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ICT Honored With 23 Robby Award Nominations and Wins

RLn
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ICT Honored With 23 Robby Award Nominations and Wins

LONG BEACH — International City Theatre has been honored with three wins and 20 additional nominations for four different productions by longtime theater reviewer Rob Stevens, who has announced his 35th annual “Robby Awards for Excellence in Southern California Theatre.”

In Stevens’ Dec. 31 post at media outlet Haines His Way, 25 productions throughout the Southland garnered a total of 131 nominations, with International City Theatre’s recent production of the Sheldon Epps-conceived musical Blues in the Night leading all productions with 10 nominations. The musical won three awards, including for Best Musical (caryn desai, producer), Best Actress in a Musical (Vivian Reed) and Best Musical Direction (William Foster McDaniel).

Other nominated ICT productions include Closely Related Keys, a hard-hitting family drama by Wendy Graf, which marked the company’s first return to in-person performance since the start of the pandemic; The Andrews Brothers, a musical salute to the swinging ’40s written and created by Roger Bean, which was produced in February 2020 prior to the shutdown; and Daisy by Sean Devine, a fascinating look at the creation of and psychology behind TV’s first political attack ad that ICT produced virtually ahead of the 2020 election.

Details: www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

 

Life After Mother: Have a Heart for What’s Inherited

Lyn Jensen
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Life After Mother: Have a Heart for What’s Inherited

One of my mother’s friends was featured on a TV show about hoarding. To this day, if you try to persuade her to part with so much (or so little) as a years-old mail-order catalog, be prepared for a passionate argument. Her home came to the attention of the local fire department, which had to intercede for fire-safety reasons, which brought her to the attention of a TV news crew. She explained her living habits to a TV interviewer with, “I’m the queen of procrastinators,” although I believe my mother would have given her stiff competition for that title.

On the opposite end of the spectrum may be the family that lived next door to my mother for decades. After the couple died, their daughter threw what looked like the entire contents of the home into a giant dumpster and hauled it all away, even though the home’s contents were far from hoarder-house trashiness. Even if the daughter had a cash register for a heart, you’d think she’d value her inheritance more than that.

I fall between these two extremes, as I suppose most people do. We love our material possessions and find happiness in them, despite all admonishments not to. What our possessions mean for our hearts and financial wealth depends on what our families have built and what we leave or don’t leave for our heirs. I think one reason my mother was so reluctant to make any decisions about disposing of her possessions was because she wanted to leave the hard part to me.

When a family’s property is appraised, the value of jewelry, art, furniture and household possessions is included when totaling up the worth of the estate. The downside to that can come when that wealth may need to be turned into cash. As Cate Blanchett’s character complained in the film Blue Jasmine, “You buy jewelry and art because you think it’s a good investment, but when you try to sell it, no one wants it. You end up practically giving it away.” Lead with your heart, though, and you may suffer the level of trauma a hoarder experiences when the fire department insists a hoarder house be made fire-safe.

Selling possessions for cash simply depends on finding the right buyer. A friend of mine was fond of saying, you can sell anything — you just have to sell it to the right person. The likelihood of finding that right person, though, may rise and fall erratically. VHS tapes were treasured in the 1980s but now you may not be able to give them away — and even to trash them, they must be trashed as e-waste. Record collections of vinyl LPs and 45s were valuable until the 1990s, then became worthless as “everybody” dumped their collections in favor of CDs. Then CDs were dumped for streaming and burning and whatever high-tech systems came into style. Now old-fashioned vinyl is valuable again, and so are CDs.

Right now I’m looking for someone who’s interested in my mother’s antique dolls and toys, her sewing remnants, some extra eyeglasses. Even if there’s little to be gained in terms of financial wealth, at least I won’t be trashing my inheritance.

Oath Keeper Indicted For Seditious Conspiracy

Paul Rosenberg
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Oath Keeper Indicted For Seditious Conspiracy

On January 12, the grand jury investigating the January 6th insurrection handed down a 17-count indictment against 11 members of the Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, a former aid to neo-confederate libertarian Congressman Ron Paul. The Oath Keepers are an extremist group, founded in 2009, many of whose members are involved with militias. They were the first to be charged with seditious conspiracy, an historically rare charge, for activities starting Nov 5 and continuing beyond January 6.

Two days after the election, in an encrypred chat, “Rhodes urged his followers to refuse to accept the election result and stated: “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit,” the indictment charged.

Rhodes and his co-defendents conspired “to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power…. which included multiple ways to deploy force,” according to the indictment. “They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms at Rhodes’ direction.”

In addition, “Some co-conspirators also amassed firearms on the outskirts of Washington D.C., distributed them among ‘quick reaction force’ (‘QRF’) teams, and planned to use the firearms in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.” They were also accused of “continuing to plot, after January 6, 2021, to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power.”

Rhodes had been identified as “Person one,” an unindicted co-conspirator in an earlier Oath Keeper indictment. Four of the 17 counts were common to all 11 defendents, including the charge of seditious conspiracy, as well as the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, previously brought against Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters and others. They were also charged with Obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and with conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties.

While commentators noted that previous seditious conspiracy trials of white supremacists have not resulted in convictions, none of those cases were comparable in scope. Meanwhile, the second conspiracy charge and other offenses have been charged against other January 6 insurgents, including some who’ve struck plea deals.

Random Letters: 1-20-22

RLn
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Random Letters: 1-20-22

Toberman Shake-up

(Online at www.randomlengthsnews.com)

Thanks to Random Lengths News for getting this hot news item out so early.

