Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Faces A Dilemma: Free The Hostages Or Continue The War In Gaza?

BY DON WAXMAN

ROSALINDE AND ARTHUR GILBERT

FOUNDATION PROFESSOR OF ISRAEL STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES

As Israel’s war with Hamas drags into its fourth month, some Israelis are becoming increasingly angry at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s inability to free the remaining 136 hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli protesters have called for Netanyahu’s resignation, while dozens of family members of the hostages stormed the Israeli parliament on Jan. 22, 2024, demanding a deal for the hostages’ release.

The Conversation U.S. spoke with Dov Waxman, a scholar of Israeli politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to better understand the public pulse in Israel, and why some experts – including him – are saying that Netanyahu does not want to end the war.

How is Israeli public opinion on the war shifting?

For the first three months or so of the war, Israelis, specifically Jewish Israelis, strongly supported the war and the government’s declared goal of defeating and dismantling Hamas. That consensus and unity are rapidly fraying.

Netanyahu says continuing the war is the best way to release the hostages, but more and more Israelis, including the families of the hostages, are arguing that with every passing day that the war continues, the lives of the hostages are in greater danger.

There’s also growing doubts about whether Israel can actually decisively defeat and destroy Hamas. More than three months into the war, Hamas is still standing and firing rockets into Israel. While Israel has assassinated mid-level Hamas commanders, Hamas leaders are still alive and able to call the shots.
You have said that Netanyahu does not want to end the war. Why would that be?

Netanyahu is widely unpopular in Israel. Many Israelis, including some of Netanyahu’s supporters on the right, hold him accountable for the cascade of failures that resulted in Hamas’ massive incursion and horrific attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

To restore his domestic support, Netanyahu’s only hope is to continue the war and try to achieve the “total victory” over Hamas that he has been promising. If he fails to deliver on this, and on the release of the hostages, his Likud party is likely to lose the next election and he’ll be out of office.

How does this political pressure influence Netanyahu’s response to the war?

In order for Netanyahu to hold his coalition government together and avoid an election, he has to appease the far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties in his government. For the ultra-Orthodox parties, that means ensuring that their constituents receive the generous government subsidies and welfare benefits that they depend on, not requiring them to serve in the Israel military – unlike other Israeli Jews – and maintaining the religious status quo in Israel. For the far-right parties, it means supporting Israeli settlers in the West Bank and expanding settlements there, and also preventing anything that will strengthen the Palestinian Authority, which the far-right wants to get rid of.

To keep his far-right allies in the government, Netanyahu has to block any post-war plan that gives the Palestinian Authority control over Gaza. Merely discussing the question of post-war Gaza is treacherous for Netanyahu because the far-right is calling for Israel to reestablish Jewish settlements there. The Biden administration opposes any long-term Israeli presence in Gaza and wants a “revamped and revitalized” Palestinian Authority to eventually return to oversee the territory.

Netanyahu’s way to evade these conflicting pressures is to avoid any discussion of the post-war governance of Gaza as much as possible.

Netanyahu has only said that Israel must have security control over Gaza, but what that actually entails is totally unclear.

What are most Israelis increasingly focused on, regarding the war?

Most Israeli Jews are focused on the fate of the hostages and on Israeli military casualties – these are the stories that dominate Israeli media coverage. The families of the hostages have made sure that their plight is not forgotten. And since some of the hostages who were released back in November are recounting their harrowing experiences in captivity, this is also keeping public attention focused on the hostages still in Gaza.

The deaths of Israeli soldiers in Gaza also receive a lot of attention – on Jan. 23, the Israeli military had its deadliest day since the war began when 24 soldiers were killed. Most Israeli Jews have served in the military, and most have family members or friends currently serving. So they are very connected to the military, and military deaths resonate very powerfully in Israeli society.

What most Israelis are not focusing on is the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Many are not even aware of what is happening to Palestinians in Gaza, because it receives little coverage in the Israeli media.

Families of the hostages are speaking out against the Israeli government and its inability to free the hostages. What kind of pressure is this creating?

It has a big effect. There is great empathy for what these families are going through. There is also a strong ethos that the state has a moral obligation to rescue its citizens, including its soldiers.

Many people feel that the state fundamentally failed its citizens on Oct. 7 because it failed to prevent or stop the massacre and abductions that took place. So it is now especially incumbent on the government to bring the hostages home. Even if Israel defeats Hamas but doesn’t free the hostages, it will leave an open wound in Israeli society and damage, if not rupture, the relationship between the Israeli state and its citizens.

Why is it unlikely that the military can free the hostages?

The hostages are kept underground in tunnels that are hundreds of miles long. It’s likely they are frequently moved around, so it is next to impossible to even locate them. And even if they are located, actually reaching them before they are killed by their captors would be very, very difficult.

The only feasible option to free the hostages is to strike another deal with Hamas. But it will be very hard for Netanyahu to accept the terms that Hamas is demanding, particularly ending the war. Netanyahu and his defense minister argue that the more military pressure Hamas is under, the more likely it is to accept a deal on terms that are acceptable to Israel. But the other members of the war cabinet, and growing numbers of Israelis, now believe Israel should make a deal to release the hostages whatever the price, even if that means ending the war without defeating Hamas.

The Meaning Of African American Studies

BY KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR

On Wednesday, February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, the College Board released its long-awaited curriculum for a new Advanced Placement class in African American studies. Two weeks earlier, the Florida Department of Education had rejected the course, claiming that it “lacks educational value and is contrary to Florida law.” Then, nearly a week later, Manny Diaz, Jr., the state’s commissioner of education, released a flyer listing his complaints, based on a pilot version of the course. They included the fact that there were units on intersectionality and activism, Black queer studies, “Black Feminist Literary Thought,” reparations, and “Black Study and the Black Struggle in the 21st Century.” The Movement for Black Lives—which brought out the largest demonstrations in American history, in the summer of 2020, with more than twenty million people participating—was dismissed as a topic of study.

When the College Board released the revised curriculum, all of the sections that Florida complained about had been removed. Representatives of the nonprofit have insisted that they were already planning to revise the pilot version, and that the onslaught from Florida had nothing to do with their changes. It is certainly believable that the preliminary version of the class would have been revised, but it is unbelievable that right-wing complaints did not influence the final outcome. Trevor Packer, the head of the Advanced Placement Program, told Time magazine, last summer, that the Movement for Black Lives had inspired a renewed effort to get the class under way. He said, “The events surrounding George Floyd and the increased awareness and attention paid towards issues of inequity and unfairness and brutality directed towards African Americans caused me to wonder, ‘Would colleges be more receptive to an AP course in this discipline than they were 10 years ago?’ ” It is hard to reconcile that inspiration with the decision to excise almost all mention of Black Lives Matter, intersectionality, police brutality, or any of the litany of issues that shape the experiences of Black people in the United States. Indeed, there is barely any mention of the Black rebellions of the nineteen-sixties, which were the backdrop to the demands of Black students that Black studies be included in college and university curricula. These omissions undermine the legitimacy of the A.P. course and the College Board itself. They also diminish the power of Black studies to make sense of our contemporary world.

On Wednesday evening, I spoke to Robin D. G. Kelley, a professor of history at U.C.L.A. and one of the authors whose work was removed from the revised course. (My work was listed as secondary reading in the pilot curriculum; it has also been removed.) In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the history of African American studies, its connection to political struggle, and the consequences of the College Board’s actions.

