This is just wrong.

From Change.org:

The video was shot at a Massachusetts school for special needs kids called the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC). Gregory Miller used to be a teacher there, and he says electrocuting kids as punishment is extremely common -- even for minor offenses like raising your hand to go to the bathroom.


The Center's take on it?

"It is used to change behaviors in order to save, extend and enrich students' lives to help turn them around, to give them hope for their own future and to enable them to once again become part of, and enjoy the love of, their family,"

I don't normally push petitions online, but electrocuting special needs children as "punishment" strikes me as just wrong..

Change.org|Online Petition Form

Let's go for a walk..

In my latest bit of deathless prose for Beverly Hills Patch, I cover my penchant for walking. I love to walk. Now, I love to drive as well. I love piloting an automobile, preferably a convertible along the byways of California. Or New England, the shores of Lake Michigan or the high desert of Arizona, where I once had an incredible drive with my BFF Dana during a meteor shower. We pulled over and spent a good half-hour freezing looking at a Spielbergian show with the top down and the seats of her Le Baron fully reclined, and a quarter century later I can still remember it. I can still remember driving into downtown Northampton in my college-years Spyder in autumn with the leaves crimson, the heater at full blast and Siouxsie on the radio. I can remember a recent trip to NYC on a hot summer evening walking through Times Square looking at someone driving a 1973-vintage 450SL with the top down, my envy as pea-green as his paint.

I love to drive.

I hate to commute.

Driving is carefree. Driving is top down, who cares where we're going or when we get there: let's stop at that funky place and grab an ice cream. Let's stop at that farm stand, that antique store, that stretch of beach. PCH. 17 Mile Drive. Taconic State Parkway

Commuting is girding the loins. Bluetooth on in case we're late. Coffee in cupholder. Water in other cupholder. Wondering what we were thinking when we got the stick-shift. The 10. The Henry Hudson. PCH..

So as much as I enjoy driving, I think I like walking more. When walking becomes a means of commuting (if you are lucky enough to arrange that in the megalopolis that is Los Angeles) it can be more pleasurable and sometimes even faster than driving. Don't believe me? Try getting from Santa Monica and Wilshire to City Hall during rush hour.

Even if you beat me there, I'll be refreshed by my nature walk through Beverly Gardens from the electric fountain to the big rock while you will have gnashed your molars to nubs driving..

image: my iPhone

Pets, & Why Your Children Need Them

I grew up in the 70's. Well to be honest I was born in the 60's but since I don't remember any of that I claim the 70's. I actually claim the 80's since that was the time I could drink and vote, but for this blog we're going back to the 70's. When we were kids it was decided we'd get a dog. I wasn't privy to the process, but there was a lady up street who bred poodles, and I believe that the dog we got was less than show quality but looked upon as a good pet. He was called something something Jacques something something since he was a pure bred. We called him Jackie.

For those of you who don't know poodles, in addition to the fact they don't shed they're very intelligent and don't care to be bored. I remember that Jackie loved to play in the snow with us when we'd let his coat grow in. Actually he loved to play with us whatever the weather, demolishing leaf piles we'd carefully raked up or just sitting on the sofa wondering why we'd be watching "Rhoda" when he was so much more interesting.

Jackie was a perfect dog to grow up with; a pet, a playmate and a workout partner. We'd take Jackie out for exercise and he'd tire us out before we'd tire him. Countless frisbees, chewtoys and knitted whatnots would be gnawed into shards in the tug-and-toss games we'd play when we were outside and he'd sit on the sofa with us while we read or watched TV. As long as we payed attention to scratching his muzzle. Family Sunday summer drives would mean that Jackie got his own cone at Dairy Bar and family dinner meant that nobody said a word when Grampy fed Jackie at the table.

I grew more mature as did Jackie. White invaded his muzzle and his eyes. He lost teeth and his eyesight was going. I'm reading into it but there was an all too human look to him as he lost more and more control of his faculties. Finally our mother decided to take him to the vet and and let him go. I can't fault her for doing so, because Jackie was her dog and well, that was how it was done in the era, and Jackie wasn't doing well.

I like to remember that Jackie that rode as a pup in our old Ninety-Eight with his nose in the Air-Con vents and eyes glued on the road and the elder Jackie who rode in my spider with the wind on his face, licking the air.

