Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in lamarshall's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
2:39 am	LA Works/LA Family Housing Film Shoot Click Here to see photos and read more about this great project! The LA Family Housing Sydney M. Irmas Transitional Living Center is the only facility in the Valley that accepts and provides longterm shelter to teens and their families. They have an extensive program that includes counseling, life skills training, drug prevention education and School on Wheels classes. Twice a month, L.A. Works visits the facility with volunteers to engage the teens living there in uplifting activities such as dances, arts and crafts, or a fun conversation. Our goal is to inspire them to explore creative outlets while providing positive role models for them. In this vein, it was decided that the perfect venue for their creative expression would be a film submission to Get LA. Get LA is an online short film festival and competition conceived by L.A. Works Board members. It's all about Los Angeles -- what makes it great and what could make it better. Visit http://myspace.com/getla to learn more. Over the course of the past three months, the teens have come up with the concept, written scenes, drawn storyboards, done character and scene work, scouted locations, and worked on costuming in preparation for shooting their film. The teens have participated in writing, acting, storyboard, cinematography and general film making workshops with professionals in those fields. Click Here to see photos and read more about this great project! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
1:28 am	Another recent ChristianWeek column:"Made in the image of God ... "Made in the image of God"? What does that mean? by Denyse O'Leary Ever hear of a "humanzee"? Some would hail the hybrid of a human and a chimpanzee as a crowning achievement. Because chimpanzees are our closest genetic relatives, hybrids have been attempted. According to recently unearthed documents, Joseph Stalin hoped to produce half-man, half-ape super-warriors, but the project came to nothing. The disgraced chief scientist died in the vast Soviet prison system. But just as often, anti-religious motives fuel the wish for a humanzee. Zoologist Richard Dawkins, who promotes atheism from his chair at Oxford University, has proclaimed that such a hybrid would shake up all our value systems. He argues that differences between the human mind and the chimpanzee mind are only a matter of degree, not kind. Indeed, Spain has been considering giving great apes human rights, and some have argued seriously for reclassifying chimpanzees in the same genus as humans. University of Washington psychology professor David P. Barash recently looked forward to the day when "there will be hybrids, or some other mixed human-animal genetic composite, in our future." Why? He thinks that would put a stop to the idea that " the human species, unlike all others, possesses a spark of the divine and that we therefore stand outside nature." (Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2006) Motives aside, hybridization faces problems. Chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes and humans only 46. And chromosome organization differs too. At any rate, so far, no enthusiast has succeeded. But what makes us humans different from chimpanzees anyway? Higher intelligence? French science fiction writer Paul Vercors attempted to answer that question in his prescient novel You Shall Know Them (1953). When police are called to the London home of science journalist Douglas Templemore in the mid-1950s they hear a tale so bizarre that only the tiny corpse of a small questionably human male infant forces them to pay attention. Templemore is the father, but the mother is "Derry," a newly discovered type of primate (tropi) housed at the London zoo. Born by artificial insemination, the questionable infant is baptized as Garry Ralph Templemore. Then, shortly afterward, his father kills him. Journalist Templemore wants to be tried for murder, to protect the tropis from slavery. That is, if killing his hybrid son is indeed murder. As he tells the inspector, "It may well be that Derry is a woman after all. It's up to you to prove the contrary, if you can. In the meantime her child is my son, before God and the law." The British government, of course, strikes a committee to decide what to do. The committee learns that tropis are not much more complex in their behavior than chimpanzees, except for one curious fact: Wild tropis hate cooked meat but nonetheless insist on hanging their raw meat over a fire to purify it, apparently as a ritual. As one tropi expert explains, it is done "less as instinct or preference, than as a very primitive fire worship, a homage paid to [fire's] magic power of purification and exorcism." Then another peculiar fact comes to light: Papuan cannibals consider only the wild tropis the ones who ritually hang their meat human enough to serve as an entr‚e. Indeed, cannibals disdain the "tame" tropis who linger around the anthropologists' settlement, because they have abandoned the worship of fire. The implications of this savage