Ricky Swallow
Resonator (for I.W), 2017
Cast resi, screws, mp3 player
11.25” x 7” x 5”
Edition of 9, + 2 AP’s

Every record could be thought of as a kind of tomb to seal in and secure a particular moment rendered and recorded against the forward ticking momentum of the artist.

This object is perhaps some kind of secondary mechanism to hold, re-ritualize and celebrate the arrival of Wasif’s DZI LP.

The guitar form, and specifically its body is an object I’ve remade episodically over the past 5 years, never straying too far from it’s traditional (stubborn) shape. Oriented vertically, like instruments in wait, the potential for sound is always there.

To extend this invitation, 9 artists from Wasif’s Los Angeles circle have been given a blank casting of the Resonator to paint, mess with or otherwise embellish at their will.

Painted by:

Brian Calvin
Sam Falls
Max Maslansky
Dianna Molzan
Alex Olson
Silke Otto-Knapp
Ricky Swallow
Lesley Vance
Joe Zorilla

Opening Sunday, September 17, 2017
1 – 3 PM

A special edition artwork for the release of the new album Dzi by Imaad Wasif.
Presented by A Grey Market.

South Willard

RICKY SWALLOW + PETER SHIRE
Hot Dogg Clock (Ital), 2017
fry basket, clock components,
Bacterio laminate and hardware
10-3/4 x 7-3/16 x 4 inches
edition of 6

EXP SUPERSHOP + CANYON RATS + HOTDOGG CLOCKS (4 NEW COLORWAYS) + LES MESS DE EXP CUPS + MIXED MERCH + A LIFEGUARD TOWER + LIMITED RUN EXP AND CANYON RATS TSHIRTS

Translation: An EXP SUPERSHOP with Peter Shire and special guest and collaborator
Ricky Swallow / CANYON RATS

When: Sunday September 10, 2017
3 – 6 PM

Where: South Willard, 8038 West Third Street, Los Angeles, 90048

Untitled, 2017
Ceramic and Glaze
12 X 8 X 8 inches

July 29 – August 31, 2017
Opening: Saturday July 29, 2017. 3-5 PM

South Willard

Rotterdam, 2016
Ceramic, Glaze, Wood, Wire
21 X 6 inches

Robert Rapson | New Ships
July 8 – July 26, 2017

South Willard Shop Exhibit

By Paul Krugman
NY Times Published: JUNE 30, 2017

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is having a hard time selling his health insurance plan. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times
The basics of Republican health legislation, which haven’t changed much in different iterations of Trumpcare, are easy to describe: Take health insurance away from tens of millions, make it much worse and far more expensive for millions more, and use the money thus saved to cut taxes on the wealthy.

Donald Trump may not get this — reporting by The Times and others, combined with his own tweets, suggests that he has no idea what’s in his party’s legislation. But everyone in Congress understands what it’s all about.

The puzzle — and it is a puzzle, even for those who have long since concluded that something is terribly wrong with the modern G.O.P. — is why the party is pushing this harsh, morally indefensible agenda.

Think about it. Losing health coverage is a nightmare, especially if you’re older, have health problems and/or lack the financial resources to cope if illness strikes. And since Americans with those characteristics are precisely the people this legislation effectively targets, tens of millions would soon find themselves living this nightmare.

Meanwhile, taxes that fall mainly on a tiny, wealthy minority would be reduced or eliminated. These cuts would be big in dollar terms, but because the rich are already so rich, the savings would make very little difference to their lives.

More than 40 percent of the Senate bill’s tax cuts would go to people with annual incomes over $1 million — but even these lucky few would see their after-tax income rise only by a barely noticeable 2 percent.

So it’s vast suffering — including, according to the best estimates, around 200,000 preventable deaths — imposed on many of our fellow citizens in order to give a handful of wealthy people what amounts to some extra pocket change. And the public hates the idea: Polling shows overwhelming popular opposition, even though many voters don’t realize just how cruel the bill really is. For example, only a minority of voters are aware of the plan to make savage cuts to Medicaid.

In fact, my guess is that the bill has low approval even among those who would get a significant tax cut. Warren Buffett has denounced the Senate bill as the “Relief for the Rich Act,” and he’s surely not the only billionaire who feels that way.

I won’t pretend to have a full answer, but I think there are two big drivers — actually, two big lies — behind Republican cruelty on health care and beyond.

First, the evils of the G.O.P. plan are the flip side of the virtues of Obamacare. Because Republicans spent almost the entire Obama administration railing against the imaginary horrors of the Affordable Care Act — death panels! — repealing Obamacare was bound to be their first priority.

Once the prospect of repeal became real, however, Republicans had to face the fact that Obamacare, far from being the failure they portrayed, has done what it was supposed to do: It used higher taxes on the rich to pay for a vast expansion of health coverage. Correspondingly, trying to reverse the A.C.A. means taking away health care from people who desperately need it in order to cut taxes on the rich.

