RLn 9-06-18

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

O

Port withdraws approval for BNSF near-dock rail yard p. 3 The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire comes to the Warner Grand Theatre p. 9

UTLA Brings School Issues to Community

By Dennis J. Freeman, Contributor

United Teachers of Los Angeles is working to get factions of the Los Angeles community more involved in its efforts to be able to provide a better learning experience for students attending the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Representatives from UTLA hosted a town hall community forum for parents, teachers and residents on Aug. 29, in Wilmington.

The issues and the focus are plenty, said UTLA Secretary Arlene Inouye.

The rapid take over of students from charter schools, the improvement of school safety, reducing classroom sizes, the need for more staff and upgrading working conditions are just some of the topics that was broached during the hour-

and-a-half meeting.

Inouye pointed out about two dozen issues that UTLA members would like to see get addressed. If not, LAUSD and other public schools in Los Angeles County won’t be the same, she said.

“We have to keep building and creating these opportunities for us to come together to have people join us,” Inouye said.

“It’s building; it’s not like a one-step thing, but it’s growing as we continue to work together. The issues are why we are fighting for, what we are fighting for and as we continue to get people to join us, I feel like it’s part of a national movement — that public education is under attack…. This is a critical time.

[See UTLA, p. 2]

September 6 - 19, 2018

LGBTQ community celebrates 25 years of LB film p. 16

[See Which Hunt? p. 5]

San Pedro’s Little Italy raises historical fiction question p. 12

“The guilty plea of Michael Cohen provides further confirmation of the following fact: MOST SUCCESSFUL WITCH HUNT EVER (And it’s not over),” Rep. Ted Lieu (a former Air Force prosecutor) tweeted, in response to the first announcement. Shortly after, he added, “With Paul Manafort being found guilty on multiple counts, I am revising the below fact as follows: MOST TREMENDOUSLY SUCCESSFUL WITCH HUNT EVER.” Rep. Adam Schiff (a former federal prosecutor) added: Trump campaign manager: Guilty Trump personal lawyer: Guilty Trump deputy campaign manager: Guilty Trump National Security Advisor: Guilty Trump foreign policy advisor: Guilty Some witch hunt, huh?

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

n Aug. 21, within minutes of each other, two close associates of Donald Trump—long-time fixer Michael Cohen and former campaign chair Paul Manafort — were each found guilty of eight felonies. Cohen also implicated Trump directly in crimes.

He made two admissions in court that Trump had been involved in criminal violations of campaign law to hide extramarital affairs. He admitted paying hush money to “influence the election,” acting “in coordination with and at the direction of candidate Trump.

Within days, prosecutors revealed immunity agreements with two other close Trump associates — National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, reputedly involved in decades of Trump cover-ups, and Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer—promising more prosecutions to come.

UTLA Secretary Arlene Inouye at the Aug. 29 town hall meeting. Photo by Dennis Freeman

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Committed to Independent Journalism in the Greater LA/LB Harbor Area for More Than 30 Years [UTLA from p. 1]

UTLA Town Hall

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

So, it’s growing every day.”

Inouye went on to say that while UTLA has a boatload of things that they would like to see changed within the district, there are several concerns that members see as pressing to get done immediately. According to UTLA, some LAUSD classes balloon up to 50 students per classroom. That’s not just an LAUSD problem, but a statewide issue. California is near the bottom of the list of states when it comes to teacher-tostudent ratio. That’s a big deal, Inouye said.

“We are fighting for students’ learning conditions, which are also our working conditions are indicators,” Inouye said. “So, we feel there is a need for smaller classrooms; that’s a big one because we’re 48th in the nation in class size. But we also need more professionals in human services like having a nurse at every school five days a week…. A kid cannot break her arm or need insulin only on certain days of the week. It’s a huge issue for parents. We have socially emotional needs. We need things like psychologists and social workers. So, we’re asking for more staffing. That’s a key one.”

For Inouye and UTLA members, these matters, including the increase of charter schools, are just the tip of the iceberg of laundry list of items they are hoping to see change.

“We’re also looking at issues such as special education and adult education and early education,” Inouye continued. “We have about 23 issues we have on the table because we have a diverse school district and diverse members as well. So, we are trying to meet the needs of all of our students. But what’s also exciting about our proposal is that we’re addressing not just non-economic issues like over testing and more

UTLA Secretary Arlene Inouye with UTLA organizers at the LA/LB Labor Coalition’s Labor Day Parade in Wilmington. Courtesy of UTLA

learning that’s needed. … Students between pre-K and sixth grade take 100 tests. We also addressed school safety and school discipline plans and we want to have more of an educator’s voice at the local schools in those plans. Our members have been asking for that and the district has said ‘no’ to that.”

Louis Mora is a health and science teacher at Harry Bridges Span School. He’s been a teacher for a decade. His biggest concern is the direction or lack of direction that education is goingnot just in Los Angeles County, but across the country as well. To Mora, the narrative regarding teachers and public schools seem to be playing out everywhere with the same results.

“I’m really concerned about the direction our country is going, in terms of education, especially here in Los Angeles,” Mora said.

“We’re not going the right way and we’re shortchanging our kids. We’re hurting them. People are just looking for short-term ideas and nothing

39th Annual Labor Day Rally in Wilmington Right, State senator Kevin de León took a break from the race for the U.S. Senate at the LA/LB Labor Coalition’s Labor Day Rally Sept. 3 at Banning Park in Wilmington. Random Lengths News publisher James Preston Allen posted a video of his interview with de León on RLn’s Facebook page. Below, volunteer Frank Anderson serves free chili and hotdogs to a hungry crowd at the rally. Photos by Slobodan Dimitrov. Bottom right, Supervisor Janice Hahn with UTLA-Retired Committee member Jimmie Gray-Woods at Banning Park. Photo courtesy of UTLA.

long-term.”

For LAUSD to right the ship, things are to have to flip, Mora said.

“It’s got to be turned upside down from where it’s going right now,” Mora said. “They’re focusing on tests instead of overcrowded classrooms and tests. Us teachers, we can’t even survive where we live because we’re getting pushed out of our neighborhoods because we can’t pay rent, can’t pay our bills because our wages suck. Meanwhile, the cost of living is increasing. What’s happening teachers are leaving the profession to just to be able to survive.

That’s going to hurt everyone in the long run.”

Teresa Harnage has been teaching school for three-and-a-half years. Her husband is an educator as well. Harnage decided to attend the town hall meeting not as an educator, but as a concerned parent.

“Public education is super important to my family,” Harnage said. “We are invested in our community. My son is a Boy Scout; we go to community events together. So, I believe in my community. My husband is a teacher as well.

We’re invested in education. My son goes to school, so it’s important for me that he has the education he needs to be successful. I’m here to support whatever we need to do to make sure we have equity and have all the resources we need to make sure our students are successful.”

Harnage, who teaches at Dodson Middle School in Wilmington, thought the meeting was productive for the community.

“I believe it’s going to be helpful to make parents more aware of what’s going on in the school system and let them have a voice can in what they want,” Harnage said. “I want to see fair and equitable resources given to our students. I want the students to have the resources they need at school every day.”

Community Announcements:

Harbor Area School Docent Training

This eight-week training prepares volunteers to guide school tours. Docents will learn about the people who lived and worked at the Rancho in the 1800s and will help students step back in time with first-person accounts from the period.

Time: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Sept. 12 through Oct. 31, Cost: Free Details: (562) 206-2040; https://tinyurl.com/School-Docent-Training Venue: Rancho Los Cerritos, 4600 Virginia Road.

Long Beach

HCBF Air Quality Mitigation Program

The Harbor Community Benefit Foundation is requesting letters of interest from parties that want to participate in the request for proposals for the Air Quality Mitigation Fund Program.

The foundation plans to award about$5 million for technologies that demonstrate reductions in port-related air emissions that benefit the communities of Wilmington, San Pedro and communities within a 25-mile radius of the San Pedro Bay. The foundation is seeking brief concept papers that will be screened for eligibility and will then be invited to submit a full proposal for funding consideration. Interested applicants must submit t letters by Sept. 28.

Details: https://tinyurl.com/HCBF-Rqst-for-Ltrsof-interest

Port of Long Beach Announces Call for Community Sponsorships

The Port of Long Beach is accepting applications, through Sept. 30, for its Community Sponsorship Program. The program offers nonprofit organizations the opportunity to apply for funds for community events and activities that help inform residents about the port while making Long Beach a better place to live and work.

In April, in the second call of the 2018 fiscal year, Harbor Commissioners awarded 124 sponsorships totaling $353,850 to community organizations. The groups receiving funding represented a wide cross-section of areas and supported causes including the arts, environment, social justice and historic preservation. Community groups can submit their sponsorship funding requests online until 5 p.m. Sept. 30, 2018.

Details: www.polb.com/sponsorship.

Give Blood, Help Children with Cancer

During September, Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the American Red Cross encourages eligible donors to give blood to support young people battling cancer, as well as others in need of transfusions. More than 15,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer each year. Blood and platelet donors of all blood types, especially type O negative and O positive, are urgently needed.

Time: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 7, 8, 9 and 14, 15 Venue: American Red Cross Greater Long Beach Chapter, 3150 E. 29th St., Long Beach Time: 12 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10, 11 and 12 Venue: American Red Cross Greater Long Beach Chapter, 3150 E. 29th St., Long Beach Time: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 9 Venue: Sea Base Scouts, 5875 E. Appian Way, Long Beach Time: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 12 Venue: Andeavor, 1300 Pier B St., Long Beach

September 6 - 19, 2018

Time: 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sept.13 Venue: American Red Cross Greater Long Beach Chapter, 3150 E. 29th St., Long Beach

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Details: (800) 733-2767; RedCrossBlood.org

Affordable Housing Community Opening Fall 2018 An affordable housing community opening is now available. Preference will be provided for veterans and their families. Applications will be available online and on-site.

Time: Through Sept 28.

[See Announcements, p. 4]

Port Withdraws 2013 Approval for BNSF Near-Dock Yard

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

On Aug. 23, the Port of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners voted to rescind its 2013 approval of BNSF’s near-dock rail yard, known as the Southern California International Gateway or SCIG. This included the environmental impact report, as well as a 50-year lease.

“The Los Angeles City Council will also consider similar actions in September to set aside its SCIG environmental and project approvals,” a port statement read.

The action was expected, according to National Resources Defense Council senior attorney David Pettit, a lead attorney in the case challenging the EIR. “We won the case in the sense that the court ordered the city and the port to revoke all the project approvals, and to redo those portions of the EIR that the court told them were no good,” Pettit said. “So what the court did port did the other day was the first part of that, they ended the project approvals. They had no choice, because the court ordered them to do that.”

“The City has suspended all SCIG project activities, which shall not resume unless the City and BNSF take future actions to certify a revised EIR under CEQA and adopt related environmental and project approvals,” the port stated.

BNSF quickly moved to put a positive spin on the situation, saying it would seek a new EIR, but things might be more complex, Pettit warned.

“The company still believes that this $500

Rendering of the the Southern California International Gateway. Courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles

million investment in Southern California would bring good jobs, take millions of truck miles off local freeways and improve air quality as long as it remains economically feasible,” BNSF said in a company statement.

But Pettit is not so sure.

“BNSF, in my view needs to figure out if the project still pencils out, and whether in the

years since the 2013 approval, whether other alternatives have appeared, that may be more profitable for them,” Petttit said.

When asked what he had in mind, Pettit pointed to “One example that may or may not be comparable: the Port of Long Beach is going forward with big on-dock yard, that they just approved fairly recently.”

POLB approved the Pier B On-Dock RailSupport Facility on Jan. 22. It was a vital decision, POLB Executive Director Mario Cordero said at the time.

“The Clean Air Action Plan calls for increased use of on-dock rail and we have a goal of raising our on-dock volumes to at least 35 percent of our shipments,” he said. “It’s crucial that we build this facility to hit these environmental and business goals.”

“You know, from day one that’s what we asked POLA to do, to find a way to build this on dock,” Pettit said. “Because in a larger context, we really want contenders to be moved by rail.

It’s more efficient and less polluting than trucks.

We all agree, but that, we just didn’t want this facility put in the neighborhood … there’s room for literally and figuratively room for LA to put a facility on dock that’s not in the neighborhood.”

“If they don’t reconsider, “The city will be working on a new revised EIR, and just a rough guess I would say I would expect it near the end of next year,” he said. That starts a lengthy process.

“The draft [EIR]comes out, there’s a public hearing, and there’s a final [EIR], and then it may or may not get appealed to the City Council, and then if people are unhappy there’s litigation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Long Beach is moving ahead, with a much more efficient, more environmentally sound alternative.

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Community Announcements:

Harbor Area

[Announcements from p. 2]

Details: (323) 390-9301 www.veteransvillagecarson.com Location: Southwest corner of Carson and Figueroa streets, Carson

Long Beach City College Job Fair

Long Beach City College is hosting a job fair to fill full-time, part-time, seasonal and permanent positions throughout the Long Beach area.

Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept.11 Cost: Free Details: www.longbeach.gov/events Venue: Veterans Stadium, 4901 E. Conant St., Long Beach

Garcetti Announces $100 Million Insulation Rebate Program Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced a five-year, $100 million insulation rebate program to help Los Angeles residents better control temperatures in their homes, reduce energy use, and save money.

The program will provide homeowners with a rebate that covers $1 per square foot of insulation up to 80 percent of the total project cost.

Details: www.LADWP.com/CRP

Charter Proposal Sets Up Showdown

By Lyn Jensen Carson Reporter

Measure CA, a proposal to make Carson a charter city, has made the Nov. 6 ballot. The text is posted on Carson’s official website, ci.carson. ca.us, where prospective voters may also find analysis and the official arguments “in favor of” and “against” its passage.

The city council voted 3-2, Aug. 7, to place the proposal on the ballot. The charter will become effective immediately, if it passes.