implicit judgement dawn on one committee member: "In this people on the borderline between man and beast, all have not equally crossed the line. But it is enough, to our mind, that some of them have crossed it for the entire species to be received within the human community." So the tropis, "having shown signs of a spirit of religion by a ritual practice of fire worship" are admitted to the legal protections of the human community. Nonetheless, Templemore is acquitted of murder because he acted prior to the committee's decision. Vercors wanted to his readers to see that intelligence as such is not the key human characteristic, but rather the recognition of a cosmic reality beyond our narrow interests. The fictional tropis signaled that they were crossing over into humanity when they preferred spirituality to mere gratification. For my part, I think he is right. So, apparently, did American abortionist Bernard Nathanson. Reading Vercors decades ago was one of many steps he took away from doing abortions. My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy. My most recently published book is By Design or by Chance?, an overview of the intelligent design controversy. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
1:06 pm	Muqata in Spaaaaaaaaaace!!! Heh...just had a flashback to "muppets in space" from the 70s. Check this out -- NASA is sending the Dawn spacecraft into the asteroid belt, and if you register by the 4rth of Novermber, your name can be sent into space with it! This way, when aliens find the spaceship, they will have a definitive list of whom to eat when they follow the spaceship's trail back to Earth. You won't have to look for them -- they'll come right to your doorstep! (And if you act now, you get a cool looking certificate, suitable for framing, like the one I just got...) Want your name on the list? Click here to enter. (Courtesy of PhysOrg.com) The whole story is like this: Submitted names will be carried on board NASA's Dawn, the first spacecraft to travel between and scrutinize two distinct worlds. Mission scientists are confident Dawn observations of asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres will answer basic questions about the nature and composition of these celestial wanderers. "How many chances do you get to fly into the very heart of the asteroid belt?" said Keyur Patel, Dawn project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "When the craft is launched in June 2007, yours and the names of your loved ones can hitch along for the ride and be part of space exploration history." Dawn will carry a silicon chip containing the names of asteroid, space and other enthusiasts from around the world. People may submit their names for this historic one-way mission by visiting JPL's Dawn Web site now through Nov. 4 at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov . More than 170,000 people have already signed up for the asteroid belt tour. Following launch, Dawn will employ an ion engine to propel it during its more than four year, 3-billion-kilometer journey (1.9-billion miles) to its first target – asteroid Vesta. After months of detailed scientific observation of Vesta, Dawn's ion engine will fire up again, and send it on its way for a 2014 rendezvous with Ceres, recently anointed a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union. "This campaign will allow people from around the world to become directly involved with Dawn, and through that, become familiar with the mission's science," said University of California Los Angeles professor Dr. Chris Russell, Dawn's principal investigator. So why not send your name, or your blog into space for posterity? Worst case, they'll have you for dinner. Or in my case, they'll tear apart Ramalla looking for someone named Jameel. Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael (Comment on this)
Friday, September 29th, 2006
7:35 am	"Hub and Spoke" Nonsense; RIP Line 91 What is this nonsense I hear about Metro planning to change our bus system from a "grid" to a "hub and spoke" system? I've only read a little about it, but from what I have read, it sounds like the planners at Metro need to get out from behind their desks and use the system they want to change. A grid system is easy to understand and use. It's based on--hello!--our street grid. Hub and spoke centralizes bus connections in certain locations like shopping center parking lots and rail stations and forces people to transfer more. Bad idea! They say that they are trying to speed up the bus system by shortening long bus routes. There are other ways to speed up bus service without making people transfer. Let me tell you a little story about making people transfer and shortening long bus routes. I frequently ride Line 91 between Downtown Los Angeles and La Crescenta (a line Metro is planning to cut, by the way). Line 91 and its cousin, Line 90, are long bus routes and yes, they frequently cannot adhere to their schedules. I know this from painful experience! One time I was late returning to Downtown from La Crescenta and had the unfortunate experience of taking one of the last nighttime southbound trips on Line 91--a trip that ended at San Fernando Road