So one way to understand this ugly health plan is that Republicans, through their political opportunism and dishonesty, boxed themselves into a position that makes them seem cruel and immoral — because they are.

Yet that’s surely not the whole story, because Obamacare isn’t the only social insurance program that does great good yet faces incessant right-wing attack. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, disability benefits all get the same treatment. Why?

As with Obamacare, this story began with a politically convenient lie — the pretense, going all the way back to Ronald Reagan, that social safety net programs just reward lazy people who don’t want to work. And we all know which people in particular were supposed to be on the take.

Now, this was never true, and in an era of rising inequality and declining traditional industries, some of the biggest beneficiaries of these safety net programs are members of the Trump-supporting white working class. But the modern G.O.P. basically consists of career apparatchiks who live in an intellectual bubble, and those Reagan-era stereotypes still dominate their picture of struggling Americans.

Or to put it another way, Republicans start from a sort of baseline of cruelty toward the less fortunate, of hostility toward anything that protects families against catastrophe.

In this sense there’s nothing new about their health plan. What it does — punish the poor and working class, cut taxes on the rich — is what every major G.O.P. policy proposal does. The only difference is that this time it’s all out in the open.

So what will happen to this monstrous bill? I have no idea. Whether it passes or not, however, remember this moment. For this is what modern Republicans do; this is who they are.

By David Montero
LA Times Published: June 23, 2017

The grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park has been protected by the federal government for more than four decades.

That will begin to change next week.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke this week said the agency intends to remove grizzlies living in the Yellowstone area from Endangered Species Act protection. The change will be entered into the federal registry next week and can take effect 30 days from that point.

The move was decried by several conservation groups and Native American tribes who feared the delisting of the grizzly would lead states to open up hunting season on the bears in the protected Yellowstone zone, which reaches into Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

Jonathan Proctor, Rockies and Plains program director for Defenders of Wildlife, said Friday that populations of grizzlies remain in isolated ecosystems and need continued federal protections to grow and connect with other pockets of bear populations to increase genetic diversity and help sustain the species.

“The ongoing recovery of the Yellowstone population shows how we can bring a species back from the brink,” he said. “But we are concerned about the actions of states after a delisting. We can’t let the work of saving these bears go down the drain.”

Stan Grier, chief of the Piikani Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy, described the decision in cultural terms.

“This announcement is no doubt being celebrated by trophy hunters like Don Jr. and Eric Trump, and the president’s extractive industry cronies, but for us it is an act of cultural genocide,” Grier said. Calling the grizzly a “sacred being that protects our sacred lands,” he added, “this is a struggle for the very spirit of the land — a struggle for the soul of all we have ever been, or will ever become.”

Grizzly bears number close to 700 in what’s known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which expands well beyond the park’s boundaries, according to Hilary Cooley, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

She said that in 1975, the grizzly population numbered about 130 — having being hunted and killed with relative impunity for decades prior. The restrictions and protections put in place by the Endangered Species Act allowed the bear population — which reproduces at a relatively slow rate — to climb steadily over the decades.

Now with the population more than five times what it was 42 years ago, the Fish and Wildlife Service “has met recovery criteria,” Cooley said. Biologists with the agency believe they have given the bears a path forward for sustainability.

Removing the Yellowstone population from the endangered species list, Cooley said, allows Fish and Wildlife to focus on the recovery efforts of hundreds of other species — including other pockets of grizzly populations — currently protected under the Endangered Species Act.

She said that there are about 1,000 grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and that the agency would next focus on whether grizzlies in that region are ready for delisting. There are four other areas in the Washington-Idaho-Montana area where grizzlies enjoy protection — though in two of them, biologists haven’t reported any bear populations.

Grizzly bears as a species will remain protected under the Endangered Species Act in all Lower 48 states, so once an area is delisted, bears would still be protected in locations outside that area.

Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Rebecca Riley said it’s too soon to allow any kind of hunting season for grizzly bears.

“This population is still so small that any hunting would be a problem,” she said. “We need the population to continue to grow bigger and more genetically diverse.”

She said that can only happen by allowing the bears’ population density to expand and ultimately connect with other isolated bear populations near Glacier National Park in Montana. But unlike wolves, which travel vast distances, grizzlies don’t wander far — making connections with other bear groups a longer process.

Ben Nuvamsa, former head of the Hopi tribe, was angered by the decision. In a statement, he called the move to delist the grizzly a “regression to the Old West frontier mentality.”

“The grizzly bear, historically, is a religious icon to virtually all tribal nations,” he said. “The Fish and Wildlife Service promised us that it would conduct full and meaningful consultation with us, but it turns out, those were only empty promises.”

Grizzlies once numbered about 50,000 when Lewis and Clark explored the West in the early 1800s, but as cities and towns expanded and developed, the bear population declined steeply. Prior to being listed as an endangered species, the bears were subject to trophy hunts.

