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Hahn and Lowenthal call on Gov. Brown to act on homelessness pg. 3 Wilmington takes Back its Neighborhood Council pg. 6

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R&B singer speaks on becoming lead vocalist of the The New Gap Band pg. 11 The misconception of salt pg. 12

Gavyn Rhone

Top 10 Censored Stories of 2015-16

Same Mess, Bigger Fan Buscaino Comes Face to Face With Navigation Center Opponents

By Christian L. Guzman, Community Reporter

When What You Don’t Know Can Kill You

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor with Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor

[See Censored, page 7]

The Local Publication You Actually Read

Throughout its 40-year history, Project Censored has covered a lot of ground that the corporate mainstream media has missed. Begun

by Carl Jensen, a sociology professor at California’s Sonoma State University shortly after Watergate in 1976, it’s become an endeavor involving dozens of faculty members and institutions working together to come up with an annual list of the Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year.

The Watergate burglary in June 1972 “sparked one of the biggest political cover-ups in modern history,” Jensen later recalled. “And the press was an unwitting, if willing participant in the coverup.”

October 13 - 26, 2016

Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino was heckled by angry residents at an Oct. 4 public forum. His office organized the event to seek feedback on his proposal to bring a homeless navigation center to San Pedro.

The unhappiness on display at the forum was an extension of the discontent expressed one week prior. Barton Hill Elementary neighbors rallied against Buscaino’s plan to locate the homeless navigation center one block from the school.

Opponents of the facility made sure that members of Buscaino’s support team — his homeless taskforce, including San Pedro Chamber of Commerce President Elise Swanson — understood their position, too.

The councilman responded by reminding the audience of the wider problems and conditions that he has been called upon to address: the growth of homeless encampments in front of the former Ante’s restaurant building and nearby streets and the community outcry against the idea of building tiny houses to increase the stock of inhabitable shelter.

“You asked me to act and I did,” said Buscaino.

He itemized some of the measures he took: increasing the number of Los Angeles Police Department emergency response teams in San Pedro from two to eight; pushing to amend Los Angeles City Ordinance 56.11 regarding the storage of personal property; and lobbying for Measure HHH which, if approved by voters this November, will provide funds to address homelessness in the city.

The councilman said that after his first homeless forum, he also wanted to identify “solutions on a local level” to homelessness. He appointed a Homelessness Task Force comprised of Harbor Area business owners, policy experts and residents to help him do it.

Since this was an appointed task force, the group arrived at opening a navigation center at

[See Navigation Center, page 2]

1

Community Announcements:

Committed to Independent Journalism in the Greater LA/LB Harbor Area for More Than 30 Years

Harbor Area Housing and Community Improvement News and Updates

Long Beach is conducting a series of community workshops to gather public input to help develop a five-year consolidated plan to describe and prioritize the city’s housing and community development needs.

Residents are encouraged to fill out a brief Housing and Community Development Needs survey online at www.surveymonkey.com/r/ LongBeach_English_CP Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Oct. 15 Details: www.lbds.info/consolidatedplan Venue: Houghton Park, 6301 Myrtle Ave., Long Beach

Belmont Shore Sidewalk Chalk Art Contest

Registration is now open for the 13th annual Belmont Shore Sidewalk Chalk Art Contest. There is $1,000 in cash prizes.

Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 15 Cost: Free Details: justinrudd.com Venue: 2nd Street in the Belmont Shore neighborhood of Long Beach

Belmont Pier Beach Clean Up

Free exercise, free fresh air, water and snacks will be available for the Belmont Pier beach cleanup. Meet on the beach in front of the pier parking lot.

Time: 12 to 2 p.m. Oct. 16 Details: (562) 570-4876 Venue: Belmont Pier, Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

FIS Feasibility Study

Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area

Long Beach received a request to allow some of the airport air carrier flight slots to be used for international service. The Long Beach City Council voted on July 7, 2015 to proceed with a comprehensive feasibility study for a potential Federal Inspection Services facility.

The study examines the following areas relative to a FIS facility: market demand; environmental compliance; economic impact; facility concepts; airport scope and capability; financial feasibility; and security risk. The council is tentatively scheduled to receive the presentation and public input from the two commission meetings on Nov. 15. A presentation of the FIS study, a report on the city attorney’s analysis, as well as an opportunity for public comment, will be included on the respective agendas of the following public commission meetings: Airport Advisory Commission 6:30 p.m. Oct. 20 Long Beach Gas & Oil Auditorium, 2400 E. Spring St., Long Beach Economic Development Commission 6 p.m. Oct. 25 City Council Chambers, 333 W. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach Time: 6:30 p.m. Oct. 20 Details: www.lgb.org Venue: Long Beach Gas & Oil Auditorium, 2400 E. Spring St., Long Beach

POLA Hosts Environmental Open House

The Port of Los Angeles will hold the first of quarterly open houses. The forums have been organized to provide a greater level of communication on port emission-reducing projects. RSVP requested.

Time: 5 p.m. Oct. 20 Details: environmental@portla.org Venue: Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, 112 E. 22nd St., San Pedro

October 13 - 26, 2016

5th Annual ILWU Walk the Coast Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament

2

The 5th Annual ILWU Walk the Coast Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament raises money to fight childhood cancer. The fundraiser benefits Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.

This year’s event will take place at the newly renovated Gardens Casino. Preregistration or registration on the day of the event is 6 to 7 p.m. “Cards in the air” at 7 p.m.

Time: 7 p.m. Oct. 22 Cost: $20 Entry, $60 Buy-in Details: http://ilwu63.net/ Venue: The Gardens Casino, 11871 Carson St, Hawaiian Gardens

[Navigation Center, from page 1]

Proposed Navigation Center Draws Ire 227 N. Pacific Avenue, behind closed doors.

The facility would include storage for homeless people’s property. But the lack of community engagement prompted criticism by local residents. Buscaino attempted to deflect attention from the task force.

“They did what I asked them,” Buscaino said.

“There have been personal attacks against them over Facebook. It is unacceptable to threaten neighbors who want to make this community better.”

The crowd wasn’t having it.

“They don’t live near Barton Hill,” several shouted. “They don’t know what we deal with.”

Taskforce members were given a chance to introduce and defend themselves.

“As a business owner … I chose to lend my commitment to the task force,” said Mona Sutton, owner of the Omelette and Waffle Shop and president of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. “My employees will testify to the constant scrubbing and cleaning that they have to do [because of homeless people]. I saw this [the navigation center] as a no-brainer.”

“You know how I feel about the homeless,” said George Palaziol, the co-founder of Saving San Pedro. “I wouldn’t do anything to make this worse.… We need to set the example of how to deal with this issue.”

“We listened to hundreds of hours of testimony by businesses,” Swanson said. “[They expressed] homelessness was having a direct negative impact on the community. This solution is supported by the Los Angeles Police Department.”

There were several more shouts and Swanson was accused of lying about hearing testimony.

She responded by naming various businesses on 6th and 7th streets that have wanted to see homelessness and its effects treated.

Buscaino also presented a panel of experts, which included Dennis Gleason, policy director for Buscaino, Molly Larson, director of operations for Chrysalis Enterprises, Peter Lynn executive director for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Michael Oreb, captain of the Los Angeles Police Department, and Ronnie Villanueva, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department. They explained what a homeless navigation center is and the benefits it could have for San Pedro.

A navigation center is a facility where homeless people can securely store a limited amount of belongings and receive guidance from staff on where to receive services that might improve their quality of life.

If a navigation center were to be built in San Pedro, police would be able to enforce Section 3J of the Los Angeles Municipal Code 56.11 on homeless people. Since up to 60 gallons of an individual’s property could be stored at the navigation center, police would be able to cite that individual for having more than 2 cubic feet of additional property that is obstructing a public right of way.

All of the experts were in favor of the navigation center being placed in San Pedro, but there were different attitudes expressed.

Gleason was concerned about the effects

Rendering of the proposed Navigation Center at 227 N. Pacific Ave., San Pedro. Courtesy of Council Office District 15

homeless people have on people with homes.

He described being bothered by a homeless man shouting expletives near his house at night.

“I want the blight to go away,” Gleason said.

“The councilman fought another version of 56.11 that would have prohibited property seizure.

[Our] version does more to protect people who pay property taxes.”

Lynn explained that the increase in homeless people correlates with a housing crisis in Los Angeles.

“Los Angeles has failed to provide affordable housing,” Lynn said.

“I believe homelessness will be an epidemic across America,” Oreb added.

Buscaino allowed the public to comment on the navigation center and ask questions.

The public repeatedly expressed its frustration with Buscaino and the taskforce for the lack of transparency and community involvement in developing the plan for the navigation center.

“Because that’s a Chicano and black neighborhood, you thought you could slip this by without talking to us,“ shouted Donald Galaz, vice president of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

Periodically, Buscaino responded to the transparency issue with, “That’s why we’re here.”

Despite their frustration, the more than 200 attendees generally agreed with the idea of the center, just not the proposed location on Pacific Avenue.

The public expressed three distinct attitudes against that location.

The most common was that Pacific Avenue is an inappropriate site due to its proximity to Barton Hill Elementary School.

“You don’t walk by the schools,” shouted Galaz, surrounded by a group of Barton Hill families. “You don’t go to church there! We do!”

“It is disrespectful and unacceptable to think about putting this near a school,” Sunny Lopez said. “Absolutely not.”

A second attitude expressed was a distrust of San Pedro’s homeless population and a fear that they will be attracted to the center.

“We don’t have a homeless problem in San Pedro,” Mike Collins said. “These people don’t have urns or photo albums. They’re drug addicts and thieves.”

Lynn disagreed.

“Eighty percent of these people … are from the Harbor Area,” Lynn said. “There is no evidence that a navigation center will draw [more] here.”

The third major attitude expressed was skepticism toward the benefit of a navigation center for San Pedro.

“Will city attorneys be ready to defend this center against legal challenges?” John Stammerich asked. “Or, are they just going to roll over to attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union or Santa Monica? … Making money off the city and leaving us with a shit hole.”

Another person asked where a navigation center has proved effective for a community like San Pedro.

“We don’t have that data,” Lynn replied.

Buscaino remained calm and receptive through most of the public comment period. But his patience dwindled towards the end.

“I’ve heard you loud and clear,” Buscaino quickly replied to a commenter. “You don’t want the navigation center at 227 N. Pacific Avenue.”

Buscaino also assured the public that the location, and the navigation center in general, were “not a done deal.”

However, plans for a center somewhere in San Pedro are moving forward. Buscaino and his office want to select a location by Nov. 4. For police to fully enforce municipal code 56.11, the location of the navigation center must be within a “reasonable radius” of where homeless people are established.

Once a site that meets that standard is located, Buscaino will decide if he wants to recommend the site for approval and funding by the city council.

To comment about the navigation center concept or propose sites, go to la15th.com.

Hahn, Lowenthal Call on Brown to Act on Homeless

By Zamná Ávila, Assistant Editor

Congressional representatives, local officials and advocates joined forces Oct. 6, calling on Gov. Edmund G. Brown to provide greater help to fight homelessness.

The leaders spoke at a press conference outside of the Winter Weather Shelter in Long Beach, a city which, not unlike other cities and communities in California, is suffering from the unwelcome effects of homelessness. It used to be that homeless people in the city congregated in Lincoln Park, downtown and low-income neighborhoods. These days, the homeless issue has bled into wealthier neighborhoods such as East Long Beach and Belmont Shore. As result, communities are up in arms, blaming homeless people for an increase in crime, ranging from

Former Port Police Chief Sentenced to Two Years in Corruption Case

[See Boyd page 6]

October 13 - 26, 2016

to the Port of Los Angeles’ contract proposals, edited the company’s contract with the port so that he, as police chief, would be responsible for overseeing the progress and development of the application. Boyd even met with thenLos Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa regarding PortWatch.

Boyd never informed city and port officials that his firm, BDB Digital Communications, had an agreement with the same company to receive a share of the revenue from a similar app that was in development, MetroWatch, according to the indictment. An unidentified company executive made it clear to Boyd that the MetroWatch partnership depended on the company being awarded the PortWatch contract by the city, the document alleges.

Former Port of Los Angeles Chief of Police Ronald Boyd was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison. Boyd pled guilty on Feb. 3 to federal charges of tax evasion and making a false statement to FBI agents. The agents were investigating his acceptance of a bribe in connection with the development of an official smartphone app to be marketed to other law enforcement agencies.

Boyd, 58, of Torrance, was also ordered to pay $305,054 in restitution.

The original indictment revolved around a video messaging application called PortWatch, which was designed to help port workers, city officials and San Pedro residents share information about the harbor and alert authorities to possible criminal activity.

The 16-count indictment alleged that Boyd helped PortWatch’s developer tailor its responses

The Local Publication You Actually Read

him to provide funds to assist homeless people.

“The magnitude of this crisis on our local communities requires a commitment from all levels of government — federal, state and local — to pursue solutions that will achieve results in addressing this issue,” the letter reads. “We urge you to work with us and our local communities to use every means at your disposal to help our communities develop real solutions by expanding the range of housing and treatment options to this vulnerable population.”

Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the office of the governor, said Brown has been making efforts to curb homelessness.

“We recognize the importance of addressing homelessness in our cities and will continue to support local governments,” said Westrup, in an emailed response.

“In fact, the administration is investing billions of dollars into services and programs that support the state’s most vulnerable populations and help address and prevent homelessness.”

