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Contested UTLA panel elections signal internal fissures
Label: WorldThe young staff at the Alexander Science Center has been hard hit by seniority-based layoffs, the main factor behind a turnover of at least 28 teachers in the last five years — this in a school with a faculty of about 28.
Teachers say that the students at the USC-adjacent campus have suffered from the lack of stability and that the faculty has felt frustrated and voiceless.
But now, three instructors from the Alexander science school are among the freshman class of delegates to the House of Representatives for United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union in the L.A. Unified School District.
The House is the union's official decision-making body: It selects candidates to endorse in elections and has the final say on policy — taking precedence over the president and the board of directors.
The recent elections, concluded this month, were the most contested in years, by far.
Of 32 election districts, 22 featured contested bids for seats that typically could be had for the asking through a self-nomination process. In all, 396 candidates vied for 209 positions, with 100 won by teachers not in the current House.
The ideology of the new delegates is varied, and still evolving. They are concerned about job security, teacher turnover, performance evaluations and funding levels. But they are also worried about what some see as a combative but ineffectual and sometimes wrongheaded union and a demanding, ossified district bureaucracy.
The level of interest in the House elections surprised union leaders and veteran teachers alike — some of whom greeted the nouveau activism with concern. They note that outside groups encouraged teachers to run and worry that such groups will try to influence union policy.
Two outside groups are local arms of national organizations, Educators 4 Excellence and Teach Plus. A third group, Teachers for a New Unionism, is headed by Mike Stryer, a Fairfax High teacher on leave who lost a bid for the school board four years ago. His team reached teachers through home mailings, urging them to run.
All the groups are funded by major nonprofits, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has huge investments in education research and sometimes controversial policy positions. And all assert their desire for a union that better serves the interests of teachers as well as students.
Some in UTLA perceive an unholy alliance among these groups, their sponsoring foundations and L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, a former Gates official.
"Taking over our House of Reps is clearly their strategy to destroy us," wrote teacher Anne Zerrien-Lee in an email posted to an online teachers forum.
"We have enough enemies outside of UTLA that we shouldn't have to deal with school district and Gates puppets within," said regional union leader Scott Mandel in an interview.
Without question, the outside groups see things differently than the leadership of UTLA.
Notably, the union has wanted to limit, as much as possible, the effect of test scores on a teacher's performance evaluation. The outside groups or their funders have backed the use of standardized test scores — or formulas based on them — as one key measure of a teacher's effectiveness.
Secondly, the outside groups want layoffs based on teacher effectiveness rather than seniority; the unions defend the seniority system as the most equitable approach.
Still, Teach Plus wasn't trying to recruit candidates who passed a litmus test, said Executive Director John Lee.
"Our desire wasn't to have a Teach Plus caucus but to connect teachers with leadership opportunities," Lee said.
The new delegates emphasize their loyalty to their profession and to their mission.
"I love teaching," said 35-year-old Antoinette Pippin, a fourth-grade teacher at Alexander Science Center. "I love my students, but I'm seeing a lot of things right now that are bad for my students and bad for teachers."
Jessica Simpson's Christmas gift: She's pregnant
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Simpson's daughter has the news all spelled out: "Big Sis."
Simpson on Tuesday tweeted a photo of her baby daughter Maxwell playing in the sand, the words "Big Sis" spelled out.
The 32-year-old old singer and personality has been rumored to be expecting again. The tweet appears to confirm the rumors.
"Merry Christmas from my family to yours" is the picture's caption. Simpson used a tweet on Halloween in 2011 to announce she was pregnant with Maxwell. She is engaged to Eric Johnson and gave birth to Maxwell in May.
One possible complication regarding her pregnancy: She is a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.
Recipes for Health: Penne With Mushroom Ragout and Spinach
Label: Health
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Penne with mushroom ragout and spinach.
Mushrooms and spinach together is always a match made in heaven. I use a mix of wild and regular white or cremini mushrooms for this, but don’t hesitate to make it if regular mushrooms are all that is available.
