Steve Scauzillo

Music imitating life

2010-02-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

You read that latest interview with John Mayer in Rolling Stone?

Some call it the most honest, open interview done by a celebrity. Others say they read it and think he is a pice of work. Still, others don't believe him.

In it, he talks a lot about how lonely he is. How he is absolutely devastated about losing Jennifer Aniston. And he talks alot about masterbation.

As a John Mayer fan, I am perplexed. At first, I sort of sympathized with the guy. I have felt lonely. I have loved and lost. In my marriage, there are ups and downs. Is he just being honest or being a jerk?

Then, I thought a lot about his art. His songwriting is great. It's personal, fun, pop and yet the words are some of the best in the pop music world. But now, as I listen to cuts off his "Battle Studies," I can't help attaching the "real" John Mayer to the songs. And I don't know how that makes me feel, exactly.

Should a fan know that much about the singer/songwriter he loves? Should the fan know all the "feelings" behind the songs. I don't know. When I listen to some of his new songs, I am thinking of Jennifer Aniston and breakups and John Mayer screaming out for a committed relationship. And that's not always a good feeling when I'm driving along on the 10 Freeway trying to get lost in a lyric or a riff.

Sooo, John Mayer, you either ruined it for your fans or your deepened the relationship they will have with your songs. I can't decide.

I only think there should be some mystery in art, some unknowns. Save the story-behind-the-song for those tabloid TV shows.

"Better get used to it''

2009-09-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

I am about to be an empty nester.
My youngest son, who is 17 and a half, will go to UC Irvine this Sunday. He will be a freshman. And he will be on his own for the first time. Our oldest son is at UC Berkeley in his second year there.

Empty nester.
It sounds so cliche.
But I am afraid it is real.

"You better get used to it," said my wife the other day when we sat down for dinner, just the two of us. "I mean, get ready for it ..."

She was pointed, firm. Yet encouraging in her way. She knows I am not a "getting used to it" kind of person. Let me explain. I usually come up the cliff going like 90 mph then slam on the breaks and go: "Oh, is that a dropoff?" I knew that was coming but I did not prepare emotionally.

So, there I go. About ready to go off an emotional parent cliff. And I haven't hit the brakes yet.

OK, I am trying. I went out to dinner with my youngest son and had a talk about being on his own. About being smart, making good choices, the whole dad-son bonding thing. Well, not bonding, more like unbonding. More like leaving.

He was responsive. And he is a very mature 17 and a half year-old so that makes me feel a little better about him going off to college.

But I will miss him. And I will, I know, have to get used to it.

Crowds at Art Night Pasadena

2009-03-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

A view from the mezzanine of a crowded Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena Friday night during the free Art Night. The event continues today at Boston Court.

YOU can't say that Friday night's Art Night was not a success, at least if you judge by the number of people attending.

It was crowds, crowds and more crowds Friday night at the places me and some friends attended: Armory Center, the Pacific Asia Museum and the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Buses chartered to shuttle people to the different venues were almost always packed. We waited on Union Street near Raymond for bus after bus but they were always full. So, we decided to skip going to the Norton Simon Museum. Instead, we hoofed it.

The Pasadena Museum of California Art was a real crowd pleaser. The exhibit in the Back Gallery displaying the photos from JPL's Mars Reconnaissance Observer in 3D were a kick. (The crowd did a egalitarian job of sharing the 3D glasses, because there wasn't enough to go around).

Also, the Pacific Asia's anime and Samurai art exhibit was drawing big crowds. My wife and I grabbed a concrete bench in the courtyard and as I watched the crowds come in and out of the museum, I couldn't help but think there were a lot of people taking advantage of something to do at night that was free. A popular event in itself in today's dastardly economy.

It was grand, also, sneaking a peak at the Pasadena Symphony rehearsing for tonight's performance of Vivaldi. The newly expanded Civic Center looked fantastic at night. Who needs a public art display of hats?

I would've liked to have seen more food vendors where you can grab a quick bite. I finally convinced my group to let me stop at Manny's and buy a slice of pizza, which I carried around with me while walking on Colorado Boulevard. Not quite like Manhattan, but close.

Now, if only more museums would open doors for free. Cool idea, but we also should not forget to donate, even in these tough times.

Romancing the train

2009-02-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

Aren't trains romantic?
What? You don't agree?
I did something today, well two things, that not many people in my neck of the woods do. I left my small, suburban city in the San Gabriel Valley and I did it by train.
My wife and I rode the Gold Line light rail from east Pasadena to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Then we took the Red Line subway to Highland and Hollywood Blvd. where we got off and attended a live radio show on the Academy Awards.

The show was interesting. I love film. I love critics. I love being critical. What? Don't tell me you actually "liked" "The Curious Case of Benajamin Button." That was such a dud. It could've been a real good movie had it been better directed, had the sceenplay been interesting and had the actors not slept through it (all except one or two). What was that film about? Take every moment of life as it comes? What a cliche. I think we all have heard that one before. It was as one critic said "such a misfire."

But I digress.

The train ride was in some ways more romantic, more a people-watching fest, than the movies or the critics' roundtable.

On trains, on public transportation, people engage in displays of affection. That in itself can be, um, annoying. But is up to the viewer. Or shall I say the voyeur.

The guy wore a backwoods baseball cap, black, a red sweatshirt but not a ratty one. It was new. He had a strawberry blond mustache/goatee going. He had his arm around his girlfriend and would kiss her when she said "something cute." She was Hispanic, with high cheek bones and jet black long hair pushed through a tan baseball cap worn bill in front.

I am fascinated by people who don't care people are watching them. It is not like this couple started making out. They were affectionate, playful. He was very demonstrative. She would pare his comments with a "No not particularly" in that sexy, deep voice that some women have.

The train came upon the Mission Station, one of my favorites. A bride leaned against a lightpost and her groom smoothed her dress as the photographer positioned his camera for the best shot.

"What a beautiful dress," said the woman in front of me with the baseball cap.
We joked about a bride being on a train platform. Then the boyfriend continued playing with her hair, pecking her cheek and stroking her back. It was as if she had to pay attention to him.

I was thinking good thoughts about men and women, being the romantic I am (see the first sentence).

Then, about a stop before the East Pasadena station, the two get up. At the Allen Station, he straddles the door but she reminds him they are getting off at the next station. The automatic train doors close with a swish. He gives it hard kick with his foot. I startle.

She calms him down. But now they are standing at the door as the train lurches forward to the next station.

I glance at her and she no longer looks pleased. Is that fear on her pretty face? The high cheek bones recede an inch. I am getting uncomfortable.

At the station, in the elevator, his arm around her, he gets a call. He's got an obnoxious ring tone. We all exit and he tries to go down the stairs with her. Doesn't he know that is the wrong way?

Finally, the couple reach the foot bridge and head toward the parking garage. But by then, I've walked ahead of them and stop thinking romantic thoughts. I hear the din of the cars on the freeway below and smell the exhaust in the parking structure.

My thoughts are on the mundane now: getting home, what work I need to do, will it rain. I don't even look back to see the train leave the station.

Writing in "Green Ink"

2008-02-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

It has been several years since I was reporting on the environment. But reading from Michael Frome's book, "Green Ink" has inspired me. It is like eating a food and having it trigger a memory, a deep-seeded passion.

In Chapter 12, Frome gives some advice for writing a journal. I'll call that a blog. First, he states some truisms: "Being a professional writer is at least as difficult as becomming a surgeon. Writing, especially writing about the environment, demands hard work, persistence, patience and a thick skin -- it does not happen overnight."
I have to agree. My approach to writing, reporting, has been to get stuff that no one else had. I always tried to get that extra interview, ask one more question. Whenever someone was not in or not calling me back, I thought, "What is another way to get this information?" Or: "Can I reach this person some other way." It became a competition. I didn't want to let that source beat me. I'm still like that, even at home. Drives my wife nuts (and she is a journalist!).

This goes with what Frome says later: "Never sell yourself short." If you think you have an idea, go with that idea. Find out stuff no one else has. Write it in a way that draws in the reader, captures and keeps his attention. Stephen King says he writes for his "ideal reader" or IR. Would what you are writing pass the test of your IR?

Second, Frome says cover topics (in this class) that you want to report and write about. You should be driven by curiosity and by what I call "righteous indignation." Is there something that bothers you? That is wrong but should be right, or at least exposed to the scrutiny of the world? That is a driving force in environmental writing. I remember doing a story on a family in a house next door to a chemical plant. At the house, wafts of odors, like burning plastic, would engulf the backyard where the mother and her children sat. I remember her face as she asked me whether that would hurt her or her child? That motivated me to report the truth.

He says set realistic objectives. I hope by following the assignments in this class, (Comm. 438T) I have done that for you. But also, push yourself to find out things and write about them in your blog postings. Also, to that end, Frome says "read everything ... read all the time. Read fiction, nonfiction, in different fields ... read the back of cereal boxes if you have nothing else. The good stuff will seep into your head and sooner or later leak out on paper. (I would suggest as a novel, Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang.")

As an environmental writer, I like his advice: "Be affirmative, focus on solutions, not simply problems, with abiding belief in people to make the solutions come true."

Finally, he says: "Get outdoors. Balance the introspection of writing by going outdoors. Cam, canoe, kayak, hike, walk or sit in a park -- whatever works."
I will hope you will do that for your in-depth project, or just for fun. Take your kids, your sisters, your brother for a hike. Or to the beach. Or to Bolsa Chica to walk the paths and just stare at the great blue heron as she stands seemingly motionless. Then, without warning, jumps into flight in a slow motion scene that is way better than any movie or video could deliver.

Home

2007-11-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

What is it about my wife, Karen, all wrapped snuggly in a lavendar robe watching a special edition of "The Antique Roadshow" that makes home on a Tuesday night the 'it'?

It must be that. Or the way she still gets excited about the women contestants showing their brain power on Jeopardy!

Home is a drug. It's a rush. I feel it as my car gets closer to our street. I get impatient as I wait for the endless string of cars to pass so I can make that left-hand turn into the street that leads up to our cul-de-sac. It becomes real, the anticipation palpable like a third strike from the arm of a baseball reliever, as I click the garage door opener and drive in, slowly, careful not to scrape my sideview mirros on the cement walls.

It is home and it's like, heaven. I'm not kidding. I just don't know why.

It must be the non responses from my two teenaged sons that makes it for me. That seals that warm, I'm home - yeah! feeling every night after work.

"Whad, you need to be acknowledged?" said Andy, 16, looking up at me with just a hint of interest from his AP chemistry homework.

"No. I just want to see you. I missed you last night because I got home late from work," I said.

I wander into the living room and announce a "hi" to my 18-year-old who is ensconced in Guitar Hero III. He smiles, I think, and continues playing a computer version of Pearl Jam.

I can't understand it. Home. It's everyday but it is something fresh every night.

Maybe it's great because it is part of me. They are all part of me. My sons, literally carry part of me with them -- my genes, my upbringing, well mine and that of my wife who is their mother.

Maybe home is so good because it is telling me there is love there. No, I may not always feel it or see it demonstrated in Hollywood moviemaking style, but it is there. I can sense it when I'm a mile away in my car waiting to turn left into our neighborhood of other, tidy homes.

Home is great because it says I'm alive. It says I exist. It is people who know me and accept me. Who can allow me to sing '80s songs by Elvis Costello so badly that they don't care (although Elvis might, I hear he can be quite the perfectionist bitch; that's part of his genius).

Or maybe, just maybe, it is the physical. The warmth in the air that is a lot better to this aging body than the brisk chill outside. Or the chicken caccitorre dinner my wife made from scratch. You haven't lived until you arrive home, fresh from the cold, corporate decisions in an office and the worries of co-workers to smell onions and garlic sizzling from a pan on the stove.

You know what's great about home? It's opening the refirgerator and seeing good things in there. Good, familiar food. It's knowing that that leftover gingerbread loaf is still there, wrapped in Saran Wrap, sitting on the bread box, if you should get hungry later on in the evening.

Home is great because well, it ain't work. It is a cocoon, I'll admit, a snuggly lavendar robe wrapped around me that keeps me forever warm.

Lest we forget last drought

2007-07-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

Go to www.sgvtribune.com or www.pasadenastarnews.com or www.whittierdailynews.com to see my latest From The Editor's Desk column on the "great drought of 1991."

