A Walk Through Occupy L.A.

On my aborted drive home today, two AM shock jocks claimed the police were arresting Occupy LA protesters for blocking traffic in a few intersections. I was a few miles northwest of Downtown and decided to drive by and catch the action. Traffic wasn't too bad, and my lane weaving skills have improved after driving in Los Angeles for a few months.

By the time my brakes finished squeaking to 3rd and Temple, whatever arrests may have happened had occurred, and Downtowners had once again given the occupiers a collective shrug.

I at first turned away from the collection of Skid Row homeless, idealistic college-agers and parents enjoying a drug induced mid-life crisis turned Wayback Machine ride to the 60's Protest movement few of them visited during their teenage years. On second thought, I had driven all the way down there with bad breaks, unresponsive back lights and half a windshield coated with sap. I may as well walk through the camp grounds.

I attempted to write a blog about the infrastructure developing at the protest site, but the website, Street Boners and TV Carnage, was inundated with posts about the various Occupy movements and too journalistic for their tastes.

"May as well see who stuck around," I thought to myself as I paid three dollars for an hour parking spot and trotted towards city hall grumbling.

The atmosphere had changed at the tent city. Relative silence blanketed the protest grounds; protesters huddle together in tents sucking on pipes; no one said hello or tried to speak with passerbys as they strode between through the narrow gaps turned de-facto avenues running between campsites.

Except one man wearing a baby blue t-shirt with Jesus riding a dinosaur.

He attempted to hand me an advertisement for a website masked as a business card.

"What is this?" I asked.

He cast a wide smile in direction. "It lets you know what companies you can boycott."

"You mean, without this card I can't stop buying products from these businesses?" I replied.

He chuckled without losing his grin.

"It lists companies with unethical business practices."

"How was the list compiled?"

"It's gathered from a website forum where people post empirical evidence about company's labor practices."

"That's innovative. You've chosen to justify your political opinions with unverified information posted by anonymous users on the internet."

A female associate who had been walking with the advocate glanced at the sidewalk behind him while he responded.

"Some of it could be direct. I wouldn't call them indirect accounts..." He replied and trailed off into a smaller, gentler grin.

"You don't know of the veracity of your convictions, but you're going out there and educating potential consumers. You're a champion of modern democracy my friend."

I left him to salvage what chance he had of convincing the young woman to read more of his literature inside his private tent.

Although the spirit of the Occupy movement resonates with me, the superficial attempts at political discussion exemplify most of my disagreements with the participants. Many of their supporters defend their tendencies towards vague, trendy and often buzzword filled messages by pointing to the short duration of the political group thus far.

The ultimately ineffective protest movements of the 60's and 70's used similar tactics to those of the Occupiers, but initiated them with a goal in mind: the reinstatement of a controversial teacher, a withdrawal of troops from Vietnam or the institutionalized repression of black Americans.

The radical groups of years past achieved victories. Many small, or short lasting, but tangible victories nonetheless.

Until someone comes up with a new way of combating social ills, I will continue my own way and provide a voice of the dissent for my well-intentioned peers. If every little bit doesn't help, at least it'll amuse myself and those around me...at least the ones reading this blog -- hopefully -- and those I'm not speaking to directly.

Before I left a young man offered me half of a taco, which I imagine he had procured from the free food tent.

Skid Row, the notorious encampment of Southern Californian homeless, lay less than a mile from the protest site.

"No thank you. I'd save it for someone who needs it," I responded.

He flashed me a quizzical glance then shrugged and continued munching on his taco. I watched him for a moment as live music filled the tiny enclave on the south section of city hall.

The world shrugged as well.

Signing off,

Tony Magnum

North Hollywood LAPD asks customers to take off their hats

The Los Angeles Police Department wants customers in North Hollywood to remove their hats, helmets and hoodies when entering stores so business owners in an effort to prevent robberies, as part of a policy called "Hats Off!" which the agency began last month.

A Police Activities League furnished stickers, available upon request from the city, requesting customers take off their hats, helmets and hoodies upon entering the establishment. Detective Sean Mahoney said businesses maintain the right to pick their customers and may chose to eject shady characters from the premises.

