Obscene: New U.C. San Francisco Chancellor to Rake $750,000 Salary — Plus Car and Housing Allowances!

Reports indicate that one-third of the new chancellor's salary won't be paid with "state funds."

And that makes a difference? Frankly, I'm shocked at what these top-level bureaucrats are paid when local college community college districts won't even approve cost-of-living raises.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "UC regents confirm Sam Hawgood as UCSF chancellor":

The University of California regents on Thursday confirmed Dr. Sam Hawgood as the new chancellor of UCSF, where he has served as dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and interim chancellor.

Hawgood, 61, identified last week as UC President Janet Napolitano's top choice for the job, will fill the role left by outgoing Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who left the university in the spring to become chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The new chancellor said he planned to focus his efforts on increasing funding for basic research at UCSF as well as promoting new partnerships to help commercialize advancements in technologic and biologic sciences.

"I understand and deeply respect the core values of UCSF - and both the principle and practice of shared governance with the faculty," Hawgood told the regents after they approved his appointment.

"But I know that, while we should remain connected to our past and preserve our values," he said, "our times call for a rigorous look at the reality of the world today and a willingness to move forward in new directions."

The regents approved a state-funded base salary of $500,000, plus $250,000 to be funded through an endowed chair, the Arthur Rock and Toni Rembe Distinguished Professorship, which was created for the chancellor position by the UCSF Foundation and uses no state funds.

Hawgood's total cash compensation ranks 34th among chancellors and presidents of the 62 public research universities that are part of the Association of American Universities, UC officials reported.

He will also receive an annual automobile allowance of $8,916 and be provided with the UCSF chancellor's home, UC officials said. The residence is maintained with non-state funds.

Police Shoot Armed Suspect at LBCC's Pacific Coast Campus

This is the "downtown campus" at my college.

It's definitely urban. Last time I had a meeting down there, a couple of months ago, I was met by an aggressive panhandler in the parking lot demanding gas money to drive to San Bernardino. Fortunately he was satisfied after I forked over a couple of bucks. Big black mofo. What are you gonna do?

In any cast, at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Police respond to possible shots fired at Long Beach City College."

Also at the Los Angeles Times, "Police shoot armed suspect near Long Beach City College."

Leftist Robert Garcia Becomes First Openly Homosexual and Latino Mayor of Long Beach

Hey, homosexual power!

At the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Robert Garcia, Long Beach mayor-elect, looks toward transition, future."

Maybe the city will repaint all the crosswalks with splashing rainbow colors, like West Hollywood.

Oh, it's the Los Angeles Times that uses the adverb "openly." Did Long Beach have a closet homosexual mayor previously? NTTAWWT!

Pink the Pelican Returns to the Wild

Well, here's a happy ending. Hopefully this bird will stay healthy.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Pelican whose mutilation sparked outrage is released into the wild."

And at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "This pelican named Pink was mutilated and left for dead in Long Beach. Today he flew to freedom."

'Restorative Justice' at Beach High School Questioned Amid Breakdown of Discipline

"Restorative justice" is the big new thing on campus where administrators simply give up on student discipline, turning classrooms over to thugs in the name of "social justice."

Rather than consequences for student misbehavior, "restorative justice" seeks to "repair" relationships and give perpetrators a "second chance." (Or a third, fourth, fifth chance ad infinitum).

Background at the Long Beach Post, "LBUSD Board Unanimously Votes to Reform Exclusionary Disciplinary Policies."

And here's a report on Beach High School, an alternative high school for LBUSD's worst offenders, at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Student discipline at Beach High School in Long Beach called into question":

LONG BEACH - Suspensions at Beach High School have been cut in half from last school year to the present. But not everyone on the campus of the alternative school, designed for students who need to recover class credits, sees this as a positive development.

Students at Beach High, located on the same grounds as Long Beach Adult School in the 3700 block of Willow Street, are routinely let off the hook for misdeeds such as fighting, cursing at staff members, leaving campus and substance abuse, according to some community members and employees of the district.

“There are excessive fights,” said math teacher Ronnie Roberts. “Drug use on campus is rampant.”