With the council sharply divided, passage could depend on which council members get which faction to the polls. The argument “in favor of” is signed by Mayor Albert Robles, Councilman Elito Santarina, former Treasurer Karen Avilla, Senior Citizens Advisory Commissioner Pat Hellerud and Planning Commission Chairwoman Ramona Pimentel.

The argument against passage is signed by council members Lula Davis-Holmes and Cedric Hicks, former Planning Commissioner Barbara Post, longtime community activist Robert

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“This Charter provides Carson with the tools needed to eliminate blight and promote private investment in an environmentally-friendly, economically sustainable and fiscally-sound manner, and establishes rules for fairer, more transparent city government,” Robles and the other supporters of the proposal argue.

However, Davis-Holmes and the other opponents argue that the “Charter was rushed, forced to the voters without proper direction, research, vetting and understanding. Under Carson’s current General Law, many of the items in this charter can be implemented through an ordinance, but not the INCREASE IN SALARIES [sic] that the current majority of the City Council; Mayor Albert Robles, councilmen Jawane Hilton, and Elito Santarina voted to place in this measure.”

The opposing argument continues, “This proposed Charter would bypass the salary limits imposed by STATE LAW. [sic] Let’s not forget what happened to the City of Bell with their corruption and increased salaries as a charter city.”

The proposed increase in council salaries is especially controversial, with the plan for a charter coming close upon a court order for Robles to vacate his seat for the Water Replenishment District, which paid far better.

The council is classified as part-time work and the salaries are set at $20,668 annually.

Section 304 of the proposed charter would set council compensation at the federal low-income level for family of four in Los Angeles County in 2018. According to opponents, that would increase the mayor’s and council salaries to the $77,000 to $80,000 range for part-time jobs.

Another objection Davis-Holmes and her co-signers raise is, “Proposed Charter does not address the concerns of the Unions and how it will affect the rights of employees. Proposed Charter allows Council to enter into contracts for services traditionally performed by city employees.”

Much of the charter would address economic development and land use authority. Section 206 refers to the dissolution of redevelopment agencies in 2011: “The City has found that its previous redevelopment program, which was dissolved pursuant to state law, was essential to redeveloping many vacant, contaminated and blighted parcels scarred by decades of misuse, refuse dumps and landfills, auto dismantling centers and other similar uses.”

In 2011 then-planning officer Sherry ReppLoadsman did not express major concern about the loss of a redevelopment agency, simply stating, “The city … needs to become much more creative” about funding.

Carson Alliance 4 Truth submitted an argument against the charter that was rejected

by City Clerk Donesia Gause on the grounds that council members submitted arguments and they have priority.

The alliance’s rejected argument read in part, “In this case the mayor suddenly and unexpectedly announced a proposed charter only a week after he was removed by the Superior Court from his other elected office.”

The committee that worked on the city charter was also divided sharply in its final vote. Much of the actual drafting of the charter was done by city staff, and the city council made several changes once the charter was presented to them.

[Which Hunt? from p. 1]

POLA Sets New Record for Cutting Nitrogen Oxide Emissions

SAN PEDRO — On Aug. 23, the Port of Los Angeles announced that emissions of nitrogen oxides, a key smog component, were down 60 percent compared to 2005 emissions levels, its lowest level to date. The 2017 Inventory of Air Emissions shows that port set new record lows for reductions while its container volume reached an alltime high of 9.34 million twenty-foot equivalent units. The 2017 findings show the port has maintained or exceeded the clean air progress it has made through the past 12 years, and has now met all of its 2023 Clean Air Action Plan goals.

Diesel particulate matter remains down 86 percent, and sulfur oxides remain down 98 percent.

POLB Approves Toyota's Green Terminal Makeover

LONG BEACH — The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a proposal on Aug. 20,

by Toyota Logistics Services to redevelop its facility at Pier B and build a renewable energy fuel-cell power plant and hydrogen fueling station.

Toyota operates a marine terminal at the port where new automobiles are off-loaded from ships, processed and transported off-site via truck and railroad. The planned redevelopment would make those operations more efficient.

Construction on the private project is anticipated to begin later this year and be completed in 18 months.

LA City Attorney Files Lawsuit Against Trump Administration

Padilla Certifies LA County’s New Vote Tally System

Scratch a liar, find a witch

Predictably, Trump responded by repeating his baseless “Witch hunt!” claim—an ironic claim given that Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, helped invent the modern witch hunt as lead investigator for Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

But the diversity of directions in which the convictions and guilty pleas pointed instead raised the question, “Which hunt?” The hunt for evidence of collusion with Russia? Financial crimes? Election law violations? Or something much deeper, going back decades—a pattern of both domestic and international corruption grown so vast that it threatens the very foundations of American democracy?

Evidence for all these hunts have already been uncovered, and more will surely come.

But what will be done in light of the evidence— remains in question.

In addition, dozens of other hunts are needed.

Axios recently reported the existence of House Republican spreadsheet listing “more than 100 formal requests [for oversight investigations] from House Democrats this Congress, spanning nearly every committee.” These are investigations that are a part of Congress’ constitutional oversight duty — investigations that Republicans have blocked, but Democrats will take up if they win control of the House in the mid-term elections.

Tip of the iceberg

Trump’s tax returns, family business (and conflicts with Constitution’s emoluments clause) and dealings with Russia are just the tip of the iceberg of that long list, which also includes Trump’s family separation policy, the hurricane response in Puerto Rico and a slew of cabinetlevel investigations. This long list exists not just because Trump has held himself to be above the law, but because Congressional Republicans have agreed with and supported him.

The lawlessness of the Trump presidency is a natural outgrowth of the decades of corruption that Trump has avidly participated in. The deeper international pattern of that corruption is laid out in a new book, House of Trump, House of Putin,

by Craig Unger. It documents how both men have mob ties dating back more than 40 years, includes a descriptive listing of “Trump’s FiftyNine Russia Connections,” and cites BuzzFeed News reporting that “More than one-fifth of Donald Trump’s U.S. condominiums [1,300 of them] have been purchased since the 1980s in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable

President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. File photo

buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities,” for a possible money laundering total of $1.5 billion.

The money-laundering started with the 1984 sale of five condos for $6 million to David Bogatin, who was indicted for a gas tax scam three years later, fleeing to Poland. How much Trump knew about Bogatin is unclear. How much he cared is not. The floodgates were opened and have not closed ever since.

The possible extent of Trump’s involvement with Russian organized crime significantly dwarfs the tip-of-the-iceberg Mueller investigation findings revealed so far. What’s more, Unger notes, the Russian mafia is essential a tool of the Russian state.

“Where Americans cracked down on organized crime, Putin co-opted it,” Unger wrote. He weaponized it. Russian gangsters became, in effect, Putin’s enforcers.” Starting in the mid-1980s, he writes: Two powerful forces in a newly created global underground economy had begun to come together. On the one hand, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital that began to pour forth from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks, and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. On the other hand, Donald Trump’s zeal to sell condos, no questions asked, to shell companies meant that Russians could launder vast amounts of money while hiding their personal identities. Over the next 30 years, dozens of lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and other white-collar professionals came together

Without subpoena power, Unger notes, it’s impossible to know how much Trump properties were used to launder Russian mafia money. But subpoena power is precisely what Mueller’s team has. Will they use it? That remains to be seen. But [See Which Hunt, p. 8]

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to facilitate such transactions on a massive scale….

Luxury real estate has provided a haven for Russian oligarchs and their kleptocratic president, Vladimir Putin, son of a factory worker and Russian seaman, to stash billions of dollars.

SACRAMENTO — On Aug. 21, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified Los Angeles County’s Voting Solutions for All People Tally Version 1.0. It’s the first publicly-owned, open-source election tally system certified under the California voting systems standards.

The system went through rigorous functional and security testing conducted by the secretary of state’s staff and a certified voting system test lab. The testing ensured the system’s compliance with California and federal laws, including the California Voting System Standards.

The certification now allows Los Angeles County to move forward with its redesigned tally vote by mail ballots for the Nov. 6 general election.

“At least two separate criminal conspiracies helped elect Donald Trump president in 2016, one executed by the Russian government, another by Trump’s personal lawyer,” Wired’s Arrett Graff wrote. “The questions now are how many different crimes aided the president—and how closely and personally involved was Donald Trump himself?”

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer announced Aug. 22, that his office has filed a lawsuit against the Donald Trump administration. The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting President Trump’s Justice Department from again imposing potentially unconstitutional and unrelated conditions on the city in order to receive federal funding for vital anti-gang programs. Similar conditions were recently placed under court injunction for 2017 federal funds.

The city has yet to receive its authorized 2017 Byrne Grant Funding, the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. Additional deprivation of funding from 2018 would result in a loss of valuable resources needed by the city.

Which Hunt Will Succeed?

5

McCain’s Funeral was a Ritual Salute to the One Not Invited Resistance, reaction and reflection

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

I was never a fan of Arizona’s Sen. John McCain. It is only belatedly that I’ve come to admire him for his reputation as “maverick” given his thumbs-down vote preserving the Affordable Care Act against the Republican Senate majority. He truly was a maverick and if his politics had been a bit more to the left, he just might have made a great president. Although, I won’t ever forgive him for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 election.

His preplanned national funeral, however, was probably the most significant political act of defiance of his career. It forced the Washington establishment to join in a poignant one-finger salute to He-who-was-not-invited. Clearly, by the list of who was invited to speak and by what was said, McCain’s intent was to bring the nation back to some rational civility and common grounding in the basic creed of American beliefs.

The funeral absorbed the entire news cycle for more than two days. The funeral had effectively pushed No. 45 to the periphery of the news cycle and brought much of the nation back to the fireplace via the national network news for two hours. The spin was provided by the significance of the ritual itself and by who said what.

Both Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter and President Barack Obama took swipes at the current President. Meghan’s eulogy was so heartfelt and compelling that none of the people who watched it could keep a dry eye. It was her most defining statement and she delivered it with such courage that it set the tone for much of what followed.

At one point, in reference to the Trump campaign’s slogan, Meghan said, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Obama too, with a much more subtle critique, derided those who traffick in “bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage.” He also attacked, “politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born of fear.”

This, of course, was in contrast to the man everyone came to mourn — a celebrated national hero, Navy veteran and POW, who endured torture when he was captured in Vietnam.

The kerfuffle over the White House raising the flag before a sufficient amount of time had passed after McCain died was just one more of the trivial distractions to which this nation has become accustomed. This includes the current state of affairs in which we have 24-hour news coverage of the current president’s tweeted insults, falsehoods and half-truths.

Since the national funeral, there is the glaring recognition that the midterm congressional elections is a battle between two very distinct visions of America. This is evidenced by the fact No. 45 is and had been hurriedly hopscotching across the country to rally his base to forestall the “blue wave” that’s threatening to take over Congress and potentially have him don orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

As much as No. 45 has divided this country with his stupid, racist and delusional social media attacks, he has unified a resistance that we have not witnessed since Richard Nixon held that office. Some even labeled the ceremony as the Resistance Meeting. The floodgates of the resistance seem to be busting open now with new information and not just with the Robert Mueller investigations, but with several recent books and a new documentary film.

Potentially, the most damaging is the recently released documentary, Active Measures, directed

by Jack Bryan. The film starts by summarizing Vladimir V. Putin’s career through the time of his election as Russia’s president. In the heaps of interviews, video clips and flow charts, Bryan outlines the links between Putin and No. 45, Paul Manafort extensive work for Russia and the foreign shell companies that launder funds for Russian organized crime into the United States.

If even half of what is revealed in this documentary can be proven in court, No. 45 has a great deal to worry about beyond this coming election.

Then there’s Bob Woodward’s latest 448 page book, Fear: Trump in the White House.

Woodward provides an unprecedented look inside this president’s inner circle. This book uses confidential interviews to show how some of the president’s own advisors view him as dangerous to our national security and some who have sought to circumvent the commander in chief.

All of this and Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s

September 6 - 19, 2018

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

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Assoc. Publisher/Production Coordinator Suzanne Matsumiya

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

—Mark Twain Vol. XXXIX : No. 18 Published every two weeks for the Harbor Area communities of San Pedro, RPV, Lomita, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson and Long Beach. Distributed at over 350 locations throughout the Harbor Area.

Managing Editor Terelle Jerricks editor@randomlengthsnews.com Senior Editor Paul Rosenberg

appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court has truly galvanized the Democrat’s resistance in a way that was not foreseen a year ago. Clearly, more and more people are seeing this presidency as not only deleterious to our nation but as an existential threat to our republic and our

democratic institutions.

I’m sure the late senator relishes the thought that his passing instigated this, but he probably never imagined he would become a symbol of the “Resistance.” I never would have thought it possible either.

All Out for the Mid-terms:

Democrats Must Retake the House to Put the Brakes on Trump

By Peter Olney and Rand Wilson “L’estate sta finendo” (The summer is ending) “E un anno se ne va” (And a year is going by) “Sto diventando grande” (I am growing up) “Lo sai che non mi va.”

(You know I don’t like that) The popular Italian hit captures all we need to say about the coming period. Before long the summer will be over and for many of us it’s time to get down to business on our most important political task: To flip the U.S. House of Representatives into the hands of the Democrats.

Not everyone on the left agrees. For example, Chris Hedges recently wrote, “The Democratic Party elites … are creations of the corporate state.

