SoCal Minds

A helping hand for aged, nonprofits, Haiti, First Ladies

From UCI, USC, RAND & Pepperdine

Oh, sure, there's plenty of it out there. Look around and there's certainly no lack of academic projects that only can be described as head-scratching fodder, leading to plenty of queries about the cost of various esoteric studies and research efforts. Then, again, look and the valiant, broad and deep good deeds that Southern California intellectual institutions undertake also can be inspirational, particularly on a scorching fall Monday when positive motivation might be sorely needed.

• So, dig in and consider, for example, how a prof's informed editing  of an experts' journal can offer a glimpse into the long, hard fight to identify, prevent and combat the sickening abuse of the aged, with the considerable assistance of generous, committed foundation's support of projects affecting the old.

• Or consider a lesson reinforced in the Haiti relief efforts for a Trojan emergency response expert about the need for perpetual vigilance and preparation, especially in a crisis-prone area like Southern California.

• It's also worth noting how folks from the think tank in Santa Monica have reached out to assist First Ladies and their aides from across Africa to help them address health and social concerns. Former First Lady Laura Bush also has lent her support to this program that will include chiefs of staff and other advisers to first ladies from Angola, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia.

• And because the world changes by the instant, especially due to the advent of new technologies, the folks out in Malibu will be assisting participants from the nonprofit world today and Tuesday in learning to demystify, simplify and boost their efforts to fund-raise with potential donors via smart phones and other mobile devices.

• Finally, in Exposition Park on Tuesday night, several different campus groups will join to sponsor an experts' conversation on charitable deed-doing under the rubric of 'Entrepreneurs Changing the World,' an initiative to bolster interest in and the Good Samaritan efforts of social entrepreneurs in the region. 

Photo at top (from left): Cora Neumann, RAND, and First Ladies, Madame: Penehupifo Pohamba, Republic of Namibia; Mathato Sebonoang Mosisili, Kingdom of Lesotho; Sia Nyama Koroma, Republic of Sierra Leone; Laura Bush; Ross Anthony of RAND / James Roderick, RAND

For legal scholars, court talk, publishing and status checks

From USC, Pepperdine, Southwestern & Chapman

With the usual caveat that the author of this post gets a check as an adjunct law prof in an institution housed in a landmark building near downtown L.A., let's play some catch-up with some legal matters of note around town. In Exposition Park and Malibu, it must be that time of year as the scholars are lining up to assay the doings of the Roberts Court. From the Art Deco confines of the historic Bullock's Wilshire building, meantime, a sometimes grumpy vice dean and his legal writing colleague tackle in bemused fashion the all-too-frequent and critical interrogatory from law students, especially first years: How do I survive and thrive in law school? The online sample chapter from their new tome both catches its flavor and offers some tasty tidbits, such as why students should see their profs during office hours and why they shouldn't diss their teachers. And speaking of legal scholars, just who, in academic terms, is among the fairest of them all? The folks in Orange, in touting the disconnect between the ever popular rankings of a certain fading newsweekly as opposed to some other measures, point to an academic effort to pinpoint profs and schools by their scholarly influence in the field. Hmmm.

In Exposition Park, the annual preview of the Supreme Court's new term

In Malibu, a published assessment of twists, turns in the Roberts court

Advice from a 'cranky prof' on succeeding in law school

Click here for a writing sample from Prof. Cranky

In Orange, a tout for the scholarly influence of law school, its faculty   

Click here to see schools, faculty ranked by 'scholarly influence'

On a sunnier, warmer weekend, lots of smart things to do

From Pepperdine, USC, Claremont Graduate University, the Autry, UCLA & the Getty

With the shivering gray weather promising to break, there's lots of reasons to get around the city, including:

• With all the sheer lunacy coming out of Florida and New York, the folks in Malibu at lunch time today offer a serious discussion on religious freedom in America with two legal scholars and an expert from the Nootbar Institute.

• The formal RSVP deadline is past but those interested may still want to ring to see if space is available still for a gathering today of policymakers, educators and public health advocates who all will be responding to a Trojan call for action on childhood obesity. The all-day summit will be conducted with the co-sponsorship of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

•  She's the darling of the Hollywood crowd, what with all the new attention she has garnered with an absolutely delightful, Emmy-winning portrayal of her astonishing life. And while there will be only a select rare standing-room-only spots, the author-professor-scholar Temple Grandin will offer her intriguing take on how 'Animals Make Us Human' at lunch time today.

