In Memory of ALL the Veterans, we Honor You

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©ourtesy of LA Downtown News  (by Richard Guzmán) – - The LA Express Park Downtown program launched last week. It aims to help drivers find spots and control congestion. DOWNTOWN LA – Parking has long been a vexing issue in Downtown Los Angeles. Now a new parking meter program is making it easier to find a space, though how much that space costs will depend on how many drivers are looking for a place to park.  City officials last week gathered in South Park to announce the launch of LA Express Park, a one-year, $18.5 million Department of Transportation pilot program that implements varying rates depending on demand for about 6,000 Downtown parking meters. Under the program, rates in Downtown could fluctuate from 50 cents to as much as $6 an hour depending on how many cars are looking for a spot, said Peter Ghent, a senior management analyst for the LADOT and the program’s project manager. The new rates go into effect June 4. The current maximum rate at Downtown meters is $4 per hour. The program will have higher prices during peak hours. That, said Ghent, is intended to encourage drivers to make trips during less busy periods. “This is a market-based solution to the city’s parking woes,” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said during the event on Monday, May 21. It may be market-based, but some in Downtown question how the fluctuating rates will affect businesses that rely on customers using street parking. “Freeing up space in front of somebody’s business is always a good thing,” said Carol Schatz, president and CEO of the Central City Association and the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. “But given the potential increase in prices that could be a deterrent, so we’re really going to have to see how this works out.” Ghent predicted that Express Park will have a positive effect on Downtown street-fronting business. “We’re hoping it’ll mean greater turnover in the spaces,” he said. “In other words, greater availability and new customers coming all the time.” The program was funded by $15 million from the Federal Highway Administration and $3.5 million from the city. It covers a 4.5-square-mile area roughly bounded by Adams Boulevard, the 110 Freeway, Alameda Street and College Street in Chinatown. Ghent said no revenue increase is expected from the project, since rates will fluctuate up and down. The program aims to reduce the amount of time people spend looking for parking by allowing drivers to find a space on a smart phone. They will also be able to pay for a meter via a cell phone app. This portion of the program is now in effect. Paying for parking by cell phone must be done once the car is parked; otherwise motorists could get a ticket, LADOT officials said. Those without a smartphone can use the service via a computer or they can keep an eye out for electronic LADOT signs like one on Flower Street. Those signs will also give drivers information about available spots at city-owned lots such as the ones at Pershing Square and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.Placard IssuesKent Smith, executive director of the Fashion District Business Improvement District, said that street parking is important for many of the businesses in his crowded area. While he likes the idea of more available spaces, he said he is concerned about the potential for higher parking rates. He pointed in particular to the issue of cars with handicapped placards. The placards allow drivers to exceed posted time limits. The Los Angeles Times recently reported on how a number of Downtown drivers with placards did not appear infirm enough to require them. Smith said the use of handicapped placards is common in the area. He said during one recent count, more than 50% of the cars on a single street had placards “That could really have an impact on pricing,” he said. Eduardo Campi, who owns several businesses in the Fashion District, said he usually instructs customers to park in lots rather than to search for meters. He likes the idea of paying for meters by cell phone, which can also remind people when their time is running out. However, he too has concerns. “The price increase could be a problem,” he said. Echoing Smith, he added, “The handicapped parking is a big issue.” Blair Besten, executive director of the Historic Downtown Los Angeles Business Improvement District, is a strong supporter of Express Park, and expects the program to make finding a spot in the Historic Core more efficient. Drivers who spend less time spent circling the block looking for a space will have more time to visit stores or restaurants, she said.

Contact Richard Guzmán at richard@downtownnews.com.

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….it Helps to Get YOU through the Day.

John Waters traveling with members of the band Here We Go Magic as he hitchhiked from Baltimore to San Francisco.

Updated :: An advisory to readers who may be driving on this Memorial Day weekend: If, as you travel the nation’s highways, you spot a hitchhiker with a wiry build, a pencil mustache and a mischievous look in his eyes, you may not wish to pick up this person. Unless, of course, you are certain it is the cult filmmaker John Waters, thumbing his way across the country in search of material for a new book. This is not as improbable as it might sound. In recent days, an indie rock band from Brooklyn, a married couple from Illinois and a young lawmaker from Maryland have all reported unexpected road encounters with Mr. Waters, the 66-year-old writer and director of such willfully trashy movies as “Desperate Living,” “Polyester” and “Hairspray.” On a trip that Mr. Waters said took him eight days and about 15 hitchhiked rides to get him from one end of the country to the other, he has accumulated numerous anecdotes for a book he has tentatively titled “Carsick” and which will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

But more crucially, he said this journey has taught him that it can sometimes be thrilling to not know where life is taking you.

“My life is so over-scheduled, what will happen if I give up control?” Mr. Waters said by phone from San Francisco, where he was safe, sound and still surging with adrenaline.

In doing so, he said he encountered a true cross-section of America: “Pot smokers, cops, I got everybody. And everybody was lovely.”

Having started hitchhiking at an early age, Mr. Waters said he had had only positive experiences in the past. “I never had a scary person, really,” he said. “When you’re young, people come on to you a lot more.”

Since those days, Mr. Waters grew into the transgressive director who dreamed up the filthy family rivalry of “Pink Flamingos” (and its excremental denouement). More recently, and perhaps more improbably, he has become an avuncular ambassador of sleaze culture who has seen “Hairspray” transformed into a family-friendly stage musical and movie adaptation.

Even so, Mr. Waters said he got a wide range of reactions from the people he briefed in advance of his latest trip. “Everyone my age that I know was so horrified by this idea,” he said. “Every young person I know said, ‘Can we come?’”

