Think Tank LA

The annual "Global Go-To Think Tank Rankings" are out -- released last week by UPenn professor and report author James McGann during an event held at the United Nations University, "a think-tank for the United Nations system" located in the U.N. Plaza, in Manhattan.

For the second consecutive year, the Brookings Institute was McGann and his team's big winner, placing first in the "Top 25 Think Tanks -- Worldwide" category. The rankings are based on the returned surveys of think tank staffers, academics, and journalists. TTLA received a nominating ballot but didn't vote.

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Nothing quite says, "Happy Valentine's Day" like the February/March 2010 issue of Policy Review, from the Bay Area's Hoover Institute.

In particular, there's Mary Eberstadt's essay, "Is Food the New Sex?: A Curious Reversal in Moralizing."

Here's an excerpt:

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This week, shoot your free throws left-handed.

Honoring the 20th anniversary of the passing of Hank Gathers, and the thrilling, tragic, and inspirational season of Gathers, Bo Kimble, and their 1989-1990 LMU men's basketball teammates.

LMU* video is here and a book excerpt, here.

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From the KCET.org Pixeltown blog:

"Welcome back to 'Better Know a SoCal Blogger' on KCET.org, where we feature our city's plethora of fascinating and first-rate blogs. This week we are speaking with our very own Jeremy Rosenberg, a blogger obsessed with all things think tank, including "the tanks themselves, the people who work at them, and the big ideas so often born at tanks.""

The complete Q&A is here.

Today is the fifth and final installment of TTLA's 2009 interview with Matt Harrison, founder and executive director of The Prometheus Institute, and author of the book, American Evolution.

TTLA: In addition to hip-hop, what's another example of modern "American Evolution?"

MH: Another example I give, very personal to me, is snowboarding. Back in the '80s, a bunch of stoner / surfers decided to strap some trays to their feet. It seemed stupid. Everybody thought it was stupid. Ski resorts banned them. There was a big civil war between the snowboarders and the skiers. And two decades later, snowboarding is a billion dollar industry. We have seven Olympic medals, we all watched on TV, there's a Wheaties box cover and inspired little kids.

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Went to TiGeorges' last night. Shock. Unity. Action. Support.

200 people. Six television vans. A vase being filled with cash and checks for Yele Haiti. Organizers talking about their newly founded org, Californians for Haiti.

People asking after each other's families.

Members of the Diaspora sharing rumors. Others batting those rumors down. One man telling how a family member's house had survived the 7.0, and then fallen, not even during an aftershock. Another man saying the same thing, about a wall. People saying phone service barely extent. A man able to get in touch via Facebook and Twitter and email.

An organizer, saying he'd been in Haiti, at the Montana, just four days ago.

The restaurant announced as drop-off location for medical supplies and any other donations.

I've never been to Haiti, but like many Angelinos, I feel like I have thanks to TiGeorges Laguerre.

TiGeorges is a longtime friend, and I've been working with him on his memoirs. The manuscript is about Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Haiti, where Georges is from.

I stopped by his Echo Park restaurant, TiGeorges Chicken, a few minutes ago. Two television news vans were parked out front. No surprise -- TiGeorges is our city's preeminent Haitian cultural ambassador. He's also undertaken philanthropic, social, and business ventures both here and there.

Georges said he had been able to reach people in Haiti only once, yesterday, briefly. With the aftershocks, he said, he's had no contact today.

He said he's having a meeting at his restaurant Thursday @ 5pm to discuss relief efforts.

Anyone is welcome to attend, he said.

Also, here's a list of aid organizations and how to contact them, via KCRW and the Clinton Foundation.

Today we run part four of TTLA's 2009 interview with Matt Harrison, founder and executive director of The Prometheus Institute, an upstart, Gen Y, L.A. think tank.

TTLA: Do you or anyone involved with Prometheus have goals of working in local, state, or federal government?

MH: I don't think so, right now. We try to represent ourselves as the anti-Washington group, being beyond what people think of as "politics." The difficulty is, anything with politics, people just think it's a dirty game and they don't care.

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Today we post part three of TTLA's 2009 interview with Matt Harrison, founder and executive director of The Prometheus Institute, an upstart, Gen Y, L.A. think tank.

TTLA: The Prometheus website features catchy, pop-culture related essays. Like, "Patriot Games: Lessons on American foreign policy from the former NFL superpower." Or, "Being Big Vs Being Powerful: Foreign policy lessons from the gym." You probably won't find those same pieces at Foreign Affairs quarterly --

MH: You wouldn't.

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