The Ring of Dance

The news that Meg Worley and Kevin Lahey, the Pomona couple that started a blog called M-M-M-My Pomona (they lost one "M-" early on), have moved from the area left us feeling a little glum, as if we'd lost a friend.  Worley and Lahey have moved on to bigger and better things up in San Jose.  We wish them the best in their new endeavors, but we'll sorely miss the fresh voice and crisp writing Meg brought to the table.

We read of this departure in David Allen's Daily Bulletin column and in Allen's own blog, where Allen touched on the evanescence of life in the digital age:

M-M-M-My Pomona offered a window into the Lincoln Park neighborhood and the wider world of Pomona, especially in the blog's earlier days. Many of the community of blogs in Pomona have gone dormant; the form seems to have peaked in 2009 or 2010.

It's a little strange to think of something as new as blogging as having already fallen out of favor, but that's the way the changing media landscape bounces. The form still seems to have a lot of untapped potential locally.

In his column, Allen wrote that Pomona has a fairly lively blogging world compared to surrounding areas:

In 2010, the Pomona bloggers had their own float in the Christmas Parade, riding together on a flatbed truck, carrying laptops and waving to children. Now that's influence. (Which I can say, as a former grand marshal.)

Contrary to Pomona's reputation as a backwards, disconnected place, the city has been a hotbed of blogging, with up to a dozen active blogs commenting on local affairs from personal perspectives and linking to each other.

To my knowledge Claremont has only one community blog, and if Upland, Rancho Cucamonga or Chino have any, they're certainly quiet about it.

Actually, besides the Insider, Claremont does have Life in Claremont, which is the domain of Charlotte Van Ryswyk, a violin and viola teacher and the music specialist at Vista del Valle Elementary School.  Life in Claremont is extremely well-written, has a unique voice, and offers a little of everything: books, music, food, and, as the title promises, day-to-day life in our humble burg.  And a few new Claremont-oriented blogs pop up now and again and then pass away quicker than mayflies.

Still, compared to Pomona, our blogging scene is pretty barren.  Allen's article nailed the difference between Claremont and Pomona, and it may account for the lack of blogs here.  The blog form is a pretty egalitarian one, and Claremont tends more towards elitism.  Here's what Allen wrote in his M-M-M-My Pomona article:

"I think it's significant and telling that Pomona has a lot more community blogs than Claremont," Worley told me. "It's not just population. It's a different style of community engagement."

In Claremont, there's a social and political hierarchy. How long you've lived there and who you know matters.

Pomona, by contrast, has an improvisatory nature. With a thin layer of government, and civic competence sometimes in short supply, people have to find their own solutions. It's like "The Little House on the Prairie," but with Mexican food.

Perhaps it's that very egalitarianism inherent in a blog that appealed to us Insiders in the first place.  So much of one's experience of Claremont's high society is exclusionary, and a blog bypasses that quite neatly.  We can all have a voice, not just a select few.

* * * * *

Allen, by the way, had a couple columns, one in June and a follow-up in July, that discussed how Claremonters view themselves compared to how people from our neigboring cities often see us, as this from Allen's July 14 column shows: 

"I can give you a great example of the `friendly' people of Claremont," said Bob Terry, proceeding to relate an anecdote about a mixer in Claremont some three years ago for several area chambers of commerce.

Terry said one of his fellow Rancho Cucamonga Chamber officials briefly placed fliers on the Claremont Chamber's table while looking for a chair. The women at the Claremont table picked up the offending papers and dropped them on the floor like they were toxic waste.

Nope, we can't allow any mixing at a mixer.

"That is just one of many `friendly' encounters we have had over the years with the Claremont Chamber," Terry added.

Allen's June 25 column indicated that at least one Chamber representative seemed surprised to hear of a lack of unanimity concerning the town's general wonderfulness:

"Do you think Claremont is snooty?" [Claremont Chamber member Susan] Brunasso asked me, honestly curious.

"Of course," I replied.

As Claremont's ambassador, Brunasso should try asking that question in Montclair or Pomona - and brace herself for the response.

Claremonters' sense of superiority rubs people the wrong way, I explained.

There's a thin line between thinking your town is a great place to live and thinking it's the only place to live, we agreed.

"There's a pride here that can be taken for arrogance," Brunasso acknowledged.

It's really more than arrogance, though.  It's a profound lack of awareness, a lack of empathy, that blinds certain people, the ones termed the Claremont 400 (a phrase we co-opted long ago), to the perception of Claremont through the eyes of outsiders.  It's an unawareness that underlies a certain willingness to bend the truth, sometimes beyond all recognition.

Back in the Claremont 400's heyday, an issue would come up, and the 400 would spin it however they wished.  If you were on the other side of an issue, it took a huge effort to counter the spin because few people bothered to look deeper into what the 400 were saying.  Think of the City Council election this past March.  In the past, the 400 candidates could get up at a forum and spout whatever foolishness they wanted and not get called on it.  A blog makes it much easier to point out the deeper truths.