Several areas, including California, once had abundant grizzly populations. California, however, hasn’t seen a grizzly since the 1990s, despite it being the symbol on the state’s flag. There have been proposals to reintroduce the grizzly to parts of the Golden State, but none has been tried to date.

Proctor said state actions once the bears are delisted remain a key concern.

The Idaho Legislature passed a law, signed in March by Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, that would allow owners of pets and livestock to kill a grizzly if they believed the bear was threatening their animals. The law would apply to people living within the Yellowstone ecosystem but outside the national park boundary — and only once delisting occurred.

Proctor said laws like that suggest states won’t take the grizzly bear’s long-term health into consideration.

But if protections remain in place, he said, “then the grizzlies will do the rest” and continue to rebound. “But that’s a big question — will these states allow them to thrive or will they add to increased mortality? We will be monitoring it closely.”

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NY Times
JUNE 23, 2017

It would be a big mistake to call the legislation Senate Republicans released on Thursday a health care bill. It is, plain and simple, a plan to cut taxes for the wealthy by destroying critical federal programs that help provide health care to tens of millions of people.

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicans have pitched the bill as a fix for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. But their true ambition is not to reform Obamacare, which, whatever its shortcomings, has given 20 million Americans access to health insurance. If passed in its current form, the Senate bill would greatly weaken Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides insurance to nearly 69 million people, more than any other government or private program. It would do this by gradually but inexorably shifting more of the financial burden of Medicaid to states, in effect, forcing them to cover fewer people and to provide fewer services. Over all, the Senate would reduce federal spending by about $1 trillion over 10 years and use almost that much to cut taxes for rich families and health care companies.

In the days ahead, while the Congressional Budget Office totes up the bill’s cost, and before a floor vote, some Republicans, President Trump included, might be tempted to see the Senate bill as an improvement over the draconian House measure passed in May that would take insurance away from 23 million people. Mr. Trump previously expressed the hope that the Senate version would be less brutal.

It isn’t. True, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have made a few superficial improvements; the rollback of Obamacare’s intended expansion of Medicaid would proceed more slowly than under the House’s timetable. But the long-term damage might be worse. That is because the Senate bill would cap federal spending on Medicaid on a per-person basis. Currently, federal spending varies from year to year based on demand for medical services and the cost of care. Starting in 2025, the cap would be allowed to increase at the rate of inflation in the economy. But the overall inflation rate has typically been much lower than the inflation rate for medical services; in 2016, the overall inflation rate was 1.3 percent, whereas medical costs increased by 3.8 percent. Over time, this would means states will get a lot less money than they do under current law.

The inevitable shrinkage in Medicaid will be particularly devastating to older Americans. Contrary to what many people think, the program does not just benefit the poor. Many middle-class seniors depend on it after they have exhausted their savings. Medicaid pays for two-thirds of the people in nursing homes. The disabled and parents who have children with learning disabilities also rely on Medicaid. The program covers nearly half of all births in the country. And in recent years, it has played a very important role in dealing with the opioid epidemic, especially in states like Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia. Medicaid pays between 35 percent and 50 percent of the cost of medication-assisted addiction treatment, according to two professors, one from Harvard and one from New York University.

Like its House counterpart, the Senate bill would also hurt millions of non-Medicaid beneficiaries of Obamacare, those who buy insurance on federal and state marketplaces. It would greatly reduce federal subsidies that help low-income and middle-income families buy health coverage, while allowing insurers to increase deductibles, forcing people to pay more for medical services. It would let states waive rules that now require insurers to cover essential health services like maternity care, cancer treatment and mental health care, which is likely to happen because this will be the only way that states can lower premiums. In sum, it will make health insurance more expensive and less useful, to the great misfortune of the poor, elderly and sick.

Mr. McConnell seems determined to steamroll this travesty through the Senate before July 4, despite complaints by conservatives and moderates. Expect him and his colleagues to try to buy support of wavering lawmakers by offering sweeteners like a few billion dollars for addiction treatment and some extra cash for states with high medical costs. Republican senators like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Rob Portman of Ohio and Dean Heller of Nevada ought not to fall for these cheap gimmicks. Instead, they should vote no on a bill that will take a devastating toll on millions of Americans and that no amount of tinkering around the edges can make better.

Mr. Jordan’s home, in Astoria, Queens, is a museum of the city’s “buried past,” as he puts it. Credit Justin Gilliland/The New York Times

By COREY KILGANNON
NY Times Published: JUNE 15, 2017

Scott Jordan, who is known as the Bottle Man, finds an old Borden milk bottle during an excavation in the Bronx. Credit Justin Gilliland/The New York Times
With a quick bit of shovel work, Scott Jordan, 59, burrowed several feet into the ground in a wooded section of the Bronx, and traveled back a century in time.

His digging exposed a circa-1910 landfill and now he was practically drooling over the granular layers of decomposed trash.

He switched to a gentler excavating tool, a sharpened wooden broomstick, to avoid breaking any glass or ceramic finds. He got his first glass-squeak — music to a bottle-hunter’s ears — when the stick scraped against a gritty old bottle.