Our community holds a vital and urgent need to know about the Toberman Center’s hiring of a gang intervention director with a history of racist acts and speech.

Former Beverly Hills Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli’s past racist behavior was outlined in scores of allegations contained in the 24 lawsuits that cost that city $8 million.

It’s truly an insult to the community, and especially to the young people, to hire a white racist cop for a gang prevention post.

It’s an insult to minority youth who already know how to spy a racist; just how effective can she be with that particular subset of our community? As I understand things, minority kids don’t exactly love racist cops, especially the white ones.

It’s an insult to the donor community to hire somebody with such a long list of liabilities — amounting to $8 million. I know that there’s insurance for that sort of thing, but do donors to Toberman really want to see the institution spend more on insurance? Is that in the donor community’s best interest?

Finally, about rumors, Ms. Kiyan…

Rumors did not get her fired. Rumors did not cause the City of Beverly Hills to cough up $8 million in settlements.

The multitude of allegations of her racist behavior toward a multitude of different ethnicities and religious groups contained in 24 lawsuits weren’t rumors. They are a matter of public record, not water cooler scuttlebutt.

I will say this, though. Rumor has it Toberman will find a less contentious post for Ms. Spagnoli’s second, or is it 25th, chance.

Ryan Gierach, Retired Editor/ Publisher [WeHo News], San Pedro

Re: Striking Local Bakery Workers

(Online at www.randomlengthsnews.com)

In regard to the subject line referenced article, after reading the text of the piece at your website, I’d bet the rent money that Mr. Friedman has never — himself — set up and run a business enterprise of any type. However, he shouldn’t consider himself “alone” in this respect as the same can be said of Janice Hahn, Maria Elena Durazo, Bernie Sanders, Kevin DeLeon, Joe Biden, Eric Garcetti and approximately 92% of the California Legislature. By the way, Rich Corporation pays 90% of the medical benefits for these rank-and-file workers. Any idea of what that costs?

As for Cristina Lujan the question(s) I’d asked: Why didn’t she quit her factory job and seek out higher wages elsewhere? After 19 years? Come on, I’d seek out a better paying job after a year or two!

Alas, two things come to mind 1) The type of people who do that have hit their employable capability ceiling, either by way of functional illiteracy or very simply, because the factory is close to her home and she hasn’t the drive within her, to venture outside her comfort zone and or get some training with which to earn a higher income. Teenagers do that, not heads of household. This too, is blatantly obvious.

Further, not one of these type(s) of factory positions was nor were, ever intended to supply a family of 6 or 8 with lifetime salary and benefits, to include college for the kids! There is no free lunch.

And you and your local readers had best get it through your collective heads, that government “officials” who back this type of labor action — again — have never themselves, set up and run a business enterprise of any type — they’re after these peoples’ vote(s), period!

The only reason the ILWU is still empowered in the port area is because the bay and the port itself is non-transferable by its very nature and thereby, cannot be relocated. This is a fiscal fact, just ask Elon Musk who decided against bringing his Falcon 10 assembly ops to the east side of the main channel.

Lastly, when the Rich Products Corporation decides it has had all the fun it can stand in California and with Los Angeles County in particular, they’ll pack it up, and move out of state, just like 10,000 other businesses have since 2009. The “officials” backing this strike will suffer no consequences, and when that move happens — and it will if taxation and the cost of operations continue to climb — the wages of the rank-and-file, regardless of their complexion, will be zero, no matter what union organizers, these nincompoop “officials” or anybody else says.

Paul C. Christian, San Pedro

…

Dear Mr. Christian,

For far too long large corporations have taken advantage of minorities and women of color working in production jobs. It is easy for you to tell them that they should just move on to a better job somewhere else or go back to school to get an education, but that however is beyond the reality of most workers raising a family on low wages. What is within their ability is to organize a union and negotiate a better wage contract. And contrary to your belief about Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies packing up and leaving the 5th largest economy in the world, you might want to consider exactly why all of these other Fortune 500 companies are sticking with California. Sure you can move your business to a right-to-work state like Texas and have the entire power grid frozen by a winter storm or your operations flooded by the next hurricane, but California has the weather, the market and the location among other things like the best public universities.

The issue is the economy is doing just fine here but only if you are not in the lower working class making less than $32,793 a year. According to the LA Almanac a family of four needs to make $65,587 to $196,760 just to be in the dwindling middle class.

James Preston Allen,Publisher

Capital Insurrection(RLn, Jan. 6, 2022)

In reviewing our unfortunate Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection I have needed to prioritize my activities and attitudes.

Despite the flaws in our former slave state that clings to capitalism and greed as if to a last dying breath, I do not want to lose the elements of fair elections such as one person one vote and truthful leaders. From now until election day in November, I will work for the election of reasonable, hard working politicians.

I will not allow the rabble, who are too fixed on fear and grievance politics to make a shambles of this nation. The John Lewis Freedom to Vote Act is essential to our democracy! The fecal remnant of slavery, the filibuster must go as well.

Robin Doyno, Mar Vista

From Dark to Light

If the U.S. returns to a pattern of greater competency and responsibility in Statesmanship, its soft power and prestige will probably once again prove resilient. Although, if the U.S. chooses a course of narrow economic nationalism and gratuitous provocation of its closest allies, then the balance of possibilities may well tip in favor of the darker scenario.