In days gone by, every election, every hot-button issue, would bring to light some little lie here, some untruth there, that would go uncorrected and, with the Claremont Courier or Daily Bulletin as unwitting conduits, become incorporated into the city's accepted wisdom.  A blog makes for the perfect place to shine a little light on precisely those things our town fathers and mothers would prefer remain hidden.

More than anything else, a blog levels the playing field.  It's a great tool for democratizing the information stream.  No one person or group should get to serve as the Great Information Filter, deciding what gets released and what truth is too inconvenient to be heard.  As Kevin Costner's Crash Davis says to Susan Sarandon's Annie at early on in the movie Bull Durham, "Why do you get to choose?  Why don't I get to choose?"

Don't we all have some valuable bit of information to contribute to the civic conversation?  It's just a matter of speaking up.

This line of thinking brought to mind Denise Levertov's poem "Caedmon," which tells the story of the first English poet.  Caedmon was an illiterate herdsman at a monastery who hid one night because, inarticulate and uneducated, he was ashamed that he wasn't able to join in singing with the learned monks. Then, in a dream, a figure appeared and commanded Caedmon to sing of the Creation:

All others talked as if

talk were a dance.

Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet

would break the gliding ring.

.....

....Until

the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing

my feeble beam,

a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:   

but the cows as before

were calm, and nothing was burning,

             nothing but I, as that hand of fire   

touched my lips and scorched my tongue   

and pulled my voice
                     into the ring of the dance.

* * * * *

Here in Claremont a certain segment of the population takes pride in our civic participation; yet, in reality a small number of people - not 400, more like 40 or 50 - get an idea (think Claremont Trolley) and the idea propagates out into the community through our various volunteer organizations, through letters to the local newspapers, and through City Hall until we forget what silly notion propelled the system into motion in the first place. 

There's no reason why these few and no one else should get to choose what course we take on any matter.  Why do they get to choose?  We just need more people to get involved instead of sitting at home and complaining when they disagree with some local policy or project after the fact.

So, whomever you are, whichever angel or muse moves you, stop your texting, put that remote or that game controller down, and step up.  Add your voice to the dissonant chorus that democracy is supposed to be.  Otherwise, you cede the decision-making to bullies from all parts of the political spectrum.  And then you have to live with the consequences.

Saturday Mail

It's been a while since we dipped into the ol' e-mailbag, so here goes:

A while back, a reader who wrote in to tell us we had be slackers. We posted the reader's email, along with an earlier comment the same reader had made about us on David Allen's blog.

Well, the same reader wrote back after our post. In fairness, here's the reader's response:

DATE: Wed, May 26, 2010 3:27:39 PM
SUBJECT: Got me!
FROM: Chandler Hill
TO: Claremont Buzz

You got me! I have to admit to feeling a certain dubious honor at having been aligned in your crosshairs like so many others you have sniped from your hidden positions. I won’t make any excuses, only offer an explanation which I think you will find pays you tribute. Indeed I did feel that good riddance was called for during your still mysterious hiatus. I was tired of hearing only one side of things, and I felt a certain amount of moral authority was necessary when slinging accusation and innuendo so freely, the sort that comes from signing one’s name to one’s claims. Instead, by hiding behind anonymity, much of what was being said lost much of its currency.

However, it did not take long for me to see that without your voice, there was none at all speaking up when and where it was needed. And…perhaps…the anonymity was necessary in part to give that freedom. Local papers have commercial interests. And local citizens have many interests that can come in conflict with the very powers you take to task.

It was your silence, finally, that made me think this was not such a good riddance after all, and a new appreciation for your voice—albeit nameless—took the place of my very snarky comment. I started missing you guys.

But on my other earlier point, I remain adamant. You need to open your blog to reader comments. You need to give your followers the chance to add their few cents worth: to agree or disagree or offer another version or another opinion. That’s only fair. You of course have the ability to block a comment you deem unsuitable, but give us the chance to be participants in this little project of yours.

Municipal Ordnance

As Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen pointed out last month, there was more than the usual amount of Claremont irony in the town's Architectural Commission Excellence in Design awards.

That empty commercial building at 601 E. Foothill Blvd., the one that was the proposed site for a 7-Eleven convenience store, was one of the seven award recipients. The award no doubt represents a consolation prize to the building owners, who haven't had one tenant since the building was completed (last year? 2008?). Sorta says, "No hard feelings. See, we're not so bad."

Claremont can be an awfully difficult place to do business, mostly because of the interference of our dear Claremonsters, most of whom have never successfully made or sold anything. They are for the most part dilettantes like our town historian, former mayor Judy Wright, or they're in the service sector like former mayor, former school board member, and former Chamber of Commerce chair Paul Held, who has a Claremont-centric family law practice. And that all goes a long way towards explaining Official Claremont's poor understanding of the concerns of people running reality-centric businesses.

All this got us to thinking that the Architectural Commission might want to think seriously about giving their award a snappier title. Here is our humble offering (given to the the commission free of charge - our civic duty, you know): The Claremont Neutron Bomb Award, after the Cold War tactical WMD of choice.