“It gives owners a heads up. If someone says, ‘No. I won’t take my hoodie off,’ they’ll be better able to protect themselves,” said Detective Mahoney.

The pilot program, supposedly based off of an 18th century edict by King Carlos III of Spain banning broad brimmed hats according to a press release, will begin in North Hollywood, but Mahoney has big plans for the program.

“We’re hoping to get hundreds of businesses [involved],” he said.

North Hollywood has suffered 244 robberies so far this year, compared with 400 last year.

“That’s stupid,” said Sebastian, a manager at the Chevron on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Burbank.

 
The gas station manager would be offended if a business owner asked him to remove his hat.

 
“Imagine if I went into a restaurant and they asked me to remove my hat. I’d be like what the fuck? I’m still going to pay,” he said.

 
The manager of the Seven-11 next door to the North Hollywood LAPD Station Sayez Syed, whose store participates in the program, admits the policy upsets customers, but hopes they understand they’re trying to help prevent hold-ups in the area.

 
“It’s good to know the person can take their hats off so we know exactly what the people look like,” he said.

 
Sebastian didn’t think it mattered.

“People go to banks without a hat or anything,” he said. The manager puffed his chest out and stomped forward in place. “They just walk right in, not giving a fuck.”

 
Clarence Hicks-Ervin leaned against a shopping cart full of bags. He slouched forward while wearing a t-shirt and jeans. A pair of purple lensed aviator sunglasses rested on the bridge of his nose. He watched the stump at the end of his left leg crossed over his other blue jean leg. His “brother”, Homie UK, paced around the sidewalk behind him rapping into the air. UK wore a backwards baseball cap, black shirt and jeans. His face stretched backwards from the tip of his nose.

 
“I don’t think a robber would be deterred because they don’t care about signs. They don’t care about the security guards, cameras or signs. They already planned out what they’re going to do,” he said.

 
He thought the program was well intentioned, but won’t affect the number of robberies in North Hollywood. Hicks-Ervin said the program will help business owners recognize their customers, but could also drive some away.

“In the right neighborhood, well actually the wrong neighborhood, the program could kill their business,” he said.

The policy reinforces a negative stereotype about people who wear hoodies, in his mind.

“I walk in with a jacket, sunglasses and a hood on and purchase what I buy,” he said. “Even with the crutches, people still stare.”

Saber's Skywriting Protest

Almost a month ago, I pitched a story to LA Weekly about a graffiti artist, whom spray painted his name on the cement banks of the Los Angeles River years back, tagged his and others names over City Hall with skywriting planes to protest against Los Angeles' mural ban. The Weekly article focuses on the mostly finished legal battle and past role of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich -- please note I share the byline with one of LA Weekly's staff writers in the story; it's not entirely my article.

The original story took a different approach. Here's the information which didn't make the Weekly:

Graffiti artists protested a citywide ban on murals on private property September 19^th by tagging their names where millions of Angelenos could see them: the sky.

Street artist Saber, who organized the protest, said he called in favors and traded services to put the skywriting planes in the sky to scrawl his and other graffiti artists’ names above city hall

Saber holds the city has no place banning advertisements either, as long as the building owners ensure the ads are secured in a safe manner.

“Our whole city is based off the Hollywood sign. Get over it,” he said.

The artist charges the city has bigger problems to worry about and limiting means of artistic expression for urban youth encourages vandalism.

“There are billboards, there's trash, there are homeless people,” he said. “Why is art being scrutinized?”

Saber said he came up with the idea when fellow street artist Jason “Revok” Williams was sentenced to 180 days in jail on a $320,000 bail for failure to pay graffiti related fines. The artist picked skywriting as the avenue for the protest because he knew it had a huge potential to grab attention.

Revok participated in the protest as well.

“You want to threaten to sue me and my friends for painting a mural? Ok. That’s fine. We’ll write our names ten stories high in the sky,” he said.

Since 2002, the city council has enforced a ban on fine art murals. The moratorium began when the council passed an ordinance to regulate commercial murals, signs and supergraphics – giant signs attached to the sides of buildings or other large structures.

