The students in Writing, Reporting and Ethics took these pictures to represent their weekend. 

Kristine's was the photo of the man performing in Little Tokyo. "He's there performing every weekend." Kristine says that this performer has been on America's Got Talent. 

Monica works as the worship coordinator at a Church called Shepherd of the Hills, where she entertains kids with videos, coordinates plays, and teaches them bible study. "It's a lot for [the kids], it's fun."


My picture is the one where I'm climbing on rocks. Some of my floormates and I have a bike race this saturday, and we trained by checking out the Chatsworth resevoir. We saw coyotes and places to climb, but there was no water in the resevoir.
 
Not created by me, but by one who calls themself "tatercakes."
 

View 18th Street Art Complex in a larger map

"Citizen Artists Making Emphatic Statements" was the name of the exhibit that took place at the 18th Street Art Complex from July to September 2008.

This art complex is a community of artists in Santa Monica. The exhibit, curated by Adolpho (Al) Nodal, focused on art that made important statements about issues such as sustainability. 

A local organization called Fallen Fruit, which focuses on utilizing fruit trees on public land for community use, showed in the exhibit. The organization makes maps of trees on public land so that individuals can find where to pick their own fruit. The organization operates out of Los Angeles and hosts local events, but it has a global perspective. 

"We kind of look at the whole world through the lens of fruit," said representative Matias Viegener. "That's become our sort of choice focal point, through which we examine a lot of other things." 

According to the 18th Street website, the center's mission is "to provoke public dialogue through contemporary ART making." Currently there are fifteen artists in residence there, and they often have events for the public to see the art. 

 
AllYourBass and I worked on this together. 

Want to impress your friends, or just be able to get away from the cops faster? Use this tutorial to learn how to jump over an obstacle, specifically a garbage can. 

What you’ll need:

A Garbage Can
Energy
An enthused onlooker
Reliable footwear


Steps
  1. Stretch. This is somewhat optional.
  2. Get your friend to hold your bag.
  3. Balance your Tchai. What’s Tchai? It doesn’t matter, just tell yourself you’re balanced.
  4. Start at a reasonable distance. To get enough speed, I suggest starting at least 20 feet away on even ground.
  5. Start running. Use natural but long strides.
  6. Launch.
  7. Land. Don’t forget this one.
  8. Prepare for jerks to say “I would have laughed so hard if you tripped.” This happens pretty much every time.
Congratulations, you are now a BAMF. 

 
To me a library symbolizes an environment of sharing, of passive anti-corporatism, where no one needs to even bring out their wallet before entering and using their services. However, a library still needs a lot of money, and the Los Angeles Public Library (of which there are 8 regional branches and a whopping 64 community branches) needs $117 Million, according to the Library's website (lapl.org.) This is actually a $5.9 million cut from last year's budget.

Since the California budget cuts, California's services are hurting, and the libraries are having no small amount of trouble as well. This budget cut means many branches will be closed both Sunday and Monday, and less books and programs will be available to the public. 

This is no good thing, but what budget cut is? If you were Mayor Villaraigosa, you would surely face opposition no matter what programs you decided to cut. 

This may sound biased as a voice behind a blog, but I think that libraries, while very nice and useful, offer services that are a bit outdated. Services that we could live without for a few days a week. 

For example,  LA Weekly interviewed a student who appreciated getting a book from the library called Under the Rainbow: Growing up Gay. Great. Weekly quoted him saying, "The thing about libraries was that it was a place to get information for free." Hm, info for free? You don't say. I can tell you another place to get that service, and you're looking at it. 

Of course libraries offer more than that. This article from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles suggests that we cut money from a Gang Reduction and Youth Development program, as that program costs $5,245 per youth and the library, which serves many more young people, only costs $6.40 per youth. It cites the library as a safe place for students to go, and then inherently a hindrance to gang relations.

Other services are being hit even harder. According to this Daily News article by Rick Orlov, hundreds of people are being laid off, daytime child care programs are being canceled at parks and Kid's programs are being scaled back.

While I'm personally for social programs (well, now that I don't pay income tax), I think a small cut to the Public Libary's budget isn't going to kill anyone, so long as they are generally there. There are still thousands of places you can visit in LA on a Sunday, for which the city pays, like the nearest park or some community centers.