Re “Film and Election Politics Cross in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ ” June 11: Unconcerned about public reaction to Michael Moore’s admittedly biased movie “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel is quoted as saying, “Voters know fact from fiction coming from Hollywood.” The question is, come November, will they know fact from fiction coming from Washington?
Rick Mittleman
Palm Desert
Regarding the bills in front of our legislators and the last line of your June 17 editorial, “A Break for Joe Consumer”: “Surely lawmakers care more about protecting consumers against major fraud than about maximizing these companies’ revenue. Surely.”
I have but one thing to say. I’ll see it; then I’ll believe it.
Eden Rosen
Burbank
R&B singer Ray J was arrested early Thanksgiving morning, according to jail records and a police spokesman.
The 44-year-old artist — whose legal name is Willie Norwood — was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, according to Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Mike Bland.
Jail records show Norwood was arrested around 4 a.m. by officers from LAPD’s Devonshire Division, which patrols parts of the San Fernando Valley including Chatsworth and Northridge.
Bland could not provide details on the incident or say exactly where Norwood was arrested. He was released on $50,000 bond a few hours after his arrest, according to jail records.
The younger brother of actress and singer Brandy, Norwood is best known for the tracks “One Wish” and “Sexy Can I.” He was sued for defamation in October by his ex-girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, over comments he made in a TMZ documentary.
Ray J is married to actor and producer Princess Love Norwood, whom he co-starred with on the reality show “Love & Hip Hop,” which showcased an often contentious relationship. The two, who share two children, are in the process of a divorce, as People reported last year.
Alarmed that two-thirds of $330 million in contributions to California ballot measures in 2006 were in amounts of $1 million or more, a political watchdog group proposed Friday to limit contributions to $100,000, to level the playing field.
The limit on contributions is one of several changes proposed by the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based nonpartisan group.
Other proposed changes include extending the period for circulating petitions to qualify initiatives from 150 days to 365.
— Patrick McGreevy
Imagine this scenario if you can: A Democratic President nominates a liberal judge to the Supreme Court. This would-be justice then admits he or she had smoked marijuana while a student in college. Then all the conservative senators stand up and say, “Gee, we have no problem with that. We’re sure it was only a youthful indiscretion.”
WILLIAM CARROLL
North Hollywood
The gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest is bigger than at any time since the 1920s — just before the Depression. According to an analysis this year by Edward Wolff of New York University, the top 20% of wealthy individuals own about 85% of the wealth, while the bottom 40% own very near 0%. Many in that bottom 40% not only have no assets, they have negative net wealth.
A gap this pronounced raises the politically divisive question of whether there is a need for wealth redistribution in the United States. This central question underlies such hot-button issues as whether the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire and whether the government should provide more assistance to the poor. But before those issues can be addressed, it’s important to understand how Americans feel about the country’s increasing economic polarity.
We recently asked a representative sample of more than 5,000 Americans (young and old, men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative) to answer two questions. They first were asked to estimate the current level of wealth inequality in the United States, and then they were asked about what they saw as an ideal level of wealth inequality.
In our survey, Americans drastically underestimated the current gap between the very rich and the poor. The typical respondent believed that the top 20% of Americans owned 60% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% owned 10%. They knew, in other words, that wealth in the United States was not distributed equally, but were unaware of just how unequal that distribution was.
When we asked respondents to tell us what their ideal distribution of wealth was, things got even more interesting: Americans wanted the top 20% to own just over 30% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% to own about 25%. They still wanted the rich to be richer than the poor, but they wanted the disparity to be much less extreme.
But was there consensus among Americans about their ideal country? Importantly, the answer was an unequivocal “yes.” While liberals and the poor favored slightly more equal distributions than conservatives and the wealthy, a large majority of every group we surveyed — from the poorest to the richest, from the most conservative to the most liberal — agreed that the current level of wealth inequality was too high and wanted a more equitable distribution of wealth. In fact, Americans reported wanting to live in a country that looks more like Sweden than the United States.
So, if Americans say they want a country that is more equal than they believe it to be, and they believe that the country is more equal than it actually is, the question becomes how we lessen these disparities. Our survey didn’t ask what measures people would be willing to support to address the wealth gap. But to achieve the ideal spelled out by those surveyed, about 50% of the total wealth in the United States would have to be taken from the top 20% and distributed to the remaining 80%.
Few people would argue for an immediate redistribution of 50% of the nation’s wealth, and such a move would unquestionably create chaos. In addition, despite the fact that individual Americans give large amounts to charitable causes each year — in effect, a way of transferring wealth from the rich to the poor — the notion of government redistribution raises hackles among many constituencies.
Despite these reservations, our results suggest that policies that increase inequality — those that favor the wealthy, say, or that place a greater burden on the poor — are unlikely to reflect the desires of Americans from across the political and economic spectrum. Rather, they seem to favor policies that involve taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
Michael I. Norton is an associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School; Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and the author of “The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home.”
Things are getting complicated. In the same week that a black man clinched the Democratic nomination for president, the current white, Republican vice president was forced to apologize for making a crack that played on the myth that poor white folks like having sex with their cousins.
It probably wouldn’t have been a big deal had Dick Cheney not singled out West Virginia, the bluest of the red states. He was talking about having Cheneys on both sides of his family and, he said, “we don’t even live in West Virginia.” As director John Waters said in 1994, talking trash about “white trash” is “the last racist thing you can say and get away with.” After all, there’s no political action committee for hillbillies. (And no, the National Rifle Assn. doesn’t count.)
It turns out that West Virginia officials did protest the vice president’s remarks. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd lamented Cheney’s evident “contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen.” But he and other politicians were clearly more offended by the targeting of their state than with the fact that Cheney was propagating the old canard that poor white Southerners were biologically tainted by inbreeding. That a generally humorless vice president would dare make such a joke in an election year shows how acceptable it really is to disparage lower-class whites from the South and beyond. But why?
Think of it this way: If a black politician made fun of poor blacks, or a Latino official made fun of poor Latinos, he’d likely be roundly denounced as a sellout. Indeed, politicians and all other upper-middle-class Latinos and blacks are generally assumed to bear a responsibility to improve the lot of the most downtrodden among them. So why do privileged white people like Cheney have greater license to distance themselves from poor whites? Aren’t they also responsible for helping to lift their brothers and sisters up the socioeconomic ladder?
The term “white trash” seems to have emerged in the 1820s in Baltimore. It was slang, used by both free and enslaved blacks, to put down the poor whites with whom they sometimes found themselves in economic competition. Middle-class and elite whites then borrowed and popularized the term for their own purposes, one of which was to solidify their racial dominance.
That process started with the ideology of black inferiority, which emerged as a justification for slavery, and the concomitant ideology of white supremacy. In pre-Civil War Southern society, the presence of poor, uneducated and uncouth whites presented something of a problem for the advocates of slavery: They were living, breathing proof that whiteness and superiority were not the same.
