Friday, March 11, 2016

What to do in LA this weekend (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; KPCC (scpr.org); LA Weekly (laweekly.com); LA Times (latimes.com)
The megalopolis of Los Angeles is long and wide with no center, not even downtown.
As 8th most expensive city, people live in tents by concrete rivers. LA sheriff warns couple under a freeway in Pico Rivera, an LA suburb, about flooding danger (Irfan Khan/LA Times).
Homeless camp next to concrete LA River in Highland Park by DTLA (Christopher Weber/AP)

Enjoying nature in S.E. Asia: young boy and Buddhist novice (samanera) sit in river (NJ).
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la skyline los angeles city dtla downtown
Leo Duran (kpcc.org) reminds us that this weekend (March 11-13, 2016) we can get out and about in spite of rain:

Heavy rain and wind forecast around LA this afternoon
A strong, fast-moving Pacific storm is expected to bring heavy rain and winds to the Southland Friday afternoon, threatening to generate landslides and mud flows in fire-stripped areas.
  • Southern California's largest Native American Pow Wow at Cal State University Long Beach all weekend (free).
  • Visit Descansco Gardens in La Canada/Flintridge where the Cherry Blossom Festival (free with admission) is taking place.
  • See the Wisteria Festival in the City of Monrovia (free).
  • Nancy Reagan Funeral
    Former First Lady Nancy Reagan
  • Visit a dead Reagan at control freak Nancy's big bon voyage party (long lines but free), Simi Valley Reagan Library Funeral with First Lady Michael (Michelle) Obama and some former first ladies or watch it live free at KPCC.org. Here's a video about her liberal Hollywood Democrat turned Washington Republican conservative husband, Ronald. (First there was Ronald, then the Mac (Irish Mc O'Bama), and now the Donald, Ronald McDonald ruling the US of A? Hmm, odd that. Bernie to the rescue! "Friends and family remember Nancy Reagan as more than a first lady."

  • The best source for all that goes on in the City of Angels is the L.A. Weekly, a free, independent publication which comes out every Thursday. It's better than the world-famous LA Times, which is trying to be bigger than the NY Times so has little time or interest in local news nowadays.
Kai Ryssdal's "Marketplace" on APM goes to gentrified Highland Park (yorkandfig.com).
(JB) Highland Park Then and Now (town just north of Downtown LA or DTLA south of Pasadena)
(Erik Daniel Garcia on NELA TV) What is GENTRIFICATION? Highland Park, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, and other Los Angeles neighborhoods...

Erik Daniel Garcia
Erik Daniel Garcia
"Gentrification" is when poor urban areas shift composition by an influx of wealthier people looking for cheap digs in a cool neighborhood. The problem is the poor get priced out of the neighborhood they built. That's capitalism (Das Kapital)! Residential shifts, urban planning, and other phenomena affect who lives where. This often means displacing people and homogenizing parts of town. Race is involved. The average income increases and average family-size decreases. Increased rents, property taxes, unaffordable real estate, old industrial buildings converted to residences and shops, new trendy and expensive businesses, which increases commercial rents, cater to a new more affluent base of consumers -- further increasing a place's appeal to high income relocators while decreasing accessibility to the original inhabitants. Those displaced -- owners unable to pay suddenly higher taxes and renters unable to swallow sudden rent increases -- are forced to sell their homes and leave their apartments and move to a cheaper community. It's economic eviction. But local governments usually favor gentrification because of increased taxes as well as other perceived benefits.
 
Why Donald Trump will never be president of the United States
  • Watch the R-rated comedy "Deadpool" (again) as Betty White recommended:


oc courtroom brawl
Dave Isay, Founder/President of StoryCorps
Evening with StoryCorps' Dave Isay
ELL theater
Learning language through performance

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