Westrup noted the state’s investments in affordable housing, counteracting poverty, the state CalWORKs program, the earned income tax credit, local control funding formulas for low-income students and foster youth, the Veterans Housing Rep. Janice Hahn were joined by local elected officials and homeless aid providers to call on Gov. Jerry Brown to send additional reand Homeless Prevention Act, sources to combat homelessness crisis in California. Photo coursubstance use disorder services, tesy of Rep. Janice Hahn’s Office. and the Mental Health Services petty theft and indecent exposure. Justified or Act Housing Program. not, the city is lacking the resources necessary “Last month, Governor Brown also signed to address the many problems that result from a number of bills to help address these issues,” homelessness.

Westrup continued.

“My colleagues from communities across He pointed to Assembly Bill 2442 which the state have witnessed a devastating rise in requires 10 percent of construction units to be homelessness — proving that homelessness is designated for transitional foster youth, disabled not a Los Angeles problem, or a San Francisco veterans, or homeless persons; Senate Bill 1380, problem, it is a state problem and demands a which establishes the Homeless Coordinating statewide solution,” Congressional District 44 and Financing Council; and AB 1840, a bill Rep. Janice Hahn said. that requires state agencies, when hiring for Hahn and 31 of her colleagues in the House internships and student assistant positions, to of Representatives wrote a letter to Brown, urging [See State page 4]

3

Party Line Vote May Impact County Supervisor’s Campaign

By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter

On Nov. 8, voters will choose, between two very political dynasties, to fill the District 4 seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The seat became open when incumbent Don Knabe termed out. While the office is nonpartisan, voters are faced with candidates who are prominent members of rival political parties.

Janice Hahn, a Democratic Congresswoman, is competing with Steve Napolitano, Knabe’s senior deputy and a former Manhattan Beach council member, who is a Republican.

The Nov. 8 election will serve as run-off election for the supervisor seat because neither Hahn nor Napolitano secured more than 50 percent of votes in the June 7 primary election.

Hahn attracted about 47 percent of the vote and Napolitano, about 36 percent. The remainder went to Ralph Pacheco, a Whittier school board member, who then threw his support to Hahn.

Like Hahn, whose family has been part of Los Angeles politics for decades, Napolitano also comes from a powerful political lineage. This is Steve Napolitano

the first time since 1996 that the District 4 seat has been open. That was when Deane Dana retired and his chief of staff, Knabe, succeeded him. Now Knabe’s chief of staff, Napolitano, wants to do the same.

Hahn represents Congressional District 44, which includes a string of communities from San Pedro to Carson to Downey. She was first elected to Congress in 2011 during a special election, when much of her district was identified as Congressional District 36. Prior to that, Hahn served 10 years on the Los Angeles City Council, [State, from page 3]

State Action Needed

give preference to homeless youth.

Yet, none of it appears to provide a level of ongoing funding for homeless people who are not veterans, women or youth.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose office helped organize the press conference, noted that this year’s fiscal budget included $114 million in new funds to address homelessness across the state. However, because of the size of the state, it is simply insufficient, because only $14 million are ongoing. The balance is one-time only funds.

“We call on the governor to add resources of consequence to help us deal with this crisis,” Ridley-Thomas said.

“This is not an ordinary set of

The Shortest Run to Catalina

Janice Hahn

representing District 15, which includes the Los Angeles Harbor Area.

The districts that Hahn has represented in circumstances…. Mr. Governor, we are tied together in a single garment of destiny, whether we are homeless or not and we ask you to help us by a declaration of a state of emergency. If that doesn’t work, use your imagination; use that big brain. Mr. Governor use your moral compass and find a way to help us. ” The supervisor said he has met with Brown about this issue, but Brown promised only to “look into it and get back to me,” Ridley-Thomas said.

He noted that Brown has refused to support any type of reasonable action, and offering no viable alternative.

“Why is the governor missing in action on this question?” Ridley Thomas asked.

Congressional District 47 Rep. Alan Lowenthal said that one of the reasons homelessness is not given priority is that a natural

[See Supervisors page 5]

disaster is not attached to the crisis.

“Because homelessness is invisible to lots of people, people do not respond to this crisis. That is a real indictment to who we are.”

He said the county has laid out a plan to deal with the crisis but there are not enough funds.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has estimated that one out of 5 people who are homeless in the United States live in California Shari Weaver, director Harbor Interfaith Services in San Pedro, said that of the 115,000 in the county who are homeless, 60 to 70 percent are unsheltered.

“We’ve got city, county funds, private and federal,” Weaver said. “The missing part is the state help. If we don’t bring effort to the table, I can’t imagine how it could get worse, but it will.”

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Congress and on the city council overlap with only a small portion of the county District 4.

She and Napolitano are competing to represent 2 million people in a crescent-shaped district that includes the Los Angeles Harbor, and stretches from north of the Los Angeles International Airport down the southern and western coast of the South Bay. The district’s opposite end runs through San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach, then turns north along the Orange County border until it reaches Diamond Bar. It also includes Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands.

When Hahn announced her candidacy for the Board of Supervisors in February 2015, she stated why she was declining to seek a third full term in Congress.

“My father, beloved County Supervisor Kenny Hahn, always stressed to me the importance of

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[Supervisors, from page 4]

Supervisor’s Race

being a champion for the people,” she said. “He instilled in me the values of courage, integrity, and public service — and most importantly the simple principle of always putting constituents and local neighborhoods first. With that philosophy in mind, I have decided not to run for re-election to Congress.”

She also stated she found nonpartisan local government more workable.

“Washington is broken; it’s increasingly mired in political gridlock and there’s virtually zero cooperation between the two parties,” she added. “That’s not the kind of government I grew up with, and it’s precisely why I know I can do more … on the Board of Supervisors.”

The race has been marred by controversy over campaign funding.

Napolitano brought a lawsuit against Hahn after she received a letter in August from Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, notifying her that she had collected funds in excess of campaign contribution limits. Her campaign agreed to repay the excess, which one news source reports as $139,619. A judge dismissed Napolitano’s lawsuit on Sept. 29.

Viewing documents for both campaigns on the County Registrar-Recorder’s website, Napolitano’s campaign is mostly self-funded. In contrast Hahn’s campaign has received thousands of dollars (mostly in low four-figure amounts) from dozens of donors.

The Whittier Daily News, reported this past March that Hahn in the last year has raised about $646,000, Napolitano, $228,000.

Hahn has been endorsed by Random Lengths, but she did not respond before deadline to an inquiry about the top issues she’s campaigning on. In a Los Angeles Daily News survey during the primary, she named her top three priorities as the homeless and mentally ill, transportation and fighting crime. On her campaign website she details what she considers her accomplishments in elected office. The site does not engage in negative campaigning against her opponent.

When Random Lengths asked Napolitano why he’s running, he responded, “to rethink, reinvent, and re-engage LA County.”

About what issues he’s running on, he commented, “I have many priorities, but my top four are ending homelessness, reducing crime, getting our fair share of transportation improvements and growing support for early childhood education.”

Napolitano’s website goes into considerable detail regarding his views on local issues, and also includes some negative campaigning directed at Hahn.

Hahn’s campaign website is www.janicehahn.com Napolitano’s campaign website is www.stevenapolitano.com

Props. 65 and 67: Differing Versions of Bag Ban

By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter

Propositions 65 and 67 on the Nov. 8 ballot could bring more cost and inconvenience to the shopping experience at every grocery store, pharmacy, convenience store and liquor store in California.

Prop. 67 is a referendum on Senate Bill 270, a statewide ban on free single-use plastic shopping bags, which the legislature passed and Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2014. The plastics industry challenged it, and enforcement of the law is suspended until voters approve it (a “yes” vote) or reject it (a “no” vote). The fate of Prop. 65, which would slightly alter the financial windfall from the ban, is linked to Prop. 67.

The issues raised in Props. 65 and 67 are more complex than grocers versus environmentalists.

Should Prop. 67 pass, California’s retail grocers, pharmacies, liquor and convenience stores would have to comply with the type of bag bans in place in Long Beach and

the city and county of Los Angeles. Grocers and other stores would be compelled to only stock bags that meet the law’s strict definition of “reusable.” If customers want bags, they’ll have to buy them for at least 10 cents each.

When SB 270 was originally passed, lobbyists representing grocers and grocery workers succeeded in making the minimum 10-cent fee mandatory. Prop. 67 states the money collected shall be retained by the store and used for costs associated with complying with the ban, providing bags, or “educational materials … encouraging the use of reusable grocery bags.”

This last provision may seem odd considering consumers would need no “encouraging” because the law would make “use of reusable grocery bags” mandatory.

Retailers statewide would no longer be absorbing the cost of providing bags, a long-time custom that Prop. 67 seeks to end. Prop.

[See Bags page 19]

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Wilmington Takes Back Its Neighborhood Council

By Christian L. Guzman, Community Reporter

Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area

On Sept. 28, the Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment hosted a candidate forum and selection to enable the Wilmington Neighborhood Council to continue to function.

This action of “exhaustive measures” was taken by DONE because of the Wilmington council’s inability to approve expenditures or hold meetings due to lack of quorums within the past several months.

It also allowed for the reforming of the elected board outside of the original by-laws of Wilmington Neighborhood Council. Those laws restricted greater community involvement based

upon a uniquely odd formula that allowed for businesses and the Port of Los Angeles to have designated seats.

As previously reported in Random Lengths News, an election for the council took place this past June. Only three board members were elected and only 47 people voted. This was not enough to make a quorum for the council.

Therefore, a selection of 10 additional board members in September was necessary for the council to conduct meetings.

The selection took place at Phineas Banning High School’s auditorium. Some 347 ballots were cast for more than 30 candidates. It was quite unlike the elections that took place earlier this year for the nearby Central and Coastal San Pedro neighborhood councils. There were no rival groups of politically polarized candidates.

No campaign supporters were assertively placing slate cards in people’s hands before they crossed a line to vote. And there was no pseudo-militia men marching with American Flags or shouting from megaphones at traffic.

Some candidates did campaign before the forum, either individually or in small groups.

However, their demeanors were casual and they talked about themselves, rather than the failings of others.

Each candidate had two minutes to speak. Stephen Box, director of Outreach and Communications for the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, presented the candidates in groups according to the category they ran for. There were three seats available for residents, three for property owners, three for

people who worked in Wilmington and one seat for a community interest stakeholder.

Out of more than 30 candidates vying for a seat, four of them were board members of the previous Wilmington Neighborhood Council.

The candidates addressed similar issues. They demanded cleaner air and a better environment, more economic development, and increased safety for Director of Outreach and Communications for the Department of Neighborchildren and the rest of hood Empowerment, Stephen Box. File photo the community.

Despite the common themes, certain a chance,” said Garcia-Massey. “So I want to candidates resonated with the crowd more than help restructure the business [environment] and others. maximize local funds for current residents.”

Sylvia Arredondo described herself as an Garcia-Massey also sees great potential eco-feminist and social justice activist. She for the arts community in Wilmington. She cohas been a board member with the Wilmington founded the Avalon Arts and Culture Alliance, Neighborhood Council multiple times. In this an organization that puts on the Wilmington election, she ran for a seat in the residency Art Walk on Avalon Boulevard. She said that group. she would use her position on the neighborhood Arredondo said that quality of life starts with council to support additional arts and culture health; she went on to say that Wilmington’s programs. industries, such as auto shops and refineries, are By far, the most well-received candidate not doing all that they could to mitigate negative was Ignacio “Nacho” Ortiz, co-founder of health impacts for residents.

Hojas Premium Teahouse. He told the crowd of “Children are playing baseball at John the pride he feels from starting a business with Mendez Park and later dying of leukemia,” his wife in their hometown. Since its founding Arredondo said. “There are oil fields throughout Hojas has won awards and expanded to a second Wilmington. My young nieces use inhalers and location in San Pedro. my friend has endometriosis. I want to be a voice Ortiz has become active in improving for all of them.”

Wilmington’s infrastructure.

Arredondo also wants more resources for “Along with my wife, I sat in Councilman Joe Wilmington’s schools. Her own experiences with Buscaino’s office … pushing to get the Avalon Wilmington schools were sobering. She couldn’t lights installed and adding solar trash cans in the take textbooks home. In class, she had to share city.” them with up to four people.

Ortiz’s success comes from asking himself “Our schools shouldn’t oppress us,” and others, “Why can’t we?”

Arredondo said. “They should allow for people “Why can’t we have a successful family to become successful.” business in Wilmington?” he asked. “Why can’t Monica Garcia-Massey works as a real estate we have beautification projects like other parts of agent in Wilmington for local historic properties. Los Angeles?”

She told the audience that she wants to change He said that on the council he will continue the way investors perceive Wilmington. to ask those questions and work to improve the Garcia-Massey said potential investors once city. told her they would not invest in redeveloping He received sincere applause when he he Grenado Theatre because they didn’t believe finished speaking.

Wilmington “was ready for revitalization.”

There was also a notable apathy toward a “The millionaires are not willing to take couple of candidates.

Janet Grothe and Robert McCoy have both [Boyd, from page 3] supported the youth in Wilmington. Grothe helped contribute to the International Trade Education Program and the Gang Alternatives Program. McCoy is opening a sailing center that Boyd was set to receive about 13.33 percent will incorporate math and science applications. of all gross revenues generated by the sale of But by stressing their experience with the the Metrowatch application Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, Phillips 66, In his plea agreement, Boyd admitted the Port of Los Angeles and other companies, receiving income from a security business he Grothe and McCoy seemed like they were reading operated, At Close Range. The income came their resumes for a white-collar job interview. from the owner of a company doing business There was no personal connection. with the Port, American Guard Services, and Once the forum ended, the ballots were Boyd admitted that he failed to report that collected and counted in another room by a team income on his personal income tax returns for of volunteers.