1/2 ounce (about 1/2 cup) dried porcini mushrooms
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 medium onion or 2 shallots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound mixed regular and wild mushrooms or 1 pound regular white or cremini mushrooms, trimmed and cut in thick slices (or torn into smaller pieces, depending on the type of mushroom)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup fruity red wine, such as a Côtes du Rhone or Côtes du Luberon
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or a combination of thyme and rosemary
6 ounces baby spinach or 12 ounces bunch spinach (1 bunch), stemmed and thoroughly cleaned
3/4 pound penne
Freshly grated Parmesan to taste
1. Place the dried mushrooms in a Pyrex measuring cup and pour on 2 cups boiling water. Let soak 30 minutes, while you prepare the other ingredients. Place a strainer over a bowl, line it with cheesecloth or paper towels, and drain the mushrooms. Squeeze the mushrooms over the strainer to extract all the flavorful juices. Then rinse the mushrooms, away from the bowl with the soaking liquid, until they are free of sand. Squeeze dry and set aside. If very large, chop coarsely. Measure out 1 cup of the soaking liquid and set aside.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy, nonstick skillet over medium heat and add the onion or shallots. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring often, until they begin to soften and sweat, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and salt to taste, stir together for about 30 seconds, then add the reconstituted dried mushrooms and the wine and turn the heat to high. Cook, stirring, until the liquid boils down and glazes the mushrooms. Add the herbs and the mushroom soaking liquid. Bring to a simmer, add salt to taste, and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until the mushrooms are thoroughly tender and fragrant. Turn off the heat, stir in some freshly ground pepper, taste and adjust salt.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Fill a bowl with ice water. Add the spinach to the boiling water and blanch for 20 seconds only. Remove with a skimmer and transfer to the ice water, then drain and squeeze out water. Chop coarsely and add to the mushrooms. Reheat gently over low heat.
4. Bring the water back to a boil and cook the pasta al dente following the timing suggestions on the package. If there is not much broth in the pan with the mushrooms and spinach, add a ladleful of pasta water. Drain the pasta, toss with the mushrooms and spinach, add Parmesan to taste, and serve at once.
Yield: Serves 4
Advance preparation: The mushroom ragout will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and tastes even better the day after you make it.
Nutritional information per serving: 437 calories; 9 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 73 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 48 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste or Parmesan); 17 grams protein
Up Next: Spinach Gnocchi
Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”
Farmland in demand
Label: BusinessIn the last year, Prudential Financial Inc. has plowed money into lemons and avocados in Ventura County, almonds and mandarins in the Central Valley and strawberries in Santa Cruz County.
The insurance giant is just one of many players, including highly specialized investors and large pension funds, that have snapped up California farmland recently.
The buying spree has helped push farm and ranch land values to record highs, raising questions about how long the boom might last and what effect it might have on the state's important agricultural sector.
A new class of investors is piling into the sector, said Frank Plessmann of Agriworld Fund Inc., a hedge fund based in Greenville, Miss.
When he started putting together a plan to raise capital to finance farmland purchases a decade ago, he said, "there was no one to speak with about it, but now there are all these agricultural investment groups."
The average cost of an acre of farm real estate in California rose to $7,200 this year, roughly $300 above last year's record, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Some of the highest-priced land is in the almond-growing region of San Joaquin Valley's Tulare County, where an acre can fetch $15,000 to $19,000. Just two years ago, the price was in the $13,000-to-$16,000 range, according to surveys by the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers' California chapter.
The surge has as much to do with shifts in the global economy as with local agriculture.
A burgeoning middle class in China has increased the appetite for almonds and pistachios, driving up prices for those crops — and the farmland that produces them.
At the same time, investors have become frustrated with paltry returns from the stock market and low yields on government and corporate bonds, driving them to look for new places to park their money. The effect has been felt beyond California, with cropland prices in the Midwest also on the rise.
Craig Wichner, a managing partner in Farmland LP, which buys up land that can be used for sustainable agriculture, said his clients are "looking for an alternative to investing in the market." Investors in his fund, he said, include a multibillion-dollar wealth management firm, old money and veterans of the tech sector.