Roberts said that the same students are allowed to misbehave at the school, which opened in 2011, with few to no consequences.

“Verbal assaults upon school personnel are the rule here, rather than the exception,” he said.

The African-American math teacher said that most of the youth at Beach, which has a student body of nearly 290, are low-income Latinos, blacks and Asian-Americans with gang ties.

“All have been literally kicked out of the large, comprehensive high schools, and are credit deficient, have poor attendance, and have extreme discipline issues, some obviously of a criminal nature,” he said.

Roberts added that these students need “no-nonsense leadership skills” but described Beach High Principal Matt Saldana as a “classic enabler.” Roberts said Saldana “means well but is a poor fit for this type of student and thusly, we are all in danger.”

Roberts has complained about the principal and discipline at Beach High to district officials, but he said his concerns have largely gone ignored.

Another faculty member at Beach, who asked not to be named, raised similar concerns about the school’s leadership. She said that the rules are applied inconsistently and unevenly, and both the staff and the students recognize the problem, which has created division in the school community. Students and staff members are fragmented, the faculty member said.

Saldana, who reported a 50 percent drop in suspensions from last school year to the current one, disagrees with the characterization of his school and of himself. He said the negative depiction of Beach is the view of one or two “disgruntled” teachers. “Generally speaking, this is actually a great place to work if you like dealing with at-risk kids,” he said.

Saldana, who has led the school since it opened, said the staff works hard to help Beach students improve their behavior and get on track to graduate.

Last fall, the Long Beach Unified school board implemented a policy known as restorative justice that requires schools to explore nonpunitive alternatives before suspending students. Beach High students have access to counseling services, gang intervention specialists and more, according to Saldana. But he does suspend students or remove them from school if they are repeat offenders.

“Just last week, I referred four students to alternative schools,” Saldana said. “We suspend kids who bring weapons to school. They are also sometimes arrested. In relation to drugs and alcohol, sometimes they are suspended. Sometimes they are removed from school. Sometimes counseling services are offered.”

Montalva Hill, the parent of a 10th grader at Beach, said that she’s not impressed with how the school disciplines students. Hill said that her daughter, who’s been suspended previously for fighting, has been bullied, harassed and physically attacked by a group of girls she fell out with last fall. Beach administrators and district officials, however, have neglected to pursue a resolution, according to Hill.

“They see things happening and they don’t intervene right away,” she said. “There’s no preventive measures.”

I'm sure it's totally out of control.

And no doubt the student body's nearly 100 percent minority, so really cracking down on rowdies and delinquents will elicit cries of racism!

Like I said. It's out of control. "Restorative justice" is just giving up in the face of seemingly hopeless discipline problems among populations of students who've been deprived of guided discipline their entire lives.

Sad.

Illegal Immigrants Seek DREAM Center at Long Beach State

Here's the report, at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Building a DREAM Center: CSULB students seek resource center for the undocumented."

And from the letters to the editor yesterday, "Let’s provide college help to legal residents first":

Re “Building a DREAM Center: CSULB students seek resource center for the undocumented” (May 4):

It’s upsetting to read that $9 million is being given to undocumented-immigrant students attending colleges and universities in the California State University system and Cal State Long Beach.

The article mentioned how difficult it is to attend college by paying tuition and working part-time. That is everyone’s dilemma attending college. It is very expensive, and students have to work to pay for it.

Why not give the $9 million to those students who also dream of attending college and can’t afford it but are legal residents?

This is just another example of undocumented immigrants draining the system. This is not what our state tax dollars are for. These individuals are illegal residents; therefore they don’t have Social Security numbers and don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

— Betty Garcia, Lakewood

Well, you would think.

But you can't say stuff like that nowadays without being attacked as racist.

Mercedes-Benz to Base Its Regional Office in Long Beach

I saw this in the news rack for the Long Beach Register while out to lunch the other day, and now here it is at the parent newspaper, the O.C. Register:

Since Mercedes-Benz USA announced plans to lease a 1.1 million-square foot Boeing plane factory in July, the luxury automaker has kept its plans for the former Long Beach facility a tightly guarded secret.