The quality of U.S. global leadership is above all, the caliber of the President. We can remember how the Covid spread here in the U.S. and the contradictory edicts that followed with unproven medicine and conspiracies that were without any science. We know China was hiding the true nature of the Covid pandemic, although we were shocked when the Donald Trump administration was praising Beijing for doing a good job.

To bring about the positive future in America, it will require good leadership as well as our country to sacrifice narrow self-interest for pursuing a larger global good for the country and the world.

What was lacking in the past presidency is a reminder of just how dramatically U.S. performance will have to change to tip the balance from a dark future to a brighter one.

John Winkler, San Pedro

Beyond Vietnam

James Preston Allen
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Beyond Vietnam

A prophetic speech still rings true

This speech by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was delivered April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church, New York City exactly one year before he was assassinated. It is as powerful and relevant today as it was then. It is perhaps as much of a threat to the American power structure today as it was then. And it just may, in retrospect, be one of the reasons he was murdered. The following excerpts remain as true today as they were then and always make me wonder what our nation would look like if he, JFK and RFK had not all been killed?

— James Preston Allen, Publisher

By Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin… the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice, which produces beggars, needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes-hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

  • • •

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message — of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

COVID Politics

Paul Rosenberg
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COVID Politics

On Dec. 4, Orange County’s Deputy District Attorney, Kelly Ernby ― a former and prospective state assembly candidate ― was one of four speakers at a rally against vaccine mandates at Irvine City Hall.

“I think it’s the hill to die on,” another speaker said about “fighting for the freedom to choose to get vaccinated,” according to the Cal State Fullerton Daily Titan.

And that’s just what Ernby did. On Jan. 2 — unvaccinated — she died from COVID-19 complications.

One death is a tragedy. But Ernby is hardly alone. Another O.C. Republican state assembly candidate, Benjamin Yu, also unvaccinated, was in intensive care a week later, but managed to survive. And they’re typical of millions more. Republicans increasingly dominate the ranks of the unvaccinated. And the unvaccinated increasingly dominate the ranks of those COVID deaths, with misinformation and disinformation playing a major role, feeding on and amplifying social distrust.

If Democrats were a county unto themselves, they’d be well-protected, with a 91% vaccination rate, compared to 60% for Republicans as of December. Individual level data isn’t available to measure cases or deaths by party, but Charles Gaba at ACASignups.net has been tracking county-level rates against votes for Donald Trump since February 2021. The correlation for deaths was weak at first, but in April it began growing quickly for two and a half months, then more gradually ever since. On Jan. 10, he posted his final delta wave graphs, spanning June 15 to Dec. 15, 2021. “For that period of time, new COVID-19 case rates ran 2.46x higher in the reddest tenth of the U.S. than the bluest tenth” he wrote, “while COVID-19 death rates ran 5.77x higher.”

But that’s surely an under-estimate, according to a December USA Today investigation into excess deaths nationwide. COVID deaths have been undercounted by almost 200,000, they reported, and the practices responsible for the undercount are “especially pronounced in rural areas of the South and Western USA, areas that heavily voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.”

Denmark’s Example

America’s situation stands in stark contrast to Denmark, where all political parties have aligned around truthful communications, keeping COVID death rates below one quarter of America’s. This, combined with Gaba’s data, suggests that Blue America’s death rate is roughly similar to Denmark’s — at least where Democrats are more protected from infection via Republican neighbors.

A report last September found that “citizens’ high and stable trust in their health authorities has been a crucial factor in Denmark’s success,” two researchers wrote in the Washington Post. And despite the dramatic increase in Omicron’s transmissibility, “Denmark is still in a good place when it comes to public support,” the senior researcher, Michael Bang Peterson, told Random Lengths. “There has been a very high willingness to get booster vaccines for example,” he said.

Denmark isn’t perfect, but it provides a sobering baseline for comparison, showing us what a sane social response would look like. Virtually all the rationales for unhelpful behavior apply to Danes as much as Americans, but without the polarized political environment and amped-up social distrust they have managed to preserve social cohesion, a shared sense of reality, and dramatically more lives.

Denmark began with a strong perception of political unity, which was shaken only twice, Peterson reported in September: In November 2020, over the decision to cull all mink, and in February 2021, when the rightwing opposition strongly disagreed with the government’s reopening roadmap. Both times extensive negotiations lead to a common understanding among the parties and feelings of polarization among citizens waned.

The Omicron surge has brought about a slight decline of trust, but, “The only reason why I’m noticing the decline in trust with regards to the health authorities is that it has been so incredibly stable over the entire period,” Peterson said. Omicron “created a difficult situation for the health authorities because in a way they were back at square one in terms of dealing with uncertainty,” but “it’s more difficult to keep up the argument that this is a new virus and we don’t know what will actually happen at this point than in March 2020,” he said.

In addition, communication “particularly from politicians” blurred the initial understanding that vaccines were approved to prevent severe illness and “moved towards vaccines also being a good measure against the spread of infections.” Then, due to the timing of initial vaccinations, “You had waning immunity and you had Omicron hitting at the same time and that hurt trust in the vaccines,” he said.

But again, this was only a modest decline — from around 80% trust to 72%, still much higher than in the U.S. After nearly two years of pandemic, people are naturally exhausted, and they’ve taken different approaches to coping — those who are more cautious versus those more impatient to ‘return to normal.’ As opposed to the past two times, “The sense of unity is not so much challenged from what happens from the top down, but more what happens from the bottom up,” Peterson said. “It’s presumably more the debates you have with other fellow citizens.”

