Rawman & Green-Girl to the rescue (PW article)

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Rawman & Green-Girl to the rescue

Ron Gilmore’s ‘green toon’ heroes eat up the Green Lifestyle Film Fest

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 4/8/2010

Sounding much like his eco-superheroes Rawman and Green-Girl, artist and independent filmmaker Ron Gilmore of South Pasadena recently accepted the Green Apple Award for Outstanding Contribution to a Sustainable Lifestyle with the aplomb of a satisfied parent.
 
“If I can educate some people and get kids to eat their veggies, then I guess I’ve done my job,” said the 46-year-old Gilmore after accepting his prize during the awards portion of the fourth annual Green Lifestyle Film Festival at UCLA in late March.
 
Gilmore’s characters, whose true identities are Gilbert Moore and Lotus Lee, are based on himself and his girlfriend. The pair made its second appearance at the film festival, a three-day event dedicated to creating “change for the greater good,” as its promoters say, and featuring productions focusing on topics ranging from proper diet and alternative energy to overpopulation and the effects of air pollution.
 
Opening night ceremonies at the James Bridges Theater on March 20 included appearances by Australian model and actress Joanne Rose, preteen hip-hop artist Li’l Maxso and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, among others.
 
The Green Lifestyles event marked the second formal appearance of the dynamic green duo. Drawn and animated in much the same 1960s style as Stephen Colbert’s “Tek Jansen Adventures” and “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” characters of “SNL” fame, Rawman and Green-Girl actually debuted in 2008, when the event was called the Raw Lifestyle Film Festival. That first episode, “Beware the Beekeeper,” can be viewed on Gilmore’s Web site, gilmomedia.com.
 
This second episode, which took the computer graphics artist about a year to write and animate, is titled “Rawman and Green-Girl Meet Frankenfood” and features the intrepid couple doing battle against a company called Big Pharma Seed, whose CEO becomes a monster after eating tomatoes grown from genetically engineered seeds.
 
The film is only about eight minutes long, but Gilmore, who was the only artist from the Los Angeles area participating in the festival, said a longer version is in the works and will be appearing early May at greenlifestylefilmfestival.com along with other films that premiered at the festival. He’ll then post it at gilmomedia.com. To receive updates about Rawman and Green-Girl, join their fan page on Facebook.
 
“I have been interested in living a healthier lifestyle since I was in my 20s and that slowly evolved into the realization that we need to live in a clean and green environment to be truly healthy,” Gilmore said about the inspiration for his characters. “When I became a raw-vegan, I felt like a superhero because I had never felt so vibrant and alive.”
 
Once he finishes adding two scenes to the new episode, which he had to leave out due to time constraints, Gilmore, who works for a customs broker and international freight forwarding company near LAX, plans to approach Erewhon Natural Foods Market and Whole Foods Market about showing “Frankenfood” in some of their stores.
 
“I think it fits perfectly with their mission statements,” he said, since his cartoon is about vegan superheroes who fight against man-made environmental dangers and the contamination of the food supply from such harmful elements as pesticides, genetic modification and artificial ingredients.
 
For the third episode, Gilmore, who grew up in Redding and took an art correspondence course and an art class at Chouinard Art Institute but says he is mostly self-taught, is thinking of covering the cartoon characters’ origins, with a plot line loosely based on “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.” He plans to work on that installment after finishing his current project, “Dynamite Brothers,” which he will pitch to television networks as a Saturday morning cartoon.
 
The adventures of Rawman and Green-Girl weren’t the only items on the agenda at the March 20 film festival in Westwood. 
Opening ceremony keynote speaker Bill Ryerson, president of the Washington-based Population Institute and the Population Media Center in Vermont, did not have happy news to report on the future of resources due to overpopulation. The two organizations he works for spread the benefits of family planning in developing countries by means of education and community outreach.
 
“When people are told that contraception gives them AIDS and that family planning is a trick, overpopulation is very difficult to solve,” said Ryerson. “The negative effects of overpopulation are inevitable at this point. Infinite growth is not sustainable in a finite universe.”
 
Film festival founder Dorit stressed that the event’s focus was aimed at redefining green as sustainable through film. Dorit said she created the festival in an effort to make green more mainstream and because there is too much infighting among members of the green movement.
 
“This festival, which belongs to all of us, was created to counter messages of fear and violence in the media by presenting quality, low-budget films that challenge us and inspire us to live lives of inspiration and to become the magnificent beings that lie within each of us,” she said.
 
The films, Dorit said, “set new and higher standards for a more evocative and representative media. It is through art like this that we break the bondage of lethargy, ignorance and self-defeating and destructive behavior patterns.” 