Seeing only a piece of its rounded bottom, Mr. Jordan announced that it was a Borden milk bottle bearing an eagle insignia. And it was: a sturdy tall vessel of beveled, embossed glass, the first of a dozen bottles that the old dump would surrender over the next hour to Mr. Jordan’s eager digging.

“That’s what I am, a digger,” he said.

Mr. Jordan carries home the bottles, cleans them and tags them with information about their history and where they were found. He then sells them at the Grand Bazaar NYC flea market on Columbus Avenue and 77th Street, where he is known as the Bottle Man. His prices range from $10 to $80, based on rarity, color and condition.

He turns other found artifacts into art pieces to sell during the winter holiday season at the Union Square Holiday Market.

“Tourists love taking home something that was dug up in New York City,” said Mr. Jordan, who at his vending booths cuts a Victorian figure, often in a derby, scarf and vest and sporting a beard and mustache. “They’re buying a real New York artifact.”

Mr. Jordan mines numerous landfills throughout the city, some dating back to Colonial times, but his other hunting grounds are sites where outhouses once stood and where castoffs were often tossed.

He combs through these sewage pits, or privies, in use before indoor plumbing, usually in the rear of apartment buildings.

“There’s some beautiful stuff left in those privies — we salvage what most people overlook,” said Mr. Jordan, who tackles the deep pits with his digger buddies using a tripod and pulley system to haul up dirt.

Access often comes when old buildings are demolished for redevelopment.

“Every time they knock down a building, it’s an opportunity,” said Mr. Jordan, who closely monitors construction projects and studies 19th-century maps to locate possible outhouse locations.

His longtime apartment in Astoria, Queens, is a museum of the city’s “buried past,” as he puts it. His unearthed items are densely displayed, as is the artwork he makes out of them.

His oldest artifacts date back to the Dutch who settled in downtown Manhattan. Items include a vast collection of clay pipes, porcelain doll heads, pocket watches and assorted pottery.

His bathroom is tiled with the vintage glass that he buffs by dumping it along the rocky shoreline of the roiling Hell Gate section of the East River, and retrieving it months later.

The items are meticulously displayed on nearly every square foot of wall, cabinet and closet. His windows have become multishelved displays of colorful bottles dating back to the late 1600s.

He picked up one bottle, he said, during a dig at a construction site in the South Street Seaport where a 25-foot-high wall of moist dirt collapsed and might have killed him if he had not jumped out of the way.

Mr. Jordan shares his apartment with his girlfriend, Belle Costes, who makes and sells her own line of jewelry at the Grand Bazaar flea market.

Mr. Jordan and Ms. Costes, both longtime vendors at the flea market, became a couple several years ago. She began going on his digs and collaborating on making jewelry from artifacts.

Mr. Jordan arrived in New York from Connecticut at age 11, when his father, a Coast Guard mechanic, moved the family to quarters on Governors Island in New York Harbor. Mr. Jordan said he saw two teenagers digging for Revolutionary War items at Fort Jay on the island and joined them. He found musket balls, cow-bone dice and a Buffalo Bill souvenir ring and became hooked on digging.

He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and studied painting at the Art Students League. In his 20s, he learned about old bottles and how to hawk them from a charismatic figure known as Bottle Bill, a former circus barker who sold vintage bottles out of an Upper East Side storefront, he said.

These days, Mr. Jordan seeks permission from developers or other officials to access sites before new foundations are dug, sweetening his plea with a choice artifact. Years ago, he often slipped onto sites unauthorized, under cover of darkness or an official-looking safety vest and hard hat.

Passers-by have called the police, suspecting him of burying a body or planting a bomb, he said, adding that not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was digging at a site near ground zero when the police converged upon him, guns drawn.

Trespassing charges were dismissed after the judge viewed the art Mr. Jordan makes from found artifacts.

“The judge said, ‘I got a house in Brooklyn,” Mr. Jordan recalled. “You think I got anything buried there?’”

Keiichi Sumi,
Painter’s Small Drawer, 2017

Opening Reception: Saturday June 17th 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm

June 17th –July 16th 2017

Tortoise

Link to all episodes of Tending the Wild on KCET

Thanks to Jonathan Maghen

By SUSAN CHIRA
NY Times Published: JUNE 14, 2017

For women in business and beyond, it was an I-told-you-so day.

The twin spectacles Tuesday — an Uber board member’s wisecrack about women talking too much, and Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, being interrupted for the second time in a week by her male colleagues — triggered an outpouring of recognition and what has become almost ritual social-media outrage.

Academic studies and countless anecdotes make it clear that being interrupted, talked over, shut down or penalized for speaking out is nearly a universal experience for women when they are outnumbered by men.

A few statistics show that the questions directed at Uber about how women fare in the workplace extend beyond one company, and indeed beyond Silicon Valley. Women make up 6.4 percent of Fortune 500 chief executive officers and 19.4 percent of Congress this year. About a fifth of board members in Fortune 500 companies in 2016 were women, according to research conducted by Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Diversity.

