FR EE
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2003
Volume 3, Issue 38
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
SMPD cracks down during holiday season
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepard
In 2000, News of the Weird reported that a major plank in the platform of a Montana man running for the U.S. Senate was to encourage the space program to build and use an "elevator" to lift satellites into orbit, rather than the far more expensive rocket ships. An October 2003 Associated Press report disclosed that a dozen or more scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory so deeply believe in the elevator that they work on their own time on studying and promoting its feasibility. The elevator would be a cable shaft about 50,000 miles long, lowered to Earth from a conventional spacecraft and docked to a land station. The shaft would be made of "carbon nanotubes" (many times stronger yet lighter than steel), but the main problem is that, so far, science only knows how to make nanotubes a few feet long.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Don’t accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange” – Robin Morgan
BY CAROLYN SACKARIASON Daily Press Staff Writer
The Santa Monica Police Department has beefed up its enforcement with the goal to prevent drunk drivers from killing anyone this holiday season. A sobriety checkpoint this past Saturday on Wilshire Boulevard yielded one arrest for drunk driving, eight citations for vehicle code violations and five cars were towed. A total of 1,134 vehicles entered the checkpoint and 236 vehicles were stopped in a six-hour period. Another, unnanounced checkpoint, is planned for somewhere in Santa Monica before the new year. And saturation patrols — when extra officers patrol a specific area looking for violators — occur frequently throughout Santa Monica, especially during holidays. Local authorities are using more resources than ever before to make the roads safer from drunk or inattentive drivers. In the past two years, about $475,000 has been given to the Santa Monica Police Department through state grants in an effort to enforce and educate the community File photo on a variety of traffic-related issues. With increased saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints, the Santa Monica Police Department hopes to make this holiday season safer for motorists. See ENFORCEMENT, page 5
Local philanthropists hit streets with charity BY LEE RAJSICH Special to the Daily Press
Horoscopes Rage, Sag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Local Tinsel town for kids . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Opinion Get a clue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
State Lackluster health care . . . . . . . . . . .6
National Avalanche survivor speaks out . . . .9
Back Page Casinos keeping tabs . . . . . . . . . .16
“It went really well. It keeps getting bigger each year.”
A group of citizens from the Santa Monica area has taken a Robin Hood-esque approach to dealing with the transient problem. Known as “The Giving Spirit,” the grassroots nonprofit organization collected, packaged and hand-distributed care packages to homeless people throughout the greater Los Angeles area Dec. 13 — an annual effort not focused on reducing the homeless population, but instead improving the homeless condition. “It went really well,” said Giving Spirit spokesman Tobin Lee. The program raised about $30,000 and reached 600 homeless people this year after projections which estimated fundraising to top out at $25,000 and an outreach to 500 — a sizable expansion from last year’s 300
— TOBIN LEE Giving Spirit spokesman
served. “It keeps getting bigger each year,” Lee added. The 5-year-old group recognizes that the street is home to a growing population and say they have found that many transients are eager to find new jobs. The group also is concerned about the large number of women and children they have found living on the street. The Giving Spirit is considered by group officials to be a response to the general public’s apathy toward these groups and their living conditions. “All of these folks can’t come to the (homeless) centers” because of travel or health problems, said program chairman Tom Bagamane. “We try to give them as much as we
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can.” Supported by donations from businesses and individuals, volunteers this year packed blue Spalding duffle bags full of food and water from Coral Tree Cafe, Niagara Water and The Palm, as well as toiletries from 99 cent Only Stores, blankets, clothes and other necessities which had been gathered and sorted by volunteer workers in a donated space at Brentwood Presbyterian Church. Stressing the importance of writing, The Giving Spirit also included notebooks from On AssignLee Rajsich/Special to the Daily Press ment. The funding needed to Jaime Hernandez, manager of a 99 Cents Only produce one bag is approxi- Store, carried the goods from his store to be distributed to needy people. Hernandez, who mately $50. organized the delivery, helped a group of Santa
See CHARITY, page 3 Monicans give out supplies earlier this month.
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