SoCal Minds

Legal Wannabes Doing Hard Labor -- for Free

From Chapman University & USC

Good to know that a key component of legal scholarship is pro bono work, whether for military veterans or women imprisoned under questionable circumstance. In Orange County, one law school has taken up the cause of military personnel in need of legal representation, offering a distinctive public service: Their AMVETS clinic will be taking up for free the cases of veterans, service personnel and their families, augmenting the work of the so-called JAG (Judge Advocate General) Corps, which does not represent individuals involved in private disputes. Meantime, there's been lots of local press about the pro bono work of a USC law student who secured the liberty of an abused wife, who, because she sat in the car during a robbery-homicide, has been imprisoned for three decades.

Chapman Launches AMVET Pro-Bono Clinc

USC Law Student Helps Win Woman's Freedom After 30 Years

Remembering Fante, Quintessential LA Author

From the Hammer Museum & Zocalo

He barely made it into his seventieth decade, and, even then, he reshaped the way the world sees Los Angeles. Hard to imagine that soon it will be the 100th anniversary of his birth. If you don't know the down-and-out, gritty world of author John Fante already, well, here's to joining his fans -- which have historically included Charles Bukowski, John Steinbeck and Francis Ford Coppola -- in saluting him in an April 7 panel discussion by experts of his life and work.  (Reservations to attend).

Zocalo, Hammer Museum Progam in Honor of John Fante's 100th

Plenty of Peace Corps Samaritans in Area Schools

From Cal State Fullerton & Pepperdine

Amid the depressing, daily reports of rampant corporate greed and avarice, what a breath of fresh air to know that some 300 Southern California students from just one institution and 130 from another have gone on to serve an American program to aid the needy globally. (And, by the way, one of the institutions tips its hat to another -- Pepperdine to Azuza Pacific -- for its top-standing for contributing Peace Corps volunteers.) So who wants to hand-wring or mourn the resignation of an auto-maker's CEO when there's much to praise and recall about the Peace Corps service of young folks?

Cal State Fullerton's 300 Peace Corps Alums

Pepperdine Alums Serving in 11 Countries

A Golden History of Hollywood, the Barrymores

From USC

From Ethel, Lionel and John to Drew, the Barrymore name rings golden in the history of Los Angeles and movies. And now, in a exhibit of family collections augmented by the resources of one of Southern California's major film schools, is a full-blown catalog of one family's breadth and reach in not only cinematic but also societal terms. The research for this display, and, more importantly, for a family biography, spans 15 years. And, of course, the Barrymores have several familial branches and the clan always has kept a significant relationship with USC.

Photos: Ethel Barrymore, 1901, left, by Burr McIntosh, Drew Barrymore, right, at 2009 Golden Globes, Getty Images (?)

Remembering The Barrymore Clan of Hollywood

Getting Better by the Day: Arrays of Info on Aging

From RAND & UCLA

With the Baby Boom generation, one of the largest of its kind, edging into its senior years, issues about aging are pressing hugely to the fore, with concerns about everything from retirement and the economy to the cost of caring for millions of older Americans. Some Ph.D.s doing work in the area had gathered in Santa Monica previously to consider a range of topics and they'll do so again this summer. Their presentations from their last meeting provide an informative brief on senior matters, from demographics to disease, nutrition to economic behavior. And, if you have a hunger for even more on this timely topic, nearby Westwood researchers have posted an impressive array of resources and info.

RAND Conference on Aging

A Dozen Presentations on Aging from 2008

UCLA on 'Fountain of Youth'

Sums to Speed Up Work of Accelerator Physicists

From USC

USC, UCLA, Duke and Stanford physicists got a boost from the Obama administration, which granted tens of millions of dollars to their research into issues related to the origins of the universe. The biggest part of the grant went to Stanford's Linear Accelerator Center, where cooperative work is under way on research by the four institutitions on speeding up subatomic particles at high energy in hopes of cracking "fundamental questions about the building blocks of the universe, the origins of matter, and study other mysteries such as the existence of dark matter and black holes."

USC, UCLA, Stanford, Duke Win Accelerator Physics Research Grants

Only in LA: Pan-American Study of Korea

From UCLA

Who knew that researchers on Korea in North America are so strong on the arts and humanities, while their colleagues in Latin America are expert on social sciences, including economics and international relations? So what to do to get a fuller picture of the East Asian nation? Well, how about a Pan-American scholarly cooperation, including some fascinating cross-cultural experiences with Spanish-speaking, Korea scholars finding themselves surprisingly at home in Los Angeles' thriving Koreatown.

Korea Scholars with a Pan-American Twist

Online Bounty of Mexican, Chicano Music

From UCLA

Mexican or Mexican American music your thing, particularly tunes from 1905 to the 1990s, with special emphasis on stuff that once was on 78- or 45-rpm records? One of the largest collections of such materials, some 20,000 digitized recordings already and thousands more coming soon, now are available in an online archive. True, you can't hear more than a slice of any given recording, unless you are part of the UCLA community and on their networks. Still, the vast archive of vernacular music is searchable from outside the school and has been made available with the support of the Arhoolie and Los Tigres del Norte foundations.

UCLA Puts On Line a Major Archive of Mexican, Mexican-American Music 

Click Here to Go to Online Archive

A Hunt for Good News about the Economy

From UCI

Interesting alternative take on the troubled economy from a prominent business scholar, in this case a dean of a business school. He says to shut off the radio, TV and stop listening to the alleged financial gurus about what's going. And, instead, he's providing data on key indicators to watch, particularly, in his optimistic point of view, for positive signs about the economy's turn.

UCI Business School Dean's Data Points for a Positive Economic Outlook

How Much Data Needed on Visitors Leaving U.S.?

From RAND

A legacy policy of the Bush Administration and Congress calls for the Homeland Security Dept. to create a big program, with biometric screening equipment, to monitor and figure out how many travelers not only enter the U.S. but also who leave this country. But just how much sense does that all make? It's not a full-blown analysis but a research scrutiny of this aspect of border security poses some common sense questions as to whether the nation ought to expend more energy on screening incoming, rather than outgoing visitors? While the ideal would be that data on departures would match for those coming in, well, the real world just doesn't work that way. And just what do we learn from the bulk of our visitors who enter, then leave, as they're legally supposed to? Do we get any closer to stopping anything or anyone if we have departure data?

The RAND Border Security Report

Click Here to Get the Report