The neutron bomb's main selling point, you'll recall, was that it eliminated people but left most structures standing, similar to what the Claremont 400's tried to do to citizens and businesses alike over the years. So, the neutron bomb was immensely attractive to the realty crowd (another important Claremont interest group). After all, human assets can be replaced much more easily than infrastructure. Think redevelopment, except with people.

Given the current economic climate, there very well could be many more empty buildings around in the future, and that would drive down the town's image. But winning an award goes a long way toward softening bad publicity, a fact with which Claremont is well-acquainted.

We remember that in 2001, when City Hall was still suffering in the press (there were still such things back then) over the shooting death of African American teen Irvin Landrum after a traffic stop by Claremont PD, Claremont's then-Human Services Director Dick Guthrie applied for and received a Helen Putnam Award for Excellence from the League of California Cities for its response to crisis. Needless to say, the award came several years before the issue was resolved. The City's main response up to that point had been a mostly notional heads-in-the-sand one: "You can't see me if I can't see you."

Some things change, others are ever constant. Claremont's mayor at the time the award was announced? The aforementioned Paul Held, Esq., who, along with wife Kay, just last week was honored as the Grand Marshal of our annual 4th of July parade. Held, who as mayor seemed at war with certain Claremonters, could tell you that when things look bleakest, trot out an award.

Knock 'em dead, Claremont.

Absurdly Subtle

On his Daily Bulletin blog, David Allen has posted a photo of Claremont's attempt at subliminal messaging. Subtle. Really subtle.

Speaking of the theatre of the absurd, Allen also has his reading log for April, which includes Samuel Beckett's play Endgame. For the misogynists in the crowd, there's some Mark Twain, as well a smattering of sci fi.

Pie Day

“Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.”
Jonathan Swift


From what we read on David Allen's blog, today is National Take Your Pie to Work Day, or something like that.

Actually, it's National Pie Day, and the American Pie Council (there really is such a group) offers up some pie trivia:

Learn About the History of Pies

• Pie has been around since the ancient Egyptians. The first pies were made by early Romans who may have learned about it through the Greeks. These pies were sometimes made in "reeds" which were used for the sole purpose of holding the filling and not for eating with the filling.
  
  
• The Romans must have spread the word about pies around Europe as the Oxford English Dictionary notes that the word pie was a popular word in the 14th century. The first pie recipe was published by the Romans and was for a rye-crusted goat cheese and honey pie.
  
  
• The early pies were predominately meat pies. Pyes (pies) originally appeared in England as early as the twelfth century. The crust of the pie was referred to as "coffyn". There was actually more crust than filling. Often these pies were made using fowl and the legs were left to hang over the side of the dish and used as handles. Fruit pies or tarts (pasties) were probably first made in the 1500s. English tradition credits making the first cherry pie to Queen Elizabeth I.
  
  
• Pie came to America with the first English settlers. The early colonists cooked their pies in long narrow pans calling them "coffins" like the crust in England. As in the Roman times, the early American pie crusts often were not eaten, but simply designed to hold the filling during baking. It was during the American Revolution that the term crust was used instead of coffin.
  
  
• Over the years, pie has evolved to become what it is today "the most traditional American dessert". Pie has become so much a part of American culture throughout the years, that we now commonly use the term "as American as apple pie."

We decided to celebrate by finding a good pie crust recipe and came across an interesting one with a surprise ingredient. Here's hoping you all have a Happy Pie Day.

Poor Trolley - R.I.P.

David Allen found a YouTube video tribute to the Claremont Trolley. The screenshots say everything you need to know about the ol' Ghost Trolley's popularity, which steadily declined following its debut last October:

Headless Trolleyman: "Room for one more."

Into the sunset.

You can watch the video here.

A Second Moment of Silence, Please

The local MSM (mainstream media for the acronymically impaired) had plenty of coverage of last Saturday's Claremont 4th of July celebration.

The Daily Bulletin's David Allen blogged about the annual parade, which gave him much amusement.

And the Claremont Courier's Tony Krickl wrote of running in the 5K. Krickl also covered the Opening Ceremonies and the Speakers Corner. Oddly, one important person was notably absent - Claremont Mayor Corey Calaycay (photo, above left), whom Krickl says overslept, causing him to miss his speech following the Flag Raising at 10am. Calaycay also missed his 11am opening Speakers Corner speech.

Since when does a politician pass on a free public-speaking gig? Turns out Calaycay wasn't observing the obligatory moments of silence for recently departed Speakers Corner founder T. Willard Hunter. Krickl ran this one to ground:

By 11:30 a.m., city staff was getting seriously worried about his safety. Police, fire fighters and assistant city manager Tony Ramos were sent to Calaycay's house to make sure he was okay.

They found him, alive and well, if not a bit sleepy-eyed. The mayor had simply overslept. He eventually made his way down to Memorial Park to join in the fun and apologized for his earlier absence.

"It's never a nice thing to have to begin a speech with an apology but I must do that," he said at the Speaker's Corner. "It's tradition for the mayor to open the speaker's corner and I was truly looking forward to that and I'm embarrassed to say I overslept this morning."

If only we could get the pols in Sacramento to sleep in more often, the people's work might actually stand a chance of getting done.