After about an hour the winners years 2007 through 2011. were announced.

The new board will include Additionally, Boyd pleaded guilty to a Arredondo, Garcia-Massey and Ortiz, along misdemeanor count of failing to file a 2011 tax with: Ernesto Aguilar, Nancy Anaya, Valerie return for At Close Range.

October 13 - 26, 2016

Boyd

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[See Wilmington page 19]

Project CENSORED2017 [Censored, from page 1]

global warming, petro-politics, suppression of health science, government spying, corporate influence on government, are all familiar themes that appear again on this year’s list. But a bit more ought to be said by way of introduction to this year’s top censored story, before starting the list proper.

Jensen began the preface to Project Censored’s 20th anniversary edition with the story of how John F. Kennedy killed a detailed New York Times story blowing the whistle on the planned invasion of Cuba. A shrunken, muted version ran in its place. Afterwards, Kennedy told a Times editor, “If you had printed more about the operation, you could have saved us from a colossal mistake.” This years’ No. 1 censored story is a direct descendent of the story JFK wished he hadn’t managed to kill.

1. U.S. Military Forces Deployed in 70 Percent of World’s Nations

The covert exercise of U.S. military power is a recurrent subject of Project Censored stories.

This year’s top censored story joins that long tradition. It deals with the massive expansion in the number of countries where the officially unnamed war on terror is now being waged by U.S. Special Operations Forces—147 of the world’s 195 recognized nations, an 80 percent increase since 2010. This includes a dramatic expansion in Africa.

The majority of the activity is in “training missions,” meaning that this expansion is promoting a coordinated worldwide

Chabelley Airfield in Djibouti.

intensification of conflict, unseen at home, but felt all around the globe. Writing for TomDispatch, The Nation and the Intercept, Nick Turse exposed different aspects of this story and its implications.

Turse’s story for the Intercept focused on the development of a single base, Chabelley Airfield, in the East African nation of Djibouti.

It’s an “out-of-the-way outpost” transformed into “a key hub for its secret war…in Africa and the Middle East.”

In The Nation, Turse tackled the question of mission success. Project Censored noted that, “Turse [had] reported skepticism from a number of experts in response to this question, pointing out that “impacts are not the same as successes.”

In Vietnam, body counts were mistaken for signs of success.

“Today, tallying up the number of countries in which Special Operations forces are present repeats this error,” Vietnam veteran and author Andrew Bacevich told Turse.

Sources:

Turse, Nick, “A Secret War in 135 Countries,” Tomdispatch, 2015. http://www.tomdispatch. com/blog/176048/.

Turse, Nick, “The Stealth Expansion of a Secret U.S. Drone Base in Africa,” Intercept, 2015. https://theintercept.com/2015/10/21/stealthexpansion-of-secret-us-drone-base-inafrica/.

Turse, Nick “American Special Operations Forces Have a Very Funny Definition of Success,” The Nation, October 26, 2015, http://www.thenation. com/article/american-special-operationsforceshave-a-very-funny-definition-of-success/.

2. Crisis in EvidenceBased Medicine

The role of science in improving human health has been one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but the profit-oriented influence of the pharmaceutical industry has created a crisis situation. That research simply cannot be trusted.

Burying truth for profit is a recurrent theme for Project Censored. The top 1981 story concerned fraudulent testing from a single lab responsible for one-third of the toxicity and cancer testing of chemicals in America. But this problem is much more profound.

“Something has gone fundamentally wrong” said Richard Horton, editor of the

File photo

Lancet, commenting on a UK symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research: [M]uch of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.

Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. . . The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming.

Horton’s conclusion echoed Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, who went public in 2009.

A classic case was Study 329 in 2001, which reported that paroxetine (Paxil in the United States/Seroxat in the United Kingdom) was safe and effective for treating depressed children and adolescents, leading doctors to prescribe Paxil to more than 2 million U.S. children and adolescents by the end of 2002, before being called into question. The company responsible (now GlaxoSmithKline), agreed to pay $3 billion in 2012, the “largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Nonetheless, the study has not been retracted or corrected, and “none of the authors have been disciplined,” Project Censored points out.

This, despite a major reanalysis which “‘starkly’ contradicted the original report’s claims.” The reanalysis was seen as the first major success of a new open data initiative known as Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials.

While Project Censored noted one Washington Post story on the reanalysis, there was only passing mention of the open data movement. “Otherwise, the corporate press ignored the reassessment of the paroxetine study,” and beyond that, “Richard Horton’s [See Censored page 10]

The Local Publication You Actually Read

“Watergate taught us two important lessons about the press: First, the news media sometimes do fail to cover some important issues, and second, the news media sometimes indulge in self-censorship,” he said.

On the upside, it led to the creation of Project Censored.

As with the Watergate story, these aren’t censored in the overt heavy-handed manner of an authoritarian dictatorship, but in the often more effective manner reflecting our society— an oligarchy with highly centralized economic power pretending to be a “free marketplace of ideas.”

It may give people what they think they want in the moment, but it leaves them hungry for more, if not downright malnourished in the long run. The missing stories concern vital subjects central to the healthy functioning of our democracy. The problem is, we may not even realize what we’re missing, which is precisely why Project Censored is essential.

Another way to think about it is as censorship of what the people as a whole can hear, rather than what any one individual can say. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes it very clear: freedom of opinion and expression includes the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This year, 221 students and 33 faculty members from 18 college and university campuses across the United States and Canada were involved. A panel of 28 judges comprised of media studies professors, professional journalists, and even a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, also participated.

In addition to its central focus on the censored stories, there are plenty of other goodies in the annual report, including a chapter devoted to “Junk Food News,” a retrospective of the project as discussed in “Project Censored Turns 40,” and a chapter on “Media Democracy in Action.”

All these reflect the fact that news isn’t just created for individuals to consume, but for citizens to debate, discuss and then take action upon. The real Project Censored, in short, includes you, the reader.

Project Censored has always dealt with specific stories, but on anniversaries like this one, the larger patterns those stories fit within are impossible to ignore. Economic inequality,

October 13 - 26, 2016

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Propaganda, Censorship and Transparency

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area

As we watch the bizarre and animated implosion of Donald J. Trump’s campaign tweeting itself into a never-ending spiral of defeat, there is something to be learned from this historic unraveling of a presidential campaign.

The weaponizing of social media through political disinformation, the slow response of major media corporations to fact check candidate statements and the circus of cross allegations meant to confuse the public, should give us all great pause.

Perhaps it is time for some serious self-reflection on the state of our republic and consideration of how the peddling of propaganda and misinformation, disguised as news, has corrupted our political process, while lessening transparency in our government as well.

To this end, we have dedicated our cover story of this edition of Random Lengths to Project Censored. What else could be expected when the world of infotainment is merged with reality TV called Trump’s run for president for ratings gold?

All democracies are dependent upon having an educated and well-informed electorate.

Yet, what we have learned since the time of the Spanish-American War, if not before, is that media in service to either government or economic elites can sway public opinion to start wars, repress minorities and destroy the lives of innocent people who hold unpopular opinions.

Social media made it easier for half-truths and outright lies to masquerade as facts. This Trump-inspired penchant for spreading false information and cyber-bullying is spreading by way of Trump’s followers and just about anybody who doesn’t like somebody.

This kind of social media backlash that has exploded nationally is also mimicked locally.

The Facebook uprising of Saving San Pedro this past year grew to outsized proportions as it fanned the flames of intolerance against the homeless across Los Angeles. Now the fire has burned the hand that fed it. That is evidenced

by Councilman Joe Buscaino’s pleas to his constituents at his Oct. 4 town hall meeting on the Homeless Navigation Center. He was attempting to cool their vitriolic attacks on his homeless taskforce.

“There have been personal attacks against them over Facebook,” he said. “It is unacceptable to threaten neighbors who want to make this community better.”

Yet, exactly where was Buscaino’s cry for civility when these same people used similar attacks against former board members of Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council? They were doing the same and, in my eyes, a better job of searching for solutions to the homeless crisis.

I find it a curious form of Karmic justice that those who were the most vocal in their insults and allegations against me, as then-president of the CeSPNC and the majority of that council, are now on the receiving end of the very same treatment.

What you can’t find in Buscaino’s live stream video of the town hall meeting is the public comment period in which constituents ripped Buscaino, his task force and their lack of transparency when they proposed placing this navigation center less than 500 feet from Barton Hill Elementary School.

Once again, I accuse the councilman’s propaganda guru, Branimir Kvartuc, and others on his staff for blocking access to the public comment period in their video. From my perspective, this very unflattering episode was caused by the very ignorance and incompetency of the council office itself.

I have it from more than one source that the council office under both Hahn and Buscaino knew that the renovation of Harbor Park, where Reggie the alligator once roamed, would end up evicting some 167 homeless people when that project was started.

Elise Swanson, San Pedro Chamber of Commerce president and member of the homeless task force, was then-councilwoman Hahn’s district director. When Councilman Buscaino succeeded Hahn, neither he nor his staff ever called on or consulted with his predecessor on the matter.

Even after he took office, there were reports to the Park Advisory Board about this problem and the response then was as it is now—Los Angeles City Ordinance 56.11. It’s the municipal code that makes it illegal to camp or sleep in a public park, even in areas that the public rarely uses.

Since that time, Los Angeles, at the behest of Buscaino’s office, has been chasing the homeless around like a whack-a-mole game, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, with only an exacerbated problem in the form of more homeless encampments to show for it.

Surprise, surprise—who knew? Buscaino Publisher/Executive Editor James Preston Allen james@randomlengthsnews.com

October 13 - 26, 2016

Assoc. Publisher/Production Coordinator Suzanne Matsumiya

8

Managing Editor Terelle Jerricks editor@randomlengthsnews.com

“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 Senior Editor Vol. XXXVII : No. 21 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.

Paul Rosenberg Assistant Editor Zamná Ávila zamna@randomlengthsnews.com

knew and he should have done the right thing before it ended up in front of the U.S. Post Office on Beacon Street.

That our smiling councilman and his team of surrogates are now receiving the blame for the lack of transparency by the very people he has manipulated to take over the neighborhood councils is just too precious not to mention.

And by the way, after that notorious Oct. 4 town hall meeting, those newly-minted neighborhood council members on the receiving end all adjourned to the Green Onion Restaurant on Sixth Street, to drown their sorrows—an alcohol fueled violation of the Brown Act. In the end, Buscaino’s council office, his

homeless team and the new neighborhood council leadership will learn the hard way about transparency, true accountability and the necessity of holding open public meetings.

It’s time to demand that Buscaino’s Homeless Task Force meetings hold public meetings with advanced notice, that his office release the video of public comments from the second half of the Oct. 4 meeting and that the Los Angeles City Council dedicates itself to the only legal and moral solution to the homeless crisis — providing shelter first.

Perhaps the greatest lesson to learn from this exceedingly curious season is that civility and democracy start at home.

The Replica Handgun

By John R. Gray, Retired State Parole Agent

Over the past 4 years, we have experienced the routine shooting of armed and unarmed individuals by police agencies. Most of the individuals shot were African Americans.

And, most of the officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

There was Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Ferguson, Tulsa, Charlotte, and even here in Los Angeles.

The shootings drew national media attention for days and weeks. Gun violence was discussed daily.

This begs the questions, “How can a 12-yearold not know the dangers of carrying a handgun in America?”

“Why are 12- and 13-year-old kids walking

Columnists/Reporters Lyn Jensen Reporter Christian Guzman Reporter Gina Ruccione Restaurant

Reviewer Andrea Serna Arts Writer Melina Paris Culture Writer Send Calendar Items to: 14days@randomlengthsnews.com Photographers Terelle Jerricks, Phillip Cooke, Linnea Stephan Contributors Adriana Catanzarite, John Gray, Greggory Moore

Cartoonists Ann Cleaves, Andy Singer, Matt Wuerker Design/Production Suzanne Matsumiya Advertising Representative Rich Hoogs rlnsales@randomlengthsnews.com Editorial Intern Arlo Tinsman-Kongshaug, Display advertising (310) 519-1442 Classifieds (310) 519-1016 www.randomlengthsnews.com

around inner cities with a replica gun?”

To be clear, the replica guns as described in the media reports are BB and pellet gun—guns that shoot small projectiles with compressed air at velocities that are significantly less than real firearms. But still, questions remain.

Are adolescents so isolated that they are missing the message that possession of a replica handgun can get you killed? Are the parents of the boys in Cleveland and Columbus admonishing them? Are the boys so out of control that they disdained imminent danger?

While empathy is felt for the families for the children killed, something has happened and is apparently unclear.

[See Replica page 9]

Random Lengths News editorial office is located at 1300 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, (310) 519-1016. Address correspondence regarding news items and news tips only to Random Lengths News, P.O. Box 731, San Pedro, CA 90733-0731, or email to editor @randomlengthsnews.com.

Send Letters to the Editor or requests for subscription information to james @ randomlengthsnews.com. To be considered for publication, all Letters to the Editor should be typewritten, must be signed, with address and phone number included (these will not be published, but for verification only) and be kept to about 250 words. To submit advertising copy email rlnsales@randomelengthsnews.com or reads@randomlengthsnews.com.

Extra copies and back issues are available by mail for $3 per copy while supplies last. Subscriptions are available for $36 per year for 27 issues.

Random Lengths News presents issues from an alternative perspective. We welcome articles and opinions from all people in the Harbor Area. While we may not agree with the opinions of contributing writers, we respect and support their 1st Amendment right to express those opinions. Random Lengths News is a member of Standard Rates and Data Reporting Services and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. (ISN #0891-6627). All contents Copyright 2016 Random Lengths News. All rights reserved.