Prudential has been buying farmland on behalf of family offices, endowments and pension funds.
"Farmland is lower risk and probably higher returning than commercial real estate, timberland, bond funds and equity funds," said Charles Allison, head of Prudential's agriculture investment portfolio.
Still, investing in farmland is not without risk. Prices in many areas of the state dipped during recent drought years. A rise in interest rates could draw capital away from farmland and into other investments. And there is no guarantee that commodity prices, which undergird agricultural land values, will continue to rise.
"I know of no one who projects farmland prices, other than hucksters who are trying to sell you some," said Dan Sumner, a professor and director of the Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis. "They then only say farmland prices are sure to rise always and forever. But if that were true, why are they selling?"
Rising land prices can make life tricky for farmers.
Some changes are positive. As more outsiders buy up land and lease it for agriculture, farmers can use their own money to invest in equipment and technology that can produce bigger harvests.
"The more capital that enters from outside agriculture, the more farmer-owned capital can be used for operations and perhaps for diversification of farmer wealth," Sumner said. "Of course, anyone hoping to buy land would wish other potential buyers were not in the market."
In previous years, dairymen would buy surrounding land to grow their own corn for feed. Because of the pressure from rising prices, "they can't do it anymore," said Charlie Pitigliano, a grower and land manager in Tulare County.
Competition from big outside investors for farmland has sparked unease among some growers.
Charles Durning, king of character actors, dies at 89
Label: WorldCharles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.
His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in “Tootsie.”
Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theater in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.
PHOTOS: 2012 notable deaths
He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. “They're going to carry me out, if I go,” he said.
Durning's longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told The Associated Press that he died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan.
Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982's “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”
Many critics marveled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film's show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.
The year after “Best Little Whorehouse,” Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks' “To Be or Not to Be.” He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975's “Dog Day Afternoon.”
He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in the TV film “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival.
He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play “That Championship Season” in 1972.
He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy “The Sting.”
Dozens of notable portrayals followed. He was the would-be suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in “Tootsie;” the infamous seller of frog legs in “The Muppet Movie;” and Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty's “Dick Tracy.” He played Santa Claus in four different movies made for television and was the pope in the TV film “I Would be Called John: Pope John XXIII.”
“I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director,” Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Other films included “The Front Page,” “The Hindenburg,” “Breakheart Pass,” “North Dallas Forty,” “Starting Over,” “Tough Guys,” “Home for the Holidays,” “Spy Hard” and `O Brother Where Art Thou?”
Durning also did well in television as a featured performer as well as a guest star. He appeared in the short-lived series “The Cop and the Kid” (1975), “Eye to Eye” (1985) and “First Monday” (2002) as well as the four-season “Evening Shade” in the 1990s.
“If I'm not in a part, I drive my wife crazy,” he acknowledged during a 1997 interview. “I'll go downstairs to get the mail, and when I come back I'll say, `Any calls for me?“’
Durning's rugged early life provided ample material on which to base his later portrayals. He was born into an Irish family of 10 children in 1923, in Highland Falls, N.Y., a town near West Point. His father was unable to work, having lost a leg and been gassed during World War I, so his mother supported the family by washing the uniforms of West Point cadets.
The younger Durning himself would barely survive World War II.
He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his Army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.
In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
“Too many bad memories,” he told an interviewer in 1997. “I don't want you to see me crying.”
Tragedy also stalked other members of his family. Durning was 12 when his father died, and five of his sisters lost their lives to smallpox and scarlet fever.
A high school counselor told him he had no talent for art, languages or math and should learn office skills. But after seeing “King Kong” and some of James Cagney's films, Durning knew what he wanted to do.
Leaving home at 16, he worked in a munitions factory, on a slag heap and in a barbed-wire factory.
Durning and his first wife had three children before divorcing in 1972. In 1974, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary Ann Amelio.
He is survived by his children, Michele, Douglas and Jeannine. The family planned to have a private family service and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
News Analysis: Getting Polio Campaigns Back on Track
Label: Health
How in the world did something as innocuous as the sugary pink polio vaccine turn into a flash point between Islamic militants and Western “crusaders,” flaring into a confrontation so ugly that teenage girls — whose only “offense” is that they are protecting children — are gunned down in the streets?