MORE ON DROUGHT...
One of my strangest memories from 1991 covering water and environmental issues for the SGV Tribune was during the five-year drought of 1986-1991. A water agency, Three Valleys Municipal Water District, hired a dancer from the Chumash Indians to perform a rain dance (actually, it was a bear dance and a crane dance). A week or so later, there came a fierce and very unexpected rain storm that doused the SGV and SoCal on Memorial Day. Meteorologists said it was totally unexpected.
....Then, in March 1991, the whole state experienced record rainfall and snow for that month. The so-called "March Miracle" eased the drought restrictions and was the beginning of the end of that five-year drought.

We are entering another drought.. this being the driest year on record in the history of Southern California. Water experts say water restrictions and penalties are not far behind, unless we receive another "March Miracle."

* * *
Thanks, Barbara, for responding to my harrowing "Walk on the Wild Side." She saw a bear once on her walk along the West Fork of the San Gabriel River. She recently turned back while hiking along the Ben Overturff Trail in Monrovia, saying it was looking a bit too lonely for her taste. I could relate.
I really loved the part of her post when she said she had heard of Japanese tourists who hike the Angeles trails with bells on, to alert the bears. Does that really work?
-steve

Level the playing fields

2007-07-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

THE synthetic football field under my Bass casuals made me feel like I was walking on marshmallows. Yes, it was definitely soft, springy even. The faux grass surface is bright green with black specks — those are the cryogenically produced rubber granules. The field’s adorned with drop-shadowed yard markers and bright endzone markers in school colors.

“Come up here and take a look,” directed Bassett Unified School District Athletic Director William Baca. I followed him to the top of the new aluminum bleachers where I could see the scope of the new $3.4 million Bassett High School football stadium.
He wanted me to see the golden Olympic rings and the words B-A-S-S-E-T-T O-L-Y-M-P-I-A-N-S that adorned the 50-yard line.

Also, in full view was the salmon-colored polyurethane, EPDM rubber-embedded track that encircled the football/soccer field.

One needs to gain perspective when writing about million-dollar stadiums for, well, a high school whose API score is 633 (out of 1,000) with a school rank of 3 (out of 10). To be fair, Bassett schools (in unincorporated La Puente and portions of La Puente, Whittier and Industry) have improved their test scores; Torch Middle School was recently named a California Distinguished School. An enthusiastic superintendent and a new high school principal are making positive changes.

Still, the $64,000 question is: Can new athletic fields be the catalyst that produces community respect, student pride and higher academic achievement?
That remains to be seen. But one thing is certain. Bassett is not alone in using athletics to polish a school’s image.

Baldwin Park High School and its cross-town rival, Sierra Vista High School, just put the finishing touches on brand new synthetic football/soccer fields. West Covina High School is about to unwrap its new state-of-the-art football/track turf. San Marino’s multi-million renovation includes an artificial track. Maranatha High School in west Pasadena installed its artificial football/soccer field atop a parking garage a few years ago. Monrovia High School will be undertaking major improvements to its gym and fields — thanks to a $45 million high school bond just passed by Monrovia voters.

Call it the second wave of bond dollars for schools. After new classrooms, science labs and air conditioning/heating units, schools are getting around to improving — or in some cases — replacing out-of-date athletic fields and stadiums.

Going, going gone is grass and dirt. Fields and tracks are being torn up and replaced with synthetic surfaces. New scoreboards and public address systems are gravy.

Some have criticized this sea change. But I think the movement is fantastic. It represents the public investing in children, which is never a bad thing and is something the San Gabriel Valley does not do enough. We could still use new libraries and new parks, more soccer and baseball/softball fields, basketball and tennis courts.

All this emphasis on recreation and sport can be part of an anti-gang strategy — something very much needed today. The new tracks and fields could also raise property values and more importantly, they can raise morale of the students attending these schools.

Why should Bassett, a low-to-middle class Latino area, invest more than $3 million in a new football stadium? Well, even the question is racially offensive. When San Marino or Arcadia did it, no one blinked an eye. But suddenly, when Latino kids get a new stadium to play football and soccer on, it is wrong? No, that is a racist argument. Baldwin Park and Bassett students deserve high quality fields and facilities just as much as west Pasadena private school kids or San Marino students.
There’s evidence that kids from the Valley’s blue-collar neighborhoods are holding their heads a little higher these days.

“I think it is motivation,” said Matthew Rodriguez, 17, a senior and varsity football linebacker for the Baldwin Park High School Braves. He also spoke of the better stance he gets on the artificial turf.
BPHS will play Sierra Vista in its annual city football classic at the Braves’ new stadium this year. “I can’t wait to play on this field. That will be a really big thing,” he said.

Baca, who also teaches science and AVID (a program aimed at introducing students to college earlier through positive reinforcement) at Bassett High, said having quality athletic equipment and playing fields sends a positive message to all students. “A lot of students can only tell me the college they know based on sports. They know USC, UCLA because they know of their sports (programs). Yes, academics are No. 1 but people judge us by our athletic programs.”

Earlier this month, Bassett hosted an All-Star football game in which parents from all over the region came to its new field. Baca stood at the gate and overheard one woman from out-of-town say: “‘Wow. This is a very nice field but that’s good ... for a private school.’ I interrupted her and said, ‘Thank you, ma’am. But we are a public school,” Baca recalled.

There’s talk that rival Bishop Amat High, the private school athletic powerhouse down the road, may get a synthetic turf football field as well, just like Bassett High School’s.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
teve Scauzillo is the opinion pages editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

2007-07-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

THE call from my father went something like this:

"Paul, this is your father. Are you sitting down? I won!! I won the lottery!"

My brother knew my father was a devoted lottery player for years. He knew that he took this as seriously as Canadians at a hockey game. Paul also knew my dad would meticulously match up the numbers on his stubs against the winning numbers in the newspaper. And, he never hit the jackpot.

Convinced, he left work and drove to my father’s house. When he got there, he noticed my father was reading the wrong ticket — it was last week’s ticket. He hadn’t won anything.

To me, the lottery is more nightmares than dreams. It is a world of unfulfilled expectations, where wishing on a star leaves your eyes so full of stardust you can’t see straight. Where longing for riches replaces healthy pursuits, such as learning to play the guitar or piano, going back to school and getting an advanced degree, or planting a vegetable garden and waiting with anticipation for those first green shoots to poke through the soil.

Not only is the lottery a waste of time, it is based on luck, something that doesn’t exist, like leprechauns and pots of gold. That, and very, very long odds, about 1 in 18 million.I bring up this story because today is July 7, 2007, or 07-07-07 or 777. Since some people believe triple 7s are lucky, they’ve gone out and bought SuperLotto Plus tickets (the jackpot at this writing stood at $24 million). They’re heading for Indian casinos or Vegas gambling halls and hoping to hit the three sevens on the slot machines.

No matter what the date, your luck remains the same.I think my father truly was fortunate, however, but not at the lottery. It was as a 19-year-old fighting for the allied forces against Germany during World War II. After a fierce firefight, all the other soldiers in his regiment were killed. Wounded, but still alive, he “played dead” among the corpses while Nazi soldiers came through using bayonets to stab each fallen soldier in the heart just to make sure.

They missed him, or mistook him for dead. For that he was very glad. So am I, or I would not be here writing this. I can’t call that luck. Maybe good fortune. Or just circumstance. Perhaps that was the reason my father never won the lottery. He had already used up all his good luck.

Flash back to July 7, 1977 or 07-07-77. It was a hot day in New York where I lived. I was going to my car and saw glass on the street. Someone had broken in and stolen my tape deck/stereo.

Birds of a feather
I received several responses to last week’s column on the de-listing of the bald eagle from the federal Endangered Species List.

Ann Croissant, one of the San Gabriel Valley’s leading conservationists, wrote that “recovering the bald eagle numbers across the United States is really a great tribute, not only to coordinated conservation efforts, but also to stewardship and teamwork of a caring America.”

Birder Milt Blatt of Covina said he had seen a bald eagle at Bonelli Park in San Dimas but that was more than 10 years ago and had not seen one there since.

Others spoke of declining bird populations. The Audubon Society reported from its national Christmas Count that the populations of about 20 common North American birds had halved since 1967. The evening grosbeak, which used to crowd backyard feeders in the ‘70s have declined 78 percent, from 17 million to 3.8 million.

Urban sprawl and large-scale farming are to blame. Some are also saying the West Nile Virus is thinning bird populations. Kelly Middleton, information officer with the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, said crows, sparrows and finches took huge hits during the 2004 WNV epidemic.

Other bird species skated by, even thrived, but bird varieties are dwindling. Backyard survivors include jays, cardinals, robins and in the SGV, the infamous wild parrots.

At precisely 5:43 a.m. outside my bedroom window in Temple City, the noisy green winged creatures are on the seen, loud and clear. Even on my morning run, the Pirate companions whoop and holler as they dive down from higher lofts to lower branches of parkway trees, not a black crow in sight to bother them.

Yup, the parrots are back, the crows and raptors (hawks, eagles) are dwindling. I’m not sure this is a good thing, unless you happen to be a pirate.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

A Walk on the Wild Side

2007-06-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

THE silence of nature was broken by someone or some thing galumphing through the woods.

Rustle. Rustle, rustle, rustle. Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.

I paid it no mind.

I was enjoying a tranquil hike through Sawpit Canyon along the Ben Overturff Trail in Monrovia. I had reached the end of the trail, a place called Deer Park, a place where former Monrovian and Los Angeles County deputy sheriff Ben Overturff had built his lodge back in 1911.

It fascinates me how the pioneers of the Great Hiking Era (1900-1920s) picked their sites out of thousands of acres of wilderness to build their cabins or mountain hideaways. This one was in a clearing, a kind of oak woods nirvana, where the sun broke free from the lower canopy of alders and bay laurels and where the winds and I’m told, the waters of the great flood of 1938 can converge freely.

Often, these wood or stone structures became resorts, attracting thousands of visitors who would trek in by foot or mule on a Sunday afternoon for a meal.Sometimes hikers could smell the homebaked pies or see the smoke winding from the stone chimney before they’d reached their destination.A few feet down the path from the Deer Park cabin site was the mother lode of ruins. The original stone foundation and walls built by Overturff about 100 years ago. I climbed in and snapped away with my digital camera, filling up the memory card.

Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.

I heard it again. This time the sound was much closer.

The sweat rolled down my back and a cool breeze raised goose bumps on my skin. Normally, a delicious feeling after a rigorous hike in summer.

I couldn’t ignore the sound anymore of the forest visitor. I yelled out “Who’s the —” but stopped myself. It wasn’t another person. I had seen no humans in the 2-plus hours on the trail.

And there’s no other way in.I did see a deer, a full-grown doe at the junction of the trail and fire road a while back, who stared me down like a bull facing a matador. But it finally moved quietly into the camouflaged brush like a soldier in a guerrilla war.

Mountain lion? Nah, they don’t make that much noise. They’re sleek and stealth and usually come out at night.

Coyote. Again, this would have to be some large coyote to make that much noise. It was like the sound of a drunk stumbling through the bar, bouncing off tables and toppling glasses. There was nothing delicate about that noise.There was only one critter left on my list of possibilities. Bear. North American Black Bear. Ursus americanus.

I started back down the trail with a new determination in my step. Then I saw him. He was a big, black bear, about 50 yards up slope, foraging for food. I could see his tan fur, sleek but matted at the belly. His brown nose canvassed the leave-strewn carpet for food. No cubs, so I assumed it was a male.

He didn’t see me and I froze. I fumbled for my camera but the memory card was full.My mind raced. It started playing tricks.

It went to Tony Soprano’s last TV moment, and my world abruptly faded to black.

I nearly shouted out “Mom! Mom! Mom! It’s not right,” but stopped myself after realizing that not my mother, nor Sheriff Lee Baca, would be coming to my rescue.

Then I tried to remember what I was supposed to do. I tried to make myself appear big. Not easy for a guy who’s 5-feet 8. Don’t run, I thought. Don’t let the bear see fear. Again, not easy for someone who was still waiting for his life to flash before his eyes.

“You are supposed to make a lot of noise,” was the advice of co-worker and former Boy Scout leader, Ron Berry.