Local Blogger Locks Down, For Now

David Allen writes that the Goddess of Pomona has restricted access to her blog, at least temporarily:

I e-mailed the Goddess to inquire and she said she'd shut the blog down of her own volition due to "anonymous attacks in the comments section of late. Especially after learning the source of the latest comments." She didn't elaborate, but said the attacks have made blogging "not so fun."

"So until I decide what to do, I've put a lock on the blog," she said.

That seems to be the major headache that comes with comments. Who really has the time to monitor them? And who wants to be responsible for someone else's speech? It's difficult enough policing one's self on one of these things. We go back and forth on the matter of comments. For now, though, we are open to your emails, so keep those electronic cards and letters coming.

Pomona Lives

Pomona Public Library Image
We were in downtown Pomona last night, grabbing a bite to eat at El Merendero #2 and picking up some panes dulces for breakfast, and we noticed the Fox Theatre sign up and running in blue and red revolving neon. The marquee, too, was lit up and announced that the theater was having its sneak preview fundraiser tonight. It looked like the work wasn't quite complete, but, with all the shiny new neon, you couldn't help but feel transported back 60 or 70 years.

The non-profit Friends of the Fox Theater website tells the event is sold out, but the public will have plenty of opportunities to check out the new old Fox, beginning with the Smogdance Film Festival, which runs April 24-26.

The Daily Bulletin has plenty of coverage, including an an article by David Allen, who details the restoration work, including the job done by Pasadena-based ForSight Creations:

A crane with a 90-foot boom was used last August to haul down the sign, which was taken by the contractor to Pasadena for refurbishment.

ForSight Creations stripped, sandblasted and repainted the red sign. Workers also replaced all the neon, returning its original colors: red on one side, blue on the other.

They also rebuilt the motor that spins the sign, then used a crane to reinstall the sign in November.

ForSight, which in 2001 replicated historic signs at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, also restored the Fox marquee, which dates to 1947.

"It has over 1,100 pieces of new neon in it," ForSight president Rob Jobson said. "It's definitely the old-school theater marquee brought back to life."

John Clifford has more information over at M-M-M-My Pomona, and a comment from Meg says us that Gogol Bordello will be playing at the Fox come May.

Obama in Pomona - Updated

UPDATED 8:20PM

David Allen has all the information on President Obama's mid-morning visit to Pomona. Obama will be touring the Edison International Vehicle Electrics Plant today at 10:30am and will be in Burbank later to tape an appearance on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Allen also notes that some special Pomona students will get to meet the President, which elicited a cheer in the form of a comment from Ms. Lois at the Pomona Library.

The Pomona event is for the presidential press pool only, so like anyone else who wants to catch a glimpse of Obama, Allen plans on being on the outside looking in.

* * * * *

In his column today, Allen also pointed out that, contrary to what State Assemblywoman Norma Torres has stated, Obama's visit was not unprecedented. In fact, with the help of a couple researchers, Allen found at four prior presidential visits to Pomona:

Those visits: Benjamin Harrison, 1891; William McKinley, 1901; William Howard Taft, 1911; and Herbert Hoover, 1932.

My thanks to Bruce Guter and Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library for rounding up the details for me Tuesday.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were more. Could 1933 to 2008 really have been devoid of presidential visits to P-town?

You'd think LBJ would have toured General Dynamics, or Nixon would've visited the L.A. County Fair. Or Clinton would've gone to Donut & Burger for one of each.

* * * * *

The Original Skrip, meanwhile, saw the president motoring over Pomona and also referred us to some photos and video of the motorcade over at Pomona Neighborhood Watch.

* * * * *

Plenty of area politicians got presidential shout-outs today, including Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod, Assemblywoman Torres and Pomona Mayor Elliot Rothman.

As the LAist blog noted, while speaking in Pomona the President also announced a new federal $2.4 billion electric vehicle development program.

You can see the speech here, if you missed it and are interested.

Obama also time to meet with high school students from Pomona's Village Academy High School. The Daily Bulletin's Politics Now blog had a post on what on.

Saturday Economic Report

Uploaded to Flickr by Abraaten
The bad news on the economy just keeps rolling in. The national unemployment rate hit 8.1%, the highest in 26 years, and in California the numbers were even worse, topping 10%. There was plenty of bad news floating around locally:

CUSD LAYOFF NOTICES APPROVED

More bad news from the Claremont Unified School District. The CUSD Board of Education voted Thursday to issue 34 layoff notices to CUSD teachers and nurses. The notices aren't final, but they are the necessary first step if the district has to go through with the layoffs in June.

Wes Woods II reports on the layoff notices in the Daily Bulletin, saying that CUSD is facing a $3-4 million budget deficit through the end of the 2009-10 school year. Woods article said that boardmember Steven Llanusa was the only one to vote against issuing the notices.

Woods also explained some of the actions the CUSD board has already taken:

[CUSD Assistant Superintendent Devon] Freitas said there was already 12 staff position cuts from the district in February.

Among those positions eliminated then were the director of an adult school, director of a child development programs and director of secondary educations, Freitas said.