By the 1850s, poor whites found themselves caught in the debate over slavery. In 1854, abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe argued that “white trash” were the victims and byproducts of slavery, in which the planter class monopolized tillable soil and left poor whites struggling to survive. For their part, pro-slavery advocates retorted that the source of the white underclass was not slavery but the tainted blood that ran through these depraved people’s veins.
In other words, in order to maintain the idea of white supremacy, white elites had to de-racialize their poor — remove them from the group. They were “white” in skin color only. Just as the one-drop rule — which held that any person with any amount of African blood would be considered black — kept the white racial category “pure,” so did the creation and disowning of “inferior” whites. “The term ‘white trash’ gave a name to people who were giving ‘whiteness’ a bad name,” said Matt Wray, a Temple University sociologist and the author of “Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness.” “It meant that they were behaving in ways that didn’t suggest that they were the master race.”
By the turn of the century, eugenicists were studying poor rural whites and documenting their social dysfunctions. They eventually made the fatuous connection between Southern white poverty and “consanguinity,” or shared blood — which meant incest. The accusation stuck, and many poor whites were labeled feeble-minded and became the victims of the forced-sterilization programs that began in the 1920s.
Cheney was probably not fully aware of the whole sordid history he conjured. But his casual joke suggests not only that political correctness does not apply to all groups equally but that there are corrosive, nonracial social divisions in this nation that are easily ignored and even tolerated. For too long, we’ve spoken of social tensions almost exclusively in terms of race. Perhaps the nomination of a black man for president will let that story line fade so that we can finally focus on the ever-present, easy-to-miss issues of class.
I: Is he really saying that?
You don’t usually get congratulated on Tom Leykis’ syndicated radio show unless you’re, say, a caller describing the way you talked your unexpectedly pregnant girlfriend into having an abortion — and then dumped her. Or unless you’re a woman with a lascivious tale to share, like the law clerk who boasts about tripling her pay by engaging in masochistic sex with the partner of another firm. But on this Thursday, in the first seconds of his afternoon program, Leykis sounds so delighted he can scarcely wait for the heavy-metal bumper music to fade.
Praise be, he tells us in a stern, husky voice, for the Washington state Supreme Court, which hours before overturned the conviction of two men who secretly took pictures up women’s skirts in shopping malls. The justices regretfully concluded that the state’s anti-voyeurism law did not apply to acts in public places.
Success in talk radio requires the ability to glean insights from small events, and Leykis immediately offers this pair: First, we don’t need laws like that. Second, ladies, if you’re worried about protecting yourselves from other camera-toting creeps: “Buy some … panties and put them on, you sluts!” And we’re off and running with the commanding general in radio’s war for the male demographic. It is an angry, lurid battle in which social critics of all stripes can find moments of fulfillment or hopelessness. Spend a few days listening to Tom Leykis, heard in L.A. from 3 to 8 p.m. on KLSX-FM (97.1), and you may conclude that society has tilted in a manner resembling “Planet of the Apes”: that women have assumed the upper hand, forcing men to fight back grimly and mercilessly or perish. Or you may conclude that, in the interest of ratings, we are all getting our chains jerked by a host who laughs at us behind our backs.
In the control room of Westwood One’s Culver City studio, Leykis’ screener, Dino De Milio, is interrogating callers with the impatience of an air traffic controller and the lasciviousness of a strip club owner. (“How old are you, sweetie?” he asks a female caller. “That’s my favorite age for sex!”) Through a glass panel, De Milio can see Leykis, a gnomish 46-year-old man, standing in front of his mike, wearing shades despite the near darkness, pounding on his opening theme. “ You know what’s great?” Leykis asks sarcastically. “Women want the right to be exhibitionists, but if anybody looks….” “
Tom Leykis broadcasts from the intersection of Libertarian and Libertine. It’s a simple neighborhood with a simple philosophy that has occurred in the gut of just about every American man and, in some cases, made its way to his brain. The show is based on the premise that too many guys have been raised to be wimps in this feminist culture, that women are taking advantage of these men and that women are secretly wishing guys would reassert themselves. Leykis plays the hard-bitten, gender-wars-scarred uncle, hectoring the besieged male recruits: Don’t get them pregnant! Don’t marry them! Don’t date single mothers! Yet no matter how insistent or cranky he gets, the phone lines remained jammed with confessions of weakness and poor judgment:
“You are my religion, Professor,” comes the call another day, “but I have to tell you I’m one of those guys who knocked a girl up….”
“What kind of birth control were you using?” Leykis demands.
“She said she was on the pill….”
“And you believed her. I hope the boys out there are listening! This is the kind of stuff I warn you about!”
Men who in more reasonable times would have been considered normal single guys employing normal trial-and-error approaches to casual sex become, in the Leykis format, political prisoners, victims of a stacked deck in which calculating women get their way at men’s expense.
Leykis tries to break this momentum by offering more clinical tips: No coffee dates or lunch dates — they lead nowhere. “Successfully getting a woman into the sack involves some sort of chemical inducement,” he is fond of proclaiming on a “Leykis 101” segment he does each Thursday. “Alcohol is the preferred chemical inducement.”
Nor should men waste money on dinner dates, he advises; women will eat and run. Meet them after dinner for a drink. If you are roped into dinner, eat a full meal at home and order a salad in the restaurant (“because what woman would eat more than you?”).
Once Leykis’ listeners have scored, “we do not cuddle, we do not spoon, we do not hug, we do not stay late,” Leykis instructs. “We do not convince women we are in love with them. We do not say I love you — ever, ever, ever. Unless we do.” He pronounces that last word with grave disbelief.
Leykis — married four times, thrice-divorced and separated from wife No. 4 for the last two years — is honest enough to describe the show as an act that evolved into a point of view. And he occasionally makes serious feminist-backlash arguments on issues like parental leave, divorce or alimony that create a social edge. He’ll say proudly, in the name of personal responsibility, that he has no children, and that each of the four unplanned pregnancies he caused was terminated.
Yet the fact that so many of his frustrated male callers take him so literally gives the program a uniquely bitter, even mean, tone that makes it both appealing and appalling. The show has little of the self-deprecating comedic relief of Howard Stern’s equally explicit KLSX morning show, the gold standard of sleaze-talk radio. Stern’s shtick is sexual bantering and the embarrassed giggle; Leykis’ shtick is sexual politics and the evil, got-even-with-her snicker. In the same way Rush Limbaugh demonizes liberals, Leykis lays men’s woes at the feet of “chicks” or “broads” (or, more frequently, another B-word) — and of men’s failure to control them.
Hour No. 2 of today’s show is devoted to mocking the notion of female independence as a feminist invention (which will draw many angry female callers). Leykis is trying to explain that men are simply more driven to succeed than women, driven by the need for … chicks.
“We make money to get chicks,” he says, his sentences almost swallowing each other. “Those of us who are really ambitious want more chicks. Better chicks. Hotter chicks. A larger number of chicks. We work hard to get chicks. When I was 14, I got into radio because when I was in high school, I was a geek. Once I was at the radio station answering the request line, chicks would call in, ask me to play a song, and then they’d ask me to come over after the show. ‘I love your voice. Come on over.’ And I would. And then I realized if I got better radio gigs in bigger cities, I’d get better chicks, hotter chicks. And I did. And the more money I make, the better chicks I get.” (Leykis’ most recent “chick” is a 27-year-old Argentine, recently arrived in the U.S., whom he met at the station; she moved into his Hollywood Hills home two months ago.)