Department of Building and Safety spokesman David Lara said property owners are given thirty days to pay a $336 fee and remove murals after an inspector reports them. If the owner refuses to clear their property they’re hit with a $550 non-compliance fee. After another month passes, both fees increase by 250 percent.

Lara said murals are no longer a high priority because of staffing cuts. Three inspectors, down from over 38 in years past, enforce the city’s mural ban.

After a lawsuit between AK Media and the City of Portland, a court deemed placing different regulations on commercial murals and fine art murals was unfair to one means of freedom of speech. City officials blamed the lawsuit, and others between billboard companies and cities, for lengthening the mural ban.

“Unfortunately, the two issues have been muddled together as we address these legal challenges,” wrote the spokesperson for councilman Ed Reyes -- whom motioned for an end to ban -- in an email. “In the coming months we hope to delineate the two and give muralists the opportunity to create works of art that reflect the diversity of our great City.”

The 2002 ordinance allows for murals to be made on private property in specifically designated sign districts, such as the one in Hollywood.

These districts, however, require the city council’s designation and can cost $119,000 once all the permits have been accounted for, said Blackman. Advertising space in these districts is valued high putting the space out of the reach of many artists.

Los Angeles was once deemed the Mural Capital of the World. According to the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the city fed mural making and preservation programs $400,000 during the early 90’s. 

Today the Department of Cultural Affairs, which would regulate murals painted on private property were they legal, has no budget for mural conservation and preservation because of the strain on city funds created by the current economy, according to Department of Cultural Affairs Mural Manager Pat Gomez.

Other sectors of government have tried to fill the gaps. Councilman Jose Huizar, who has motioned for the city council to create a permit system for fine arts murals, has funded the restoration of murals in Highland Park and Boyle Heights.

The city defends the mural ban by stating the First Amendment bars the government from regulating the content of artistic expression. Officials, and courts decisions, contend permitting artistic murals with a different set of rules discriminates against commercial advertisements.

Molly “Goo” Scargall, who had Revok and a group of graffiti artists paint a mural on the side of her salon, called the argument “bullshit.”

“One is beautifying; one is enhancing the community,” she said. “The other is for advertising or for commercial gain.”

She felt the mural brought together the diverse community which lives near her salon at Rosewood and Fairfax. Young people and “old Jewish ladies” complimented the art piece, Scargall said.

First amendment lawyer Jeffrey Douglas sides with the city. He said the government can’t make one set of rules for fine art murals and supergraphics, which qualify as “commercial speech.” The government could restrict the height, weight and percentage of surface covered of both advertisements and fine art murals.

There are few cases where the city could legally prohibit a mural from being created on artistic grounds, however.

“Let’s I want to put up depicts Jesus with very large breasts crucified, with eyes the size of saucers like Japanese hentai [style pornography on the side of my house]. That’s fundamentally in incredibly poor taste ,” he said.

The city is considering adopting a program Portland, Oregon developed, which allows for murals on private land. The policy requires the owner to donate the part of their property, which will host the mural to the city, then have the artist submit their proposal to the Department of Cultural Affairs. Murals are allowed public property because the city can act as a “patron of the arts.”

“That sounds like bullshit too. It sounds like another way for them to have their hand in the pot,” said Scargall.

Revok disapproves of any program that requires artists to gain city approval for mural making.

“The government has no place being an art critic,” he said.

Blackman said the program is unpopular because many residents feel uncomfortable losing their property to the city.

“What do you mean I have to give my wall to big brother?” he said was a common reaction to the process.

Blackman blamed ongoing legal disputes for stymieing progress on the issue, which is why he hopes to incorporate the property donation program into the city’s solution: It hasn’t been the subject of a lawsuit. The current economic straights have also impaired progress on the mural issue because programs which require city funding strain what officials are saying is an already string thin budget.

The city is considering pairing that mural system with what Portland calls the Original Art Murals permit system. Blackman said the system places restrictions on the size of the mural and undergo a neighborhood approval system – presumably where the community will approve the content.

The program bans murals with moving parts and stipulates the artwork must remain unchanged for five years, to prevent owners from using the artwork as an advertising mechanism. The property owner may not accept a cash payment for the artwork and someone has to fork over an “administrative fee” to the city, which Blackman said should be small. Murals cannot go on residential buildings with less than five units as well, according to a slideshow he created.