What is Black studies? Why is this not just Black history?

This course is not by any stretch of the imagination a course in African American studies. The College Board says African American studies is an interdisciplinary approach, with the rigors of scholarly inquiry, to analyze the history, culture, and contributions of people of African descent in the U.S., and throughout the African diaspora. But this is not the definition of African American studies, Africana studies, Black studies at the university level.

The way that we teach it, in the way that I came up, is really about examining Black lives: the structures that produce premature death, that make us vulnerable; the ideologies that both invent Blackness and render Black people less than human; and, perhaps most important, the struggle to secure a different future. And so, therefore, a lot of it’s about interrogating racial categories, understanding the persistence of inequality, how this is shaped by the very foundations of Western thought, which is to say, it’s not about making Black people feel better. It’s not about your accomplishments. I’m sure that comes in. But, as a scholarly endeavor, it tries to understand how Black people came into being in the modern world—how that process through kidnapping, enslavement, the extraction of labor, the extraction of ideas, was foundational to the modern world. And, finally, the way that African people really tried to remake and re-envision that world, through art, through ideas, through social movements, through literature, through study in action. That’s what I understand it to be. And that’s not really in this curriculum.

So what do you think happened with the College Board and this course?

There’s two levels. One is that it’s about Ron DeSantis possibly running for President. I think that’s the most important thing, because, no matter what we think about DeSantis and his policies, we know he went to Yale University, and majored in history and political science with a 3.7 G.P.A., which means that he was at one of the premier institutions for history. That’s why I get frustrated when people say he needs to take a class. He took the class. He knows better. He knows that the culture wars actually win votes. He’s trying to get the Trump constituency.

So I think this is about Ron DeSantis wanting to run for President. But I also think that the focus on Florida occludes a bigger story. As you know, this goes back to the Trump years—well before Trump, but let’s just talk about the Trump years—the attack on the 1619 Project, Chris Rufo’s strategy of turning critical race theory into an epithet by denying it any meaning whatsoever. And creating a buzzword. That’s actually a strategy that has nothing to do with the field of African American studies; it has everything to do with vilifying a field—attacking the whole concept of racial justice and equity. So, to me, if DeSantis never banned the class, we would still be in this situation. And although it is true that a number of states did accept the pilot program for the A.P. class, some of those same states have passed, or are about to pass, laws that are banning or limiting what they’re calling critical race theory. So there is a general assault on knowledge, but specifically knowledge that interrogates issues of race, sex, gender, and even class.

It’s an ongoing struggle to roll back anything that’s perceived as diminishing white power. They want to convince white working people—the same white working people who have very little access to good health care and housing, whose lives are actually really precarious, as they move from union jobs to part-time, concierge labor to make ends meet—that somehow, if they can get control of the narrative inside classrooms, their lives would be better. Racism actually damages all of our prospects and futures.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the people who are targeted are you, Angela Davis, myself, bell hooks. To say that we’re not radical would be a lie. What does radical actually mean? What it means, what Black studies is about, is trying to understand how the system works and recognizing that the way the system works now benefits a few at the expense of the many. It’s easy to allow someone to come in, in the name of Black status, and say, “We’re going to talk about ancient Africa, and the great achievements of the Kush of ancient Egypt.” That’s not a threat—not as much as the idea of critical race theory saying that, no matter what policies and procedures and legislation are implemented, the structure of racism, embedded in a capitalist system, embedded in a system of patriarchy, continues to create wealth for some and make the rest of our lives precarious. Precarious in terms of money, precarious in terms of police violence, precarious in terms of environmental catastrophe, precarious in many, many ways. And I think people could agree with me that that’s why we do this scholarship: because we’re trying to figure out a way to make a better future. You know, that’s the whole point. And if that’s subversive, then say it, but it’s definitely not indoctrination, because indoctrination is a state that bans books.

I think one of the ways that this discussion about African American studies has been distorted is that the right claims that, if you are radical and on the left, it is disqualifying as a teacher and an author. In an article published by National Review about the A.P. course, the author said that you were prima-facie disqualified, because your first book was about the Communist Party in Alabama. If you have radical ideas, or radical politics, they claim, you’re more interested in indoctrination than you are in teaching. And so I wonder how you would respond to that—if parents are concerned that, because you are a socialist, or an activist, or embrace, you know, causes on behalf of people, you can’t teach objectively.

Right, of course it’s ridiculous. We have outright conservatives—sometimes just actual confessed white supremacists—who are teaching at all levels. Stanley Kurtz, who wrote that article, was a professor, he got a Ph.D. And he’s writing for a partisan publication. But his credentials are not in question. In fact, he not only is doing that but he’s doing something neither one of us is doing: he’s writing legislation—literally writing legislation for states to ban critical race theory. [In an e-mail, Kurtz acknowledged that a Texas C.R.T. law was partly based on model legislation he authored.]

Our job, as educators, is to open up all students to the world—which is the root of university, universitas. We can do that and still take a political perspective, because we are actual people, right? What I think would disqualify any teacher is to say, “You know what, we’re not going to touch that. That’s off limits.” Unless it’s some made-up, useless piece of information. Generally, we teach in a way that opens up debate and discussion. We encourage disagreement, between us and our students or between students. We don’t necessarily reveal in our classes what our political stakes are. We choose readings that are across the board. And the evidence of it is there in the syllabi, it’s there in the actual teaching evaluations, it’s there in the colleagues who decide that we’re worthy of being hired.

I always tell my students, “I don’t need you to think like me, I need you to think for yourself. And I’m here to help you think critically about everything, and to ask a million questions and try to figure out how to answer them.” It is the right that is actually saying, “Don’t read this book, don’t listen to this person, don’t have this conversation.” I don’t know if that’s ironic—it’s just rank hypocrisy. In the so-called concern about the left ruling the campuses, what we actually have is an onslaught by the right wing to control what we read, who we talk to, and what we talk about.

It’s funny, because they were trying to attack you when you tweeted that the police are not actually helping us and that we have to think about abolition—and yet no one is called into account for arguing that we actually need more police and we need to spend more money. They’re both actual political positions. They’re positions that could be argued, rationally, with evidence.

It’s all politics; it’s just whose politics do you agree with? They want to teach the 1776 Commission, and think that that is O.K., even though that is also a political viewpoint of the world. It’s looking at American history through a particular kind of lens, and that’s O.K. But, if you look at it through a different lens, through a different set of experiences, then it’s somehow indoctrination, propaganda, and something that should be dismissed.

And yet, despite all of these contradictions, they have a tremendous amount of momentum. The 1619 Project has been banned in many localities. Every day, there’s a new state that is finding some way to ban the discussion of critical race theory. What happens next?

I work with a number of organizations, but one in particular, called Communiversity, is a project of Black workers for justice in North Carolina. And what we’ve been talking about is what they’re talking about in Detroit, which is going back to the Freedom Schools idea. The United States might look like Mississippi did in 1960. So, if we cannot provide a fair and objective and useful education in public schools, then movements will have to create alternative institutions and structures.

On the other hand, it’s worth fighting at the legislative level, at the school-board level. And the thing is, the grounds for this were established a long time ago. Do you remember, back in the nineteen-nineties, the whole movement to eliminate school boards and put schools in the hands of mayors? And I’m not talking about the South. I’m talking about New York, Chicago, places like that, saying that somehow school boards are tainted. Why? Because they’re grassroots, or have some kind of relationship to the community.

