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.

Informative Post

So that postcard in the mail advertising the Dec. 2 District 6 Town Hall Meeting lied. It is, in fact, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 3 in the Maranatha High School Student Center, 169 St. John Ave.

Steve Madison and recently installed City Manager Michael Beck will be representin'

"Free parking is available in the covered lot on St. John Avenue between Green Street and Del Mar Boulevard," says Ann Erdman.

Welcome to Nicetown

A long time ago there was a place called Nicetown. Not to say everything was perfect in Nicetown, but it was a very nice place to live.

There may have been some crime. Not everyone did as well as their neighbor, and the schools were shamefully bad. But it was a community, and it took some bad with its good. For there was boldness in its culture, spirit in its diversity, vitality in its struggles and vigor in its youth.

But the people who made the rules in Nicetown (Who were neither diverse, struggling nor young) dreamed of something more. Nice wasn't nice enough for them and their friends. They tried using their trusted authority as rule-writers to edit out the errors and fix the broken syntax of a community. To correct the dangling participles of its residents and eliminate any unscripted ad-libbing.

Essentially, their singular obsession: Remaking Nicetown into Supernicetown.

Unfortunately, they had long forgotten what it was to be young, or poor or human and for the most part, sexually active. So with bulldozers and sweetheart deals, minor graft and a lazy myopia, they peeled away the soul and the occasional slop and unintended rougher edges one layer at a time, like an onion. Without the crying.

Their only opposition came from flawed antiheroes and fringe voices who only served to reinforce the rulemakers righteous certitude.

And soon it was Supernice Town. A Supernice town for soulless consumption by Supernice people. Supernice town did so well, it could fly silk banners from every lamp post. It did so well, the rulemakers could spend much of the people's money not on the people -- but on making and remaking greater monuments to themselves and insuring there were no tits to be seen anywhere in town. The social complexities -- once shouted in vigorous debate -- were laminated and hung from a wall as relics of the past. Not the "Nicetown Way."

Problem was, most of the nice people who lived in Nicetown had left. Their unique businesses gave way to corporate outposts peddling bland experiences. Fewer Supernicetown residents had any notion where they were and stopped investing in its future. Things grew kinda stagnant. Social division and ignored ills of the community fueled anger and unrest. Although crime became less common, it became more vile, desperate and ugly.

And the schools? They were still shamefully awful. Despite more than a decade of leeching blood and treasure with platitudes and promises, the hangers-on so dear to the rulemakers had only improved their own futures. But the Supernice people and their friends were either too old to care or placed their children into corporate academies.

Still certain of their mission, they tried to divert attention elsewhere. If only they could unearth the sources of such unpleasantess, dig them up like earthworms and leave them to rot in the sun.

So, they crusaded against everything they could find left that some people considered Not the Nice Way. Issued hastily considered Final Solutions for the Real Ills of Supernicetown! Throw out tits! Snuff smokers! Clean out coal! Move out massages! Shutter liquor stores! Quash protest and dissent! Eliminate anguish by hosting biannual Art Nights and adding a marathon!

In the end, they got everything they wanted. A Supernicetown for themselves and their friends, as long as they stuck to certain streets at certain times of the day and tuned out the voices of dissent. A Supernice town for themselves and their friends, at least for as long as it would take them to die.

The Count '08?

During the Asian meltdown of 1998, authorities took to putting axle grease on bridge cables to deter one-way ticket climbers. Ten years later, perhaps Pasadena should consider the same:

Three police officers pulled a 52-year-old woman to safety this morning when she threatened to jump off the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, reportedly because she was experiencing financial problems, authorities said.

...

"The woman told officers she had lost her job and that her house was in foreclosure," Givens said.

Degrees of Trek

Who can America thank for ushering in humanity's new era of peace, harmony, equality and racial reconciliation as per the election of Barack Obama? Gene Roddenberry, of course.

Follow:

In 1966, Roddenberry created "Star Trek," which depicted a utopian future where black women, Commie Russians and gay Japanese-Americans could work together as equals under the enlightened authority of a womanizing white guy.


In 1997, nerd sex object Jeri Ryan was brought in to boost ratings for the foundering spin-off series Star Trek: Voyager as sexbot "Seven of Nine."


In 2003, Ryan's investment banker ex-husband, Jack Ryan, sought and won the Republican nomination to seek the seat being vacated by Republican incumbent Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.


In 2004, a judge ordered the release of custody files from the Ryans' divorce. According to those files, Jack had taken Jeri to a number of sex clubs in different cities and tried coercing her into screwing him in public for people to watch. He subsequently dropped out of the race.

Later that year, his unchallenged opponent, state senator Barack Obama, won the race handily.


In truth, the GOP did sub in carpetbagger Alan Keyes, but like I said, Obama ran unchallenged. So unchallenged he was able to begin building his brand outside of the Land of Lincoln and was featured as the DNC's keynote speaker where he overshadowed nominee John Kerry.

Hungry for Justice

Their bodies were weak. But their spirits were strong.

Dozens of Fast For Our Future hunger strikers, including Neidi Dominquez, 21, of Pasadena, today celebrated the end of an immigration rights fast that ran from Oct. 15 through Election Day. They marched from Olvera Street, where many had camped out in tents, to downtown L.A.'s Federal Building, where hundreds of immigrants face deportation.

Beginning on Oct. 15, more than 400 people of all ages, ethnic and religious backgrounds participated in one of the largest hunger strikes in America's history. Some fasted for one day. Twelve fasted on water continuously for 21 days. Neidi fasted for four days.

And while the fast is over, the fight is not.

The group still actively seeks at least 1 million people to sign their pledge for immigration reform. Neidi hopes those supporters include Pasadena City Councilmember Victor Gordo. She plans to bring the cause to his attention in the hopes that the Pasadena City Council will pass a resolution, similar to one backed by the L.A. City Council last Friday.

Obamerica

So we were like Mary and Joseph looking for a place to give birth to our electoral experience. At about 6 p.m. I along with Mother Todd and Ms. Vanity wandered around town looking for a dope place for electoral viewing. The Hilton wasn't happening yet. Madeleine's Wine Bistro was a bunch of damn geeks. It turned out to be Jack's Bar Celona that provided the coolest election hangout.









Pasadena Councilman Victor Gordo showed up. We soon ended up at the Pasadena Hilton at Adam Schiff's re-election party.







Ms. Vanity admits to some B. Hussein lust.




But the true grassroots boogy was going on in the ballroom. Many of these nerds were the ones that actually did the work to get the guy elected.























10:20 p.m. Barry just sent what I hope is his final text:

"We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack."

Very special. All these texts just because I wanted to know who his damn running mate would be.

Give me Widgets or Give me Death!

This just in!

Trying to confirm reports my second favorite Pasadena reporter and one of my favorite humans André "Andre 1000" Coleman could be an Election Day father today!