The movie that played in my mind was that documentary of the guy who fell in love with the bears up in the Aleutian wilderness, Timothy Treadwell. He went back one too many times and ended up as lunch.

I decided not to befriend the bears, as Treadwell, but instead, to high tail it out of there. I walked, albeit briskly, past the large mammal, and took advantage of the trail’s sharp descent. I didn’t run, but didn’t stop until I reached Twin Springs.

There, I ate the apple that was in my backpack, the one I worried Mr. Bear would smell and jump me for. The sweat rolled down my back and this time, it felt good. As the kids would say, no fear.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

Losing our advantage

2007-06-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

FILMMAKER Woody Allen famously dissed Los Angeles in one of his films by saying “the only cultural advantage of living in LA (vs. New York City) is that you can make a right turn on a red light.”

Harsh. But having lived in both places, I can say there’s some truth to his crack.

But that same kind of NY-CA snobbery I may be guilty of can be applied to LA County’s westside vs. eastside rivalry. Westsiders say they’ve got a cultural advantage over us here on the eastside. They’ve got Santa Monica, Third Street, The Getty, UCLA, the LA County Museum of Art and if you throw in downtown, Dodger Stadium and MOCA. My colleague Larry Wilson, editor of the Star-News, would argue the Pasadena area (part of the eastside) is no slouch when it comes to culture. It has the Norton Simon, Old Pasadena, the Huntington Library and the Rose Bowl. He would have a point.

But for argument’s sake, I’ll give the cultural IQ to the westside. Plus, they’ve got the beach. But us on the eastside of the basin have a geographic advantage. We are centrally located. You can live in the San Gabriel Valley (or the Whittier area) and be almost equidistant to any of LA’s or Orange County’s cultural institutions, stadiums, venues and destinations.

From my house in Temple City, which is centrally located within the San Gabriel Valley, I am 34 miles from UCLA and 37 miles from Cal State Fullerton. Amazing. It is just a few more miles to Santa Monica Pier and again, just a few more miles south to Anaheim/Angel Stadium/Disneyland.

San Fernando Valley? Very close by, just a hop skip and jump to Universal Studios, City Walk or Hollywood’s sights. When my East Coast friends come out to visit and stay with me, it is geographically convenient to take them to all these LA and OC landmarks. They are equally as close. My guests are closer to everything than if they had stayed on the westside or in Orange County.

What small businesses like to say is the most important thing to success, the San Gabriel Valley has in droves: location, location, location.

But that geographic advantage is slipping away — nearly erased — due to traffic. It is the freeway gridlock — not just during “commute hours” but more often on Saturdays and Sundays — that is taking away one of the San Gabriel Valley’s most precious advantages over the westside.

SGV’ers have let traffic affect their choices in entertainment, in careers, in friends, even in baseball clubs. Traffic is killing our geographic advantage. Like the frog in the lukewarm water, our “best location” advantage is slowly dying only we don’t know it. And with it, some of our identity dies too.

I told a friend from SoCal (now living in Northern California) I enjoy going to restaurants in downtown LA.“You go to dinner in downtown LA? Where?” he said in disbelief. It’s less than 10 miles away! Yet because of traffic we’ve stopped going there.

I had the day off and took my son, Matt, 17, to visit and tour UCLA. I reached Kerckhoff Hall’s parking structure after only 34 miles. With morning traffic it took us 1 hour 15 minutes.

My wife and I hitched our bikes onto her car and drove to Santa Monica Sunday morning in less than 45 minutes. With very little traffic the “distance” to the westside grows short. It’s the traffic that colors our perception of distance. It’s the traffic that caused us to measure car trips in hours, not miles. We’re one of the few people groups to do that.

My friend Rich in Irvine loves the LA Dodgers because he grew up in LA and his father was a Dodger fan. But recently, the bottlenecks and heavy traffic he encountered along the drive up Interstate 5 to Dodger Stadium (not far in distance) caused him to attend an Angels game with me in Anaheim. He even bought an Angel cap! Can traffic change our loyalties to a sports team, some of the most ingrained social programing in the human psyche? The answer is yes.

One last example. My nephew’s wife is a graphic artist working at a company in Orange County near where they live. She doesn’t like the job but won’t consider the possibilities of working at an LA firm because she fears spending hours each day sitting in traffic.

Isn’t that what Orange County (or the SGV) was built as: a bedroom community for companies in LA? Now, even that suburban model is breaking down.

Traffic is not just spending more time in a car and less time at home. It is a cancer that is slowly limiting careers, changing lifestyles and stealing our advantages — things that once made us as a Valley attractive.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion pages editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.

Screening screen time

2007-05-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

By Steve Scauzillo

YOU haven’t met Mark Zuckerberg, I’m sure. But he’s trying to “meet” your children or grandchildren at their home/laptop computers. He’s the 23-year-old in the Hoodie sweatshirt and blue jeans on the cover of the New York Times Business section Friday.

Zuckerberg started Facebook, one of those Internet-based “social operating systems” that take up so much of young people’s time. Expansion plans aside, Facebook has 24 million members (up from 12 million in October); add that to his competitor, MySpace, which has 67 million members (some overlapping I’m sure) and that’s a lot of people “playing life” in their jammies in front of their computers at 2 in the morning.

Did I mention Zuckerberg was 23?

Now, there’s nothing wrong with entrepreneurial youth. In fact, it’s the American way. But as an adult and a father of teenagers, it’s my job to question who they are taking in their cars and what they are doing on “social networking” Web sites. And to question the networking sites themselves.

It’s a tall order for parents today, especially when most have never even heard of MySpace or Facebook and wouldn’t know an avatar from an avalanche.

But computer literacy is important, but not the point of this column. I think it’s time to evaluate the pros and cons of the Internet, you know, the thing Al Gore invented, on our lives today. Some may say as a 49-year-old male, I am not qualified. Who am I to judge the social activities of young people on the Internet? What do I know about cell phone text messaging? Not much, I’ll admit.

Still, for what its worth, here goes my Internet report card. I’ll give a + for good impact, a — for a bad impact and a / for neutral or a wash. Do tell me your own grades and comments via e-mail or by posting on my blog, stevescaz.blogspot.com.

Impact on youth (-). From computer SIMS games to Facebook, MySpace, Instant Messaging, cell phone text messaging, Internet game playing, kids 12-24 are spending more time in front of computer screens. Social skills — the real kind — are faltering. At my house, after dinner, we retreat to our own computer screen each with DSL connections and play games, e-mail, or surf the Web. Having conversations with adults or even doing “normal” things like getting a summer job are huge tasks to today’s computer literate teens.

A 2005 study by Kaiser Family Foundation found kids on average are spending more than six hours a day sitting in front of screens, whether they are on the computer, watching TV, playing video games or using other media. The good people at Kaiser Family said these numbers were up sharply from their last data set taken in 1999. Their conclusion: The large amount of time kids spend on computers sharing personal information on sites created by 23-year-old millionaires in the Silicon Valley (I added the part in italics) is something parents should take notice.

Impact on data access (+). As a 40-something at grad school getting my master’s degree while working full time, having a “proxy” at my home computer for all data bases in all 23 Cal State University libraries was a godsend. It beat making copies out of research journals.

Entertainment/information (-). The Internet gave us streaming video where most Americans watch online movies of a Panda bear sneezing or car chases. And of course, it brought us junk e-mails, Viagra spam and pornography straight to our home. I miss getting letters in the mail from friends and going to the movies is still better than watching anything on a small screen. Need I say more about porn?

Reading/news delivery (/) Of course, the disruptions caused by the Internet to newspapers are well documented. Newspapers are losing readers, especially young ones, to the Internet. This started with television and then cable news. As a kid, I liked reading The Long Island Press in the afternoons with my dad. Then p.m. newspaper were slain by TV news, and now, newspapers in general are hurting. The good thing is, people can react to world news quicker now and that holds the promise of a more engaged, more informed public opinion. So far, that hasn’t really happened in my humble opinion.

I could spend the holiday weekend buying virtual land on a new site called secondlife.com, where you create a 3-D avatar version of yourself and use a virtual mapping technology to “see” and “seize” land.Or, I could feel the real sunshine on my face, the real dirt beneath my hiking boots and trek up one of my favorite trails in Marshall Canyon in La Verne.
Guess which one I will choose?

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

Park Headed For Extinction?

2007-05-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

By Steve Scauzillo

MEMBERS of Friends of La Laguna (www.friendsoflalaguna.com) flagged down passers-by at the city of San Gabriel’s recent birthday festival. It was part of their continuing effort to raise about $500,000 to save a historic portion of a city park.

They were told by City Hall that if you want to save what’s known as Monster Park, aka Dinosaur Park, a child’s playground made up of 14 cement sea sculptures, you need to raise all the money. You’re on your own.

San Gabriel residents Eloy Zarate and his wife, Senya Lubisich, jumped at the challenge. They formed a nonprofit organization and almost immediately got a $70,000 grant from Annenberg Foundation and are approaching $110,000 in total donations, Lubisich said. They started last fall and, despite the obstacles, are not about to stop now.“We are here until we do this. We can’t back out,” declared Zarate.

Involved citizens. A community rallying to save a historic city resource. Private money flowing in. It all sounds good. But there’s something wrong with this picture. The city is not in it.
Why does it take private residents to see the beauty in art, especially as unique an installation as La Laguna, the last work of Mexican artist Benjamin Dominguez?

Why do cities, especially San Gabriel, the oldest in the San Gabriel Valley, struggle so much with saving historic structures?Zarate says he understands the city’s plight. They are so desperate for dollars, any dollars, that they will do anything. It is a post-Proposition 13 world, where cities get most of their funding from sales tax revenues, not property tax.

Hence, the city was hoping to get grants for park improvements, and the collection of cement sea sculptures in a 19,000 square-foot corner of Vincent Lugo Park was seen as in the way.But like so many other cases of historic preservation, from oak trees in Monrovia, to old Craftsman homes in Pasadena and Covina, to grove houses in the once-agricultural expanse of Glendora, the public sees it differently and time and again votes for preservation.

Today, the public often sees the value in uniqueness, in designs that no longer exist, in what once was and still is part of what makes their town special.

Zarate, who teaches history at Pasadena City College, said the parks movements in the ’50s and ’60s and before that were used to distinguish one city from the next town of repetitive roofs and tilt-up strip malls.“Lincoln Park. MacArthur Park. These are places people feel are cultural, special to their communities,” he said.

Dominguez imagined sea serpents, light houses, a sinking ship, an octopus and then sculpted them out of cement. He did not work from blueprints. The color was mixed into the concrete, not painted on, another unique feature. The University of Mexico-trained artist and father of 13 children gave the La Laguna to San Gabriel in 1965, where it became part of the memory-scape of thousands of residents and Southern Californians who played on them as children and now bring their own kids to the park.

Other works of Dominguez are scattered: in Legg Lake at Whittier Narrows Recreation Area; in Garden Grove and in El Paso, Texas. Others in Montebello, Beverly Hills and Las Vegas have been demolished.

Restoring these playground sculptures will take money and painstaking effort. Zarate hopes to soon have art historians devise a restoration plan that will breathe new life into the chipped and faded artworks yet continue their original purpose: as an imaginative playground for young children.

But this is more than just art preservation. “It is nostalgic, but it also plays a function,” Zarate said. He gets e-mails from former Little League players who after a loss on the adjacent ball field, would play on La Laguna.

“Did you know that Head Start and other preschools use this as their field trip?”“It is a resource, not just for the neighborhood but for people from surrounding communities that use this place,” he said.

“New things might be easier and cheaper to do, but to keep historic resources is expensive,” he said. “It is a different mind-set.”

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.
To contact Friends of La Laguna, go to their Web site at www.friendsoflalaguna.com

Getting lost in the crowd

2007-04-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

By Steve Scauzillo

HAVE you got team spirit?

I'm referring to liking one team more than another. I'm talking about being so identified with one team or one school or one community that you call them "ours" or "we" when they win, even though you are not literally on the baseball team.

The fiercest rivalry in college sports in Los Angeles is between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC). Fans come down on one side or the other, with no divided loyalties.

At my Bible study group, some of the guys enjoy some friendly ribbing regarding USC and UCLA, mostly over the outcome of the respective football and basketball teams.
Being from New York, I was brought up by my father to be a New York Yankees fan. He took me in his Chevy Impala to see Mickey Mantle, Bobby Richardson and Joe Pepitone play. Later, I would drive to the South Bronx to cheer on Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry and Graig Nettles.
I still like the Yanks, but really, I like baseball.

