Results tagged “activism”

Last night, NPR's Hidden Kitchens mavens, the Kitchen Sisters, brought in a full house at the California Endowment for a talk exploring the way a desire to better our lives can bring people together and inspire tremendous change, as part of an evening called "Who Glues Your Community Together through Food?"

As GOOD is so great to point out, LA is a mecca for homegrown products. (No, not that. Well, yes, that, but that's not what they/we mean!) Fallen Fruit keeps track of where Angelenos can play gatherer on our own city streets. GOOD explains:

FallenFruit.org has neighborhood maps of publicly accessible fruit trees. They also have a great guide to creating your own fruit gathering map. Tips range from the obvious (get out of your car and walk, you’ll find more fruit) to the specific (you should take note of that young fruit tree on private property—it might eventually grow to reach public property.) If more people create maps for other cities, Fallen Fruit could become one of the more delicious free resources on the web.

Back in October, the Yes on 8 "people" challenged California's Superintendent of Schools, Jack O'Connell, to a debate about gay marriage. According to Yes, even the remotest possibility of learning anything about gay marriage is harmful to children. Nothing hateful about that!

What busy times these are for homosexuals and their sympathizers! Protests aplenty loom in the coming weeks and months. An unofficial list of upcoming events can be found at the Against8 blog; and an official list can be found, well, nowhere, since nobody's really in charge.

Tucked secretly away amongst residential condos and too-snug street parking sits The Schindler House, a small artistic enclave that is part of the larger Mak Center. The unobtrusive works of modern beauty blend seamlessly with the grass and garden that occupy a worthy portion of the smallish plot. And perhaps it is here, on the oblong lawn as the sun sets over consistently progressive West Hollywood, that films like The Garden truly deserve to be screened.

       

Venice artist, designer and activist Greg Beauchamp has been going around Venice and Santa Monica putting mini flag poles into dog poo that say "McCain" and a phrase under it such as "Healthcare Reform" or "Campaign Tactics." It sounds weird, but he's found his public art experiment to be enjoyable.

      

Despite Barack Obama being done with visiting Los Angeles during his campaign, activist art is popping up all around town--from today's Shepard Fairey installation at TenOverSix to a recent mural in South LA. Last weekend, a large poster banner was installed on a wall of Smog Design at 1725 Silverlake Blvd. next to Spaceland (you can see it when driving northbound on the left side).

Tomorrow music magazine Under the Radar will auction off handmade protest posters by some of indie music's biggest names. In the photos from the project, the musicians, hold their posters to shout there message loud and proud. Brit Daniel from Spoon show off his his 'VIVA LA RAZA' poster, Sharon Jones pleads "END THIS WAR NOW', and OK GO warns 'THEY BANK ON YOUR APATHY' .

Yesterday the Freeway Blogger came to Los Angeles to promote peace via his easy-to-make signs placed over freeways where they get millions of impressions by passing drivers until someone comes by and takes them down. He hit at least seven spots yesterday. Did you see the signs saying "Peace" or "Peace on Earth"?

Jerry Peace Activist Rubin followed through with what he said he would do if he had to after a year of battling with the city of Santa Monica over trees. Yesterday, he tied himself to a ficus tree that was being dug up and removed. Santa Monica Police arrested him for "resisting or interfering with a police officer." In a letter posted on the Treesavers' website, a writer says Rubin's actions were a powerful statement, especially in an election year:

              

Not a lot of people showed up to "No War on Iran" protest earlier this month on Saturday, August 3rd. Apparently, word didn't get around activist groups e-mail lists and only a small gathering of people showed up to Pershing Square that afternoon. One LAist commenter, jrb, was there and helps put a story to LAist Photographer Tom Andrews' photos.

Ever wonder who puts up those signs along freeways advocating for some cause or the other? One person is the Freeway Blogger who has hung over 4,000 signs against the war on freeways across the California and the western U.S. The above photo is from late July, but at least five went up yesterday afternoon, according to the blogger in an e-mail.

              

Yesterday afternoon was day one of George Wolfe's LA River expedition where he and a group of twelve kayakers intended to prove that the LA River is a river that is navigable, something that is contrary to what the Army Corps of Engineers concluded last month.

As gas prices rise and government coffers tighten, the city of Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus service is asking for Santa Monican's and the public-at-large's help for an issue that reaches far beyond the oceanside city's boundaries.

The idea for Pangea Day was inspired by filmmaker Jehane Noujaim's acceptance speech after winning the TED Prize at the 2006 TED Conference. The global event begins this Saturday at 11:00 a.m. PDT with events in six cities including Los Angeles (Sony Pictures in Culver City) and numerous satellite gatherings. In addition to 24 short films, the four-hour event will include live music and speakers.

The local online effort to stop a recent law passed to limit taco truck activity with harsh punishment seems to be getting some attention:

Monday Mike Carey presents The Devil You Know 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Doug Stumpf presents Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy 7pm @ Book Soup Joy Horowitz presents Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School 7pm @ Central Library Michael Tucker signs Living a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love in Italy 7pm @ Dutton's Jerry Stahl presents Love Without 7pm @ Borders, Long Beach Thomas...