Nine vaccine workers were killed in Pakistan last week in a terrorist campaign that brought the work of 225,000 vaccinators to a standstill. Suspicion fell immediately on factions of the Pakistani Taliban that have threatened vaccinators in the past, accusing them of being American spies.
Polio eradication officials have promised to regroup and try again. But first they must persuade the killers to stop shooting workers and even guarantee safe passage.
That has been done before, notably in Afghanistan in 2007, when Mullah Muhammad Omar, spiritual head of the Afghan Taliban, signed a letter of protection for vaccination teams. But in Pakistan, the killers may be breakaway groups following no one’s rules.
Vaccination efforts are also under threat in other Muslim regions, although not this violently yet.
In Nigeria, another polio-endemic country, the new Islamic militant group Boko Haram has publicly opposed it, although the only killings that the news media have linked to polio were those of two police officers escorting vaccine workers. Boko Haram has killed police officers on other missions, unrelated to polio vaccinations.
In Mali, extremists took over half of the country in May, declaring an Islamic state. Vaccination is not an issue yet, but Mali had polio cases as recently as mid-2011, and the virus sometimes circulates undetected.
Resistance to polio vaccine springs from a combination of fear, often in marginalized ethnic groups, and brutal historical facts that make that fear seem justified. Unless it is countered, and quickly, the backlash threatens the effort to eradicate polio in the three countries where it remains endemic: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
In 1988, long before donors began delivering mosquito nets, measles shots, AIDS pills, condoms, deworming drugs and other Western medical goods to the world’s most remote villages, Rotary International dedicated itself to wiping out polio, and trained teams to deliver the vaccine.
But remote villages are often ruled by chiefs or warlords who are suspicious not only of Western modernity, but of their own governments.
The Nigerian government is currently dominated by Christian Yorubas. More than a decade ago, when word came from the capital that all children must swallow pink drops to protect them against paralysis, Muslim Hausas in the far-off north could be forgiven for reacting the way the fundamentalist Americans of the John Birch Society did in the 1960s when the government in far-off Washington decreed that, for the sake of children’s teeth, all drinking water should have fluoride.
The northerners already had grievances. In 1996, the drug company Pfizer tested its new antibiotic, Trovan, during a meningitis outbreak there. Eleven children died. Although Pfizer still says it was not to blame, the trial had irregularities, and last year the company began making payments to victims.
Other rumors also spring from real events.
In Pakistan, resistance to vaccination, low over all, is concentrated in Pashtun territory along the Afghan border and in Pashtun slums in large cities. Pashtuns are the dominant tribe in Afghanistan but a minority in Pakistan among Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis and other ethnic groups. Many are Afghan refugees and are often poor and dismissed as medieval and lawless.
Pakistan’s government is friendly with the United States while the Pashtuns’ territory in border areas has been heavily hit by American Taliban-hunting drones, which sometimes kill whole families.
So, when the Central Intelligence Agency admitted sponsoring a hepatitis vaccination campaign as a ruse to get into a compound in Pakistan to confirm that Osama bin Laden was there, and the White House said it had contemplated wiping out the residence with a drone missile, it was not far-fetched for Taliban leaders to assume that other vaccinators worked for the drone pilots.
Even in friendly areas, the vaccine teams have protocols that look plenty suspicious. If a stranger knocked on a door in Brooklyn, asked how many children under age 5 were at home, offered to medicate them, and then scribbled in chalk on the door how many had accepted and how many refused — well, a parent might worry.
In modern medical surveys — though not necessarily on polio campaigns — teams carry GPS devices so they can find houses again. Drones use GPS coordinates.
The warlords of Waziristan made the connection specific, barring all vaccination there until Predator drones disappeared from the skies.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian who is chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization, expressed his frustration at the time, saying, “They know we don’t have any control over drone strikes.”
The campaign went on elsewhere in Pakistan — until last week.
