Yes, its back. The new season of Dancing with the Stars. And with an increasingly high profile “cast” - Laila Ali, Billy Ray Cyrus, Clyde Drexler, Joey Fatone, Shandi Finnessey, Leeza Gibbons, Heather Mills, Apolo Ohno, Paulina Porizkova, John Ratzenberger, Ian Ziering.

My early money is on Laila Ali knocking out the competition and dancing away with the title - good footwork from boxing, famous name, and I think a woman is going to win it.

And since your reading this and secretly you love the show even if you can’t admit it, who do you think will win? And who will be the first one to go home?

UPDATE: In a clear attempt to better attract the male demographic, they have an elimination chart - like March Madness - to track the show.

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Abner Ramos and I are beginning to get our bearings for several La Fe projects we’d like to develop in the coming months. One involves a La Fe network of Latino alumni from IV chapters in the greater Los Angeles, many of whom don’t even know what La Fe is or that they are La Fe alumni. (*La Fe is InterVarsity’s Latino ministry, aka La Fe or The Faith. It also is short for Latino Fellowship.)

So Abner & I are putting out this call on our blogs: (more…)

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I’m meeting John Lewis from the Urban Youth Worker’s Institute (UYWI) tomorrow at El Gallo Cafe in East LA.  It is part of the LA County Community Services.  A beautiful location, I tried going there last week to do some work in the morning - and it was closed!! A coffee shop that was closed in the morning - I was shocked.  Turns out they are open from 11am-9pm, so its more suited for my afternoon & evening habits.  There is also a bakery there, among other businesses, and with lots of tables & chairs, its the ideal location.  I’m looking forward to getting together with John, whom I met last year when I did a seminar at the UYWI conference at Azusa.

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Get your tickets now for Mariachi USA. Veronica & I have gone to this concert twice now - it is really a mariachi lover’s dream. All the things you could want: a summer night, the Hollywood Bowl, live Mariachi music, and all of the gritas, “ahuas” and “ayaiyai”s that you could ask for.

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When the police helicopter wakes up my daughter at 1am, will they come back to put her back to sleep? I’m guessing no, since its almost 3am and I’ve heard no knocks on the door. We heard what sounded like gunshots at just around midnight. Isabel didn’t wake up for that, probably since it sounded like it was a block or two away. So we called 911, and then went to sleep. Then around 1:15, the ghettobird started circling - again, probably a block or two away - but that did cause her to wake up. Not frightened or anything. Just awake. It was gone by about 1:45, but she still wasn’t.

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Every since my jury duty service last June, I’ve been thinking a lot about gangs in Los Angeles. Prevention. Intervention. Detention. Suppression. I’ve read some interesting articles in the last few weeks that have spurned my thinking.

This one from LA Weekly focused on the city’s council’s $100 million gang prevention/intervention program - LA Bridges. They mostly focus on some of the major failings & shortcomings of the program - some serious needs that need to be addressed.

There was an interesting response to that article in a later LA Weekly (read here). One thing I hadn’t thought about regarding gangs was this:

“Psychologists and professionals will tell you these days that the gang lifestyle is a learned antisocial behavior that our youth can quickly become obsessed with, especially when family and community members all too often turn a blind eye to it. This “behavior,” which has a whole different set of morals, can also in many ways parallel the disease concept of many popular addictions, such as alcohol, drugs and gambling.”

I had no idea about the parallels with chemical or behavioral addictions.

Then the LA Times has published several recent articles on gang-activity & law enforcement in Los Angles, including this one that cites a recent report calling for a new gang czar to coordinate a comprehensive plan to battle the gang issues in LA. “After a quarter century of a multibillion-dollar war on gangs, there are six times as many gangs and at least double the number of gang members in the region,” the report states. And this one that talk about the challenges facing that plan.

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Because according to new reports, by mid-2008 the majority of the world will live in the city. Worth noting:

Of the 3 billion people who live in cities today, about 1 billion are in slums without clean water, adequate toilet facilities, or durable housing. Some 1.6 million urban dwellers - many if not most of them children - die each year due to causes associated with the lack of clean water and sanitation.

“For a child living in a slum, disease and violence are daily threats, while education and healthcare are often a distant hope,” says Molly O’Meara Sheehan, project director of Worldwatch’s 2007 report, a collection of articles and graphics produced annually since 1984.

Read more here

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Thanks to Ensie - a new Boyle Heights resident - found out about a new place to check out here in East LA - a bakery/coffee shop called Cakewalk on 1st (between Mission & Boyle). Their open from 8am-2pm, so I’m going to check them out today.

What was disappointing was reading this review of Cakewalk from the Downtown LA News. The bulk of the review is average enough - describing the menu, highlighting the desserts, persuading the reader to check it out. What is frustrating is the subtle or not so subtle dig at life in East LA. Or life on the other side of the river, as the article’s intro points out.

As a rule, Downtowners are loathe to go east of the Los Angeles River. There are exceptions: the biannual trip to La Serenata de Garibaldi for example, the fine Mexican restaurant just over the First Street bridge. But the psychological barrier is strong.

For one, it has nothing to do with the review of Cakewalk. Besides this cheap jab, there is nothing else in the article related to the store being in East LA.  Especially remarkable because that section of East LA is on the up & up.

But mostly, it bothers me hearing comments like that about East LA.  Not because there aren’t things about this neighborhood to be concerned by, but because most of the people that I read or hear making the comments haven’t personally experienced any of the negative things of which they speak.