So the fact is that we’ve been moving in this direction, where you have government input into a public education. Florida is a good example, where the former governor Rick Scott was promoting special incentives for high schools that develop stem programming and none for those that invest in the humanities at the public-school level. Now, this may not sound like an attack on critical race theory, but it’s certainly an attack on critical thinking. What they want to do is reduce public schools to vocational schools. Meanwhile, if you’re rich, and you go to private school, you could do anything you want. You can read the best of literature, you can read the best of art criticism, you can be free—and that is your ticket to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and to do whatever the hell you want to do. So it is reproducing this kind of class inequality. The architecture for doing so is already there.

There is one last thing I want to ask you just to reflect on, about African American history. Black people were brought to this country to be slaves. And we were enslaved for hundreds of years. And then, when slavery ended, we were legally subjugated for another hundred years. And so it stands to reason that the entirety of Black letters would be completely bound up in questions of struggle, resistance, rebellion. And these are the very issues, topics, and histories that DeSantis and the right are trying to extract from the teaching of Black history. So I was wondering if you could talk some about the development of Black studies, which is a discipline that emerges out of this long struggle that Black people have been engaged in, because of the conditions under which we were brought to this country and the conditions that have been foisted upon us to try to resist.

I would just amplify everything you said: the subject of African American studies, even before it was called that, has been not just the condition of Black people but the condition of the country. And not just narrating that oppression and understanding it, and not just trying to think about ways to move beyond it—to transcend it, to come up with strategies to try to live—but also understanding what’s wrong with this country, with the system.

We’re not just interrogating our lives, we’re interrogating knowledge production itself. And this is the thing that frustrates me, and I keep reminding people: when we look at what’s being banned, it’s anti-racist literature, not racist literature. I’ve never seen any book ban against Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” or John C. Calhoun, or Edmund Ruffin’s “The Political Economy of Slavery,” or Samuel Cartwright, George Fitzhugh, Louis Agassiz. They wrote straight-up scientific racism that has been discredited. And yet those books are not being banned. What’s banned is Toni Morrison. And I’m not saying that those racist books need to be banned. We need to read that, we need to know it. But that they are not the books being banned—what does that tell us?

So much of that work, including by W. E. B. Du Bois, what they were trying to do is write texts that both understand and push back against a whole edifice of extraction, oppression, dispossession. And you would think that anyone who really believes in the American creed, who believes in what the Declaration of Independence says, is going to defend anything that tries to make the nation better—that tries to recognize that, you know, all people are created equal.

But it’s always an uphill battle. Because we could talk about the actual physical brutality that this country is built on. But it’s also built on the scholarship or the mythologies that are written in texts and taught in schools at every single level, that keep reproducing the same structure of knowledge. Black studies is supposed to be an epistemological break, and that’s why it’s dangerous—because it actually wants to try to figure out a way to make this country not racist.

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Fowler Museum Features Objects From British Empire’s 1924-25 Nigerian Pavilion

‘On Display in the Walled City’ runs until March 8, 2020

These signs affixed to this door were posted to keep trespassers out of the homes where the Nigerians lived during the British Empire Exhibition. Image: Fowler Museum, UCLA

BY ERIN CONNORS

WESTWOOD (UCLA NEWSROOM) -- A new show at the Fowler Museum at UCLA features 38 objects from the British Empire Exhibition staged almost a century ago in the London suburb of Wembley to showcase Britain’s wealth and supremacy, and stimulate trade with and among its various colonies.

The pieces in "On Display in the Walled City: Nigeria at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924–1925," were originally displayed in the exhibition's Nigerian Pavilion, and were acquired by the British pharmaceutical entrepreneur and global art collector Sir Henry Wellcome in 1925 and donated to the Fowler by the Wellcome Trust between 1965–67.

The British Empire Exhibition sprawled over a vast fairground that included pavilions devoted to natural resources, products and people from 55 of the empire's 58 colonies, as well as a working replica of a coalmine, a lake, an amusement park, gardens and restaurants. Electric buses and light rail transported some 27 million visitors through the park over the course of the exhibition's two-year run. Among the most popular attractions was the “Walled City,” containing the pavilions of the West African colonies of Nigeria, Gold Coast (modern day Ghana) and Sierra Leone.

The Fowler exhibition presents some key objects from those pavilions, including a model of a royal altar from the Kingdom of Benin; ritual and prestige objects made by Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani and Kanuri artists; and the doors to living quarters of African artists brought to demonstrate their skills to the exhibition visitors. "On Display in the Walled City" presents the Fowler’s recent research on the Wellcome Collection and offers new insights into the British colonial enterprise.

Nigerian arts on display

"On Display in the Walled City" features works in wood, metal, beadwork and leather. One key installation is a model of a royal altar from the Kingdom of Benin. Such altars reinforced the legitimacy of the recently departed oba (king) and celebrated the long line of rulers who preceded him. The British Punitive Expedition of 1897 had looted many such altars in Benin, sending carved ivory tusks, cast bronze heads and plaques, and other components to London, to be sold or kept in public museums. Subsequent altars erected in Benin perished through fire and looting, but the replica altar commissioned for the Nigerian Pavilion was purchased by Sir Henry Wellcome at the close of the exhibition. The Fowler show elucidates the complex history of this royal installation.

Nigerian artists at the British Empire Exhibition

The Nigerian Pavilion “transported” visitors to the colony though design elements inspired by Nigerian architecture, film shot on location, and objects placed on show. Visitors to the pavilion could also watch Nigerian artists at work. More than 20 men, women, and children, brought to the Exhibition, lived in the “Walled City” alongside participants from the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, demonstrating their skills to the attending public.

Many of the artists’ names are known, including Audu Mai Alijeta, the carver of three gourds on view at the Fowler. One gourd, likely engraved for European visitors to the exhibition features British motorcars, the Union Jack flag, colonial troops, and a meeting between Nigerian and British women. This decoration would have been exotic yet recognizable to urban British viewers. Engraved tubular gourds (zungeru) depict Nigerian experiences colored by the British colonial presence, including such scenes as a British man carried in a palanquin; colonial troops; well-dressed Hausa musicians; women identifiable as Fulani by their hairstyles; and a ballerina. Another gourd contains geometric designs typical of Hausa and Fulani styles, which has helped Fowler curators to confirm Alijeta’s hometown of Jalingo in Gongola state, which is Taraba state today.

Living at the British Empire Exhibition

The Nigerians, Ghanaians and Sierra Leoneans brought to the exhibition stayed in a section called the “Native Village” within the “Walled City.” The exhibition organizers emphasized that the West African artists should to be treated as guests, but in reality their freedom of movement was restricted, as was their choice of dress. The public was prohibited from entering the artists’ living quarters, yet regularly intruded into these private spaces. The struggle for privacy inside the “Walled City” is made evident by the doors on view at the Fowler, which still bear the original slips of paper declaring: “Strictly Private, No Admittance” and “Strictly Private Room.” At the close of the exhibition’s 1925 season, Sir Henry Wellcome acquired not only a selection of art objects showcased in the Nigerian Pavilion, but also many of the doors to the living quarters of the West Africans. The wood for these doors had been imported from West Africa; their construction and carving was completed at Wembley.

Studying the Wellcome collection

Wellcome had acquired more than 1 million objects by the time he died in 1936 at the age of 83. The trust overseeing his collection decided to give away the entirety of its ethnographic holdings in a series of dispersals starting in the 1940s, including the donation of approximately 30,000 objects to UCLA between 1965 and 1967.

