the Harbor Care Center, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro. 888452-7381.

FOR SALE CANADA DRUG CENTER. Safe and affordable medications. Save up to 75% on your medication needs. Call 1-888-817-3223 ($10.00 off your first prescription and free shipping.)

STEEL BUILDINGS: 6 only 20x20, 25x30, 30x38, 40x54, 45x74, 60x140. Must Move Now! Selling for Balance Owed! Still Crated/Free Delivery! 1-800-211-9593, x30.

Bulletin Board DBA filing and publishing $120 (310) 519-1442

(310) 833-8977

Don Marshall, MBA, CPA Specializing in small businesses CPA Quality Service at very reasonable rates

Please help!

10/12

Bread & Hyacinths This is the book that explains why the city of Los Angeles is the way it is. Bread and Hyacinths: the Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles is the gripping, little-known saga of the great battle between Job Harriman, the West Coast’s leading socialist, and General Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times—a battle for the future of Los Angeles.

Written by Lionel Rolfe, Nigey Lennon and Paul Greenstein, Bread and Hyacinths was originally published in 1992 by California Classics Books.

It is reprinted by Random Lengths News and available for $15.

Buy it now at Williams Bookstore, Random Lengths News office and The Tobacco Leaf at Western & 25th

NEW inventions and Product IDEAS WANTED! Free info & confidential consultation on your idea at DAVISON. Call toll free at 1-800-428-5116 Today. Fee-based service.

Adoption PREGNANT? CONSIDERING ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions 866-413-6293 (AAN CAN)

Automotive

Don Marshall CPA, Inc.

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WANTED

Vintage Auto & Motorcycle Storage 25 indoor & outdoor stalls

• Armed Response Alarm System • Web-based Video

Monitoring • Electronic Access

Control • 24-Hour Availability • Self-Serve Free Hand Wash • WIFI Hotspot • Free Charging Station (310) 707-2207 www.8thstreetgarage.com

The animals at the Harbor Animal Shelter have ongoing need for used blankets, comforters, pet beds.* Drop off at Harbor Animal Shelter, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro.

888-452-7381, x 143 PLEASE SPAY/NEUTER YOUR PET! *In any condition. We will wash and mend.

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Text (415)868-5691 for details+ special offer. Free to join. www.RelayRides.com/ Car (AAN CAN)

Misc.

DIRECTV SPECIAL. Offer.

2012 NFL Sunday Ticket included for FREE. $34.99/ month (1yr.) Free HD/DVR. Call 888-881-3313

REAL ESTATE 20 ACRES FREE. Buy 40Get 60 acres. $0-Down, $168/month. Money back guarantee. NO CREDIT CHECKS. Beautiful views.

Roads/surveyed. Near El Paso, Texas. 1-800-8437537 www.Sunset Ranches. com (AAN CAN)

Commerical Real Estate For Lease San Pedro – For Lease S.Pacific Ave. office suites & retail space in the “Arts District”. Several choices available.

A-Delta Realty 310/831-6670

Commercial Bldg. for Rent 2300 sqf - $1300 mo.

803 Palos Verde St., San Pedro (310) 707-2207

Real Estate Investor seeks to purchase commercial or multi-unit residential properties in San Pedro. No Agents please.

310-241-6827

RoOmmates

Golden West Realty Serving San Pedro and the entire South Bay since 1980

Newly remodeled home in Lomita Pines

Some of the many features include a spacious kitchen with new cabinets, custom granite countertops, and new appliances.

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For more information call Golden West Realty

310.548.2881

www.goldenwestsanpedro.com 1 5 1 7 S . G a f f e y S t . • San Pedro, CA 90731

ROOMMATES.COM. Browse hundreds of online listingswith photos and maps. Find your roommate with a click of the mouse! Visit: http://www.

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HOME SERVICES Groceries Delivered: Order today. Delivered tomorrow. Get paid to help advertise. 831-238-6448

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from p. 7

from 2007 through mid-2010, even lower than the TARP Bailouts and even fewer conditions.

6. Small Network of Corporations Run the Global Economy

Study reveals that of 43,060 transnational companies, 147 control 40 percent of total global wealth. The researchers also

built a model visually demonstrating how the connections between companies— what it calls the “super entity”—works.

7. The International Year of Cooperative

According to Project Censored evaluators, the corporate media under-reported the United Nations declaring 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative,

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS FILINGS of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 1411 ET SEQ., Business and Professions code).