and Glendale Avenue and forced me to wait for another bus to continue my trip Downtown. Normally, the 91 sails through that intersection and continues all the way Downtown. My connecting bus, the one the schedule promised would show up, did not show up. If you've ever waited for a bus at San Fernando and Glendale after dark, you know that it is not a nice place to wait for a bus that is late or does not show up as promised. It's dark, dirty, and if you have to pee, forget about it and hold it. After that, I avoided those late night southbound trips on Line 91 because I did not want to go through that experience again. Please let us keep our "one-seat" rides! There are other ways to speed up bus trips, but they require much more political courage to implement. First of all, bus stop "bulbs." On streets with four or more traffic lanes, bus stops should have sidewalk "bulbs" that allow the bus to stop without having to pull off to the right and then WAIT for traffic to pass to resume travel after dropping off and picking up passengers. Second of all, the bus system should be on a "proof of payment system" like our Metro rail lines and the Orange Line busway. Many European cities have this. You must purchase a ticket before boarding the bus, or you can purchase a ticket from a machine on the bus. Random inspections and citations prevent fare evasion. Bus drivers SHOULD NOT BE PAYING ATTENTION TO WHO HAS PAID AND WHO HAS NOT. They should be paying attention to driving the bus. Period. I recently saw how well this could work. I was on a Wilshire Boulevard Rapid Bus with the farebox covered over, presumably because the farebox was broken. Or the driver was sick of collecting fares. At any rate, the trip went soooooo much faster because no one was stopping at the farebox. Moreover, with a proof of payment system on all buses, people can board through the rear door. I wish I had a nickel for everytime I've been on a packed bus that pulls up to a bus stop with lots of people waiting, and people do what comes naturally: they look to the rear door to see if they can get on. Shifting gears somewhat, I would like to end this post with a quote from City Councilman Tom LaBonge, a big supporter of my pet cause: extending the Metro Purple Line subway westward from its current terminal at Wilshire/Western: "Los Angeles is a great city and many aspects of it are unique and special," he said. "But one of the deficiencies we have is in our rapid transit system. The challenges in the past have not been overcome. We have the bus, and it's great, but it's tearing up Wilshire Boulevard. The other day there were five (Line) 720 buses together in a pack at Highland and Wilshire. If there was heavy rail there, it'd be much more efficient. That's what a subway's about." * Thank you, Tom. Couldn't have said it better myself! *Park LaBrea News/Beverly Press, September 28, 2006. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006
6:28 pm	From 'Totalitarianism' to 'Islamofascism'. I've had a bash at this preposterous 'totalitarianism' notion before, but there's a good piece about it in Socialist Worker this week. I particularly want to highlight the section that deals with Blair's grubby little catchphrases and connects with a very old kind of Cold War ideology: In Blair’s Los Angeles speech, he spoke about how in politics “the increasing divide today is between open and closed” - and “open” in this context means “free trade” and “managed immigration”. The notion that the fundamental political distinction is between “open” and “closed” societies was first championed by Karl Popper. He was an Austrian philosopher whose political theories rose to prominence at the end of the Second World War and became deeply influential in right wing circles during the Cold War. Popper came from a Jewish background and had to flee his native Austria when the Nazis came to power. He opposed fascism - but he was also a fanatical anti-Marxist. Popper argued that communism and fascism, far from being opposites, were in fact twins. Both were examples of “closed” societies marked by “totalitarian” political ideologies. Liberal democracies, on the other hand, were “open” and thus equally opposed to both extremes, left and right. These ideas, and related theories of “totalitarianism”, were eagerly championed by ruling classes across the US and Western Europe. They provided the perfect cover for imperialist meddling abroad and political repression at home. Liberation movements in the colonies and trade unionists in the West could all be labelled as “communist”, and therefore as “enemies of freedom”. The other crucial feature of Popper’s “totalitarianism” theory was that it deliberately blurred the distinction between left and right - another favourite theme of Blair. This allowed Western ruling classes to put a “left wing” gloss on their ideology when it was convenient. Communism was the same as fascism, the left opposed fascism, therefore the left should side with the US against Russia - or so the logic went. These arguments did in fact attract certain sections of the far left. Trotskyist activists such as Max Shachtman in the US, reeling from the murderous repression meted out by Stalin’s agents against revolutionaries, started to see Western capitalism as relatively progressive. Shachtman’s followers supported the US during the Vietnam war and some, such as Irving Kristol, became full-blown neoconservatives. Blair's arguments, then, come directly from the Atlanticist tradition in the Labour Party which have always dovetailed neatly with Cold War liberalism and its successor, neoconservatism. It is interesting in that respect how easily, almost gracefully, New Labour idiotology has become outright neoconservatism. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 18th, 2006