Lisa Shoemaker, assistant superintendent of business services, said the cuts and reductions were being used to address a $3 million to $4 million deficit for the district in the 2009-10 school year.

JOURNALISTS TAKE THEIR HITS, TOO

Print journalism continues its bleeding. You may have noticed the Los Angeles Times California section disappeared, getting folded into the main, front page section. The Times advertised this as good thing, saying that you can now get all your local and national news in one place, but the fact is it was a cost cutting measure.

LA Observed blogger Kevin Roderick gave the reasons for the Times' decision to ax the local section:

The backdrop, of course, is the economy and the Times' continued free-fall in ad revenue. By getting rid of California, the Times can print the more profitable Calendar section at night and eliminate the expense of a second, earlier daily press run. (Times presses can only handle four sections per run, as this post from last Friday discussed. Note, too, that pressmen are the Times' only unionized workers.)

The move will apparently be spun as an enhancement in local coverage, but Times officials are bracing for howls of protest from print readers who already have been canceling subscriptions over the paper becoming thinner and less well edited. Some LAT officials fear this might be a tipping point. "We can't keep alienating our core readers," a senior person told me. Papers that have tried doing away with just their Business sections have been stunned by the backlash; the Orange County Register reversed its decision to mollify readers.

The added efficiency the Times gained by eliminating the California section allowed the paper's management to show some love for their press workers by eliminating 63 pressroom jobs, reports Ed Padgett.

The Times seems to be giving new meaning to the phrase "Stop the presses!"

And Gary Scott's blog informs us that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wants to top the LA Times and completely eliminate its print edition, along with 75 percent of its staff.

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Bulletin and at other Dean Singleton-owned LA News Group papers, employees who have survived layoffs have been forced into mandatory furloughs. David Allen had a seven-day unpaid break but was back in the media mix this week with new columns and a few posts about what he did on his forced vacation.


CLAREMONT STILL WAITING ON THAT $850,000

In case you were wondering if the state's $42 billion budget fix was going to free up that $850,000 grant for Claremont's Padua Ave. Park, Magic 8-ball's answer would be, "Ask again later."

You may recall that the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) grant to Claremont was approved but never delivered because California placed a moratorium on issuing new bonds.

October 14, 2008, Claremont City Council
proudly receives $850,000 rubber check from RMC

Although the state has balanced its books (for the moment), Claremont will have to wait a while longer before California can go back to issuing voter-approved bonds for projects like Padua Ave. Park. The RMC's website had a notice:

BUDGET IS SIGNED
BUT THERE IS NO IMMEDIATE CHANGE FOR RMC PROJECTS
Updated March 2

While adoption of a state budget is a critical step in addressing the freeze on sate bond funds, the Department of Finance has advised state agencies that: the cash flow results of the solutions adopted in this budget agreement need to be analyzed. After this process, the State Treasurer’s Office will begin to proceed with bond sales. But it will be some time before we know the amount of cash available to address past and future obligations for these projects, as well as past obligations for the nearly 5,400 projects and grants that have been stopped. It will be some time before the projects and grants that have already shut down will be able to restart. It will also take time to determine when any new projects will be able to start.

As a result of the bond freeze, on December 18, 2008, the RMC notified all grantees to stop work on all bond funded projects and laid off several consultant staff. The remaining staff continue to work with our grantees — in particular to update files and prepare billing for all work performed prior to December 18, 2008. In addition, the Governor has declared that all state employees will be furloughed two days per month; it is expected that our offices will be closed on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month beginning February 6, 2009.

At this time we do not know when payments for expenses incurred prior to December 18 will be released, when the freeze will be lifted on existing projects, and when we will be able to authorize new grants. For information on the status of a specific project, please contact us directly.

Needless to say these are challenging times and there are no certainties regarding when the freeze will be lifted. Although updates to this website will be done irregularly, we will update this page with new information as it becomes available.

Among the laid off staff was Claremont's own Tim Worley, a former city Traffic and Transportation commissioner, who was the RMC's water policy director.

The World of Local News Blogs

The Foothill Cities blog had a post back when in December about the state of journalism blogs. It was written by an anonymous Southern California newspaper employee who tried to explore the reasons why journalists aren't generally good bloggers.

The post identified three reasons for the lack of better journalistic blogging:

• They don't promote their own content. In other words, they are not doing a good job of networking to get more clicks on their sites.
  
  
• They don't know what the reading public wants. In the FC writer's view, this means giving readers some additional insight into their newspaper's coverage of the scene rather than random observations by the aspiring blogger.
  
  
• They don't need to be successful - the journalist gets compensated the same whether one person reads his/her blog or no one reads.
  

We're not sure about the FC writer's criteria for blogging success, but there are a few local journalistic blogs we think are worth following.

The David Allen blog is always good finding interesting tidbits about the Inland Empire. Whether it's a place to eat, an interesting issue before a local city council, a cultural event, or a good read, Allen covers it with wit and manages to keep the subjects separate from his Daily Bulletin column for the most part. Maybe, as the FC writer's post noted, it is easier for a columnist to blog than for a regular news reporter since the columnist's work generally involves the sort of personal observations that lend themselves to blogging.