The Democratic Party is as much to blame for Trump as the Republicans. It is a full partner in the perpetuation of our political system of legalized

Columnists/Reporters Lyn Jensen Reporter Richard Foss Restaurant

Reviewer Andrea Serna Arts Writer Melina Paris Culture Writer Send Calendar Items to: 14days@randomlengthsnews.com Photographers Slobodan Dimitrov, Terelle Jerricks, Raphael Richardson, Casey Warren Contributors Zamná Àvila, Sara Corcoran, Dennis Freeman, Katrina Guevara, Peter Olney, Rand Wilson

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bribery, along with the deindustrialization of the country, austerity programs, social inequality, mass incarceration and the assault on basic civil liberties. It deregulates Wall Street. It prosecutes the endless and futile wars that are draining the federal budget. We must mount independent political movements and form our own parties to sweep the Democratic and Republican elites aside or be complicit in cementing into place a corporate tyranny.”(1) We don’t disagree with much that Hedges says about the Democratic Party — except his last sentence. With the right wing rising, quixotic talk of “forming our own parties” or being “complicit with corporate tyranny” by supporting Democrats is pure fantasy. It completely misses the necessity of a building a united front against a dangerous far right nationalist movement led by Donald Trump and his backers.

As the song says, we are getting older and [See Mid-terms, p. 20]

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All contents Copyright 2018 Random Lengths News. All rights reserved.

RANDOMLetters Authoritarian By Any Other Name

I am rarely surprised by what President Trump says or does nowadays, but even I was taken aback by what the President said yesterday.

Trump took to Twitter to complain that the Department of Justice charged two Republican Congressmen, Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, with theft of campaign funds and insider trading last month, pointing to the negative impact it could have on Republicans in the November midterm elections. He even suggested that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should have protected these two congressmen, the first two members to endorse Donald Trump for President, from being charged.

There we have it: Trump thinks the Department of Justice and Attorney General are there to defend only him and his political allies.

This president needs a reminder that law enforcement officials are loyal to the American people and the rule of law, not the sitting president or his party.

There’s a word for countries where the law is simply an extension of the political interests of its leader authoritarian.

We cannot let this president get away with acting like a tin pot dictator in the White House.

With just two months before the November elections, let’s keep fighting to hold him and his Republican enablers in Congress accountable.

Adam Schiff Member of Congress 28th Congressional Distric

Local 2375 is No More

I was shocked to learn of the loss of Piledrivers Local 2375.

During my time in the construction industry, from 1965 to 1990, I worked on many projects with Local 2375 members around both harbors and on bridge projects all over Southern California. I found them to be hard working, highly skilled, and friendly cheerful work mates.

As an engineer and project manager, I represented management, but I always felt that our relationship with Local 2375 members and leadership just showed how much good labor/management relations could accomplish.

I always felt that the union hall on Lagoon Ave. was a very important part of the Wilmington landscape and culture. As I write this, I am deeply saddened by its loss. I can only wish the best of luck and every success to its members going forward.

And thank you to RLN for reporting on this event, sad as it may be. If not for you, I may never have known.

Noel Park Rancho Palos Verdes

When Being in the Minority Becomes an Excuse

I recently attended the Monday August 13 Banning Museum in Wilmington California public hearing. THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS! Representative Barragan was wonderful in presenting where she came from and who she is today

and what she wants to do for the community.

The problem is, every sentence she said; “Of course we can’t do anything because we are in the minority in Congress.” EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE. Even during Q&A she would deflect to this excuse of why she can’t get more than 20 percent of federal funding for homeless in CA, so she chose to do nothing.

As an algebra instructor, I know 20 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing!

Perhaps, Barragan needs to look to the community she’s speaking. Over a hundred community members were in the audience. Ninety nine percent were minorities. If she doesn’t know how to work with those in power in the U.S. Congress she needs to ask help from her community. People of Wilmington are in the minority and they achieved so much in their individual lives and achieved so much success for their community.

They have proven they know how to go up against the majority in power on any level.

Representative Barragan, why don’t you try learning how your minority constituents achieved success instead of giving excuses?

Laura Derek- Plant San Pedro

fights of the last several years, and I want you to know I am prepared to do everything in my power to stop this nomination.

Kavanaugh is a right-wing ideologue hand picked by special interest groups because of his opposition to Roe v. Wade. He has sided with corporations many times over, is a threat to our civil and voting rights, and he believes a sitting president cannot be indicted for federal crimes.

Furthermore, this hearing has been dangerously rushed.

Republicans are blocking the release of documents from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House, and President Trump is

preventing the release of 100,00 pages of documents which really begs the question: What are they hiding?

The truth is that Kavanaugh is the least popular nominee to the Supreme Court in decades, and the more the public learns about his record, the less they want him confirmed to the highest court in the land.

Not a single one of us can afford to sit on the sidelines with so many of our hard won civil rights — and the rule of law itself — on the line.

I hope you’ll tune in this week to see me question Kavanaugh.

Thanks as always for everything

you’ve done, and will do for my team and I. Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator, California Send Letters to the Editor to: letters @randomlengthsnews.com.

To be considered for publication, all Letters to the Editor must include your name with address and phone number included (these will not be published, but are for verification only) and be kept to about 250 words.

@RandomLengthsNews @RLNPedroWatch

@randomlengthsnews

@RandomLengths Kavanaugh Must Be Stopped

Confirmation hearings have begun for Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court — and this week, I’ll have the chance to ask him tough, pointed questions about his record under oath.

This vacancy on the Supreme Court is one of the consequential

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

September 6 - 19, 2018

7

[Which Hunt from p. 5]

Which Hunt?

a Democratic-controlled House can investigate, as well.

Double trouble

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

A 2014 article in the American Interest, The Twin Insurgency, by Nils Gilman, reveals an even broader, deeper, and more troubling problem, as explained in its subhead, “The postmodern state is under siege from plutocrats and criminals who unknowingly compound each other’s insidiousness.”

In this case, it’s not so unknowingly, but Gilman argues it’s not exactly what he had in mind, since Putin isn’t actually a plutocrat in his sense (though he is, reputedly, the richest man in the world). However, one sees Putin, he is operating consciously in the terrain Gilman describes and has benefited enormously from it.

As Gilman argues, from 1945 to 1971, during the post-World War II “social modernist era,” states around the world using different models sought “to legitimate themselves by serving the interests of middle classes whose size they sought to expand.”

But those models started failing in different ways, and by 1980 a reaction had set in, characterized most dramatically by Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.

“Many states stopped even pretending they wanted to create a more egalitarian society and instead sought to legitimate themselves by claiming they were maximizing individual opportunity.” The resulting retreat of the state left the middle-class lives dramatically less safe and secure, vulnerable to threats on two fronts: From above, middle classes find themselves threatened by a global financial elite, in league with ultra-wealthy compradors, both of whom seek to cut social services and the taxes that pay for them — taxes that these elites depict as a form of illegitimate expropriation. From below, the middle classes find themselves exposed to a new resurgence of criminality, which has discovered in their plight a business opportunity.

8

That’s the twin insurgency in a nutshell: predatory plutocrats above, criminal insurgents below, with a beleaguered middle class caught in between. Trump, of course, is presenting himself as a savior of the middle class, but his actual life-history make a mockery of that claim. He’s been closely allied with both sides of the twin insurgency and remains so today.

Gilman was describing a global phenomenon, but Unger is describing a variation within that broader pattern. Their views of Trump are similar, describing Trump as self-absorbed where Putin is strategic. As Gilman told Random Lengths News: Trump I suspect — though we don’t know — had a completely opportunistic relationship with Russian sources of capital, and he was none too tidy about asking questions about where the capital he was using was coming from. The man has also fucked hookers in hotels across the world all his life. The result is that he really has no idea what they have on him ....

But Russia is more complicated.

“I don’t see Putin as being a plutocratic

insurgent at all,” Gilman said.

“The first generation of Russian oligarchs (Fridman, Gusinsky, Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, etc.) were more like American businessmen like Adelson or Thiel: people who really wanted to achieve autonomy from the state. They were plutocratic insurgents. But they all got it in the neck when Putin came to power. That subordination to the interests of the state is precisely what plutocratic insurgents are trying to escape.”

“In contrast, the current oligarchs in Russia, like rich business people in China, know that in the last analysis, and probably well before then, they are subordinate to the interests Citizen Donald Trump with then-wife Ivana Trump at Palace Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, circa 1980s. File photo of the state as defined by the political leadership,” Gilman added.

But many current oligarchs have mob ties, and Back in the U.S. This is precisely what Trump wants to destroy.

Russia’s government is hardly comparable to He has two months to do his worst, before the Destroying the ability to know what’s true China’s, as Unger notes: has been a key element of Russian state practice midterm elections. While many Democrats Putin’s greatest triumph is his extraordinary throughout the Soviet era, all the way back to see winning the House as key to beginning command over a Mafia state, a political system Tzarist times. It’s been a tendency in America, impeachment, Talking Points Memo publisher that is effectively a government of, by, and for as well—we shouldn’t fool ourselves. But it’s Josh Marshall warns. organized crime.

“That’s a mistake. … By any rights, the one that we’ve struggled against, both through our free press, and through our broader array President should have been removed from office Organized crime may indeed serve the state, of civic institutions—educational, scientific, months ago,” he wrote. “Impeachment is a as Gilman argues, but the state it serves is made and cultural—as well as through the ranks of mistake because it distracts from things that are in its own image. And that’s reflected in how it our professionalized, apolitical government much more important to protecting the country fights war. agencies, such as the Department of Justice. All against President Trump.”

“After the Euromaidan protests against are imperfect, but at best they serve as checks on For a Democratic House, Marshall said: Russian aggression began in Ukraine in 2013, one another, as well as on arbitrary state power “[T]he first order of business is to get hold Russia launched a massive global offensive in and plutocratic overlords.

[See Which Hunt, p. 19] which its strategic goals were to weaken not only the United States but Britain, NATO, the European Union, and, indeed, the entire Western Alliance,” Unger writes. It involved interventions in domestic politics all across Europe, as well as America. He notes: The most striking fact of this massive new global conflict, however, may have been that barely anyone noticed that it was taking place.

It was extraordinary. War is generally defined as armed conflict. However, Vladimir Putin had attacked the sovereignty of America and other Western nations—a Virtual World War III, if you like—but almost no one reported on it in the newspapers, on TV, on the radio, or on the Internet. That’s because this was a war by other means, a war that eschewed the bombs, bullets, and boots on the ground of conventional warfare, and instead relied on a new, sophisticated, asymmetric, hybrid form of “nonlinear” warfare….

It was a war in which Russia hacked its adversaries; used third parties, such as Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, to make it seem as if leaks had emanated from heroic, highly principled whistleblowers, rather than Russian intelligence; hijacked social On Aug. 23, Clean San Pedro founder Steve media and exploited algorithms to make Kleinjan, left, and retired K-EARTH dischighly provocative “fake news” go viral; jockey Brian Beirne were honored by Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office at the Hot Pedro transformed Facebook into one of the biggest Nites benefit concert at the Warner Grand purveyors of Russian propaganda on the Theatre. Beirne hosted the event. In support planet; deliberately used not only “alternative of the nonprofit organization responsible for keeping San Pedro Clean, supporters facts” and fake news but bogus websites that danced to the music played by Kingsmen pretended to correct fake news, and, in the and Beach Boy tribute band, Surfin’. Photos process, upended the very notion of truth, of

by Casey Warren. reality itself, of what is real.

Hot Pedro Nites Rocks the Warner Grand

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

By Melina Paris, Music Columnist

Members of the band, Kalimba, The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire poised to perform. Above right, original member of Earth Wind & Fire, Sheldon Reynolds will perform with Kalimba. File photos

September 6 - 19, 2018

[See Kalimba, p. 14]

Earth Wind & Fire was at the forefront of the evolution of pop music in the 1970s. In a decade of experimentation, the band bridged the musical tastes of a black and white America with multicultural spiritualism. The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire, transports audiences back in time with songs like September, Shining Star, That’s the Way of the World and Got to Get You Into My Life.

Former band member, Sheldon Reynolds of Earth Wind & Fire, will perform with Kalimba Sept. 21 at San Pedro’s Warner Grand Theatre.

Reynolds was with Earth Wind & Fire from 1987 to 2002. In 1994, the guitarist and singer earned a Grammy nomination for the song Sunday Morning. As a member of the band, Reynolds also received a NAACP Lifetime Achievement Image Award.

Reynolds and Michael Cole, Kalimba’s guitar player, met when Cole came to Reynolds’ studio when he lived in Seattle. They stayed in touch for several years. Eventually, Cole reached out to him to tell him he put a group together, doing an Earth Wind & Fire tribute.

He wanted Reynolds to know about it and suggested that maybe they could work together.

“We play together when the band tours in LA and in Seattle,” Reynolds said. “We actually played in Moscow last year, (in August).”

9

ENTERTAINMENT Sept 7

Harold Greene A series of four concerts for 40 guests a fortnight apart, taking place midway through a 100year old access tunnel leading to the Leary gun battery. The tunnel opens at 1900 hours (7 p.m.) for an artist meet and greet. Sept. 7 features Harold Greene playing the Chapman Stick and other instruments.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: $30 or $100 for full series Details: (310) 518-0936; www.angelsgateart.org Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro The Paul Gormley Trio Bassist Paul Gormley brings his trio to The Whale & Ale. Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: Free 19 Details: (310) 832-0363; www.whaleandale.com Venue: The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., San Pedro

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

Martina McBride Prolific Country music queen Martina McBride kicks off the new season.

Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: $75 to $115 Details: (562) 916-8500; www.cerritoscenter.com Venue: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Drive, Cerritos

10

Namhee Han Classical Crossroads Recital Series presents Westwood Presbyterian Church organist, Namhee Han. A reception will follow the concert.

Time: 12 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: Free Details: www.palosverdes. com/classicalcrossroads/ firstfridays.htm Venue: First Lutheran Church and School, 2900 Carson St., Torrance

Sept 8

Buskerfest The holy grail of Long Beach music events is back to end Summer and Music 2018.

Local and regional bands will perform on four stages set up on flatbed trucks with minimal plugged-in equipment, busking for wooden nickels.