In that way, it really is just a psychological barrio, I mean, barrier.  Without any Polyanna naivete, I’ve lived here for over 7 years without any more problems than a foul-mouthed tirade of a drunken neighbor. Maybe it is just easier to separate life into “the good” and “the bad” - the right side of the tracks and the other side.  But the world that I see & live in & work & play in, the good & the bad usually live next door to each other, if not in the same house.

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I never thought it would happen, though I guess all streaks must someday come to an end. Caltech’s men’s basketball program ended a 10 year, 207 game losing streak (just imagine that for a second) by thumping Bard College of New York, 81-52. Now that they’ve dumped that record, they are trying to break a 245 game losing streak in conference play. I just hope that doesn’t happen versus the Tigers. That would be shameful.

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While I had hoped to spend some time during the holidays updating my blog & making some design changes… that didn’t happen.  But I’m back blogging again, so look for the changes in the next few weeks.  As I come to the end of my sabbatical and return to campus in February, look to see this blog continue to morph.  Not anything drastic, but you can expect a lot of the content to center around the following (but not always related) themes: following Jesus, the Bible, etc.; Los Angeles, life in Boyle Heights, ghetto birds, etc.; college students and campus life; sports; and my beautiful daughter, Isabel and the joys & sorrows of raising a daughter with cerebral palsy.  More on all of that to come….

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HT: Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council email

The Olvera Street Merchants
invite you to
Las Posadas
         A Candlelight Procession

December 16 -24, 2006, 7:30 pm nightly
Entertainment begins at 6:00 pm

     Champurrado  *  Pan Dulce  *  Piñata

For information call:
(213) 625-7074 or (213) 485-8372

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Check this out this weekend, if you can:

Josefina Lopez, author of Real Women Have Curves, and Courage Productions invite you to celebrate the voices and visions of Latina filmmakers in the second annual Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza (BHLIFE).

(more…)

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This is one of the frustrations of being a neighbor in the ‘hood - loud weekend parties.  One of our neighbors is starting to major in them.  Unfortunately, their back yard siets right underneath my daughter’s window.  To add to the tension, we’ve tried - unsuccessfully - to talk with them directly about being quieter.

So should I just make noise complaints to the police?  Are there any other options?

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Thought you might appreciate this - Descanso Garden’s Holiday Festival, complete with photo ops with Santa. Or if you don’t have kids, see if you can jump on Santa’s lamp for old times sake…

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My friend & former student Luz Cardenas has been working as the Job Development Manager for Our Savior Center, a multi-service assistance agency in El Monte. She basically has started their job development program from scratch in just the last year and a half.

Anyway, I just got this email from her about a training program for domestic help:

“Holidays are great: Parties, time with family and friends, great tasting food and of course presents! This year instead of wearing yourself thin in preparation, save yourself time and energy by hiring a Rescate Su Casa housekeeper. Allow the days to feel like holidays and less like work
The Job center at Our Saviour Center in El Monte has just graduated a new group of hard working women ready to make your life easier this holiday season. The Rescate Su Casa program is a housecleaning service designed to train and employ women who are seeking domestic work.

After our workers complete a three-day training, we match their skills and experience with housecleaning assignments offered by individuals in the San Gabriel Valley area and beyond. They have been trained with the same training materials as Molly Maids, and have completed our very own hands-on training curriculum.

If you would like to consider giving the gift of a clean home to a friend or loved one, to yourself or would enjoy having an extra hand around the house for the set up, tear down and/or hosting of a party, please give Our Saviour Center a call. Happy Holidays!”

If you might be interested, give them a call - whether for the holidays or not.

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Cine Sin Fin ~ 12th Annual East L.A. CHICANO Film Festival
Go to: www.alabrava. com <http://www.alabrava .com/> for more information. Presented by: A La Brava Producciones Revolucionarias, Inc and the following locations:

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For the past 6 years since we moved into Boyle Heights, I must confess, ours has been the “eye-sore house” - the one that is just not quite as nice as those around it, whose cars are always dirty, with trash piled up in the front yard (OK, this isn’t our fault, it blows down the street and stops at our house…), not taking care of or even having any plants, etc. And while we’ve done a lot of different work inside the house over the past several years to make our home a little more beautiful, we’ve mostly just ignored the outside.

Until this fall.

In addition to painting the house a new color, just this Friday Veronica & I bought two trees - Ligustrum a podless evergreen tree - for our front porch area. They stand like two attendants, welcoming people through our front gate. We also bought some vine - a type of jasmine - which we also repotted and are going to let grow to provide some covering to our front porch area, since it sits right up against the sidewalk, sometimes making our living room feel like it is in the middle of the street. Should be a nice addition.

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It doesn’t seem to matter if here in Boyle Heights, just like in Beverly Hills, we have palm tree lined streets (like my street), or new BMW’s and Lexus’ SUV’s driving down every street. It doesn’t matter that we’ll have 2 state-of-the-art hospitals or a local winery or a gorgeous view of downtown. It doesn’t matter that home prices have doubled or tripled in the last 6 years (I even saw a million dollar home listing last year), or that in the “location, location, location” game, I can be in downtown - door-to-door - in less than 12 minutes.

All of the other things that make up life in Boyle Heights doesn’t seem to matter when a journalist throws down a two word summary of my neighborhood:

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For those of you familiar with my 2nd office practices (and some silly controversy), I was thrilled to hear that efforts are underway to bring a major coffee-shop chain to Boyle Heights.

Could Starbucks give Boyle Heights a needed jolt?
By Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writer - October 23, 2006

You can read the whole article below for the details. I just hope it happens soon.

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