In January 2019, the Fowler was awarded a $600,000 grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct interdisciplinary research on a subset of the museum's African artworks from the Wellcome Trust donation. The 40-month project includes funding for a full-time Mellon Curatorial Fellow and a full-time Mellon Conservation Fellow who will pursue collaborative curatorial, conservation and archival investigations. “On Display in the Walled City” showcases the first discoveries to emerge from the Mellon project. By reconstructing detailed histories of objects from the Wellcome Collection, the Fowler will be able to address questions faced by museums around the world, which seek to understand more fully their holdings, shed light on the lives of their objects, and reflect on their responsibilities to communities of origin.

This exhibition is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA and is curated by Erica Jones, associate curator of African Arts.

SOURCE: UCLA NEWSROOM

At 100, UCLA Celebrates, Takes Stock, And Looks Ahead

 

Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

BY ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE

LOS ANGELES (LOS ANGELES TIMES) -- As UCLA kicked off its centennial celebration on Saturday, the university’s pride was clearly on display: Banners throughout campus lauded its faculty’s 14 Nobel prizes, its $1 billion in annual research funding and its myriad national sports championships.

But that, according to Chancellor Gene Block, is just the beginning.

“I hope 100 years from now, we’ll celebrate the successes of all six UCLA campuses,” Block said to a room full of alumni, who cheered and laughed at the thought of it.

Then the chancellor’s tone became more serious: “We’ll need to grow,” Block said.

Joined by more than 5,000 people on campus for Alumni Day, Block — along with chancellors emeritus Albert Carnesale and Charles E. Young — addressed some of the most pressing issues facing UCLA in its 100th year, including the rising cost of tuition and how best to serve a diverse student body.

Last week, the UC Regents approved a 2.6% tuition increase for nonresident students, a move that critics argued would negatively impact diversity efforts.

While Block supported the increase, saying it was necessary to maintain UCLA’s academic excellence, he acknowledged that diversity is “the power of coming to this university” and said that “it can be fragile.”

Chon Noriega, director of the campus’ Chincano Studies Research Center, said UCLA had made great leaps over the years in terms of diversity and social justice, but has much work to do in order to keep up with the state’s changing demographics.

When UCLA’s four ethnic studies programs — the Asian American Studies Center, the Chicano Studies Research Center, the American Indian Studies Center and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies — were in their beginnings, students of color were a small population, he said. Now, the Latino and Asian American populations on campus make up more than 50% of the student body, but they often report a lack of financial and educational support.

In terms of demographics, the university is at a tipping point that Los Angeles County has already surpassed, Noriega said.

UCLA is “moving quickly to becoming a Hispanic-serving institution” and it should “prepare for that change that’s already underway,” Noriega said.

In recent months, UCLA has faced a different kind of struggle: the college admissions scandal, which included a UCLA student who was admitted as a soccer recruit despite a lack of high-level soccer experience.

Block spoke candidly about the scandal on Saturday, calling for reform of the athletic system at UCLA.

“I was disappointed … but maybe not surprised,” Block said. “There’s always people looking for ways around the normal process. [I was] a little demoralized that we had this vulnerability.”

Now listed by U.S. News and World Report as the top public university in the country, UCLA was founded on May 23, 1919 when the UC Regents made the then-Los Angeles State Normal School the southern branch of the University of California. The first UC campus is in Berkeley.

Among the members of the centennial graduating class is Ariana Morales, an international development studies major.

“To be one of the top [schools] in the nation, that’s something to be proud of,” she said after taking graduation photos with her friends in Royce Quad.

As evening fell, students and alumni gathered to watch the finale to a day of celebration: Royce Hall illuminated in images depicting the school’s history and the accomplishments of its innovators and alumni.

“We have reached a crest; a vantage point of the centuries behind us and centuries ahead,” the narrator said. “We now must ask, how will the past illuminate the future?”

For now, UCLA has a few ideas in mind.

As part of its Grand Challenge Initiative, the university has set some goals: to eliminate depression by the end of the century and to shift Los Angeles to 100% local water and renewable energy.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Where We Met

BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

Image courtesy of Jungle Red Writers

I walked in, located a spot and pulled my backpack off my shoulders. The place looked worry free and I had assumed it was good timing for the brief moment I would stay. I walked up to the cashier and grabbed a mixed blend of smoothies, which had been my favorite refreshment nowadays, and I then walked back to the desk where I had placed my backpack. Inside my backpack, I took out my laptop and a note book for what may pop up in my thoughts and for what I may jot down going through the news and views on the web. I hooked up the networks and shuttled to a number of websites and kept browsing to check related news and happenings around my neck of the woods. Then, I shoveled and located African related news and clicked on Nigeria to see if Boko Haram has thrown a bomb somewhere in the multitude of people. As I opened up a news related article on Nigeria, he glanced from the next desk where he sat and carrying with him papers he had come to grade from where he teaches Western History at a college just miles away from where we were. Upon noticing my outfit, a black fedora hat, blue jeans, a pair of bally shoes, and a Brazilian number 10 yellow jersey and, my sunglasses sitting on the desk, he concluded I must be one of the beat makers who uses protool, the digital audio workstation for Microsoft windows to generate varieties of musical genres. But seeing a Nigeria headline on my screen it then occurred to him I must either be a Nigerian or perhaps a curious minded fellow who is reading to find out about the notorious Boko Haram, if they have captured more of their victims, or if there's an ongoing battle between the insurgents and the nation's security forces. Elevating my head up and starring at each other, I told him I was Igbo and upon hearing that he seized the moment and started telling me about his Igbo connection. First, he asked if I knew one Ifeanyi Aniebo, that they all were at UCLA in the early 1970s, and that Aniebo wrote a book very powerful in lyrics, books powerful by its theme titled "Anonymity of Sacrifice" and "Talisman." He also told me that Aniebo in the 1970s while they attended classes at UCLA was one of the brightest African minds of the time and that he always argued and compared what had happened to his kins to the Jews. He said while he was almost done obtaining his teaching credentials, Aniebo left for Nigeria to teach at the University of Port Harcourt. Then he asked if I knew Comfort Akwaq whom he met at the UCLA campus. When I told him I knew Aniebo, he sent me on assignment to locate Aniebo for him. I did not know Comfort and never met her. He said Aniebo mentioned nothing else but Biafra and the consequences he had bore after its collapse. Aniebo had returned from the United States in 1966 from some military briefings and training courses. Upon return, what confronted him was the war which he fought on the Biafran side and after the war he returned back to the United States and enrolled for classes at UCLA on the counsel of the late Professor Boniface Obichere who was already teaching African American Studies at the campus. So while he took a breath, I seized the moment to ask my own questions to find out  what he really was getting into. Telling me he was already retired from teaching history classes at UCLA and currently teaching Western History for transfer and honor students at the Santa Monica College to meet up with today's high demands in our society, and an extra change that wouldn't hurt. Then he said he would give it all up so he could have time to travel the world and see what differences it made from different locations and what areas of improvement are required to be attended. While I was trying to think and see what areas of discipline I'd asked my questions he jumped in and asked if I knew Chinua Achebe or have heard about him. I told him where I come from, if you don't know Achebe, then you have no story to tell. He said Achebe use to visit the UCLA campus every now and then when his daughter, Nwando, was attending classes, and that he was Nwando's history professor. He said each time Achebe was in town, that him and some of his like-minded colleagues would spend time together with the ode mkpishi, the novelist, and they would discuss relative issues into the night. That Achebe never stopped short of the tragedy that befell his people and that he always put the narratives into perspective. He asked me about my experience during the pogrom and I told him I was not there which still pains me because the tragic event denied me the privilege to have seen my relatives--cousins, uncles, aunts, grand parents, distant cousins and other kinsfolk--who had perished under the Yakubu Gowon's-led genocidal campaign against the Igbo nation. While I was telling him about my concerns, I took the advantage to draw him closer to the Ehirim Files and reached the gallery of the Igbo massacre where I pulled out hundreds of disturbing images never released on the Pogrom. He thought he had known a little bit from what the sectional press had shown to them at the time, and looking through these images, he lost his breath and began to shed a little bit of some tears. I told him I have spent an entire life trying to figure out why the tragic event took place and why him and his Western philosophers stood by, kept quiet and watched such atrocities unfold. He was speechless while we exchanged information for, hopefully, another future chit-chat at a neighborhood cafe.