These findings were released in early January, and perhaps in response, The Danish health authorities just released a campaign this week about unity, encouraging people to sort of respect the opinions of others when it comes to COVID.

Disinformation: America’s Other Epidemic

So Fox News hosts are protected from dying from the lies they spread. But society as a whole isn’t. They both create an alternative reality where nonsense rules, and distort the shared reality where policies are made.

Denmark’s COVID chronicles could be America’s too, if it weren’t for Republicans and their media ecosystem which don’t just promote antagonistic opinions, but dangerously false disinformation. The kind that can get you killed, just like Kelly Ernby.

A November poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 78% of the public either believes or is unsure about at least one false statement about COVID and vaccines from a list of eight included in their survey. These include classic conspiracist claims — that the vaccine contains a microchip, that the government is intentionally exaggerating the number of COVID deaths, while hiding deaths from the vaccine — as well as that the vaccine has been shown to cause infertility or is dangerous for pregnant women, that you can get COVID from the vaccine, or that it alters your DNA, or that ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for COVID. All these are completely false.

But there were sharp differences in who believes these and how much. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of unvaccinated adults and nearly half of Republicans (46%) believe or are unsure about at least half of the eight false statements, compared to just 19% of the vaccinated and 14% of Democrats.

Similar figures apply to trusted news sources. Nearly four in 10 of those who trust Fox News (36%) and One America News (37%) believe or are unsure about half the eight false statements, as do almost half (46%) of those who trust Newsmax, as opposed to less than one in six (between 11% and 16%) who trust information from CNN, MSNBC, network news, NPR and local television news.

It should be noted that Fox News has had strict COVID safety protocols, directly contrary to the propaganda most of its on-air hosts spout.

At first, as CNN reported on March 12, 2020, while Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity were calling COVID concerns “mass hysteria,” at the same time that the parent corporation had “restricted all non-essential travel.” Fast forward to July 20, 2021, and CNN reported that Fox had “quietly implemented its own version of a vaccine passport while its top personalities attack them.” And last month, the New York Times reported that Fox had tightened its vaccine rule, “removing a test-out option for N.Y.C. office workers.”

So Fox News hosts are protected from dying from the lies they spread. But society as a whole isn’t. They both create an alternative reality where nonsense rules, and distort the shared reality where policies are made. That alternative reality on the ground is what got Kelly Ernby killed, and put Benjamin Yu in the ICU. It also fueled the radicalization of indicted insurrectionist Alan Hostetter, described in our last issue, who spoke alongside other OC Republicans.

Disinformation In The Supreme Court

But that alternative also enveloped the Supreme Court, when it heard oral arguments challenging the proposed OSHA regulation requiring either vaccination or test and masking at all companies with 100 employees or more. The court itself has its own mandatory workplace protections, which is why two of the attorneys challenging the regulation had to testify remotely: they both had COVID. But letting OSHA do its job and protect ordinary American workers was just too much for the conservative majority to allow.

Along with their own pet peeves — the law was 50 years old, Chief Justice John Roberts complained, “I don’t think it had COVID in mind” — there were echos of Fox News disinformation, with Justice Neil Gorsuch (who refused to wear a mask) repeatedly invoking the false comparison to the flu (less than 1/10th as deadly) and Justice Samuel Alito raising the specter of vaccine risk, echoing Tucker Carlson’s false claim that almost 4,000 people had died from the vaccine, though “The actual number is almost certainly higher than that, perhaps vastly higher than that,” he lied.

Alito knew he was sounding like a crazy uncle, “I’m sure I will be misunderstood,” he said, while insisting that vaccine risk was somehow uniquely troubling. Back on planet Earth, Justice Elena Kagan observed that “regulators think of risk/risk tradeoffs constantly.” In the end, six conservative justices struck down the regulation, which would have saved over 6,500 lives and prevented 250,000 hospitalizations in the next six months, according to OSHA’s projections. That’s 6,500 workers and their loved ones dead because rightwing nonsense rules in the Supreme Court.

Students Fight Back

But there’s also a broader distortion of policy making across the board, which has made commonsense concerns controversial — such as saving students’ lives. Throughout the pandemic, teachers have been attacked for standing up for school safety. They’ve been portrayed as only thinking of themselves, even though students were always capable of transmitting COVID to each other and thus their families, and have been increasingly likely to get sick themselves as the virus evolves.

With Omicron, a breaking point seems to have been reached. Most dramatically, in New York City, thousands of students from more than 20 schools walked out of class on Jan. 11, demanding an online schooling option and greater COVID protections. A viral video showed hundreds of students streaming out of Brooklyn Technical High School, a prestigious public high school that’s the largest in the nation. It was followed three days later by walkouts in Boston and Chicago as well, with more due this week. But the walkouts are just the tip of the iceberg, an outgrowth of widespread online organizing generating petitions demanding protective changes.

As with gun violence and climate change previously, students are responding to a complete failure of adult leadership. And Denmark is a reminder that they’re absolutely right: it doesn’t have to be this way. The world could look completely different. Another world is possible.

Ports Briefs: POLA State of the Port and POLB Sets TEU Record

Reporters Desk
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POLA Breaks Cargo Record in 2021, Sets Priorities for 2022

SAN PEDRO — Breaking its previous calendar year record by 13%, the Port of Los Angeles processed about 10.7 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent units or TEUs during 2021. The milestone, a Western Hemisphere record, was announced by port executive director Gene Seroka in his address at the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association’s seventh annual “State of the Port” event, held virtually this year.