That means, I will cheer on other teams and even cheer another player from a "rival" team if he made a good play. Not being a Dodger fan, I admire Nomar Garciaparra as a very good player and a great guy. I enjoyed watching the Jackie Robinson tribute.

In college, can school spirit create a cliquish atmosphere? Can it segregate or be dangerous, especially if one doesn't live and breathe school spirit? Or if one rejects it?

A psychologist was asked last week why school massacres occur mostly in small towns. He said often, places like University of Texas or Virginia Tech or Columbine have strong, sometimes smothering school identities. You're either a Longhorn or a Hokie - no room for anything else. If you're not doing the body painting and the identity disappearing act, then you're an outcast. Criticize that school and you are labeled a traitor.

The psychologist on the TV talk show said the misfits of VT, UT, Columbine, etc., are so outcast that they lose all hope. The mentally unstable can blow. In physics talk, the force has no positive way to flow, so it finds an outlet.

I had an uncle in NYC who spoke of this in Italian family metaphors. "You're either in or out," he'd say. You're either family or not. He'd jokingly come up to my sister-in-law - a Jew - who married my brother and say: "You can never be in. You'll always be out." He said the same thing to my wife, who hails from a white, Protestant, Scots-Irish background.

I always dismissed his antics as harmless joking. Likewise, I never saw anything sinister about "being true to your school now" as the Beach Boys sang 44 years ago.
Then it happened. I attended a "Jeopardy!" college championship taping Sunday on the USC campus. My wife, Karen, and my two boys, Matt, 17, and Andy, 15, are huge "Jeopardy!" buffs. Matt even tried out for the high school tournament and got a call back, but he fell a few answers shy of an appearance.

Of the three contestants was Cliff from UCLA. The USC people in the audience were rooting against the kid from UCLA from the get-go. The USC marching band was gesturing in appreciation when he missed a question. I know, I sat directly behind them. They didn't applaud when he answered a "Daily Double" correctly. Even the adults, many dressed in USC cardinal and gold, did not cheer on the UCLA scholar. And these were adults - alums.

I was flabbergasted.

There was not a contestant competing from USC, and yet these USC alums and students still could not cheer a student from UCLA answering questions on a game show. That's taking this school loyalty thing way too far.

Perhaps there's something to that psychologists' assessment of school spirit.
One final note: I attended University of California, Irvine in the late '70s. The school did not have a "serious" mascot because they didn't want the school to focus on athletics, so the students mockingly chose an anteater. Well, guess what? It stuck. They are the UCI Anteaters today, but the school does not have a football team.

I remember UCI founding Chancellor Dan Aldrich, who passed away in 1990, would tell the story about how the school did not have fraternities or sororities either. Again, the idea was not to divide the school society. Not to set up cliques where students not rich enough or not good-looking enough can feel ostracized or outcast. When I left UCI, the "Greek" movement had begun, to Aldrich's displeasure.

Guess it is hard to stop human nature.

I can't help but wonder if the joke is on them. That students who have to identify so heavily with a team or a school or a fraternity miss out on developing their own identity. It's like that old Groucho Marx joke: I wouldn't want to join a club that would have me as a member.
steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

Status Quo Economics

2007-04-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

It’s the economics that drive this issue. And if something is to change, it must start with the businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

THERE’S nothing like a change of scenery to gain a fresh perspective on an issue. Take illegal immigration.

I spent five days in eastern Kansas (Johnson County) and Kansas City, Mo., last week and guess what? There are no illegal immigrants hanging around the Home Depot stores. The people who bus and wait tables? Local residents, college students. Gardeners and domestic workers? Legal citizens.

It was the same way last year when I visited Portland and Salem, Ore. College kids and teenagers were working at McDonald’s and Wendy’s and at the various ethnic restaurants, busing tables, mopping floors, taking orders.

Such anecdotal evidence throws out one of the basic arguments for illegal immigration — that no one will do such menial jobs except those crossing into the United States illegally. Tell that to Oregon, Kansas and Missouri. If they can fill those low-tier jobs with American citizens or recent legal immigrants, why can’t California? Of course, it is not that simple.

And let me stop and say right now that I know the meaning of illegal immigration. It is illegal — against the law. So, in essence, yes, that part is simple. But just for a few moments, I’d like to talk about the non-simple part: economics. See, it is always money that belies our social problems in this country.

People come into the United States illegally from Mexico, El Salvador and other parts of South America or China or wherever because they are poor and see a better opportunity in the USA. There’s no denying that is true. We have a great country with a rich economy that is much stronger than those immigrant countries.

Second, there is what social psychologists call conditioning. Illegal immigration is a conditioned response. It’s been going on for decades and both sides of the border have gotten used to it, even relied upon it. People make it over, sometimes after numerous tries, sometimes risking death from heat exhaustion, always with self-sacrifice, often leaving behind family members they may never see again.

They do it because there are industries — i.e. jobs, dollars — waiting on this side of the border. Restaurants, construction businesses, homeowners and the biggest of all, agribusiness, will hire illegal immigrants for less and for fewer or no benefits. They work hard and some may start their own businesses and soon, the economy adjusts, even prospers. There is also a price America pays in terms of health care and hospital emergency rooms, law enforcement and education costs. But that’s for another column.

Congress has authorized more border patrol agents and is building a large fence across our southern border. And some sources say illegal crossings are down. But agriculture firms in the Central Valley, which have become reliant on cheap labor, are complaining about too few workers to harvest the crops. Upper middle class and upper class residents in L.A. say prices of car washes, restaurant meals, day care and domestic help will rise if illegal immigration is curbed. Again, they’ve become conditioned to inexpensive labor. I say, these same jobs can be filled — eventually — but at legal wage by legal residents.

I had a friend my age who grew up in the Central Valley. He was white and poor. He and his brothers would pick almonds in the summer. Now, these jobs are usually given to illegal immigrants.Would white folks pick fruit and almonds today? Farmers say no. I’d suspect the white folks would say no as well. Why? Because the social conditions have changed. Now, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, etc., work on our farms in California. They are on the lower rung of the social ladder.

It was the same way in the 1920s and 1930s when my mother’s mother, my grandmother Pompelia, and her two sisters, Josephine and Matilda, came over by boat from Italy and were processed as legal immigrants at Ellis Island in New York. They took garment worker jobs — today they are called sweatshops. My grandfather, Matteo Mimmo, went to work in the steel mills in Pittsburgh. He was an educated man and soon learned the masonry trade and established his own business in New York.

They were legal immigrants but faced similar economic conditions to those illegal immigrants face today. They were taunted as WOPs and dagos yet climbed the social ladder by learning English and going to school, as do most legal immigrants today (whether Latino, Asian or European.)

It’s the economics that drive this issue. And if something is to change, it must start with the businesses that hire illegal immigrants. Or are they — and us — too conditioned to the status quo to bring about changes?

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com. Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

The impact of parental involvement

2007-03-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

Visit Scauzillo's blog: stevescaz.blogspot.com

EVERY year I interview school board candidates running for office and I ask them, "How can you make our schools better?" and someone inevitably answers "more parental involvement."

That phrase, and the one that goes "it's for the children" can cause a cynical journalist like yours truly to put down his pen and drop-kick the editorial "we" out the door.

Last week in this space, in an anti-cynical move if I say so myself, I was principal for the day at a Bassett Unified School, and I challenged parents to get involved with their kids' education. On Friday, I followed up by attending the 11th Annual Parent Involvement Academy put on by Bassett, Alhambra Unified, El Monte City School District, El Monte Union High School District, Garvey School District, Little Lake City School District, Montebello Unified School District and Rowland Unified School District (as well as the Los Angeles County Office of Education).
I conducted an informal survey by asking parents two questions: What good does volunteering really do? And if they answered in the affirmative, how do you get other school parents to volunteer?

I don't know if I got definitive answers in my two-hour spin around the Pacific Palms Conference Resort in Industry where 900 parents and presenters gathered, but the parents I met were most impressive.

"It does a lot of good," said Hugo Solis, whose daughter, Alina, attends South El Monte High School. "I'm here learning more about aid and scholarships for college. At home, they will ask me about scholarships and I can share this information with them. This will help us."
He had me at hello, simply because he was a volunteer dad. Most here were moms and grandmoms.

Then he hit me with this bombshell: He felt like a hypocrite telling his daughter to stay in school when he himself had not completed high school. "So as a parent, I went back to school. I am going to Ramona Adult School and am getting my high school diploma ... I am planning on going to college, too," he said. Solis hopes to study real estate.

I told you they were impressive. Seems like volunteering at his daughter's school helps her, helps others and helps himself. His example should get other parents off the couch, yes?
Then I met Alba Rangel who has volunteered at schools since her son, her oldest, began Head Start preschool. Though he's struggled with learning disabilities, Jose graduated from Schurr High School and now attends East Los Angeles College. Her daughter is applying to Cal State Los Angeles.

Rangel spoke passionately about the difference volunteering has made. Everything she learned - from the A-G university requirements, to how to walk through an IEP (individual education plan) - came from her volunteering. "It makes a difference when you not only get involved, but get educated," she explained.

She now tries to pass along her knowledge within the Montebello USD. "You've got to shine the other apples, too, and make sure they don't get rotten."
Rangel said too often Latino parents give excuses about why they don't visit their child's teachers on back-to-school night. Her husband told her he could not get involved because of his work. She convinced him to change to night hours and volunteer during the day. "He now helps out, you know, by putting ice on the ice chests and selling juices."

Maria Padilla and Carmen Manzo, both volunteers at Alhambra High School, both Spanish speakers, said through an interpreter that they were volunteering in order to help their children graduate and move on to college.

Manzo said by getting "educated" about high school and college requirements, her own children can talk to her more freely. "They know the parents are in communications with the school so they can't pull the wool over my eyes."

I surmised from talking to folks that parental involvement is growing, especially at high schools. The question is not getting more parents involved but whether schools are capable of handling more volunteers. If so, what are schools doing to attract and retain parent volunteers?

Nogales High School in La Puente has a "parent center," a room where parents can come and ask questions. Some take parental education classes in the evenings.

I also learned that simply saying "we wish more parents were involved" is the wrong response. Board members, principals and PTA presidents must form creative outreaches that help working parents connect with public schools.

Gilbert Garcia, Rowland Unified board member, said the principal of Rowland High School, Robbie Robinson, has begun mentoring 20 students who were failing. So far, five turned failing grades into passing grades in three classes each. "That is a huge impact," Garcia said.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.

2007-03-16T12:53:00.000-07:00

My Favorite Things

About a week ago I wrote about how the small cities we live in here in the San Gabriel Valley give us some favorite things. Things we hang onto for familiarit, convenience or nostalgia.

One of those I lamented was the loss of the drive-through post office box from the Temple City Post Office.
I got an email from Barbara Dreibus who set me straight:
"In today's Star-News, you mention that the drive through post box was removed from the Temple ICty Post Office, which is true. However, you must not have read the note on their door, which tells you that the drive through post box was moved to the public parking area of Primrose, between Woodruff and Las Tunas. It evidently was move dthere for stafety reasons. I,too, was concerned at first that it was gone, but I find it easier now in that public parking lot than I did at the post office itself" -Barbara Dreibus

Thanks Barbara!
On Tuesday night, I had to mail a letter and I was in my car, coming from Baldwin Avenue. I found the public parking lot and there was the new post office box. It still had that chute that makes it easy to slip in an envelope right from the car window! I would not have known this was there without Barbara's e-mail. She made my week!

On the issue of the Star Donuts store (on Las Tunas Drive) no longer selling low-fat muffins, I still am looking for some good low-fat muffings. But I received an e-mail on the subject that If I find, I will post. A reader said I should buy those Zen muffins from Traders Joe's. I love Traders' but I don't like those Zen muffins. Besides, my Weight Watchers teacher says the calorie/fat info on the label is for a half a muffin, not a whole one. So beware!

I received another e-mail from a San Gabriel Valley Tribune reader, who shared with me her favorite deli. Here's her e-mail (Many old timers might recognize the establishment):

"I enjoyed your editorial today regarding daylight savings time and your favorite places.

