lornamatic

Very happy to see some lovely new news, not all bad news, today.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa launches a goal to plant one million trees in Los Angeles in the next few years.

This is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful news.

Because we need someplace to put all those birds!

This is pretty great – LA County was just named the “birdiest county” in the US. It’s a fun and informal count of those things with feathers, and we have got a lot of ‘em. Good news, especially considering the past month: the devastation of two Tern colonies, and then there’s still that whole thing about the plans to build a freeway overpass through one of our most beautiful wildlife refuges.

I participated (just the tiniest bit) in this bird count, so I’m really thrilled to see LA County won the title.

It is, as they say, a good start. But there’s a lot more work to do.

So unless you live under a rock, you have heard about the protests against HB 4437.

HB 4437 calls for a lot of things, and whatever your opinion on “the immigrant problem,” it’s worth reading the actual proposal. After reading through the bill, I’m actually surprised there’s not a section calling for RFID chipping of every person that crosses the country’s border. Perhaps they left the door open enough under the rubric of “Biometric data enhancements.”

It seems to me that what’s upsetting people the most is the F-word. Even if you believe in a hard stance against illegal immigration, you might consider the toll this would take on our courts. And I wonder, in these cases, what would truly constitue a jury of peers.

I dearly wish I had been in the thick of the protests today – I love nothing more than taking pictures at events like this, but today was a sick day. I made it out of the house this morning to bring my broken car to the mechanic. He’s what you might call a pink immigrant, hailing from one of those English-speaking countries where they have charming accents. On the way out, he wished me “happy uno de mayo!”

Before heading home, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Brentwood, Literati. I ordered my usual breakfast burrito, and the girl at the counter gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re not serving breakfast right now.”

I pointed to the sign that promises breakfast all day.

“I’m sorry, but we are so short staffed today,” she said. “We’ve only got two people in the kitchen so we can’t do breakfast.”

I suddenly realized why this was the case, and said “WOW. That is pretty cool.” A huge smile came over her face.

The place was chaotic, and it was really fascinating to watch the reaction of the different customers. The north of Wilshire ladies (you know, the More-Important-Than-You set) don’t much care for waiting for their lattes, and I watched more than one lady undertake her very own personal protest march, right up to the counter to loudly demand her chicken salad for which she had been waiting over HALF AN HOUR.

My substitute sandwich took a long while to come out, but as I watched a nervous-looking white kid busing tables, I enjoyed that wait. I loved the thought that the guys who normally take care of those details were off doing something more important than folding my breakfast burrito: American citizens, participating in free speech.

That is more than pretty cool.

Update:PDF of the clemency decision here:
http://www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/pdf/press_release_2005/Williams_Clemency_Decision.pdf.

Excerpt (links added):

The dedication of Williams’ book “Life in Prison” casts significant doubt on his personal redemption. This book was published in 1998, several years after Williams’ claimed redemptive experience. Specifically, the book is dedicated to “Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga
Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George
Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countless other men, women, and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.” The mix of individuals on this list is curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been convicted of committing heinous murders, including the killing of law enforcement.

But the inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems.

Right. Guilt by association. I can’t possibly argue with that kind of logic.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is contemplating clemency for Stan Williams. Stan Williams has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize five times, for his work on reducing gang violence and helping keep kids away from gangs. He’s also a convicted killer, who is scheduled to die on Monday.

I believe that he has a great deal to offer, particularly with his work to connect with at-risk kids and keep them from making the same mistakes as he has.

I’m really hoping for clemency. I signed an online petition to the Governor. You may or may not agree with my views on this, and you can feel free to let me know, but my conscience demands that I post this.

It’s a story we should all be aware of and I hope you will want to learn a little more about it.

Stan Williams bio:
http://www.savetookie.org/bio.html

The petition sent to the Governor’s office is at:
http://www.cm-p.com/pdf/executiveclemency.pdf
(Launches Acrobat)

The online petition I signed is at:
http://www.petitionthem.com/?sect=detail&pet=2240

(Currently at ~41K, they are looking for 100K.)