Tony Krickl's Courier City Beat is also a fairly decent local news blog. We like it because Krickl blogs about some of the story bits that don't make it into his Claremont Courier stories. His post on the 10th anniversary of the Landrum shooting strikes us as a good example of the sort of additional information that gives some nuance to a news piece.

We also follow former Courier reporter Gary Scott's blog, not so much for the local news as for Scott's observations about the state of journalism, local and otherwise. If you want to witness the unravelling of the print news industry, Scott's posts are an excellent place to start.

A Little Housekeeping

We've made a few changes and additions to the links list in the left-hand margin. First, we've moved the Claremont-specific links into a "Community Links" list.

Second, we've moved Gary Scott into the "News" links section because his posts are primarily related to journalism rather than local interest items. We did leave David Allen in the "Local Blogs" section because Allen's posts seem to have a good deal of local color sort of items.

Lastly, if you scroll down towards the bottom of the left-hand margin, you'll see we've added several Craigslist feeds specific to Claremont: "Jobs in Claremont," "Gigs," and "For Sale/Wanted." There's also a feed for "Free Stuff" in the San Gabriel Valley (there wasn't much free stuff in Claremont alone, so we had to go to a wider area).
As always with Craigslist, you'll want to perform your due dilligence in all cases.

We got the idea for the Craigslist feeds from Amanda Wray's Living in Monrovia blog, which is one of the better designed and written metro blogs around.

David Allen on the Local Food Scene

We're sorry to have missed this one -

Last month, the Bulletin's David Allen visited the new La Parolaccia restaurant on Indian Hill Blvd. in the Claremont Village Expansion and had a brief review:

They have a selection of pizzas cooked in a wood-burning oven, some with unusual ingredients such as eggplant, smoked salmon, yellow squash and goat cheese. Pastas include ravioli, linguine and fettucine, often with pesto, olive oil or other non-marinara treatments.

We had the Napoletana pizza ($12.50) with tomato sauce, mozzarella, capers, black olives and anchovies, and the linguine con i frutti di mare ($18.50), with fresh seafood. The latter was essentially a bowl of seafood (scallops, shrimp, clams, etc.) with a dollop of linguine and was quite good. The pizza, after I got past my unrealistic expectations that it would be as creative as Pizzeria Mozza's in L.A., proved quite good as well, thin and crisp.

We haven't had a chance to try La Parolaccia, which opened a few months ago, but we can't help but notice how crowded it is every time we pass by. We've sampled a bit of their pizza or two at Winestyles, the wine bar located next-door to La Parolaccia but it was difficult to get a read on them because they had been sitting out on hors d'oeurvre trays for a little while and were cut into small squares.

Still as Allen noted, the menu does look interesting, and the place seems to be bustling with customers and energy. The restaurant, which also a Long Beach location, describes itself on its website:

La Parolaccia, in Italian, literally means "The Bad Language." In Italy, the Osteria was a modest place where friends would gather to enjoy good homemade food, great wine, and very often some "bad language" would be used. At La Parolaccia Osteria, we still serve homemade food, great wine, and occasionally bad language is heard, but strictly Italiano.

Lunch: Mon-Sun 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Dinner: Mon-Sun 4:00 p.m to 10:00 p.m.

201 N. Indian Hill
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 624-1516

This Year's Reading

Photo Courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons
David Allen continues on with more literary musings. Allen wrote in his blog that he's kicking off the New Year with another reading project. Last year Allen read and reported on "Moby-Dick."

This year Allen's chosen another Herman Melville work, this one a collection of stories:

You may recall that last New Year's, I decided to begin an ambitious book, "Moby-Dick," a novel that turned out to well repay the hours (and days, and weeks) I devoted to it.

That gave me the idea of starting one long, classic book each Jan. 1, something to lose myself in during the winter months and to constitute a sort of intellectual self-improvement program. What is Jan. 1 for if not for outsized goals?

I was batting around the titles of various complex novels on my shelves, including "Don Quixote" (bought from a sale table at B&N circa 2001, never read) and "Crime and Punishment" (bought after seeing "Match Point," ditto), before deciding to read a shorter classic book: Herman Melville's "Billy Budd and Other Stories."

The collection Allen is tackling includes a number of Melville's short stories, including "Bartleby, the Scrivner" as well as the novella "Benito Cereno."

You can read Allen's post here, and he invites you to pass on your thoughts and to share your own New Year's resolutions. Or not, if you would prefer not to.

Literary Ramblings

Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen, who spent the first quarter of 2008 reading Moby Dick, last week wrote in his blog about another of his literary journeys.

This time, Allen talks about reading novelist Larry McMurtry's memoir Books, in which the author describes his time as a bookstore owner. Allen related one bit that tied things back to Allen's earlier Melville reading:

As McMurtry tells it, the British edition of "Moby-Dick" had always been published in three volumes, and a certain editor, one Charles Reade, had been tasked with reducing the novel by two-thirds to fit into one book. The copy McMurtry viewed was Reade's working copy, the book he had marked up with passages for deletion.

Such deletions began on the first page.