Recapping the year, Seroka reiterated the importance of industry coming together to address challenges of the global supply chain, and highlighted the port’s unprecedented engagement with stakeholders at all levels of industry and government to find solutions, including the Biden-Harris Administration and the California Gov. Gavin Newsom administration. Seroka applauded the renewed attention and government investments being made in ports nationwide, including the $17 billion earmarked in the recently passed national Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the $2.3 billion Newsom has earmarked in his California state budget for the upcoming year.

Looking ahead, Seroka outlined key Port initiatives and priorities on tap for 2022 and beyond, including: Supply Chain Efficiency; Workforce Development and Job Creation; Cybersecurity; Environment.

 

POLB Sets Annual Record With 9.38 Million TEUs

LONG BEACH —The Port of Long Beach set a new record in 2021 by moving 9.38 million cargo containers as dockworkers and terminal operators worked to clear the docks amid an historic, pandemic-induced import surge.

The Port ended 2021 with 9,384,368 twenty-foot equivalent units processed, a 15.7% increase from the previous record of more than 8.11 million TEUs moved in 2020. Imports jumped 14.6% to 4,581,846 TEUs and exports declined 2.6% to 1,437,916 TEUs compared to last year. Empty containers moving through the Port were up 27.5% to 3,364,606 TEUs.

The significant increase in cargo was driven by evolving consumer spending habits during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for vacations, dining out and entertainment declined due to health precautions and pivoted toward home office supplies, furniture and exercise equipment.

The Port of Long Beach had 980 container vessel calls in 2021, down from 1,042 a year earlier due to the elimination of “dual calls” for some shipping services that moved up and down the West Coast.

Trade was down 7.5% in December compared to the same period in 2020 with 754,314 cargo container units moved. Imports declined 11.7% to 358,687 TEUs. Exports dropped 13.9% to 113,918 TEUs, while empty containers climbed 1.5% to 281,709 TEUs.

 

On the Pandemic: ‘Ask Dr. Mom’ How Far Have We Come?

Melina Paris
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On the Pandemic: ‘Ask Dr. Mom’ How Far Have We Come? 

January 2021, almost one year into the global pandemic, Random Lengths News spoke to Dr. Jessica Kiss of Palos Verdes Medical Group about the state of Los Angeles County’s health. Hospitals were operating at dangerously close to full capacity while frontline healthcare workers were triaging what seemed like an endless line of COVID-19 patients fighting for their lives. Patients who needed medical care for anything other than COVID-19 often had to be turned away. [As of Jan. 17, 4,564 people with COVID-19 are currently hospitalized in Los Angeles County].

If that sounds familiar, that’s because we’re reliving it. It was a grim existence. Yet, as the pandemic persists, some parts of the United States and California in particular gained greater control over COVID-19. This was possible through treatments and ongoing research in medicine and science, including vaccine trials. But we also reached this point because people have become educated, armed and remain committed to the rituals of maintaining their health and that of those around them via COVID-19 vaccinations, testing, social distancing, masking and hand washing.

In December, Dr. Nava Yeganeh, MD, MPH medical epidemiologist with the Acute Communicable Disease Control Program, Department of Health, framed how far we had come since one year earlier.

Over the past year, we are so fortunate to have gained access to an incredibly safe and effective vaccine in protecting our children from serious short and long-term complications from COVID-19.

Furthermore, these vaccines have allowed the children in our community to return to a more interactive and joyful life, from attending in person school to participating in social events, sport teams and extracurricular activities important for their development and growth. In Los Angeles County specifically, we have administered over 590,000 doses given to 12-17 year olds, meaning that over 78% of our teens have had 1 dose of vaccine. We also have vaccinated 16% or 146,000 of the 5-11 year olds. These vaccines have been our most powerful tool in reducing the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19.

We strongly encourage that everyone 5 years and older gets fully vaccinated or receives their booster dose as quickly as possible to reduce transmission of the virus.

Now, amid the highly transmissible Omicron variant, cases are again soaring. As recent history shows us, we have learned collectively how to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, here we are. RLN revisited Dr. Kiss initially to discuss the progress we’ve made. The doctor also spoke further in light of the current surge that Los Angeles is gripped in.

Endemic versus Pandemic

The doctor said COVID-19 will unequivocally become endemic, meaning it’s natural to, native to, confined to, or widespread within a place or population of people.

“We’re not there yet because of the consumption of resources associated with it still,” Dr. Kiss said. “We’re at a point where all the hospitals are just getting pummeled.”

She explained COVID-19 can’t become endemic until we’re past the point of medical staff getting killed or getting sick from COVID-19 themselves. Also, part of reaching the point of endemic will be the increased availability of antiviral drugs like Paxlovid and Xofluza which you take upon onset of the flu.

“We will get there with COVID-19 when we have enough of those resources, which we just don’t yet,’’ Dr. Kiss said.

Mother and Doctor

Dr. Kiss is a mother of four who specializes in family medicine. Through her Instagram account at askdr.mom, Dr. Kiss brings medical facts helping people make educated health choices with no judgment. She shared a critical development in the fight against COVID-19 with RLn. The doctor discusses enrolling her four children in vaccine trials in order to help facilitate the research necessary to immunize all children, ages 5 to 12, and the importance of it.

Vaccine Hesitancy

There are still discrepancies in the number of vaccinations received, now with children too, in Black and Brown communities. When it comes to vaccine hesitancy, in general, Dr. Kiss addresses the conversation head on.