RANDOMLetters LA Council, You probably won’t like this, but ...

About the “Navigation Center” storage for the homeless.

We in San Pedro are willing to take our fair share, but LA is not playing fair.

WHEN San Pedro has the same percentage of parks and open space as the LA average.

WHEN San Pedro students have performance levels of the average LA schools; WHEN San Pedro has the courthouse we were promised in 1907; WHEN all other communities in Los Angeles have one tenth the density of people in halfway houses and sober living facilities as San Pedro (over 50 percent of the properties in my neighborhood are such facilities); WHEN all other communities in Los Angeles have one tenth the density of outpatient psychiatric patients as San Pedro as; WHEN all other communities in Los Angeles have one tenth the density of homeless as San Pedro; THEN, and only then, can the LA City Council come talking to us about taking more of the responsibility.

Until then, council women and men, you can take this and put it in your own neighborhood, and see how your rich neighbors react.

John Mattson San Pedro

Re: Postmortem on Delusional Politics I read in the current (Sept. 29, 2016) edition of Random Lengths News that [LA City Council employee] Branimir Kvartuc told a representative of the newspaper, “I’m not going to answer your questions.”

I just talked to the Councilman’s office and lodged a

Replica

Re: Hat Mail and More Postmortem on “Postmortem”

James, you don’t care about SP, our country, or this election.

You seem to be very concerned, however, about your awesome hat and old moustache.

Christopher De La Torre San Pedro

Dear Christopher, I appreciate all the concern over my hat, which has been getting a lot of attention lately, especially on social media, but you, like many, are missing the point.

My hat nor my moustache have anything to do with my overarching concerns for either my community or my country, both of which I care deeply about. Try sticking to the issues rather than the appearance of the messenger.

James Preston Allen Publisher

The First-Place Poem From the Labor Day/Joe Hill Poetry Contest The Earth and the Stars in the Palm of Our Hand

Chamber of Commerce 390 W. 7th St. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, Nov. 1 through Dec. 10. Details: 310-986-7718; http://mtsinaisanpedro.org Sherry Shaw Event Coordinator for Mt. Sinai Baptist Church Handbags for Hope, San Pedro 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.

A Small Act of Kindness

Did You Know? One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

It is an epidemic affecting every community regardless of age, economic status, race, religion, nationality or educational

October 13 - 26, 2016

“Another day in paradise,” a machinist says to me as he drops his time card into the time clock and the sun rises over the San Gabriel mountains and we laugh it’s a pretty good job we have considering how tough it is out there in so many other factories in this era of the busted union and the beaten-down worker but paradise? and we walk away toward our machines ready for another 10 hours inside tin walls as outside perfect blue waves roll onto black sand Hawaiian beaches and billionaires raise martini glasses sailing their yachts to Cancun but I can’t help thinking why not paradise why not a job where I feel like I did when I was 4

cards and more. Once filled, they will donate them to local shelters that serve women.

The idea behind the drive is to let women know (especially those fleeing from domestic violence situations and the stress and trauma of being homeless) that the handbags can provide more than just needed hygiene items. They can also provide a glimmer of hope and a sense of pride and comfort knowing there is someone in the community who cares. When the items in the handbag are gone, the handbag will act as a reminder they are not alone.

The handbags and other items can be dropped off at the San Pedro

Agencies and persons such as probation departments, child welfare services and middle school teachers have warned of the danger of possessing a handgun.

In addition, local police, the Urban League, youth sports coaches, friends, neighbors and peers have warned of foolishly possessing a replica handguns. Where is the breakdown in communication? Can it be made any clearer?

It is time for all to reset the urgency button necessary to get the attention of those to protect and educate 12 and 13 year olds of the dangers of the possessing and underestimating the dangers the replica handgun to avoid any further unnecessary tragedy.

Dear Mr. Shaffer, I am sure many more feel similarly to you on this matter of transparency and accountability, but I thank you for standing up for what is right and making that phone call.

James Preston Allen, Publisher

background.

When a woman flees a domestic violence situation, she usually flees with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Almost one–third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.

The Community Outreach Ministry of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church are aware of these statistics and are launching a collection effort of new and gently used handbags.

They will fill these handbags with essentials like shampoo and conditioner, toothbrushes/ toothpaste, razors hairbrushes and combs, personal hygiene items, gift

The Local Publication You Actually Read

[Replica, from page 8]

complaint. I expressed to them the important part that I feel you play as a watchdog for San Pedro. And if Branimir thinks he can pick and choose whose questions he can answer the Councilman will lose all 14 votes that I represent for the “Joseph Bakery Voting Bloc.”

The more information I have the better citizen I can be.....and I feel you play an integral part in this process.

Craig Shaffer San Pedro

out in my father’s garage joyously shaving a block of wood in his vise with his plane as a pile of sweet-smelling wood shavings rose at my feet and my father smiled down at me and we held the earth and the stars in the palm of our hand why not a job joyous as one of these poems I write a job where each turn of a wrench each ring of a hammer makes my soul sing out glad for each drop of sweat rolling down my back because the world has woken up and stopped worshipping money and power and fame and because presidents and kings and professors and popes and Buddhas and mystics and watch repairmen and astrophysicists and waitresses and undertakers know there is nothing more important than the strong grip and will of men carving steel like I do nothing more important than men who go down into mines crawl under houses carry our garbage clean our chimneys rivet together our Vincent Thomas Bridges and airplanes carve our engine blocks stamp out our bed springs serve our meals oil our gears blast holes through hills lay pipe lift loads carry water heave crankcases buff aircraft skins polish shoes stir soup drive trucks across the country through thousands of desolate midnights calibrate scales cut jewels mend socks drill holes down through miles of rock to save miners trapped in cave-ins bail the radioactive water out of melted-down nuclear reactors clean the bed sheets steer the ship crack the nut nothing more important than Jorge muscling a drill through steel plate so he can send money to his mother and sister living under a sacred mountain in Mexico nothing more noble than bread on the table and a steel cutter’s grandson reaching for the moon and men dropping time cards into time clocks and stepping up to their machines like the sun couldn’t rise without them.

By Frederick Voss Los Angeles

9

CENSORED 2017 Project

[Censored, from page 7]

Lancet editorial received no coverage in the U.S. corporate press.”

Sources:

Lancet 385, no. 9976. 2015. http://www. thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS01406736%2815%2960696-1.pdf.

Cooper, Charlie, “Anti-Depressant was Given to Millions of Young People ‘After Trials Showed It was Dangerous,’” Independent. 2015. http:// www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ health-andfamilies/health-news/anti-depressant-was-givento-millions-of-young-people-aftertrials-showed-itwas-dangerous-10504555.html.

Boseley, Sarah, “Seroxat Study Under-Reported Harmful Effects on Young People, Say Scientists,” Guardian. 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/ science/2015/sep/16/seroxat-studyharmful-effectsyoung-people.

3. Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels May Permanently Disrupt Vital Ocean Bacteria

Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area

Global warming is a recurrent Project Censored subject. Systemic changes associated with global warming threaten human welfare and all life on earth through a multitude of different pathways.

These remain largely hidden from public view. One potential pathway — directly dependent on carbon, not temperature — is through the catastrophic overproduction of Trichodesmium bacteria, which could devastate the entire marine food chain in some regions. It lives in nutrient-poor parts of the ocean, where it fixes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, an essential nutrient for other organisms—from algae to whales.

A five-year study by researchers at the University of Southern California and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that subjecting

Trichodesmium bacteria

October 13 - 26, 2016

hundreds of generations of the bacteria to predicted carbon dioxide levels in the year 2100 caused them to evolve into “reproductive overdrive,” growing faster and producing 50 percent more nitrogen.

As a result, they could consume significant quantities of scarce nutrients, such as iron and phosphorus, depriving the ability of other organisms to survive. Or the Trichodesmium bacteria could drive themselves into extinction, depriving other organisms of the ammonium they need to survive.

“Most significantly, the researchers found that even when the bacteria was returned to lower, present-day levels of carbon dioxide.

Trichodesmium remained ‘stuck in the fast lane,’” Project Censored noted, a finding that one researcher described as “unprecedented in 10 evolutionary biology.”

Sources:

Perkins, Robert, “Climate Change Will Irreversibly Force Key Ocean Bacteria into Overdrive,” USC News, 2015. https://news.usc. edu/85742/climate-change-will-irreversiblyforce-key-ocean-bacteria-into-overdrive/.

Howard, Emma, “Climate Change Will Alter Ocean Bacteria Crucial to Food Chain—Study,” Guardian. 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2015/sep/02/ climate-change-willalter-ocean-micro-organisms-crucial-to-foodchain-say-scientists.

4. Search Engine Algorithms and Electronic Voting Machines Could Swing 2016 Election

Social media has played an important role in recent social movements, from the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter, but technology can potentially undermine democracy as well as empower it.

In particular, search engine algorithms and electronic voting machines provide opportunities for manipulation of voters and votes, which could profoundly affect the 2016 election.

of Law. The study identified “increased failures and crashes, which can lead to long lines and lost votes” as the “biggest risk” of outdated voting equipment, while noting that older machines also have “serious security and reliability flaws that are unacceptable today.”

“From a security perspective, old software is riskier, because new methods of attack are constantly being developed, and older software is likely to be vulnerable,” Jeremy Epstein of the National Science Foundation noted.

On Democracy Now! and elsewhere, Wasserman and Fitrakis have advocated universal, hand-counted paper ballots and automatic voter registration as part of their “Ohio Plan” to restore electoral integrity.

While there has been some corporate media coverage of Epstein and Robertson’s research, the transparency and reliability advantages of returning to paper ballots remain virtually unexplored and undiscussed.

Sources:

Epstein, Robert, “How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election,” Politico, 2015. http://www. politico. com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-couldrig-the-2016-election-121548.

Frary, Mark, “Whose World are You Watching?

The Secret Algorithms Controlling the News We See,” Index on Censorship 44, no. 4 (2015), 69–73. http://ioc. sagepub.com/content/44/4/69.extract Norden, Lawrence and Famighetti, Christopher, America’s Voting Machines at Risk, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law, 2015. https://www. brennancenter.org/ publication/americas-voting-machines-risk.

Goodman, Amy “Could the 2016 Election be Stolen with Help from Electronic Voting Machines?” Democracy Now! 2016. http://www. democracynow.org/2016/2/23/could_the_2016_ election_be_stolen.

Fitrakis, Bob and Wasserman, Harvey “Is the 2016 Election Already Being Stripped and Flipped?”

Free Press, 2016. http://freepress.org/article/2016election-already-being-strippedflipped.

Mark Frary, in Index on Censorship, describes the latest research by Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology on what they call the Search Engine Manipulation Effect, or SEME. Their study of more than 4,500 undecided voters in the United States and India showed that biased search rankings “could shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more” and “could be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation.”

In an earlier article for Politico, Epstein wrote that the Search Engine Manipulation Effect “turns out to be one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered . . . [W]e believe SEME is a serious threat to the democratic system of government.”

Because courts have ruled that their source code is proprietary, private companies that own electronic voting machines are essentially immune to transparent public oversight, as Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis documented.

In 2016, about 80 percent of the U.S. electorate will vote using outdated electronic voting machines that rely on proprietary software from private corporations, according to a September 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School

5. Corporate Exploitation of Global Refugee Crisis Masked as Humanitarianism

The world is experiencing a global refugee crisis (60 million worldwide according to a June 2015 report, 11.5 million of them Syrian). This has been covered in the corporate media — though not nearly enough to generate an appropriate response.

What hasn’t been covered is the increasingly wellorganized exploitation of refugees, particularly those displaced in Syria.

An AlterNet article by Sarah Lazare—cited

by Project Censored—warned of the World Bank’s private enterprise solution to the Syrian displacement crisis.

“Under the guise of humanitarian aid, the World Bank is enticing Western companies to launch ‘new investments’ in Jordan in order to profit from the labor of stranded Syrian refugees,” Lazare wrote.

“In a country where migrant workers have faced forced servitude, torture and wage theft, there is reason to be concerned that this capital-intensive ‘solution’ to the mounting crisis of displacement will establish sweatshops that specifically target war refugees for hyper-exploitation.”

A World Bank press release touted “the creation of special economic zones or SEZs,” but

Syrian family in a refugee camp.

Project Censored noted, “Myriam Francois, a journalist and research associate at SOAS, The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told Lazare that the development of SEZs in Jordan ‘will change refugee camps from emergency and temporary responses to a crisis, to much more permanent settlements.’”

The SEZ proposals, Francois said, are “less about Syrian needs and more about keeping Syrian refugees out of Europe by creating (barely) sustainable conditions within the camps, which would then make claims to asylum much harder to recognize.’”

Another story, by Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report described a related agreement between Turkey and the European Union to keep millions of refugees from entering Europe as “a deal between devils,” adding that Turkey has “cashed in on the people it has helped make homeless.”

In addition to the $3.3 billion in EU money, Project Censored noted: Turkey has also sought admission to the European Union, and, with this, the right for 75 million Turks to enter Europe without visa restrictions as a condition for controlling its refugee population.

Thus, according to Ford, Turkey has engaged in a “vast protections racket trap,” effectively agreeing to protect Europe from further incursions by “the formerly colonized peoples whose labor and lands have fattened Europe and its white settler states for half a millennium.”

“Europeans will never accept Turkey into the fold, because it is Muslim and not-quitewhite,” Ford concluded.

Sources:

Lazare, Sarah, “World Bank Woos Western Corporations to Profit from Labor of Stranded Syrian Refugees,” AlterNet, 2016. http://www. alternet.org/labor/world-bank-wooswesterncorporations-profit-labor-stranded-syrianrefugees.