"Charles Reade was not a man to be intimidated by a mere American classic," McMurtry wrote.

"He began his editorial work by drawing a bold line through 'Call me Ishmael.' "

McMurtry's usually a good read. Watching how the social and local government scene unfolds here in Claremont, we find ourselves thinking often of The Last Picture Show. Though we're about as far as you could get from McMurtry's Thalia*, Texas - culturally if not quite physically - sometimes it seems as if a flock of Jacy Farrows (that's the Cybill Shepherd character in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film) swooped in here from West Texas and never left, becoming now-stodgy, clucking 60-year-old duennas, guardians of a self-created town mythology.

We've always felt more kinship with the Ruth Poppers of the world (Cloris Leachman to you movie fans). There's much to be said for enduring, even if you occasionally want to chuck that china cup and coffee pot against the wall out of frustration, anger, disappointment, or fill-in-the-blank. You get past it, whatever "it" may be, the way an oyster gets past an irritating grain of sand by enveloping, enclosing, walling it off.

"Never you mind, honey. Never you mind...."

As an Amercian novelist of another era once wrote, "The lowly and invincible of the earth - to endure and endure and then endure, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."


*[In the 1971 movie version Anarene for some unknown reason. ]

David Allen's Election Observations

As we've noted in the past, Claremont is a small town. Claremont resident and Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen ran into a couple local personalities at his polling place at Sycamore School in the Claremont Village this past Tuesday.

As Allen's column reported, Allen spent a little time chatting with former Claremont Chamber of Commerce president Sonja Stump and current Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor, two of the people responsible for the Claremont Trolley, among other things:

On Tuesday, there was a line of a half-dozen people out the door and a full house inside. It's the busiest I can remember Sycamore in three presidential elections and numerous primaries and off-year balloting.

"We had 62 people in line before we opened at 7," poll worker Larry Clark told me. "I'm sure it will be a record."

By 9:25 a.m., 218 people had voted, with more streaming in.

"We've had days when we haven't had this many people all day," precinct captain Sonja Stump said.

Mayor Ellen Taylor cast her vote minutes after I did. (We canceled each other out on Measure R.) The mayor affixed her "I voted" sticker and said she was off to Starbucks to claim a free cup of coffee.

Earlier, Stump had demonstrated the Ink-a-Vote method to those of us waiting in line. This prompted an elderly Massachusetts transplant to say she preferred her home state's voting levers and curtained booths.

"No one here is going to look over your shoulder," Stump kidded her.

"And yet people in California are all about their personal space," the woman continued. "They want space all around them. No line in Massachusetts would be spaced out like this. People stand closer together."

Allen had a column in today's Bulletin recapping the election. Allen mentioned Pomona's John Mendoza, who was involved in not one, not two, but three contests Tuesday:

In Pomona, John Mendoza was all over the ballot. He ran for two offices: Three Valleys Water Board and City Council. He won the former and was runner-up on the latter.

Yet only 28 percent of voters supported a utility tax increase put on the ballot by, yes, John Mendoza.

I guess voters like Mendoza more than they do his ideas.

Transportation Friday

We've got more transportation news today, beginning with the Claremont Trolley, which began service yesterday. The free, trackless trolley will run three days per week, Thursdays through Saturdays, from 11am to 11pm and will now cost an estimated $1,290,596 for the three-year trial, up from the original estimate of $887,000. The city is estimating the trolley will average 15 riders per hour.

The trolley is being paid for with money Claremont receives from state transportation bond money, even though it has been described by city officials as an economic development project rather than as a transportation project (it supposedly encourages shoppers in different areas of the Claremont Village and Village Expansion).

The Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II covered the trolley unveiling:

CLAREMONT - City officials and residents on Thursday celebrated the Claremont Village Trolley with a barbershop quartet, christening and free cake and punch.

"I think having a trolley will make the downtown attractive" to those who live outside Claremont, said resident Ping Chang, 42, who rode the trolley for the first time with her 4-year-old daughter, Tiffany.

For Community Services Director Scott Carrol, this is exactly what he believes will happen, as the trolley "promotes economic development in the Village," he said.

To welcome the start of the free trolley service on Thursday morning, Mayor Ellen Taylor spoke to city officials and residents at the Claremont Depot on First Street.

The event was the culmination of events that started with the City Council's approval in January of using transportation money to fund the new service for three years.

The Bulletin's David Allen also had a column on the trolley. Allen seemed skeptical of the project's success, and the column's headline is "Not All Aboard 'Trolley.'" Allen also managed to fit quotes from a current and a former Claremont mayor into the piece:

....Mayor Taylor is already a fan.

"It's very cute," Taylor said. "Very Claremont."

And also very Victoria Gardens, I told her.[SNOB ALERT - CI ed.]

"Do they have one?" Taylor asked. "I never go there."

The "trolley" was about to depart for its third trip. I climbed aboard. It has arched windows, wooden slat seats and straps for anyone who stands. But it also has tires and a bus driver.

A few passersby gave us curious looks. At Bonita and Yale, two women jumped up and down and took photos. Outside the Back Abbey pub on Oberlin, an employee watched quizzically before giving us a wave.