Blackman felt the Original Art Mural program accomplished the goal and felt less intrusive than other measures.

“The city has no discretion,” he said, which protects the city from potential lawsuits regarding content, “It lets art happen and lets people paint on their walls, as you would assume they could in a free society.”

A motion last June by councilman Bill Rosendahl requested the city differentiate murals from signs and establish a permitting system. Ever since then, Blackman has been waiting for the council to decide which direction to go in, which, he said, requires a joint-session of the Planning and Land Use Management and Arts, Parks and Neighborhoods Committees. He hopes to “sever” mural regulation away from the sign ordinance.

Blackman said the city uses Portland as a model because its mural programs have faced lawsuits in the past and similarities between California and Oregon’s constitutions.

“I don't think we should be looking at Portland for anything except trees,” said Saber.

The artist finds any limitation on artwork distasteful. Even if left up to the residents who will live near the mural, Saber speculates one or two people will speak against mural art because of its association with graffiti.

“I think all these programs are a big waste of time,” he said.

Venezuela's Prisons: Contract John Carpenter

Inmates in Venezuela's El Rodeo prison surrendered last week after nearly a month of holing up in the prison living off "little more than rainwater and sweets", according to the Economist. In addition to a run down of the escalating violence overseen by Hugo Chavez, the British newsmagazine described a system of self-government devised by gang leaders.

The Economist reported under the 2002 agreement the gang bosses, or prans, determined where prison dwellers slept, what they ate and their life expectancies. Inmates keen on seeing the end of their sentences--5,000 prisoners have been reported killed since 1999--paid a tax to the head men, amounting to an estimated $2.5 million a year.

With unrestricted cell phone usage--used to broker deals outside the prison--, drug trafficking and gun violence rampant within the penal system, policing the quagmire may cost more than containing it.

Instead of quashing the prans self-government structure, the Venezuelan government should support it a.l.a. John Carpenter's Escape From New York. The action movie took place in a futuristic United States where the federal government had turned the five boroughs into a maximum security prison.

The South American country contains large swaths of uninhabited land. Forcing prisoners to build and manage their own cities will reduce government costs and produce a more controlled environment for the country's violent criminals.

Insisting the convicts build land-lines to communicate within the prison-city, and installing cell phone signal blocking equipment, severs the connection between upper management and street level employees. Training inmates in construction, road management and urban planning translates to skilled workers upon release. Developing agricultural practices and infrastructure within the prisons would lessen the drain on tax payers for inmates' meals.

Without drug deals to oversee and prisoners to watch, the security guards could monitor the farms--placed along the perimeter of the city--to ensure the inmates grow nutritious, not recreational, produce and act as a sort of border patrol.

Allowing drug dealing, prostitution and runaway gambling withing the prans city-state may keep some prisoners returning to the system and entice a sort of penal tourism, but that can be solved by sending those guilty of lesser infractions to traditional prisons.

Instead of separating gang bangers from crime, keep them in their natural habitat. Just don't let the president or anyone with access to privileged information fly too close to the urban prison. Escape From LA proved Snake Plissken fairs better on the East Coast.

Pentagon Classifies Hacking As Warfare

The Pentagon recently classified hacking government infrastructure as an act of war, according to the BBC. In the coming weeks, the U.S. government will publish a cyber defense strategy, the BBC reported, which may or may not include how the government will react to cyber attacks of varying severity.


The change in policy comes several months after the 4chan affiliated hacker group Anonymous rendered the Egyptian Ministry of Information's webpage inoperable during the height of the protest movement. Less than two weeks later, then President Hosni Muburak stepped down; he and sons await trial in August.


The online attacks disrupted the then Muburak controlled government's ability to counter the opposition's flaring social media campaigns, but state television continued to reach the majority of the populace.


Anonymous' cyber attacks may have added little more than moral support to the Egyptian protest movement, but their impact on future political activities has yet to be seen.