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II: Am I really listening to this?
Confession: I have listened to this show for years and it bothers me because — well, it’s just not me, a stable, married guy with a teenage daughter. The last time I used the word “chick” was 1973: A female colleague and I wrote essays for our small newspaper on our competing favorites in the nationally televised Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs battle of the sexes. It was a tennis match — a stunt — that carried a level of gender tension impossible to imagine today. I defiantly used “chick” in my pro-Riggs essay because, as Frank Sinatra-passe as it sounded even then, I knew it infuriated my colleague, and it felt good to strike back at the upstart feminist movement, to grind it under my heel.
But I was young and stupid. If you’d told me that half a lifetime later, I’d be listening to a 40-something guy on the radio using the word “chick” for essentially the same denigrating purpose — and claiming to make a seven-figure income off it — I would have rolled my eyes. It’s so juvenile. Which is why I’m perplexed/fascinated that the grown-up me is helping to make Leykis the Arbitron-certified king of the male listener in L.A.
Why did I laugh so hard the other day when he spent an hour on how men should give women backhanded compliments (“Honey, you’re so pretty I don’t even notice the extra weight”) to keep their self-esteem low and their behavior compliant? Were darker forces drawing me to the show? I decided to confer with experts.
Perhaps, one of them got me thinking, I’m enticed by the sly way Leykis performs the kind of sexual harassment that government and workplace rules no longer allow. “Men say, ‘It’s not OK to [harass women] at work, but thank God I can turn on my radio … while I’m hammering a nail,” suggests Ann Simonton, a former fashion model from Northern California who started a media-literacy program two decades ago after she was raped at knifepoint and began thinking about the way the media portray women. Leykis’ popularity, Simonton says, is sad proof “that we live in a sexually repressed culture where sex is only for sale, talked about only as a taboo, rather than there being a healthy dialogue on sexual intimacy.”
Or maybe I listen because I enjoy reverting to the cartoonishly adolescent state that men are assigned in the popular culture. Janet McMullen, an associate professor in the University of North Alabama’s communications department who specializes in media ethics, notes that Hollywood responded to feminism by constructing legitimate roles for women but in the process made men the targets of ridicule. “You look at TV sitcoms and dramas, you listen to the educational community: It’s as though guys are broken in some way,” she said.
Or maybe, more nobly, I listen because Leykis’ dialogue fills a vacuum in so many men’s lives — the lack of intimate conversation with other men. “There’s no place we can go for support,” says Warren Farrell, a San Diego psychologist whose books include “Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say.”
Or maybe I listen because Leykis touches a powerful nerve when he tells men to stop being “nice” — to stand up and demand what we want (including that 60-inch TV). He “has tapped into something that’s very prominent,” says Robert Glover, a Seattle psychotherapist who wrote “No More Mr. Nice Guy” in an attempt to tell men that women are turned off by guys who are too timid to be candid about their sexual desires. Men who act this way ultimately wind up frustrated and angry, Glover says.
Or maybe I listen simply because I love a spectacle — the guys begging for Leykis’ wisdom, the women calling to alternately scream at him or ask him to autograph their breasts at an upcoming listener party. Maybe there’re no more cultural implications here than on Ricki Lake. Maybe, as screener Di Milio puts it, “some people make the mistake of forgetting the very last word; it’s ‘The Tom Leykis Show.’ ”
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III: Oh, I get it — I think
Leykis has a restless intellect that makes it hard for him to stay in character. Over lunch (let him pick the wine, he has a 700-bottle cellar in his house), he can make a convincing defense for the cruel way men often talk about women on the show. Why, he demands, should he be forced to sprinkle a phony veneer of politeness on our angry culture? Why shouldn’t he express his gender’s most visceral feelings?
But a half hour later, he can be just as convincing making the case that the economics of radio demand offensive styles and stunts. Government deregulation of radio sent station prices soaring and meant owners had “to get results to-day. The way you get results to-day is [to say on the air]: ‘Hello, my penis is hanging out, and I don’t know what to do about it, and if somebody could come down to the station, if there’s a policeman within the sound of my voice….’ Then you get the cops down there and it becomes a story in the paper ‘cause the papers all fall for it and give you the free advertising — boom; that’s how things are done now.”
The object of talk radio is not to change minds; it is to stay on the air. You invent or copy a format and, if it works, you ride it until you fall off the horse. For all his male listeners’ deference to “The Professor,” Tom Leykis is first and foremost a radio guy obsessed with the art of drawing and holding a crowd, a guy whose success in a turbulent market is a testament to his wits and love of craft, says L.A. radio historian Don Barrett. “Tom knows everything about every radio station in this country…. This guy just bleeds radio.”
His five-year stint on KLSX is his third in L.A. He was first on KFI between 1988 and 1992 as a more conventional liberal talk-show counterpoint to Limbaugh. (After a dispute whose nature he won’t discuss, he was replaced by ex-Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates.) He worked fill-in shifts in several cities before landing an AM syndication deal in ’94 that brought him back to L.A. When KLSX offered him an afternoon show in 1997, he said, it meant creating a style that would be close to Stern’s young-man, breast-obsessed demographic without appearing to copy him.
“So we had to evolve the show in this new direction,” he said matter-of-factly, “which was grinding loud music, grinding production, and we stepped up the rudeness factor.”
He’s now in about 50 markets, including Seattle, San Francisco and Dallas, with a national base several times less than icons like Limbaugh, Laura Schlessinger and Stern. He has the largest afternoon male audience on L.A. radio in every age range except his target demographic — 18 to 44 — where he trails rock and hip-hop stations KPWR and KROQ, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.
Leykis boasts of other survey data that reflect an affluent audience and high-end advertisers. When you point out that his predominantly male callers sound far less successful or confident, he reminds you not to confuse the callers (who are his foils) with his listeners (who make him rich). “Anybody who takes this show really seriously doesn’t get it. The callers are 1% of the audience…. People who make a good living and have high intelligence usually don’t have 45 minutes to stay on hold.”
Ask Leykis if sexual politics is as intellectually satisfying as a show that covers more ground, and he suggests you’ve asked the wrong question. “I never forget I’m in this business to make money. I never had ratings this high. I never made as much money as I do. If I wanna talk politics, I’ll go to a park.” Evil snicker. “I’ll call up Warren Olney one day.”
Ask how he got on the air at 14 and he tells about being a gifted, bored child who was reading the New York Times in the first grade. About being a ninth-grader living in an isolated Long Island suburb, missing the bustling Bronx neighborhood where he’d grown up, sitting on the stoop with a portable radio, wishing he could jump inside. About winning a contest to be a DJ for an hour on the local radio station, then being asked back.
He tells about hosting a cable-TV public-access-station game show at 16, about trying to get on the air as a student at Fordham University but failing and dropping out after a year and half.