The fight against polio has been hampered by rumors that the vaccine contains pork or the virus that causes AIDS, or is a plot to sterilize Muslim girls. Even the craziest-sounding rumors have roots in reality.
The AIDS rumor is a direct descendant of Edward Hooper’s 1999 book, “The River,” which posited the theory — since discredited — that H.I.V. emerged when an early polio vaccine supposedly grown in chimpanzee kidney cells contaminated with the simian immunodeficiency virus was tested in the Belgian Congo.
The sterilization claim was allegedly first made on a Nigerian radio station by a Muslim doctor upset that he had been passed over for a government job. The “proof” was supposed to be lab tests showing it contained estrogen, a birth control hormone.
The vaccine virus is grown in a broth of live cells; fetal calf cells are typical. They may be treated with a minute amount of a digestive enzyme, trypsin — one source of which is pig pancreas, which could account for the pork rumor.
In theory, a polio eradicator explained, if a good enough lab tested the vaccine used at the time the rumor started, it might have detected estrogen from the calf’s mother, but it would have been far less estrogen than is in mother’s milk, which is not accused of sterilizing anyone. The trypsin is supposed to be washed out.
In any case, polio vaccine is now bought only from Muslim countries like Indonesia, and Muslim scholars have ruled it halal — the Islamic equivalent of kosher.
Reviving the campaign will mean quelling many rumors. It may also require adding other medical “inducements,” like deworming medicine, mosquito nets or vitamin A, whose immediate benefits are usually more obvious.
But changing mind-sets will be a crucial step, said Dr. Aylward, who likened the shootings of the girls to those of the schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn.
More police involvement — what he called a “bunkerized approach” — would not solve either America’s problem or Pakistan’s, he argued. Instead, average citizens in both countries needed to rise up, reject the twisted thinking of the killers and “generate an understanding in the community that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.”
BitTorrent co-founder now working with Hollywood
Label: BusinessA Silicon Valley executive whose previous venture was synonymous with Internet piracy has found a way to play nice with Hollywood.
BitTorrent Inc. co-founder Ashwin Navin is working with television networks and consumer electronics companies on a new technology called Samba that aims to deliver enhanced viewing on Internet-connected "smart TVs."
Navin said his experiences with BitTorrent and the backlash engendered by the file-sharing pioneer spurred his decision to work in collaboration with the entertainment industry — instead of pursing a path of business disruption.
"You can get a lot of great press, you can get all the bloggers and social media folks really excited with statements like, 'I'm here to kill cable,'" said Navin, 35. "But that doesn't actually work. It's not productive,
because cable and subscription television is subsidizing and paying for the programming we love."
Navin's San Francisco company, Flingo, draws from the same body of academic research for Samba that underlies the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's face recognition technology to teach smart TVs to "see" the images flickering on the screen.
Like an infant opening her eyes for the first time, the software is trained to recognize actors' faces and objects on the screen. It uses these visual cues to identify a show in real time by comparing it with a database of hundreds of channels of content.
Once Samba determines what a viewer is watching, it delivers contextually relevant content, such as casting information or social media conversations, directly to the TV — as well as to other screens in the room. The software synchronizes the devices automatically, via the Internet, so the consumer doesn't need to download a special application. The supplemental material is available through a Web browser running on a tablet, smartphone or the TV itself.
"From a consumer point of view, [Flingo's] doing a nice job of stitching these things together based around a TV-centric experience," said Paul Gray, television research director for NPD DisplaySearch. "And not trying to be a PC in your living room — which is the big danger."
Flingo is one of several companies seeking to serve as the technological glue that connects the living room TV with the smartphones, tablets or laptop computers that millions of consumers have in their hands, along with their TV remote controls. One Nielsen study found that 86% of tablet owners and 84% of smartphone users said they check these screens while they watch TV. Television networks have been grappling with the intrusion of these small screens, which compete with the TV for viewers' attention.
"If we can find ways to connect those screens, we can deepen the engagement with the show, we can remind people that they are watching TV," said Hardie Tankersley, Fox's vice president of platforms and innovation. "Being able to match the ads that you're seeing on your laptop with the ads that are running on TV — that has tremendous potential for brands, who advertise both on TV and the Web. To be able to synchronize up is really powerful."