Culver Club Chit-Chats

Image courtesy of Dissolve


On October 30, 2009, my buddy, classical music basoonist and pianist, Rudolph Porter, had agreed to locate a spot "and we can hang out." Culver Club was the place. He had performed there before. And Culver Club is where West Coast finest jazz pereformers display their arts, and it is a place of hangout for jazz enthusiasts on Fridays, on the Westside. On this particular day while Rudolph and I were poking around the lobby my phone vibrated and a friend's text message had timely popped up on my screen to check what I was up to and how I'm doing.

This fella, Ebere, loves African-related media hyped issues, news and views, and he is so fascinated about it, especially when it comes to show-biz and the tap of fine leather we call Ahia Mgbede.

Knowing my spot, he hopped on his car and found himself at where Rudolph and I were hanging out for the evening. On his arrival, after our bumping fists, he noticed jazz at the Culver Club was alive and well as the November line-up and schedule of performers was all over the place. The Culver Club sits on the lobby of Radisson Hotel's L.A.'s westside, the hub of nightlife and promenades.

The line up for November had some interesting, upcoming gigs: Chris Benneth Quartet; Ernie Andrews Quintet; Dr. Bobby Rodriguez' Latin Jazz "Birthday Dance Party" featuring Justo Almario, Joe Rotondi, Eddie Resto, Luis Conte and Richie G. Garcia; Tony Russell Quartet; Rhonda Benin Quartet; and Ryan Cross & The Soul Funk Band.

The music in the lobby was mellow; some contemporary jazz of 94.7 FM the Wave kind of flow. We talked about a whole lot of stuff over some drinks and good, delicious dishes -- college football, the Nigeria 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup played in several Nigerian cities, the Orange CAF Championship, Nollywood and African films, Naija politics, Igbo Diaspora, Fela, President Barack Obama's visit to China and M-Net Face of Africa's new season, among others -- becoming one of those evening happenings around my neck of the woods.

Surprisingly, Ebere first raised the issue of Los Angeles Times' veteran music critic, Robert Hilburn's new book, "Corn Flakes with John Lennon and other Tales From Rock 'n' Roll Life." I did not read the book, but I did comb some pages about three weeks ago, I believe, at Borders, while cooling off from a bumper-to-bumper, crazy-dubby Los Angeles traffic. Frankly speaking, I was never a Lennon fan and that does not mean he was not good, but I did love the Beatles'years when the incredibly Liverpool kids -- Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr -- had it going on with a lasting blast that rocked America in the 60s.

Ebere, who loves the Beatles, also, gave most credits to Lennon he said "made it happen for the Liverpool kids." I'm not really sure, though, I did not know Lennon's mom left him (Lennon) in a relatives care for much of his childhood...and reunited when Lennon was in his teens until Ebere gisted us on the excerpts he read from the L.A. Times. I agree with Ebere that the Beatles' years was what changed America and the concept of rock and roll.

On college football, it's obvious no one liked the goings-on with USC's football program this season and a little bit not impressed, he said "all but full of uncertainties with a team that has gone through a whole lot including scandals, on and off campus." Not bad, since USC has lost only two games at the time of the Culver Club Chit-Chats. Coach Pete Carroll's choice of a freshman quaterback as starter was not what we wholly talked about, but that of the offensive and defensive linemen. And what they are saying is that Jethro Franklin's approach has been working wonders for Trojans defense. "I dunno about that."

We talked about college sports in general and how it's good for academia. We talked about how USC has played a very significant role in the renaissance of our hood and Downtown Los Angeles. As one of the nation's finest private research universities, USC is a major contributor to the City of Angel's economic growth, creativity and cultural diversity. An institution that enrolls more international students than any other American university.

We talked about USC being a builder of people and of society with its intellectual capital known to have built enormous bridges. Many of the nation's best doctors, lawyers, judges, teachers, dentists, pharmacists, urban planners, and government officials are USC-trained. Compared to Nigerian universities, he was pissed. Check this out;" he would say. "Last year alone, USC's faculty, staff, students, and friends donated $1.1 million through the USC Good Neigbors Campaign to fund education, health, and safety programs for the 16,000 children who live near USC's campuses or who attend one of the 14 neigborhood schools USC has adopted.

"Does such exist in your fabricated nation-state called Nigeria?" he would question sarcastically. "USC's faculty, staff and students also work as volunteers in these programs, tutoring school children, advising enterpreneurs on business plans, bringing high-schoolers into university labs to do hands-on scientific research, providing dental care for young people, and helping neigborhood kids prepare for college.

"Can you say that about your contry's retarded and ill-equipped higher institutions despite its huge human capital?" he would again utter.

On Nigeria 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup played in several Nigerian cities, he talked about how technology has significantly changed bringing the world so close to our fingertips. "Without physically being in Nigeria, we watch Nigeria Television Authority news live. We read the newspapers online immediately they are released. We watch the movies -- Nollywood Babylon, Pretty Woman, Secret Fantasy, Yankee Girls, Lord of Host, Sister's Love, Escape, Blood on Ice, Keep My Will, War Game, Extreme Measure, On My Wedding Day, Reloaded, Girl's Cot, Women's Cot, Coincidence, Osuofia in London and uncountable others -- in our living rooms without stepping out.

Ebere was very sure Nigerian Golden Eaglets "will pull that one out," and that the Latin American teams would be the obstacle even though there had been upsets in the First Round of the tournament. "Latin American teams are masters of the game and they do know how to finish," he would lament. Again, that I was not sure for a lot of reasons: time has changed and it is a different era. Ebere was wrong. Latin American teams could not "pull that one out" and the Golden Eaglets lost in the Finals.

On the Orange CAF Championship which I did not pay attention to and never had, he was sure the Owerri Heartland FC will lift the African Championship League trophy and its $1.5m prize tag when Heartland meets Congo DR TP mazembe on a homecourt and away aggregate score saying he has faith in Kelechi Emetole and his boys. Heartland lost. Ebere was wrong.

On Nollywood and African films, he talked about Sophie Okonedo's Anthony Fabian directed movie, "Skin," now showing in select theatres, among them: L.A.'s The Landmark on Pico Boulevard in Westwood. He talked much about how Nollywood did improve in its film editing, score, adaptation and visual effects. He talked about the industry being bent on the same concept in its movie-making, that it needs to drift to more creative stuff to allow room for unversal awareness as in the Oscars and other global film festivals that would enhance Nollywood.