Ford, Glen, “Turkey and Europe: Human Trafficking on a Scale Not Seen Since the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Black Agenda Radio, Black Agenda Report, 2016. http:// www. blackagendareport.com/turkey_europe_ human_trafficking.

6. More than 1.5 Million American Families Live on $2 Per Person Per Day

Even the working poor receive scant attention, but those living in deep poverty— [See Censored page 17]

Filling in the Gap of The New Gap Band

By Melina Paris, Music Columnist

For a couple generations of folk, it’s simply not a party—be it a birthday party, family reunion, house party, dance club—without the celebrative funk and rhythm and blues of The Gap Band. Formed by and around the Wilson brothers—Charlie, Ronnie and Robert—in their hometown of Tulsa, Okla. Named after streets in that city’s historic Greenwood neighborhood, The Gap Band scored a string of hits in the 1970s and 1980s and performed together for 43 years.

When Robert Wilson died in 2010, any chance of a new Gap Band album seemed to have expired.

But Ronnie Wilson, the

oldest of the three brothers, thought differently. His solution was to relaunch the band with a new member.

That’s how Gavyn Rhone came to be the new lead vocalist for the Gap Band.

To be accurate, Rhone is actually the new lead vocalist for what’s officially called The New Gap Band, meaning he is actually replacing Charlie, not Robert.

Rhone has the silky and soulful voice with just the right chemistry to make the legendary “Oops Upside Your Head” funk band.

Rhone said he got the call to join the Gap Band after he was recommended to Ronnie Wilson by R&B artist Bobby Brown.

[See Gap page 14]

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The Local >> Publication You Actually Read Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment INDEPENDENT AND FREE

Left, Gavyn Rhone is the voice of The New Gap Band.

Above, The Gap Band: The late Robert Wilson (left) with surviving siblings Charlie and Ronnie. File photos.

EST. 1988

376 W. 6th St., San Pedro • (424) 287-0645 • www.BeachCityGrill.net Tues. & Wed. 6 am-8 pm • Thurs.-Sat. 6 am-9 pm • Sun. 8 am-4 pm • Mon. gone fishin’

October - 26, 2016 October 1313 -26, 2016

The South Bay’s Premiere Cajun-Carribean-Cuban Restaurant

11

Salt 101:

I have several girlfriends in Weight Watchers. I’ve never participated in any weight loss program, so I don’t really know how they actually work. But I do know that food is tracked on a point scale. And that things you can eat have a lower number on the point scale than things you shouldn’t eat. And there are rules — a lot of rules. Each week you have to weigh-in and track the pounds you’ve either lost or gained. In this great race to lose weight, one of my girlfriends cut salt from her diet — all salt — because she thought she would retain water, which she worried would translate to a higher number on the scale which supposedly = bad.

I have several problems with this thought process. One, people make things up about weight loss, some things that are completely

The Salty Truth

By Gina Ruccione, Cuisine & Restaurant Writer

of more unpronounceable, ridiculous additives in our processed food. So, let me be clear.

Processed foods are the issue. Not the salt you buy at Trader Joe’s.

Cooking, Seasoning and Garnishing with Salt

Most salts are made up of sodium and chloride, but they vary greatly in how they are made and how they should be used.

Table Salt

The most common salt is table salt. Think Morton salt. It’s milled to create uniform shapes so that it doesn’t clump. The only time I ever use table salt is to season my pasta water. It’s cheap, easy and gets the job done. I pour about a fourth of a cup in my pasta water — that is how you season pasta. Not the pasta itself, but rather the water. Be generous with it. The water should taste like the ocean.

Kosher Salt

Large grains of kosher salt. File photo

unfounded; Two, sprinkling your food with a little salt isn’t going to make you retain water.

We need salt in our diet to function. As long as it’s coming from the right place, you have nothing to worry about. Just as the entire world can’t all of a sudden be gluten intolerant, salt isn’t ruining your life.

Salt vs. Sodium

October October13 13- -26, 26,2016 2016

Serving INDEPENDENT the SevenAND Communities FREE >> of Arts the•Harbor CuisineArea • Entertainment

Many Americans are told they have too much sodium in their diet. So, what do they do?

They think salt is sodium and cut out salt. Salt

12

BEACH CITY GRILL

Let the culinary adventure b e g i n a n e w — Beach City Grill has reopened featuring your favorites along with soon-to-be favorite new additions. Now serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and Sunday Brunch. Famous for Caribbean, Cajun specials, fresh seafood, salads, vegetarian and world cuisine. Be sure to try the award-winning desserts.

Beach City Grill, 376 W. 6th St., San Pedro • (310) 833-6345 www.beachcitygrill.net

Buono’s Authentic Pizzeria

A San Pedro landmark for over 40 years, famous for exceptional a w a r d winning pizza baked in brick ovens.

Buono’s also offers classic Italian dishes and sauces based on tried-and-true family recipes and hand-selected 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

PHILIE B’S ON SIXTH

Owner Phil Buscemi welcomes you to Philie B’s on Sixth, where New York–style pizza, Sicilian rice balls and pizza by-the-slice are the specialties. Fresh hot or cold sandwiches, gourmet pizzas and fresh salads are also served. Try the “white pizza” made with smooth ricotta, mozzarella and sharp Pecorino-Romano cheeses topped with torn fresh basil. Extended hours accommodate San Pedran’s unique work schedules. Catering and fast, local delivery ($15 min.). Philie B’s On Sixth, 347 W. 6th St., San Pedro • (310) 514-2500 www. philiebsonsixth.com

PIROZZI’S ITALIAN DELI

Walk into Pirozzi’s Italian Deli at Weymouth Corners and discover an ample selection of fine imported cheeses and salami, as well as a great assortment of imported prosciutto, pastas, sauces, olive oils and vinegars. Best known for making fine homemade Italian sausages in five distinct flavors, Pirozzi’s also carries freshly prepared and frozen entrées and sauces available for take-out. Pirozzi’s Deli offers a full catering menu, made-to-order deli sandwiches, homemade Italian cookies and desserts.

is not sodium. Sodium is an element; salt is a chemical compound. It’s 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride. Salt has been traditionally used as a preservative. Before refrigeration many cultures would keep meat, fruit and other foods through the winters by packing them in salt. Now think about all of the processed foods we have in this country and around the world.

Anything that can sit on a shelf for months and months at a time has got to have something in it to keep it “preserved,” and also to enhance flavor. Enter sodium, which is added to the list

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 10am-6pm; Sat. 10 am-5 pm; Sun. 10 am-2 pm. Pirozzi’s Italian Deli, 1453 W. 8th St., San Pedro • (310) 548-0000 www.pirozzisdeli.com

San Pedro Brewing Company

A microbrewery and American grill, SPBC features handcrafted award-winning ales and lagers served with creative pastas, bbq, sandwiches, salads and burgers. A full bar with made-fromscratch margaritas and a martini menu all add fun to the warm and friendly atmosphere.

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

San Pedro Brewing Company, 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro • (310) 831-5663 • www. sanpedrobrewing.com

Happy DineR AND HAPPY DELI

The Happy Diner isn’t your average diner. It’s the idea of fresh creative dishes in tow San Pedro locations, and now a third— the Happy Deli.

The selections range from Italianand 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

This is what chefs use in their kitchens.

You’re going to want this in yours, too. Kosher salt has larger grains than table salt, so it’s easier to work with. Use it to season anything at all during the cooking process, not just after, but during and before. And, for heaven’s sake, taste your food as you’re cooking. Nothing boggles my mind more than someone who doesn’t taste as they go. How do you know what you’re doing or what to add if you don’t taste what you’re cooking? Taste everything, multiple times.

breakfast, lunch and dinner: Happy Diner #1, (310) 241-0917, 617 S. Centre St., San Pedro • Happy Diner #2, (310) 935-2933, 1931 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro • Open for breakfast and lunch: Happy Deli, (424) 364-0319, 530 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro.

The Whale & Ale

San Pedro’s British gastro pub offers dining in an oak–paneled setting, featuring English fish & chips, roast prime rib, sea bass, rack of lamb, beef Wellington, meat pies, salmon, swordfish & vegetarian dishes. Open for lunch & dinner, 7days/wk; great selection of wines; 14 British tap ales, & full bar. First Thursdays live band & special fixed price menu. Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri. 11:30 a.m.-midnight Sat. & Sun. 1-10 p.m. The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., San Pedro • (310) 832-0363 www.whaleandale.com

Waterfront Dining

Boardwalk Grill

Fleur De Sel

While most salt is harvested from deposits in the earth, this salt is formed from a thin crust

Casual waterfront dining at its finest!

Famous for slabs of Chicago-style baby back ribs, fish-n-chips, rich clam chowder, cold beer on tap and wine. Full lunch menu also includes salads, sandwiches and burgers. Indoor and outdoor patio dining

[See Salty page 13]

available. Proudly pouring Starbucks coffee.

Open 7 days a week. Free parking. Boardwalk Grill, 1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor - Berth 77, San Pedro • (310) 519-7551

PORTS O’ CALL RESTAURANT

S i n c e 1961 this landmark restaurant h a s extended a hearty welcome to visitors from around the globe. Delight in an awe-inspiring view of the dynamic LA Harbor while enjoying fresh California cuisine and varietals. Relax in the bar or patio for the best happy hour on the waterfront. With each purchase of the awardwinning Sunday Champagne Brunch, receive the first Spirit Cruises harbor cruise of the day free. Open 7 days, lunch and dinner. Free parking. Ports O’Call Waterfront Dining, 1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor, Berth 76, San Pedro • (310) 833-3553 www.portsocalldining.com

SPIRIT CRUISES

An instant party— complete with all you need to relax and enjoy while the majesty of the harbor slips by. Dinner cruise features a 3-course meal, full bar, unlimited cocktails and starlight dancing—the ultimate excursion for any occasion. Free parking. Spirit Cruises, 1199 Nagoya Way, LA Harbor - Berth 77, San Pedro • (310) 548-8080, (562) 495-5884, www. spiritmarine.com

Include Your Restaurant in the Dining Guide In Print & Online • (310) 519-1442

[Salty from page 12]

Salty Truth

on the surface of seawater. Traditionally it was hand collected off the surface in France. This delicate salt is to be used as a garnish. Raw veggies like a little sprinkle or even raw fish.

Flaky Sea Salt

I once read about a chef who mused about a restaurant guest who wrote a bad Yelp review. Apparently, the guest didn’t like “big ass chunks of salt” on his food. He was likely referring to flaky sea salt, used often in restaurant kitchens to add a bit of an extra salty crunch. I put it on seared steak or meats and sometimes on chocolate ice cream. Yes, ice cream — that wasn’t a typo. Don’t knock it until you try it.

Food is my life and I want to share all aspects of that with my readers. Earlier this month I went to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Expo and I felt inspired to cook a little fish after that lovely event. Here’s a recipe inspired by my Sicilian family and adapted from epicurious.com.

•••

Whole Fish Baked in Sea Salt

Ingredients: • 2 tablespoons coriander seeds • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds • 1 3-pound cleaned scaled whole fish (such as whitefish or salmon), fins removed • 1 cup thinly sliced leek (white and pale green parts only) • 1 lemon, thinly sliced into rounds • 2 large egg whites • 1/4 cup water • 2 26.5-ounce boxes coarse sea salt (6 cups) • Extra-virgin olive oil • Lemon wedges Preparation Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 450°F. Line large rimmed baking sheet with foil, leaving generous overhang. Combine first 3 ingredients in small skillet. Toast spices over medium heat until beginning to pop, stirring frequently, about 9 minutes. Cool spices.

Coarsely crush in mortar with pestle or in heavy resealable plastic bag with mallet.

Rinse fish inside and out; pat dry. Sprinkle all of spice mixture in fish cavity. Stuff with leek and lemon slices.

Whisk egg whites and water in large bowl to blend. Add salt. Stir until salt is evenly moistened. Spread 2 cups salt mixture in 4-inchwide, 12-inch-long strip (or use more to equal length of fish) on prepared sheet. Place fish on salt. Cover fish completely with remaining salt mixture, pressing to seal.

Bake fish 25 minutes. Let stand in crust 10 minutes.

Using a large knife, rap crust sharply to crack. Brush salt from fish. Cut into portions and serve, passing extra-virgin olive oil and lemon wedges alongside.

Test-Kitchen Tip: For 8 to 10 servings, cook a 4 1/2-pound fish instead (you’ll need to use 3 egg whites, 6 tablespoons water, and 3 boxes of salt). Bake the fish for 35 minutes. Whatever size fish you use, be sure to preheat the oven for 30 minutes, using an oven thermometer for accuracy.

For this recipe online visit http://www. epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/whole-fishbaked-in-sea-salt-241114 Gina Ruccione has a webseries about food, which will be featured in the San Pedro Film Festival this October. She was also a contestant on Master Chef, Season 7 on Fox this past year, and has been hosting pop up dinners around the Harbor Area. Most recently, she was named the creative director for mealsharing.com, a website that allows guests to eat with locals all over the world.

Prepare to Be Scared

Scary Stories 14 company (from left): Cathy Scott Skubik, Heather Handwerk, Melanie Jones, John Charles Meyer and Eric Noble will haunt the night for one performance only on Oct. 29 at starting at 6:30 p.m.

Snuggle up around the fire at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro for an all-new program—75 minutes of spellbinding storytelling suitable for all ages. Bring your own seating and dress warmly. Picnics welcome. Tickets are $5 for general admission. Children 6 and younger get in free.