Maybe that's the best thing that happens with us being temporary guardians of pets. We learn about how we should treat each others by living with creatures who depend on us utterly, and know that we'll be giving them our best, and teach us the lessons of love, loss and the responsibilities in between.

"Before Stonewall" and "After Stonewall" are on Netflix Streaming

Both are worth watching for a history of gay life in the US in the 20th century. Of course, since I am vintage "after" I think the latter one hit closer to home. My youth was in the AIDS 80's and it's hard to watch some of that period without a certain bitterness. Watching it reminded me of a lot of rhetoric from politicians about GLBT people that was fairly disgusting. While I'd like to have the waistline, flesh tone and hair color I had in the 80's I am completely unsentimental about any other aspect of that time.

Sad to think that in this "enlightened" day we have children killing themselves because of bullying over being gay. Or for that matter over anything else.

Happy New Year!

It's 2012, and BBC America is having an AbFab marathon, and there will be a new episode shown on the 8th! I can quite grasp that it's been 20 years since this show has been on the air. It's still as fresh and funny as it was back in the 90's. Right now they're showing "Poor", one of my all time favorites..

Photo: BBC America

Yes, we do get Autumn

Sort of

There are actual Maple trees in Los Angeles. These are ones on Alden Drive in Beverly Hills. About now they start to change, giving a three-block long mini New England. Of course, this show lasts for a two to three week period, then the trees are bare. Since our period where it's "cold" is so brief, they bud again seemingly in minutes.

I posted this pic to Facebook and one of my pals said something to the effect of "wouldn't it be nice to have snow in the trees?". Uh, sure. If it could fall in pleasant fat flakes while I was checked into a hotel room with a wood-burning fireplace. On my honeymoon with my new husband John Barrowman. Who gave me as an engagement present a new SLK.

If I have to wake up and start shoveling my car out I'll pass...

Photo: My iPhone

3 Games you should let your kids play..

This is totally anecdotal. but here's my reasoning. I was sitting with friends at some local gathering and offered the young (impeccably mannered) son of one of my friends my iPhone to while the time away by playing some games. He replied (those manners) that he would have to check with his Mom, since he's not usually allowed to play these sorts of games. This got me to thinking about some of them. What is it that some of these games are indirectly teaching us and our kids? So here's my list of (completely unscientific) games that I would happily have my putative kid play.

1) Angry Birds

Yes, I can hear you all groan. It's a time-waster, a brain-sucker and might be the worst new movie of 2012. It's also one of the best ways to get young minds behind the idea of physics and engineering. Because to get three stars in any level you have to understand the most economical way to destroy the pigs constructs, and you have to learn to adapt to new capabilities of the new birds and new environments.

2) Scrabble

Do I have to state why this one is a good one? I've found myself mining skills I haven't used in years in coming up with 6 letter words that let me beat "Norm" by 100 points. Anything that gets your kid to start thinking about vocabulary as something that's a competitive sport is a good thing.

3) L. L. Bean Moose

A memory game that might be better for us adults than the kids, but sharpens memory skills for all that play it, You can do 12, 20, or 36 tiles where you have to match up variously clad moose with their twin on the board. It sharpens visual acuity and promotes memory.

Okay, there they are. Three games you can feel good having on your kids phone. Ones that you can also use (as I do) as an excuse for keeping our adult minds young. Of course when you see me sitting at the Beverly Hills Markets patio drinking a diet coke and staring into my phone I'm engrossed in the latest article on Salon.com or re-reading "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu"

I'm not playing Scrabble, oh, no...

Remembering the Twin Towers.

Of course, the greatest loss of 9/11 were the lives of the people that were cruelly cut short by the actions of madmen.

But for just a moment I'd like to talk about the Twin Towers.

The towers were conceived in the early 60's and it shows: they blasted the street grid of lower Manhattan, swept away an entire neighborhood in the name of progress and (and at the risk of being flamed) ended up as a cool, detached failure at the tip of the island. It was a triumph of modern architecture, but not an inviting design.