“When people historically judge others for their beliefs whether they are misplaced or otherwise, we don’t have a conversation about what the concern is,” she said. “… We all want the same things for each other. We want happiness and health. When I come at it from that standpoint of, ‘let me hear what your concerns are so we can talk about them together,’ instead of saying ‘what you’re saying is not valid,’ we are open to conversation at that point. That’s the start of it.”

Dr. Kiss acknowledged that there are many deep-seeded cultural concerns there too. Medicine as a profession has not done a good job of taking care of minority patients. They have reason to distrust the medical community. We have not earned their trust, she said, because we haven’t taken care of them very well.

“I understand where it’s coming from,” she said. “When you look, particularly in the Black community, this is seeded all the way back to the Tuskegee [syphilis study] treatment during syphilis research. The mistrust is very real. I find the first thing is addressing the elephant in the room and meeting people where they are ready to hear things is the most appropriate thing and not judging them for not being ready.”

Dr. Kiss said her goal is for patients to feel empowered that they have accurate information to make the best choice for their families. To do this she provides medically accurate resources, which include places that patients can research which are safe — rather than just googling, listening to what the neighbor said, or what they read on social media about it.

Cost of COVID-19 Deniers

COVID deniers are a hard group for Dr. Kiss — the people who she describes as engaging in willful ignorance.

“It’s what you would call fixed delusion [being certain of a fixed, false belief and not persuaded by any arguments to the contrary] in mental health,” Dr. Kiss said. “I know some very intelligent people who are still convinced to this day there is a microchip in the vaccine which has been widely debunked. These are very well-educated people holding these beliefs and it is doing damage for so many reasons because many times these people come off as authority and they are very compelling and convincing.”

The cost is that we are still in this pandemic, the doctor said, because people put out false information willingly, only to deter people from something that they don’t want to understand.

“It is truly the reason we are still in a pandemic phase of this illness,” she said.

Progress Report on LA County

Dr. Kiss said the speed at which Los Angeles County responded to vaccination really is a testament to how it has performed better than other areas.

As of the week of Jan. 2 in LA County, 80.1% of residents have received at least one dose and 71.6% of residents are fully vaccinated — or about 6, 965,589 people. As of Jan. 14, Public Health reported 27,942 people have died of COVID-19 in LA County.

“Did we have a resurgence over the summer?” she asked rhetorically. “You bet we did. But the vast majority of those hospitalized and who died were unvaccinated and unfortunately, the reality is the remainder of those who passed or had severe illness had secondary illness. They were immunocompromised, they were weak because they were elderly or very young.”

It wasn’t uncommon to see 30 year-olds in the hospital with no other illness and their only risk factor was being unvaccinated, the doctor recalled. The fact that LA County pushed to do the right thing, in vaccinating she said, really paid off in spades.

“The continued masking has paid off not just for COVID-19 but for other illnesses,” the doctor said. “Our other illnesses were down when people masked consistently. And holding people accountable for how their health matters to other people around them has really put us in a better position this winter. We are not in a good position but we are in a better position for sure.”

Further, Doctor Kiss noted that the LA County Department of Health “really got out there.”

“I had the privilege in February to volunteer as a physician at The Forum vaccination site,” Dr. Kiss said. “We vaccinated 2,000 people that day — 2,000 in one day. I walked almost 20 miles pacing between cars. LA county was a well oiled machine when it comes to the Department of Health providing vaccination.”

Virulence and Information

The doctor said with the Omicron variant, even if it turns out that it’s going to evade vaccination, getting vaccinated is still key.

“The reason is, the more people we get vaccinated, we reduce the spread in general of this virus, which reduces the ability of it to mutate over and over again and make these super variants. At this moment we know that it spreads more quickly between people because of these mutations.”

In December the doctor noted we didn’t know if it’s more virulent — causing more severe illness, but early evidence out of South Africa showed that may not be the case. But she’s certain that things that have worked consistently for us are mask use, hand washing, getting COVID-19 tests when you have any symptoms and staying home and away from people who are sick.

“Talk to other people around you and find out where they’ve been, what they’re doing. Having that conversation is going to empower everybody to remain healthy,” Dr. Kiss said.

On the Omicron Variant

“Bananas, there’s no better word for it,” Dr. Kiss said. “We know that the longer it takes for people to get vaccinated, the more this virus replicates, the more opportunities for these types of things to happen. This will not be the last variant. This hopefully will be the last variant for the moment that is like this, and give us a chance to breathe and regroup. We don’t want people going out there, deliberately getting [COVID] because still, long haul COVID is real. We don’t know those consequences. We don’t want our kids to live those consequences, 30-40 years from now. We don’t know what they are.”

The doctor is hopeful. She said it looks like Omicron will peak in the next several weeks and that we have a grace period at least in the spring but nothing is certain — we don’t know if there’s another variant. That’s what was happening with Delta, she noted, “Then Omicron came in and just took us all back out,” she said.

Details: www.instagram.com/askdr.mom and www.VaccinateLACounty.com

Shake-up at Toberman

Terelle Jerricks
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Shake-up at Toberman

Toberman Neighborhood Center, Executive Director Darlene Kiyan tendered her resignation three business days after a Jan. 7 press conference in which civic leaders and civil rights activists blasted the hiring of a controversial former police chief from Beverly Hills.

Civil rights activist, Najee Ali, called for the cutting of Toberman’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program if former Beverly Hills police chief, Sandra Spagnoli, didn’t resign.

