Digital Ink Los Angeles

What causes us to search for a New World?

A new route to the Far East spice trade? Nah.

Desire to spread the word of God, like the Dominican and Jesuit missionaries of the 18th Century? Not likely.

Escape from nuclear Armageddon or biological malaise? Maybe.

Discovery of raw materials and new water sources? More than likely.

The recent opening of the billion-dollar CityCenter in Las Vegas is a boastful nod to New World capitalism and its achievements, with the tagline: “Capital of the New World.”

What gives? Films like The Road, Armageddon, Cloverfield, and WALL-E portend the destruction of Earth.

Does Hollywood know something we don’t? One thing for certain, James Cameron won’t be directing my escape ship. And it’ll probably be pretty obvious we’re “not in Kansas anymore.”

Remember that song from the 70s, Children of the Sun?

“‘People of the earth can you hear me?’
came a voice from the sky on that magical night.
And in the colors of a thousand sunsets,
they traveled to the world on a silvery light…”

In 3-D, of course.

Administrator 21st Century Culture, 70s, Earth, Movies and Cinema, Social Responsibility, The New World aliens, armageddon, Avatar, Earth, entertainment, hope, people, social

“Prediction is very hard,” said famed Yankee catcher and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, “especially about the future.”

Healthcare, Afghanistan, Foreclosures, Iraq, Wall Street, Pakistan, and Unemployment, oh my. And now Barack Obama is Hitler and the Anti-Christ re-incarnate, Van Jones is a white-hating communist, and Sonia Sotomayor is a racist revolutionary?

What befits a president looking to make his mark on history than the daunting tasks made apparent over the last nine months. The level of angered, passionate rhetoric has risen to visceral and acrid polemic. Hate foments hate, and no one wants to back off their high posts. For what? What’s the end game?

Read the Steve Lopez column on Glenn Beck Groups sprouting up around the country, with his popularity seemingly like an L.A. wildfire.

“Join, or Die” is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. It was meant to align colonial states with a united cause — eventually becoming the United States of America.

Wonder if anyone recognizes the buffoonery of bi-partisan bickering when it comes to accomplishing meaningful results?

Educating children, reviving a comatose economy, bringing troops home, and re-structuring a health-care system that remains in the dark ages will require active, meaningful participation on both sides. C’mon , buddy, can you lend a hand?

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Administrator 21st Century Culture, New America, New Economy, Social Responsibility bi-partisan, courage, divided, Glenn Beck, government, hope, New America, New Economy, Obama, politics, power, racism, rational, reason, rhetoric, social, united

No doubting the fact New Orleans is mired in a real swamp. Nearing the four-year anniversary of Katrina, the city is still rebuilding, and a shrinking economy has made this growth as stagnant as Mississippi River mud at low tide.

Enter stage left, Benjamin Button, otherwise known as Brad Pitt, who makes a lucrative living as a movie star and make-believe sweetheart of a tough guy.

His Make It Right Foundation has managed to build 150 sustainable, hurricane-proof, energy-efficient and Frank-Gehry designed homes in the now infamous 9th Ward.

With the New Orleans mayoral race nearing, Pitt’s got a crew of supporters who like the carnivalesque behavior of mindless politics, with an eye for wresting control of the Crescent City’s maddened political atmosphere and changing the face of NOLA politics as it currently exists.

This sounds great in theory, but what will it look like in practice? In considering an answer to this question, consider that Mayor Ray Nagin, the man-in-charge during Hurricane Katrina, has been worse for the City of New Orleans than anyone could have imagined.

Who could possibly be worse than Ray? Except Katrina.

Administrator 21st Century Culture, Movies and Cinema, New America, Social Responsibility Brad Pitt, change, city hall, courage, film, GOOD, hope, Louisiana, mayor, movies, New America, New Orleans, politics, rebuild, responsibility, social, spirit, strength

The seminal Wu Tang Clan song from the mid-90s, “C.R.E.A.M.,” has its eponymous title taken from the lyrics, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.”

Many are praying for a bridge across troubled financial waters these days, and many are asking their deities for a little extra cash. Cash trees, cash cows, golden ganders, lottery tickets, horse races, change drawers, and surreptitious swindles are all-the-rage in this post-Madoff madness.

Which brings us to the case of one Jason Holt, upper-Manhattan resident, school teacher, and genuine do-gooder. He almost got got for having been the unsuspecting tenant of “Apartment D,” in an otherwise ordinary building, where a Dominican-born, police-protected drug-dealer has supposedly stashed $900,000 in cash.

The NY Times‘ Al Baker writes:

It was not a movie, not a plot from “Law & Order,” but a reality that hit Mr. Holt like lightning on Thursday when he read the news that a New York City police officer — allegedly in partnership with a drug dealer who used to live in the apartment — had been arrested on charges of scheming to trick his way into Apartment 4D, have Mr. Holt jolted with a stun gun and handcuff him. The drug dealer, officials say, had led people to believe that he had used the apartment, which is on Broadway in Inwood, as a stash house for $900,000 cash.

