Griffith Park Blog » Compliment Corner

Am I a hipster? Also, please define.

Donna Barstow — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:52:53 +0000

Somebody likes me, they really really like me!

Daniel B. Honigman, a Chicago guy who writes for Huffington Post, among other places, and works for the Chicago Trib Online recently included Griffith Park, Interrupted, in his roundup of some of the best blogs in Los Angeles!!!

The only other LA blog he has listed that I recognize is Eating L.A..

He says, however, that I’m probably not a hipster.

I didn’t know it showed.

Or were you looking for one of these?

I’m not just a one-note band.

Donna Barstow — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:32:25 +0000

I’ve been invited to contribute to a group blog: Mayor Sam’s Sister City. They’re kind of raucous and wild over there. Still, I guess someone thought I was a needed voice to whip them up even higher.

I don’t know how often. I feel more at home here. But here’s my first post there. It’s about Felix the Cat, Councilman Tom LaBonge, and Griffith Park, and how the whole world is intertwined in some wonderful way.

Photo by Christine Cotter of the LA Times.

Or were you looking for one of these?

The original lie by DWP about Silver Lake, and geeky stuff like Celcius.

Donna Barstow — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:33:22 +0000

The last thing a blogger wants to do is write about him or herself, but sometimes it becomes necessary to use the “I” pronoun.

For instance, last week I wrote about a press release that NSF issued about the bird balls in Ivanhoe. Because the manufacturer, Orange Products, emailed it to me, I thought that meant that they paid for the NSF release.

Cat, but not LOLcat.

However, in response to my inquiry, Cheryl Luptowski of NSF called me today to clarify that OP did not request or pay for the PR. (I corrected this.) She said they issued it because they have been getting an unusually high number of inquiries about the bird ball test, and NSF wanted to put the facts out there. I asked her how many people contacted NSF, and she said 3 or 4 dozen. Most were email, but she suspects that the majority of the questions were from Los Angeles. (H. David Nahai, the Time-Waster Police called for you. They said to GET OFF THE COMPUTER and fix things.)

And here’s where I come in! I’m the only writer anywhere who actually chose to investigate what this NSF test really included. This means a lot of people have been reading my blog! Sadly, apparently 3 dozen of them didn’t trust me, and wanted to confirm the NSF test for themselves. That’s either cartoonist bigotry, which I highly doubt, or a hella lot of people concerned with water safety. As I searched Google to see if anyone else had written about NSF in connection with the bird balls, I came across this blog, 37signals.com. Some very interesting scientific comments there, but again, they are quoting my research with NSF.

Devil in the dwp?

So because of the number of questions, NSF issued the press release July 1. She also thanked me for bringing to their attention last week the fact that the temperature wasn’t listed in the release. She said most scientists would know, however, that meant that the balls were tested at ambient, or room temperature, which is 30 degrees C, or 73.4 degrees F. I asked if Orange Products could have requested the balls to be tested at a higher temperature. (I knew from my other conversations with her that they can, but just reconfirming.) She said yes, but they didn’t ask (or failed, as all failed tests are secret.)

The dwp of course had to stick its big fat nose into the release with a puffed up statement by Dr. Pankaj Parekh that says nothing of interest. I love what he said in LA Now, though:

As for leaching chemicals into the water, Parekh said that the balls, manufactured by Allentown, Pa.-based Orange Products, are environmentally safe to be placed in drinking water and will withstand the chlorine and sunlight.

Curious people.

He wrote this lie a month ago. Knowing full well that that wasn’t in the report at all, and the PR says only that the balls are tested at one temperature, for 17 days. Chlorine is not mentioned. In fact, no one except the manufacturer and the dwp had read the report at that time. But that’s what got me to call NSF myself that day to get the facts.

So I guess it all works out for the best, especially if you want the truth! Even if it comes from a cartoonist!

Or were you looking for one of these?

The Coffee Table is the place to go in Silver Lake.

Donna Barstow — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:36:08 +0000

My last post about the HDPE bird balls the LADWP dumped in Silver Lake that have not been tested properly was quite shocking to people, as well it should be. Laurie Pepper left a comment here that I thought might interest other readers:

I’ve been sending emails to my local neighborhood watch group here by the lake.