After Arianna Huffington, an Uber director, spoke of how important it was to increase the number of women on the board, David Bonderman said that would mean more talking. He soon resigned from the board. Even in companies without notorious bro-cultures, however, women have had to struggle to feel heard and, as the numbers make clear, to advance to the top.

“I think every woman who has any degree of power and those who don’t knows how it feels to experience what Kamala Harris experienced yesterday,” said Laura R. Walker, the president and chief executive of New York Public Radio. “To be in a situation where you’re trying to do your job and you’re either cut off or ignored.”

Senator Harris, a former prosecutor, assertively questioned Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, interrupted and chided her to let Mr. Sessions answer her questions. Soon after that, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the committee chairman, cut her off, saying her time had elapsed.

Women in a wide range of industries, at all levels, offered hundreds of such examples in response to an invitation from The New York Times for people to share their personal experiences on Facebook. “I can’t even count the number of times I’ve witnessed a woman being interrupted and talked over by a man, only to hear him later repeat the same ideas she was trying to put forward,” wrote one respondent, Grace Ellis. “I’d say I see this happen … two to three times a week? At least?”

Joyce Lionarons wrote, “My female boss told me she needed to allow each man to interrupt her four times before protesting in a meeting. If she protested more often, there were problems.”

Erica Brown wrote that she has worked for three months as a distiller. Virtually every time she goes to pick up supplies, she said, the staff asked her husband what she needed.

Megha Banerjee said she used to work at a company with very few women. “When I would express my opinion, I was often interrupted, or my point was ignored,” she wrote. “It’s been six months that I’ve left that job, and I’m a much happier, more confident person.”

“I used to work for one of the 10 largest independent booksellers in the country,” Bianca DiRuocco wrote. “Often, a suggestion made by one of the female staff during meetings the owner attended would be shot down, only to reappear in a week or two as his own brilliant idea. It happened so often a few of us started joking privately about noting our suggestions in the calendar to see exactly how many days later it would take for our ideas to go from ridiculously impossible to sheer genius.”

A ream of studies affirm such anecdotes. Researchers consistently find that women are interrupted more and that men dominate conversations and decision-making, in corporate offices, town meetings, school boards and the United States Senate.

Victoria L. Brescoll, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, published a paper in 2012 showing that men with power talked more in the Senate, which was not the case for women. Another study, “Can an Angry Woman Get Ahead?” concluded that men who became angry were rewarded, but that angry women were seen as incompetent and unworthy of power in the workplace.

Indeed, Jason Miller, a former adviser to President Trump’s campaign and a CNN commentator, described Senator Harris as “hysterical” and shouting during her questioning of Mr. Sessions. At times, Senator Harris cut Mr. Sessions off, but she spoke in an even tone.

That experience, too, resonated with many women responding to the Facebook callout.

“And if you complain, you are excluded,” said Paula Minnikin. “As the only woman on a particular corporate board, I asked the chair in private if we could consider finding another one or two women as we were seeking to replace three board members. He said there was no doubt I was one of our strongest members but that there ARE no good women. I was the exception. He then went on to share that this is because I’m tall and strong, like a man, and don’t confuse things like a regular woman. I was flabbergasted.”

Tali Mendelberg, professor of politics at Princeton University, is co-author of “The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberations and Institutions,” compiling studies examining what happens when more women join decision-making groups. She and Christopher F. Karpowitz, associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, found that, at school board meetings, men and women did not speak as long until women made up 80 percent of the school board. When men were in the minority, however, they did not speak up less.

“The fact that women are outnumbered in every room puts them in a position where they’re often coming up against gender-based stereotypes,” said Deborah Gillis, president and chief executive of Catalyst, which works for women’s advancement in business. “Women are too hard, too soft, but never just right. What that means is that women are seen as either competent or liked but not both.”

Some women are working to subvert these gender imbalances in their own organizations.

Ms. Walker, of New York Public Radio, said she pressed for more women at its senior level and on its board. “I think this not only empowers women throughout our organization, it also makes for better discussions,” she said. She is also pushing to increase the number of women who host podcasts.

Jacqueline Hinman, chairman and C.E.O. of CH2M Hill Companies, a Colorado-based engineering company that manages projects including light rail in Toronto and Olympic facilities in London, works in a field where women have typically been scarce. Now, however, women make up 30 to 40 percent of her board and are well represented in senior positions.

It took years of work to get to that point, Ms. Hinman said — and part of the push came from clients, increasingly women, who wanted to see diverse engineering teams. She said she made it clear to subordinates they will be judged partly on how many women and minorities they advance.

“Men who come to our companies from competitors are astounded by the number of women everywhere,’’ she said, adding, “They love it.”

BY David Zahniser
LA Times Published: June 15, 2017

A key panel of the Los Angeles City Council endorsed a plan Wednesday to take Columbus Day off the city calendar and put in its place a new Indigenous Peoples Day, despite opposition from Italian American civic leaders and some city lawmakers.

