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  • Facebook Memories

    Every day, Facebook shows you an old post, hoping you will retweet it. I usually delete the originals, and ignore it forever.  Now, I’ll archive some of them, here. Return and refresh for updates.

  • The End of Facebook

    It’s not the end of Facebook, but it’s been increasingly unsatisfying for the past  year or so, and I cannot quite pinpoint why.  Perhaps it’s the weird feeling of annoyance I get when a post surfaces three days late, or I poke around profiles, and see interesting stuff, while my feed is not always that…

  • Pasadena and Altadena: Justice Vigil for Chris Ballew Jan. 4, Comment Jan. 5

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    Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police is demanding police accountability for their unjustified beating of Chris Ballew. There are two upcoming events to show solidarity. Tomorrow, the 4th, a Vigil in Old Town Pasadena to increase visibility. Monday, the 5th, public comment at the City of Pasadena public safety committee meeting. See the…

  • Housing Racism and Skid Row

    Housing Racism and Skid Row

    Down on the corner of 6th and San Pedro, there’s a building named for Ben Weingart, and maybe his story could explain Skid Row a little better.

  • The Book Trust – an attempt to monopolize cheap book production in the 1800s

    Back in 1889, John W. Lovell was attempting to create a “book trust”, or a cartel of book publishers to control prices by limiting competition between the publishers.

  • Etsy Helps Create Microbusiness Caucus, a Challenge to Labor Organizing

    Congress now has a Microbusiness Caucus, but does it represent workers? I’d say “no”. It’s for Etsy and those other companies, first, and only secondarily for people who sell on Etsy, and, lastly, for all the workers involved in producing for the Etsy marketplace platform.

  • Chili History

    https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heyday-chili-con-carne/ Two interesting things I noticed: there’s a Chinese grocery store in the photo. “…one of the Chili Queens’ many forced migrations back and forth across San Antonio—from Military Plaza to Alamo Plaza, Market Square to Haymarket Square, Milam Park back to Military Plaza, and so on. When city fathers decided to “improve” a square,…

  • L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective

    Link: A Legendarily Censored Chicana Mural Finds Itself Shielded From View Once Again I don’t understand how this mural is “controversial” or “negative”. There’s nothing on there that hasn’t been seen in some TV public affairs programming from the 1970s or 1980s. It’s just what people call LA history.  (I don’t even understand how it’s …

  • More Little Tokyo Redevelopment, 1969

    More Little Tokyo Redevelopment, 1969

    I went to visit my mother, and she had this old copy of the Nisei Week 1969 program. She was in it!  She, my grandma, and I were in a photo. You couldn’t see me, because I was swaddled in a blanket.  They weren’t even captioned, because it was a photo of someone else. Anyway,…

  • Little Tokyo Urban Renewal 1972, Urban Renewal Researcher from Japan 1968, Gentrification Notes

    Little Tokyo Urban Renewal 1972, Urban Renewal Researcher from Japan 1968, Gentrification Notes

    I’ve been going through the hoard and stumbled on a couple unrelated things that, today, seem related. Gentrification has swept across downtown LA, and it recalls, for some people older than I, Urban Renewal.  Urban Renewal was criticized and mocked as really “Negro Removal”.  These photos show a couple articles and a letter that all…