"I just wanted to tell you about one of my favorite places - and it's still there. It's Canter's Deli on Fairfax in L A. I grew up living near there and it was a favorite. We used to walk there after school and have fries and a coke. Later we used to go for the good stuff - huge cornerd beef sandwiches on rye, lox and bagels, pastrami, and of course the bakery stuff. My mother used to buy me a pound of my favorite baked chocolate thing (I can't remember the name) for my birthdays when I was in college.

I don't drive the freeway now and have no way to get there except if my sister will pick me up at the subway at Wilshire & Western. A couple of years ago she said she wouldn't ----- because I always want to do the same thing - go to Canter's and drive by the old neighborhood ----- and that I was wrong for not wanting to try NEW THINGS. Well, if I want to try NEW THINGS, I can try them in West Covina or in this area. The whole thing about making the awful trip to LA is seeing the old favorites..........Canter's, Farmer's Market (not The Grove, which is new), parts of Hollywood Blvd., and the old neighborhood near Santa Monica and La Cienega, where the famous Barney's Beanery is. Why see NEW THINGS when these old ones have so much class and so many memories?

Sorry I got so detailed, but I really did appreciate your editorial and wanted to share my opinion with you."

S Grey
West Covina

Bob Aronoff of Pasadena sympathized with my complaint that restaurants are on a mission to make us fat and unhealthy! He recommended one pleace that doesn't do that. "The place is called "Fanta-Sea" It is a seafood eatery. Plain vanilla kind of place with the emphasis on the food, not the decor. Almost everyhting is prepared from scratch. Service is personal and good."
Thanks Bob. I'll have to check it out.

-steve scauzillo
Long-time Tribune subscriber

Progress interrupted

2007-02-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

REMEMBER when progress was a good thing?

When we looked toward the future and saw better roads, new inventions, scientific advances and a better life?

Today, many look at progress as a dirty word.Perhaps it is the Baby Boomers’ fault. They went to college, many the first in their families, and experienced freedom of expression, freedom to choose a career path
they wanted, the freedom to say “no” to mom or dad and say, “I’m going to do what interests me, not what you want me to be.”

Perhaps we are spoiled. So much so that many Boomers unintentionally want to stop progress because they want to keep things the way they are. The same is often said of the World War II cohort, a group Tom Brokaw called “the greatest generation.” They want things to go back to the good old days.

That’s a theme running through the conversations I’ve had this month with candidates running for city councils and school boards. Of course, not all candidates want things to be the same. On the contrary, most are forward thinkers and problem solvers. But many report to me, in what Simon and Garfunkel would label “dangling conversations,” that constituents often lament today’s traffic, higher density dwellings, etc., and wish to keep their city “quaint” or “like it was.”

These are valid concerns. In fact, such quality of life issues are close to the hearts of Valley residents. We don’t live in the city of Los Angeles, and we don’t want our necklace of small cities strung amid the picturesque San Gabriel Valley to become one ginormous megalopolis. Still, I haven’t figured out how to reverse time.

“Many tell me they liked it when we had Liebergs,” said Dan Arrighi, Temple City councilman. “They want to keep their city ‘quaint.’”But standing still is not keeping a city quaint. By doing nothing, downtown shopping districts deteriorate. Some are going from quaint to ain’t. I see homeless people in our downtowns. I see empty lots, graffiti and crime. And I see people going to shopping malls and Big Box stores, leaving small cities’ downtowns with only liquor stores, nail salons and drug stores.

Unfortunately, small cities cannot keep providing police and fire/paramedic services, working sewers and storm drains, paved streets and active recreation programs without adequate sales tax revenues. Sales tax revenues often come from Big Box stores or car dealers. The cities that realize this first get these retailers first — then they fill in with quaint eateries and shops. Two cities that have not sat back on quaint are Monrovia and Alhambra. They’ve revitalized their downtowns and provided a better quality of life for their residents.

Yeah, but what about the traffic, you say? Good question.The way traffic is addressed in this state is archaic.

For example, take the need for freeway widening. The San Bernardino (10) Freeway through Baldwin Park and West Covina is one of the few links without a carpool lane. Also, the juncture of the 10 and the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway is dangerous and causes traffic congestion every single day — one that stretches for several miles, not just at the exchange.

The westbound 10 Freeway is sluggish (moving about 10-20 mph) every Saturday afternoon from 2 p.m. into the evening. The Pomona Freeway (60) is very jammed every Saturday afternoon also, not from accidents but simply from too many cars. Let’s not even talk about the Foothill (210) Freeway!

To say we have a commuter or “rush hour” problem woefully underestimates the situation on our freeways. Freeways are busy seven days a week. The time sitting in traffic impacts families, hurts commerce and adds to air pollution.Gasoline taxes for roads are collected and funneled to the state.

The California Transportation Commission recommends what improvement projects make the list. Amazingly, the 10/605 exchange did not.We need progress in fixing our freeways. New Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, gets it. So does West Covina Mayor Mike Touhey and Councilman Steve Herfert, Baldwin Park Mayor Manny Lozano and Duarte’s John Fasana (also on the MTA board). They recently screamed and yelled about the funding inequity and even held a press conference on the overpass Friday, attracting even more supporters (Assemblyman Bob Huff, Rep. Hilda Solis, Supervisor Gloria Molina).

Hernandez put it best: “We have one of the most dangerous, congested interchanges in the state of California, at one of the most critical hubs for commuters and commerce. ... We need this project to be funded now.”

The California Transportation Commission meets Feb. 28 at Irvine City Hall. I’d love it if everyday folks would show up. If traffic prevents you from getting there, fax a letter to Ed Hernandez’s office. His fax number is: (626) 960-1310 or drop it off/mail it to 1520 W. Cameron Ave., Suite 165, West Covina, 91790. Address it: Attention Progress.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel ValleyNewspaper Group.

A sense of purpose

2007-02-16T16:28:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest column. It is on gangs and stems from a recent visit to a juvenile hall in LA County. Tell me what you believe are the solutions to the gang problem?

I sat nervously in a green, plastic chair, unsure of what to do with my hands. I ended up folding them in my lap.
Around me were 10 boys, all 15-years old, dressed in loose-fitting sweat pants without belts, sweat shirts with no zippers or buttons and sneakers with no shoelaces.The juvenile hall inmates were surprisingly animated, eager to talk to this week’s visiting group, even ready to solve my problems. I went there on a Sunday with a friend and his church group who listen to the inmates and spread God’s hope.
“I have a question,” I said. “I know a kid your age in my community. He attends high school. But recently he’s talking about joining a gang. He even has a gang tattoo on his arm. What should I say to him?”
These kids, who know a thing or two about gang-banging, jumped at the chance to answer. Their advice was helpful, right-on, insightful.
“You gotta separate your sons from him. Don’t let them like go to the mall or hang out with him,” warned one boy. “You know, sometimes an innocent girl or boy can get shot ...” he said sincerely. His sentence trailed off, but the care in his voice remained.
“Try doing some things with him. Like, take him to a Dodger game or to the movies. Get him to do other things ... good things,” he suggested.
The conversation went on for an hour. They spoke about what they did that landed them in juvenile hall and about how they felt about being locked up.
This reporter is hardly naive about crime. But as I spoke to them, I saw them as fellow human beings — not society castoffs. Could they get it together someday with a little help?
It hit me later on that perhaps we are attacking the gang problem in this county backward. Sure, more cops and more enforcement will help. But why don’t we put more money, more time and more resources into rehabilitation and prevention.
ot every one of these kids will be rehabilitated. In fact, the odds are stacked against them. But they deserve a second or third chance. If for no other reason than protecting ourselves, rehabilitation and job training are effective tools for preventing today’s juvenile inmates from committing new crimes when they get out.
I’m not talking politics. I’m talking common sense. Most crimes are committed by ex-cons. Often, time makes them harder criminals. This problem needs to be addressed. Yes, it would be a huge undertaking. But our state’s youth institution policies must go beyond locking them up and hoping they don’t get out. Because that doesn’t work.
What does work for juveniles is tough love and a helping hand (i.e. a job). That’s something that Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries/Jobs for a Future, has been doing for nearly 20 years. Boyle celebrated Mass that morning inside the hall’s gymnasium and spoke to the inmates about seeing the potential within themselves.
Boyle’s homily centered on Jesus’ call to his apostles, who were not having luck catching fish. When Jesus said cast your nets elsewhere, they did so and pulled in a boatload of fish.When others doubt, trust that God can tap that potential that’s inside you. “Remember, boatloads of fish. You, too, have boatloads of potential,” he preached.
Boyle’s ministry is centered on a simple philosophy: “Nothing stops a bullet better than a job.” Teens that joined gangs in Boyle Heights were way too idle; having a job gave them purpose and filled up time.
Which brought me back to the most chatty member of our Sunday morning circle. I’ll call him Jay. He was at the El Monte house of a friend who had a shotgun. They took the gun and stole a car and drove it into L.A., where the LAPD Hollenbeck Division pulled them over. It was a miracle Jay was alive, since he resisted arrest — he ran. All because, he says, he had nothing else to do. He said he wanted to come back to juvenile hall.
“Why did you join a gang?” I asked them.
Jay’s response was genuine: “There’s no greater feeling when you see your homeboys, and they are like, ‘Hey, how ya doing?” he said.
The others in the circle nodded in agreement. It is that feeling of being loved, being respected, that they thrive on. When they get it, it is like a drug-induced high. It’s what keeps them coming back.
One final story. Boyle took two Homeboy workers to a small town in South Dakota where he spoke. The local newspaper did a story on the young men and ran it on the front page. The newspaper was slipped under their hotel room door and they read it, even took it onto the airplane.
Father Boyle looked over at the young man seated next to him who was re-reading the story and had started to cry. Boyle asked what was the matter.“Nothing,” he said. “When I read this, I feel like I am somebody.”

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

Activist at its finest

2007-01-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

By Steve Scauzillo

NOT many people give a rat’s patootie about making sure local water districts don’t rip off ratepayers. Barbara Mee did.

When I covered water, landfills, air quality and other environmental issues during the far-more polluted 1980s and 1990s, the Glendora environmental activist was often spotted in the meeting halls of these obscure local agencies, ferreting out waste and corruption. She was quite tall, classy, and she always greeted you with a smile and a wad of documents.

We call these people gadflies. But that doesn’t do them justice. They are the shoe leather of democracy, helping wear an enlightened path to the darkened cubby holes of government. Mee was one of the best at working the Public Records Act, open meeting laws and the media. She’ll be missed.

Mee passed away Christmas Eve after losing a battle with cancer. She and others tree-huggers of her day gave us, our children and grandchildren a cleaner and greener San Gabriel Valley, even if government waste is still with us.

. . .
Can governments work together?
Just getting city governments and school district governments to acknowledge each other’s existence is a feat. It’s usually town vs. gown. The battle for funding.

Seems like every 12 years when the pendulum swings, we hear more about Democrats and Republicans working together. The president advocated it during his State of the Union address. Gov. Schwarzenegger began this year the same way, laying out an array of more moderate programs both Dems and the GOP can support.

But before we settle into a group hug, Americans in the middle must exercise their voices. With apologies to Paul Revere: The moderates are coming! The moderates are coming! At least, that’s what Gary A. Butts, the founder of ModerateVoters.org, says.

I like their recruitment pitch: “If you’re tired of the Far Right and the Far Left, join us.” I hear ye. We moderates, and I consider myself one, are in the majority. We should act like one.

On Thursday the site offered a host of commentaries and blogs that don’t scream fringe positions but analyze issues and come down closer to the center. For instance, one column looked at “winners and losers” under President Bush’s health care plan. I give moderate kudos to NPR commentator Robert Reich who gave it one cheer because it attempts to separate health insurance from employment, a needed step. However, the moderatevoters.org blog said it doesn’t do anything for the 47 million Americans without insurance now. And the Bush plan may hurt those covered by generous employer-driven plans.

Another commentary reported that Bush’s much ballyhooed troop surge into Iraq may have brought out some militia groups waving the white flag. An article from The New York Times (that’s right!) quoted Rahim al-Daraji, the elected mayor of the Sadr City district, as negotiating peace with a British general in Iraq.

I can guarantee you this won’t make the screaming left-vs.-right TV political talk shows.

