corsage

Saturday was Play Day at Rand.

It is good to have a mobile studio at times, to narrow down materials and create an order to them during the prep and planning phase.

Materials include old botanical reprints, original cigarette cards and printed tissue.

Witness

Dropping Robbye Gerl at the bus stop at Fox Hills Mall today, we saw two men being detained by the police. It looked like this: three squad cars, six Culver City police officers, two men handcuffed and sitting on the curb. Robbye said that she had seen one of the men a few minutes before, walking down the street in a jacket and cap, not running or looking to get away, just walking. As she jumped on the bus she said to me, "go up to the police and ask them why they are holding those men". So I did. Well, first I watched-I stood next to folks who were waiting for the bus. We all watched. Nothing much happened except the police talked a bit with each other and then to the men. The guy with the cap wanted to know if he was arrested. The police officer's response was, no, not arrested, detained, which means that we can't legally hold you, but you can't go. Then two squad cars left and the men were led to the front and back seat of the third car. Minutes later the man with the cap was released. Before they let him walk away, they pulled up his shirt, front and then back, and had him open his mouth wide and stick out his tongue. Then they drove off with the other man in the car and left the guy with the cap standing there-trying to regain a shred of dignity in front of the bus riders and others who witnessed his detention.

1000 oil wells?

A group of folks from Culver City, Ladera Heights, Baldwin Hills and Los Angeles met with a commission from the County Board of Supervisors to raise our voices about PXP, a Texas-based oil subsdiary of Halliburton, that has rights to drill in the Inglewood Oil Field near Kennth Hahn State Park. We bused in (I walked from LA Attorney Dispute Resolution Program on 2nd and Hill-later took the public bus home with my friend Ruth Sarnoff) to conserve gasoline. At a previous meeting PXP executives minimized the impact of their scheme, saying that they would probably drill "only 24 wells a year", which of course is one every two weeks, a steady pace of environmental assault.

Their self -imposed CSD makes them look like heros for applying stringent requirements that they must then meet. They are requiring themselves to protect Native American buriel grounds, and to landscape with drought-tolerant native plants. However, they are not going to protect us from the long-lasting degradation of our local habitat: schools with hundreds of children, homes that already suffer from toxic fumes, noise and ground uplift. They have NO Business drilling in a high density, urban area. See the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance website for more information. http://www.cityprojectca.org/ourwork/baldwinhills.html also http://www.chc-inc.org/chcRegionalLB.cfm