People keep asking me if I have heard the latest gossip or rumor or corporate/governmental propaganda pretending to be a news story on a website that pretends to be a news source. I always respond "No. I don't read that, it's not a news source." The questioner always looks confused. Afterall, these blogs and websites SAY they are news sources.... If I said I was Elvis would you believe me?
SO for those too young, or in their youths too unconcerned to know, there is a difference between a news source and a propaganda outlet. Here are a few pointers:
1. A blog or gossip rag has a point of view, and people that are on it's side and people who are enemies. The friends get unqualified support, the enemies get ignored or derided when doing something good, and flamed beyond all reason at every opportunity to be claimed to be doing something bad. News sources are different. They may have friends and a viewpoint BUT, they cover both sides of the story, and attempt to treat those two, or three, or five sides, with equal fairness or suspicion. The Iconoclast knows of A local blog touting itself as a news source that when reached with evidence of a really juicy wrongdoing by one of the writers friends said "Well there are two sides to a story" and then buried it. A REAL NEWS OUTLET won't do that. A real news source will go get both sides of that story and COVER IT, even if, or actually, especially if, it will kill a friends career.
2. A real news source will out the editors best friend, his wife, his kids, anyone for a story. Real news sources are devoted to this long lost idea called journalism, getting to the bottom of societies underbelly and shining a big 500,000 candle power light on it and taking a photograph.
3. If you happen to be a public figure, before a real news source publishes a negative story about you, they will at least show you the decency to know they are doing a story, and allow you to respond to what they see as the facts. A gossip rag fake news source, like A blog, will not.
4. If you are a public figure and a reporter calls you and asks for a quote and you tell them what you think, the reporter doesn't say "Well Gee we wrote the story and thought you would say something else" and when you explain why you didn't say something else and why you don't believe something else, they put your actual words together with dots.....and turn your thought around 180 degrees, what you have is NOT a News source. Especially if you complain to the publisher and they promote that reporter to City Editor. Ever.
5. Real news sources have multiple reporters, editors, and people who do research. Of course some gossip rags have the same, but generally a totally ersatz imitation news source is one guy with a computer.
6. Real new sources have people working at them who went to real journalism schools or have real degrees in disciplines subjects like science, history, art, music, architecture, not squishy degrees like communications, theology, general humanities and political science.
7. If its a real news source on the internet it also has a hard copy printed, a radio or television version. If its net only, sorry not a news source.
For those who are confused, the Altadena Iconoclast is NOT a news source its a personal opinion/observation/memories blog. Also for those still confused, there are only four local news outlets:
The Pasadena Weekly
KPCC
Crown City News
the Pasadena Journal
Each of those way back in my public life published both favorable and unfavorable stories about me or things I was doing. Sometimes they even got it right.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
"Those Liberals"
A friend (former) posted to Facebook a song from U Tube sung by Doris Day. I noted below in the comments "Doris Day always makes me want to run out of a room screaming." It was an innocent observation, not intended on my part to be anything else. Certainly not a declaration of war. The posting person is in her early forties, is a divorced working professional, very intelligent hard working woman. Not one would think the sort of person who would idolize the Doris Day public persona.Doris Day's public persona not only makes me want to scream, it makes me want to vomit.
It was foisted upon the American Public as the role model for American Womanhood. No wonder Bettie Freidan and Gloria Steinem rebelled. For those too young to remember, the Doris Day Public Persona (DDPP for the rest of this essay) was one of a well dressed woman who was in a professional world where in order to survive due to the fragile male egos she was surrounded by she pretended to be both dumb as a rock and submissive as a starving kitten. She desired marriage to wealthy powerful successful men, and fended off every advance from them until they were "bagged". She outwitted everyone through continual and deep deception. There was not an honest dimension to her, and if society was in the 1950's and 1960's as portrayed in her movies, there was not an honest moment in it, either. The movies, values and society they portray are revolting. I am very glad the world went through the sexual and women's liberation movements of the late 1960's every time I think of Doris Day, because I can not imagine the hell of being married to such a creature. I can't imagine the hell of a society where men and women are on every level absolutely dishonest with one another. The world we live in today is not perfect, but its a whole lot better than the Stepford Doris Day world
Anyhow, my well educated hard working now former friend took great umbrage to my dislike of the DDPP. She wrote me a nasty couple of notes about me attacking her. I was confused. I have never seen personal disagreement as an attack. I thought that was strange, since she is an unconventionally lovely woman who I had in the past ALWAYS complimented on both her beauty and her intelligence. Her response was way, way, way out of scale, cutting and totally unexpected. It told me I had completely misjudged her as a person. She was "one of those "Liberals."'