About working a series of day jobs, the most pitiful being telemarketing. About getting hired at a variety of low-paying jobs at small radio stations in places like Albany, N.Y., and Stanton, Va., and Miami, spinning records and engaging in chatter and groping for gimmicks to get noticed. About recognizing he’d embarked on a nomadic career that would subvert marriage or stable relationships.
He remembers inventing a male chauvinist character in 1979 who called in, voicing many opinions that riled listeners — opinions that a DJ could voice on the air in that gentler time but that were the first stirrings of Leykis’ KLSX voice.
He remembers discovering how the most audacious opinions could generate buzz. (“I would never serve in the military under any circumstances. I just missed the draft of the Vietnam War, and if we had another war I wouldn’t go. Let somebody else be cannon fodder. Now let’s go to the phones.”)
You had to take that extra step. “It wasn’t enough to have lesbian nuns on the show. You had to have them on Good Friday.”
He says he never thought he’d have this kind of success or longevity in L.A. And it sounds positively heartwarming until he mentions why he won’t be going to his 30th high school reunion, even though he’d figure to be a magnet for all the, uh, chicks who turned him down when he was a geek.
“I said this on the air: ‘I wouldn’t touch any of you women with a 10-foot pole,’ ” he says, “ ‘And you know why? Because I can now afford your daughters.’ ” Evil snicker.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
The role of women in society, according to the freewheeling Tom Leykis
Leykis on gender:
I am tired of being with women trying to prove they’re smarter than I am, telling me to make my own dinner, to do it myself, women so concerned about appearing independent that they have to have careers. I don’t want to be confused anymore when I go home about what my job is.
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Leykis on when to marry:
Never marry somebody you knocked up unless you know you’re gonna be with them forever and you really love them and you really love that kid and you really want to be there. But if you can’t answer “yes” to all those, don’t marry these broads.
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Leykis on prolonged adolescence:
I want my childhood to last as long as it can.
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Leykis on how marriage changes a relationship:
She’ll do whatever you want until she gets you to sign on the dotted line and suddenly it’s like, “I don’t like having sex on any day that ends in ‘y.’ ”
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Leykis on what he teaches male listeners:
I am the professor who teaches you how to get sex for the least amount of money and without having to listen to women go on and on: “Blah-bla-blah-bla-blah-bla-blah-bla-blah.” Broads never shut up.
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Leykis on his looks:
If I were really attractive, I would be on TV making real money…. I wouldn’t be doing some dopey radio show.
The Great American Smear is back. In 2000, the victim was Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, and the vector for transmission was telephone lines and leaflets left on windshields in church parking lots. This year, the victim is Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, and the vector is e-mail messages that appear to have originated in evangelical networks. As always, the smears play to the ugly underside of American politics: prejudice and hatred.
The 2000 rumor was that the white McCain had fathered a dark-skinned child out of wedlock. In the end, it did not matter that he and his wife had adopted the child from Bangladesh. The then-front-runner lost the South Carolina Republican primary to George W. Bush, whose campaign has always denied any involvement in the “push polling” that propagated the smear. It worked partly because the mainstream media didn’t report what was happening until after the election. But mainly it worked because of the persistence of the prejudices that prompted the South’s old anti-miscegenation laws.
So it’s worth considering the persistence of the Internet rumors that Obama, well known to Chicagoans as a Christian, is actually a stealth Muslim, a “Manchurian candidate” who would take the presidential oath with his hand on the Koran.
The rumors first surfaced during Obama’s run for Senate but took off in a viral e-mail campaign in 2006. One e-mail called Obama “The Enemy Within.” GOP strategist Ed Rogers also pointedly mentioned Obama’s middle name, Hussein. In January, the Obama campaign was forced to denounce Fox News for repeating a false Insight magazine report that he had spent fours years in an Indonesian madrasa, an Islamic school. Though CNN sent out a reporter who found that the school Obama had attended had nothing in common with the Pakistani incubators for jihadists, and though his campaign has set the record straight repeatedly, last week the Washington Post ran a front-page story about Obama’s “Muslim ties.”
That the rumors are false and vile is self-evident. That they persist in the face of the facts speaks to the power of the underlying calumny — that Muslim Americans in positions of power in the United States represent a fifth column, an internal security threat of the sort believed to have been posed by Japanese Americans during World War II.
It also speaks to the post-9/11 revival of the ancient Christian loathing of Muslims that predated by centuries the 1529 Ottoman Siege of Vienna. Today, Muslim peoples are frequently stereotyped as mobs or hordes who are particularly prone to violence and generally supportive of terrorism. And an ugly undertone of the immigration debate has been the insinuation that efforts to restrict illegal immigration should focus on keeping out the “bad” Muslims who have overrun Europe, not the “good” Mexicans who only want to work here.
It’s true that many American voters probably aren’t ready for a Muslim president, as they once weren’t ready to elect a Catholic to the highest office. But there are now believed to be more than 2 million Muslim Americans in the United States, and one of them is a member of Congress. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) won election without hiding his religion and did, in fact, swear the oath of office on the Koran. This tolerance of religious diversity is a founding American principle, and one that we hope will continue to distinguish the United States from theocracies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Presidential candidates of both parties have a duty to denounce not only the smear against Obama but the bigotry that underlies it.
SACRAMENTO — Deals to add up to 17,000 slot machines at four Southern California tribal casinos passed the Legislature on Thursday, setting the stage for giant casinos with twice as many slots as the biggest in Las Vegas.
Within minutes, union leaders raised the possibility of mounting a repeal campaign.
The Assembly passed compacts that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger struck last year with four wealthy tribes, along with a side agreement addressing child support, gambling addiction, workers’ compensation, accounting and arbitration issues.
Under the deals, which Schwarzenegger has signed, the state will get between 15% and 25% of the revenue from the additional machines, possibly bringing in half a billion dollars a year.
Organized labor had unsuccessfully sought to include requirements that tribes not punish or harass workers for trying to organize. Unions had also sought language allowing a union to bargain for workers if more than 50% of employees signed authorization cards.
Jack Gribbon, California political director for Unite Here, a union that organizes casino and hotel workers, said he and other union leaders are considering asking voters to undo the agreements. To qualify a repeal measure for next February’s presidential primary ballot would probably require gathering 400,000 signatures in 90 days, he said.
“The discussions are very serious,” Gribbon said.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), a former labor organizer, said unions placed an “undue burden” on him with the provisions they sought.
“I did not negotiate the compacts,” he said. “The governor negotiated the compacts.”
Tribes given the right to expand are the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, which owns casinos in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage; the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in Temecula; the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation in San Diego County; and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in Cabazon.
A compact between the governor and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians of San Bernardino County did not pass the Legislature. Nunez’s office said that was because the tribe refused to sign the side agreement insisted upon by the speaker.
The Assembly also gave final approval Thursday to a compact allowing the Yurok tribe of Northern California to install 99 slot machines. The tribe is among the state’s largest, and one of the poorest.