Original filing: 11/29/12, 12/13/12, 12/27/12, 01/10/12

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2012217235 The following person is doing business as: San Pedro Spotlight, 800 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Miguel Gonzalez, 658 W. 22nd St. #4, San Pedro, CA 90731.

This business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: Aug. 1, 2012. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime.) Carmen Moen, Owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Oct. 31, 2012. Notice--In Accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 were to expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement

pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 1411 ET SEQ., Business and Professions code).

Original filing: 11/29/12, 12/13/12, 12/27/12, 01/10/12

Statement of Abandonment of Use of Fictitious Business Name File No. 2012238002 File no: 20080895010; Date Filed: 05/20/08 Name of Business(es) Nick’s Liquor Street Address, City, State, and Zip Code: 510 N. Pacific Coast Hwy, Redondo Beach, CA 90277. Registered Owners: Brook Zewdie, 2005 Speyer Lane Unit #B, Redondo Beach, CA 90278. Tseday Kiwfe-Micahesi, 2005 Speyer Lane Unit #B, Redondo Beach, CA 90278.

Business was conducted by a husband and wife. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime).

This Statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles County on Nov. 30, 2012.

8. NATO War Crimes in Libya

In Censored 2013, writer James F. Tracy makes the point that historical relations between the United States and Libya were left out of mainstream news coverage of the NATO campaign; “background knowledge

RANDOMLetters from p. 10

Sandy being a wakeup call. There is a movement starting for universities to divest from the fossil fuel industry, similar to the divestment drive that helped to end apartheid in South Africa.

Treasury secretary Geithner is on his way out. Selecting him was a really bad choice on Obama’s part. We hope that the next selection will not be another Wall Street insider, but someone who

and historical context confirming al-Qaeda and Western involvement in the destabilization of the Gadaffi regime are also essential for making sense of corporate news narratives depicting the Libyan operation as a popular ‘uprising.’”

9. Prison Slavery in the U.S.

Project Censored this year reveal the current state of prison slavery industries and its ties to war. The majority of products manufactured by

will clean house on that street.

The Occupy movement is alive and well. There are over 1400 Occupy groups worldwide. Occupy Wall Street volunteers sprang into action to provide immediate disaster relief to the victims of hurricane Sandy. There is a movement called Rolling Jubilee to work on the debt problem by purchasing debt at a discount and forgiving the debt of people who would otherwise be bankrupted.

Getting President Obama reelected is not resulting in the same unjustified

inmates are contracted to the Department of Defense.

10. HR 347 Criminalizes Protest

House Resolution 347, sometimes called the “criminalizing protest” or “anti-Occupy” bill, made some headlines. But concerned lawyers and other citizens worry that it could have disastrous effects for the First Amendment right to protest. euphoria seen in 2008. Hopefully progressive people will realize this time that democracy is not a spectator sport, where you cheer when your team wins, and then you go home. We must remain informed and engaged to help steer our government in the desired direction.

So let us also be thankful for the internet and the online news organizations such as Truthout and AlterNet, which keep us informed in this age of corporateowned media.

Hans Grellman Palos Verdes Peninsula

Toberman Celebrating Youth Fundraiser On Dec. 13, Toberman Academy children and staff presented a check to the American Humane Association.

Gina Johnson, left, and Oscar, a retired movie actor dog, was on hand to represent the AHA. Oscar played Butch in Cats and Dogs 2. The presentation was the culminating activity for 4th and 5th grade students who conducted a service learning project for the past 4 weeks. The children selected a charity and wrote letters to area grocery stores to gather ingredients and supplies to make and sell salads, muffins and soups to Toberman staff members as a means to raise money. Also on hand for the presentation were Toberman Neighborhood Center executive director Deborah Anthony and Sandra Riscon.

The Local Publication You Actually Read

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2012230019 The following person is doing business as: Champion Data Supply, 28364 S. Western Ave Ste #2, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275, Los Angeles County.

Registered owners: Brandden F. Blackwell, 1316 Paseo del Mar, San Pedro, CA 90731. This business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: Jan. 1, 2012. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime.)

Carmen Moen, Owner. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Nov. 16, 2012. Notice--In Accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 were to expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state

based on the co-op business model’s stunning growth. The UN found that, in 2012, one billion people worldwide are co-op member-owners, or one in five adults older than 15.

December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

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December 28, 2012 - January 10, 2013

Serving the Seven Cities of the Harbor Area