The most fanatical of America's modern activists use tactics comparable to those of the peaceful Civil Rights Movement than those of the armed militants of the seventies. Disrupting corporate email systems, planting information stealing virus or manipulating traffic patterns to block access to G8 meetings fit the methodology of today's non-violent youth.


Anonymous' main weapon—the Low Orbiting Ion Cannon—is a free computer program which enables users with minimal computer skills to perform Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks—accessing a system with such frequency that the website's server cannot handle the amount of traffic, rendering the site unreachable—on targets of their choosing. The user can also relinquish control to a specific person, like the head of a political group, whom specifies the targets.


Controlling multiple computers adds potency to the DDoS attacks, and brings down bigger targets. The Anonymous hivemind brought down the servers of multiple credit card companies that helped Amazon sell electronic copies of the WikiLeaks releases, while refusing to host their website, earlier this year.


Similar programs can turn groups of idealistic teenagers into the online equivalent of the bank robbing political gangs of America's past.


Fighting political injustice from behind a computer screen hides their identity better than a black ski-mask; the hackers behind the International Monetary Fund's recent security breach are still unknown. Downloading quasi-legal software carries less severe penalties than buying firearms, making e-terrorism more palatable to today's political activists, but the consequences may be the same.


When The Department of Defense releases their new doctrines, expect a new discussion over the definition of domestic terrorism. The government plans may lead to frequent deployments of army strike forces to the placid streets of suburbia, which will lead to messy legal arguments and alienate middle-class voters who will be mildly irritated if their children are dragged to the stockade just like any other unlawful combatant.


Cheers,
T Magnum

I've been lazy and so has the Mass Media

My blog's inactivity has shown the inaugural post was more than a little ambitious. I'm only writing the second post of a blog months after the first, which promised daily updates. I deleted the first post because I'm not sure what direction this blog will take. I'm just going to write here as often as possible, and try to keep it running as long as I can.

Moving on, I'm dedicating this post to a current trend in Middle-Eastern and North African politics the media has dubbed the Arab Spring.

The waves of protests, connected by their democratic sensibilities, geo-graphic location and the role which Internet-based social networks played in their formation, have been characterized as a success; the name—Arab Spring—likens the current trend to the spread of democracy through Europe known as the Spring Time of Nation's.

Summer, however, may prove less promising than the spring.

The protests began in Tunisia when a fruit vendor set himself on fire after a policewoman confiscated his cart and goods. The government, then ruled by autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, ignored his requests for a review of his case, and he walked home, where he lit himself aflame. His misfortune became a rallying cry for young politicos from Algeria to Bahrain.

On May 18th, BBC.co.uk reported the new Tunisian government ended a ten day curfew that was instituted to quell protests calling for their resignation. The government had arrested 1,400 people—only 300 were charged with a crime—in an 11 day period.

Egypt faces a similar predicament. The military, which was treated generously during Hosni Muburak's reign, controls the transitional government that took power after the president left office.

Tunisian protestors criticized the transitional government for including many of Ben Ali's former ministers, but the movement's leaders shouldn't have been surprised that they retained their positions.

Who else would run the government?

Ben Ali held his position for close to 24 years, Muburak just under 30. That's longer than many of the protestors have lived, or will continue too given the region's low life expectancy.

The youth used Twitter, mass texting and word of mouth to organize protests, sit-ins and letter writing campaigns, much like my peers in college.

Setting up a functioning government requires more than getting people to come to a Facebook event.

Simply, more.

More skill, more focus, more willpower.

More than that, many of the public officials are the only ones trained to do their jobs. To sustain a monopoly on political power, a government must kill or absorb the competition then ensure no one takes their place. Limiting entrepreneurship, political organizations and censuring educators has led to a generation which can ask for a new system, but lacks the expertise or experience to build one.

Predicting social butterflys and youthful demonstrators will construct a democracy is raising the public's expectations too high. There are better ways to sell advertising, and media companies know that.

Instead of taking time to comprehend what's happening in that part of the world, newspapers enlarged their headlines, broadcast stations aired videos captured by cell phones and each slapped a label on a movement that had only begun.

The discontentment of Middle Eastern youth boiled over last Spring. Let's see how the Summer heat changes the political atmosphere.

Signing off,

T Magnum