Last Tuesday, I asked my friend Mish if they’d like to skip our gym trip and instead drive into Angeles National Forest for a chance to view the northern lights.
We decided, for our health, to go to the gym. We arrived around 7:15 p.m., only to realize our gym was closing early because of Veterans Day. Divine intervention or dumb luck? Either way, we left, got our cameras and snacks and headed up Angeles Crest Highway.
We stepped out of the car about 8:45 p.m., and I started shouting a flurry of joyful expletives. The pink glow of the northern lights was visible to the naked eye, shining near Mt. Gleason.
The northern lights as seen from near Angeles Forest Highway on Veterans Day.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
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This was my second time viewing the northern lights from the San Gabriel Mountains. Last May, my buddies and I were out celebrating a friend’s sobriety anniversary when my pal Machiko texted me that — somehow! — the northern lights were visible in dark places around L.A. We quickly left Chinatown and headed onto Angeles Crest Highway.
At first, around 10:50 p.m., we could only see a faint pink glow and only by using our phone cameras. By 11:30 p.m., we’d found a darker place in the forest to park, and our cameras picked up quite the light show.
From there, I quickly became enamored, similar to eclipse chasers, with how I could see the northern lights whenever possible from Southern California.
Below you’ll find my tips on how to do just that. I want you, dear Wilder, to witness the sheer awe that comes with realizing there is so much about our universe we remain blissfully unaware of — until suddenly it’s a brilliant burning pink right before us.
If you’re reading this and getting major FOMO, have no fear! We will likely have another opportunity to see the aurora near L.A. soon enough.
The northern lights illuminate the sky of the North Bay as seen from China Camp Beach in San Rafael last May.
(Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images)
The sun plays a major role in why we have auroras, and it turns out we’re in a season when the sun might be sending more our way.
I spoke to Delores Knipp, research professor in the Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, who explained to me that the sun has an 11-year “solar cycle.”
The sun reached its solar maximum period last year, and as NASA noted last year, “The solar cycle is a natural cycle the Sun goes through as it transitions between low and high magnetic activity. Roughly every 11 years, at the height of the solar cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip — on Earth, that’d be like the North and South poles swapping places every decade — and the Sun transitions from being calm to an active and stormy state.”
Knipp said the sun now goes through a kind of relaxing period, during which the interactions of certain solar particles can create the most geomagnetic storms over a three- to four-year period. Good news? “We are about one year in,” Knipp said.
Why is that relevant to us? Because the aurora is “one manifestation of geomagnetic activity or geomagnetic storms,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And as I will explain below, the stronger the storm, the more likely it is that those of us in Southern California can see the aurora!
If you want to understand more about why auroras happen, consider checking out this presentation by Knipp, where she talks more about the science behind them — including historic auroras that really freaked out the public.
OK, let’s dive in. Here’s how I became an amateur aurora chaser, and you can too!
Mish, a friend of The Wild, sets up their camera near Angeles Forest Highway to capture the aurora visible from near L.A. on Veterans Day.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
You can sign up for free updates from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center to view its forecasts for upcoming geomagnetic storms and how intense they’re expected to be. (A simpler option is to view the predicted aurora viewline.)
The first time a space weather alert lands in your inbox, you might have flashbacks to a high school science class where you sat puzzled, wondering if you could still graduate if you failed this class because science had always been your weakest subject. (Maybe that was just me.)
Regardless, in the NOAA Geomagnetic Forecast, you’ll notice a data table with the “Kp index forecast,” which is the planetary K-index and is used to measure the magnitude of geomagnetic storms. Generally to be visible near L.A., the K-index needs to be at 8 or 9.
As Knipp explained to me, “When Kp goes up to 6, 7 and beyond, what that means is the auroral zone tends to extend from its quiet regions around the northern part of Norway and northern part of Canada. It can extend all the way to mid-latitudes … and in our case, the edge of it [on Nov. 11] might have been in the northern tier of the United States. Those of us who are kind of standing off to the equator-ward side can look up into the sky and still see the disturbances that are moving along the [Earth’s magnetic] field lines. And those disturbances are created by particles that are crashing into our atmosphere as they move along the field lines.”
You might also notice in NOAA’s alert a G-scale, ranging from G1 to G5. This is the rating used to gauge a geomagnetic storm’s potential effects on satellites, spacecraft and the power grid, among other things. Meanwhile, the K-index is more of an intensity rating scale.
I start to pay attention when I see forecasts mentioning a possible G3 storm. I keep an eye out as the forecast grows more detailed about whether the storm is expected to intensify and become a G4 storm. And I watch the K-index to see whether an 8 is expected.
Last week, at around 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., the Space Weather Prediction Center emailed alerts noting that the agency expected a three-hour window from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. PST where the K-index could reach 8. Lucky for my friend Mish and me, that’s when we arrived in the forest and found a place beyond the clouds to view the aurora.
You must drive beyond L.A.’s light-polluted skies to view the aurora.
There are many different websites dedicated to mapping light pollution. Last week, I found a north-facing turnout off Angeles Forest Highway that, per Dark Sky Map, was close to the “bright suburban sky” range on the Bortle scale, which stargazers and astrophotographers sometimes use to discern where to view celestial bodies.
Photographer Patrick Coyne posted to Instagram a video from Mormon Rock(s), about 12 miles east of Wrightwood in the San Bernardino National Forest, capturing a stunning pink aurora. Photographer Jason Anderson, whom I randomly met in the middle of the woods a few months ago, was among the luckiest, filming a deep red scene in Joshua Tree National Park.
Above the clouds and facing north, the lights from the aurora borealis were visible last May along Highway 2 in Angeles National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
I have a mobile phone (iPhone 15 Plus) that allows me, when in night mode, to adjust the shutter speed to 10 seconds. This essentially means the camera will take in as much light as possible within that 10-second time frame. The main image for this edition of The Wild was taken with my personal iPhone.
Mish brought their camera and tripod — while I used my iPhone and Canon DSLR — to photograph the aurora. We spent about an hour observing the aurora, and it seemed to pulse in intensity. Twice, it appeared brighter to the naked eye before becoming visible only on our cameras. By 10 p.m., the aurora had disappeared.
We headed back to L.A. hyper and eager for the next time the aurora was visible, with a goal to set up shop in the desert or some other dark corner of Southern California. Staring at the night sky has a way of inspiring you to dream bigger.
A young cyclist works on a bicycle at the CicLAvia Melrose event last year.
(Kirk Tsonos)
1. Watch for “Stranger Things” on a ride through L.A.
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Netflix and CicLAvia will host “Stranger Things 5 One Last Ride,” a special 4-mile open streets event where fans can bike, skate or walk down a car-free stretch of Melrose Avenue in celebration of the show’s final season. The free event will feature Melrose reimagined as Hawkins, the fictional town where the show is based, with photo ops, animations, live entertainment and more. Learn more at ciclavia.org.
2. Witness the warblers of Wilmington
Latino Outdoors Los Angeles and Communities for a Better Environment will host a community bird walk from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday in Wilmington. Guests will tour local resilience centers and walk through Banning Park. Register and sign a waiver at eventbrite.com.