Time: 5 to 11 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: www.summerand music.com Location: East Village Arts District, 1st St. at Linden Ave., Long Beach Boz Scaggs Scaggs recently proved his timelessness by releasing a new album, performing a colorful repertoire of blues, rock and soul Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: $80 to $105 Details: (562) 467-8818; www.cerritoscenter.com Venue: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park

SEPT 6 - 22 • 2018

Plaza Drive, Cerritos

Sept 9 Lyle Lovett and His Large Band Singer-composer-actor Lyle Lovett has broadened the definition of American music in a career that spans 14 albums.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 9 Cost: $70 to $100 Details: (562) 916-8500; www.cerritoscenter.com Venue: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Drive, Cerritos Robert Thies Second Sundays at Two Recital Series presents the pianist performing an all-Debussy recital on the centennial of the great composer’s death.

Time: 2 p.m. Sept. 9 Cost: Free Details: (310) 316-5574 Venue: Rolling Hills United Methodist Church, 26438 Crenshaw Blvd., Rolling Hills Estates

Sept 14

Andy & Renee and Hard Rain South Bay favorite folk-rockers return with their band Hard Rain for a tribute to Carole King’s multiplatinum album, Tapestry.

Time: 8 to 11 p.m. Sept. 14 Cost: $25 Details: www.grandvision.org Venue: Grand Annex, 434 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Sept 15

Sleep The 4th installment of its Popfuji Summer Music Series welcomes the Doom Metal Power Trio Sleep to Brouwerij West.

Time: 6 to 11 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $35 to $100 Details: www.eventbrite.com Venue: Brouwerij West, 110 E. 22nd St., San Pedro The Richard Sherman Trio This year’s jazz concert benefits the outreach of Seaside Community Church. Support of this event has enabled Seaside to provide facilities for community groups, theater groups and to underwrite thousands of dollars of support toward domestic violence shelters and rebuilding homes in Nicaragua.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $25 Details: (310) 375-4441 Venue: James Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance

Sept 16

Nori Tani Meets Mr. Sekai Enjoy an afternoon of jazz and Latin music.

Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Sept. 16 Cost: $30 Details: alvasshowroom.tix.com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro Sean Lane Enjoy an evening of live music, wonderful food and a friendly, atmosphere.

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 16

Cost: Free Details: (310) 831-0246; www.babouchsanpedro.com Venue: Babouch Moroccan Cuisine, 810 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro

Sept 21 Chuck Alvarez The second in a series of concerts that takes place midway through a 100-year-old access tunnel leading to the Leary gun battery, features San Pedro-based Chuck Alvarez acoustic trio.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 21 and Oct. 5, 19 Cost: $30 or $100 for full series Details: (310) 518-0936; www.angelsgateart.org Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro

THEATER Sept 7

The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie is one of the most famous plays of the modern theater. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on Tennessee Williams himself, his histrionic mother and his mentally fragile sister.

Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: $42 to $47 Details: www1.ticketmaster.com/ ict-the-glass-menagerie Venue: Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, 300 Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

Ongoing

The Tempest Trickery, romance, and revenge set the stage for one of Shakespeare’s late masterpieces, in which sprites, goddesses, monsters, and fools hold court.

In this fanciful classic that is often described as the darker twin to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Time: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Sept. 29 Cost: $10 to $27 Details: www.lbplayhouse.org/ show/the-tempest Venue: Long Beach Playhouse, 5201 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach

FILM

Sept 6

The Long Beach Q Film Festival The festival will screen 15 films from Sept. 6 to 9 at The Art Theatre during its 25th anniversary.

QFilm Festival annually presents narrative features, documentaries and short films that embody the rich diversity and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.

Time: Varies Sept. 6 through Sept. 9 Cost: $12 to $20 Details: www.qfilmslongbeach. com Venue: Art Theatre, 2025 E. 4th St., Long Beach

Sept 10 Discovery World Travel Adventure Series As part of the Discovery World Travel Adventure Series, you will meet adventurous filmmakers as they present their films that capture the beauty and majesty of many remote and exotic locations.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept. 10 Cost: $10 to $105 Details: www.CenterForTheArts. org Venue: Marsee Auditorium, 16007 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance

Sept 13

Cambodia Town Film Festival One of the key purposes of this festival is to highlight the diversity of the Cambodian experience through the art of filmmaking. The festival will deepen Cambodian values and encourage new dialogue on a global scale.

Time: 11 a.m.to 11 p.m. Sept. 13 to 16 Cost: $0 to $200 Details: www.cambodiatown filmfestival.com Venue: Art Theatre Long Beach, 2025 E. 4th St., Long Beach

DANCE Sept 9

Japanese Folk Song and Dance Show Enjoy a performance of Japanese folk music and dancing Time: 1 p.m. Sept. 9 Cost: $10 Details: (310) 781-7171 Venue: James Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance

Sept 15

San Pedro Festival of the Arts This is only place to see additional media projections, as Alvas Showroom is beautifully equipped to add lights and media that won’t be seen in the outside festival.

Time: 7 pm Sept. 15 Cost: Free Details: www.triartsp.com; www. alvasshowroom.com/event/sanpedro-festival-of-the-arts-2 Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro

ARTS Sept 6

Land of the Giants Join 1st Thursday Artwalk from 5 to 9 p.m. for a first look at this exhibit. Gallery hours, Fridays 2 to 6 p.m. Sat. 12 to 6 p.m. Sun 2 to 6 p.m. by appointment.

Time: 2 to 6 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: www.dekorgallery.com Venue: Dekor Gallery, 445 W. 6th St., San Pedro From Nature to Urban HuZ Gallery presents, the work of Luis Sanchez with a new collection of bird and urban landscape paintings, sculpture, prints, clothing and ceramic clocks.The exhibit runs thru Sept. 30.

Time: 1 to 7 p.m. Wed. through

Sat. Cost: Free Details: www.luissanchezfineart. co Venue: HuZ Gallery, 341 W. 7th St., San Pedro

Sept 7

Echiko Ohira: Works In Paper The exhibition features largescale paper sculptures that echo distantly the forms of the natural world, made of countless layers of kraft and recycled paper that are torn, stacked and sewn into shapes that might be the memories of nests, sea creatures and flowers. Exhibition runs through Oct. 14.

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 7, https:// tinyurl.com/y9ee6b9c Cost: Free Details: www.pvartcenter.org Venue: Palos Verdes Art Center,5504 W. Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes

Sept 8 Traces, Recent Photographs by Guillaume Zuili The French-American photographer is the prizewinner of the 2017 Camera Clara Photo Award.

His works appear in several photographic collections including that of Marin Karmitz, Damien Bachelot, and the French National Library, among others.

Time: 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: (310) 732-2150; www.carofano.com Venue: Gallery 478, 478 W. 7th St., San Pedro Schlüssel TransVagrant Projects and the Loft Gallery present Schlüssel, a group exhibition and magazine launch curated by Dillan Conniff.

The exhibit runs through Oct. 27.

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: (310) 831-5757 Venue: The Loft Art Studios and Galleries, 401 S. Mesa St., San Pedro Paeony, Pulling In/Letting Go Michael Stearns Studio @The Loft is pleased to present Pulling in / Letting Go; New Works by Caryn Baumgartner. Baumgartner is a Long Beach-based abstract artist. Her subject matter draws upon imagination, dreams and the natural world.

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: (310) 831-5757 Venue: The Loft Art Studios and Galleries, 401 S. Mesa St., San Pedro

Sept 15

Reflections: Mixed Media Works Come join an art reception for Karena Massengill at Utopia Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Sept 15 Cost: Free Details: (562) 432-6888; www.utopiarestaurant.net Venue: Utopia Good Food and Fine Art, 445 E. 1st St., Long Beach

Sept 15

Blah Blah draws from John Baldessari’s emblematic use of language and archival film photography.

Time: 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: Free Details: (323) 232-1158; edith@mixographia.com Venue: Mixografia, 1419 E. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles

Sept 16 Gregorio Luke in Cuatro@ Cabrillo The San Pedro Waterfront Arts District announces a new arts education series about the art of Mexico to be delivered by arts scholar Gregorio Luke.

Time: 3:30 p.m. Sept. 16 Cost: $15 to $35 Details: cuatrocabrillo.eventbrite. com, www. SanPedroWaterfront ArtsDistrict.com/events.

Venue: Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro

COMMUNITY Sept 7

Ovarian Cancer Awareness NED, the Movie (NED = no evidence of disease) detailing the journey of six gynecologic oncology surgeons who use the power of music to fight and raise awareness of gynecologic cancer.

RSVP by Sept. 7.

Time: 3 p.m. Sept 14 Cost: Free Details: (562) 933-7815; sgarrison@memorialcare.org Venue: Todd Cancer Pavillion, 3rd Floor, Treatment Planning Room, 2810 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach Musician’s and Artist Participation Meeting This is an artistic group so the main focus is on the sober creative aspect.

Time: 8 to 9:30 p.m. Sept. 7 Cost: Free Details: (424) 345-4937 Venue: Alano Club, 807 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro

Sept 8

Edosenke Tea Ceremony Guests are invited to enjoy a musical interlude on the Tsugaru samisen. A narrated tea ceremony will be followed by a tea tasting and a sampling of traditional Japanese sweets.

Time: 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: $45 Details: https://tinyurl.com/ Edosenke-Tea-Ceremony Venue: Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 W. Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes Inaugural Ranchos Walk Long Beach Sustainability is organizing a scenic walk through Long Beach, with the Rancho as the final destination. Three routes are available.

Time: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: Free Details: https://tinyurl.com/

TransVagrant Projects and Gallery 478

game spin offs, toys, models and cosplay.

Time: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $13 to $20 Details: www.SuperDimension Con.com Venue: Torrance Cultural Arts Center, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance Harvest Fest in the Garden Enjoy an evening of music, food, fun and community in support of San Pedro’s urban farm.

Time: 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $40 to $50 Details: www.feedandbefed.org Venue: Feed and Be Fed Farm, 429 W. 6th St., San Pedro

The exhibition, Traces, Recent Photographs by Guillaume Zuili is comprised of excerpts from his ongoing series, Urban Jungle and Harbor and features more than 20 silver gelatin prints. Be it Moscow or Los Angeles, Zuili’s photographs are explorations: reinventing, questioning their space, their ephemerality and perception. Traces opens with a reception for the artist on Sept. 8 and runs through Oct. 27 at Gallery 478, 478 W. 7th St., San Pedro.

Details: (310) 600-4873 or (310) 732-2150.

Inaugural-Ranchos-Walk Venue: Rancho Los Cerritos, 4600 Virginia Road, Long Beach Channel Islands Adventure — Santa Rosa Island The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is offering a Channel Island adventure to Santa Rosa Island.

The meeting point is in Ventura to board a high-speed catamaran for a crossing of the Santa Barbara Channel.

Pre-registration is required.

Time: 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 8 Cost: $65 to $82 Details: (310) 548-7562; www.cabrillomarineaquarium.org

Kalachakra Empowerment Ceremony Attend a rare opportunity to receive initiation into the generation stage of the Kalachakra tantra within the Jonang-Shambhala tradition.

Time: 7 p.m. Sept 8 to 6 p.m.

Sept. 9 Cost: $150 Details: www.rimekalachakra.org/ practice-groups/los-angeles Venue: Croatian American Hall of San Pedro, 631 W. 9th St., San Pedro

Local Native Plant Gardens In conjunction with the native plant sale Sept. 28 and 29, join a discussion on specific native plants that do well in south coast region gardens.

Time: 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sept. 10 Cost: Free Details: http://sccnps.org Venue: South Coast Botanic Gardens, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula Tai Chi in the Park Move for better balance with David and Gretchen.

Time: 11:15 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, starting Sept. 10 Venue: Houghton Park, 6301 Myrtle Ave., Long Beach Details: (562) 570-3548; heartofida@gmail.com

Sept 13

Bird Walk Join Carolyn Vance, of the El Dorado Audubon Society, for a bird walk. It should be ripe time for our fall migrants to pass through and stop at this wonderful garden.

Time: 8 to 9:30 a.m. Sept. 13 Cost: Free Details: (562) 206-2040 Venue: Rancho Los Cerritos, 4600 Virginia Road, Long Beach

Seicho-No-Ie Public Lecture Enjoy this one-of-a-kind event.

Time: 1:30 p.m. Sept. 16 Cost: Free Details: (310) 323-5327; www.scma.office@sniusa.org Venue: James Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Dr., Torrance

Sept 20

LA Harbor Boat Show A haven for recreational boaters who are looking to scout out new vessels and marine accessories. A chance to climb aboard a variety of trawlers, cruisers, sport fishers, sailboats, catamarans, motor yachts and other quality boats will be available.

Time: 12 to 7 p.m. Sept. 20 and 21, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Sept. 22 and 23 Cost: $10 to $15 Details: www.laharborboat show.com Venue: Cabrillo Way Marina, 2845 Miner St. at Berth 43, San Pedro

Peace in the South Bay As part of an International Peace Day Interfaith Celebration

Slamdance DIG Showcase The 2018 edition brings cuttingedge digital artists to a new downtown LA location while targeting a global audience through live streaming, virtual and augmented reality.

Time: 5 p.m. Sept. 13 and 14, 12 p.m. Sept 15 Cost: Free Details: http://showcase. slamdance.com/DIG Venue: Ace Hotel, 929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles /Artist Collective, 630 St. Vincent Court, Los Angeles

Sept 15

Craft Beer Fest Long Beach Craft Beer LB Fest is the only festival in Long Beach to feature local Long Beach breweries, food and artists. This family-friendly event is a partnership between Craft Beer LB and Rancho Los Cerritos.

Time: 1 to 4 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $30 to $60 Details: http://craftbeerlbfest.com Venue: Rancho Los Cerritos, 4600 Virginia Road, Long Beach AltaSea Open House The event features Pangaea’s Sea Dragon and Dr. Marcus Eriksen, an environmental scientist, educator and author committed to building stronger communities through art, science, adventure and activism. RSVP by Sept. 10.