In a farewell message sent on Jan. 12, Kiyan said she was leaving the century old nonprofit for a position at a larger agency. Her last day was Jan. 14. Spagnoli turned in her resignation around the time as Kiyan’s announcement.

In her farewell message, Kiyan discussed the values with which her parents reared her while working multiple jobs and noted how losing a family to gang violence influenced her work with young people.

Kiyan also highlighted Toberman’s success despite the pandemic, saying:

“Over the last 4 years we have worked to increase the programs and respond to the pandemic so that not only would families survive but thrive.”

Kiyan said she announced her resignation to Toberman’s board of directors last month.

The departing executive director made no mention of Spagnoli, nor the fallout once the community became aware of the hiring.

In an interview with Random Lengths News, Toberman executive director Darlene Kiyan confirmed that Spagnoli had been hired and that Jan. 5 was Spagnoli’s third day on the job. Kiyan also explained that Spagnoli was to oversee Toberman’s gang intervention program.

After the press conference, there was a Jan. 10 meeting between Toberman and community members concerned about Spagnoli.

According to sources who attended the meeting, Toberman representatives said they would hire more African American gang intervention workers in response to the critique made by Volunteers of America’s lead Gang Reduction and Youth Development case manager, LaNaisha Edwards, at the Jan. 7 press conference. Toberman officials did not confirmed this information after repeated phone calls on the matter.

Civic leaders at the Jan. 7 press conference questioned the decision to hire Spagnoli in the first place given the cloud of allegations she was under, and more importantly, questioned why it was thought having a former police chief run a gang intervention program would be effective.

Spagnoli retired in May 2020 following more than two dozen claims of discrimination, retaliation and harassment filed against herself and the city of Beverly Hills. The city settled the cases rather than fight them in court.

In a 2018 interview with the LA Times, Spagnoli denied allegations of improper relationships with subordinates but stopped short of denying the allegations about the racist remarks.

At the Jan. 7 press conference, lead case manager at the Volunteers of America GRYD program, LaNaisha Edwards, called out Toberman’s tone deafness in Spagnoli’s hiring and the gang intervention program’s general neglect of communities outside of San Pedro.

“We keep asking why we don’t have African American representation in gang intervention workers to work with youth in our community,” Edwards said. “And we still don’t have it. Now we have an issue with your hiring somebody with all of the racial tension we’ve been having over these years to work with our youth.”

Questions arose because of the lack of an official announcement for such a controversial hire. In an interview with Random Lengths, Toberman executive director Darlene Kiyan confirmed that Spagnoli had been hired and that Jan. 5 was just her third day on the job. Kiyan also explained that Spagnoli will be overseeing the gang intervention program at Toberman.

When asked about the title given to Spagnoli, Kiyan said that while the name is new, the position is not. But didn’t offer an explanation for how the new title related to the work of gang intervention or gang prevention. She said the last person to hold the position was Audrey Jackson. Kiyan did not provide further explanation and Random Length’s research did not turn up a connection between the individual and Toberman before press time.

Spagnoli was the first female police chief in Beverly Hills history. She served on the board of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and had previously led the San Leandro and Benicia police departments in Northern California.

Spagnoli joined the Beverly Hills police department during a moment when the previous chief, David Snowden retired following questions that he was drawing a second salary from a private-sector job.

The troubles of the once trailblazing chief began in 2018 when the city of Beverly Hills was forced to defend a couple dozen lawsuits, accusing Spagnoli of making racist comments, retaliating against officers, and showing favoritism toward subordinates with whom she had sexual liaisons. The city hired a crisis public relations specialist to deal with the fallout as the lawsuits piled up.

Among the lawsuits that were settled was a claim made by a former police captain, Mark Rosen, who was the highest-ranking Jewish member of the department who had accused Spagnoli of denying him promotional opportunities based on his religion and making anti-Semitic remarks. The city settled the suit for $2.3 million.

According to contemporaneous reporting on her retirement, Spagnoli had once referred to the yarmulkes worn by observant Jews as “funny little hats” and asked if she had to “dress Mexican” when invited to dinner at a Latino employee’s home and reacted with revulsion when informed that an employee was gay.

A Woodland Hills attorney, Brad Gage, represented most of the officers who brought claims of discrimination, retaliation and harassment by Spagnoli against the city.

One complaint references prior allegations of Spagnoli of having sex with a subordinate in exchange during her tenure in San Leandro to establish a pattern for a similar accusation while she was at Beverly Hills Police Department.

In 2019, a jury awarded more than $1 million in damages to a group of lieutenants who had accused Spagnoli of workplace harassment and retaliation for giving depositions that were favorable to Rosen’s lawsuit. The amount was later lowered to $850,000 by a judge, but Gage reportedly said he also recovered more than $3 million in attorney’s fees and court costs in that case.

In all, the lawsuits Gage’s clients brought against Spagnoli cost the city about $8 million.

In a 2018 interview with The Times, Spagnoli denied the allegations of improper sexual relationships but stopped short of denying the allegations about racist remarks. Less than 24 hours after the interview, the city settled Rosen’s lawsuit.

Spagnoli oversaw gang intervention, gang prevention, diversion program, re-entry program as well as drug prevention programs with teeth,”Kiyan said on Jan. 5.

Kiyan defended Spagnoli, saying that the references of all the candidates considered were checked and that the hiring was under the prerogative of the operation side of Toberman rather than Toberman’s board of directors.