National Watercolor Society presents

October 22 thru December 18. 2016 All international work never shown before in a national exhibition.

Monday, October 17, 6-8 p.m.

The Local Publication You Actually Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment >> INDEPENDENT AND Read FREE

The 96th International Annual Exhibition

This month’s class features Chef Mario Martinoli preparing “the most beautiful and delicious paella ever,” grilled shrimp & classic Louie salad

For class dates and details visit: www.decoartdeco.com, calendar/ events page

Chefs Studio

520 W. 8th St. (at Pacific Ave.) San Pedro Get Cooking! Contact Patti or George for reservations:

Reception October 22, 2 to 5 pm

Awards Ceremony 3 pm, RSVP (760) 908-3389 Regular hours: Thurs. - Sun., 11 am to 3 pm & First Thursdays 6 to 9 pm

(310) 351-0070

(prices vary per class, seating limited)

915 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731 • www.nationalwatercolorsociety.org

October13 13-26, - 26,2016 2016 October

The event includes the demonstration class, recipes, appetizers, tasting dinner prepared during class, dessert & wine.

Classes are held on a Monday each month, 6-8 p.m. (doors open at 5:30)

13

[Gap, from page 11]

The New Gap Band future bookings.

Charlie’s response to Ronnie, as reported on TMZ, was that there can’t be a Gap Band without all three brothers.

It’s not clear if the suit is still ongoing or not, but the New Gap Band is still moving forward.

Rhone is no newbie to the music industry.

He got his start in a rhythm and blues quintet formed by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, called 3rd Storee under Def Jam records. Rhone and another artist, J’Son, filled out the roster after original member Lil Man left the group.

“No one knows how it happened,” Rhone said.

“I asked Babyface how he got my music, he said, ‘Gav, there was a CD with your name and your mom’s phone number on it.’ He called my mom’s number.”

Rhone said he wrote and recorded that demo for a friend, but he has no idea how it made its way to Los Angeles.

The plan was for him to sing background in 3rd Storee. But after hearing Rhone’s voice in

Serving the SevenAND Communities the•Harbor INDEPENDENT FREE >> of Arts CuisineArea • Entertainment

“Originally, it was the three brothers in the band,” Rhone explained.

Charlie eventually went solo, Robert died, so the only original member person left was Ronnie. He also wrote all of the records. Charlie was the front man.

In 2010, Ronnie sued Charlie for derailing his efforts to launch a comeback tour.

Last year, celebrity gossip rag, TMZ, released court documents in which Ronnie said he booked two shows — one at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in NYC, and another at Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C.—that were to pay $20,000.

TMZ reported that after Ronnie sealed the deals, Charlie — who left the band in 2009 — had his people step in and somehow interfere with the bookings. Ronnie says both venues pulled the plug.

The elder Wilson points out his band existed for years before younger brother Charlie joined in ’72.

Ronnie sued for damages and wanted the court to block Charlie from interfering with

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Ronnie Wilson (left) leads The New Gap Band.

person, Babyface asked him to sing lead.

3rd Storee signed onto Clive Davis’s label, J Records, in 2005 and changed their name to Chapter 4. Rhone was in videos, television, (Showtime’s Soul Food) movies, (Honey with Jessica Alba), cartoons and went on tours.

But when the time arrived to renew the contract with Chapter 4, Rhone had a choice and he opted to go solo. He wanted to find his own sound.

“Being in a group, you have to depend on someone,” Rhone said. “Everybody in the group is supposed to be strong in an area so we all depend on each other to be strong as a unit. Once you embody all of those strengths in yourself it doesn’t make sense to be in a group.

That’s when I knew it was time to leave.”

Rhone had received solo offers while in the group but the direction he was asked to go wasn’t him. He wants to get back to the love, which he feels music has gotten away from.

“There is a void with black men in music now,” he said. “Most male singers just talk about one thing. I’m not downing the value of that one thing, but there’s just so much more to a woman. I want to talk about her hair, her eyes and the way she laughs and walks. I want to make songs about heartbreak and breaking up and then talk about the one thing.”

Rhone was influenced by musical greats.

“They’re all different,” he said. “Michael Jackson, I studied his intensity and passion and I liked what he wore, Whitney Houston for her power, Stevie Wonder for his range, and my mother, she is just a great singer.”

Recently, Rhone met the prolific songwriter Diane Warren through a mutual friend who is a producer. Warren has been inducted into the songwriter’s Hall of Fame; her success and recognition prompted Peter Reichardt, former chairman of EMI Music Publishing UK, to [See Gap page 16]

Los Angeles Comedian Finds the Humor in Heartache

By Adriana Catanzarite, Contributing Reporter

Honey Whiskey Trio with Big Bad Rooster A night of heartfelt storytelling put to stunning harmonies through bluegrass and folk tunes by a musical outfit that has become a favorite at the Annex.

Time: 8 p.m. Oct. 14 Cost: $20 Details: www.grandvision.org Venue: Grand Annex, 434 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Jessie Kahnweiler in The Skinny. File photo

documentary Kahnweiler created and directed was Little America, which she made during her senior year at the University of Redlands.

Kahnweiler and a friend hitchhiked across the country with truck drivers, interviewing the various people they met at truck stops.

Kahnweiler admits that this was reckless, but she relished the opportunity to meet new people, especially those that society has cast off or ignored. She found it to be a spiritual experience, and said that was when she found her purpose. The comedy came later.

“I never really set out specifically to do comedy,” Kahnweiler said. “I started making documentaries, so I was always behind the camera. Everything that I worked on always felt very personal, but it wasn’t until I started really taking on the issues of pain in my own life that I

[See Humor page 16]

VISION

PRESENTS

Bonne Musique Zydeco Saturday, Oct 15

7:30 pm Door • 8 pm Concert

Unbridled, authentic washboard rubbin’ Cajun & Creole tunes Tickets & Info:

310.833.4813 | GrandVision.org

The Grand Annex | 434 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Barry Anthony & The Whalers New Orleans Jazz Fridays-Rob on Piano Starts at 7 pm Saturdays Markus Carlton Jazz Guitar, 6:30 pm

St., San Pedro 327 W. 310 832 0363 • www.whaleandale.com

COMMUNITY Oct. 15

Rob on the Piano Enjoy great food, great fun and great music every Friday at The Whale & Ale. Time: 7 p.m. Oct. 14 Cost: Free Details: (310) 832-0363; whaleandale.com Venue: The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., San Pedro

Static Salon Casino Night Help support WomenShelter of Long Beach at this evening of games and fun.

Time: 6:30 to 10 p.m. Oct. 15 Cost: $20 Details: (562) 430-5100 Venue: Static Salon, 2310 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach

Markus Carlton Markus Carlton is a lifelong musician who has worn out many guitars playing gigs, writing and recording. He will entertain you with new material, and jazz and blues standards.

Time: 6:30 p.m. Oct. 15 Cost: Free Details: (310) 832-0363; whaleandale.com Venue: The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., San Pedro

Autumn Sea Fair Marine-related exhibitors, fish printing, face painting, live music and demonstrations, ocean monster costume contest and fire boat display are part of the fun at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium’s annual autumn ocean celebration.

Time: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 16 Cost: Free Details: (310) 548-7562; www.cabrillomarineaquarium.org Venue: Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen M. White Dr., San Pedro

Wolfgang Schalk Quartet Alva’s Showroom celebrates the release of guitarist Wolfgang Schalk’s highly acclaimed new album From Here to There, showcasing fresh material penned by Schalk. Following the remix of The Second Third Man, featuring 13-time Grammy winner Michael Brecker, this collaborative tour de force brings the listener on a swinging spiritual journey.

Time: 8 p.m. Oct. 15 Cost: $20 Details: (310) 519-1314; www.alvasshowroom. com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro

Oct. 20

Barry Anthony & The Whalers Every third Thursday at The Whale & Ale, Sponge Bob composer Barry Anthony headlines an authentic New Orleans jazz band.

Time: 7 p.m. Oct. 20 Cost: Free Details: (310) 832-0363; whaleandale.com Venue: The Whale & Ale, 327 W. 7th St., San Pedro

Oct. 22

Judy Wexler Jazz meets the Summer of Love when Judy Wexler play with Back to the Garden at Alvas Showroom.

Time: 8 p.m. Oct. 22 Cost: $20 Details: (310) 519-1314; www.alvasshowroom. com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro

Oct. 23

The Richard Sherman Trio The Richard Sherman Trio is a piano, bass, and drums trio with humor by Richard Sherman and vocals by Grammy winning vocalist Bili Redd.

Time: 4 p.m. Oct. 23 Cost: $25 Details: (310) 519-1314; www.alvasshowroom. com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro Grace Kelly Grace Kelly returns to the Grand Annex. At the ripe old age of 24, this straight ahead jazz phenomenon and vocalist has released 10

Oct. 16

Oct. 21

Zootopia See the quirky Disney movie Zootopia with the entire family. This animated family film features Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, and Idris Elba. Bring the family for a fun night out courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles.

Don’t forget a chair and snacks—no food or beverages will be provided.

Time: 6:30 to 9 p.m., Oct. 21 Cost: Free Details: (310) 732-3508 lawaterfront@portla.org Venue: Downtown Harbor, 504 S. Harbor Blvd, San Pedro

Oct. 22

Spirits of the Drum Barracks Hear about the spirits of the Drum Barracks as you take a candlelight tour through the residence. Enjoy apple cider, holiday treats, tarot card readings, and fireside Civil War stories. Space is limited. Advanced ticket purchase is required. Deadline is Oct. 15.

Time: Tour times are 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m., and 8 p.m., Oct. 22 Cost: $13 to $20 Details: www.banningmuseum.org Venue: Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, 1052 N. Banning Blvd, Wilmington Wake at the Gate Angels Gate Cultural Center will host a wacky, tongue-in-cheek Victorian Wake themed fundraiser to support the arts. Join a cast of artists and arts advocates for a fun, gothic celebration of life and joie de vivre, unlike any other fundraiser you’ve seen.

Time: 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 22 Cost: $40 to $100 Details: www.brownpapertickets.com/ event/2567916 Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro 5th Annual Festa Block Party Celebrate Italian culture at the 5th Annual Festa, block party and pasta dinner. The event includes free activities, food, music performances and a car show.

Time: 6 to 10 p.m. Oct. 22 Cost: Free [See Calendar, page 16]

October October13 13-26, - 26,2016 2016

7th

albums, headlined more than 700 shows in 30 countries and recorded or performed with notable musicians like Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. Time: 6 p.m. Oct. 23 Cost: $25 to $50 Details: (310) 833-4813; www.grandannex.org Venue: Grand Annex, 434 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

GRAND

3rd Thursday - Oct. 20th

ENTERTAINMENT

Arts • Cuisine • Entertainment >> INDEPENDENT ANDRead FREE The Local Publication You Actually

Jessie Kahnweiler has some serious chutzpah. Or, as the goyim might call it: guts.

It’s hard to find any other description for a woman who demonstrates the existence of white privilege by trying to get arrested—walking up to two cops, offering to sell them her antidepressants and walking away undetained.

On another occasion, Kahnweiler crossed the Green Line in Israel simply to ask border guards if they were circumcised.

The Los Angeles-based 30-year-old writes, directs and acts in Web shorts and series. She has been making a name for herself the past few years with her special brand of comedy.

In 2013, she created a webseries on YouTube called Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?, where she tries to discover her Jewish identity through a series of hilarious trials and errors.

Her short video, Meet My Rapist, went viral that same year. The film is about a fictionalized Kahnweiler running into her rapist at a farmer’s market. Kahnweiler explained that it was a response to her own feelings after she was raped 10 years ago while studying abroad in Vietnam.

While the subject matter may seem somber, the end result is a genuinely touching and surprisingly funny look at something that far-too many women have to cope with.

Paul Young, the co-founder of PrincipatoYoung Entertainment, said that this was what drew him to start working with Kahnweiler as her manager.

“I initially became aware of Jessie because I saw her short film, Meet My Rapist,” Young said. “It was such a courageous, funny and meaningful short film that represented a rare talent in Jessie.”

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, the first

Arts Cuisine Entertainment OCT 13 - 26 • 2016

15

[Calendar, from page 15]

Arts Cuisine Entertainment OCT 13 - 26 • 2016

Details: http://tinyurl.com/Italian-CultureBlock-Party Venue: Weymouth Corners, 1453 W. 8th St., San Pedro

Oct. 26

Join Little Squirts Little Squirts is offered for 2 to 4 yearolds participating with their parent(s) or guardian(s). Cabrillo Marine Aquarium’s Little Squirts will have fun while learning about the ocean on four consecutive Wednesdays. Preregistration is required; deadline to register is Oct. 26.

Time: 1:30 to 3 p.m. Nov. 2 through 23 Cost: $30 Details: (310) 548-7562; www. cabrillomarineaquarium.org.

Venue: Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro Oktober Fest at Alpine Village It’s never too early to start planning Oktoberfest.

Be a part of the Southern California’s longest running Oktober festival with live band Happy Franconians. The event is for guests 21 years old and older only. Bring your own stein: (Glass or easily shattered material not permitted.). Parking is free.

Time: 6 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. through Oct. 29 Cost: $12 to $60 Details: www.alpinevillagecenter.com Venue: The Alpine Village, 833 W. Torrance Blvd., Torrance

THEATRE

October October13 13--26, 26,2016 2016

Serving the SevenAND Communities the•Harbor INDEPENDENT FREE >> of Arts CuisineArea • Entertainment

Oct. 14

16

Shipwrecked!

The amazing adventures of Louis De Rougemont (as told by himself) by Donald Margulies. This is an adventure tale of the high seas from a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.