3. Hike and help others near Pasadena
Nobody Hikes in L.A. and Walking Pasadena with host their 10th Will Hike for Food hike at 8:30 a.m. Friday along the Gabrielino trail near Pasadena. Hikers are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items to donate to Friends in Deed’s food pantry in Pasadena. Money will also be accepted for the organization, which provides food, hosts a winter shelter and builds relationships with unhoused people to ease them into housing and other services. Learn more at walkingpasadena.com.
A family poses in early October near the west entrance sign of Joshua Tree National Park during the 43-day government shutdown. The park remained open to visitors despite the shutdown.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
If you visited Yosemite or Death Valley national parks during the 43-day government shutdown, you may have experienced more order than you expected. Trash cans were cleared. Bathrooms were cleaned. That’s because, as Times staff writers Lila Seidman and Alex Wigglesworth report, employees who greet visitors and those who work in maintenance and sanitation, law enforcement and emergency functions were kept on during the shutdown, a marked difference from the 2018-19 shutdown. A Death Valley ranger, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said resource damage was rampant then at numerous parks because the guidance “was, like, shutter your doors, skeleton crew, leave the park open.” Continuing to fund visitor services kept up a facade that all was well, but the government’s choice there speaks to a long-simmering fight over our national parks: whether to prioritize the guest experience or conservation more. During the longest shutdown in U.S. history, almost 9,300 of the park service’s total 14,500-member staff, or roughly 64%, were furloughed, many of whom work on their park’s conservation, research and education teams. For example, a firefighter at Joshua Tree National Park said there were once 30 people on the team that protects endangered desert tortoises and Joshua trees, monitors air quality and restores areas after a fire. During the shutdown, none were working regularly. There was one bright spot though: Officials deemed the feeding and monitoring of the area’s pupfish, a chubby little guppy (and one of the world’s rarest fish), essential during the shutdown, a ranger said, because they’re “this star animal of the park.”
Happy adventuring,
The Wild is dark next week for Thanksgiving and will return Dec. 4. If you’d like to take a hike, I’d recommend my Wild article from last Thanksgiving outlining treks that make me feel grateful to live here. Or especially if you’re estranged from your family and not going to attend a Thanksgiving meal, consider soothing your soul with a waterfall hike (as long as weather allows). It’ll likely be less crowded at trailheads considering those out celebrating the holiday. Regardless of what you do, may you experience something outside that fills you with goodness and wonder!
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
COPS are investigating fresh sexual assault allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Investigators said they received a report on Friday from a police department in Florida, where the alleged victim lives, according to ABC.
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is undertaking the investigation into the new accusations.
“If you showed a pizzaiolo what I was doing, they would say it’s all wrong,” says Fiorelli. “Wrong flour, wrong temp. But we do it that way because we like the way it tastes.”
Fiorelli and business parter Liz Gutierrez opened a pizzeria out of a teensy Beverly Grove storefront in early November. Before that, they were making pizzas with a mobile oven at Cook’s Garden in Venice. Fiorelli’s crust has the structure of a New York pizza, with just enough crunch, and an interior with the supple softness of a traditional Neapolitan. He brushes the crust with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkles on sea salt just before the pizza goes into the oven, ensuring that each slice is well seasoned through the last bite. Crushed Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes and sea salt constitute his red sauce, for a base that’s flavorful but not overly acidic. He covers the tomatoes in leaves of Brussels sprouts and hot cherry peppers on one pie, or there’s the classic pepperoni or supreme. The Bianco deserves special praise, with a symphony of four cheeses, roasted garlic, fingerling potatoes, fresh lemon and guandilla peppers. Bite the tip of a pepper, drizzle the juice on a slice and enjoy.
“Our mission from the beginning,” Pelino told me, “has been to make humans stronger. That includes everyone — women, men, any gender, from beginners to advanced lifters.” This is why Pelino designs the Monday through Friday barbell programming with modifications in mind: so that everyone can perform the same lifts, no matter their skill level.
I am self-conscious about my piddly strength, but when I walked into Rose City’s brick-lined main room, where there were daisies painted on the lilac-colored deadlift platforms, my lizard brain felt at ease. The gym was also stocked with a variety of inclusive, high-quality equipment, such as 15 to 55 pound specialty barbells, belts of all sizes, 10-pound bumper plates and fractional plates as light as a quarter pound.
That morning, I was greeted by my coach, Sionann, as well as my gym-mate, Davida, before preparing to work on our bench presses. We warmed up together, then performed a light set of bench presses, three sets of six. In between sets, I learned that Davida was a gallery owner, a mother of two, and like me, found Rose City through word-of-mouth. Pumping iron, as it turns out, is a social affair — especially when the classes, which are capped at eight, are this intimate.
“The beauty of the gym comes from the people who we spend time with,” said Picardi, which is why Rose City hosts an array of social events for the community, including clothing swaps, lettering classes and Friendsgiving potlucks. The gym also hosts seasonal mock meets where attendees compete in a setting that emulates the experience of a professional powerlifting meet, prizes and all.
After the main lift, we moved onto accessory work. Sionann gently corrected my form as I performed gorilla rows, instructing me to picture my arms as if they were chains. I pulled the dumbbells off the floor toward my hips, mimicking the movements of a majestic ape. By the end of the class, I did indeed feel like a stronger Homo sapien.
Parking: Plenty of street parking
Pricing: $45 per drop-in; $325 for 13 classes per month; $433 for unlimited classes plus gym access
ZARA McDermott looked incredible as she showed off outfit for ‘date night’ with Louis Tomlinson in Los Angeles.
The Love Island alum, 28, shared a duo of snaps on Instagram from her GRWM process, showing off her simple yet stunning outfit.
Zara opted to wear a pair of high waisted denim jeans with embroidered navy patterns on each knee.
She finished off the outfit with a plain black tank top that hugs her waist to perfection.
Her beauty spoke for itself as she posed for two mirror selfies, in one fully facing the mirror and in the other using a hand to playfully touch her hair.
Zara elevated the look with a soft glam makeup look featuring a natural pink overlined lip, clean brows, and a flick of eyeliner.
Her freshly styled hair falls down her shoulders in a gorgeous balayage of blonde and brown tones.
“date night vibes, ft my new jeans,” Zara penned in the caption.
The star loves a good casual-come-cute outfit, as shown in her other Insta posts, and fans adored this one just as much as any other.
“Oh wow, glowingggg girly,” gushed one user in her post’s comment’s section.
Others followed suit, adding: “Gorgeous,” “Where are you jeans from!!!,” “I hope you and Louis have fun on your date.”
Zara and Louis, 33, were first seen out together back in March of this year, though it wasn’t clear whether the pair were dating.
It was only in July that Zara and Louis made their relationship public, where Louis posted a subtle pic of them handing out.
Zara hardlaunched the romance on Instagram the following month though by posting a snap of them kissing.
The pair have kept a relatively low profile, though last month Louis couldn’t help but gush about his stunning girl on Steven Bartlett‘s The Diary of a CEO podcast, hinting at how much she’s inspired his new music.