Kiyan took a more defensive posture in defending Toberman’s new hire.

“Rumors start and rumors go forward because people don’t understand,” Kiyan said to Random Lengths . “One of the things I was told when I was hired at Toberman is that Toberman is a place for people to get a second chance.”

While a city choosing to settle a lawsuit is not necessarily a indication of guilt or innocence of allegations, Beverly Hills Police Department has been fending off allegations that their taskforces dubbed Operation Safe Streets and the Rodeo Drive Taskforce were practicing racial profiling.

This past September, the city of Beverly Hills was sued by a black couple alleging that

“Over the last 4 years we have worked to increase the programs and respond to the pandemic so that not only would families survive but thrive.”

their arrest was part of a campaign to arrest black people for trivial reasons and at disproportionate rates. The couple has retained the services of Gage and civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump in their suit against the city.

Kiyan said she had done extensive investigations and talked to a lot of people with first-hand knowledge of Spagnoli’s troubles and said she was confident that the allegations were not founded.

Kiyan likened Spagnoli’s hiring to the hiring of former gang members working in gang intervention and prevention.

“I’m hoping you won’t continue these rumors and making a negative of somebody that has really great experience and should be given a chance,” Kiyan said. “I’m really disappointed that this has happened when we have people who are former gang members who were given a chance to be successful.”

Now Toberman’s board is tasked with finding a new executive director.

Update:
Toberman Neighborhood Center just announced that Lorenzo Hernandez has been named acting Executive Director of Toberman Neighborhood Center, effective January 10, 2022.

According to a released statement, Toberman’s board of directors formed a search committee to find a new permanent Executive Director. The position description is posted on www.toberman.org/careers.

Rats Infest Houses, Residents Blame SPHS Construction

Hunter Chase
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Rats Infest Houses, Residents Blame SPHS Construction

Two households across the street from San Pedro High School are infested with rats, and their residents say they came from construction at SPHS.

Shannon Black said she has only seen one mouse in the 20 years she has lived in the house across the street from campus. But from the end of September 2021 to December 2021, she caught and killed nearly three dozen rats.

“It’s gotten to the point where they breed faster than you can keep up with them,” Black said. “They’re not going for any more of the traps.”

Black said that the school cut down lots of large trees during construction. The school is currently working on a $178 million comprehensive modernization project. The rats lived in these trees, and went into the surrounding neighborhood after they were gone.

In May 2021, Los Angeles Unified School District representatives said the construction project would remove 112 trees on the campus, but replace them with 148 new trees.

“When they cut those trees down, that’s when the problem started,” Black said. “Then about three weeks after that, they did demolition and tore down the school.”

Black contacted LAUSD, and shared several pictures, including her destroyed stove, couch and heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC.

“They have nests on my HVAC and under my HVAC,” Black said. “They’ve chewed through the wires, the ducting’s been fixed twice and they just keep ripping it.”

Black said LAUSD representatives told her they set traps at the school, but did not catch anything.

“I’m like, set them across the street at the houses,” Black said. “Why are you setting the traps at school? …. There’s nothing left.”

Black said that major construction like this makes rodents move.

“She’s trying to blow it off like they’re not responsible,” Black said.

Shannon Black holds up a sofa cushion, which has been chewed up by rats. Photo by Chris Villanueva

Black rents the house, and the owner had grown tired of waiting for the school district to act, so she called pest control to the house.

“Pest control says they have tunnels underground,” Black said. “That’s how they’re getting in. And they’re going to fill the ground with poison, and it’s going to take over three months. [The owner] said if the school district doesn’t step up, she’s going to sue.”

Black has tried putting covers on vents, and sealing holes with foam, but has had little success.

“They decided they wanted to dig a hole on the side of the house to get up underneath the house,” Black said. “So, I filled that with sand. Well, they dug the sand out. So, then I filled it with concrete.”

Black said that pest control told her the only way to stop this is to drill holes around her house and put poison inside the ground — which will take months.

“Every day I get up, every night I come home, I have to sweep up the turds,” Black said.

She can no longer use her stove, as the rats have been climbing into the insulation.

“I turned on my oven the other day and it smelled like I was baking urine,” Black said.

Homeowner Annette Mcdonald Trani said that she has had a problem with rats since October 2021. She will need to have her house tented to exterminate them.

“Thank God my husband’s retired and has some money,” Mcdonald Trani said. “But we’re going to have to put that on a credit card.”

Mcdonald Trani has seen the rats in her home, both dead and alive.

“I’ve seen droppings,” Mcdonald Trani said. “And I’m ready to crawl out of my skin.”

The reason Mcdonald Trani does not have an infestation as bad as Black’s is because of her cat and dogs, which chase them. Black has one dog.

“My cat got sick from eating a rat,” Mcdonald Trani said. “My two dogs had eye infections because of it. They’re dirty, they carry a lot of diseases.”

Her pets are not able to keep up with the amount of rodents.

“We’re not talking about five rodents,” Mcdonald Trani said. “We’re talking about 20, 30, 40 rats living underneath our house. How’s he going to catch 20, 40 rats?”

Black is unsure if the rodents have caused her any health problems, but she has made an appointment with her doctor. She has HIV, late stage 3 renal failure and a heart condition.

“I do have health issues,” Black said. “And they do know that.”

Black said the rats are driving her crazy, and that she can’t keep doing this.

“How many am I supposed to kill before they get involved?” Black said.

Representatives from LAUSD did not respond in time to comment on this story.

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