Nice dreams (PW article)

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Nice dreams

Barney Frank leads discussion restoring the ‘American Dream’

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 4/8/2010

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend Rebuilding the American Dream, an economic summit featuring talks by Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank and several business and community leaders, beginning at 8 a.m. Friday in downtown Los Angeles.
 
Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will headline the 17th annual economic summit hosted by the Greenlining Institute, a multiethnic public policy, research and advocacy organization.
 
The daylong event will focus on restoring “the American promise of prosperity for all citizens in an era when the high cost of higher education is skyrocketing, home ownership is imperiled by rising foreclosure rates and the state’s budget crisis is putting vital services at risk,” according to a prepared statement.
 
“This important event will give us an opportunity to hear from many different stakeholders,” said Hector Preciado, health policy director for the Greenlining Institute and chairman of the conference. “Congressman Frank will voice his perspective on financial reform to California constituents, but it will also give our constituents the opportunity to voice their opinions on what is happening at the community level and bounce ideas off our community leaders.”
 
Along with Frank, speakers will include Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Coleman Advocates Executive Director NTanya Lee, California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey, Los Angeles City Councilmember Richard Alarcon, Bank of America Home Loans President Barbara Desoer, California Endowment President and CEO Dr. Robert Ross, California Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), California Public Utilities Commissioner Tim Simon and Greenlining Institute Executive Director Orson Aguilar.
 
The event is at the Center at Cathedral Plaza, located at 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. To register for the event, visit greenlining.org/summit.

Eminent concern (PW article)

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Eminent concern

Pasadena officials may seize Julia Morgan’s long-neglected YWCA building

By Justin Chapman and Kevin Uhrich, Pasadena Weekly, 4/1/2010

After literally watchng a onetime gem deteriorate over the years into a local eyesore, Pasadena officials hope to soon take control of the former YWCA built by Julia Morgan, California’s first registered female architect.
 
Located at the corner of North Marengo Avenue and Holly Street — its backdoor facing North Garfield Avenue and City Hall’s front entrance — the building was constructed in 1921, six years before City Hall was built and just a year before Morgan designed San Simeon, the sprawling, opulent hilltop mansion overlooking Morro Bay, owned by newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. 
 
Morgan, who designed numerous structures in the Los Angeles area, also built for Hearst the iconic and long-vacant Herald-Examiner newspaper building at the corner of 11th Street and Broadway in downtown LA. Like the old Her-Ex building, the local YWCA has been empty for years, its windows and doors boarded up and the structure falling into an ongoing state of disrepair.
 
Urged on by members of the nonprofit group Pasadena Heritage, the Pasadena City Council will consider seizing the property through eminent domain following a public hearing set for 8 p.m. April 12 at City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave.
 
The current owner, Angela Chen-Sabella of Trove Investments, who acquired the property in 1996 for $1.8 million, has been negotiating with the city for more than a year but so far has rejected all offers. Trove is asking for $12 million. The council is considering directing city staff to open eminent domain proceedings so that the city has the ability to take action if negotiations with Trove are not successful.
 
Sue Mossman, executive director of Pasadena Heritage, believes the historic building will be better off in the city’s hands, even if it is seized under eminent domain.
 
“There have been several different ideas for the building but they haven’t panned out,” she said. “Meanwhile, time goes by and the building is suffering.”

‘We are not going away’ (PW article)

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‘We are not going away’

Friends Group fights to change sheriff’s nighttime release policy in wake of woman’s disappearance

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 3/25/2010

They may not have gotten exactly what they wanted from LA County Sheriff’s Department officials in the hot seat over the disappearance of a woman who has not been heard from since being released from custody in the dead of night in September.
 
But members of the Friends Group, an arm of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women, let law enforcement officials know that they won’t forget 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson, who went missing Sept. 17 after she was released at 12:35 a.m. from the sheriff’s Malibu/Lost Hills Station.
 
“We’re not going to go away on this,” said Shirley Spencer of the Friends Group. “There needs to be increased awareness of our rights. While there are super nice people in the Sheriff’s Department, there are also issues that need attention.”
 
On March 17, Spencer’s group hosted a low-key panel discussion on the sheriff’s nighttime jail release policies that included input from Chief Neal B. Tyler, who oversees the Malibu/Lost Hills Station, as well as the sheriff’s Crescenta Valley and Altadena stations. The event at the Pasadena Central Library was aimed at giving family members a better idea of where the search for Richardson stands. 
 
The department maintains that the current policy is both legal and necessary. But Spencer called the county’s custodial nighttime release policy “imprudent” when it should be “compassionate.” People — especially women — should not be released from jail at night without access to money, a phone, transportation and proper clothing, Spencer said.
 
The Friend’s Group plans to collect stories of women inmates released at night and meet again with sheriff’s officials for updates on the search for Richardson. 