Time:10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: Free Details: (424) 219-4973; www.altasea.org Venue: AltaSea, 2456 S. Signal St., San Pedro Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration Join the City of Carson in this celebration featuring live music, food and vendors, arts and crafts and games.

Time: 12 to 5 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: Free Details: (310) 835-0212 Venue: Carson Community Center, 801 E. Carson St., Carson Super Dimension Convention The largest gathering of Macross fans in North America. The annual event celebrates all things Macross from the original 1980s film to to its sequels, video

September 6 - 19, 2018

Sept 9

Desert Island Rarities Peter Breslin draws on five years and nine field seasons on islands in the Pacific off the coast of southern Baja California to present a panoramic view of the

Sept 10

Poetry Apocalypse Open Mic Open Mic in building G for an open mic and camaraderie.

Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Sept. 16 Cost: Free Details: (310) 918-3823; www.angelsgateart.org Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro

New Hula Classes Polynesian lessons for all kids and adults.

Time: 11 a.m. Sunday for beginner children, 6 p.m. Wednesday for beginner women Cost: $28 to $48 per month Details: (310) 707-7659; www.hoanui.com Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro

Pedro Famous: San Pedro in Pop Culture Historian Angela “Romee” Romero continues her “Sundays with Romee” local history talk series on the second Sunday of the month.

This month’s presentation centers around San Pedro’s relationship with popular culture, whether on location or homebred. Tickets and space are extremely limited.

Time: 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 9 Cost: $10 Details: (310) 808-7800 Venue: Inner Harmony Yoga, 579 W. 9th St., San Pedro

Sept 16

Dr. Reinhard Krauss will moderate a panel discussion on: Is Religion a pathway or an obstacle to peace?

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 20 Cost: $12 to $35 Details: (310) 210-8577 Venue: Hermosa Beach Community Theater, 715 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

A Day In the Park Enjoy a 1950s costume contest, live music, children’s games and free food.

Time: 1 to 5 p.m. Sept.8 Cost: Free Details: www.facebook.com/ Giva-Giving-Is-Getting Venue: Point Fermin Park, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro

assemblage of rare cactus and succulent species found only in that region.

Time: 1 p.m. Sept. 9 Cost: $4 to $9 Details: www.southcoastcss.org Venue: South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula

HollyWood Latinos Offspring Enjoy a presentation of Hollywood Latino Offspring a book by Miluka Rivera. She will discuss Latinos and their outstanding contributions to American cinema since its inception. Miluka Rivera is a Puerto Rican author and historian who focuses on the legacy of Latinos in American culture.

Time: 2 to 5 p.m. Sept. 15 Cost: $10 Details: https://molaa.org/

events/2018/9/15/hollywoodlatinos-offspring Venue: Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach

11

G

San Pedro’s ‘Little Italy’ Raises Historical Fiction Question

By Richard Foss, Cuisine and Culture Columnist

Councilman Joe Buscaino at the 19th Annual Los Angeles Political Roast in 2016. Courtesy of Bella Los Angeles

(established 1889, current location 1958). Had that rectangular historic zone been rotated 90 degrees, it might have included all of these. The oldest Italian business I could find within the zone is Buono’s Pizza (1973), which isn’t quite in the same league as the church when it comes to centers of community. (J. Trani’s, which is inside the zone, dates from 1987, though it was founded by a family that has operated local restaurants since 1925.)

Since I assumed the San Pedro Waterfront Arts District was involved in this designation, I reached out to them first. An email from

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September 6 - 19, 2018

12

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is appropriate on the basis of its historical merit.

The historic designation will legitimize the creation of a Little Italy.

The second thing he (Buscaino) wants to do is create a plaza that will be called Little Italy. A Little Italy today is not what Little Italys were 50 years ago in New York or San Francisco.

The definition is not the same as it was. Today, Little Italy is more of a branding mechanism, so the councilman is thinking about doing a Little Italy Plaza, similar to the one that was recently established in San Diego. He’s using that as a model, a plaza that has a value in branding.

(As I can’t include our entire conversation here, this is as good as anywhere to note that the word “branding” cropped up in Mr. Kvartuc’s responses many times.)

RF: What about the Croatian community?

They were regarded as Italians in the 1850s, and the area is now more associated with them. The Croatian Hall is within the zone boundary.

BK: They’re equal. Why Little Italy? Little Italy has a better brand name than a Little Croatia. Look, having grown up in San Pedro and being Croatian, I take zero offense to the fact that it’s a Little Italy, because I understand and respect the branding of it. Nevertheless, I think that the Italian and Croatian communities in San Pedro are completely intertwined, and both communities will be using the plaza.

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

enerally, Los Angeles ignores or destroys its past and minimalls rise in neighborhoods that used to have character.

San Pedro is an outlier thanks to a combination of accident and design. The city missed the mid-century wave of indiscriminate development and has some superb period architecture. Less attention has been paid to the people who occupied the lovely Victorian homes and worked in the Deco-era buildings.

As such, it sounded like a move in the right direction when the Los Angeles City Council decided to commemorate a local ethnic group that was once a vibrant community but is now an aging minority.

As a historian, I was puzzled when I heard that part of San Pedro would be designated as Historic Little Italy at the instigation of Councilman Joe Buscaino. Though a large Italian community did exist here, most coming from the coast and islands near Naples, the area’s Croatian community has been more active in recent decades. It’s worth noting, though, that to Angelenos in the 19th century they were the same. Angelenos routinely referred to coastal Croatians as Italians, because it was a linguistic designation, not a national identity. Before 1871 there was no nation called Italy. Due to the trading importance of Venice most coastal Croatians spoke Italian as a first or second language and shared a food culture and in 1870s LA there were Italian restaurants owned by people with names like Markovich and Illich. In San Pedro the two communities, both Catholic and involved in the fishing trade, were commingled almost from the outset.

Once I looked at the boundaries of the area to be designated as Historic Little Italy, I was confused. The borders are Gaffey on the west to Pacific Avenue on the east and from 6th Street to 17th Street, encompassing a largely residential area with no particular connection to the historic Italian community. The oldest existing businesses catering to San Pedro’s Italian community, Marabella Winery (1932), and A-1 Grocery (1947), are just outside the designated zone, as is Mary Star of the Sea Church

302 W. 5th St., San Pedro (310) 519-3662

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their spokesperson stated that they were “a bit perplexed as to how this came about, as there didn’t seem to be a public process.”

The San Pedro Historical Society was not consulted either, and an email from a board member includes the sentence, “I know of no significant Italian landmarks in the San Pedro area.” I contacted the office of Councilman Joe Buscaino, and had a conversation with his communications director, Branimir Kvartuc. My questions and his responses are below, with my commentary in italics.

Richard Foss: Will designation as a historic district open up any funding leverage for local improvements?

Branimir Kvartuc: The intent of the designation is a preamble to the Little Italy that the councilman wants to establish in downtown San Pedro. Italians have greatly contributed to the history and economy of San Pedro and the councilman wants to do whatever he can to preserve the culture. Establishing a Little Italy

RF: The boundaries of this zone extend to 17th Street in a mainly residential district — why?

BK: That area is called Vinegar Hill, because that’s where a lot of Italians lived from the 1920s to the 50s. They made their own wine, and that’s what that came from.

(The designated zone does not overlap the existing Vinegar Hill historic preservation zone, which extends from Beacon to Pacific, from 8th to 14th Street. The homes in the Vinegar Hill district all date from 1886 to 1927, while the designated “Historic Little Italy”zone includes 1950s residential housing, 1970s apartment and retail buildings, a Dollar Tree and a 99 Cents Only Store. A member of the Vinegar Hill Preservation Zone who was involved in that organization’s foundation said that their board was not consulted about the Historic Little Italy designation and he could not figure out any rational explanation for the chosen borders.)

RF: Just outside of the designated district are A-1 Grocery and Marabella Winery, two [Continued on p. 13]

[from p. 12]

of the oldest Italian-owned businesses in San Pedro. They offer unique products tailored to that community. Why are they outside of the zone?

BK: You’re taking the line a little bit too literally.… I don’t have the exact answer as to why exactly the line was drawn where it was.

I’ll get back to you on that. The plaza will be an incentive and a magnet to bring in people, and they will all benefit.

(Despite follow-up requests, one of which was acknowledged via email, Mr. Kvartuc did not get back to me.)

RF: I’m comparing this to the city of Westminster designating part of the city as Little Saigon, which was in response to years of pleas from the community. The San Pedro designation doesn’t seem to be a response to a popular movement.

BK: The community movement at this point we’re at now is coming from the San Pedro Business District and the [San Pedro] Chamber of Commerce. They have been trying to do everything they can to promote San Pedro as

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Hours: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sun.-Thurs.; 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Big Nicks’ Pizza, 1110 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro • (310) 732-5800 www.bignickspizzasp.com No matter when your day begins, you can always get a hearty breakfast at a great price at Brite Spot. Breakfast is served all day long. We serve freshly prepared, authentic Mexican food. We offer all the family favorites, from tacos to tamales, from caldo to chile, fresh seafood and much more.

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BUONO’S AUTHENTIC PIZZERIA

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RF: There are some public spaces that may be intended to commemorate a people or event, but are standard public parks in all but name and decorative touches. What can you tell me about the design of the plaza?

BK: There’s a consultant that was hired

[See Little Italy, p. 15]

RF: I contacted the Arts District to see whether they might be involved in creating an Italian film or music festival, perhaps something involving Italian art and design, and they said they have never been contacted. Who is doing the planning and will the public be involved?

BK: The San Pedro Chamber of Commerce

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martini menu all add fun to the warm and friendly atmosphere.

Live music. Open from 11:30 a.m., daily.

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CONRAD’S FARM TO TABLE

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HAPPY DINER AND HAPPY DELI

The Happy Diner isn’t your average diner. It’s the idea of fresh creative dishes in two San Pedro locations, and now a third—the Happy Deli. The selections range from Italian- and Mexicaninfluenced entrées to American Continental. Happy Diner chefs are always creating something new—take your pick of grilled salmon over pasta or tilapia and vegetables prepared any way you like. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner: Happy Diner #1, 617 S. Centre St., San Pedro • (310) 241-0917 • Happy Diner #2, 1931 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro • (310) 935-2933 • Open for breakfast and lunch: Happy Deli, 530 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro, (424) 364-0319

SAN PEDRO BREWING COMPANY

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Both restaurants have a selection of fine wines and beers.

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TAXCO MEXICAN RESTAURANT

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THE WHALE & ALE ENGLISH RESTAURANT & PUB The Victorian oak panels & elegant brass fittings will make you feel like you’ve crossed the Atlantic.

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Seafood selections include Chilean Sea Bass, Atlantic Salmon, Jumbo Tiger Shrimp & Sand Dabs.

International draft beers & ales, as well as domestic craft beers on tap. Full bar; free, gated parking lot.

Happy hour five days a week. Hours: Mon. 5 to 9 p.m., Tues.-Thurs. 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sat. 1 to 10 p.m., Sun. 1 to 9 p.m.

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September 6 - 19, 2018

THE CHORI-MAN

Waterfront Arts District only after a board is created implies that the Arts District will have no representation on the nonprofit’s board, and that any role in the programming will be limited. Since the Arts District has been active in the community for many years and has broad community support, it seems surprising to not include them in the formative stage.)

A San Pedro landmark for over 44 years, famous for exceptional award-winning pizza baked in brick ovens.

Buono’s also offers classic Italian dishes and sauces based on tried-and-true family recipes and handselected ingredients that are prepared fresh. Dine-in, take-out and catering. There are two locations in Long Beach. Hours: Sun.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Buono’s Pizzeria, 1432 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro • (310) 547-0655 www.buonospizza.com

is on board and participating in the conversation, and so is the Downtown Business Improvement District. A nonprofit is being developed to raise the funding to create and maintain the plaza, and the board will be responsible for programming the plaza. The public process will begin after the board is established…. To all the (program idea examples), yes to all of them. Yes to non-Italian events as well. The farmer’s market might move there, we’re looking into that. It’s about having it programmed as often as possible, if we’re lucky 365 days a year. There will be places to hang out at the plaza, to eat at the plaza and hopefully restaurants can set up European-style so people can eat outside.

(The reference to involving the San Pedro

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

BRITE SPOT MEXICAN RESTAURANT

an event space. We have the Fleet Week, the Battleship Iowa that is drawing over a million people a year, the San Pedro Fish Market has been drawing a million people for a long time and when the San Pedro Public Market is built they’ll have a new building and will continue to draw people. Using Hermosa Beach as an example, before the Pier Plaza was built Hermosa Beach was a seedy place. We’re about 20 years behind Hermosa, but that’s what shook up that area and this designation has been done to lay the foundations to create a branding mechanism to do economic development in downtown San Pedro. The bottom line is economic development, that’s what all of this is about. It’s not like the example you just gave in Westminster, it’s so we can attract more businesses. They may not be Italian businesses, but maybe more restaurants.

13

[Kalimba from p. 3]

Kalimba, The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire Moscow was surreal for Reynolds.

“Because we had, for most of our lifetime in this generation, either feared or considered (Russia) an enemy — of all enemies,” Reynolds said. “But we were standing right in the middle of Red Square, hanging out with people. So, it was like the complete opposite. It was great.”

They performed a private show, on the river near the Kremlin and were very well received.

Reynolds said an influx of people actually got in, on the grounds where they were playing.

“So we could come over there and do shows throughout Russia,” Reynolds said. “That was the plan. It went really well but we had some controversy with our White House (in 2016), so … now everything is on hold.”

Reynolds also is working on a new series called Behind the Groove. The show pays homage to people who get left out of the fame and the credit for their work on great, famous songs.

“Whether they wrote them, whether they performed on songs or were musicians or engineers, there are people who participate on these who never get any just due,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds along with his manager and another producer thought up the concept for the show. There is a show clip on YouTube now.