One of "those Liberals"? you ask. Sadly, yes, "Those Liberals". Those liberals who listen to liberal talk radio and or go to events sponsored by some "enlightened" Church and can not, will not, tolerate anyone who disagrees with them on any issue. 'Those Liberals". You know the remarkably always in sync group thinkers who seem to have some chip implanted in their sub cortex that gets the latest talking points uploaded every morning from Palosi Central. You know, the ones who while they would be inflamed enough to shoot you, if they owned a gun, if you mentioned the remarkable similarity between them and Rush's Ditto Heads? "Those Liberals".
You know, the ones who have never disagreed with the Party Line of the moment, even if the party Line is 180 degrees opposite of what it was last year or last week? The ones who behave as if all politics and all philosophy are team sports, and if you are not 100% on MY team YOU are the ENEMY? you know, "Those Liberals" The intolerant of difference, while celebrating "diversity" ones? They make me feel nostalgia for my years spent with rabid Pentecostals.
They also make me feel very alone and very old. I suddenly remember my good friends of old...Hari Sihng Khalsa, a friend of many years with a absolutely razor sharp mind, wit and tongue. Hari and I worked tirelessly on the LaVina and water pumping at Devils Gate projects. We disagreed on many issues and perspectives, quite sharply. From what I understand, outside observers had no idea of either our humor, or friendship, and were both confounded and afraid of an outbreak of violence. We got each other and were free to express ourselves fully. Hari died of leukemia Thanksgiving Day 1995, as Veronica, his wife, and I held him. It was a deep loss.
I think of my childhood friend Larry Walton. Very similar story, except, sadly, Larry died alone some thirty years ago. I think of my friend Tim Berends. Tim and I volunteered together in Christian ministry and had the deepest of doctrinal disagreements, but we always pulled together for each other and the cause. I think of Max and Guy, two Republican lawyers who came to my rescue when Supervisor Antonovich arranged to have Art Snyder sue me. And Robin Salzer, also a Republican, also a friend, who at that time held fund raisers to pay Guy and many of my legal costs.
I think of Oscar Werner, who was a hard right Republican and on the Altadena Town Council in my early years. Oscar had heard the rumors I was a liberal and stayed quietly away, until he realized lable or not, I was about protecting Altadena as a specific place and culture. Then Oscar took me under his wing and we became fast friends, with fifty years of time between us. I also think of Altadenas leading "liberal" light of that time, Edna Smith, who decided any friend of Oscars was the enemy. She didn't speak to me until Oscar was long dead and about a year before she died. For her public life was a matter of a team sport, and one had to always be on HER side or the ENEMY.
Life is not a team sport. Life requires listening. Sometimes you totally agree with the people on the other side. Oscar and Edna never realized it, but they agreed 95% of the time. They never spoke to each other long enough or calmly enough to know that. Sadly, I am not going to advocate discussion.
I have learned much to my deep regret that some people, "those liberals" have their minds made up, even more, I find, than the " DittoHeads". Even worse, as much as any Christian or moslem Fundamentalist, even if they are a professed Atheist, they believe God is ALWAYS on their side. They don't seem to have taken the point from Abraham Lincoln that we must be on god;s side, not he on ours. They can not, and will not, hear you as you attempt to explain your position and embrace your commonalities. They are very like a religious Fundamentalist: Submit 100% to my viewpoint or be banned for all eternity. It's kind of comical but no longer entertaining, to observe them.
My former friend demanded retractions, the cessation of any FB disagreements, or she would defriend me. I defriended her, realizing she had never been my friend, and never would be.
I so miss Hari.