• He not only became a noteworthy artist himself (his 'Garden for Sally' is shown at right) but he also deeply touched and affected his many students' lives and careers. So, besides announcing the receipt of a $1 million challenge grant to establish an endowed chair in his honor, the folks in Claremont, starting today and running through the weekend, will put on a whole program in memory of Roland Reiss, the late painter-professor-department chair and creative force.

• In the movie capital of the world, of course, there are showings going on all the time. But the folks in Griffith Park, tonight and Saturday night will offer a spotlight to some distinctive films as part of the American Indian Film Institute Film Festival with plenty of premiers of shorts (such as 'Shi-shi-etko,' a still from which is shown at right) and features by and about Native Americans. And it will be a weekend away, but set that home recording system now, as Turner Classic Movies formally recognizes the key industry role played by the Bruins' film and television archive with a back-to-back run of 13 films restored by the institution's talented artisans.

• Though tickets have already largely been snapped up, a few still are trickling out for the distinctive opportunity to see major acting talent take on theatrical classics in the unique setting of the Getty Villa. What's it like for the likes of Carey Perloff, Olympia Dukakis, Manoel Felciano, Bonfire Madigan Shive and Pamela Reed  to do Sophocles' 'Elektra' outdoors with a live audience?

Academic accolades for Doctors Jerry Lewis, Ranan Tata

From Chapman & Pepperdine

It's certainly no guarantee for tenure, security, acclaim or affluence. So why do thousands of Americans pound away still, building up huge debts and making complicated, freighted decisions about other aspects of their lives just so they can toss a tassle to one side on their mortarboards as they wear especially adorned antiquated robes and proclaim themselves 'doctors of philosophy?' So this all was worth, um, a half dozen and usually many more years of blood, tears, labor, study,  research and sacrifice? Congrats, all you docs out there. And while contemplating how much sweat equity went into that special sheepskin, enjoy today's thought that, at least in honorary terms, in a mere blink we all also can applaud two new Ph.D.s: Welcome, Dr. Lewis and Hello, Dr. Tata.

An honorary doctorate from folks in Orange for comedy legend Jerry Lewis

From Malibu to Taj Mahal, a trip to confer honorary Ph.D. on billionaire Ratan Tata

In Malibu, revisiting a controversial murder in Nicaragua

From Pepperdine

Doris Jimenez, 25, ended up raped and dead in her small clothing botique in 2007. But who committed the brutal, horrific crime against her? Her furious mother, outraged locals and a local court in Nicaragua insist the criminal is the dead woman's onetime boyfriend, an American who went south to launch a glossy magazine, and, in his telling, instead, got tangled up in a 'Gringo Nightmare.' Suffice it to say that the murder conviction, subsequent incarceration and then appellate reversal involving now author Eric Volz, a northern Californian and UCSD grad (shown in photo at right), set off an international incident that has attracted wide media attention with a special focus on how and whether justice gets done in the Latin American nation. The folks in Malibu on Thursday will get a close-up chance to hear all about this situation, which some school officials have deemed a human rights abuse and a fearsome reminder about what injustice can occur to innocents abroad.

Author Eric Volz to details what he calls his 'Gringo Nightmare'

In the 'Bu, exploring intersection of finance, fashion

From Pepperdine

Among certain wags and Wall Street watchers hemlines always have provided a critical market clue. When skirts rise, so does the money lust and fortunes of the masters of the universe in Manhattan, so the conventional wisdom goes. The folks out in the always affluent 'Bu provide their own vision and examples of the sometimes madcap intersection of finance and fashion and what artists say as to what it all means when money collides with design in an exhibit opening Saturday and featuring probing works from Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, David Hockney, James Rosenquist, Joon Sung-Bae and Leslie Dill, whose Large Copper Poem Dress is shown at left.

What happens when money meets coture and what does it say about society?

Click here for more info on fashion, finance exhibit

Ideas on 'Where to dicker?' and 'What's really fair?'

From Pepperdine & Chapman

It's not Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on first?' routine. But many a prospective deal-maker engages in a roundabout mind game about the party across the table, saying, 'I know you that you know that I know that you think you know that I believe I know that....' So what's the best spot to negotiate, anyway? An expert in Malibu may provide an eyebrow lift or two, arguing that there may be some merits for doing that dickering at the other party's digs, not yours. Or maybe not.