Originally conceived as 88 stories, they added the extra 22 to get the required square footage they felt they needed. Another feature of the building was that unlike other skyscrapers, the outer skin was structural: it bore 40% of the buildings weight load, made the building almost impervious to cross-winds and allowed vast completely open floorplans with no columns between the elevator core and the skin. It was said that Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the WTC was actually afraid of heights; it was his idea to have the outside columns spaced at about 20 inches to have reassuringly thick metal between between the glass for workers who might balk at the vertiginous heights. The mullions narrowed from 3 to 1 at the top and bottom of the towers to allow ingress to the lobbies and views from the observations platform and Windows on the World.

Another innovation were the elevators. Part of the problem with super-tall buildings is that so many elevators need to be in service to get to the high floors. Skyscrapers like the Empire State Building didn't have this problem since they were subject to New York City's setback laws which required that the building became slimmer as it became taller. Fewer elevators were needed to get to the smaller higher floors. A project as mammoth as the WTC would need a solution or too much expensive floor space would be devoted to elevator shafts that produce no income.

The solution was the "skylobby". First used at the John Hancock Center in Chicago, for WTC express elevators went to the top, the 78th, the 44th and the lobby while local elevators went to the floors in between. The local elevators could be stacked making the elevator core much smaller.

The towers were set in a rather sterile plaza that before Battery Park City was erected (on landfill from the WTC site) was right on the East River. Much like Yamasaki's twin Century Plaza Towers in Century City that still stand today, it was beautiful as sculpture, but in real life barren and so windswept on some days getting to the lobby was a challenge.

I went there several times when I was a New Yorker, if only to take the PATH train and hit a couple of the shops in the promenade. Sadly, I never went to the observation deck or had a drink at Windows on the World, thinking that there would always be time to do so.

Maybe that's the ultimate takeaway from this. There might not be time tomorrow. Whether it's to visit something in the town in which you live or even to tell someone that you love how much your life has been enriched by knowing them, don't wait. Things can be gone in an instant. Don't wait to love life.

Photo: Village Voice

It's September, and it's hot.

This is the time of year that I like to remind myself that the thing that really made the Southwest livable was the advent of really good AC.

Oh, Los Angeles is usually pretty temperate if you're on the Westside, but if you're in the Valley (where it will be 107 tomorrow) you need you're AC. Places like Palm Springs and Scottsdale in my opinion would be uninhabitable for months out of the year without it in the same way that great swaths of this country would be in Winter if we didn't have heat.

I'll refer you to the excellent article at Wikipedia about the history of this marvelous invention. I'm often questioned why I still insist upon taking the MTA even though it's not the most reliable system on earth. Well, part of is that is they understand that when it's hot out and you have a 50 foot long metal tube filled with meat-puppets pumping out 98 degrees, it's best to have AC that could keep ice cream turgid. I've boarded buses in shorts and a polo where by the time I get to my destination, I'm uncomfortably cold.

I love it.

Sadly, the AC in my Honda is not quite up to snuff. My car has many things going for it. It gets stellar gas mileage. Since it's a color that Honda calls "Red Camellia Pearl" that's more like the lipstick in a Nagel print and is a stick, so nobody will ever steal it. It's a Honda, so it will last a while. The AC however is wholly inadequate.

In this sort of weather you really need the sort of automotive overkill AC that was (and I assume is still) offered by the Americans.

The advantage that American companies have is that they are in Detroit. In addition to having brutal winters, the Midwest have brutal summers. Trust me, I've lived there. It's not unusual to have the high 90's and 90% humidity. At midnight. General Motors responded by having a system called "Automatic Climate Control" (standard on Cadillac) and "Comfortron" (optional on lesser marques). With this system, you would set a temperature and the car would do it's level best to get you there as soon as possible. In winter it was a blessing: at the point in January when you actually thought you might expire a blast of furnace heat would come in and scarves, gloves and hats could be safely shedded. In summer the car would do everything it could after being parked outside in the sun to drop the temp to the 68 degrees you've chosen.

I can say having briefly driven a friends 80's Cadillac in the 90's that it's almost uncomfortable. Having parked the Coupe deVille in a parking lot in the Valley while I shopped I think it was about 237 degrees when I opened the door. Flipping the (gold) ignition key it took about four seconds for the system to be pumping out air so frigid that I was after a few minutes feeling like I was like in a Midwestern snowstorm.

I loved it.

But I think it's better now that we have remote-start.

Photo: Auto Brevity

YIKES!