Reynolds said they try to bring out some of the fun stories that happen in the studio, such as accidents.

“When I was in Earth Wind & Fire, they used to call me Toscanini,” Reynolds said.

“Because I’m not a real keyboard player. (I’m

Kalimba, The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire will perform with original EW&F guitarist, Sheldon Reynolds, left, at the Warner Grand Theatre.

kind of) a fumble up and do something right kind of guy. I would play keyboard on some songs and get in there and hit something that was crazy but it was cool and they would say, ‘Keep it, keep it. Don’t let it go, Toscanini struck again.’

So, were (doing) stuff like that with Behind the Groove, the positive story and an uplifting approach.”

Reynolds’ best musical experiences and growth as a human being came during his years

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

with Earth Wind & Fire.

14

“It wasn’t just a group (about) being famous … it was also a group I can feel proud to bring my parents to see,” Reynolds said. “It was the best experience in all forms. We were dedicated to excellence. We were dedicated to uplifting people, dedicated to providing music and intriguing lyrics. (We got) people to pay attention to some of the things they didn’t pay attention to, learn about history, religion and God. (It was) all the things the name suggests, all the elements.”

Reynolds said working under Maurice White (Dec. 19, 1941 to Feb. 4, 2016), the

bands founder, was the highlight of his life. The men also shared one thing that he didn’t want but Reynolds always teased his mentor about anyway, that is Parkinson’s Disease.

“We used to joke about it,” he said. “How did two guys in the same band get the same rare disease? I used to tell him it was something they must have put in the fog machines.”

Reynolds wanted to follow in White’s footsteps and keep the legacy going in the best way. But he didn’t want the Parkinson’s part.

White had said to him “If you’re gonna take the groove, you’re gonna take the whole groove.”

Reynolds still plays and sings. He said so far, the disease hasn’t affected him. Then he elaborated, it has in a certain way — in the way a musician would think or feel. But he was never a “burning rubber guitarist.” He’s played rhythm guitar and focused more on singing in the past 20 years. Playing and singing gives him an adrenaline rush and he said it positively affects his Parkinson’s.

Reynolds added Kalimba is a very loving tribute to his former band. They are honestly paying tribute. They are not trying to be Earth Wind & Fire or reinvent the wheel — it’s just paying homage and love.

Time: 8 p.m. Sept. 21 Cost: $28 to $68.

Details: https://kalimbathespiritofearthwind andfire.com, www.grandvision.org Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Celebrate Mexican Independence with Gregorio Luke

By Andrea Serna, Arts and Culture Writer

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence day. You already knew that, right?

Many people outside Mexico mistakenly believe that Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican independence, which was declared more than 50 years before the Battle of Puebla.

Independence Day in Mexico (Día de la Independencia) is commemorated on Sept.

16, the anniversary of the revolutionary priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s famous “Grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Dolores”), a call to arms that amounted to a declaration of war against the Spanish colonial government in 1810.

On Sept. 16, the actual Mexican Independence Day, you will have an opportunity to learn the true story of that nation’s Independence. The San Pedro Waterfront Arts District has invited the renowned lecturer Gregorio Luke to deliver an expansive presentation of Mexican art and history at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium. The lecture is the launch of Cuatro@Cabrillo, a four-part education series on the art, history and cinema of Mexico.

Luke, a former director of the Museum of Latin American Art, is an internationally recognized expert in Mexican art and history. Although he is known from his years at MOLAA, he began his career working in cultural affairs as the first secretary of Mexico’s embassy in Washington D.C. He has given more than 1,000 lectures at museums and universities

On Sept. 16, art history lecturer Gregorio Luke will deliver an expansive presentation of Mexican art and history at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium. File photo.

through the United States, Mexico and Europe.

Luke said that this is his most ambitious lecture to date.

“I’m going to be try to give people the entire vision of a nation and their history, art and

culture,” he said.

The organizers have promised a kaleidoscopic vision of Mexico in this series, which brings to life the ancient art of the Aztecs and Mayans, the golden beauty of colonial

[Little Italy from p. 13]

Little Italy Designation Raises Questions In Retrospect

Graphic by Brenda Lopez.

Richard Foss is a culinary historian, author and museum consultant who has lectured around the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He wrote the section on Croatian cuisine in the Encyclopedia of World Food Cultures and also contributed to the Oxford Companion to Sweets. He is working on his third book, which is about food in Spanish and Mexican colonial California from 1790 to 1846.

September 6 - 19, 2018

exchanges to that area might be explored and an archive might be made of reminiscences of those among us who remember when the Ischian dialect was heard in these streets. If properly done, a Historic Little Italy project and plaza could help recently arrived residents make connections between their own experiences and the brave people who left their homeland to make a living among their kin in California.

Whether part of that district is co-designated as a Little Croatia or not, Croatians can be integrated into the narrative because to their contemporaries they were Italian too. It is a nuanced history and as such more challenging to reveal, but in my opinion including that community would be more rewarding and meaningful to those who visit with the desire to learn.

The location of any designated space to

Our conversation lasted almost half-an-hour and I don’t have room for all of it here, but in retrospect two things stand out. One was that while the potential for attracting new businesses was mentioned many times, Kvartuc never mentioned any initiatives to promote existing businesses that have roots in the community.

Any new businesses on the plaza would be likely to include Italian groceries and restaurants that will compete with locally-owned businesses outside of the development. Had there been any mention of a plan to assist historic San Pedran businesses in relocating to the high traffic zone, it would have at least indicated that their interests and livelihoods were being considered.

Instead all benefit to the existing local businesses was expressed as potential additional traffic by people who are in the neighborhood to visit the new development, rather than as an integral part of that development. The same focus was true when describing likely visitors; while the tastes of residents of the yet-to-bebuilt apartments and condos were mentioned several times, there was no mention whatever of serving or connecting with the existing Italian community.

That community was economically and culturally important for more than a century and they still patronize the 40-odd local Italian eateries that range from humble pizzerias to elegant restaurants. It would be worthy to celebrate their heritage with art and cultural celebrations that reflect their origins in a particular region of Italy. Links and cultural

memorialize the historic communities is of more than academic interest, because the public can tell the difference between a genuine and manufactured tourist attractions and will respond accordingly. San Diego’s Little Italy project, which was mentioned as a model for this one, includes the 1925 Italian church, a Victorian-era firehouse turned museum, the sites of a macaroni factory and tuna canneries and a clutch of restaurants that go back to 1950. The district boundaries were obviously chosen to include places of genuine civic and cultural importance and as an economic driver integrated with cultural education the project has been very successful. We can not say how the site for the San Pedro version was chosen, because requests for that information have been rebuffed.

Kvartuc’s assertion that “A Little Italy today is not what a Little Italy was 50 years ago” will be challenged by those who believe in meaningful connections between cultures and places. There was an Italian community in San Pedro 100 years ago, and their descendants live and work here now.

However it appears that only one of them – Buscaino – has any say in how and where that heritage will be commemorated.

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

to kind of develop the model and it’s the same consultant that did the Little Italy in San Diego.

His model is to vacate a public street and create the plaza out of that public street. The model is to do that inasmuch density as you can find.

Being that there’s at least a thousand new apartments going up in San Pedro, we’re trying to create a situation where we can attract new business into that area, because that area will be connected into the new San Pedro Public Market, making that entire area a destination.

The reference to a thousand new apartments seems to be based on proposed developments that are scheduled to be completed over a 10 year period. I have been told that only 420 new units have been approved at this time. As designing, building and moving new tenants into a new plaza would probably take a decade to implement, this is probably consistent with that estimate.

Kvartuc did not say how the area designated as Historic Little Italy might be connected to the Public Market. It is a half-mile walk uphill from southern edge of the Public Market to the closest point in the Historic Zone and almost a full mile from the centerpoint of one to the centerpoint of the other. If any public transit is planned between the two, Kvartuc did not mention it. He also did not address adding parking structures near the plaza to accommodate increased auto traffic. A request for clarification was emailed on Aug. 3 and a response was promised, but none was received

by Sept.4, when this article was submitted.

cathedrals, the vibrant murals created after the 1910 revolution, as well as the cutting-edge art of contemporary Mexican culture.

He launched his lecture career teaching about the great Mexican muralists known as Los Tres: Diego Rivera, Dávid Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco. Through the study of these artists he wove the history of a nation.

The Mexican muralist movement emerged through the struggle for independence. The great murals produced in from the 1920s to 1970s, were created to tell the story of politics and nationalism with a focus on the Mexican Revolution, the mestizo identity and Mesoamerican cultural history. Luke, who was born and raised in Mexico, is a master of conveying the story of the history and culture he loves.

He is also looking forward to speaking in San Pedro for the first time.“I am so excited to have received this invitation to speak in San Pedro,” he said. “It is a place that I have always loved to go and eat at the many wonderful restaurants. I love the sense that nothing is artificial, that everything is authentic”.

Cuatro@Cabrillo continues in 2019 with the presentation of three films by Oscar-winning Mexican directors: Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón, Birdman by Alejandro González Iñárritu and Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro.

Cuatro@Cabrillo tickets are $15 for general admission and $35 for VIP tickets. VIP tickets include an exclusive reception with Gregorio Luke, limited VIP reserved seating and free parking.

Time: 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 16 Cost: $15 to $35 Details: www.sanpedrowaterfrontartsdistrict. com

15

LGBTQ Community Celebrates 25 Years of Long Beach Film

By Katrina Guevara, Contributor

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

The Long Beach Q Film Festival has been transporting viewers to new places and times of empathy for decades. The festival will screen 15 films from Sept. 6 to 9 at The Art Theatre during its 25th anniversary.

Once called The Long Beach International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, the four-day event has gone through many iterations. However, it’s remained true to celebrating narrative features, documentaries and short films that embody the spirit of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities. “[QFilms] always has a universal language,” said founder Robert Cano. “That’s why it’s a wonderful event for the whole community that is still looking for a place to belong, be loved, accepted, honored and recognized.

Cano first screened films at his apartment in the early ‘90s.

“The films reflected the AIDS epidemic and I was right in the middle of it,” Cano said. “I had friends dying left and right. I asked myself, ‘What do I do?’ My love was for movies. I thought maybe we can start something positive.”

In 1981, the first case of AIDS was reported in Southern California. By 1993, it was the No. 1 cause of death among males ages 25 to 44 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, As a student at Cal State Long Beach, Cano first screened a film that followed with a Q-and-A with the director at the inaugural event.

“We were hungry to see ourselves on screen as there was less culture,” Cano added.

More than 500 students came to watch at a theater that had a max occupancy of 200. To allow all attendees to view the film, Cano and the team screened the film twice.

By the third year, the festival moved to The Art Theatre to accommodate its community.

Cano has taken many roles apart from being the founder of the festival. He has been the programmer, moderator, public relations officer and interviewer, among other positions.

The festival was revived at the LGBT Center of Long Beach from 1998 to 2006.

Today, 100 percent of the proceeds from the film screenings go back to The Center.

“I’m very proud that all of the proceeds go back to the center,” Cano said. “Every ticket sale and ad goes back into the center, which has always been there for me when I first came out, needed advice and help. It’s a win-win situation. [The Center] provide[s] so many life-saving programs and vital programs for community for mental, spiritual and physical health.”

Cano said storylines are more complex these days. For example, Man Made, the documentary directed by T Cooper, chronicles four trans men who participate in Trans FitCon, the only all-transgender bodybuilding competition in the world. “[Seeing the transcommunity] be their authentic selves and be humanized actually brought me to tears. They’re not going away and want to be seen as regular people.”

Another example of the diverse selections is Just Friends, a romantic comedy directed by Ellen Smit about 16 two young men who reflect on their

Screening on Sept. 7 is Mapplethorpe (2018), directed by Ondi Timoner. The film explores the intersection of his art and his sexuality and his struggle for mainstream recognition.

relationships with their mothers.

Q Film also promotes underrepresented groups from all walks of life. Of the 15 films, 50 percent are written, directed or produced by women. In addition, 30 percent of films feature transgender characters when Hollywood is at one percent.

Cano believes there is no longer an excuse with the film industry to not represent minorities.

FX’s Pose has more than 200 transgender involved in front and behind the camera.

“I was so frustrated with Hollywood last year,” Cano said. “I don’t know what it’s going to take, 5, 10, 20 years. Latinos, Asians, gays,

everyone. We are still represented at less than 3 percent of the industry.”

For Cano, Long Beach is the perfect place for the festival, especially with its first openlygay mayor, Robert Garcia.

“Just from Long Beach Pride, half of the attendees are gay allies,” Cano said. “I’ve lived here for 30 years. Even though I’ve had many opportunities to move, I keep coming back because it’s a special place. It’s a loving and accepting environment that is willing to work, accept and celebrate diversity.”

Cano said the event gets bigger and better every year.

“The community has come together and

made it a wonderful event by making it their own with the support of straight allies. It is truly a Southern California event that is attended by an international audience.”

And, the QFilm Festival has room to grow, especially being one of the few of Long Beach’s film festivals. Others include the Jewish Film Festival and Cambodia Town Film Festival.

The festival expects 1,500 attendees this year.

The 2018 film festival will take place from Sept. 6 to Sept. 10 at the Art Theatre, 2025 E. 4th St., Long Beach. Each film is $12.

Details: www.qfilmslongbeach.com.

Aretha Louise Franklin, 1942 - 2018

Queen of Soul

By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor

There’s a reason why Aretha Franklin is called the Queen of Soul and it’s not simply because she was commercially dominant in record sales or won the first eight Grammys for rhythm and blues.

To quote Washington Post writer, Chris Richards definition of soul music in Franklin’s words: Somebody somewhere once asked the human embodiment of American soul music how she would define American soul music. Aretha Franklin replied, “Being able to bring to the surface that which is happening inside.”