I rarely walk along First, so it was educational to learn the Peyton Grey clothing store is gone. With Chloe & Hunter, that's two recent closures in the Village Square. Oh, if only they could have hung on until the "trolley" started!

Moments later the vehicle was back at the depot, disgorging a columnist. I say, disgorging a columnist.

Former mayor Karen Rosenthal, who rode the faux trolley earlier, was lingering.

"I don't know who's going to ride it," Rosenthal admitted. "Maybe if you park in the Metrolink lot. But if you park in the Village, you could walk three blocks to the trolley, or you could walk three blocks to where you want to be.

"The ones who'll ride it," she added conspiratorially, "are the people who really need to be walking."

Queen Ellen (left) also received a mention in LA Times writer Steve Hymon's Bottleneck Blog. Hymon caught Taylor's opinion piece against LA County's Measure R, the proposed half-cent sales tax increase that would fund transportation projects. Hymon spoke with Her Highness:

I also spoke to Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor earlier today. She recently wrote a scathing opinion piece against Measure R that ran in the papers in the San Gabriel Valley. She doesn't believe the Gold Line Foothill Extension receives enough funds in the spending plan to get it to Claremont and Montclair -- the plan guarantees it $735 million -- and, equally important, she doesn't believe the money that the Gold Line is promised would arrive in any kind of timely fashion.

I posed this traffic question to her: What's it like in the Valley these days? Her answer:

It's miserable. I’ve lived in Claremont for 30 years and traffic has gotten much worse -- to the point that we don’t go into L.A. anymore. That’s not good for me. I like a full life where you experience stuff. We’ll go to a concert on Sunday afternoon [in Los Angeles] rather than Saturday night because it’s easier to get in and out...

We’re like the bologna in the bread here. And they keep building. You take the 210 east and all you see is roofs and they’re building them without building the infrastructure.

That's a fascinating quote. Why? In early 2007, Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote a piece about how bad Westside traffic is, with quotes from one resident saying they too no longer tried to attend cultural events in downtown L.A. (The Lopez column led to the creation of the Bottleneck Blog). Taylor is essentially saying the same thing, but from the other side of Los Angeles County.

The Allen Who Would Be King

David Allen had a comment on his blog about a recent LA Times article on North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il. Allen mentioned how North Koreans are required to keep portraits of Kim and his late father in their homes and that people are fined if the portraits aren't dusted regularly. Allen went on to say:

But here's what grabbed my attention:

"Foreign visitors are advised upon their arrival in Pyongyang not to throw away any North Korean newspapers lest they despoil a photo of the leaders," the story notes.

" 'Don't tear or crumble the newspapers. Don't throw it in a dustbin. Don't wrap something with it or use it for some other purpose,' warned guide Gil Hyun Ah, who said offenders would have to write formal letters of apology before being permitted to leave the country."

When I rule the Inland Valley -- it will be a benevolent tyranny -- I expect to apply the same rule upon the populace regarding the Daily Bulletin. Do not tear or crumble it, don't toss it away and for goodness' sake don't wrap any fish or coffee grounds in it. You might despoil my image.

The Onion News had a panel discussion on Kim's popularity a while back (before Kim's health took a sudden turn for the worse):


In The Know: Kim Jong-Il's Approval Rating Plummets to 120%

Intrepid Columnist Braves Blogosphere Year II

Congratulations are in order for Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen, whose blog last week celebrated its first birthday. Allen had a print column on the happy occasion:

My 10th anniversary as a Bulletin columnist slipped away last spring, as best as these things can be pinned down.

I say that because even though my first every-single-week column was April 26, 1998, I'd managed to sneak 19 of them into the paper at random points in the previous 13 months.

So the anniversary of my column is hard to explain...much like my column's appeal.

What's easier to pinpoint is the date I became a blogger: Sept. 12, 2007. Or one year ago last Friday.

Butler, bring me a cake and candle.

In case we're not past the what's-a-blog discussion yet, it's an online column. You know, on what President Bush calls the Internets.

Allen also blogged about the anniversary:

Based on comments I get, most of you are happy enough with this blog. And that's satisfying. I wish it were better, frankly, and were blogging my fulltime gig it would be. But I barely have time to think about it, really.

So this is what you get for the hour or two a day I can spare -- something off-the-cuff, mildly entertaining, more personal and casual than my columns (is that possible?), plus responses to many of your comments.

Some stats I've been pondering as I look to the future: Although there are readers at any point of the day or evening, on weekdays there's a peak around 9 or 10 a.m., and then a second peak around 4 p.m. Hmm.

And while weekends have the lightest readership, the 250-ish people reading then, compared to 300-ish to 500-ish on weekdays, is higher than I'd have expected.

In response, the boss has suggested that I post not just weekday mornings but in the afternoons as well, to give the morning people an excuse to check back for something other than fresh comments and, of course, to rack up more page views.

"It doesn't have to be long," he says. "Just something like 'I had a burrito at lunch.'"

Uh, well, I'm skeptical anyone would check back for dispatches like that. But I can kinda see his point. I could do with some shorter posts.