The council’s Rules, Elections, Intergovernmental Relations and Neighborhoods Committee unanimously backed the proposal from Councilman Mitch O’Farrell to establish a city holiday that recognizes the contributions and experiences of “indigenous, aboriginal and native people” on the second Monday of October — currently a paid day off for city workers.

If approved by the full council, the proposal would go into effect no later than 2019. Columbus Day would remain a national holiday.

O’Farrell, a member of the Wyandotte tribe in northeast Oklahoma, had argued that the change in city holidays would provide “restorative justice” to Native Americans in Los Angeles and the nation. Replacing Columbus Day, he said, would provide a public acknowledgment that Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the 15th century set in motion the genocide of indigenous peoples across the Western Hemisphere.

“It’s a really devastating history,” O’Farrell said after the vote. “It was almost immediate subjugation and slavery.”

The proposal has drawn opposition from Italian American civic leaders, who have long viewed Columbus Day as an event that recognizes their heritage.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, a first-generation Italian American, promised to fight the proposal when it reaches the council floor, saying the committee’s action had made him “embarrassed” to be a council member. Buscaino said the proposal would divide Angelenos at a time when the city and the nation need inclusiveness.

“I strongly support an Indigenous Peoples Day in the city of Los Angeles, but not at the expense of another culture or group of people,” said the councilman, whose port district has a significant number of ItalianAmerican residents.

“To me, I feel like it’s removing Martin Luther King Day out of our books … or removing Cesar Chavez Day,” he added.

Several U.S. cities, including Seattle, Portland, Albuquerque and Denver, have already replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Los Angeles officials have been discussing the idea for nearly two years.

On Wednesday, Buscaino and three other council members — David Ryu, Gil Cedillo and Mitchell Englander — unveiled an alternate proposal to replace Columbus Day with a new Immigrant Heritage Day. That idea would reflect the role played by Columbus Day in empowering and celebrating immigrants, Buscaino said.

That proposal would allow Indigenous Peoples’ Day to be held in August or September, Buscaino added.

The rules committee, headed by Council President Herb Wesson, asked city officials to investigate whether to create another city holiday that would commemorate immigrants, or diversity, or possibly the concept of America. The committee also proposed having Oct. 12 declared as an Italian American heritage day in Los Angeles — but not as a city holiday.

Throughout Wednesday’s meeting, no one spoke against the creation of Indigenous Peoples Day. Instead, testimony focused heavily on when such a holiday would be held.

Ann Potenza, president of Federated Italo-Americans of Southern California, said she favored Buscaino’s alternate proposal. She argued that Columbus’ journey should be recognized as an event that produced “the largest exchange of plants, animals, population, technology and ideas between the Old World and New World.”

“That is why we are all here right now,” Potenza told the council panel.

Los Angeles’ Native American leaders countered by saying that replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day would right a historic wrong. Scheduling Indigenous Peoples Day during another day would not be a victory, said Rudy Ortega Jr., chairman of the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission.

“If we don’t do it … then there’s no point of telling the people who are indigenous that they can stand up proud and be who they are,” he said.

The proposal for replacing Columbus Day is expected to reach the council this summer.

By BERNIE SANDERS
NY TIMES PUBLISHED: JUNE 13, 2017

In 2016, the Democratic Party lost the presidency to possibly the least popular candidate in American history. In recent years, Democrats have also lost the Senate and House to right-wing Republicans whose extremist agenda is far removed from where most Americans are politically. Republicans now control almost two-thirds of governor’s offices and have gained about 1,000 seats in state legislatures in the past nine years. In 24 states, Democrats have almost no political influence at all.

If these results are not a clear manifestation of a failed political strategy, I don’t know what is. For the sake of our country and the world, the Democratic Party, in a very fundamental way, must change direction. It has got to open its doors wide to working people and young people. It must become less dependent on wealthy contributors, and it must make clear to the working families of this country that, in these difficult times, it is prepared to stand up and fight for their rights. Without hesitation, it must take on the powerful corporate interests that dominate the economic and political life of the country.

There are lessons to be learned from the recent campaign in Britain. The Conservatives there called the snap election with the full expectation that they would win a landslide. They didn’t. Against all predictions they lost 13 seats in Parliament while Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party won 32. There is never one reason elections are won or lost, but there is widespread agreement that momentum shifted to Labour after it released a very progressive manifesto that generated much enthusiasm among young people and workers. One of the most interesting aspects of the election was the soaring turnout among voters 34 or younger.

The British elections should be a lesson for the Democratic Party. We already have among the lowest voter turnout of any major country on earth. Democrats will not win if the 2018 midterm election turnout resembles the unbelievably low 36.7 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots in 2014. The Democrats must develop an agenda that speaks to the pain of tens of millions of families who are working longer hours for lower wages and to the young people who, unless we turn the economy around, will have a lower standard of living than their parents.