...Does government learn from its mistakes?
Charles Krauthammer wrote that he counted 24 references to foreign oil independence from the last 34 State of the Union addresses. Yet we’re still here, kissing OPEC’s feet. And GM killed the electric car.And what about learning from natural disasters?

Kim Bishop, geology associate professor at Cal State Los Angeles, will give a talk: “Shake, Rattle, and Roll — Some Lessons from the 1971 San Fernando and 1994 Northridge Earthquakes, on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 8 p.m., in the Physical Sciences Building, room 158.
What a concept. Learning from the past. I like it.

...Learning, the hard way.That’s what a lot of us do this time of year when confronting credit card and department store bills from holiday overspending.

That’s why the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) advise consumers set up a holiday savings account now, for Christmas 2007.These accounts can be added to throughout the year but withdrawals are restricted until October.

I wish I was as organized as these banker types. They sent out this press release Dec. 12, 2006. Here’s wishing you a debt-free 2007 Christmas holiday. And a longer memory.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.
Tell me what is on you mind...

Fun flying a thing of the past

2007-01-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

By Steve Scauzillo

WHILE standing in the security line at Kona Airport, the seemingly endless exercise in flying safety went on for at least an hour when I heard a male passenger behind me utter to no one in particular: “Remember when flying used to be fun?”

It was a throw away line let fly amid the pushing and shoving and short-tempered passengers, their crying babies and the bumper-car strollers. All under the chaotic auspices of the Transportation Security Administration.His utterance — intended to cut the tension — was so very apropos.At the risk of sounding a bit whiney, have you noticed the 43,000 TSA airport screeners have become less helpful after they were made federal employees? Now, they may be on their way to being allowed to unionize, according to a new bill passed in Congress this week.

My experience makes me re-think my support of the federalization of security screeners at airports. I remember my libertarian friends warning that once they become federal employees, service will decline. I refused to take the bait. But if anecdotal evidence gathered on a recent vacation is any indication, my libertarian friends were right.

These are the signs at TSA airport security checkpoints: “The TSA is not responsible for managing the line.” This meant, they’ll X-ray your carry-on bag, juggle your liquid cosmetics and pat you down if they have to, but they won’t help manage the process. Every family, grandma and teenaged-acne-faced terrorist for themselves.

Oh what I would give for a Disneyland manager that hot, humid day in Kona’s all-outdoor airport. Those Magic Kingdom-trained personnel know how to snake a line and make it seem shorter.“You should all move this way, toward the curb,” said a young female TSA worker. Her “corrective” instructions added to the chaos, as people begun to cut in line. She walked away, mumbling this is not her job.

The other sign at the checked bags station reads: “TSA is not responsible for lifting your bags.” In other words, they’ll watch for explosives or that ever-dangerous Swiss Army Knife or bobby pin, but they won’t hoist anything anywhere, no how. I’m still trying to get these TSA people to create one-stop service (how about one line for screening?)

It was the for-profit airlines people who were most helpful. Even United Airlines, which is in and out of bankruptcy protection, produced friendly workers who showed us what line to stand in and where to take our bags for X-raying and bomb detection.

At LAX, the best deal in the house are the independent curbside baggage checkers. For $2 a bag, they ticketed, checked, hoisted, loaded and even cleared my bags and those of my family through the dreaded TSA line in one full swoop. The competent young man asked me for my ID and came back with my boarding tickets, too. Credit the entrepreneurial spirit for this fine service. The only sign on their station is thus: “Gratuities not included in price.”

If only the government employees had to work for tips ...On a park-n-ride bus at LAX, a woman on board asked if it stopped at the international terminal. When myself and another passenger told her she was on the wrong bus, this one only goes to the 96th Street parking lot, she asked the driver to let her off.He refused.It was against the rules.

So, we sat in traffic, often at a complete standstill, missing obvious opportunities to open the side door and let her out so she could catch her flight.“Can’t do it ma’am. Unless you want to pay the $500 fine,” he deadpanned.

Seems like security had her so secure, she couldn’t get to her flight. It was a military flight to a relative stationed in Korea. Not even her sobbing would change the driver’s mind. Nor the rational pleading from passengers.As the shuttle entered the ancillary parking lot, a young African American woman agreed to drive her back to the airport.

Still, Americans came together to help someone in need, even if it was to make a joke while caught in a long security line or help a passenger wrapped so tight in the security cocoon she was crying desperately to get out.

Now Congress wants to extend this security to boats at port. We better get in line now.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.

ADD:
Of course, I'm nost saying all TSA folks are awful. The lady wearing the Hawaiian shirt at the Kona Airport was friendly. I'm just saying that they should help travelers get through lines quicker and do a better job managing the crowds.

---
I had an experience on the same trip with the TSA security folks at LAX. We were walking through the bowels of the United Airlines terminal when someone apparently ran through the x-ray checkpoint without stopping. We heard a whoop and a yell and then, the men in gray slacks with walkie-talkies shouted: "Everyone stop."
We literally were all frozen in time for 10 minutes.
Two business travelers walking in the opposite direction as me and my family, argued they needed to get through to catch a flight. That was a tense moment but the TSA security guys handled it well.
One man came over to us, as we became the front of the queue, and joked with my 15-year-old son: "I was told to stand here to watch you." He smiled and his bantering eased the tension, until his colleague radioed the all clear.
-30-

A Little Goes A Long Way

2006-12-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

By Steve Scauzillo

MARY Njoki, 42, needs $2,000 to expand her dairy business. She’s a single mom of two living in Nyandarwa, Kenya, earning about $73 a week — an adequate living for Africa but not enough to pay for her son’s escalating high-school tuition.

Instead of going to the bank, she went to Kiva.org, and her request for a microloan was posted on the Web site.

So far, her “bankers” have spotted her $1,350, but she still needs another $650 to buy two more dairy cows to produce and sell more milk to the nearby Kenyan processing plant. Her lenders are: Andrew from New York City; Robert from Leadville, Colo.; Reid and Barb from Cincinnati; Farhad from Pleasanton, Calif.; Tasha from Alexandria, Va.; Rutger of the Netherlands; Lynne from Los Angeles and a few other ordinary, middle class citizens of the world, each giving small amounts of $25 or more.

The concept of microfinance is not new. In fact, most trace it back to Mohammad Yunus, who, in the 1970s, set up the Grameen bank, which has lent over $3 billion. His life work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize of 2006.

Kiva.org founders, Matt and Jessica Flannery of San Francisco, took the concept of lending small amounts of money to poor people in developing countries to help them start or expand businesses and made it accessible to everyone via the Internet. They started last year in Kenya since that country had Internet access, even in outlying areas.

The Kiva concept was featured on Frontline/World, a PBS documentary program, last month. As a result, the Web site (www.kiva.org) received $30,000 in loans in almost 24 hours and then crashed. It is back up and running and a marvel to surf, especially for someone looking for meaningful Christmas or Hanukkah gift-giving.

Each year at this time, my wife, Karen E. Klein, and I pick a charity to give to. We used to do the research, but now that our sons are 15 and 17, we’ve shared the research duties with them. This year, we chose Kiva.org. Here’s some of the high points on Kiva:

1. 100 percent of the money goes to the recipient. The Internet money transfer company, PayPal, will perform the transaction at no charge.2. Kiva’s partners will get the money to the recipient.3. The money is a loan. Though lenders are prohibited from charging interest by the SEC, they should expect to be paid back. After the loan is paid back (six months or up to a year), the lender can re-loan the money to a different entrepreneur and continue the cycle.4. Lenders can track progress of the business through the Kiva.org Web site, or sometimes entrepreneurs will send e-mails. The Web site usually includes a picture of the person and a description of the business venture. Lenders can identify themselves with first names, their city and a photo.

Some call this peer-to-peer lending. Others say through use of the Internet, the middle man is eliminated. For me, the meaning is based in the word kiva, which in Swahili means unity.

Too often, the news only widens the gap between the haves and have-nots — just one way our world is divided. We throw up our hands when we hear about poverty in Africa. The Flannerys didn’t quit. They found a way to unite those with means to those struggling. They found a way to cut through the red tinsel and commercial clutter of what passes for Christmas these days.

Gifts to us? The Christ child, the hope of glory, heavenly beams, family smiles. Gifts to others? Share some of your gold, frankincense and myrrh to someone who can really use it.

Closer to home
Last year, our family made a Christmas donation to Foothill Unity Center in Monrovia, a regional food bank for low-income families in the San Gabriel Valley.Volunteers are sought for the charity’s annual gift-and-food distribution event. Adults are needed Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and again on Tuesday, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Ayers Hall at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia. The center could still use donations of food (turkeys, desserts and other meats) to include in food packages. The event is sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation/Buddhist Compassion Relief.For more information about donating food, cash or volunteering your time, contact the center at (626) 358-3486.

Have a meaningful holiday.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel ValleyNewspapers.

An earthly mission

2006-12-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

From the editor's desk

By Steve Scauzillo

THE holy couple of Christmas wander from town to town looking for a place to stay without avail. “There’s no room at the inn,” they’re told. They are homeless.

Today, if we don’t identify with the 1,200 people sleeping on Pasadena’s streets, or the 21,000 women or 15,000 children homeless in Los Angeles County, with whom do we identify?After reading our Nov. 30 article that ranked the San Gabriel Valley as the worst area for homeless services in the county, it dawned on me: Do we have more in common with the stingy innkeeper?I turned to Andy Bales, resident of northwest Pasadena and president of Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles on Skid Row, for answers. Here’s my interview with Andy:

Q: What is the Union Rescue Mission?
A: It is the largest rescue mission of its kind. We house 785 folks each night in our (downtown) facility. We just purchased property in the foothills near Sylmar (we’re renovating an abandoned retirement home) where we will move elderly women into permanent, supportive housing.

Q: Our story said 90 percent of those homeless women and children are unable to find official shelter. Why are more women becoming homeless?
A: A lot of single moms can’t keep up with the cost of rising rents, and they don’t have adequate skills to get jobs. We have to get the women in an environment where they can gain skills, go to school and save money.

Q: I thought we had a safety net in this country?
A: There is not enough of that. And add that to the rising costs of rents, there is not a way for them to keep up.

Q: Recently, you videotaped an elderly female patient being “dumped” onto Skid Row in a hospital gown, straight from a Kaiser hospital. Others say Skid Row is where the shelters and services are. Why is this a bad practice?
A: It has been a bad idea for many, many years. What we’ve done in Los Angeles County is so-called containment. We think we can corral them in one area called Skid Row, so the rest of us won’t have to deal with these folks that are struggling.

Q: What has happened as a result?
A: It has caused great harm to the environment of Skid Row, making it dirty and filthy. ... It has done great harm to those individuals who have been abandoned and dumped by society. I’ve been active in working with other groups to make sure people are treated like human beings. We need to regionalize services so that each city, each area, takes care of their own homeless.

Q: Is the homeless problem getting worse or better?
A: In some areas, it is getting better. Overall, I think we are in bigger trouble. One tragedy looming is with the elderly on fixed incomes. Large companies are buying mobile home parks and raising rents 30 to 50 percent, and nobody is stepping in. Now there are elderly having to choose between medicine and rent.

Q: What can cities, communities do?
A: Take Pasadena. It has not been as intentional in creating affordable housing or work force housing. It has gone after affluent housing and caused a lot of flight (of poorer families) out of Pasadena. Unless we get intentional about helping the poor and marginalized, we are intentionally driving them out of town.

Q: How do the homeless numbers in the suburbs compare to those on Skid Row?
A: There are nearly as many homeless in Pasadena as living on the streets of Skid Row (about 1,200 in each).

Q: What do you recommend people do to help?
A: The biggest thing I’ve tried to do at Lake Avenue Church (as pastor of outreach) was bring people face to face with homeless families, so they recognize they are human beings like you and me. That changes their hearts. Then I say, use your talents. Someone might be able to give money or raise money; someone else might serve a meal. I have a developer friend working on a plan to build several units as very low income.What is most needed is to come and talk to them ... to play a game of chess with an elderly guy at a shelter or spend some time and laugh with the ladies.Why can’t we care about our fellow brothers and sisters?

Q: Why? Why don’t more of us care about the less fortunate?
A: We think maybe homelessness or poverty is contagious, when all that separates us from them is a catastrophic illness or a loss of a paycheck for a month. We want to immediately label them as troubled people to separate from them.