But an executive with Irvine-based Sares-Regis Group, which is the landlord for the 52.2 acres at 4501 E. Conant St., said that Mercedes-Benz plans to use the facility as its vehicle preparation facility and regional office for the western United States, and as a training center.

With the exception of the main airplane hangar, the fenced-in plant has been mostly turned into a huge parking lot with fresh concrete laid along Conant.

Larry Lukanish, a senior vice president with Sares-Regis, also says Mercedes-Benz will test, inspect, customize and prepare new cars for transfer to dealerships.

Sares-Regis, which bought the property in July 2012, plans to turn the property over to Mercedes-Benz USA on March 1 to begin a 15-year lease, Lukanish said.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. shuttered the facilities at the corner of Conant and Lakewood Boulevard in 2006, when the last 717 commercial jet rolled off the line. Boeing inherited the plane when it acquired McDonnell Douglas Corp. in 1997. The plane was originally called the MD-95 but never caught on with major airlines. The hangar is still on the property, which has a large “Fly DC Jets” sign on top. The factory, which employed thousands for decades, once built some of the world's most popular airlines, including the DC-3, DC-8 and MD-80.

Several outbuildings were demolished and tunnels under Lakewood Boulevard were filled, Lukanish said. The hangar interiors remain unchanged with the exception of painting, removal of old cranes and a mezzanine structure.

Mariella Kapsaskis, a spokeswoman with Mercedes-Benz USA's corporate headquarters in Montvale, N.J., confirmed portions of Lukanish's disclosure. She said in a statement that the car manufacturer would be consolidating its Western regional offices, its training and performance center and vehicle preparation center under a single roof in Long Beach as a means of improving overall efficiency. This includes its regional office in Irvine and its vehicle preparation center in Carson.

She couldn't comment on whether those two offices would be closed or how many employees would be affected.

Beyond California, the other regional offices are located in Jacksonville, Fla.; Parsippany, N.J.; and Rosemont, Ill.

Well, I drive by the facility everday, which is right next to my campus. I've been meaning to take some pictures but I just never stop and make the time. (Besides, it's been a demolition site mostly, since part of the facility included an old hanger that was torn down to make way for the huge concrete lot they've created on the grounds.) It'll be opening soon though, so I'll update when I get the chance to take some pics.

More here.

RELATED: From last summer at LAT, "Mercedes-Benz leases old Boeing jet factory in Long Beach."

'Master of Disaster' Duane Peters, So-Cal Skateboarding Icon, Arrested on Domestic Violence Charges

He apparently launched a full-blown FTW" Facebook rant on Friday morning, and then was arrested that night.

At LAT, "Skate-punk icon Duane Peters charged in domestic violence case":

Professional skateboarder and punk rock singer Duane Thomas Peters, nicknamed “The Master of Disaster,” was charged Tuesday with assaulting his girlfriend at their Long Beach home.

Peters, 52, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on a felony count of willful infliction of corporal injury, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. His arraignment was originally scheduled Tuesday but was postponed.

Peters was arrested Saturday in the 4000 block of East 3rd Street in Long Beach, police Sgt. Megan Zabel said.

Prosecutors say that shortly before midnight Friday, Peters became angry with his girlfriend and assaulted her at their Long Beach home.

Neighbors heard the commotion and intervened, prosecutors said. They were able to restrain Peters until police arrived and arrested him.

The victim suffered injuries to her body.

Peters remains in jail in lieu of a $50,000 bail bond.

Peters is a skateboarding’s pioneer.

Long Beach State, Long Beach City College Partner in Scholarship Program for Illegal Aliens

This is just mind-boggling.

At the Long Beach Press Telegram, "Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College partner in scholarship program for undocumented students":

LONG BEACH - Officials at Cal State Long Beach and Long Beach City College announced Tuesday that they will partner with the private sector to provide scholarships for students who are in the country illegally.