Franklin’s answer makes sense. She was a preacher’s child and musical prodigy who honed her talents singing gospel musical standards in the Baptist church choir. Gospel is an evocative music designed to usher in what Christians call the Holy Spirit into the house of God. Gospel is intended to open the

minds and hearts of worshipers to hear the word.

But what happens when that power is applied to secular music, secular themes and the all too real pain of human condition?

Franklin grew up in a black middle class household in the city of Detroit. Her father, Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, was a renowned preacher, so widely known that dignitaries and celebrities visited his home. He was also a philanderer whose womanizing drove Franklin’s mother away when Franklin was a young age.

Franklin lost her mother to a heart attack before the age of 10.

Franklin was also a mother of two by the age of 15.

In the period between 1955 through 1975 with the year 1968 considered the 20th century’s cultural and political climax, Franklin’s voice was one of those that defined those years.

[See Queen, p. 19]

Aretha Franklin in the 1960s at the beginning of her storied career. File photo

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REACH 63,000 HARBOR AREA READERS

DBA & LEGAL FILINGS

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018153929 The following person is doing business as: Hakalau Handmade Furniture, 2311 Pepperwood Ave., Long Beach, CA 90815, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Crystal Cordelia McKay, 2311 Pepperwood Ave., Long Beach, CA 90815. This Business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: June 2018. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct.

(A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/. Crystal Corde-

lia McKay, owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on June 22, 2018. Notice-In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

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

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

Original filing: 07/26/18, 08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018158829 The following person is doing business as: Fiberine, 1633 E. Sandison, Wilmington, CA 90744, Los Angeles County.

Registered owners: G.V.M.R. Inc, 1633 E. Sandison, Wilmington, CA 90744. This Business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business

[continued on p. 18]

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1 Chamillionaire hit parodied by Weird Al 6 Kermit-flailing-his-arms noise 9 Air Force One occupant, for short 14 “Fⁿr ___” (Beethoven piece) 15 Purpose 16 Siskel was his partner 17 Good deeds 19 Maker of Posturepedic mattresses 20 “┐Como ___ usted?”

21 Printer adjunct, maybe 23 Feel remorse for 24 Its subtitle is “Day-O” 28 Ren Faire underlings 30 “Children of a Lesser God” Oscar winner 31 Tart glassful 36 Pre-euro electronic currency 37 DeVry or University of Phoenix 41 Quilting event 42 Distrustful about 43 The Suez Canal can take you there 46 Item increasingly made from recyclable material 50 Latkes and boxties, e.g.

55 It’s not a prime number 56 Fires up 57 Aquarium organism 58 Show disdain for

61 Manned crafts involved in atmospheric reentry 63 Having regressed 64 Fabric dye brand 65 “Chasing Pavements” singer 66 Declined 67 Sue Grafton’s “___ for Silence” 68 Jay-Z’s music service

DOWN

1 Alludes (to) 2 “If you do that... see you in court!”

3 Mike Myers character who hosted “Sprockets” 4 “Insecure” star Rae 5 Duck Hunt console, for short 6 Desert plant related to the asparagus 7 Take ___ at (guess) 8 Question type with only two answers 9 Pre-euro coin 10 Conor of Bright Eyes 11 Rooibos, for one 12 It contains (at least) two forward slashes 13 Pigpen 18 Amino acid asparagine, for short 22 To wit 24 “Yeah, right” 25 Couturier Cassini 26 “Yeah, right on!”

27 Wildebeest

29 Progressive spokesperson 32 Alyssa of “Who’s the Boss?”

33 When aout occurs 34 Term used in both golf and tennis 35 Cannes Film Festival’s Camera ___ 37 Amanda of “Brockmire” 38 Decorate differently 39 At a ___ (stumped) 40 Direct deposit payment, for short 41 Strapped support 44 Hardly dense 45 Made, as money 47 Like some oats 48 Bassett of “Black Panther” 49 Pop performer?

51 Prompt givers 52 Computer code used to create some lo-fi artwork 53 John who wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn” 54 Paranormal skill, supposedly 57 “Truth in Engineering” automaker 58 Stockholm’s country (abbr.)

59 Corn remainder 60 Poetic sphere 62 Took a load off ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers go to: www.randomlengthsnews.com

September 6 - 19, 2018

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17

DBA & LEGAL FILINGS [from p. 17] under the fictitious business name or names listed above: January 1981. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.)

S/. Gonzalo Rico Jr., Vice President.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on June 28, 2018. Notice-In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

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

Original filing: 07/26/18, 08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018146893 The following person is doing business as: Allie M Assad General Contractor, 944 W Basin Street, San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County.

Registered owners: Allie M Assad, 944 W Basin Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by a corporation. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: January 2008. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct.

(A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/. Allie M Assad, Owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on June 15, 2018. Notice--In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 1411 ET SEQ., Business and Professions code).

Original filing: 07/26/18,

18

08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018172348 The following person is doing business as: JM Salon, 355 W 7th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered

owners: Melinda Figueroa, 1085 W 24th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by an individual.

The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: August 2010. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/.

Melinda Figueroa, Owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on July 19, 2018. Notice-In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

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

Original filing: 07/26/18, 08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018187887 The following person is doing business as: Tinkerbell Cleaners, 1808 E Carson Street, Carson, CA 90745, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Mark J. Doddy, 1110 W. 9th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by an individual.

The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: N/A. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct.

(A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/. Mark J. Doddy, owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on July 31, 2018. Notice-In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

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

Original filing: 08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18, 09/20/2018

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2018190097 The following person is doing business as: HR General Welding Repairs, 644 W. 27th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County.

Mailing Address: P.O. Box

1951, San Pedro, Ca 90733.

Registered owners: Hector Rivera, 644 W. 27th Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. This Business is conducted by an individual. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: N/A. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime.) S/.

Hector Rivera, owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Aug. 1, 2018. Notice--In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920. A fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920 where it expire 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

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

Original filing: 08/09/18, 08/23/18, 09/06/18, 09/20/2018

Order to Show Cause for Change of Name Case No. NS034510 Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles Petition of Herlinda Marie Perez for Change of Name TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner Herlinda marie Perez filed a petition with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Junior Pacheco to Erik Junior Pacheco The Court orders that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

Notice of Hearing: Date: 8-29-18, Time 8:30 a.m.

Dept. S26, Room: 5500 The address of the court is 275 Magnolia Ave, Long Beach CA 90802 A copy of this Order to Show Cause shall be published at least once each week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing on the petition in the following news paper of general circulation, printed in this county: Los Angeles Sentinel and Random Lengths News Date: July 18, 2018 Michael P. Vicencia Judge of the Superior Court 8/2, 8/9, 8/16,8/23/18 CNS-3159467# Los Angeles Sentinel

NOTICE INVITING BIDS NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City of Long Beach, California, acting by and through the City’s Board of Harbor Commissioners (“City”) will receive, before the Bid Deadline established below, Bids for the following Work: ON-CALL SERVICES FOR UNDERGROUND WET UTILITIES at LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA AS DESCRIBED IN SPECIFICATION NO. HD-S3015 Bid Deadline:

Questions must be submitted electronically through the PB System. Emails, phone calls, and faxes will not be accepted.

Questions submitted to City staff will not be addressed and Bidder will be directed to the PB System.

NIB - 3 Mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting.

The engineering staff of the City’s Harbor Department will conduct a prebid meeting at 10:00 a.m., on September 18, 2018, in the 1st Floor Board Room, of the Port of Long Beach IAO Interim Ad-

Prior to 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 Bids shall be submitted electronically via the Port of Long Beach PlanetBids (PB) System prior to 2:00 p.m.

NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF A RECIRCULATED DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FOR THE BERTHS 97-109 [CHINA SHIPPING] CONTAINER TERMINAL PROJECT (SCH #2003061153) The City of Los Angeles Harbor Department (Harbor Department) has prepared a Recirculated Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (Draft SEIR) for the Berths 97-109 [China Shipping] Container Terminal Project. This Recirculated Draft SEIR is a complete recirculation of the Draft SEIR released on June 16, 2017, due to significant new information added. The significant new information in the Recirculated Draft SEIR centers around the evaluation of the operation of the terminal from 2008 to 2014 under the set of mitigation measures approved in the certified 2008 Final EIR, to the extent those were implemented, and its continued operation in the future under new and/or modified mitigation measures, along with an incrementally higher cargo throughput level compared to that assumed in the 2008 Final EIR. The analysis examines whether potentially new significant environmental impacts or substantially more severe impacts would occur in the areas of Air Quality, Greenhouse Gases, and Ground Transportation.

Availability: The Recirculated Draft SEIR is being released for a period of 45 days for public review and comment starting on September 10, 2018, and ending on October 24, 2018. Reviewers are advised that new comments must be submitted on the Recirculated Draft SEIR, and although part of the administrative record, comments received on the prior 2017 Draft SEIR may no longer be considered pertinent and as such, would not require a written response by the Har-

bor Department in the Final SEIR. The Recirculated Draft SEIR is available for review at: Harbor Department Environmental Management Division, 222 W. 6th Street, Suite 900, San Pedro, CA 90731; Los Angeles City Library, Central Branch, 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90071; Los Angeles City Library, San Pedro Branch, 931 S. Gaffey Street, San Pedro, CA 90731; and Los Angeles City Library, Wilmington Branch, 1300 N. Avalon, Wilmington, CA 90744. The entire Recirculated Draft SEIR is also available on the Port of Los Angeles’ web site: http:// www.portoflosangeles.org under the Environmental tab.

Public Meeting: A public meeting will be held on October 10, 2018, at 4:00 p.m. in the Board Room at the Harbor Department Administration Building, 425 S. Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro, CA 90731.

The meeting will be conducted in English with Spanish translation services available.

Comments: Comments on the Recirculated Draft SEIR should be submitted in writing prior to the end of the 45-day public review period and must be postmarked by October 24, 2018. Please submit written comments to: City of Los Angeles Harbor Department, Christopher Cannon, Director Environmental Management Division, P.O. Box 151, San Pedro, CA 90731. Comments may also be sent via email to ceqacomments@portla.org.

Please remember to send your comments in letter format as an attachment to the e-mail; provide an optional valid mailing address; and use the project title in the e-mail subject line.

For additional information, please contact Lisa Ochsner, Harbor Department Project Manager at (310) 732-3412.

CN952287 97-109 Sep 6, 2018

DBA Filing & Publishing $

135

310-519-1442 Remember to renew your DBA every five years

Bid Opening:

Electronic Bid (eBid) results shall be viewable online in the PB System immediately after the Bid Deadline.

Contract Documents Available:

Download Contract Documents from the Port of Long Beach PB System Vendor Portal: www.polb.com/sbe Click on the POLB Vendor Portal 1. Register and Log In 2. Click “Bid Opportunities” 3. Double-click on respective bid Project Title 4. Click on Document/Attachments tab 5. Double-Click on Title of Electronic Attachment 6. Click “Download Now” 7. Repeat for each attachment For assistance in downloading these documentsplease contact Port of Long Beach Plans and Specs Desk at 562-283-7353.

Mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting:

Date/Time: September 18, 2018 at 10:00 AM Location: Port of Long Beach IAO Interim Administrative Office 1st Floor Board Room 4801 Airport Plaza Drive Long Beach, CA 90815

Project Contact Person:

Christopher Greiner, christopher. greiner@polb.com

Please refer to the Port of Long Beach PB System for the most current information.

NIB - 1 Contract Documents.

Contract Documents may be downloaded, at no cost, from the Port of Long Beach PB System Vendor Portal website.

Bidders must first register as a vendor on the Port of Long Beach PB System website in order to view and download the Contract Documents, to be added to the prospective bidders list, and to receive addendum notifications when issued.

For the link to the Port of Long Beach PB System and for information on this Project and other upcoming Port projects, you may view the Port website at http://www.polb.com/ economics/contractors/default. asp.

Copies of all Port insurance endorsement forms, SBE/ VSBE Program forms, Harbor Development Permit Applications and other Port forms are available at http://www.polb. com/economics/contractors/ forms_permits/default.asp.

NIB - 2 Pre-Bid Questions.

All questions, including requests for interpretation or correction, or comments regarding the Contract Documents, must be submitted no later than October 2, 2018, at 5 p.m. Questions received after the pre-Bid question deadline will not be accepted.

ministrative Office, 4801 Airport Plaza Drive, Long Beach, CA 90815.

Attendance is mandatory for the Contractors. It is not mandatory for Subcontractors but highly recommended. Each Bidder shall attend the mandatory Pre-bid meeting. The City makes no guarantee that existing construction and site conditions matches construction depicted on record reference documents. It shall be the Bidder’s responsibility to identify existing conditions. EACH BIDDER MUST ATTEND THE MANDATORY PRE-BID MEETING. FAILURE TO ATTEND THE MANDATORY PRE-BID MEETING SHALL DISQUALIFY YOUR BID. Bidders are encouraged to RSVP for the Pre-Bid Meeting through the PB System; located under the “RSVP” tab of the Prospective Bidder Detail. Following the meeting a list of Pre-Bid Meeting signedin attendees will be available on the PB System. Note that attendance at the pre-bid meeting can be used to satisfy a portion of a Bidder’s good faith efforts to meet the SBE/ VSBE participation goals listed below.

NIB - 4 Summary Description of the Work. The Work

[continued on p. 19]

[Which Hunt from p. 8]

DBA & LEGAL FILINGS Which Hunt?

[from p. 18]

required by this Contract includes, but is not limited to, the following: On an on-call basis, perform CCTV inspections of existing pipelines, service laterals, manholes and fittings, including traffic control, nuisance water protection, debris removal, hauling and dump fees, and safety requirements; cleaning existing underground utilities; repair of sewer and water mains and storm drains; connections to existing pipelines, service laterals, manholes, and fittings, including surface restoration and testing; pot holing and dewatering; and other related work, including supervision, at various locations as required by the Long Beach Harbor Department. The quantity of work to be performed and materials to be furnished are approximate only, being given as a basis for the comparison of bids. See Technical Specifications for more details.