The results: a meeting is planned soonest by the Neighborhood council.

Meanwhile, at 10:30 AM Monday the 21st, a small group of those I emailed are meeting at the Coffee Table — to discuss the whole thing. Thanks for your really informative info.

This is exactly the sort of thing I hoped would happen with this blog! I’m very happy. And let me know how it goes, Laurie!

From Pottery Barn.

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I get a Paypal donation, but not from Tom LaBonge.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:15:33 +0000

The day they started to refill Silver Lake I got an interesting email. Patt Morrison had read my blog and wanted to interview me on her KPCC show about the one year commemoration of the Griffith Park fire!! Quel honor! I can’t tell you how pleased I am when readers stay more than a few minutes here, and I saw that Minneapolis Public Radio had read for a good 40 minutes, so I was thrilled, but still so surprised at the invitation.

Unfortunately, I got the note very last minute, and couldn’t do it, but fortunately they got the lovely and talented Bernadette Soter of the PROS committee, to do us right.

Also: I got my first Paypal donation! Yay me and him! I told a friend and he said, “Oh, it must have been from Councilman Tom LaBonge, huh?”

I laughed hysterically. As most bloggers know, even good friends don’t always READ your blog, or my friend would understand something about my relationship with LaBonge. But more importantly, my friend just assumed that since he himself finds me fascinating, worthy, and cleverly persuasive, that my councilman would feel the same way, and WOULD WANT TO SUPPORT ME IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE, INCLUDING DONATIONS!!

See, not everyone in the community has lost their innocence about the city council!

Or were you looking for one of these?

Most Wanted by the LAPD! No, I mean the LADWP!!!

Donna Barstow — Sat, 03 May 2008 23:56:42 +0000

OH MY GAH!!!!!!!

One might think that H. David Nahai, newly crowned king of dwp, might be first on everyone’s mind as a bad guy after the recent well -publicized promise to raise rates, and he’s my personal fave bad guy for his draining of Silver Lake, and refusal to give it back. (Hmm. Well, that could still be true.) But who’s most wanted now? Moi!!!!

Remember that SNL skit when Dan Aykroyd suggests giving kids a bag of rocks for Christmas? I guess someone gave them to the DWP. They’ve been up for almost 2 months.

Silver Lake is surrounded by a 15′ fence (I think) and barbed wire, and has at least one or two guards, day or night. Obviously this is a good idea, since it USED TO BE potable water. They have a guard house, and at least one car is always parked on a center divider in the lake. Once in a while I see them drive slowly down the narrow driveway that surrounds the lake; slow is good, because no one wants to drive into the lake at night, or hit one of the animals that USED TO BE there.

Two days ago I blogged that I thought the Corner o’ Rocks inside slk was a graveyard when I first saw it, at night, an artistic protest by some clever artists. Well, I guess someone very important (and possibly paranoid) read that, too, because I was running last night – very late, no other people on the street at all- just thinking how I might spend the rest of the weekend, when I see a guard’s SUV barreling down the driveway inside the fence, going maybe 40 mph. I didn’t think much about it, but when I caught up to it I saw that now it was parked directly in front of the rocks and dead flowers, GUARDING them from me! They saw me and raced to the rocks! And it stayed there until I finished my run and left!!! I have become a dangerous artist in dwp’s eyes!

Sorry, guys, I don’t do installation pieces! And who said bloggers have no influence? Too funny. But also, sad.

H. David lies, after the jump.

H. David Nahai salutes from my latest electric bill. Notice the last line he writes: “A utility that is committed to clean, renewable resources, that will decrease the carbon footprint…”

Hmm, how do the 6 million plastic bird balls they’re dumping in slk and Elysian, made with HDPE, manufactured ONLY by the big oil companies, do that exactly? Plastic that is not recycled, and probably won’t be in the future? I wish I knew!

Or were you looking for one of these?

I get an email from an engineer about bird poop.