CSULB and LBCC are among 12 institutions across the country who joined TheDream.US scholarship program, which has raised more than $25 million to provide more than 2,000 scholarships over the next decade for undocumented immigrant students. The program is led by Donald Graham, former CEO of the Washington Post Co., as well as Democratic strategist Henry R. Munoz III and Carlos Gutierrez, former secretary of commerce during the George W. Bush administration.

Long Beach is the first community in California to join the program. Other states include Texas, New York and Florida. They are joined by Washington, D.C., and Mount Washington College, a national online college.

The scholarships, which will cover up to 100 percent of tuition costs, fees and books at a maximum of $12,500 for associate’s degrees and $25,000 for bachelor’s degrees, are available to students who would benefit from pending DREAM Act legislation, which would give children of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

Opponents of the DREAM Act say the move is part of a thinly veiled effort to eventually provide amnesty to illegal immigrant students and their parents.

LBCC and CSULB officials said Tuesday the TheDream.US scholarship program provides a chance for the brightest undocumented students to earn an education and contribute to the economy.

LBCC President Eloy Ortiz Oakley, speaking by phone from Washington, D.C., said his campus was approached by the founders of the program, which is supported heavily by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Fernandez Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Inter-American Development Bank among others.

Oakley expects protests from those who oppose funding the education of illegal immigrants but said his chief concern is for those students already in the community.

“Certainly there’s always pushback no matter what you do,” he said. “First, California has already made an effort to educate these students by passing the California DREAM Act. We are already serving these students. It has an economic benefit to our community. These students are already in our community, and they are much better assets if they are educated. We’ll leave the politics to the politicians, and we will serve the students who are in our community.”

Donald J. Para, interim president of CSULB, said in a statement that the scholarship program is an opportunity to help hardworking students reach their personal and career goals.

“Further, we know that when one member of a family earns a college degree, other family members follow,” he said. “This lifts an entire family to be able to achieve their collective dream of a better life, which benefits California, our nation and our society.”

Terri Carbaugh, a spokeswoman for CSULB, said by phone from the nation’s capital that the campus also provides counseling, academic advising and peer support for undocumented students.

“The end goal is always economic prosperity,” Carbaugh said. “And they’re here, and they live among us. They’re our neighbors, friends and family, and we’re all better served when we provide opportunities for them to get a degree.”

The scholarship program came out of a partnership between so-called “DREAMers,” business and education leaders and elected officials.

More.

Notice how LBCC Superintendent-President Eloy Oakley makes sure to include his Hispanic name, "Ortiz," when quoted for the piece. Gotta showcase the La Raza creds.

LBCC Tiered Tuition Scheme Scam Makes Front Page at the Los Angeles Times

As long as the State of California remains ostensibly committed to the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education any two-tiered tuition scheme's a perverted scam. That was basically my argument when I spoke last semester at the campus progressives' discussion on the "privatization of education." (The event video is here, "LBCC - United States of ALEC, Part 1.") (Interestingly, the whole deal was an anti-Koch brothers bash-fest, although there's no evidence that the Kochs helped pass the tiered-tuition legislation. More interestingly, I was invited to speak because the campus progs thought I'd parrot some alleged right-wing talking points on "privatization." The dopes, lulz. Perhaps there's some utility in developing more rational, cost-based pricing systems for the community colleges, but as long as the state says it's still committed to "open access" higher education --- which when I attended Santa Ana College in the late-'70s was just $5.00 for a student health fee --- then I'm not going to endorse a policy that's essentially predicated on lies.)

Another point I make (at the end of my discussion at the clip) is that the policy's largely an in-house career boosting bid for LBCC Superintendent-President Eloy Oakley. He lacks a Ph.D., so if he ever hopes to move on to another college, he'll need some dramatic policy innovations to augment his measly creds.

It's all a scam. Oakley nearly admits so much at the Los Angeles Times today, "Long Beach City College experiments with tiered pricing":

Educators and experts say colleges nationwide may be watching the Long Beach experiment, one of the only such programs in the country, as a way to get around budget cuts and high demand for required courses.

The five higher-priced winter courses at Long Beach included offerings in environmental science and geography. The college had to cancel a business course because of lack of interest. Four of the courses are needed to fulfill requirements in a major or to transfer.