It was foisted upon the American Public as the role model for American Womanhood. No wonder Bettie Freidan and Gloria Steinem rebelled. For those too young to remember, the Doris Day Public Persona (DDPP for the rest of this essay) was one of a well dressed woman who was in a professional world where in order to survive due to the fragile male egos she was surrounded by she pretended to be both dumb as a rock and submissive as a starving kitten. She desired marriage to wealthy powerful successful men, and fended off every advance from them until they were "bagged". She outwitted everyone through continual and deep deception. There was not an honest dimension to her, and if society was in the 1950's and 1960's as portrayed in her movies, there was not an honest moment in it, either. The movies, values and society they portray are revolting. I am very glad the world went through the sexual and women's liberation movements of the late 1960's every time I think of Doris Day, because I can not imagine the hell of being married to such a creature. I can't imagine the hell of a society where men and women are on every level absolutely dishonest with one another. The world we live in today is not perfect, but its a whole lot better than the Stepford Doris Day world
Anyhow, my well educated hard working now former friend took great umbrage to my dislike of the DDPP. She wrote me a nasty couple of notes about me attacking her. I was confused. I have never seen personal disagreement as an attack. I thought that was strange, since she is an unconventionally lovely woman who I had in the past ALWAYS complimented on both her beauty and her intelligence. Her response was way, way, way out of scale, cutting and totally unexpected. It told me I had completely misjudged her as a person. She was "one of those "Liberals."'
One of "those Liberals"? you ask. Sadly, yes, "Those Liberals". Those liberals who listen to liberal talk radio and or go to events sponsored by some "enlightened" Church and can not, will not, tolerate anyone who disagrees with them on any issue. 'Those Liberals". You know the remarkably always in sync group thinkers who seem to have some chip implanted in their sub cortex that gets the latest talking points uploaded every morning from Palosi Central. You know, the ones who while they would be inflamed enough to shoot you, if they owned a gun, if you mentioned the remarkable similarity between them and Rush's Ditto Heads? "Those Liberals".
You know, the ones who have never disagreed with the Party Line of the moment, even if the party Line is 180 degrees opposite of what it was last year or last week? The ones who behave as if all politics and all philosophy are team sports, and if you are not 100% on MY team YOU are the ENEMY? you know, "Those Liberals" The intolerant of difference, while celebrating "diversity" ones? They make me feel nostalgia for my years spent with rabid Pentecostals.
They also make me feel very alone and very old. I suddenly remember my good friends of old...Hari Sihng Khalsa, a friend of many years with a absolutely razor sharp mind, wit and tongue. Hari and I worked tirelessly on the LaVina and water pumping at Devils Gate projects. We disagreed on many issues and perspectives, quite sharply. From what I understand, outside observers had no idea of either our humor, or friendship, and were both confounded and afraid of an outbreak of violence. We got each other and were free to express ourselves fully. Hari died of leukemia Thanksgiving Day 1995, as Veronica, his wife, and I held him. It was a deep loss.
I think of my childhood friend Larry Walton. Very similar story, except, sadly, Larry died alone some thirty years ago. I think of my friend Tim Berends. Tim and I volunteered together in Christian ministry and had the deepest of doctrinal disagreements, but we always pulled together for each other and the cause. I think of Max and Guy, two Republican lawyers who came to my rescue when Supervisor Antonovich arranged to have Art Snyder sue me. And Robin Salzer, also a Republican, also a friend, who at that time held fund raisers to pay Guy and many of my legal costs.
I think of Oscar Werner, who was a hard right Republican and on the Altadena Town Council in my early years. Oscar had heard the rumors I was a liberal and stayed quietly away, until he realized lable or not, I was about protecting Altadena as a specific place and culture. Then Oscar took me under his wing and we became fast friends, with fifty years of time between us. I also think of Altadenas leading "liberal" light of that time, Edna Smith, who decided any friend of Oscars was the enemy. She didn't speak to me until Oscar was long dead and about a year before she died. For her public life was a matter of a team sport, and one had to always be on HER side or the ENEMY.
Life is not a team sport. Life requires listening. Sometimes you totally agree with the people on the other side. Oscar and Edna never realized it, but they agreed 95% of the time. They never spoke to each other long enough or calmly enough to know that. Sadly, I am not going to advocate discussion.
I have learned much to my deep regret that some people, "those liberals" have their minds made up, even more, I find, than the " DittoHeads". Even worse, as much as any Christian or moslem Fundamentalist, even if they are a professed Atheist, they believe God is ALWAYS on their side. They don't seem to have taken the point from Abraham Lincoln that we must be on god;s side, not he on ours. They can not, and will not, hear you as you attempt to explain your position and embrace your commonalities. They are very like a religious Fundamentalist: Submit 100% to my viewpoint or be banned for all eternity. It's kind of comical but no longer entertaining, to observe them.