Your place or mine? In negotiations, the answer isn't always so obvious, prof says

Or maybe, as an economist in Orange theorizes, the issue in many situations these days really is the pursuit of the 'fair.' But what is that exactly? He traces to dictionary definitions, sigh, and conducts interesting experiments with real people earning money (undergrads, real people?) to deduce in careful academic fashion that qualifications and expectations intrude into every day thinking about what's equitable -- though he argues the government should not,  in a way that, for obvious reasons, should please holders of Libertarian views. He propounds his positions in a video from the folks at Reason ...

All's fair in economic settings, if the government stays out, prof argues

Poll finds Syrians restive, disgruntled on nation's course

From Pepperdine

While the Assad clan has ruled Syria with an iron grip and made it one of the region's formidable troublemakers, all's not so well on the domestic front for Damascus, according to researchers from Malibu, who have conducted what's called the first scientific polling of Syrian attitudes. Syrians, the pollsters say, hold a dim view of the regime of Bashar Assad (shown at right), who succeeded his father, Hafez Assad, a decade ago and, who, according to international human rights groups, has continued brutal repression against his people with the state's secret police. As the Assads also have meddled in Lebanon, including a role in the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister, and played off regional forces in Iran and Iraq, pollsters say a majority of Syrians have lost faith in their government, think corruption is endemic and believe their nation is worse off than it was five years ago. The researchers, working for the independent, nonprofit Westside Democratic Council, also had favorable, surprising findings about life in Syria, where they said huge numbers of people now have access to modern media like satellite television and the internet; the performing arts also have great vibrancy. The pollsters, who produced a 41-page report, said they surveyed 1,046 Syrians over a period of three weeks.

Survey termed a 1st scientific polling of Syrians' attitudes, which are found to be glum

 

Premier collection of state, westen water info moves south

From UCR & Pepperdine

It's roughly 200,000 technical reports, 1,500 specialized newsletters, 5,000 maps and videos, 2,200 serials, 25,000 land photographs and 4,500 aerial photographs of coastlines, totaling more than 7,000 linear feet. These materials make up the Water Resources Center Archive, what experts call one of the premier collections of information and archives about water development in the Golden State and the West. This prized research and scholarly trove will be moving south from Berkeley to Riverside, where it will be shared by the UC there and CSU San Bernardino. The archive was set up by the legislature in 1958 and provides an invaluable resource to water agencies, governments, environmentalists, engineers, attorneys, historians and researchers. Its new SoCal home will put it nearer to the Water Science and Policy Center and the Water Resources Institute, which also houses the significant Joseph Andrew Rowe Water Resources Archive. Besides the big news about the move of the water information, the folks in Riverside earlier also had learned that they have received a grant from Google to assist with an effort to improve the information describing books published before 1801 and included in the Google Books digitized archive. Over in Malibu, meantime, scholars there now will have online access to the new, Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace, which, in print covers 2,848 pages and offers 850 A-Z entries by leading scholars on a range of topics related to peace studies.

UC-CSU cooperation brings acclaimed Water Resources Center Archives to Riverside

Google gives grant to upgrade info on digitized books published before 1801

In Malibu, online access for Waves to Oxford encyclopieda on peace

A slice of an LA weekend: from Hapas to Lemony Snicket

From the Japanese American National Museum, LACMA, Pepperdine, the Skirball & UCLA

Never a shortage of smart stuff to take in, in what promises to be a seasonably sunny Southern California weekend: In Little Tokyo, it will be a free Saturday, for example, as two hip and happening folks headline a day highlighting the experiences of Hapa or mixed race Americans; the session with scholar-artist Kip Fulbeck and educator Dr. Maya Soetero-Ng (President Obama's sis) is on a wait-list basis. For those concerned about families, religion and faith, there's a big conference going on in Malibu, though a call will be required to see if the now full sessions can accommodate. Meantime, get those feet and the mind moving with all the day-long events as museums on the Miracle Mile join in for their annual Artwalk, which this year will include World Cup soccer-related activities; there are some fees for the events at the county museum, where there will be displays of art (of course!), music, performance, workshops, activities, food, and more. The participating institutions include LACMA, Peterson Automotive, Page, Craft and Folk. If the feet still gotta move, there is, of course, a weekend festival of avant-garde dance films by Pina Bausch and others, in Westwood by Dance Camera West. And for parents and kids who are fans of Lemony Snicket, author Daniel Handler and his illustrator and wife, Lisa Brown, will be over on the Westside on Sunday for a chat and reading.