That’s Envirotainment! (PW article)

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That’s Envirotainment!

Green film fest hopes to change the way we think about ourselves and our world

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 3/18/2010

UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre this weekend hosts the fourth annual Green Lifestyle Film Festival, an event aimed at illustrating how film can be used to “create change for the greater good,” according to event spokeswoman Lisa Chamberlin.
 
Festivities begin at 5 p.m. Friday with a Green Carpet opening featuring celebrities such as Australian writer, model, actress, producer and vegan Joanne Rose, vegetarian actress and comedian Debra Wilson Skelton, Norwegian Playboy Playmate Lillian Muller, and pre-teen hip-hop sensation Maxso. Opening ceremonies at 6 p.m. include trailers and a question and answer session with filmmakers.
Films will be screened from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, after which there will be a gala awards dinner from 6 to 11 p.m.
 
The festival, according to its Web site, was created to counter media messages based on fear and violence with “films that address the reasons behind such distorted images of mankind and our role here, with films that challenge us and inspire us to live lives of inspiration and to become the magnificent beings that lie within each of us.”
“Join us for a weekend full of entertainment of the highest integrity and plenty of food for thought,” said Chamberlin.
The James Bridges Theatre is at1409 Melnitz Hall, (UCLA), 405 Hilgard Ave., Westwood. A half-day pass is $35, $65 for a full day and $195 for a weekend pass, which includes access to the awards ceremony and the catered vegan dinner Sunday evening. Buy tickets online at greenlifestylefilmfestival.com, punch in the code GLFF2010 and receive $70 off the price of the weekend pass ticket. The festival also features a free OutDoors Arena, which is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday and includes a stage with live musicians, dancers, theater and other entertainment. There will also be top chefs doing live demonstrations and booths offering information. For more information, visit greenlifestylefilmfestival.com or call (310) 854-2078 or (310) 928-7689.

‘Triangle of Life’ (PW article)

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‘Triangle of Life’

Disaster experts debate three vastly different approaches to what people should do during an earthquake

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 3/11/2010

Following major earthquakes in different regions of the world, three explanations of what to do if you are in a building during an earthquake have emerged.
 
But which is the best approach?
 
The traditional way of thinking on the subject, the one that is taught to schoolchildren across the country, says we should get under desks, tables or any object that offers some protection above our heads. This approach also advises us to find doorways to stand under until the shaking stops.
 
However, Douglas Copp, a rescuer, is challenging that theory and rejects the advice of traditional disaster experts. Having climbed into 875 buildings in 60 countries to help find disaster victims, he has shared his observations and findings, including what he calls the “triangle of life” — the space next to objects such as desks, chairs and beds, where Copp suggests we take refuge when the earth starts to tremble. 
 
Traditional suggestions of getting under desks and standing in doorways actually lead to more deaths, according to Copp, rescue chief and disaster manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI). Based on his experience, Copp argues that people will be safer if they get next to those objects and into the triangle of life, where they will be protected from falling debris, according to an article by Copp on ARTI’s Web site called “Earthquake Tips.”
 
“The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact,” wrote Copp. “The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings on television, count the triangles you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape you will see in a collapsed building.”
 
He claims that almost everyone who simply ducks and covers when buildings collapse is crushed to death, as are people who get under objects and stand in doorways.
 
Several disaster experts dispute Copp’s findings and claim his suggestions are not scientifically based.
 
Ricky Lopes, American Red Cross manager of Community Disaster Education, said the American Red Cross’s suggestion of “duck, cover and hold on,” which includes getting under a heavy object, is based on building codes in the United States, and he maintains that technique has saved lives.
 
Copp wants his triangle of life approach, based on an experiment he conducted in Turkey, adopted by the world’s nations, most of which use International Building Codes published by the International Code Commission for worldwide distribution and sales. These codes are different from what is traditionally used throughout the United States.
 
Copp’s recommendations, said Lopes, are “inaccurate for application in the United States and inconsistent with information developed through earthquake research.”
 
Dr. Marla Petal, director of the Bogazici University, Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute’s Disaster Preparedness Education Program in Turkey, acknowledges that there are voids, or triangles of life, next to objects after an earthquake. But in a published article responding to Copp’s claims, titled “The Need for an Evidence-Basis for Earthquake Survival Tips,” Petal argued that “the force of earthquakes moves large and heavy objects. We don’t know whether it is possible to anticipate where the life-safe voids will be before the collapse or whether it is possible to get there during the strong shaking of an earthquake.” 
 
In other words, it is impossible to predict where those spaces will be because those objects, like everything else, move during an earthquake.
 
Petal’s doctoral research focused on the causes of death during the Aug. 17, 1999, Kocaeli Earthquake in Turkey, as well as the implications of those findings for public education outreach.
 