Donna Barstow — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:07:52 +0000

Well, who can define a present, really? Different things to different folks.

Someone forwarded an email to me from a water engineer:

This made me laugh! She is an entertaining, if uninformed, writer.

Bromate is a known carcinogen at the concentrations found in Silverlake Reservoir. LADWP needs to prevent its formation by reducing sunlight on the water. And LADWP cannot take the reservoirs out of service without risking water reliability. Many pipes are made out of HDPE (as are the bird balls) and it is approved by the National Science Foundation for use in drinking water conveyance. I’d rather have HDPE in my water than bird poop. What LADWP really needs is more covered storage. And it’s hard to build it when nobody wants it near them.

The birds are eating the bugs, bug eggs, slime and parameciums in the water, and in return, they give us something.

Crow in Silver Lake before the draining. This is my favorite photo so far this year! It reminds me of 19th century silhouettes, although it would take a very sharp pair of scissors.

You could look at the Silver Lake catastrophe as a game that LA DWP has set up! All the grocery stores now have a choice as to Organic or Chemical/treated food, and DWP has joined the crowd. Would you rather your water be organic or treated with chemicals? I’ll take organic, thanks.

Not only that, but remember that Silver Lake is in two parts, Ivanhoe and Silver Lake reservoirs, and the Silver Lake Reservoir part will be UNCOVERED, is bigger and more stagnant, will attract more birds, and bromate could raise its ugly head even quicker there! So think of your drinking water as a lottery: what will your DWP ticket say? Which side will you drink from?

Mr. or Ms. Engineer, thanks for your comments on HDPE, too. I know it is supposed to be stable, and has been approved by the FDA for some water bottles (although in my opinion the FDA is wrong about a lot of things, they could be right on this); however, I did quote this in an earlier post about HDPE pipes from Environment News Service:

Long-term use of high-density polyethylene drainage pipes could result in prolonged contamination of the water table as well as ecological and environmental damage, a Princeton study warned today. (more here)

As I wrote earlier, Headlands was approved in 2005 for the underground storage. It’s a perfect site, already owned by the DWP, in an industrial area. You can see it from Elysian Park, if you dare to go there: sort of next to the LA River, with lots of train tracks. Below Forest Lawn Cemetery…nobody to complain there.

PS: There are actually 4 crows in the photo! I was so taken by the one on the top that I didn’t even see the others, even in the raw photo! I guess he would be the first plucked out by a predator…

Or were you looking for one of these?

Come for the drinks, stay for the food.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:03:41 +0000

Who’s that knocking at my door? Don’t cha wanna know? Don’t cha?

I’m not surprised that when I’m fortunate enough to have LA Observed link to me, (and Defamer, through LAO), I get many new visitors, but hundreds more? A friend and I were discussing this, and when I told her that I got even more visits than when Editor & Publisher mentioned me, she said, “Well, that makes sense. Kevin is the conduit to the West for everyone on the East Coast. Who else are they going to call?”

LA Observed’s latest mention of me was the unfortunate and violent draining of Silver Lake. Of course, everyone likes to see a nice snapshot, so maybe the juicy photos made the difference in visitor numbers. In any case, they came. Unfortunately I don’t have the best tracker, which is frustrating for a curious person like me, but I make do. (Don’t be alarmed. Normal people are just a series of boring numbers. And only a few IPs have corporate names attached…)

Hey there, LA Times! Good to see you guys again! We had a great thing going…

Channel 2 , moi?

KCET, I’m honored.

New York Times? Call me, man.

Disney, I’m not really your type, but thanks anyway.

Then there were the more serious types.

My intended audience, LA City and the Department of Water and Power: touchdown!

The US Department of Justice: uh oh.
Many college professors.

The FAA.
Reed business publications.
A few law firms, mostly in Washington DC, one specializing in intellectual property (yes!), and one in utility lawsuits (GULP.).

But my personal favorite was the National Gallery of Art. FINALLY! Cartoons will get their rightful place in the art world! Can’t wait to hear from you, and yes, I’m available! [/arm waving]

Who comes to your blog?

Or were you looking for one of these?