11:34 am	Pat Buchanan's case against illegal immigration Tony Blankley: Most people will be familiar with Buchanan's view on immigration. But even those who have read his earlier books and read his columns, as I have, will not be prepared for the remorseless presentation of unimpeachable facts with which he makes his convincing case for the reality of his book's subtitle: "The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America." Here he deepens his case against illegal immigration (and his case for a moratorium on even legal immigration) with statistic after statistic concerning, among many topics, the shockingly disproportionate degree of disease and crime that illegal Mexican and other immigrants are transmitting into the country. For example, in Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide, which total 1,200-1,500, are for illegal aliens. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California now has almost 40,000 cases of tuberculosis (a disease only recently thought to be virtually extinct in America). He presents compelling evidence that the "Reconquista" of southwestern United States is not merely the silly conceit of a few extremists but is widely desired by Mexicans (he cites a 2002 Zogby poll showing that by 58 percent to 28 percent of Mexicans believe the American Southwest belongs to Mexico). New to me was his citation to the fact that all 47 Mexican consulates in the United States are mandated to provide textbooks to U.S. schools with significant Hispanic populations, which textbooks teach history from the point of view of General Santa Ana -- in which America stole the Southwest. The Los Angeles consulate, alone, has distributed 100,000 such textbooks just this year to the L.A. Unified School District. Buchanan recounts the observation that "every great truth begins in blasphemy." In that sense this book is one extended blasphemy against not only liberal proprieties, but even against received wisdom about the nature of America believed by many conservatives. I have particularly in mind his chapter 9: "What Is a Nation," in which he rejects the argument that America is fundamentally defined as a "creedal nation" of democracy, equality and the institutions formed by our constitution. Rather, Buchanan argues, "The Constitution did not create the nation; the nation adopted the Constitution." While the Founding Fathers did believe in universal principles and rights, "they were loyal to a particular nation and to kinfolk with whom they shared ties of blood, soil, and memory." In this elegantly crafted chapter, he weaves into a thought-provoking tapestry on the nature of nationhood and patriotism the writings of George Washington, Arthur Schlessinger Jr., Alexander Hamilton, Psalms and Genesis, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph De Maistre, Abraham Lincoln, Charles DeGaulle and Israel Zangwill (Jewish author of the 1908 play "The Melting Pot") among others. Of course, there is nothing more dangerously controversial than trying to define the ethnic, language and cultural nature and desirability of America. But until we as a country come to terms publicly with what kind of a country we think America is and should be, we can never have a rational and full debate about what kind of immigration policy we should try to enforce. Buchanan quotes the French poet Charles Peguy: "It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of looking insufficiently progressive." By that standard, Buchanan, in this book, is positively fearless. He is also right. Americans, from whatever nation or ethnicity we originated, have formed a common culture worth preserving and a common history worth continuing. Immigration and Usurpation: Elites, Power, and the People’s Will Immigrant Takes Refuge in Chicago Church It's 'Get These People Out of Town' Hispanic groups blast OPM House panel hears worries about illegal immigration, crime Judgment Day coming – for the neocons Steven Camarota On Costs Of Immigrants (Comment on this)
Friday, August 11th, 2006
10:51 am	Christina at Premiere... We've been seeing a lot of Christina Milian around these parts lately. On August 10th she attended the Los Angeles premiere of her movie "Pulse" which is in theaters today. Check out pictures of her at the premiere below along with the rest of the cast... (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006