NIB - 5 Contract Time and Liquidated Damages. The Contractor shall achieve Affidavit of Final Completion of the Project within two (2) years as provided in Paragraph SC - 6.1 of the Special Conditions, from a date specified in a written “Notice to Proceed” issued by the City and subject to adjustment as provided in Section 8.2 of the General Conditions.

FAILURE OF THE CONTRACTOR TO COMPLETE THE WORK WITHIN THE CONTRACT TIME AND OTHER MILESTONES SET FORTH IN SPECIAL CONDITIONS SC-6.3, INCLUDING THE ENGINEER’S APPROVAL OF AFFIDAVIT OF FINAL COMPLETION, WILL RESULT IN ASSESSMENT OF LIQUIDATED DAMAGES IN THE AMOUNTS ESTABLISHED IN THE SPECIAL CONDITIONS 6.4.

NIB - 6 Contractor’s License. The Bidder shall hold a current and valid Class “A”, California Contractor’s License to construct this project.

This Project is subject to compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Industrial Relations. No Contractor or Subcontractor may be listed on a bid proposal for a public works project unless registered with the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to Labor Code Section 1725.5 (with limited exceptions from this requirement for bid purposes only under Labor Code Section 1771.1(a)). No Contractor or Subcontractor may be awarded a contract for public work on a public works project unless registered with the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to Labor Code Section 1725.5.

Contractors and Subcontractors must furnish electronic Certified Payroll Records (CPRs) to the Labor Commissioner’s Office, and in addition, hardcopies or electronic copies shall be furnished to the Port of Long Beach.

NIB -10 This project is not covered by a PLA.

NIB -12

NIB -15 Period of Bid Irrevocability. Bids shall remain open and valid and Bidder’s Bonds and other acceptable Bid Security shall be guaranteed and valid for ninety (90) calendar days after the Bid Deadline or until the Executive Director executes a Contract, whichever occurs first.

NIB -16 S u b s t i t u t i o n of Securities. Substitution of Securities for retainage is permitted in accordance with Section 22300 of the Public Contract Code.

NIB -17 Iran Contracting Act of 2010. In accordance with Public Contract Code sections 2200-2208, every person who submits a bid or proposal for entering into or renewing contracts with the City for goods or services estimated at $1,000,000 or more are required to complete, sign, and submit the “Iran Contracting Act of 2010 Compliance Affidavit.”

Given the history that Unger lays out, these priorities make perfect sense. We need to gain the best possible sense of the large-scale lay of the land. Mueller’s investigation is focused on prosecuting specific crimes, which means that much of what he learns along the way will stay secrete.

Congressional investigations are meant to inform the public, expose wrongdoing that may or may not be illegal and provide a basis for future legislation and oversight.

“In many ways, getting to the bottom of what happened in 2016 is a bigger national priority than the punishment of individual wrongdoers, though there’s no reason we should have to choose between the two,” Marshall said.

[Queen from p. 16]

Queen of Soul

Indeed, her signing to Atlantic Records in 1967, allowed Franklin to achieve commercial and critical acclaim for songs such as the civil rights anthem, Respect, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Spanish Harlem and Think.

By the end of the 1960s the vocalist who was called “the Queen of Soul” recorded acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), Lady Soul (1968), Young, Gifted and Black (1972) and Amazing Grace (1972).

After her father was shot in 1979, Franklin left Atlantic and signed with Arista Records, finding success with the albums Jump to It (1982) and Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985), and her part in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

In 1998, Franklin received international acclaim for singing the opera aria Nessun Dorma at the Grammy Awards, replacing Luciano Pavarotti. Later that year, she scored her final Top 40 song with A Rose Is Still a Rose.

Franklin inspired untold generations of vocalists from around the world but what she represents is so much more. In a 2016 profile in the New Yorker, David Remnick, quoted President Barack Obama as saying in response to his shedding a tear during Franklin’s performance at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015: “Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues,

Trump is, and always has been, a minority president.

He thrives on division, playing to, lying to and enraging his base, at the same time trying to confuse the larger public about the very possibility of established facts.

Which is why a Democratic House (and perhaps even Senate) relentlessly focused on factual investigations is so crucial for the preservation of our democracy. The hunt for truth is the most important hunt of all. But it won’t even begin, in earnest, unless Democrats win in November.

R & B, rock and roll—the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope,” he wrote back, through his press secretary. “American history wells up when Aretha sings. That’s why, when she sits down at a piano and sings A Natural Woman, she can move me to tears—the same way that Ray Charles’s version of ‘America the Beautiful’ will always be in my view the most patriotic piece of music ever performed—because it captures the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.”

Remnick would go on to note how, “so much of this history—the transformation of hardship and sorrow, the spiritual uplift after boundless pain, gospel after blues—is a particular inheritance of the black church,” before quoting civil rights activists and public intellectual, W.E.B. Dubois’ Souls of Black Folks: In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois writes that, “despite caricature and defilement,” the music of the black church “remains the most original and beautiful expression of human life and longing yet born on American soil.”

There will never be another godfather of soul.

And there won’t be another that could don the mantle of being the Queen of Soul.

Issued at Long Beach, California, this 9th of April, 2018.

Mario Cordero, Executive Director of the Harbor Department, City of Long Beach, California Note: For project updates after Bid Opening, please contact plans. specs@polb.com.

NOT USED

NIB -13 Bid Security, Signed Contract, Insurance and Bonds. Each Bid shall be accompanied by a satisfactory Bidder’s Bond or other acceptable Bid Security in an amount

The 100 other investigations Republicans fear should go forward as well: Congress can do many things at once. But impeaching the President inevitably distracts from this and delays this. If anything it tends to harden partisan divisions rather than moving the ball in a way that can shift public opinion against the President. And after all that it will fail, with a shabby but real victory handed to the President.

Aretha Franklin gave a stunning performance at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors that brought a tear to President Barack Obama’s eye. File photo

September 6 - 19, 2018

NIB -11 Trade Names and Substitution of Equals.

With the exception of any sole source determination that may be identified in this paragraph, Bidders wishing to obtain City’s authorization for substitution of equivalent material, product, or equipment, are required to submit a written request for an Or Equal Substitution using the form included in Appendix A together with data substantiating Bidder’s representation that the non-specified item is of equal quality to the item specified, no later than fourteen (14) calendar days after City’s issuance of Notice to Proceed (NTP). Authorization of a substitution is solely within the discretion of the City.

NIB -14 C o n d i t i o n a l Award of Contract and Reservation of Rights.

The Board, acting through the Executive Director, reserves the right at any time before the execution of the Contract by the City, to reject any or all Bids, and to waive any informality or irregularity. The Conditional Award of the Contract, if any, will be to the responsible Bidder submitting the lowest responsive and responsible Bid. If the lowest responsive responsible Bidder fails to submit the required documents including insurance forms, bonds and signed Contract within thirty (30) calendar days after Conditional Award of Contract, the Board reserves the right to rescind the Conditional Award and Conditionally Award the Contract to the next lowest responsive and responsible Bidder.

of the President’s taxes, which is to say to have Congress make sense of his finances and financial relationships as a baseline for investigating his relationship with Russia, Russian organized crime and Russian intelligence. It is also the basis for any real investigation of the use of the Presidency for private gain: the Trumpian project of kleptocracy.

NIB - 8 SBE/VSBE. This project is subject to the Port of Long Beach (POLB) Small Business Enterprises (SBE)/ Very Small Business Enterprises (VSBE) Program. The combined SBE/VSBE participation goal for this project is twenty seven percent (27%), of which a minimum of five percent (5%) must be allocated to VSBEs. POLB expects all Bidders to achieve the combined SBE/VSBE participation goal. Award of the Contract will be conditioned on the Bidder submitting an SBE-2C Commitment Plan demonstrating the Bidder’s intent to meet

NIB -9 Prevailing Wage Requirements per Department of Industrial Relations.

This Project is a public work Contract as defined in Labor Code Section 1720. The Contractor receiving award of the Contract and Subcontractors of any tier shall pay not less than the prevailing wage rates to all workers employed in execution of the Contract.

The Director of Industrial Relations of the State of California has determined the general prevailing rates of wages in the locality in which the Work is to be performed. The rate schedules are available on the internet at http://www.dir. ca.gov/dlsr/DPreWageDetermination.htm and on file at the City, available upon request.

Bidders are directed to Article 15 of the General Conditions for requirements concerning payment of prevailing wages, payroll records, hours of work and employment of apprentices.

not less than ten percent (10%) of the Base Bid as a guarantee that the Bidder will, if Conditionally Awarded a Contract by the Board, within thirty (30) calendar days after the Contract is conditionally awarded to the Contractor by the City, execute and deliver such Contract to the Chief Harbor Engineer together with all required documents including insurance forms, a Payment Bond for one hundred percent (100%) of the Contract Price, and a Performance Bond for one hundred percent (100%) of the Contract Price. All Bonds shall be on forms provided by the City.

Real News, Real People, Really Effective

NIB - 7 Contractor Performed Work. The Contractor shall perform, with its own employees, Contract Work amounting to at least 50% of the Contract Price, except that any designated “Specialty Items” may be performed by subcontract. The amount of any such “Specialty Items” so performed may be deducted from the Contract Price before computing the amount required to be performed by the Contractor with its own employees. “Specialty Items” will be identified by the City on the Schedule of Bid Items. The bid price of any materials or equipment rental costs from vendors who are solely furnishing materials or rental equipment and are not performing Work as a licensed subcontractor on this project shall also be deducted from the Contract Price before computing the amount required to be performed by the Contractor with its own employees.

the combined SBE/VSBE participation goal. If the Bidder’s Commitment Plan does not demonstrate intent to meet the combined goal, the Bidder shall demonstrate that it made an adequate good faith effort to do so, as specified in the Instructions to Bidders. The Port’s SBE Program staff is available to provide information on the program requirements, including SBE certification assistance. Please contact the SBE Office at (562) 283-7598 or sbeprogram@polb.com.

You may also view the Port’s SBE program requirements at www.polb.com/sbe.

19

[Mid-terms from p. 6]

Mid-terms

September 6 - 19, 2018

Real News, Real People, Totally Relevant

hopefully a little more mature and we can understand the critical importance of putting the reins on the erratic, racist, misogynist, antilabor monster who sits in the White House. For one of the best discussions of Democratic Party “lesser of two evils” dilemmas, we strongly suggest reading longtime Democratic Socialists of America activist and former legislator Tom Gallagher’s “The Primary Route.”

Now is the time to hold our noses and elect Democrats ­— many of whom may not fit the progressive mold — in “swing districts.”

That’s why we support Swing Left, an initiative coordinating this effort that helps people find — and commit to supporting — progressives in their closest Swing District to ensure that we take back the House in 2018.(2) This is not to understate the importance of building a strong bench of progressive candidates at the municipal, county and state level. However, the importance of those contests, often in places where differences are minimal, pales in comparison to the job of putting the political brakes on Trump. The country and the earth’s future will feel the impact if we fail in November.

So, we urge people to get ready to head to the “red” and “purple” districts where vulnerable House Republicans can be beat. These races are crying out for volunteers, donations and brio.

There are plenty of places to go for September and October to help organize on the ground.

Make your travel plans now, because some of these districts may be crowded with folks who are setting out to do this important work.

If you can’t travel, there are many other ways to take action. You can donate or host a fundraiser for District Funds to give swing district Democrats a boost the day they become the official nominee.

You can host or attend a Voter Contact Event. Or, start using new phone banking technology to talk to voters in a swing district.(3) The authors have already made their own plans: Peter Olney plans to spend September and October in Southern California working on the 39th Congressional campaign of Democrat Gil Cisneros. He is running to flip this Eastern LA County/Orange County seat, which Hilary carried by 8.5 percent points in the 2016 election. The incumbent Republican Ed Royce has resigned, but his former aid, Young Kim is running to replace him. Peter has a strong personal interest in this project — his return to Italy is contingent on winning a Democratic majority.(4) Rand Wilson is deciding between devoting his time to the contest for an open seat in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District that could easily go Republican or campaigning for Jared Golden, the Democrats’ nominee challenging Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District race.(5) Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, there is so much important grassroots organizing to do in the U.S. — and Italy. Avanti Popolo!

Notes: 1: “Et Tu, Bernie?” Chris Hedges 2: Learn more at swingleft.org. According to Swing Left, there are 78 Swing Districts.

These are places where the most recent election was won by 15 percent of the vote 20 or less, where Hillary Clinton beat Trump,

where a high concentration of volunteers could make certain districts winnable, or where other, specific circumstances make it a competitive district. Democrats need to flip at least 23 seats to take back the House in 2018. If they hold on to the vulnerable Democratic-held districts, they only need to flip 23 Republican-held House seats to take back the house in 2018.

3: Interested in learning more or questions about how to get involved? Contact Swing Left at host@swingleft.org.

4: Peter promised his Italian friends that he won’t return to Italy unless we flip the House, although a return to Italy is beset with such a similar government, the product of some of the same right-wing populist forces that elected Trump.

5: The 2nd District backed Barack Obama in

the 2012 presidential election by a margin of 9 points, before flipping red in 2016 for Donald Trump (R), who won by 10 points.

Peter Olney is a retired organizing director of the ILWU. He has been a labor organizer for 40 years in Massachusetts and California. For three years he was the associate director of the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California.

Rand Wilson has worked as a union organizer and labor communicator for more than 25 years and is an organizer with SEIU Local 888 in Boston.

Wilson was the founding director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice. He is president of the Center for Labor Education and Research, and is on the board of directors of the ICA Group, the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund and the Center for the Study of Public Policy. Reprinted from theStansburyforum. com