Companies such as Zeebox, Yahoo Inc.'s IntoNow and Shazam Entertainment Ltd. offer smartphone and tablet applications that identify TV shows and deliver supplementary content to this second, smaller screen — including cast lists, a plot synopsis and interactive features such as polling.
Flingo's Navin is placing his bet on a different screen: the TV. Announcements of partnerships with device makers are expected next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Smart TVs are moving from a novelty to the mainstream, with shipments expected to grow 15% worldwide this year, according to NPD DisplaySearch. Some 43 million of these devices — TVs that connect to the Internet and provide access to services such as YouTube, Netflix or Hulu — are expected to ship globally this year. That number is projected to reach 95 million by 2016.
This momentum is less obvious in North America, where Internet-connected TVs have been slower to catch on than other parts of the world, Gray said. That's because purchases are linked to media consumption habits. In China, for example, consumers watch free Internet content — and favor TVs with built-in browsers, which make it easier to watch streaming video. Similarly, in Western Europe, where half the households receive TV programming via over-the-air signals, broadcasters provide past episodes free online for consumers to do catch-up viewing. That's helped spur demand for Internet-connected TVs, Gray said.
Navin launched Flingo in 2008, creating smart TV applications for networks including A&E, Fox, History Channel, Lifetime, Showtime and TMZ, as well as websites such as Revision3, Funny or Die and College Humor. As a result of this development work, the company has built relationships with more than a dozen major consumer electronics manufacturers, among them LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and Vizio Inc. It claims to have published more smart TV apps than any other company in the world — available on more than 15 million devices in 118 countries.
That may position it to take serious advantage of smart TV growth in the U.S.
"The smart TV is the last great unmined consumer platform," said billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who saw a demonstration of Flingo at the CES trade show last year and is an investor in the company.
dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com
Baker's giant thermometer, long on the blink, is taking heat
Label: WorldBAKER — The temperature hit 114 degrees in July, but most folks passing by the "World's Tallest Thermometer" in this Mojave Desert pit stop never knew it.
Once a shimmering beacon of light to Las Vegas-bound drivers heading up Interstate 15 with fat wallets and paper-thin dreams, Baker's 13-story thermometer marks California's last-stop oasis of bathrooms and burger joints before the Nevada state line.
Now it's an eyesore. The pinkish roadside oddity has been on the blink for years. The string of ovals that lighted up in 10-degree increments, the top one also giving the exact temperature, are black and lifeless. The gift shop below is padlocked, its shelves stripped bare.
"It's totally disappointing,'' said Brad Roach, 27, of Los Alamos, N.M., who pulled off the highway on an L.A.-to-Vegas road trip with friends to get a closer look. "It's kind of like the biggest ball of twine," he said, referring to another storied American roadside attraction. "If you're diving by, you have to stop and see it. But there's nothing here.''
The thermometer's demise now serves as a billboard for a town on the brink. A chain link fence surrounds Baker's prized Starbucks — which closed its doors four years ago. Two of the town's three motels are shut. The Royal Hawaiian, which in the best of times aspired to two stars, peeks sadly out onto Baker Boulevard with smashed windows and graffiti-splattered walls.
Part of the blame belongs to the merciless Mojave Desert, where bleached 2-by-4s and cinder blocks are all that remains of gas stations, diners and other ventures that turned to dust along the highways. Part of the decline can be blamed on the recession, which depleted the conga line of vehicles heading to and from Las Vegas that sustains life in this tiny town of 735 on the edge of Death Valley.
Tough times are nothing new in this desert town, born more than century ago as a railroad station serving the borax mines in Death Valley. It was wiped off the map by floods in the '30s and saw its rails pulled up and shipped overseas during World War II. There still isn't a single stoplight in town.
Still, its people persevere. "There's always been work in Baker, but now, instead of one job, people are working two or three,'' said Ronda Tremblay, superintendent of the Baker Valley United School District, which has fewer than 190 students.
