October 2009 Archives

George Soros will give $5 million annually for the next ten years to the Institute of New Economic Thinking, a new think tank.

Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs are among the luminaries affiliated with the org.

More from the Financial Times is here.

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Like many people around the web, our KCET.org colleague Ophelia Chang astutely followed the recent new media circus saga of Balloon Boy & His Reality Show Familiy.

Sixty years before Falcon Heene, thirty-eight years before Baby Jessica fell down a well, came the tragic Southern California story of Kathy Fiscus.

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If original and independent research, statistical analysis, and position papers are among the hallmarks of think tanks, then the national pastime is lousy with 'em.

Let's start with Bill James, the sort of one-man-RAND of hardball wonks.

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The Milken Institute's 2009 annual State of the State Conference is scheduled to take place Tuesday, October 20. This year's theme is, "California's Road to Recovery."

Outgoing LAPD chief William Bratton is listed as the keynote speaker. Politicos past and present including Gavin Newsom, Pete Wilson, and Gray David are among others on the bill.

For more information about State of the State, see the Milken site.

The Palm Center (motto: Blueprints for Sound Public Policy) at UCSB is all over the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which has been much in the news this week.

Here’s a link to the free-of-charge .pdf download for “How To End ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: A Roadmap of Political, Legal, Regulatory, and Organizational Steps to Equal Treatment.”

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Editor's note: For more on how to get ready for the Big One, visit KCET's Earthquake Preparedness resource area.

Thursday morning at 10:15am is the Great California Shake Out, a mass earthquake preparedness and response drill.

A handful of past seismic-related research by Calif. tanks and guilds include:

• *A Critical Look at Earthquake Preparations in the Los Angeles Basin, by Robert L. Patrick (RAND)
• A Balanced Earthquake Engineering Program, by Edward W. Merrow and Kathy Rosenblatt (RAND)
• After Shock, a collaborative online post-quake simulation (Institute for the Future, et al.)
• Long Beach Earthquake: 75th Anniversary (Southern California Earthquake Center at USC)
• Global Earthquake Model Survey (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute)

Friends** of TTLA Mike Blockstein and Reanne Estrada are principles of Public Matters (motto: "Creative Strategies for Civic Engagement"). Below, Blockstein tells TTLA about a recent and typically collaborative Public Matters project, "PDub Productions: Neighborhood Narratives in Historic Filipinotown":

"One of the most common questions about Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown (Hi Fi) is: “Where is that?” An equally common question is, "Why is it called that?”

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Our pal, "Ask Chris" Nichols over at Los Angeles magazine, tackles a question this month about helicopters and what would seem to be hieroglyphic rooftop markings.

"Rotary Club," Nichols' cleverly headlined Q&A, is here.

Also: TTLA finally made it over to CLUI to see the "Elevated Descent: The Helipads of Downtown Los Angeles." exhibition.

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When news broke that Rio de Janeiro had been awarded the 2016 summer Olympic games, TTLA asked Phuong-Cac Nguyen, this blog's Brazil Bureau Chief, if she could explain what getting the games means to that nation.

Nguyen is the author of the guidebook and related website, Total Sao Paulo: A Guide to the Unexpected. Here is her reply:

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From tanks local and national, a handful of recent books and reports available for purchase -- or in most cases, as complimentary downloads -- include:

• The World's Water 2008-2009 (Pacific Institute)
• Science Next: Innovation for the Common Good (Center for American Progress)
• Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases (National Academies of Science)
• Withdrawing from Iraq: Alternative Schedules, Associated Risks, and Mitigating Strategies (RAND)

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Don Shoup -- noted here in past TTLA posts -- has famously been called "a parking rock star."

Friday, October 2 at the Aratani / Japan America Theater, the UCLA professor and author is joined in a conversation about "Cities, Bicycles and The Future of Getting Around" by Jimmy Lizawa, Michelle Mowery, and a guy called David Byrne.

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