College President Eloy Ortiz Oakley said he wasn't concerned that some of the classes didn't reach capacity. The school didn't have much time to plan which courses to offer.

"We're going to learn as we go," he said.

The college also couldn't offer in-demand lower-level math and reading courses during the winter session because it is too short. Those courses may be available at a higher cost during the longer summer session, although Oakley said he was unsure how long the school would continue the pilot program.

Critics decry the idea, saying it gives wealthier students an unfair advantage.

"It creates two types of students: those who can pay and those who cannot. And it's unfair to the students who have to feed families and are unemployed," said Andrea Donado, the student representative on the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees.

"Philosophically it is the mission of our community colleges to provide accessible education. By making some courses [more expensive], that equality is no longer honored," said Lynette Nyaggah, president of the Community College Assn., which represents faculty and staff throughout the state.

Oakley, meanwhile, defends the tiered pricing option, saying that it's a way to offer students more choices and that he was surprised by the outrage over it.

"If our college can provide a solution — that may not be an optimal solution but gives our students options — then we're going to keep doing that," he said.

Yeah, who knows who long this will continue, but as long as Eloy gets his name in the paper it's all good!

Boeing Vote Deals Blow to Southland Hopes for 777x Project

I was thinking about this earlier, "Boeing Machinists Accept 777x Contract."

See LAT, "Boeing union's vote is a blow to Southern California":

The 777X & its composite wing will be built in Puget Sound area as a result of tonight’s vote. Boeing statement: http://t.co/vOM0EclS6w

— Boeing Airplanes (@BoeingAirplanes) January 4, 2014

The labor dispute drew attention of Southern California lawmakers still reeling from Boeing's decision in September that it would close the C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet plant in Long Beach in 2015. The plant was talked about being a potential home for the 777X program.

"Obviously, California would have loved to bring the 777X program home," said Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), chairman of the Assembly's Select Committee on Aerospace. "But we'll continue to reach out to Boeing to try and bring manufacturing jobs to Long Beach."

Greedy Union Workers Force Boeing's Exit from Seattle

From today's Los Angeles Times, "Boeing families in Seattle area feel spurned over 777X project: The aerospace giant threatens to build its newest airliner out of state unless a union approves concessions. Some workers have generations of history there":

MILL CREEK, Wash. — Shannon Ryker is a third-generation employee of aerospace giant Boeing Co. She followed her grandfather into the huge plant in nearby Everett. And her father. And her Uncle Bob.

Her youngest sister worked at Boeing until she became pregnant. Both of Ryker's brothers-in-law and one of their dads work there. Her other sister's stepson has applied for a Boeing job.

So it wasn't easy for the 37-year-old mechanic to sit down in her crowded apartment here on a recent Sunday and write to Boeing management about her growing disappointment.

"Like my 86-year-old grandmother, I would like to tell my children and grandchildren that 'Boeing has been good to this family,'" Ryker wrote in an open letter that has since landed on company break-room tables and in co-workers' email in-boxes. But now, she said, "I no longer can hold my head high and say I am proud to work at Boeing."

At issue is the company's hunt for a site to build its newest airliner, the 777X. Ryker and other members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 overwhelmingly voted last month to reject a contract that would have cut some pension plans and healthcare benefits but guaranteed the program would stay in the Pacific Northwest.

Since the vote, Washington's largest private employer has been looking elsewhere for a site to build the plane, a potential move that threatens the state economy and the middle class Boeing helped create.

The company's decision reflects the hard realities of the industry and the latest skirmish in the fight for union survival. Boeing says the contract concessions are essential to compete financially with its longtime European rival Airbus, which plans to deliver its own new twin-aisle jetliner next year....

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Raymond L. Conner laid out the stakes in a letter to workers before the Nov. 13 union vote on the 777X, an essential part of the company's long-term product strategy. "What we want to avoid is that we become one of the companies that made decisions too late to remain competitive in the marketplace," he wrote.

