Pre-Rose Parade Photos

People and pets this afternoon staked out their curbside spots along Colorado Blvd. for the 120th annual Tournament of Roses Parade. This year's parade is smaller and smoke-free. One kitty wished he could be there.

Synchronicity

What a wonderful blogging opportunity for the just-launched, official Old Pasadena Management District blog!

PASADENA - A man who didn't provide a hand-out to a panhandler was stabbed in the hand near Colorado Boulevard and Pasadena Avenue in Old Pasadena, police said.

The attack occurred about 8 p.m. Wednesday, after the panhandler approached the victim and asked for money, Pasadena Police Department Lt. Randell Taylor said.

When the victim said he didn't have any money, the panhandler pulled out a knife and tried to stab him. The victim put his hands up to protect himself and was stabbed in the hand, Taylor said. He was treated at a hospital.

The attacker had a long beard, a military jacket and a military hat and appeared to be in his 20s or 30s, Taylor said.

No folo on that story since Thursday? I don't know whether to blame the fine minds in West Covina or the miserably understaffed satellite bureau they've made of the Star-News through the years.

The headline though ... how do we know the transient was "angry?" I know my share; psychological and emotional problems are one of the few commonalities.

But that, again, is facts interfering with a good narrative. Fear the angry homeless! Fear the angry poor! Their knives will soon be at your daughters' necks.

UPDATE: Was it a year or two years ago the Steve Mulheim last had an ulcer after a drug-deal-gone-bad shooting happened in the middle of the day and boulevard?

Pasadena: Center of the Universe

The Crown City, Pasadena has a rich history and many sources of local pride.

Like John Muir High School, which has produced esteemed alumni such as Jackie Robinson, John Van de Kamp and a football program that keeps the ranks of the Pasadena Denver Lanes well stocked with fresh initiates. My pops - who would go on to launch and head the low-temperature physics department at JPL - attended the school for some time before being kicked out.

Some might not be aware of other famous Muir graduates.

Like Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who murdered a second Kennedy's White House aspirations with three bullets at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. Sirhan squared also attended Eliot in Altadena, according to the 'pedia.

Or, even more relevantly, the Muir campus served as the proving grounds for someone many would agree has earned the sobriquet as the "Most Hated Man in America."

I'm talking about Fred Phelps, head of the Westboro Baptist Church, the brilliant mind behind that whole "God Hates Fags" thing. Phelps inspired an entire nation to hate him when, along with his family and a few like-minded believers, he began protesting funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq with signs like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Thank God for IEDs"



"They turned this nation over to fags; they're coming home in body bags"

On June 11, 1951, Time Magazine published a short profile about Phelps' early years cutting his teeth on that Old Time Religion and disseminating the finer points of Christianity as a Muir student:

Fred Phelps's talks drew crowds of up to 100. Over & over he denounced the "sins committed on campus by students and teachers . . . promiscuous petting . evil language . . . profanity . . . cheating . . . teachers' filthy jokes in classrooms . . . pandering to the lusts of the flesh." Such strictures sent Dr. Archie Turrell, principal of John Muir, and most of his faculty into a slow burn. Not only was Evangelist Phelps attacking them, they decided, but conceivably he was violating California's state education code, which forbids the teaching of religion on any public school campus.

...

Students were delighted with the story that Phelps had been ordered to consult the school psychologist, a middle-aged lady, and that he had turned the tables on her by "psychoanalyzing" her. Gloated an admiring coed: "I hope he did. They had no right to suggest that he's off his stick. Just because you're religious, it doesn't mean you have to be crazy."

Sure. But the correlation is hard to argue.

As a caveat, I asked PUSD school boarder Scott Phelps - a bundle of human empathy and Bahá'í Faith adherent - if there was any relation. So sad was I to be told there was not. It's terribly annoying when facts get in the way of a good story.

An open haiku to David Bontempo

Sole draw in Old Pas
14 years you've cut my hair
David where are you?

Seriously, I'm beginning to look like Rod Blagojevich.