A vast majority of Americans understand that our current economic model is a dismal failure. Who can honestly defend the current grotesque level of inequality in which the top 1 percent owns more than the bottom 90 percent? Who thinks it’s right that, despite a significant increase in worker productivity, millions of Americans need two or three jobs to survive, while 52 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent? What person who claims to have a sense of morality can justify the fact that the richest people in our country have a life expectancy about 15 years longer than our poorest citizens?

While Democrats should appeal to moderate Republicans who are disgusted with the Trump presidency, too many in our party cling to an overly cautious, centrist ideology. The party’s main thrust must be to make politics relevant to those who have given up on democracy and bring millions of new voters into the political process. It must be prepared to take on the right-wing extremist ideology of the Koch brothers and the billionaire class, and fight for an economy and a government that work for all, not just the 1 percent.

Donald Trump wants to throw 23 million Americans off health insurance. Democrats must guarantee health care to all as a right, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.

Mr. Trump wants to give enormous tax breaks to billionaires. Democrats must support a progressive tax system that demands that the very wealthy, Wall Street and large corporations begin paying their fair share of taxes.

Mr. Trump wants to sell our infrastructure to Wall Street and foreign countries. Democrats must fight for a trillion-dollar public investment that creates over 13 million good-paying jobs.

Mr. Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Democrats must take on the fossil fuel industry and accelerate our efforts to combat climate change by encouraging energy efficiency and the use of sustainable energy.

Mr. Trump has proposed deep cuts to higher education. Democrats must make public colleges and universities tuition free, and substantially lower student debt.

Mr. Trump has doubled-down on our failed approach to crime that has resulted in the United States’ having more people in jail than any other country. Democrats must reform a broken criminal justice system and invest in jobs and education for our young people, not more jails and incarceration.

Mr. Trump has scapegoated and threatened the 11 million undocumented people in our country. Democrats must fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship.

This is a pivotal moment in American history. If the Democrats are prepared to rally grass-roots America in every state and to stand up to the greed of the billionaire class, the party will stop losing elections. And it will create the kind of country the American people want and deserve.

NY Times Published: JUNE 1, 2017

The basketball star and author of “Coach Wooden and Me” says he looks forward to anything written by Walter Mosley: “I’d be very happy if he wrote a novel every week.”

What books are currently on your night stand?

“Lives of Master Swordsmen,” by Makoto Sugawara, furthers my interest in martial arts that began shortly before Bruce Lee became my teacher. The book explores the swordsmen of medieval Japan and the influence they had on the country. For me, the book is about the convergence of art and athleticism, and its effect on politics. I’ve always been fascinated by people who push themselves to become the best they possibly can be at something that combines intellect and movement. And how their achievements affect their society.

I’m also rereading a favorite novel from when I was in high school, “Dem,” by a great but often overlooked African-American writer, William Melvin Kelley. This satire peels back some uncomfortable layers of how the races see each other and is just as relevant today as it was in 1967, when it was published.

What’s the last great book you read?

“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A great book helps the reader see the world in a way they haven’t before, or it helps the reader articulate thoughts and emotions they already have but not yet put into the right words. Coates’s intimate analysis of race as it relates to our physical being, identity and existence really touched me, infuriated me and inspired me.

What are your favorite books on sports?

I’ve loved boxing ever since my dad and I watched it together when I was a kid. Whether it’s basketball or boxing, there’s something exciting about being in a confined space and time with people trying to impose their will on you while you not only fend them off, but impose your will on them. It’s pretty much the essence of life. My two favorite boxing books are “Joe Louis: My Life,” by Joe Louis with Edna and Art Rust Jr., and “Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson,” by Wil Haygood. These were boxers who, because of their color, were forced to do as much fighting outside the ring as in.

Baseball was my first sports love, and my favorite baseball book is “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend,” by Larry Tye. Satchel Paige was an inspiration not only because of his battles breaking the color barrier in major league baseball, but because he was an ancient 42 years old when he led the Cleveland Indians to the World Series.

And, as an Arthur Conan Doyle fan, what’s your favorite Sherlock Holmes?

Since my novel and comic book series about Mycroft, Sherlock’s brother, I get asked this question a lot. I’m especially fond of “The Red-Headed League,” because it was the first Holmes story I read. I picked it up when I was a sophomore in high school, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It opened up a whole new way of thinking analytically to me and made me want to read everything and know everything so I could be as smart as Sherlock.

Having read all the works now, I also really like “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” which was written after Conan Doyle had apparently killed Sherlock in “The Final Problem.” I like the complex plot and Sherlock’s intensity in solving the case. A recent novel, “IQ,” by Joe Ide, does a terrific job adapting the novel with a black Sherlock-like character set in the black community in Long Beach with a very scary hound.

Do you like to read other detective or crime fiction? Which authors in particular?