Boeing gave other states until Tuesday to submit proposals to build the wide-body's latest generation. Within days of the union vote, California, Missouri and Texas made appeals to Boeing in an attempt to snag the program.

The company joins a long line of manufacturers and municipalities that have sought to wring concessions from unions that once negotiated comfortable pensions and wages.

After a bitter strike in 2008, the company shipped much of the work on its 787 Dreamliner to South Carolina, a right-to-work state. Seven years earlier, it moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. Its Washington workforce is more than 83,000 strong, but there are fears that the company's future is elsewhere.

"If Boeing doesn't build the 777X here, this could be the start of a long, steady decline of the company's presence here," said Scott Hamilton, an aviation industry consultant who figures Boeing could be gone by 2030, based on backlogs and production rates.

"Sure it can happen," Hamilton said. "Thirty to 40 years ago, Southern California was the hub of commercial aerospace. Now, no [aerospace] company is based there."

Boeing was responsible for $70 billion of Washington's $76-billion aerospace industry in 2012. But unlike bankrupt Detroit, whose fortunes lived and died with autos, Puget Sound has diversified since the 1970s, when an enormous layoff called the "Boeing Bust" prompted a rueful billboard: "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights."

Washington has taken desperate measures to ensure that its flagship employer remains key to the economy. On Nov. 5, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he was calling a special session of the Legislature to approve a massive package of tax breaks designed to keep the 777X in Washington. "These jobs are ours," the liberal Democrat said, "if we act now."

Less than a week later, state legislators passed the biggest corporate tax subsidy in U.S. history — $8.7 billion.

But the lawmakers' actions didn't cement the deal. The machinists needed to approve a new eight-year contract with the company, but they rejected it by a 2-1 ratio.

Ryker, in her letter to Boeing's Conner, spoke for many union members when she explained her planned "no" vote: "I have told my father … I would rather keep my integrity and be unemployed than bullied into agreeing to a contract that hurts my children in the future."

Continue reading.

Virtually the entire state wanted Boeing to stay in Seattle, all except the greedy union hacks, who refused even a state bailout with their vote against the contract.

Oh well, perhaps the 777X production will be moving to Long Beach. Governor Brown's sure pushing for it.

We'll see.

PREVIOUSLY: "Boeing Moving Commercial Plane Modification Work to Long Beach From Seattle."

Cal Worthington, 1920-2013

You know, I've been posting all these obituaries, but frankly I've felt guilty for not posting on Cal Worthington. I drive by his dealership nearly every day. And as kid I used to crack up at his "Go see Cal" television commercials. Who didn't?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Cal Worthington dies at 92; car dealer known for wacky 'dog Spot' ads'."

LBCC Academic Senate Retreat at Rancho Los Alamitos

The college Academic Senate met for a special meeting and retreat today at the historic Rancho Los Alamitos, a colonial rancho that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. (Check the history lesson at the National Park Service page.)

Here's the main rancho, which is maintained as a museum and educational facility by the City of Long Beach:



Background from Wikipedia:

The history of the 85,000-acre (340 km2) Rancho Los Alamitos is almost a microcosm for the history of expansion throughout Southern California, from the Native Americana cultures to contemporary times.[3] The area was first the location of the major circa 500 C.E. - 1780s Tongva—Gabrieliño sacred cere­monial and trading village of Povuu'nga, now an archeological site.[4] After Spanish occupation the ownership was to change and the boundaries would shrink many times. Situated in the floodplain between the mouths of the ever-shifting Los Angeles, San Gabriel and Santa Ana Rivers, the coastal plain terrain of the rancho is virtually flat rich soil, and was subject to frequent flooding. The rancho building itself is located near Puvunga springs alongside on one of the few small hills, Alamitos Mesa, in the area.

Rancho Los Alamitos was one of five ranchos that resulted from the partition of the original Rancho Los Nietos grant given to Manuel Nieto, a former sergeant in the Spanish army, in 1784 by governor Pedro Fages, coincidentally his former commander.[5] Nieto's grant was not only one of the first three awarded by the Spanish in Alta California, it was also the largest. After Nieto died, his children requested his original grant be partitioned. In 1834, Mexican governor José Figueroa officially declared Rancho Los Alamitos as one of the five partitions.