My former friend demanded retractions, the cessation of any FB disagreements, or she would defriend me. I defriended her, realizing she had never been my friend, and never would be.
I so miss Hari.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
LACMA measurement issues,
The new director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Michael Govan has a huge desire to leave his mark, in terms of a major building, on the art, cultural and civic scene in Los Angeles. In the Not for profit and governmental circles, this is how one's genitalia are measured. The Gawd awful American wing that blocked William Pereira's early 1960's campus and defeated the museums openness to Wilshire was built almost three decades ago. It's been a long time since a LACMA Museum Director could claim huge genitalia, and while there was almost universal high regard for the hideous American Wing by the press and civic establishment when it was built, everyone almost instantly discovered that the emperor had no clothes and that the American Wing destroyed what grace of the Pereira campus was left.
Govan, rather than choose an local LA Architect of merit such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Fred Fisher, Mike Rotundi, Dean Nota, Wallace Cunningham, Chris Carr, Louis Wiehle, Michael Pinto, Julia Strickland, Duncan Nicholson, Helana Arahuete, or Vaughn Trammell, or a American Architect of Merit outside of LA such as Ken Kellog, Anthony Puttnam, Josh Safdie, David E. Dodge or say Bart Prince, went way way FAAR away and chose a man who views America and LA as strange exotic places, the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor.
As a fifth generation Southern Californian, I admire in a way, the provincialism of the civic leaders two generations ago who chose William Pereira as our art museum Architect. That generation understood that one defined LA as a art capital not only by its collection of works of the past and present, but by having a local society capable of producing and making thrive, architectural talent at least as good as the collection that was being housed. All of the LA Architects I listed above have superior talent, at least the equal of anyone worldwide, no matter their awards or press reputation.
Pereira's original campus was open to Wilshire, was inviting, did have welcoming exterior spaces and the buildings could be sensitively adapted by even a mediocre Architect, to have movable partitions. Our technology is better today, we could make the multiple water elements work, even on the tar pits, and certainly the buildings can be retrofitted to be more energy efficient. All of this can be done for far lower a cost than the new building, even including building another nearby expanded display space. The reason not to do this, of course, goes right back to Mr. Govan and his measurement issues.
As to the Zumthor proposal itself, Mr. Zumthor is noted and has won design awards for his tight vertical rectilinear buildings. Mr. Zumthor seems to realize that much of Los Angeles Architecture from the 1950's on made use of long horizontal amoeba shaped buildings or portions of buildings. here in his LACMA proposal he attempts to fool us into believing he has been seduced by LA into a Architectural form that seems at first to have evolved from John Lautner. This is both an illusion and a insult to Mr. Lautner. In the case of Mr. Lautner, every form did actually arise, and could be easily seen to related, directly to a FUNCTION. Unless trickery is a function, the Zumthor building's amoeba shapes do not arise from function. They mainly serve to tie groups of rectilinear structures together. The Ameba shape just hides the fact that Zumthor is giving us several really dull vertical rectilinear rooms as a museum. There really is no difference between this and Pereira's original campus EXCEPT that Pereira's was conceived honestly and as a complete artistic expression with integrated water, hardscape, and landscape elements. Zumthor has not yet worked out what will be under his amoeba shapes, he plans seven stairwells to both support this thing thirty feet off ground level and be his access points, yet he has not worked these out in any detail. So we are being shown a series of incomplete sketches for a three quarter of a billion dollar building. Zumthor has no idea what the underside of his building will be or what the landscape interface will be. Frankly, this project as shown would get a "F" as incomplete in any Architectural design class.
I would like to respectfully submit that Mr. Zumthor's contract be ended at this point, and that the LACMA board hire a local preservation firm to design a preservation alternative that restores the Pereira campus, makes it energy efficient, allows gallery walls to move and finds an annex space nearby for more exhibit space, and also hire any one of the GREAT local LA or California Architects I have listed, many of whom worked either with Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Bruce Goff or a combination of those three, to come up with a completely new design. LA is a mature enough arts community to have the talent to do a world class art museum and in fact, all of our local talent I have mentioned would turn out a much better museum plan than the present mediocre Zumthor sketch, that frankly it is embarrassing to see the press praise so highly, as they once praised the "American Wing".