The rest of the NY Times‘ article can be found by clicking this link.

Now, it seems that floorboard in my hallway has been creaking louder than the others, and I’ve been meaning to check it… just in case.

Administrator New America, New Economy cash, drugs, economy, hope, money, New York, police

George Holliday was a man with a video camera — how silly that sounds now, 17 years later. The voyeuristic world we live in — with the ubiquitous YouTube and HULU videos we’ve come to love — has really embraced the amateurish video of handheld consumer-camera reporting. On March 3, 1991, George Holliday focused his lens on a highway off-ramp outside his apartment near the intersection of Foothill Blvd and Osborne St. in Lake View Terrace, north Los Angeles — this is called “inverse surveillance“, when citizens are watching the police.

A little more than a year later, on April 29, 1992, the acquittal of Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano led to an onset of violence and mayhem that gripped the city of Los Angeles for nearly six days. At one point, LAPD Police Chief Darryl Gates called in the National Guard to protect the sprawling metropolis from complete destruction.

I remember sitting in my living room, watching the beating of Reginald Denny, thinking what’s really going on? I watched numerous businesses burn, some I saw actually torched by rioters. I saw cars driving by, loaded with stereo and computer equipment, looted from stores. Korean businessmen were targeted, and, from then after, owners were always carrying holstered handguns.

17 years later and Rodney King has been arrested for drugs and DUIs and entered rehab several times. His guilt on that fateful March evening has never been questioned, and his insults toward a female California Highway Patrol officer appear to be the real reason the LAPD officers unleashed their angry batons upon him. But, what’s really going on? What makes a metropolis erupt in burning anger and gluttonous thievery? The disparity between class structures? The seemingly disproportionate scales of justice? The lack of hope and available opportunity?

Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America on the platform of “HOPE” and “CHANGE“, and a nation expects these broad social measures to be realized. The question is, have things really changed, and what can we expect the next “Social Upheaval” to look like? Some say the undercurrents point in a different direction, with those of privilege and wealth striking defiant, reactionary poses. Makes it all seem so much like the constancy of conflict is just what it is — good ole-fashioned free-market competitiveness. Until the batons start waving, fires start burning, and blood starts spilling. In the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?“

As the economy bottoms out, the nation dusts itself off, and people begin to breath a sigh of relief from this global calamity, what are the currents of change going to bring? One can only hope it will be one of peace and leadership, instead of hate and vengeful mania.

Administrator New America, New Media, The New World change, hope, Los Angeles, Obama, police, race, riots, social

In the April 2009 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, David Kamp writes an intriguing article about the state of the “American Dream“:  view article here.

The subject of much ballyhoo these days is the “Where do we go from here?” dilemma currently dogging our nation, with many Americans facing issues like bankruptcy, foreclosure, loss of healthcare, and unemployment — some are facing all of the above.

We’ve heard talk of legalizing marijuana, nationalizing banks, socializing healthcare, and, in California, many schools are at risk of closing for the ‘09-’10 school year.

The amount of debt accrued by Americans over the last ten years is more than throughout the entire history of this nation.

The recent film Revolutionary Road, nominated for numerous awards, speaks to the traumatic loss of hope and stark reality a 1950s couple (Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet) face when the veil of American mystique is removed, leaving a shaded, moldy underbelly replete with anger, envy, misery, hatred and disgust.  What happens when we wake from the dream, and recognize our lives as less-than-stellar?  Can we accept what we see?

To address this problem as a nation, to begin to imagine a solution, we need to perform a task that every computer-owning citizen understands:  we need to reboot the system.

We need to re-imagine, conceive, enlighten, envision, invigorate, and enliven our cultural infrastructure, educational institutions, and social paradigms.

You ask, “Say What?“  I mean live simply.  Forget big cars, big houses, fast lives, and frenetic capitalism.

Focus on friends and family.  The notion of neighborhoods has all but disappeared.  Get it back.  Address the drug and prison dilemma in this nation truthfully.  Intensify the foundation and support for our “No Child Left Behind” mantra to make it truthful.  Embrace our returning veterans as a symbol of our strength, not shameful patriotism.

At the end of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper’s 1969 treatise on the nature of freedom, Easy Rider, Captain America announces his dismay for having lost the spirit of the “American Dream“.  That was thirty years ago, when the United States was in the midst of a racial, social, and military maelstrom.

Take a minute, pause, take a breath, and reboot.  Not just on an individual basis, but the entire American mythos, ethos, fabric and persona.  Ask the question, “Where are we coming from, and where do we want to go?“

When Dorothy gets to the Land of Oz, she realizes she just wants to go home.  What’s that mean to us in 2009?  This is one dream that will happen in technicolor, or plasma HD, if you’re one of the luckiest to have been spared the demise of the worst financial predicament in 80 years.  All we have to do is open our eyes, and life goes on.  Simply.

You can watch the 1969 trailer for Easy Rider here.

Administrator New America, New Economy, The New World America, Dennis Hopper, dreams, Easy Rider, freedom, hope, movie, Oz, Peter Fonda, Revolutionary Road, Vanity Fair