Out in back of the house is a classic old red barn with a blacksmith's shop:







Some beautiful horses too:





At the main educational exhibition room there's a showroom with a huge map of the rancho on the floor. You can see that the original Spanish land grant stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the San Gabriel Mountains. The history of the rancho is considered a microcosm of California history from colonial times to the present.



There's a huge patio canopy for meetings at the side of the ranch house:



The Bixby family, the last owners of the property, were connoisseurs of fine art. They owned American impressionist works and other fine paintings, and replicas hang inside the house. (Apparently the Los Angeles County Museum of Art stores and maintains the original works.) Out in the gardens I noticed this replica of the famous Nike of Samothrace. I got a kick out of that:



A great day, very educational!

Last Boeing C-17 Delivered as Production Ends at Long Beach Plant

At the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Boeing's last Air Force C-17 leaves Long Beach plant."

And at LAT, "Boeing to deliver final C-17 cargo jet to Air Force."

Photos of last @Boeing C-17 Globemaster delivered to @usairforce http://t.co/AfM2otkMC2 by @wjhenn @markboster pic.twitter.com/pRJyQ2NNIM
— LA Times Photography (@latimesphotos) September 12, 2013

I toured the plant in 2011. Time goes by so fast. It's been a good run over there.

Boeing Moving Commercial Plane Modification Work to Long Beach From Seattle

The company modifies old commercial jets into freighters, and will shift 375 jobs to Boeing's underutilized "Fly DC Jets" plant right next to my college.

See, "Boeing to move commercial plane work from Seattle area to Long Beach":

It is a surprising announcement from Boeing, which has 1,200 commercial engineers in Long Beach, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach. The company's commercial work in Southern California has dwindled over the years.

The Long Beach plant was built by Douglas Aircraft Co. and still has a large "Fly DC Jets" sign in front. It thrived for decades, employing thousands and producing some of the world's most popular airliners, including the DC-3, DC-8 and MD-80.

Boeing stopped producing commercial aircraft there in 2006, when the last 717 rolled off the line. It was a plane that Boeing inherited when it acquired McDonnell Douglas Corp. in 1997, but the 717, originally called the MD-95, never caught on with major airlines.

With Thursday's announcement, Long Beach will be home of engineering support for many of its airplanes and for modifying its older planes to freighter aircraft.

Authorities Warn Against Organized 'Bash Mob' Crime Rampages

The video discusses Long Beach, but it's a region-wide warning for Southern California, according to the Los Angeles Times, "'Bash mobs' sweep through Southern California."

Lakewood Honors Fallen Veterans on Memorial Day

From yesterday's Long Beach Press Telegram, "Memorial Day: Lakewood honors fallen veterans":

LAKEWOOD -- For many Americans, Memorial Day is a break from work, a day marked by barbecues and special sales.

Veterans, their families and others who gathered at Del Valle Park on Monday for Lakewood's annual Memorial Day ceremony see it differently, as a time to honor those who served their country and gave their lives so it may yet fulfill its promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Los Angeles County Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Chief Deputy Director Stephanie A. Stone noted a somber set of numbers from the last 100 years in her keynote address: more than 100,000 dead in World War I, 400,000 in World War II, 36,000 in the Korean War, 58,000 in Vietnam and 6,000 in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"This day is reserved for the men and women who were part of our lives," Stone said.

"The fathers and the mothers, the sisters and the brothers, the sons and the daughters who lived in our town, went to our schools, played with our children and prayed in our churches."

Lakewood Mayor Steve Croft suggested in his own remarks that the gratitude of the crowd should continue past the day's ceremony.

As a decade of war comes to an end, Croft said, the nation must support, encourage and nurture hundreds of thousands of veterans who need help restarting their lives.

"The challenges facing veterans today range from unemployment to homelessness, to mental, emotional and physical impacts that must be addressed," said Croft.