Time: Through Nov. 6 Cost: $30 to $35 Details: http://tinyurl.com/Shipwreck-ICT Venue: International City Theatre, 300 E Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

Oct. 21

Our World 33 See Chuck like you’ve never seen him before in a one man inspirational play, called Our World 33. Written by Larry Heimgartner and Chuck Alvarez, Our World 33 is part of a series of original plays by Heimgartner called The Our World Project. The plays deals with problems that young people are facing today such as HIV, women’s rights and sexual identity.

Time: 8 p.m. Oct. 21 Cost: $20 Details: (310) 519-1314; www. alvasshowroom.com Venue: Alvas Showroom, 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro

Oct. 22

The Hound of the Baskervilles Opening its 88th Mainstage Season, the Long Beach Playhouse will present The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by F. Andrew Leslie. The production is directed by Mitchell Nunn.

Time: 8 p.m. Fri and Sat, and 2 p.m. Sun through Oct. 22 Cost: $14 to $24 Details: www.lbplayhouse.org Venue: Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach

Oct. 23

Flight

Flight, is a sequel to The Little Prince, a story about learning to see with the heart and finding the courage to fly. In Flight, three acrobats morph into cactuses, waves, and faroff islands allowing the audience to discover a classic tale like they’ve never imagined.

Time: 7 p.m. through Oct. 23

Cost: $16 to $20 Details: www.GoCurbside.com/Press Venue: Flight Theatre, 1439 Roycroft, Long Beach

FILM

Oct. 15

Playing Lecuona The stunning documentary film that explores Cuban pianist and composer Ernesto Lecuona’s influence through the lens of three of the maestro’s most well-known jazz pianist descendants: Chucho Valdés, son of renowned bandleader and composer Bebo Valdés; Gonzalo Rubalcaba, a Cuban from the generation after Chucho; and the Dominican Michel Camilo.

Time: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 Cost: $10 to $45 Details: http://spiffest.org/lecuona Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Oct. 26

The Curiosity Connection The Sierra Club is privileged to present Bob Caplan’s latest creative effort, “The Curiosity Connection” consisting of two films Secrets and Curious Dogs. Both films deal with the theme, curiosity is good, especially the kind that leads to caring about and exploring our planet.

Time: 7 p.m. Oct. 26 Cost: Free Details: (310) 383-5247 Venue: Palos Verdes Library, 701 Silver Spur Road, Rolling Hills Estates

ART

Oct. 8

On Being Blue TransVagrant and Gallery 478 present On Being Blue: Recent Works by Jay McCafferty. Working intuitively over various grounds—all shades, all hues, all blues—the artist is engaged in a complex mapping of imagination.

Dates: Through Dec. 10 Details: (310) 600-4873, (310) 732-2150.

Venue: TransVagrant and Gallery 478, 478 W. 7th St., San Pedro

Oct. 18

San Pedro Art Association 80th Anniversary All are invited to celebrate this long standing organization’s 80th year at Ports O’Call Restaurant. Make reservations by Oct. 18.

Time: 6 p.m. Oct. 28 Cost: $50 per person Details: (310) 831-2928; spaa@sanpedroart. org Venue: Ports O’Call Restaurant, 1200 Nagoya Way, San Pedro

Oct. 19

Artists’ Talk at Harbor College Artists Merwin Belin and Dennis Reed discuss their current exhibition, Allegory for the Present, at Los Angeles Harbor College Fine Arts Gallery.

Merwin Belin creates work from reconstructed newspaper front pages to text or image reassignments. Dennis Reed’s images are excerpted from a decades-long photographic project that took its momentum at the beginning of the Iraq War. Time: 1 p.m. Oct. 19 Cost: Free Venue: Los Angeles Harbor College, Fine Arts Gallery, 1111 Figueroa Pl., Wilmington

Oct. 20

Artist’s Talk with Photographer Gil Mares Photographer Gil Mares captures hauntingly beautiful images of ships passing through the Los Angeles Harbor. He will discuss his influences and techniques.

Time: 7 p.m. Oct. 20 Cost: Free Venue: Michael Stearns Studio 347, 347 W. 7th St., San Pedro

[Gap, from page 14]

Gap

credit her as the most important songwriter in the world.

Rhone’s friend became one of Warren’s producers and invited Rhone to her studio.

“I sang for … 15 seconds when Diane said, ‘Stop,’ and asked me if I could sing everything she writes from here on out,” Rhone said. “She wrote this amazing record which, happens to be in the same direction as my original demo. If I was to go on tour with this direction, it would be along the lines of music by John Legend, Alicia Keys, Adele and Sam Smith on steroids.”

Now he not only has his own band, but he also is about to go on tour to China with Paul Stanley from KISS in November.

The two met when Stanley’s background singer went on tour with Rihanna. Rhone’s background singer from his own band asked him if he wanted to fill in. Rhone agreed and did about five shows. Stanley then decided he was not going to bring the other singer back.

He offered to pay Rhone triple because he knew Rhone is a solo artist, not a background singer.

“I told him I’ll sing background for you, Paul,” Rhone said. “We’ve become great friends and he’s been like my mentor.”

The New Gap Band will appear on The Wendy Williams Show in November. And, Rhone and will be combining his talents with Diane Warren.

“We have a lot to look forward to,” Rhone said.

[Humor, from page 15]

Humor

really developed my style.”

When Kahnweiler went through a particularly bad breakup, she decided to write a comedy about it. The experience helped her process her pain, but ultimately she found that it resonated it with other people, who shared their breakup stories with her.

“I come from a family [that] always laughs at the hardest things,” Kahnweiler said. “That’s how we cope with this stuff. So just being able to laugh about it, it felt very natural.”

Since then, Kahnweiler’s projects have only gotten funnier, not to mention, more personal.

Her newest web series, The Skinny, delves into the life of a young woman navigating her increasing Internet fame, while also dealing with bulimia. Kahnweiler struggled with her own bulimia for 10 years, using some of her own experiences as fodder for the show’s comedy.

The series, produced by Refinery29 and Jill Solloway’s Wifey.tv, debuted at Sundance earlier this year. It also won a Webby—the Oscars for online content—for best dramatic series. That award doesn’t quite do The Skinny justice; the series is more than just a drama. It’s not just “that show about bulimia.”

Throughout the six 10-minute episodes, the main character Jessie, played by Kahnweiler, navigates her turbulent personal life when her ex, Cole, a recovering junkie, moves in with her mom, played by the fabulous Illeana Douglas.

There are a myriad of entertaining moments, like when Jessie rips into the media executives who say she’s just another pair of tits.

“I am so sick of asking men with man buns and tuna breath for permission to be myself!” she yells. “There is more pussy fear in this room than the Republican National Convention!”

Yes, she does eat cake out of the trash, stuff

Gavyn Rhone

“It’s like old school meets new school.… It’s embarrassing, but Ronnie will get on the mic and say, ‘Stop. Listen, guys, Charlie Wilson is my little brother, but Charlie has nothing on Gavyn.’

“The crowd goes crazy. That’s a big, big statement. Charlie’s a big fish and if you’re coming for Charlie, you better come correct. The band tells me the response they are getting from me, they never got before.”

Details: http://artistecard.com/GavynRhone watch?v=vVwFaTpMkrQ prosciutto, sushi and God knows what else into her bra and she steals a box of chocolate laxatives while wearing a diaper. But the series shows that bulimia is not the cause of Jessie’s problems, it’s her very misguided attempt at bringing some sort of control to the chaos converging around her. It doesn’t overtake her life, but it’s always there in the background waiting for things to go wrong.

Kahnweiler said she was trying to subvert expectations of what someone with an eating disorder looks like. A person doesn’t have to be uber thin to suffer from an eating disorder. It can happen to anyone, even someone as boisterous and outgoing as Jessie.

Kahnweiler maintains that talking about her problems openly has been the best medicine. But when she tried to get The Skinny produced, she found that not a lot of people were willing to go down that path with her, saying it wasn’t “sexy.”

Her manager, Paul Young, and her mentor, Jill Solloway, the creator of Transparent, encouraged her to keep moving pushing forward.

“They said it was too risky it wasn’t commercial enough,” Young said. “I happen to believe that when you tell the truth like that in stories, audiences feel it and want to watch it. It’s that simple. When a storyteller is being authentic, that’s when they tell stories that are emotionally resonant.… She’s just able to go there. She wants to tell the most honest story she can and she’s willing to go through the pain that requires.”

Kahnweiler and Young are working on several different projects, including a new Webseries about a surrogate mother, and trying turn The Skinny into a traditional half-hour long program for television. One thing’s for certain: Kahnweiler is not going to stop delivering her brash style of comedy.

“I really don’t know what I would do without having art to express myself,” Kahnweiler said. “It’s like air.”

CENSORED 2017 Project

[Censored from page 10]

less than $2 per day — are almost entirely absent.

Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, sociologists and authors of the book $2.00/a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America state that in 2011 more than 1.5 million U.S. families—including 3 million children—lived in deep poverty at any given month.

Their depiction of what poverty looks like reads “like a Dickens novel,” Marcus Harrison Green wrote in YES! Magazine, Project Censored noted, while in the Atlantic, economist Jared Bernstein noted that their research highlights the problematic long-term consequences of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform initiative, with its “insistence on work without regard to job availability.”

Project Censored notes that Edin and Shaefer proposed three policy changes to address extreme poverty in the United States: First, policy must start by ‘expanding work opportunities for those at the very bottom of society.

Second, policy must address housing instability, which Shaefer described as both a cause and a consequence of extreme poverty. “Parents should be able to raise their children in a place of their own.”

Third, families must be insured against extreme poverty, even when parents are not able to work.

William Julius Wilson, a leading sociologist in the study of poverty, described their book as “an essential call to action,” in a New York Times book review, but this was a rare recognition in the corporate press.

Sources:

Green, Marcus Harrison, “1.5 Million American Families Live on $2 a Day—These Authors Spent Years Finding Out Why,” YES! Magazine. 2015. http://www.yesmagazine. org/commonomics/13million-american-families-live-on-2-a-daythese-authors-spent-yearsfinding-out-why20150924.

Five years after the Fukushima nuclear power plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the nuclear disaster continues to unfold, with the ongoing release of

Sources:

Jamail, Dahr, “Radioactive Water from Fukushima is Leaking into the Pacific,” Truthout, 2016. http://www.truth-out.org/news/ item/34565-radioactive-water-from-fukushimaisleaking-into-the-pacific.

Pentz Gunter, Linda, “No Bliss in This Ignorance: The Great Fukushima Nuclear CoverUp,” Ecologist, 2016, http://www.theecologist. org/News/news_analysis/2987222/ no_bliss_in_ this_ignorance_the_great_fukushima_nuclear_ coverup.html.

Pascale, Celine-Marie, “Vernacular Epistem-

People flee in Aleppo, Syria. File photo.

Muhawesh and Ahmed both point, in particular, to Assad’s choice between competing pipeline proposals. He refused to sign a proposed agreement for a pipeline from Qatar’s North field through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey in 2009, because it would have hurt his ally, Russia.

“The proposed pipeline would have bypassed Russia to reach European markets currently dominated by Russian gas giant Gazprom,” Project Censored notes. Instead, Assad pursued negotiations — finalized in 2012 — for a pipeline through Iraq from Iran’s South Pars field, which is contiguous with Qatar’s North field.

Muhawesh cites U.S. cables revealed by WikiLeaks as evidence that “foreign meddling in Syria began several years before the Syrian revolt erupted.” Ahmed came to the same conclusions by drawing on multiple sources, including a RAND Corp. document, “Unfolding the Future of the Long War,” which discussed long-term policy options (trajectories) dealing with the complex interplay of energy interests and ethnoreligious-political manipulations.

There’s a whole deeper level of driving forces not being reported on behind the Syrian war and refugee crisis.

9. Big Pharma Political Lobbying Not Limited to Presidential Campaigns

The pharmaceutical industry (aka “Big Pharma”) already appeared in story No. 2, “Crisis in Evidence-Based Medicine,” due to the destructive influence of its financing on the practice of basic science in testing and developing new drugs. But that’s not the only destructive impact of their spending.

Although they spent $51 million in campaign donations in the 2012 presidential election, and nearly $32 million in the 2014 midterms, Mike Ludwig of Truthout reported they spent $7 lobbying for every dollar spent on the midterms.

“The $229 million spent by drug companies and their lobbying groups that year was down from a peak of $273 million in 2009, the year that Congress debated the Affordable Care Act,” Project Censored noted. Legislation influenced all the industry’s top concerns, “including policy on patents and trademarks, management of Medicare and Medicaid, and international trade.”

The last item includes pressuring other countries to suppress the manufacture of lifesaving generic AIDS drugs in India, to cite just one example.

“Pharmaceutical lobbyists also consistently lobby to prevent Medicare from negotiating drug prices,” Project Censored also noted. Coverage of their spending is scant, and virtually never tied directly to the issues that Big Pharma itself is lobbying on.

Source:

Ludwig, Mike, “How Much of Big Pharma’s Massive Profits are Used to Influence Politicians?” Truthout, 2015. http://www. truth-out.org/news/item/33010-how-muchof-bigpharma-s-massive-profits-are-used-toinfluence-politicians.

10. The Internet Surveillance Act No One is Discussing

In July 2015, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to attach the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, as an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act. However, the Senate blocked this by a vote of 56-40, in

October 13 - 26, 2016

7. No End in Sight for Fukushima Disaster

In contrast, Dahr Jamail’s reporting for Truthout pointed out that the cooling process— still ongoing after five years—has produced “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tons” of highly radioactive water, much of which has been released into the Pacific Ocean. Such nuclear disasters “never end,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president told Jamail.