“I’m a deeply, deeply romantic person,” began the musician.
“It’s easy to be romantic when you are a creative… [but] I really struggle to write in a fictional sense, I really struggle.
“For me, I have to have been living it, it has to be real to me.
“So, if I wasn’t feeling so good, like right now, I wasn’t feeling so in love… the record probably would have a slightly different feel to it.”
Before sparking up romance with Louis, Zara dated Made in Chelsea star, Sam Thompson.
The former flames dated for five tumultuous years before calling it quits in 2024.
Whereas Louis last girlfriend was Danish model Sofie Nyvang who he dated for a couple of months at the beginning of 2023.
I knew I’d chosen the right spot to hike as I drove past the yellow-leaved bigleaf maple trees near the trailhead.
I was in search of fall foliage near Los Angeles, and after a bit of research, I’d taken a chance by heading over to Big Santa Anita Canyon in Angeles National Forest to see if I’d get lucky.
I am now here to help you, hopefully, find the same good fortune on your autumnal adventures.
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The idea that L.A. and its surrounding mountains feature trees with fall foliage can be hard to grasp for those who’ve been misled into believing that 1) L.A. is a desert (it’s not), and 2) The area doesn’t have seasons (it does!).
“L.A. was once wetlands fed by the cobweb streams and marshes of the L.A. River. It had oak woodlands and grassland valleys,” wrote Times columnist Patt Morrison. “Then, at least a thousand years ago, Native Americans were burning land to flush game and to make more oak trees grow to make more acorns to eat. It’s the last hundred-plus years that made the native landscape unrecognizable.”
Thankfully, it remains possible to observe the seasonal changes of our native trees in the wild lands around L.A. County. Below, you’ll find three hikes where you’ll see some level of fall foliage.
The leave of a bigleaf maple changing from bright green to brilliant yellow in Big Santa Anita Canyon in Angeles National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Before I dive into those hikes, though, I wanted to teach you how to find autumnal colors near you. My hope is that you can use this information to find off-the-beaten paths near you where the loudest thing is the pop of fall colors (rather than cursed Bluetooth speakers). Here’s how your local outdoors reporter finds hikes with fall color.
I hope you use this knowledge to find fall foliage close to you that’s off the beaten path. That said, the three spots below are worth considering too and require no homework as I’m here to do that for you too.
A hiker heads up the fire road at Big Santa Anita Canyon in Angeles National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Distance: 5.2-mile loop trail
Elevation gain: About 1,230 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Chantry Flat Picnic Area for leaf peeping
Upon parking at the Chantry Flat parking area — which is admittedly a challenge on the weekend — you’ll have multiple hiking options to venture through Big Santa Anita Canyon. Note: If you forget to buy an Adventure Pass, you can usually snag one at the Adams Pack Station, which is open Tuesday through Sunday.
I chose to take the Winter Creek Trail because it leads you through dense vegetation, and I hoped this would increase my chances of noticing leaf changes. My dog, Maggie May, and I headed north down the fire road near the restrooms and then turned after about 900 feet onto the Upper Winter Creek trailhead. As we zigzagged along this single-track route down the hillside, I looked down into the canyon and quickly spotted pops of yellow — at least nine bigleaf maples changing with the season!
(Photos by Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
I passed California bay laurel, rubbing their leaves to smell their spicy, pungent aroma, and noticed a branch with exactly one yellow leaf. The tree was considering changing with the season. Rusty red buckwheat, red poison oak and yellowish beige California brickellbush also grew along the trail. Rather than doing the entire Winter Creek trail, Maggie and I were racing daylight and turned around where the trail meets back with the fire road for just under a 2-mile adventure. The moon was rising over a ridgeline of the San Gabriel Mountains as we left.
Hiker Christina Best pauses amid the fall foliage along the Icehouse Canyon Trail on a First Descents monthly meetup in the Angeles National Forest in 2019.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Distance: 6.6 miles out-and-back, or 7 miles if looping around on Chapman Trail
Elevation gain: About 2,600 feet
Difficulty: Hard
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: San Antonio Falls Trail. It’s wide and mostly paved, but steep.
The Icehouse Canyon Trail to Icehouse Saddle is a pristine route that takes hikers past the crystal-clear creek and up to Icehouse Saddle, where you’ll be surrounded by pine forest and have sweeping views of the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert.
You’ll pass bigleaf maple, incense cedar, canyon live oak and more. The parking lot, which you’ll need an Adventure Pass to use, often fills up by 8 a.m. on the weekend, so it’s best to arrive early or try to visit on a weekday.
The higher you climb, the more likely you’ll encounter snow this time of year. If you don’t plan to pack crampons, please turn around once you reach snow.
Western sycamore trees like these grow in the aptly named Sycamore Canyon in Point Mugu State Park.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Distance: About 6 miles
Elevation gain: About 200 feet
Difficulty: Easy
Dogs allowed? No
Accessible alternative: The trail is mostly wide and flat, making it easier to navigate.
The aptly named Sycamore Canyon Trail is a fire road hike that takes you through the lush Point Mugu State Park. You’ll immediately see the limbs of large sycamore trees stretching over and around the trail. If conditions are right, they should be among the trees featuring fall foliage.
The trail also features Southern California black walnut, black sage, the fragrant California sagebrush and several other aromatic delights. Regardless of what you see, it’s a treat to be among pristine coastal sage scrub and other native habitat. And if the mood strikes, the beach is nearby. That sounds like a true Southern California fall day.
One of a handful of introspective signs at Big Santa Anita Canyon.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
I hope you spot gorgeous fall colors on your adventures this weekend.
If you do, please feel free to reply to this email (if you’re a newsletter subscriber) with a humble brag with your photos. I love hearing from you!
A desert tortoise shuffles about the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area in California City, CA.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
1. Celebrate desert tortoises in Palm Desert
The Mojave Desert Land Trust will be on hand from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Living Desert Zoo & Gardens in Palm Desert to celebrate Desert Tortoise Day. The organization will host tortoise-themed activities, including a scavenger hunt and a meet-and-greet with Mojave Maxine, a tortoise who lives at the zoo. Learn more at livingdesert.org.
2. Take trash out of wetlands near Marina and Playa del Rey
Volunteers are needed from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at both north and south Ballona Creek to pull trash from these important wetland habitats. Participants must wear close-toed shoes. Register for either location at ballonafriends.org.
3. Tend the land with new friends in L.A.
Coyotl + Macehualli will host a volunteer day of weeding, planting and mulching from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday along a hillside in El Sereno. The exact coordinates will be provided to participants. Learn more at the group’s Instagram page.
Adrian Boone, a Muir Woods National Monument Park Guide, teaches children about the forest at the Ross Preschool.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
Park rangers are among government workers furloughed while the United States experiences its longest government shutdown. Times staff writer Jenny Gold wrote about how, in an effort to provide some income to these rangers, the San Francisco Bay Area-based Grasshopper Kids is paying out-of-work rangers to educate children at area schools. Riley Morris, who works as a seasonal interpretive ranger at Muir Woods, said they wondered whether the children sitting inside classrooms or school auditoriums would still be interested in learning about redwoods without the “magic” of sitting in a park among the towering giants. “But it’s just been so cool seeing that when all of that is taken out of the equation, these kids are still just so totally glued to like the information that I’m sharing with them,” Morris said. “You can just tell they’re almost vibrating with excitement.”