The mayor noted that many of Lakewood's earliest homebuyers in the 1950s were veterans who fought in World War II, and in a spirit of volunteerism, some founded the Lakewood Youth Sports program and did other work to build the city into what it is today.

"It's our turn now," Croft said, urging citizens to do what they can to ensure that veterans have access to education, jobs and other services so they may transition from war.

Fatal Crash Near Long Beach City College

At the Long Beach Patch, "Woman Killed in Long Beach Hit-and-Run."

I had two students come about a half-hour late to my 11:10am class. I thought nothing of it until a phone starting ringing like it was an alarm or something. I said, "What was that"? And one of the women said, "There's a crash out there," pointing out the window to the intersection at Carson and Clark Streets. Then when I started my 12:45pm class, a young man told me that someone had been killed. I went over to the intersection after class to check it out.

Also at the Long Beach Report, "UPDATE: 47 Year Old Long Beach Woman Dies, 21 Year Old Bellflower Man Arrested, In Alleged Hit and Run, Carson/Clark (LBCC Area); LBPD Says Driver Hit Three Vehicles at High Rate of Speed, Was Allegedly Unlicensed Driver."

Yeah, probably an illegal immigrant.

More photos at the Long Beach Press Telegram, "Long Beach police capture suspect at LBCC in fatal hit-and-run."

Dude Recreates '70's Pan-Am 747 in City of Industry Warehouse

You gotta love this story. I still daydream about the old 747s. As a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of a cocktail lounge in the sky. And now it turns out that a Southland man has recreated the Jumbo Jet '70's experience for guests to "fly" back in time.

At the Long Beach Press Telegram, "California man's lifelike model recreates Pan Am 747 in warehouse":

On an unusually warm December night, more than 25 years after her final flight with Pan American World Airways - 11 hours from Frankfurt to Los Angeles - Anna Gunther once again put on her pantyhose and blue uniform with white trim, so she could serve dinner on the upper deck of a Boeing 747.

But this airplane wasn't going anywhere. It was a model, like a child's playhouse, built by a man who had dreamed of re-creating the plane he loved as a boy.

This was a chance for Anthony Toth to unveil, for the first time, what he had created inside a 3,000-square-foot warehouse in the City of Industry. Here was his opportunity to show why he hired a contractor, spent more than $100,000 and used almost every vacation day he ever earned to reconstruct a major chunk of the interior of a Pan Am 747.
Sure, he had shown off airplane models before. He once even had a smaller replica inside the garage of his Redondo Beach condo. But at home there was no upper deck. And what's a 747, even a replica, without a second level?

There was another problem with his garage. Other than running to the kitchen, Toth had no way to prepare meals for his faux travelers. But the warehouse was different, and that's where Gunther came in.

She had never met Toth, a sales executive at United Airlines based in Los Angeles, but, almost on a lark, she agreed to help him. Toth wanted to pretend as if he were flying some of his co-workers and friends to another continent, and he wanted former Pan Am flight attendants to serve drinks and dinner, just as they might have three or four decades ago.

On the big day, Gunther arrived at 3 p.m., wearing high heels, a bowler hat and a uniform (white blouse, blue they walked into his warehouse and past the ticket counter with the bright blue Pan Am logo. They saw a sign indicating Flight 21 to Tokyo would leave soon. Then they walked onto a short jet bridge, through a real aircraft door and turned left into first class.

On board, they took amenity kits tucked in plastic and filled with goodies like slippers and a damp "refresher towel." They picked up a real set of Pan Am headphones, ones they could plug into a jack on their seats to listen to music or watch the movie projected overhead. They grabbed vintage magazines protected by a Pan Am branded sleeve.

They took their plush seats - the cabin has 18 of them arranged in an alternating blue and red pattern - raised their leg rests and reclined. They looked around. Everything was accurate, from the distance between seats to the overhead bins to the aircraft's shell to the galley Gunther and her three colleagues used to ready drinks. Using his iPad and hidden speakers, Toth had even piped in the humming of jet engines.

It was so true to the real thing, it blurred the line between reality and fiction.

It was as if Pan Am was flying again.

Continue reading.