Q: God bless you, Andy.
A: You too, Steve.

Union Rescue Mission is located at 545 S. San Pedro St., between 5th and 6th streets in Los Angeles. The mission needs presents for its 15th annual Christmas Store Toy Drive. Visit their Web site (www.urm.org) for details, and check out the president’s blog for more stories.
steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers.

Make The Leftovers Last

2006-11-24T15:25:00.000-08:00

I'm posting my From The Editor's Desk Column from Sat., Nov. 25.
What do you think of the idea of extending the Thanksgiving holiday? You know, there are 12 days of Christmas, why not four days of Thanksgiving?

It is too bad (as today's editorial cartoon shows) that Thanksgiving gets such short shrift. It gets crowded out by Christmas shopping . Christmas can wait till the third week in December, right?
What do you think? Leave your comments here on this blog. Or you can write them as letters to the editor to our newspaper (letters.tribune@sgvn.com, letters.star-news@sgvn.com or letters.wdn@sgvn.com).
Thanks!
-steve

By Steve Scauzillo

MY friend Brad Haugaard says that Americans cheat the Thanksgiving holiday of its due. One day and done doesn’t give this wonderful ritual — listing the things you are thankful for and maybe discussing them aloud — justice.

Worse, turning Thanksgiving weekend into a shopping spree or a couch potato football marathon is sacrilegious to Brad. I doubly agree.

So, applying the concept of continuation to this holiday, we should keep listing, keep thanking, keep celebrating what we have — all weekend long.

So to Brad, and to all of you, I present a modest list of people and things I’m thankful for that I share today, the Third Day of Thanksgiving. With an emphasis on life’s smaller things.

1. The lady behind the American Airlines counter at LAX almost 24 years ago when my wife Karen and I were embarking on our honeymoon to St. Croix. Her act of random kindness won’t be forgotten. She bumped us up to first class. (Ironically, the trip was free because I received the tickets in a promotion after buying a Chevrolet Chevette from Cormier Chevrolet.)

2. Rick Potter, my boss at Dairy Barn in Bellmore, N.Y., for not being afraid to talk about religion to me, something very politically incorrect these days. Rick took a chance and that conversation continues in me, nurturing a spiritual inner life awakened 28 years ago by a blue-collar guy in a milk store on Long Island. He spoke about God’s grace or unmerited favor to me. Something also to be thankful for today.

3. For being born in the United States, the greatest country in the world.

4. For my grandmother, Pompelia DiCarolis, who with her sister, Matilda, left their home and parents behind in Italy for the unknown shores of America. No men, no husbands, no jobs — only the hope of freedom and a better life, no doubt similar to the hopes and dreams of those Mayflower riders.

5. A rock outcropping beneath the American River. I’m thankful it wasn’t a foot or two closer to my head as I traveled through the water like a missile from a submarine from the force of a white-water rapid. Those endless seconds were calm moments as I thanked my God for so much. Then I surfaced, breathing in gulps of air and clinging to the rock from which I was rescued.

6. The rising silver moon above Jenny Lake’s 9,100 feet in elevation from Earth’s sea level. It was a magical moonrise, perhaps the closest to the moon — and all of God’s creation — I ever got.

7. For Dr. Charles March, whose infertility treatments led to our first child 17 years ago.

8. For Chris Chambliss, whose home run I witnessed leave Yankee Stadium and put my Yanks into the World Series for the first time in my conscious life.

9. For the regular telephone calls from Mickey Fox of Covina, here at work, who challenged me to think about life, but, more importantly, showed me it was a random moment of small talk that reminds us we are alive.

10. For the truck — it was a Chevy Luv — lent to me by Steve and Linda Sargent in September 1984 so my wife and I could move from our apartment in Placentia to a rented house in Monrovia. I got to thinking about that truck Sunday after learning that Linda, the sister of my wife’s best friend in high school, had passed away at age 47 from Lou Gehrig’s disease, which she fought with courage and grace for four years. The obituary Sunday said the wife and mother of two had also been a respiratory therapist. And I remembered how she and he would always come to Halloween costume parties dressed in green hospital scrubs, stethoscopes dangling from their necks. Funny what you remember. There was not time to thank her for her kindness, for helping others who were sick, and for being an example to me of sacrificial love.

11. Last year, an airline worker for Delta Airlines at Rome’s DaVinci Airport spoke my name through the public address system. Concerned, I went up to the ticket counter, announced myself and presented my ID. We were going home, first class! Yup, it happened again. There was no explanation, only kindness.

So, who is on your list? There’s still time to draw one up. Have a happy Rest of Thanksgiving Weekend.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel ValleyNewspapers, 1210 Azusa Canyon Rd., West Covina, CA, 91790.

Talk up veterans

2006-11-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

By Steve Scauzillo

DEPENDING when you read this, soldiers have or will soon drop from the sky onto Baldwin Park. No, U.S. forces are not invading the San Gabriel Valley’s sixth-biggest city. They are paratroopers marking today, Veterans Day.

“Did you know that Veterans Day is always the 11th hour, the 11th day of the 11th month?” quizzed John Diaz, 83, who spent a career in the U.S. Air Force and served in two foreign wars, Korea and Vietnam.Diaz, of Alhambra, and others in the American Veterans Post 113 in Irwindale give presentations at grade schools and colleges and participate as honor guards at veteran funerals. In military language, they are educational ops.

“A lot of people don’t know where the 21-gun salute comes from,” said Diaz during my brief stopover at their facility on Los Angeles Street Thursday afternoon.

I was baffled. Luckily, Diaz was eager to explain.“Take the year of our country’s independence, 1776. Add the seven and the six, and you get 13. Now add the one and the seven, and you get eight. Eight and 13 adds up to 21. That’s where they got it from.”

Unfortunately, not all veterans take after Diaz. Many don’t like talking about the wars they’ve fought in, or the military in general. Once they’re discharged, they quickly blend into society. I heard a radio report about an Iraqi war veteran who lost a hand. He chose a metal hook prosthesis over the more life-like rubber hand because he would be forced to talk about his injury and not hide from it.

Richard Moreno, 84, parachuted behind enemy lines in 1944 in occupied France. The place was Normandy. The battle was D-Day. Before that, he fought in Northern Africa and Sicily — as part of the 82nd Airborne.

My father, Louis Scauzillo, also fought in World War II, also in Northern Africa and Italy. I saw in Moreno the same kind of reluctance to share about the war as in my dad.I first learned about my dad’s bravery on Dec. 11, 1998, when my older brother delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

He never talked about the Nazis going through the bodies of his buddies with bayonet stabs, making sure everyone in his company was dead. By remaining still, by playing dead, my father lived. Later, he was knocked unconscious by a mortar blast. He owed his life to the army surgeons and nurses who stitched him back together.

And he carried more than a dozen reminders — tiny pieces of metal bomb fragments — in his right arm and shoulder for the rest of his life.He rarely complained of the pain, the arthritis and limited movement of his arm. He never spoke of the war; the deep scars in his shoulder told the story whenever he took off his shirt.

“No, I don’t like to talk about it because I will remember the guys who got killed,” Moreno said. “I don’t want to remember.”

Moreno is still clearly shaken by talk of war and remembrance, memories more than 60 years old. He, too, said he never spoke to his children about his war experiences.

Diaz, who flew missions in Vietnam, was wounded when the plane was hit by enemy fire. The loss of compression popped his left eardrum. His military career spanned from 1946 until 1977. For the next 20 years, he worked as a flight mechanic at Edwards Air Force Base.

Pete Ramirez, who runs the Am-Vets facility, said today’s recent war veterans don’t usually join with the older veterans groups. From talking with some who’ve served up to three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said they are tired of war. They want to resume their lives.“Sometimes I’ll hear them talk about those IEDs” (improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs) which are responsible for killing hundreds and hundreds of U.S. troops, said Ramirez, who served during Desert Storm as a reservist.

Moreno politely excused himself and left. Then, after a brief tour of the clubhouse, Diaz shook my hand and thanked me for my interest.

They are men of few words. But their reticence to talk about war is their choice. It doesn’t excuse us from not talking about them. They are what today — Veterans Day — is all about. Let’s talk it up.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group

More CTAC photos

2006-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Below: T8 and T5 fluorescents demonstrated.
Far left: John King stands inside cavernous "warehouse" room inside CTAC (Customer Technology Application Center) in Irwindale.

Left: Different "colored" white lights can be chosen from among newer compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs. CFL use one-third the energy of incandescent light bulbs.

CTAC photos

2006-10-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Here's John King inside the natural light room at CTAC. The light from the ceiling is coming from the sun through the roof. No electricity, bulbs are being used.

Knowledge is power

2006-10-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Before I post my From the Editor's Desk column, a few quick comments.
Edison's CTAC in Irwindale is quite the place to visit. Imagine a SIMS game, where every room is a replica of some real life room. There is a meeting room with natural light, a room using low-energy fluourescents, a room approximating a warehouse. There's even a building where Edison purchased a refrigeration unit from an old supermarket and engineer s work on keeping the cold cuts cold while stopping the energy leakage.
It's a techie dream. I'll folo up my post - which is a news-you-can-use primer on saving energy in the home - with some photos I shot inside the CTAC.
-thanks
steve scauzillo

FOR the life of me, I haven’t figured out why I paid a visit to Southern California Edison to learn how my family can use less electricity. Isn’t that like going to the IRS to see how to pay less taxes?

But these Edison guys — despite paying shareholders off of my rising monthly electricity bills — really are the electricity experts in SoCal.And besides, who can resist their cute logo, that green and yellow shining sun.I came to the interview armed with my $311 home electricity bill for September, a modest home (about 1,800 square feet interior) with normal lighting and an old, central air conditioning unit and old appliances. I “went to school” at SCE’s Customer Technology Application Center (CTAC) in Irwindale. My teacher, John King, who retrofits old army bases with low-energy devices and is also on the Covina City Council, gave me my crash course. I took notes:

Natural light. A lot of classrooms, offices and warehouses and residences are using specially designed skylights that direct sunlight into the room with a “solar tube.” Light in a room without using energy. Way cool.

Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs. Their spiral look is funky, but they save energy. Go to Lowe’s, Home Depot or your favorite hardware store and buy a pack of 12 for about $24. Replace every incandescent bulb in your home or business. One CFL bulb burning 11-15 watts puts out the same light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb — you save 45-49 watts per bulb. Want more light? Try a 20-watt CFL bulb (equivalent to 75 watts). One CFL can save about $36 during its lifetime. “We lowered our bill (at home) by about $60 a month,” King said. CFLs cost more, but last 10 times longer. They also come in shades of white — cool, soft and daylight.

T8 and T5 fluorescent tubes. T8s are smaller in radius and use less energy than the old T12 lamps you’d see in school classrooms, kitchens and garages. At CTAC, they lit only one of two lamps, and the room light was bright. Also, kitchens with “can lights” recessed in the ceiling save energy.

Install a whole house fan. For about $200, this fan, though noisy, should be run for an hour at the start of the day in June, July, August and September. It cools the house down so that the air conditioning unit will run less often and not work as hard.

Old refrigerators, aka, energy drains. We just purchased a new GE Profile. When you buy any new appliance, check out the Energy Star yellow tag. Most new appliances are more efficient and use less electricity. In fact, an 18-20 cubic foot fridge now burns about 2.5 to 3.0 kilowatt hours of electricity a day, as opposed to about 14 kilowatt hours a day for the old ones. Also, Edison will also come to your house and take away your old working refrigerator and pay you $35. They take it to a recycler where old copper, metals and other parts are re-used.

Garage refrigerators suck energy faster than a Raider fan’s lips on a can of Miller. These old coolers leak, their seals are not tight and they work harder, especially in a garage in Azusa with a temperature of 100-plus degrees. Same with spare freezers. Get rid of these, and then watch your meter spin slower.

Dual-pane glass. By replacing ordinary windows with energy efficient ones, less hot air enters during the summer (air conditioner runs less often) and less cold air enters during the winter (heat is on less often). These are also known as low emissivity (low-e) glass windows. King said he’s replacing them himself at his Covina home. Something I wouldn’t do myself, because I am the most unhandy person on the planet.