Baker has no bank or supermarket, no drugstore or health clinic — those are an hour's drive away, in Barstow.
But some hold out hope for the town and, not surprisingly in these parts, it could come from an unusual place: a spaceship.
The owner of Alien Fresh Jerky, one of the more popular stops on Baker's main drag, has plans to build a three-story, disc-shaped "UFO Hotel." Still in the permitting process, it would tower over the tiny markets, gas stations and restaurants on Baker's main drag. Plans call for a gift shop, cafe and 30-plus rooms. Outside, there would be a pool in the shape of an alien's noggin for guests to take a dip in on hot summer days.
"Forty percent of Americans believe in UFOs. Those are my customers," Luis Ramallo said. "No one has ever seen anything like it.''
A wacky dream? Perhaps. But Ramallo, an electrician who emigrated from Argentina in 1988, has parlayed on those before with great success. His beef jerky store started as a tiny, roadside stand outside of Nevada's Area 51, the top secret U.S. Air Force base that has morphed into the Bethlehem of UFO theology. After Ramallo's oddball enterprise became a hit, he relocated to Baker.
Now his store, on good days, has a line snaking out the door, Ramallo said. He expects even more business once the spaceship hotel opens, which he hopes will be in the next year or two.
"This will be the new big attraction in Baker,'' Ramallo said. "I don't want them to fix the thermometer. I want them to tear it down. It's gone from good to bad to ugly.''
The 134-foot-high thermometer was the brainchild of local businessman Willis Herron, who plunked down $700,000 to build the giant monolith in 1991 next to his Bun Boy Restaurant. The thermometer's 4,900 bulbs glowed so bright that Herron, who lived across the street, had to close his window shades at night.
"For 25 years I've had this dream of putting up the world's tallest thermometer, because people pulling off the freeway in the heat of summer are always making remarks like: 'Whew! It's hotter 'n hell. How hot is it anyway?'" Herron, who died years ago, told the Times in 1991.
The tower's height commemorated the 134-degree record temperature set in nearby Death Valley in 1913.
Shortly after it was finished, the thermometer snapped in two after being buffeted by 70-mph winds. Two years later, the rebuilt thermometer again twisted and swayed as gusts whipped through the valley, popping out light bulbs. The problem was solved when a work crew poured concrete inside the steel tower, anchoring it against the harsh desert wind.
Herron sold the Bun Boy and the giant thermometer to business partner Larry Dabour, owner of the Mad Greek restaurant, another Baker institution. It changed hands again in 2005 when Dabour "liberated" himself from the thermometer, Bun Boy and some other enterprises he owned.
A huge collection of odd TV stuff needs a home
Label: LifestyleLOS ANGELES (AP) — James Comisar is the first to acknowledge that more than a few have questioned his sanity for spending the better part of 25 years collecting everything from the costume George Reeves wore in the 1950s TV show "Superman" to the entire set of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."
Then there's the pointy Spock ears Leonard Nimoy wore on "Star Trek" and the guns Tony Soprano used to rub out a mob rival in an episode of "The Sopranos."
"Along the way people thought I was nuts in general for wanting to conserve Keith Partridge's flared pants from 'The Partridge Family,'" the good-natured former TV writer says of the 1970s sitcom as he ambles through rows of costumes, props and what have you from the beginnings of television to the present day.
"But they really thought I needed a psychological workup," Comisar, 48, adds with a smile, "when they learned I was having museum curators take care of these pieces."
A museum is exactly where he wants to put all 10,000 of his TV memorabilia items, everything from the hairpiece Carl Reiner wore on the 1950s TV variety program "Your Show of Shows" to the gun and badge Kiefer Sutherland flashed on "24" a couple TV seasons ago.
Finding one that could accommodate his collection, which fills two sprawling, temperature-controlled warehouses, however, has sometimes been as hard as acquiring the boots Larry Hagman used to stomp around in when he was J.R. on "Dallas." (The show's production company finally coughed up a pair after plenty of pleading and cajoling.)
Comisar is one of many people who, after a lifetime of collecting, begin to realize that if they can't find a permanent home for their artifacts those objects could easily end up on the trash heap of history. Or, just as bad as far as he's concerned, in the hands of private collectors.