I love detective fiction because the mystery element appeals to my puzzle-solving instincts while the plot of someone noble trying to set right an injustice appeals to my humanity. There are so many that I like I can only give you a partial list: Martin Cruz Smith, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley and Elmore Leonard are a few of them. One of my favorites is Chester Himes (“Cotton Comes to Harlem”), who began writing while in prison for armed robbery in the 1930s, but eventually became an expat in Paris with James Baldwin and Richard Wright.

Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?

I look forward to every Walter Mosley novel. I’d be very happy if he wrote a novel every week. His Easy Rawlins series, set in post-World War II Watts, is my favorite, but I’m also devoted to his Fearless Jones, Leonid McGill and Socrates Fortlow books. His writing is not only entertaining but provides piercing social commentary about race, class and American ideals.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned recently from a book?

I learn something interesting from every book I read, whether it’s about swordfighting in medieval Japan or race relations in America, so it’s hard to say which is the most interesting. I often think of that quote attributed to science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein: “Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.” I feel lucky that after all these years of reading and living, there’s still so much more that I find interesting.

How do you like to read? Paper or electronic? One book at a time or simultaneously? Morning or night?

I like paper, because the physical act of carrying the book, opening it, turning the pages, creates a visceral relationship with the story. The effort is an important part of the joy of reading. Usually I read one book at a time, and it’s not uncommon for me to read a book straight through without stopping, even through the night and the next day.

How do you organize your books?

First by subject, like fiction, black history, science, and so forth. Then within each category by author.

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Veterinary books on the care of horses. I used to own and breed a dozen Arabian horses. There’s a lot that goes into caring for them, and I wanted to learn everything I could about it.

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

A friend of mine, Mario Argote, gave me “But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz,” by Geoff Dyer, and it’s become one of my favorite books. The book is made up of fictionalized stories about several jazz greats, like Chet Baker and Thelonious Monk, in which he reveals insights into the men as well as their music.

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?

My favorite hero is Walter Mosley’s P.I., Easy Rawlins. He’s smart, tough, relentless and honorable. Most important, he’s cool without trying. My favorite villain is Jabba the Hutt from “Return of the Jedi.” I like how much he enjoys his villainy and the benefits they bring. As he sees it, he’s having the time of his life. He reminds me of some of the street gangsters in Harlem who always behaved as if they couldn’t believe their good fortune. If you’re going to be a villain, that seems the best attitude to have.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I loved adventure books that transported me to a time and place where heroes vanquished villains. I was a voracious reader, and because of it I was way ahead of other kids at school. My favorite authors were Rudyard Kipling (“The Jungle Book”), Robert Louis Stevenson (“Treasure Island”), Alexandre Dumas (“The Three Musketeers”) and Sir Walter Scott (“Ivanhoe”).

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

I don’t think any book would make a difference to this president, who claims his favorite book is the one he wrote, and the Bible, which he clearly has not read. But let’s imagine a moment when he realizes that he’s unpopular for a good reason and, rather than skate through the next four years on the coattails of his daughter and son-in-law, decides he really, truly wants to change the country for better. That guy I would hand a copy of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” Not just because it would give him a better understanding of race relations in America and why it is urgent we do something to address the disparity, but because in understanding that one aspect, he will better understand the needs of all Americans who are valiantly struggling to be happy, safe and stable.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

If I wanted just to be entertained by sheer wit and satirical barbs, it would be Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward. Watching them try to outwit each other would be priceless. However, if I wanted to hang out with writers I wanted to learn more about, the three would be Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Raymond Chandler and Cicero. I’d love to hear Coleridge expound on the intricacies of writing “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I’d ask Chandler about the evolution of Philip Marlowe, who is very different in “The Long Goodbye” than he was in “Farewell, My Lovely.” Cicero, the great Roman orator and politician, was one of the biggest influences on language throughout Europe. His letters are said to have influenced the Italian Renaissance and the 18th-century Enlightenment. America is a direct result of his writings. I’d want to know his take on where we are now.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

The two books that come to mind are Tom Wolfe’s novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and A. Scott Berg’s biography of Woodrow Wilson, “Wilson.” I know that “Bonfire” was a huge best seller and loved by many critics, and its themes of race and social class are topics I’m interested in. But I just couldn’t get myself to care about anyone in the novel. With “Wilson,” I just didn’t find Woodrow Wilson that interesting.

Whom would you want to write your life story?

The first author that pops into my head, improbably, is Mario Puzo. Not sure why. Maybe because he made “The Godfather” so riveting I figure he could do the same with my life. More practically, I would say Ron Chernow, who wrote the excellent biography “Alexander Hamilton.” He’s thorough in presenting details but insightful in showing what they mean.

What do you plan to read next?

The great thing about being an avid reader is that I’m always excited about the next book. I don’t really stack them up in anticipation. I like finishing a book and then going to the bookstore to browse through the new-arrivals table. Going to the bookstore, picking it out and carrying it home forges a bond between me and the book. The effort adds to the experience. It’s all part of the fun of reading for me.