5:55 pm	Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday Mayor Villaraigosa, Los Angeles Marathon President Bill Burke and Councilmen Tom LaBonge and Bernard Parks will take part in a press opportunity Monday morning at Universal Studios to announce a new route for the Los Angeles Marathon. Full Disclosure Network has a program featuring a number of past and present law enforcment officials discussing Special Order 40. Former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates recounts ow illegal aliens shot and killed police officers while the Department waited for Federal authorities to enforce immigration law at the border and on the streets of Los Angeles." The California Coalition of Law Enforcement Associations, which represents more than 80,000 law enforcement officers across California, today announced their endorsement of Jerry Brown for Attorney General. The California Coalition of Law Enforcement Associations (CCLEA) was formed to provide an umbrella organization to represent the needs of all law enforcement associations in the state. Martini Republic's Joe Mailander has an op-ed piece in Sunday's LA Times, "Downtown's Bipolar Housing Policy." Mailander argues for essentially a free market approach as a way to generating more "affordable housing" downtown. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides will speak at a California Teachers Association's conference Monday. Monday evening, Mayor Villaraigosa will host a reception for British Prime Minister Tony Blair who is on a trade mission to Los Angeles. Openly gay Republican 42nd Assembly candidate, Steven Sion, joins the blogging team at West LA Online. City of LA Meetings for Monday 9:00AM - CERS: Corporate Governance Committee/Special Meeting Board of Administration 9:30AM - BPW: Board of Public Works 10:00AM - COUNCIL: Public Safety Committee Meeting - Canceled 1:00PM - COUNCIL: Budget & Finance Committee Meeting (Comment on this)
Monday, July 31st, 2006
9:52 pm	Nermal gets neutered One last beer before surgery.............. s/p bilateral orchidectomy, dental cleaning, dematting (07/25/05).......... Benefits of neutering: aside from controlling the cat population (Nermal has no intentions of settling down and having kids), stops or reduces spraying behaviour, urine also becomes less foul smelling, prevents roaming (which Nermal never does anyway, he's happy to sit under his favourite tree in the backyard), reduces agressive behaviour (Nermal's already a sweetheart to begin with). POSTED IN: _Nermal_ (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 29th, 2006
4:46 pm	The Homeless beat 5 teens were arrested in Florida for the beating of a homeless man in May. Apparently they did all of this for sport and fun. The perpetrators of these types of crimes are usually between 11 and 19 yrs old In Western MIchigan , Kalamazoo officials are using undercover police to try and catch those who beat on the homeless. Beatings of the homeless tend to increase in the summer * IN texas , the Round Rock Independent School District received 157,000 dollars for the education of homeless children. * The County Board of supervisors in Los Angeles has approved it's budget and is allocating 80 million dollars to the homeless cause. 5 million dollars earmarked for specific programs that will help to get women and children off of skid row. ""My priority is to ensure that children are immediately removed from Skid Row, which is obviously a dangerous and high-risk environment for any child," Supervisor Gloria Molina said." (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 27th, 2006
10:40 am	Hope for firefighters today- try and stop me !!!!!! Ok folks Hope for Firefighters Today. From 11:30 am until they run out of food around 1:30 pm. station number nine is doing the beef tip sandwiches. So anybody trying to stand in my way , will get the crap knocked out of them . It is a long line so I will be there early. I am not going to miss them this year. Like I did last year. Lot's of good food come on out and great stuff that gets raffled folks. Like I said stay out of my way. Here are the details : The Annual "Hope For Firefighters" Event Benefiting the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Fund The Largest Firefighter's Appreciation Event In The Nation The Los Angeles Fire Department, Corporate Sponsors, and more than four thousand Angelenos will have fun in the sun! Thursday, June 1, 2006 11:30 am - 2:30 pm Bunker Hill - Hope Street between 3rd and Hope Place The Los Angeles Community will demonstrate their appreciation for the Los Angeles Firefighters through a celebration with entertainment, firehouse food and Muster games. This event is designed to bring the downtown community together and will benefit the Los Angeles Fire Department's Widow and Orphans Fund. Hope Street between 3rd and Hope Place will be closed to make way for the thousands of people who will be attending. Click for event layout map. Corporate teams from local businesses will compete in Firefighter Muster games featuring the Bucket Brigade, Firefighter Suit Up Competition and Old Fashion Hose Pull Contest. Fire stations will partner up with local business sponsors to present a variety of food booths featuring a taste of the firehouse prepared and served by the firefighters themselves. Bring your hats and sunscreen (especially for the little ones.) (Comment on this)