Happy adventuring,
Do you have a nature lover on your holiday gift list? (Hi, Mom!) If so, check out this curated list of outdoors-themed gifts that Times staff writer Deborah Vankin and I wrote together for this year’s L.A. Times Holiday Gift Guide. I loved trying out the Six Moon Designs hiking umbrella, which I am eager to take on desert hikes this winter and spring. The Nomadix Bandana Towel is almost always either around my neck or in my pocket on every Wild hike. And the moment I finish writing this newsletter, I’m going to go find my North Face mules, which I also included on the list. They’re perfect for chilly evenings on the couch — or by a campfire. And as a bonus, read our list from last year’s Gift Guide, which doesn’t have a single repeated item. Boundless ideas for your boundless adventurers!
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
A look at the top 25 high school football teams in the Southland at the end of the regular season:
Rk. School (record) result; Next game; last week ranking
1. SIERRA CANYON (10-0) def. Loyola, 52-3; D1 vs. Santa Margarita, Nov. 14; 2
2. ST. JOHN BOSCO (9-1) lost to Mater Dei, 36-31; D1 vs. Orange Lutheran, Nov. 14; 1
3. CORONA CENTENNIAL (9-1) def. Chaparral, 60-29; D1 vs. Servite, Nov. 14; 3
4. MATER DEI (7-2) def. St. John Bosco, 36-31; D1 vs. Mission Viejo at Santa Ana Staidum, Nov. 14; 6
5. MISSION VIEJO (9-1) def. Los Alamitos, 76-49; D1 vs. Mater Dei at Santa Ana Stadium Stadium, Nov. 14; 4
6 SANTA MARGARITA (7-3) def. JSerra, 41-14; D1 at Sierra Canyon, Nov. 14; 5
7. SERVITE (6-4) def. Orange Lutheran, 30-28; D1 at Corona Centennial, Nov. 14; 8
8. ORANGE LUTHERAN (2-8*) lost to Servite, 30-28; D1 at St. John Bosco, Nov. 14; 9
9. LOS ALAMITOS (8-2) lost to Mission Viejo, 76-49; D2 vs. Yorba Linda, Friday; 7
10. OXNARD PACIFICA (10-0) def. Bishop Diego, 46-33; D3 vs. Oak Hills, Friday; 11
11. LEUZINGER (8-1) def. Lawndale, 45-10; D2, at Crean Lutheran, Friday; 12
12. MURRIETA VALLEY (7-3) def. Eastvale Roosevelt, 48-13; D2 vs. Corona del Mar, Friday; 14
13. SAN JUAN HILLS (1-9^) def. Tesoro, 41-7; D2 vs. Downey, Friday; 15
14. BEAUMONT (7-2) def. Redlands East Valley, 43-6; D2 at San Clemente, Friday; 16
15. DOWNEY (9-1) def. Dominguez, 34-0; D2 at San Juan Hills, Friday; 17
16. CREAN LUTHERAN (10-0) def. Laguna Hills, 50-7; D2, vs. Leuzinger, Fridays; 18
17. RANCHO CUCAMONGA (7-3) def. Chino Hills, 31-24; D2 vs. Tustin, Friday; 19
18. VISTA MURRIETA (7-3) lost to Norco, 17-7; D2, vs. Damien, Friday; 13
19. VALENCIA (9-1) def Castaic, 63-0; D3 vs. Palos Verdes, Friday 21
20. DAMIEN (8-2) def. Ayala, 35-13; D2 at Vista Murrieta, Friday; 22
21. AQUINAS (9-1) def. Village Christian, 42-12; D3 at Dana Hills, Friday; 23
22. YORBA LINDA (9-1); def. Corona del Mar, 35-28; D2 at Los Alamitos, Friday; NR
23. CORONA DEL MAR (9-1) lost to Yorba Linda, 35-28; D2 at Murrieta Valley, Friday; 10
24. CHINO HILLS (7-3) lost to Rancho Cucamonga, 31-24; D3 vs. Mira Costa, Friday; 20
25. PALOS VERDES (7-3) def. Mira Costa, 18-15; D3 at Valencia, Friday; NR
*-two forfeits / ^-nine forfeits
Owned by Hope Creature, the business sells plants, gifts and garden supplies in one building and organic drinks and pastries in another. A 50-foot greenhouse shelters indoor tropicals, organic edibles, drought-tolerant native plants and small potted succulents, which go for less than $2. The outdoor seating area is outfitted with plants available for purchase.
“A lot went into making this space architecturally stunning as well, with every design detail considered,” Creature says. “The space also serves as a platform for our ongoing community programming, which showcases what the space is all about — bringing people together to explore, learn and connect.”
The queer-owned-and-run cafe offers standard coffee fare including matcha, espresso, cortado, cold brew and drip options from local roaster Unity, as well as a selection of teas and pastries.
Open daily from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., the shop’s enclosed outdoor patio (buttressed on either side by the cafe/general store and greenhouse) offers a peaceful reprieve from the relative hustle and bustle of Eagle Rock Boulevard.
Stumped for holiday present ideas? Food gifts have universal appeal: These are fun and practical at once. And even more meaningful because they’re from local small businesses including L.A. restaurants, bakeries, farms, markets and makers.
Who’s on your gift list? A chocolate lover? A Caracas-born chef in Pasadena makes her own hot chocolate mix from Venezuelan Criollo cacao. Coffee fan? East L.A.’s Picaresca Barra de Cafe roasts coffee beans and bottles its cinnamon-scented cafe de olla syrup. Tea aficionado? A Chinatown tea shop offers subscription boxes of thoughtful blends from China and Taiwan; some are rare finds.
And any farmers market regular would want to sport the Weiser Family Farm collab T-shirt emblazoned with a pink radish or Bonnie melon.
If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated. Prices and availability of items and experiences in the Gift Guide and on latimes.com are subject to change.
Handwritten notes. Free product samples. Email responses to questions. And in some cases (shout-out to Surfing Cowboys in Malibu), an old-school phone call to discuss a gift item.
This is the kind of service that sets local businesses apart, offering personalized experiences you won’t find on Amazon.
From independent artists working at home to brands manufacturing in downtown Los Angeles, these businesses offer a diverse range of products and services that reflect the unique character of our city, which has been affected by wildfires, ICE raids and a struggling economy.
The gifts I’ve included here are all from Los Angeles-based businesses. They carry a personal touch — a connection to the people and the city. Some are handmade while others are manufactured, but all of them are a part of our city’s unique fabric.
Let’s keep it going and support small businesses in Los Angeles this holiday season. Our connection to one another is our strength.
If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated. Prices and availability of items and experiences in the Gift Guide and on latimes.com are subject to change.