Corporations and businesses are taking free classes at CTAC with the goal of lowering energy use and saving cash while increasing their bottom line. Edison brains are designing supermarket refrigeration shelves that “leak” less energy and new, environmentally friendly “wet cleaning” that will soon replace dry cleaning. Engineer Scott Mitchell is working on cleaning up energy wasteful soda vending machines for Pepsi.

If they can do it, so can homeowners. To me, saving energy should be just as important in the home as recycling. We don’t need no stinking ballot initiative to save energy, just go get your electric bill — that’s motivation enough to start making changes.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.

Politics irrelevant at Wal-Mart Supercenter

2006-09-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Here's my From the Editor's Desk column from Saturday, Sept. 23:

Politics irrelevant at Wal-Mart Supercenter

By Steve Scauzillo

NO ONE missed a step when a small airplane towing a red banner that said “Vote No On Rosemead Recall” buzzed overhead.

They kept walking toward the doors of the gleaming new Wal-Mart Supercenter in southern Rosemead, some pushing empty shopping carts loaded with potential. Not one person stopped to talk to Cristina Carrillo sitting behind the No on Recall table. Hundreds of yards away from the store entrance, a homemade “Yes on Recall” sign reflected the autumn sunlight. I didn't see anybody stop to read it.

Last Tuesday, the day of the Rosemead recall election in which two councilmen were targeted for voting for the Wal-Mart, didn't the shoppers know they had entered political ground zero? They were in the crosshairs of many local Democratic legislators, who for the past year took aim at Wal-Mart with its mega-supermarket staffed with nonunion workers. They, with ammunition supplied by Big Labor, unsuccessfully tried to shoot the store down.

I don't think anyone at that store Tuesday paid attention to the recall. The last thing on their minds was politics. They were thinking about feeding their families, stretching hard-earned dollars and getting home in time to fix dinner or help their children complete their homework.

On this past Tuesday, politics didn't matter. Increasingly, politics doesn't matter. More often, politics are either left or right of center, a clanging gong annoyingly ringing off key over the symphony of life.

All the shrill politicians had screamed, had held rallies, had spoken of Wal-Mart's supposed reputation for exploiting the worker, trouncing mom-and-pop businesses and hurting communities. Yet, the shoppers came anyway rendering the politicians' message moot. Humpty-Dumpty never fell off the wall.
There was no crisis, unless you count the woman who dropped a mayonnaise jar near the dairy aisle. Two Wal-Mart workers wearing royal blue came to her aid and began mopping up the gooey mess.

Crisis averted.

The scene Tuesday evening was striking in its mundanity. Should you buy red grapes or green grapes? Hey, aren't those smoked turkey sandwiches a great deal at $2.88 for a footlong?, someone offered as I put mine on the checkout stand. “Yeah. I needed a quick dinner before my next meeting,” I answered, adding a new Sobe Lean melon drink to my order. I've done hundreds of man-on-the-street interviews in my quarter century of community journalism. This was the first time people lined up to talk to me.

“I work here. You can talk to me,” said a young black man who identified himself as Derwin Mac G of Covina. Many politicians say Wal-Mart exploits the worker. The pay and benefits are lousy. “No, the pay is good here. I get $10 an hour,” he said. Because he is part-time, he is not eligible for health-care benefits. But Mac G said he thinks he can move up to full-time employment.
I hung out in the parking lot talking to customers. Why shop here when opponents say you are hurting the local economy? Exploiting overseas workers? “I like everything about it. We bought some cereal, milk, eggs ... and clothes. And it is just one store. It is a one-stop shop,” said Lisa Vargas, 25, of Monterey Park. I felt bad for Carillo, who by now, was chatting on her cell phone. I introduced myself, told her I stood on this land several years ago and spoke with opponents who predicted doom.

She recounted what customers told her. “I talked to a lady who said she used to have two Ralph's (in her community) but they both went away. So, she was real happy to find a full supermarket.”

Groceries sold with soft goods, like clothing. Unique? Not really. The same arrangement exists at Costco and Sam's Club today. Back East, the Midwest and in the South, large grocery-clothing-electronic warehouses (i.e. Big Box stores) are commonplace.

In 1983, when my wife, Karen, and I were just married, we shopped at Gemco in Fullerton, which debuted a new grocery store inside its well, giant box store. In Long Island where I grew up, my mom would often shop at the Great Eastern, another grocery/clothing/electronics store, and at Modell's in East Meadow, N.Y., still there I believe, which had both a full-on supermarket and soft goods and sundries.

It's not a revolutionary idea. It is so mundane that the people forgot to make a big deal out of it Tuesday, even though the state and federal Democrats did.
By the way, in case you care, the recall was defeated.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com
Steve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.

College of Letters

2006-08-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to write a "how to" write a letter to the editor column for a long time. I hope this one helps. (see www.pasadenastarnews.com or www.sgvtribune.com or www.whittierdailynews.com or any of those newspapers on Sat. Aug. 19 "From The Editor's Desk" column by Steve Scauzillo.

You can post comments here on this blog.

Also, I'm reviving the Letter Of The Week (it used to say, I think, Letter of the Day). It will be fun to collect submissions here on this blog. Post the actual letters here on this blog and I'll read them. I'll publish them on our Web site and newspapers if I feel they measure up. For all you regulars out there, this should be a piece of cake. All you newbies, this is your chance to shine on the rosetta stone of democracy.

Better safe than sorry

2006-08-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

The following is my column from Saturday's newspaper. What are your thoughts?
-steve s.

Better safe than sorry
By Steve Scauzillo
(From the Editor's Desk, Aug. 12, 2006):

PROTECTION is not overkill.
The thwarting of a terror plot Thursday involving bombers who may be toting liquid explosives aboard commercial jets in the U.K. resulted in a ban on hair gels and toothpaste in carry-on luggage.
Insane world? You bet. Overkill? Never. Using all means to stop terrorists is never overkill, it is simply necessary.
Protection is not overkill.I was reminded of this corollary last Friday, when I stood atop Fort Point, the Golden Gate Bridge almost near enough to touch and San Francisco Bay stretching out like a vast welcome mat. The fort was rushed to the ready during the Civil War so the Union Army could stop any invading foe.Fort Point, at its zenith, had 126 cannon able to hit any ship within a two-mile radius of the Golden Gate, that is, the natural entrance to San Francisco Bay from which the bridge derived its name.
Think about it. Two miles — that’s pretty darn good protection. Of course, no one ever attacked California or Fort Point during the Civil War. The cannon were never fired in battle.
I guess Robert E. Lee was too busy defending the South to worry about California. It was a natural disaster, the San Francisco Earthquake and fire of exactly 100 years ago that caused the City by the Bay the most damage ever. Similar to Hurricane Katrina zapping New Orleans during heightened Homeland Security alerts.But Fort Point was there, and that was a good thing. Spending millions for protection from harm was worth it then, and worth it now. Today is not the first time this country has spent boatloads to protect itself from enemies. Even though protection from today’s terrorist attack is never foolproof, doing nothing is never an argument that holds water. In fact, the opposite is true. We must do more to protect America, not less.
As I rode the ferry from Sausalito to Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 41, I remembered no one checked my bags as I boarded. It would be easy for a suicide bomber to complete his mission amid the tourist crowds of San Francisco.
Just like the ride I took on BART, the Bay Area’s excellent train system now runs directly from San Francisco Airport. They checked my bags before I boarded the plane at LAX, but no one checked anyone boarding the BART train, which speeds through tunnels and into crowded city centers.
In Sausalito, I watched a massive container ship pass under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Harbor. Did anyone check the hull or the cargo, I wondered, as it steamed beyond the unarmed ramparts of Fort Point and docked along the city’s waterfront.
The fort’s bronze plaques spoke proudly of test cannon shots and, later, of reinforcements coming from Hawaii.
No one was going to attack the United States, or get away with it, bragged the captain. The tough guy attitude gave me goosebumps, even today — especially today.
He was protecting the Union; the experiment of freedom and democracy would stand. This dispatch from 1861 was not bullying because it was defense. It wasn’t like going into a country, bombing it and then looking but not finding weapons of mass destruction.
I remember the morning of 9/11, nearly five years ago, as does every American. My sons were going back to school for a new school year. They emerged that afternoon in a new era, one in which they will always be looking over their shoulders in distrust and, maybe, in fear. And, after the invasion of Iraq, a world in which they may be called on to fight a fight that is unclear in both purpose and plan.
Yet, I wouldn’t object to them serving a tour of duty to stand guard over these great United States. Is there a way to figuratively put up more Fort Points to protect America’s cities? I’m all for that.
While at my hotel, I read an article in the San Jose Mercury News about U.S. immigration officials deterring scientists from Iran from entering San Francisco. Some had their visas cancelled. Again, protecting America is not an overreaction. Entering this country is a privilege, not a guarantee.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong in keeping us from harm. That’s what government should do.

Steve">steve.scauzillo@sgvn.comSteve Scauzillo is the opinion page editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, which includes the Pasadena Star-News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Whittier Daily News. (www.pasadenastarnews.com, www.sgvtribune.com, www.whittierdailynews.com)

Chuck Norris hits Main Street

2006-07-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

http://pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_4081050

The above is a link to my From the Editor's Desk column "All things are equal, even Chuck Norris" Saturday, July 22.

By the way, I'd like to correct something. Google is in favor of net neutrality.

Tell me your favorite Chuck Norris joke?
What is the next Internet "water cooler" moment?

View from the bleachers

2006-07-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

What is the worst gym in the San Gabriel Valley?
The hottest gym?

Does your high school gym have air conditioning? Are there classrooms in your school without air conditioning?

It is hot now but forecasters say record heat could continue into the fall -- that's right -- when school starts again in full swing.

-Steve Scauzillo
opinion pages editor
San Gabriel Valley Newspapers
steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com

Here is a link to my From The Editor's Desk column in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News today, Sat., July 15, 2006. Click on it to read the full column.
http://pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_4054615

From The Editor's Desk, Sat July 1: "Putting on a Show"

2006-06-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

World Cup
I had some fun with World Cup soccer in my column.... "Putting on a show.'' But I really love the sport. I used to play in high school and I even played with a guy, Sandy Vitello, who was Italian, as in from Italy. He was suberb, needless to say way better than I was.
Recenly, as a Dad, I've watched my two boys play AYSO soccer. Sure, there are some klunker games, but mostly, every game was fun and exciting to watch. I remember my older son, Matt, playing last year as a 15-year-old, going to Sectionals in Riverside and his team coming in fourth place. That was fantastic soccer.

Fireworks..
Where we live in Temple City, it seems like every other family buys the fireworks (safe and sane or legal ones) from the local stand. On the night of July 4, we usually go walking up and down the neighborhood streets, watching everyone light off fireworks. It is a special night. As long as it is done under adult supervision, it can be a fun, memorable activity.
Here's to a safe Fourth to all!

Justice still biggest issue in County

2006-06-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

http://www2.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_3986362
The previous is a link to my editorial, "No Justice in System,'' published last summer, that won Best Editorial for newspapers of under 100,000 in the Greater Los Angeles Press Club for 2006.

My thoughts:
The release of violent criminals back into the streets are the No. 1 problem in Los Angeles County. This is related to a similar issue, the fleeing of murder, rape and violent crime suspects to Mexico. And the inability of the U.S. authorities to find these fugitives and bring them to justice. It is literally "getting away with murder."

What are your thoughts on these two related issues?

Big Santa Anita Canyon (June 2006)

2006-06-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Entering Big Santa Anita Canyon is like walking into your own private Shangri-La.

Even on a hot day, the hike is cool. Most is protected by shade canopies of oaks and alders.

My first glimpse of nirvana -- Sturtevant Falls

Love these violet wildflowers. I'm sure they were thicker and more plentiful in April and May, before the heat came. But of course, the road was not open then. Darn Forest Service!

I call this my Indiana Jones photo. It looks like a cave or a tomb but it is really one of those ancient cabins that dot Big Santa Anita Canyon's floor. Lucky folks who live there. While on the hike, I saw some folks cleaning out their cabin.

More Sturtevant Falls...

You don't have to go to Hawaii or travel to the topics to see great waterfalls.

I haven't looked it up. Anyone know what these are called? I call them wild daffodils. Using my cheap digital Olympus camera with the small telephoto lens, I shot this image. I used a flash, which made the background black.