"Some of the biggest bidders for Hollywood memorabilia right now reside in mainland China and Dubai, and our history could leave this country forever," says Comisar, who these days works as a broker and purchasing expert for memorabilia collectors.
What began as a TV-obsessed kid's lark morphed into a full-fledged hobby when as a young man writing jokes for Howie Mandel and Joan Rivers, and punching up scripts for such producers as Norman Lear and Fred Silverman, Comisar began scouring studio back lots, looking for discarded stuff from the favorite shows of his childhood. From there it developed into a full-on obsession, dedicated to preserving the entire physical spectrum of television history.
"After a couple years of collecting, it became clear to me," he says, "that it didn't much matter what TV shows James watched in the early 1970s but which shows were the most iconic. In that way, I had sort of a curator's perspective almost from the beginning."
In the early days, collecting such stuff was easy for anyone with access to a studio back lot. Many items were simply thrown out or given away when shows ceased production. When studios did keep things they often rented them out for small fees, and if you lost or broke them you paid a small replacement fee. So Comisar began renting stuff right and left and promptly losing it, acquiring one of Herman Munster's jackets that way.
These days almost everything has a price, although Comisar's reputation as a serious collector has led some people to give him their stuff.
If he simply sold it all, he could probably retire as a millionaire several times over. Just last month someone paid $480,000 for a faded dress Judy Garland wore in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz." What might Annette Funicello's original Mickey Mouse Club jacket fetch?
He won't even think about that.
"I've spent 25 years now reuniting these pieces, and I would be so sick if some day they were just broken up and sold to the highest bidder," he says.
He, and every other serious collector of cool but somewhat oddball stuff, face two major obstacles, say museum curators: Finding a museum or university with the space to take their treasures and persuading deep-pocketed individuals who might bankroll the endeavor that there's really any compelling reason to preserve something like Maxwell Smart's shoephone.
"People hold television and popular culture so close to their hearts and embrace it so passionately," says Dwight Bowers, curator of entertainment collections for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, who calls Comisar's collection very impressive. "But they don't put it on the same platform as military history or political history."
When the Smithsonian acquired Archie Bunker's chair from the seminal TV comedy "All in the Family," Bowers said, museum officials took plenty of flak from those offended that some sitcom prop was being placed down the hallway from the nation's presidential artifacts.
The University of California, Santa Cruz, took similar heat when it accepted the Grateful Dead archives, 30 years of recordings, videos, papers, posters and other memorabilia gifted by the band, said university archivist Nicholas Meriwether.
"What I always graciously say is that if you leave the art and the music aside for one moment, whatever you think of it, what you can say is they are still a huge part of understanding the story of the 1960s and of understanding the nation's counterculture," says Meriwether.
Comisar sees his television collection serving the same purpose, tracing societal changes TV shows documented from the post-World War II years to the present.
The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation looked into establishing such a museum some years back, and Comisar's collection came up at the time, said Karen Herman, curator of the foundation's Archive of American Television.
Instead, the foundation settled on an online archive containing more than 3,000 hours of filmed oral history interviews with more than 700 people.
While the archive doesn't have any of Mr. Spock's ears, anyone with a computer can view and listen to an oral history from Spock himself, the actor Leonard Nimoy.
Comisar, meanwhile, believes he's finally found the right site for a museum, in Phoenix, where he's been lining up supporters. He estimates it will cost $35 million and several years to open the doors, but hopes to have a preview center in place by next year.
Mo Stein, a prominent architect who heads the Phoenix Community Alliance and is working with him, says one of the next steps will be finding a proper space for the collection.
But, really, why all the fuss over a place to save one of the suits Regis Philbin wore on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"?
"In Shakespeare's time, his work was considered pretty low art," Comisar responds.
Oh, he'll admit that "Mike and Molly," the modern TV love story of a couple who fall for each other at Overeaters Anonymous, may never rank in the same category as "Romeo and Juliet."
"But what about a show like 'Star Trek'?" he asks.
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