Month: May 2008

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Sunny and warm
Highs: 68-71; Lows: 54-63

Inland
Clear and hot
Highs: 82-89; Lows: 53-61

Deserts
Hot and sunny
Highs: 96-100; Lows: 66-74

And Santa Monica…
May is over, and summer is on the horizon. And as we move to the new season, we’ll have a week of the best kind of Santa Monica weather. The days will be warm, not too hot and not too cold. The evenings will be mild, perhaps a bit nippy (let’s call it refreshing) but never too cold. The sky will be mostly clear and filled with pure sunshine, with the occasional cloud floating by now and then. Soft breezes will ruffle your hair, the sun will warm your skin, and you’ll sing with joy that you live in Santa Monica.

By Jerry Rubin

Sure it’s a grind. These meetings! In fact, the entire Treesavers campaign has been and will continue to be A GRIND. But we’ve all met some top-notch, dedicated tree-loving activists and ,in all probability, made some lifetime friends. And we’ve given our best for our trees. And you and I know that we will give our very best for our trees as we continue on this worthy but long and grinding road. What more can we expect of ourselves and each other?

Sad losses, but many positive accomplishments as well. So, let’s give our trees another nourishing hug> and let’s give our fellow Treesavers some nourishing, supportive and energizing hugs as well.

See you at our brief, but very important next meeting, at a very appropriately named venue—

Treesavers Meeting
Thursday, May 29
7 to 8 p.m.
It’s A Grind Coffee House
602 Santa Monica Blvd.

Sydney Pollack paid tribute to himself this week. He didn’t mean to. He was far too wary, too skittish, too modest to do anything that brazen, but the last film he worked on, “Recount,” premiered on HBO o n Sunday and Pollack, 73, died on Monday of cancer ay home in the Palisades.

If you haven’t seen “Recount,” you must see it, If you have seen it, see it again. It’s an account of the vote count mess in Florida in 2000 that led to the Supremes giving George Bush the Presidency, and America an eight-year nightmare. In the film, both the Jim Baker and Warren Christopher characters say more than once that the transition was peaceful, there were no tanks in the streets, the system, worked, God bless America. Of course, “Recount” shows us in painful detail that the systen didn’t work. That sort of moral ambiguity is a Pollack trade nark. The best of his films leave us with more questions than answers, and the questions are pretty fundamental.

Pollack had just begun work on “Recount” nine months ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. He stayed on as producer, but Jay Roach took over as director.

The last film Pollack directed was his first and only documentary. “Sketches by Frank Gehry,” an old friend.

Continue reading The Essential Sydney Pollack

The Memorial Day tributes to casualties of the Iraqi War at the Veterans for Peace Arlington West ,Memorial on the beach just north of the Santa Monica Pier will include a live broadcast, “Heroes of Peace,” from the beach by KPFK/Pacifica Radio from 12:30 to 3 p.m. today, Sunday, May 25.
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The public is invited to attend the broadcast, which will be moderated by Lila Garrett.

Scheduled to speak are Ron Kovic, Vietnam War veteran and writer, actor, veteran and activist Ed Asner, actor and activist Mike Farrell (by remote), actor and activist Jane Fonda (by remote), Jodie Evans, Code Pink, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (by remote), L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Santa Monica City Councilman Kevin McKeown, Blaise Bonpane, KPFK, Dennis Davis, musician and activist, Iraqi Veterans Against the War who recently testified before Congress, Ann Wright, a retired Army Colonel, Marcy Winograd, ChairPDLA, Paulina Brooks, military wife, and Gold Star family members family members Jane Bright and Vicki Castro, and others..

Continue reading KPFK to Broadcast Live from Arlington West Today

The Santa Monica City Council spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in a marathon “study session,” during which it heard City Manager Lamont Ewell and department heads delineate their take ob how we will live and what we will live for in fiscal year 2008-2009 as made manifest in the proposed $521 budget.

Ewell got the proceedings off to a fast start by crediting Santa Monica’s relatively strong performance in the current weak economic climate to its ”diverse” ss economic base.

In addition, the Council heard the capital improvement project budget and reports from the City Council and City Manager offices, Airport administration, Records and Election Services, and the City Attorney, Human Resources, Finance and Risk Management, Information Systems, Community Maintenance and Planning and Community Development depaetments.

Adjourning a 9:35 p.m., the Council gathered at the dais again on Wednesday at 5:45 p.m., and heard from the Police and Fire Chiefs, each of whom will hire additional staff members in the new fiscal year. Also on the evening’s agenda were the Library, Housing and Economic Development, the Big Blue Bus, Community and Cultural Affairs, and Environmental Programs and Public Works.

Continue reading Council Studies Budget; Bloom Plays Pangloss