On Naija politics, he talked about why Niger-Delta militants shouldn't have given up arms yet, based on the fact that for fifty years the "damn oil" has been flowing from under the feet of the people to the barren and rat-ridden lands of the murderous, northern Islamic Jihadists. He asked "how could fifty years mean fifty years of misery and hopelessness when our own resources is being used to feed fat the northern caliphates and blood-thirsty cannibals? Enough is enough and the fight must continue."

So pissed on nasty Naija politics, he said Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Anthony Anenih, OBJ, Alex Ekwueme, Andy Uba and a bunch of the raggedy ass politicians are all whack, and it sucks. He talked about how Soludo had been in the nation's political gimmicks.

Soludo, a man of high integrity. A financial scholar. A learned man who could have left the ugly political atmosphere with dignity and honor, but rather reduced himself to mudslinging Anambra politics run by greedy bastards and thuggish elements of Chris Uba's ilk. That Soludo is now akin to Anambra political thugs.

Soludo has become an example of infallible men who had thought they got it all figured out in not realizing they had deliberately opened up their vulnerability to riffraffs who had taken charge, including the "profound laws" of the land in their own hands, and not knowing they will be destroying their character and "political career" in a state of empire and anarchy. Such tragedies follow infallible men when they take their political allies and foes for granted. He is paying the prize and has lost every credit.

Of greed and coercion. A volatile "Anambra State." A people without human consciousness. A confused, infallible Diaspora bunch. A case of sad reality and critical situation where fixing the problems of Anambra could only be done by the people of Anambra; and if they don't, they can go to hell and leave the rest of us out of it. Anambra politics has destroyed every aspect of Igbo ideals one begins to wonder if it's the same Anambra we once knew -- the home of Chinua Achebe, Cyprien Ekwensi, Nwafor Orizu, Louis Mbanefo and the rest.

On Igbo Diaspora, he laughed so hard his ribs began to hurt him. Starting from an impotent World Igbo Congress, he said the bunch and casts of money-chasing, pot-bellied "chiefs," the so-called Igbo umbrella are not real. "These are gullible, vulnerable, crumbs-seeking red cap chiefs of an organization that is desperately going to hell and the only way out being dissolution," he would say. A bunch that has lost touch with reality and had no clue what had been done to them by a mouth-watering, misleading "executives" and "board members" who found it comfortable keeping funny books.

On Fela, the Chief Priest, he hailed Baba for all he did in using his music as a weapon to send his message across, fighting a bastardized and corrupt regimes of the military juntas including the civilian embezzlers. Fela is just king and he has been resurrected by Tony Award winning director, Bill T. Jones in a manner that makes the legend more accessible to Western audiences.

Fela's Broadway resurrection takes the audience into the legendary nightclub, The Shrine, where the musical icon and political activist played for several years, perfecting his music and criticism of the military juntas in a fabricated nation-state.

Ebere recited some of Fela's songs and (he) kept talking about the legend. The spirituality in his perfomances on stage. The invocation of the gods and the evils of colonialism -- all in English, pidgin English and Yoruba. The smoking room and spirits. "Fela's the man, ah, baba!" he would continue.

On M-Net Face of Africa's new season, he called it "Africa's media sensationalism," and that it's all hype which do not take the aspiring models far enough to reach out globally. He said it's only the winners that takes it to another level leaving the runners-up and other contestants abandoned and vanishing to the thin air. He did not go further.

On President Barack Obama's visit to China, he brought up the president's half brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, who lives in China, married to a Chinese and has written a new book "Nairobi to Shenzhen," which is about the author's bad memories of his childhood. Born to the third wife of Barack Obama Sr., President Obama's father, Ndesandjo moved to the United States, earning degrees in physics from Brown University and Stanford, and an MBA from Emory University. He plans to donate 15 percent of the proceeds from the book to a charity for children.

Ebere was so excited about Obama's presidency. "Whoever could have imagined that after all the pains of slavery, the separate but equal laws, the Dred Scott Case, the 1890 Louisiana statute -- Plessy Vs. Ferguson -- the Civil Rights movement and things of that nature, that eventually America will do the right thing -- electing a black president?"

On societal ills and global problems, grand and small, he said "Obama cannot do it alone. He will need the unconditional input of global (political) leaders including religious leaders."

Ebere talked about how we should see the poor and how we need to always start with the poor because they are totally left out in today's society. That the poor aren't in our same networks. That they cannot afford our networks. That they do not belong to councils and committees. That the poor don't have access to anything. School is free and so too are other social programs out there; but the poor do not see it and we must reach out to them for them to have access to all the available social programs and benefits out there in the public.

He talked extensively to near exhaustion about teaching the poor help themselves and not by giving them handouts, which goes with the saying "give me a fish and you feed me for a day; but teach me how to fish and you feed me for life." "We should always try to help the poor help themselves." He summarizes his analysis on the poor quoting Pope John Paul II on the Papal's 1988 Encyclical on social concerns:

"Because of our love of preference for the poor, we cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without medical care and, above all, those without hope of a better future. It is impossible not to take account of these realities. To ignore them would mean becoming like the 'rich man' who pretended not to know the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate (Luke 16: 19-31).

Unfortunately, instead of becoming fewer, the poor are becoming more numerous, not onl;y in less developed countries but -- and this seems no less scandalous -- in the more developed ones too. It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine. The goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle."

On suffering and what it means, Ebere came to the fore of the Holy Scriptures with what most of us, if not all, have encountered in life. The question of why me when every other thing is going on well for others while "yours" keeps going down with severe pain and no end in sight. He goes on to lament suffering being punishment for foolish or sinful behavior; or a discipline, an experience from which we can learn and become better persons; or suffering being for the benefit of others, citing running backs, quarterbacks and athletes in general who sacrifice themselves and their own glory for the good of their team; firefighters who risk their lives to save others; and Martin Luther King Jr. who was killed for proclaiming the gospel of justice and freedom, and his witness having significance for all Americans.

He talked about Nelson Mandela and the suffering and sacrifice to free his people from bondage which bordered on understanding the redemptive value of suffering; that is, the idea that the suffering of one person (or group) may benefit many others.

He enumerated a stretch of biblical verses regarding suffering. Among them: Proverbs 11:3; Deautronomy 30: 15-20; Eccl 7:15; Luke13: 1-5; John 9:3; Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and Job 4-37.

He (Ebere) had turned our evening of smooth jazz, lullaby, good feelings and good times into the temple of the Lord, like in a spiritual revival, rejoicing and invoking the name of the Lord. "Jesus is Lord, Amen! Amen!

Finishing his sermons on the Holy Scriptures, he changed the whole subject entirely and talked about what our women are doing to us and what we are in turn doing back to our women. Though I tried not to dabble into what he was about to say regarding the morally outrageous relationships that has become a commonplace thing on the shores of our adopted land -- America -- I asked him if he would marry again since his near fatal bitter divorce.

"Of course, I will marry again, but this time around since I have learned my lessons the hard way, I will keep her ass in my village and she will never smell America, never, and you can quote me on that," he replied.

Ebere's touch was magic but we were kind of getting the buzz when Rudolph chipped in with some more booze as he began to tell his own stories. Rudolph had done all kinds of stuff. He'd sold cars. He'd been Muhammad Ali's special guest when he entertained at Ali's home back in the 70s. He'd played gigs alongside jazz greats -- McCoy Tyner of which he was at backstage when Tyner performed at UCLA's Royce Hall last weekend. He had been everywhere and seen everything. In South Central Los Angeles, back in the 50s, he rolled at then Babe's and Ricky's Club on 50th Street. He's a regular at the historic Leimert Park, the home of World Stage Performing Arts Gallery's jam sessions and voice overs. And according to him, "at 60 I feel great!"