The third approach comes from Dr. Michio Kaku, a famous and prolific theoretical physicist. Appearing on Geraldo Rivera’s show on FOX Television, Kaku said that during an earthquake, people should simply run. And if they can’t get out of a building, they should not stand in doorways or get under objects. As an alternative, Kaku suggested the triangle of life approach, which has been getting more public attention since evidence from recent earthquakes in Chile, Haiti and China has shown that people who did what they were told — got under objects and stood in doorways — were killed or maimed. 
 
According to Petal, however, Copp’s claims are “extreme hypotheses” that need to be tested. 
 
“Even the best scientific methods don’t always provide perfect or even helpful results,” wrote Petal. “Nevertheless, scientific methods should be used to investigate our hunches. There are many important questions that we haven’t begun to answer, but absolute claims like this are just total rubbish and no substitute.”
 
Copp bases his advice on an experiment in 1996 co-organized by ARTI, the Turkish government, the city of Istanbul and the University of Istanbul, in which they filmed a “practical, scientific test.”
 
“We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did ‘duck and cover’ and 10 mannequins I used in my ‘triangle of life’ survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse, we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing ‘duck and cover.’”
Copp claims there would likely have been 100 percent survival for those using the triangle of life method.
 
Petal, however, noted in her response that this was not a scientific experiment and that its organizers did not simulate an earthquake, but rather rammed columns and caused the building to pancake.
 
“Earthquakes come in waves,” she wrote. “They cause lateral shaking. They cause a variety of different kinds of damage. Since this experiment didn’t produce anything resembling shaking, it really doesn’t tell us anything at all about what would happen during an earthquake. It could be that the large and heavy furniture would end up at the other end of the room, nowhere near where it began.”
 
The truth is there’s only so much we can do when we are caught off-guard inside a building in an earthquake. So far, no single approach seems to be a fail-safe method for everyone to utilize in every situation. Survivability depends on several circumstances, including the magnitude of the quake, the type of building a person is in and the building codes used during construction, the size of objects in the room and access to medical resources. 
 
New evidence emerges with each quake, but one thing experts can agree on is that these methods need to be tested further using science to determine their applicability. 




Ready, willing, but unable (PW article)

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Ready, willing, but unable

Though hopeful for a happy ending, mayor says the city is already doing as much as it can to help the now-closed Pasadena Playhouse

By Justin Chapman, Pasadena Weekly, 3/5/2010

Following the closing of the historic Pasadena Playhouse last month due to millions of dollars of debt inherited from the theater’s previous operator, Playhouse executives have turned to the city for help in saving the official State Theater of California. 
 
In a Feb. 11 letter to Mayor Bill Bogaard and the Pasadena City Council, Carla Walecka, president of the Playhouse District Association, urged the council and city staff to “do everything in your power to accomplish four things: 1) Bring a theater company back to the Playhouse as soon as possible, 2) Activate the theater space and patio in the interim, 3) Retain Furious Theatre [a separate company operating at the theater] within the Playhouse District, and 4) Promote the diverse and vibrant arts venues our district offers to Pasadenans and the region.”
 
Unfortunately, however, Bogaard said recently that there isn’t much more the city can do to help financially, explaining that over the years the city has been supportive, providing the lease on the building at $1 a year. “We’re not really able to allocate funds to nonprofit organizations,” added Bogaard, who along with the council is working to close a multimillion-dollar gap in the city’s finances. “That question frequently comes up, but we try in every way, short of direct cash subventions, to be supportive, cooperative and to facilitate good outcomes. And we’ll certainly continue to do that. That is our space there and it’s possible that in the future we’ll be able in some regular way to help with the upkeep of the building to ensure that that asset is protected.”
 
During curtain call for “Camelot,” the theater’s final performance on Feb. 7, Artistic Director Sheldon Epps called the Playhouse closing “intermission” and said bankruptcy was a viable alternative. On Jan. 29, executives, including Epps, Executive Director Stephen Eich and board Chair Michele Engemann, decided to cancel the 2010 season of plays, consider financial reorganization, including seeking advice from a lawyer about bankruptcy, and other options. Nearly 40 employees have since been laid off.
 
Since then, Playhouse executives have asked the city and donors for help, but so far they have not been able to acquire the nearly $6 million they say is needed to pay off their $2 million debt and continue production.
 
“My hope is that later this year they’ll be back in business,” said Bogaard. “But they’re obviously just at the beginning of this restructuring. We’re in direct communication with Stephen Eich and his transition team. City Hall strongly supports the effort that they’re engaged in to stabilize their financial picture. We stand ready to cooperate in their efforts.”
 
Founded in 1917, the Playhouse was named the State Theater of California in 1937.