As to Govan's measurement issue, he could attempt for a change to mount the kinds of world class exhibits LACMA had in the 1980's and 1990's, like the Soviet Constructivism exhibit, the Arts and Crafts in California exhibit, the Charles Rennie MacIntosh exhibit, the Clay army of the Chinese Emperor exhibit. Much as I love Architecture, the way I measure a museum is not primarily in its buildings, but in its exhibits, public outreach and programs. New building programs as the primary objective of any institution reflect a lack of imagination or commitment to core objectives, on the part of its board and executive director. That is the present measurement of LACMA.
Govan, rather than choose an local LA Architect of merit such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Fred Fisher, Mike Rotundi, Dean Nota, Wallace Cunningham, Chris Carr, Louis Wiehle, Michael Pinto, Julia Strickland, Duncan Nicholson, Helana Arahuete, or Vaughn Trammell, or a American Architect of Merit outside of LA such as Ken Kellog, Anthony Puttnam, Josh Safdie, David E. Dodge or say Bart Prince, went way way FAAR away and chose a man who views America and LA as strange exotic places, the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor.
As a fifth generation Southern Californian, I admire in a way, the provincialism of the civic leaders two generations ago who chose William Pereira as our art museum Architect. That generation understood that one defined LA as a art capital not only by its collection of works of the past and present, but by having a local society capable of producing and making thrive, architectural talent at least as good as the collection that was being housed. All of the LA Architects I listed above have superior talent, at least the equal of anyone worldwide, no matter their awards or press reputation.
Pereira's original campus was open to Wilshire, was inviting, did have welcoming exterior spaces and the buildings could be sensitively adapted by even a mediocre Architect, to have movable partitions. Our technology is better today, we could make the multiple water elements work, even on the tar pits, and certainly the buildings can be retrofitted to be more energy efficient. All of this can be done for far lower a cost than the new building, even including building another nearby expanded display space. The reason not to do this, of course, goes right back to Mr. Govan and his measurement issues.
As to the Zumthor proposal itself, Mr. Zumthor is noted and has won design awards for his tight vertical rectilinear buildings. Mr. Zumthor seems to realize that much of Los Angeles Architecture from the 1950's on made use of long horizontal amoeba shaped buildings or portions of buildings. here in his LACMA proposal he attempts to fool us into believing he has been seduced by LA into a Architectural form that seems at first to have evolved from John Lautner. This is both an illusion and a insult to Mr. Lautner. In the case of Mr. Lautner, every form did actually arise, and could be easily seen to related, directly to a FUNCTION. Unless trickery is a function, the Zumthor building's amoeba shapes do not arise from function. They mainly serve to tie groups of rectilinear structures together. The Ameba shape just hides the fact that Zumthor is giving us several really dull vertical rectilinear rooms as a museum. There really is no difference between this and Pereira's original campus EXCEPT that Pereira's was conceived honestly and as a complete artistic expression with integrated water, hardscape, and landscape elements. Zumthor has not yet worked out what will be under his amoeba shapes, he plans seven stairwells to both support this thing thirty feet off ground level and be his access points, yet he has not worked these out in any detail. So we are being shown a series of incomplete sketches for a three quarter of a billion dollar building. Zumthor has no idea what the underside of his building will be or what the landscape interface will be. Frankly, this project as shown would get a "F" as incomplete in any Architectural design class.
I would like to respectfully submit that Mr. Zumthor's contract be ended at this point, and that the LACMA board hire a local preservation firm to design a preservation alternative that restores the Pereira campus, makes it energy efficient, allows gallery walls to move and finds an annex space nearby for more exhibit space, and also hire any one of the GREAT local LA or California Architects I have listed, many of whom worked either with Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Bruce Goff or a combination of those three, to come up with a completely new design. LA is a mature enough arts community to have the talent to do a world class art museum and in fact, all of our local talent I have mentioned would turn out a much better museum plan than the present mediocre Zumthor sketch, that frankly it is embarrassing to see the press praise so highly, as they once praised the "American Wing".
As to Govan's measurement issue, he could attempt for a change to mount the kinds of world class exhibits LACMA had in the 1980's and 1990's, like the Soviet Constructivism exhibit, the Arts and Crafts in California exhibit, the Charles Rennie MacIntosh exhibit, the Clay army of the Chinese Emperor exhibit. Much as I love Architecture, the way I measure a museum is not primarily in its buildings, but in its exhibits, public outreach and programs. New building programs as the primary objective of any institution reflect a lack of imagination or commitment to core objectives, on the part of its board and executive director. That is the present measurement of LACMA.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)