Project Censored also cited Linda Pentz Gunter, writing for the Ecologist about the Japanese government’s ongoing coverup.

“In order to proclaim the Fukushima area ‘safe,’ the government increased exposure limits to 20 times the international norm,” Gunter wrote, in order to force refugees to return home, despite medical or scientific evidence to the contrary.

The Syrian war and its resulting refugee crisis have repeatedly gained headlines over the past five years, but the origins of the conflict, control of oil and gas, are rarely considered — the politics of which have dominated the region since before World War II. The hidden influence of oil — from climate change to campaign finance and corporate lobbying to foreign policy — has been a recurrent subject of Project Censored stories.

Project Censored cites a single September 2015 story by Mnar Muhawesh for MintPress News, but that story cites others as well, notably an August 2013, story in the Guardian by Nafeez Ahmed.

“The 2011 uprisings, it would seem— triggered by a confluence of domestic energy shortages and climate-induced droughts which led to massive food price hikes—came at an opportune moment that was quickly exploited,” Ahmed wrote, as part of a broader strategy to undermine governments in the region, as well as manipulating social movements and armed factions for the purpose of maintaining control of oil and gas.

Muhawesh, Mnar, “Refugee Crisis & Syria War Fueled by Competing Gas Pipelines,” MintPress News, 2015. http://www.mintpressnews.com/ migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-bycompetinggas-pipelines/209294/.

Bernstein, Jared“America’s Poorest are Getting Virtually No Assistance,” Atlantic. 2015. http:// www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/ welfare-reform-americaspoorest/403960/.

large quantities of radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean, in turn affecting ocean life through “biological magnification.”

Meanwhile the Japanese government has relaxed radiation limits in support of its efforts to return the refugee population — a move that younger people, prime working-age taxpayers, are resisting.

Project Censored cites a media analysis by sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale of American University. Pascale covering more than 2,100 articles, editorials and letters to the editor on Fukushima in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Politico, and the Huffington Post between March 11, 2011 and March 11, 2013, focused on two basic questions: “risk for whom?” and “from what?”

She found that just 6 percent of articles reported on risk to the general public, and most of those “significantly discounted those risks.”

She concluded: The largest and longest lasting nuclear disaster of our time was routinely and consistently reported as being of little consequence to people, food supplies, or environments…. In short, the media coverage was premised on misinformation, the minimization of public health risks, and the exacerbation of uncertainties.

8. Syria’s War Spurred by Contest for Gas Delivery to Europe, Not Muslim Sectarianism

Source:

The Local Publication You Actually Read

President Bill Clinton signs the welfare reform bill in 1996. File photo.

Fukushima nuclear power plant. File photo

ologies of Risk: The Crisis in Fukushima,” Current Sociology, 2016. http://csi.sagepub.com/ content/early/2016/03/03/0011392115627284. abstract.

[See Censored, page 19]

17

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DBA FILINGS Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2016215936 The following person is doing business as: (1) A-1 Imported Groceries, 348 W. 8th St., San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Emiddio Ungaro, 1508 W. Averill Park Dr., San Pedro, CA 90732. This Business is conducted by an individual.

The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: 1947.

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/.

Emiddio Ungaro, owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Aug. 31, 2016.

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

[Continued on page 19]

The Harbor Area’s Source for legal notice ads and DBA’s, covering the seven communities of the Los Angeles/Long Beach San Pedro Bay region © 2016 MATT JONES, Jonesin’ Crosswords

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Across

1 Flower’s friend 6 Beaver-made barriers 10 ___ Punk 14 With “The,” groundbreaking Showtime series 15 Jacob’s biblical twin 16 Singer Lorde’s real first name 17 Charity beneficiary 18 “Like” or “leave”, e.g.

19 Chick chirp 20 “We couldn’t get alien blood, so we just sprayed plants with ___” 23 2016 U.S. Open winner Wawrinka 24 Abbr. at the bottom of an application 25 “Ring around the collar” detergent 28 “Of course we can’t have a monster destroy buildings, so we built entire ___” 34 Bit of slapstick 36 Jabba the ___ 37 Anti-___ hand soap 38 Grosse ___, Michigan 39 How hordes advance 42 Mrs., in Mallorca 43 Quentin preceder 44 Ground beef packaging word 45 Fixate (on)

47 “Instead of alien spacecraft, we got fishing line and dangled ___” 51 “Shepherd Moons” Grammy winner 52 Hornswoggled 53 Samoa’s capital 55 “Fake blood was too expensive, so we just used ___” 62 Inside info 63 List-ending abbr.

64 “Everything will be all right” 65 Bird associated with the Egyptian god Thoth 66 Shoe accessory 67 Like meshed fabric 68 Religious offshoot 69 They’re hot in Hanoi 70 Needing a pat on the back?

Down

1 Apt. complex unit 2 Mil. infraction 3 Hi-fi setting 4 It’s passed when someone requests “beer me” 5 “That is,” in Latin 6 “Workaholics” costar Adam 7 “Hey, wait ___!”

8 Put an X on 9 School curriculum categories 10 Portray 11 “Match Game” host Baldwin 12 Run like hell 13 Savion Glover’s specialty 21 Jazz guitarist ___ Farlow

22 Delta competitor 25 Belt place 26 Relative by marriage 27 Dictation taker, once 29 Kofi Annan’s home country 30 Ending for danger or thunder 31 “A Doll’s House” playwright Henrik 32 In advance 33 La ___ (Milan opera house) 35 Kind of issues aggravatedby gluten 40 Be in a fix 41 It’s way easier to fold than a GPS 46 Unsatisfactorily watereddown argument, in slang 48 Hot tub maintenance task, often 49 Home city of pizza 50 Mineral spring site 54 Cupcake topper 55 Two-decade Laker Bryant 56 Insanely great 57 State with six sides 58 Rabanne of perfume and fashion 59 Approx. costs 60 Little ‘uns 61 Blue-bottled vodka brand 62 Insult ©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers go to: www.randomlengthsnews.com

DBA FILINGS [From page 18] 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: 09/15/16, 09/29/16,

10/13/16, 10/27/16

10/13/16, 10/27/16

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2016234476 The following person is doing business as: Cinderella in the Kitchen, 1536 W. 25th Street #213, San Pedro, Ca 90732. Los Angeles County.

Registered owners: Estella D. Rohm, 2503 S. Carolina Street #A, 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/.

Estella D. Rohm, owner. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2016. 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. were to expires 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).

10/13/2016, Original filing: 10/27/2016, 11/10/2016, 11/24/16

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part because, unlike an earlier version, it essentially enabled intelligence and law enforcement officials to engage in surveillance without warrants.

Yet, on Dec. 18, 2015, President Barack Obama signed CISA into law as part of a 2,000-page omnibus spending bill, amid media silence — with notable exceptions at Wired and the Guardian. The act authorized the creation of a system for corporate informants to provide customers’data to the Department of Homeland Security, which, in turn, would share this information with other federal agencies—the National Security Agency, FBI, Internal Revenue Service and others — without privacy-protecting safeguards.

In one sense it followed a familiar — if distressing — pattern, as the Guardian reported, civil liberties experts had been “dismayed” when Congress used the omnibus spending bill to advance some of the legislation’s “most invasive” components, making a mockery of the democratic process. But this one was different, since censored stories usually do not stifle powerful voices, as Project Censored observed: [Andy] Greenberg’s Wired article noted that tech firms—including Apple, Twitter, and Reddit—as well as 55 civil liberties groups had opposed the bill, and that, in July 2015, DHS itself warned that the bill would “sweep away

In April 2016, Jason R. Edgecombe reported for TechCrunch on the glaring inadequacies of interim guidelines to deal with privacy and civil liberties concerns, while the corporate media silence continued.

And in May, Violet Blue wrote for Engadget about candidates’ positions on cyber issues. Only Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul opposed CISA, but it never became the subject of any broader media discussion.

Sources:

Greenberg, Andy, “Congress Slips CISA into a Budget Bill That’s Sure to Pass,” Wired, 2015. http://www. wired.com/2015/12/congress-slips-cisa-into-omnibusbill-thats-sure-topass/.

Thielman, Sam, “Congress Adds Contested Cybersecurity Measures to ‘Must-Pass’ Spending Bill,” Guardian, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/ dec/16/congresscybersecurity-information-sharing-cisaspending-bill.

Edgecombe, Jason R. “Interim Guidelines to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act,” TechCrunch, 2016. http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/13/interimguidelines-to-thecybersecurity-information-sharingact/.

Blue, Violet, “Where the Candidates Stand on Cyber Issues,” Engadget, 2016. http://www. engadget. com/2016/05/13/where-the-candidates-stand-on-cyberissues/.

[Wilmington from page 6]

Wilmington

Contreras, Catherine Familathe, Ernesto Aguilar, Socorro Fimbres, Carlos Sanchez and Margaret Hernandez.

This board breaks from the status quo.

It used to be comprised of 24 board members. Now it has 13 in total.

Box said that the board can choose to leave it at 13 or appoint board members up to 24.

Historically the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce had obvious influence and representation on the neighborhood council. The previous council had five members who were also on the board of the chamber. This included the current chamber president, Janet Grothe, and the previous president, Pat Wilson.

The new neighborhood council board has not a single chamber board member.

[Bags from page 5]

Bag Ban

65 does not challenge the bag ban but mandates all 10cent fees be instead deposited into a fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board. The money is to be used for grants for recycling, clean water, parks, litter removal, drought mitigation and similar purposes.

In the Voter Information Guide provided by the California Secretary of State, Prop. 67 proponents argue the ban is needed to reduce litter and protect wildlife from eating or getting tangled in plastic bags.

Opponents argue the proposition is intended primarily to increase grocers’ profits, not reduce litter.

Ballotpedia shows many environmental groups have endorsed Prop. 67, but Californians Against Waste is the only one providing major funding for its passage. The other four top donors promoting Prop.

67 are grocery chains—Albertson’s (Safeway), the California Grocers Association, Ralphs/Food 4 Less, and Raley’s.

The biggest donor opposing Prop. 67 and supporting Prop. 65 is the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a plastics lobbying group. In both cases the other four top donors are plastics manufacturers. The Secretary of State lists no financial donors against Prop. 65.

Arredondo acknowledged the change.

“Before there were some board members who could be considered community leaders, but who were beholden to businesses and industries,” Arredondo said.

Arredondo’s peers represent more diverse and community-grounded interests such as advocating for nonviolence, supporting better legislation to help veterans, uplifting arts and businesses, and improving the environment.

Several board members do have ties to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

However, that is unsurprising. Wilmington is the “heart of the harbor.”

The Wilmington Neighborhood Council meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month at the Wilmington Senior Center, 1371 Eubank Ave. in Wilmington.

Details: http://wilmingtonneighborhoodcouncil.com

Prop. 67 does not ban all single-use plastic bags.

It exempts bags for loose produce (those on rolls in the produce section of many supermarkets), bags that hold medical prescriptions and dry cleaning bags, for example.

Should Prop. 67 pass, it includes a provision for “funds appropriated” to provide loans for “conversion of machinery and facilities for the manufacture of single-use plastic bags” into manufacture of “durable reusable grocery bags” that meet the proposition’s requirements.

Cathy Browne, a bag ban opponent and a Crown Poly facility supervisor in Huntington Park, wrote in a recent Daily News editorial, “SB 270 … bans the 100 percent recyclable plastic bags that 2,000 California workers work hard to produce but replaces them with plastic bags that are five times thicker.”

She added the loan money would only cover the conversion of about one-half of one assembly line.

Some Carson residents were asked what they thought of banning single-use shopping bags.

“We need to take care of our planet,” Maria Enriquez said.

“I don’t like paying for plastic bags,” Rick Pulido responded. “I wish they were all brown paper bags like the old days.”

19

October 13 - 26, 2016

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2016064793 The following person is doing business as: (1) The Apartment Directory, (2) Los Angeles Apartment Directory, (3) Ventura County Apartment Directory, (4) Valley Apartment Directory, Los Angeles Commercial Directory, (6) Kurtz Directory, (7) Hawaiian Resources (8) South Bay & Southern Cities Apt. Directory, (9) San Diego County Apartment Directory, (10) Inland Empire Apartment Directory, (11) Orange County Apartment Directory, 2515 S. Western Ave., #13, San Pedro, CA 90732.

Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Glenarm Companies Inc., 2515 S. Western Ave., #13, San Pedro, CA 90732. This Business is conducted by an corporation. The date registrant started to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above: 1986. 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/. Laurence A. Kurtz, President.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Sept..09, 2016.

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

10/27/16, 11/10/16

CENSORED

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2016215935 The following person is doing business as: (1) Mark’s Fitness Supplements, 1439 W. 2nd St., San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: Mark William Servoss, 1439 W. 2nd St., 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: 8/1/2016. I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. (A

09/29/16, 10/13/16, 10/27/16

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: 09/29/16, 10/13/16,

privacy protections” while inundating the agency with data of “dubious” value.

The Local Publication You Actually Read

Fictitious Business Name Statement File No. 2016213965 The following person is doing business as: (1) Jim’s Car Service, 1610 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA 90731, Los Angeles County. Registered owners: James Brian Wasti, 3525 S. Pacific Ave., 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: 2011.

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/.

James Brian Wasti, owner.

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Aug. 29, 2016.

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: 09/15/16, 09/29/16,

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

This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Los Angeles on Aug. 31, 2016.

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: 09/15/16,

[Censored from page 17]

20

October 13 - 26, 2016

Serving the Seven Communities of the Harbor Area