So was such an evening on the Westside around the neck of my woods.

A Tribute To The King Of Pop Michael Jackson

It's Showbiz All Around

Femi Kuti plays Hollywood Bowl and Central Park, NY, in his summer engagements while on top Herbie Hancock, Pascal Atuma and Sam Onwuka; Ernie Watts, Atuma on presentation of NEA for Best Album and bottom is Gregory Isaacs, Roy Hargrove who plays alongside Hancock for the Hollywood Bowl events and Queen Latifah who hosts BET's My Black is Beautiful Post Show June 28.



I have been working out lately on the Westside and boy, how does it feel to dabble into affluent old folks trying to stay in shape to keep up with their long life and prosperity mission. Sounds good and we all are trying to push it further, now that "life," they say "begins at 60;" and with the summer jams all around town, nobody wants to be confined to a position of not being able to hang on to all that summer blasts which smells all around the place, especially the Hollywood way.

There is no business like showbiz and living around Hollywood, it is a 24/7 thing and nothing one can do about it but just hang on and make the best out of it. It's too much stuff going on in Los Angeles -- the summer concerts, the 4th Annual Los Angeles We The People Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival at the complex of UCLA Westwood Village kicking off on June 18, the Jewish Festival and Israelwood, and the crazy-dubby all night pub-crawling. Yes, Israelwood, you heard me. And there is Kenyawood, Ugandawood and all that wood. It's a whole bunch of woods line-ups and I might be just chilling limiting myself to not that many concerts and other outdoor events.

But the dates on the central courtyard of Hollywood & Highland Center, the home of the Academy Awards -- I would not miss the ones I had highlighted. It's a free live jazz sessions produced by Long Beach State's KJAZZ 88.1 FM. The line-ups are incredible -- Barbara Morrison, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Gonzalo Bergara, Carl Saunders Sextet, Bobby Matos Latin Jazz Ensemble, Ernie Watts Quartet, Karl Benson Trio, Theo Saunders Sextet, Francisco Aquabella Latin Jazz Band and John Daverga Big Band which runs through August 25.

And the Hollywood Bowl jams, I have already picked. Yes, on 6/21, I will be seeing Femi Kuti & The Positive Force alongside Santigold and Raphael Saadiq. Then follows Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, Toots & The Maytals, Michael Rose, Gregory Isaacs, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Pearbo Bryson, George Duke, Dizzie Gillepsie All Star Big Band, James Moody, Roy Hargrove Big Band, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Natalie Cole with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Beasty Boys to close-up the summer jams on 9/24. You see, I'm old-school and hanging out with me is just fun.

For the LA Film Fest, my schedule is limited, also. I will for sure be seeing "Facing Ali," a documentary portrait of 10 men who stormed the boxing ring to face the greatest, "Black Dynamite," a remake of 70s blaxploitation comedies and maybe "Sacred Places" about tracing a lineage from the West African traditional djembe drum in Ouagadougou.

Well, filmmaker and actor Pascal Atuma had called during the week telling me it was all jamming and brothers made some noise inside Cramton Auditorium of Howard University in Washington, DC, last week when the Nigerian Entertainment Awards had its gala night with presentation of awards. Atuma presented an award for the best album of the year which went to D'Banj. Seriously, I'm not familiar with Naija hip-hoppers as every name he mentioned sounded Greek to my ears. That's right, I'm old-school.

Elsewhere, the queen of hip-hop, Queen Latifah who said she was sexually abused as a child will be hosting the BET Awards 2009 My Black is Beautiful Post Show in Los Angeles on June 28. According to BET press release, "My Black is Beautiful celebrates the diverse collective beauty of African American women and encourages black women to define and promote their own beauty standard. The campaign brings to life an authentic reflection of African-American women's beauty by embracing Quen Latifah as the host of the My Black is Beautiful Post Show. The special will capture and recap the atmosphere, style and sexy of the night's festivities."

Whew! It's going to jam and for sure no business like showbiz.

Pascal Atuma and Nollywood film producer Sam Onwuka images courtesy of Trendy Africa

A Beautiful Holiday Weekend In Los Angeles

About a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine had talked me into going to the Bay area to watch Stephen Bishop perform at the Intramuros, South San Francisco, in a benefit concert. She had wanted to see the concert so bad. I had been preoccupied in Los Angeles. She wants to play a role in the concert for worthy causes. For the concert, and about our friendship, we are a study of compare and contrast.

She's into old-school -- the Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong and Kenneth Gamble/Leon Huff composition-era. I'm into all vibes, a musicologist. She's a hardcore liberal; garrulous. I'm reserved, a somehow liberal conservative; a centrist. She's a fashion freak. I'm careless, fashionwise. She reads fiction and believes in the Zodiac signs. I'm the non-fiction reader kinda guy and have no faith in astrology. She's Libra. I'm Virgo. She cooks good. I'm a mixologist. She has shoulder length curly hair. I'm ishi nkwocha, shaved bald. She's Tonga, a Pacific Islander. I'm Igbo, an African. She's straight. I'm straight. She loves outdoors, and I do, too. She wears contact lenses. I wear prescription glasses; and both coasts are clear.

To make up for ditching Bishop's concert at the Intramuros, she brought up a set of rules on her own terms and whatever she said was going to be the rules. I said "Okay!" She got her way and ordered me around the house. That was cool!

Her set of rules was specifically for the Memorial Day weekend and that whenever it's all over I could take back my manly stuff and go ahead with my own set of rules she'd not have problems complying with. The rules were set as follows: There would be no driving and Friday which commences the holiday weekend would be set for eating out, perhaps a little bit of home cooking and checking out the movies. I knew it was going to be a hell of a fun since summer was just breezing around the corner.

School is over for some -- my daughter is back and it's going to be a long, beautiful summer, especially her tales of academia and life in the dorm. The weather's quite nice. Lots of sunshine. The beaches are full to capacity. Bikinis. Hot pants. Those fine, dark sunglasses. Beautiful faces sipping cocktails in the sun.

The volleyball tournaments: Hermosa Beach. Redondo Beach. Venice Beach. Rockweller Beach. Santa Monica Beach. The mark of summer.

The eateries and the random popped up in-house restaurants. The real deal and summer jams. Ceccone's on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Jane's House on Hollywood Blvd. The Standard in Downtown Los Angeles. The Mint on Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles. Club Tatou on Boylston Street in Los Angeles. O'Brien's Irish Pub and Restaurant on Main Street in Santa Monica. The Amazon Hut Brazilian Juice Bar on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica.

The new arrivals on the bookshelves. "Rinnavation: Getting Your Best Life Ever," by Lisa Rinna on life's amazing journey. "Bad Mother: A Chronicle Of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, And Occasional Moments Of Grace," by Ayelet Waldman.

At the movies as the summer hits pops up in June. "Public Enemies," directed by Michael Mann and starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, the notorious Depression-era bank robber, and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the fedral agent who tailed Dillinger. "The Taking Of Pelham 123," starring Academy Award winner Denzel Washington as Walter Mathau, of a New York transit dispatcher and directed by Tony Scott. Here, John Travolta stars as leader of the gang. James Gandofini appears as Mayor of New York whom Travolta must fear. "Funny People," directed by Judd Apatow and starring Adam Sandler, Leslie Mann and Seth Regan. The film is all comedy but Sandler's role as a dying middle-aged man might turn movie goers off.