Before setting off alone from his Baltimore home on May 14, Mr. Waters said, he wrote preliminary chapters for his book, describing the very best and the very worst fictional hitchhiking experiences he could imagine. But he declined to provide further details about these chapters and, when told by a reporter that he could envision many horrible things happening on the road, he replied: “You think I can’t?”

Instead, Mr. Waters enjoyed many best-case scenarios. On May 16, he was picked up on a stretch of Interstate 70 in Ohio by the rock group Here We Go Magic, whose members could not quite believe that they spotted him by an exit ramp.

“Half of us thought that he wasn’t John Waters, because that would be impossible, and half of us thought that he was,” said Michael Bloch, a guitarist for the band. “So we argued about it for one exit, and the only way to resolve it was to just turn around and go back.”

Though Mr. Waters jokingly compared the band to the Manson family, Mr. Bloch said they found him an enjoyable travel companion before dropping him off in Indiana.

“Just giving himself up to the winds is something that he really wants every once in a while,” Mr. Bloch said. “We all found that really inspiring and really eye-opening.”

Early – and later – in his odyssey, Mr. Waters chanced upon Brett Bidle, 20, a town councilman from Myersville, Md., who was en route to Joplin, Mo., to help with tornado relief efforts there. Mr. Bidle first drove Mr. Waters from Myersville to Ohio, then reconnected with him in Denver, driving him another 1,000 miles to Reno, Nev.

“I drove for 22 straight hours with no sleep, whether that was a smart thing to do or not,” Mr. Bidle said on Friday, speaking by phone from Wichita, Kan. “I was on a mission to find John Waters again.”

Mr. Waters also made arrangements for Mr. Bidle to stay at his apartment in San Francisco, where Mr. Waters arrived on Tuesday after four more hitchhiked rides.

“I thought, you know what, he wanted an adventure, too,” Mr. Waters said of Mr. Bidle. “He’s the first Republican I’d ever vote for.”

Mr. Bidle said of Mr. Waters: “We are polar opposites when it comes to our politics, religious beliefs. But that’s what I loved about the whole trip. It was two people able to agree to disagree and still move on and have a great time. I think that’s what America’s all about.”

Mr. Waters said he was never stopped by police when he hitchhiked and never felt that he was in danger. But picaresque fantasies aside, there were times, he said, that the enterprise was “deadening.”

“You think maybe you’re standing by a highway for a long time, it’s a Zen-like experience,” he said. “It isn’t. It is a despairing experience to figure: No one’s ever going to stop. I’m here forever.”

Over all, Mr. Waters said he was fascinated to see what happened when he cast aside any vestiges of celebrity and threw himself to the vagaries of the road. “There’s not an airport in the world I’m not recognized in,” he said. “But who thinks it’s you on the side of the street?”

About a third of the people who picked him up, Mr. Waters said, had no idea who he was and another third were convinced by his explanations (or by a Google search) that he was a personality of some renown.

And all his other benefactors, Mr. Waters admitted, had him made right away. “My mustache got me a third of the rides,” he said. “I had it working.”

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©ourtesy of noire3000studios

This photography campaign was designed to bring attention to the issues of racism, prejudice and overall ignorance that has been impressed upon Black Americans. This is no longer just a statement…it has become a MOVEMENT to get others to understand that the world would be such a better place if we could just ERASE THE HATE!! Nudity was implemented to demonstrate the RAW REALITY of these issues…so if it causes you to become uncomfortable while viewing this…GOOD…maybe it will challenge you and others to take a stand against these injustices. If you would like to become apart of this Awesome Campaign…Feel free to contact Photographer James C. Lewis via Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/noire3000 This campaign will be presented in a Gallery Exhibition towards the end of this year. Exact dates & location to be announced in the coming months. Please feel free to share this link on your facebook pages, twitter, personal blogs, websites and any other social media to get the word out! NAKED BLACK JUSTICE IS DEFINITELY A MESSAGE THAT MUST BE HEARD!!!

©ourtesy of the NYDailyNews.com

The Sisters have been in business in Dutch capital for a combined 80-plus years workin’ Real Hard for the Money. I would like to refer to them as the ‘Fukkens’

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Photos by Rebecca Smeyne

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Missing Katniss and Peeta already? Catching Fire‘s November 2013 release date seem like an eternity away? Not to worry: Later this summer you’ll be able to watch The Hunger Games at home. The movie hits Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download at 12:01 a.m. on Aug. 18.

The two-disc set will include over three hours of unreleased material, including interviews with the cast and crew and details about some of the story lines that differed from the book — like President Snow’s character (Donald Sutherland) and the role of the game maker (Wes Bentley). An eight-part documentary called The World is Watching: Making of The Hunger Games delves into the behind-the-scenes aspect of creating the film. The extras also include the full-length “Propaganda Film” shown during the Reaping.

Want more info? We’ve also got an exclusive trailer of the release. :: ©ourtesy of entertainmentweekly:

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So even a “Wonder Woman” in Saudi Arabia is so cowed that she dare not take that cloth off her head…!

“I’m a feminist!  That is, if you say I can be one.” Because, you know, feminism is all about women symbolically taking veils off their head to fit into a Western, patriarchal idea of what a woman should look like.

You’re doing feminism wrong.  Because women can not be empowered or feminists while at the same time still honoring their religion.

Because when a woman takes clothes off, it’s empowering, but when she keeps clothes on, it’s oppression.

Because everything that a woman is, her experiences, what she stands for, is all determined  by the clothing she wears. BEHOLD! Western Feminism.

Is that a purple leopard print hijab with stars on it? Bc she’s winning…!

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