"Taking Woodstock," directed by Ang Lee based on a true story of Elliot Tiber, an employee at a motel in the Castkills who inadvertantly made Woodstock happen. "Inglorious Bastards," -- another World War 2 story of Nazi occupied France written and directed by Quentin Terantino. The movie features Brad Pitt as the leader of the Jewish-American soldiers dispatched to perform targeted acts of retribution on German troops occupying France. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," which opens in all theaters June 24. Michael Bay directed, starring Shia LeBeouf as Sam who becomes enmeshed in a battle between two extraterrestial clans "when he buys his first car and it turns out to be an alien robot in disguise." And, of course, there's Eddie Murphy's "Imagine That."

These, and too many others we talked about. So as it happened, she's the one calling the shots. She wanted some African dish, and I was like, o yeah, again? She did not know what was running through my mind about her quest for African food. She's the one calling the shots, remember? I had to oblige since this great country of ours is a nation of rules, fact why it's organized.

For some reason, she figured I was not comfortable with the African restaurant kind of stuff she's been persistent asking for. We have all the time in the world to eat ofe olugbo, bitter leaf soup (dunno why it's my favorite) coupled with the okporoko, stockfish, eju, snail, dried fish and anu ewu, goat meat, as long as her weekend rules were upheld and respected.

However, on Friday, May 22, she decided we should go whole grain, vegetables and stuff like that. One spot was not too far from our location. We walked down about six blocks to this restaurant on the Westside. It was kind of regular and approximately a nice way to begin the long weekend. The restaurant, recently remodelled had a gracious and attentive service. We ordered some seafoods that was served with chunks of salmon, perfectly cooked shrimp with lotta veggies and other health-related fiber stuff. She loves wholesome sweetners such as honey, maple syrup, sorhum, sucanet and stevia.

A good looking evening, we hopped on the bus to the Archlight Cinema in Hollywood to see Ron Howard's "Angels & demons," starring Tom Hanks which to me should be Howard's last in that category. The movie's full of surprises.

On Saturday, May 23, the rules did not change. No driving, remember? After cleaning up and doing the normal around house work, we concluded it's Metro Line time. We arrived at the Wilshire/Vermont Blue Line Station and hopped on the train. Checking out from the Hollywood/Highland Station, we took the steps and bumped on tourists from all walks of life who took pictures of stars and the accomplished on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Walking further down where Hollywood Blvd. meets Vine Street, and on the south of Hollywood laid the plaque of Apollo 13 -- Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins -- the first American astronauts to visit the moon.

On the north sits the landmark Capitol Records Tower known to have either recorded or marketed from the 50s to date, Frank Sinatra, Nat king Cole, Duran Duran, Richard Marx, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Beastie Boys, Kenny Rogers, Yellow Card, George Clinton, Selena Quintalline, Poison, The Band, Ice Cube, Radiohead, Tina Turner, Billy Holliday, Miles Davis, Grand Funk Railroad, Pink Floyd, Peter Tosh, Steve Miller Band, Maze, Dave Koz, Freddie Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Grace Jones, Kim Carnes, Queen, Eddie Harris and many others.

In continuation of our excursion, we went underground and hopped back on the train to the North Hollywood Station. A girl sitting next to us was reading a book on Andrew Jackson, an indication President Barack Obama's "The New Dawn" is doing stuff for the "era of the common man" and Jacksonian democracy to have replicated in the age of internet. While the train was about to station, I called my friend, Pascal, that we were on our way to his apartment. We popped up at the 5400 block of fair Avenue at the luxury NoHo (North Hollywood) Commons Apartments. We had arrived on time to watch the Los Angeles Lakers play the Dencer Nuggets in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. Three other guys and two gorgeous ladies were also visiting my friend, Pascal, and it seemed very much the guys were having a heart attack due to the uncertainties that had clouded Lakers' game during the series.

Our Lakers had pulled this one out to silence the cynics. Even Derek Fisher who had been written off, delivered and helped our Lakers pull a 103-97 victory over the Nuggets. Immediately after the game, we drove in two set of cars to The Echo on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. It's our kind of place. Time is telling. The place had a full bar, a dance floor and more than electric. It's a joint where the 70s and 80s pure funk would blow your mind. It was a blast and by the time it was over, we all realized Hollywood was a city of its own.

On Sunday, May 25, she had asked if I would be going to church. She's a practicing Catholic while I was born a Catholic. A difference. But I had shown her my new religious affiliation. The anonymously written book "I AM GOD: Here's My Message." I told her I would be ordering an additional copy as that might change her thinking on how religion has caused all the world's troubles. She prepared breakfast and we ate.

With that in place, we both agreed it's time to relax our driving restrictions and check out Hollywood proper; where Santa Monica Blvd. meets Western Avenue on the sidewalks women of easy virtue and prostitutes hang out. On the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilcox, Dragonfly, the sensational pot-smoking and reggae jams on Thursday nights. Amoeba Music, for all your record albums in any music category, facing the CNN building on Cahuenga and Sunset. The same sex ridden hangouts in West Hollywood on Sunset and Roxbury. After touring Hollywood for a minute coupled with sightseeing we took off for another round at the movies. We saw "Terminator Salvation" at the Mann Theaters in Hollywood. Kind of strange, though, the movie, to me, wasn't anything spectacular. A sequel to the three respective "Terminator" movies. I could not read her feelings about the movie.

On Monday, May 25, the awaited Memorial Day, arrived, eventually. We had been up early. There was the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon which I had never been part of, but have gone to see it, anyway. On this particular day and since all roads had been blocked, we chanced parking around Miracle Mile on the Wilshire Corridor. We had treked about 11 blocks and had stationed on the corner of La Brea Avenue and 3rd Street in Hancock Park. The marathon stretched from da hood through the "Black Township" of the Crenshaw thoroughfare all the way to Hancock Park and finishing up in Koreatown.

We had been almost exhausted and it's time for the last jam to end the holiday weekend. The jam: 23rd Annual UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival on the playgrounds of the campus' Intramural Field in Westwood, California. The previous night, Day 1 of the festival, which we missed as a result of other engagements had Erykah Badu, People Under the Stairs, Leela James and De La Soul take center stage. Day 2 had been slated to run between 12 P.M. until 7 P.M. It went later than that and, as usual, too much of a jam. The line up: Mavado, a.k.a "The Gully God" who performed live for the first time in LA, took the show to another level with his new band. He was equal to the occasion. Other casts in the reggae jam and finale were Michael Montano, Assassin, The Dirty Heads and Morgan Heritage.

Like Woodstock of the hippie-era and a replicated Coachella event in Indio, I had been exhausted from the excursions and partying hard the preceding days, and had laid flat on the field while the ragamuffin vibes transmitted through my head. The stomping UCLA campers and the voices of roots reggae did go through my head, and it was all good.

PHOTOS clockwise from bottom left: (2009 Los Angeles Marathon courtesy of Ian Sephton; MTA Tap Machine; Metro Rail Line; Metro Bus Line 770, Leela James takes center stage and performs "let's Do It Again," courtesy of Singers Room; and the 2009 UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival banner courtesy of The Deli Magazine.)