Jessica Porter

A group of Southern California residents has been trespassing on private property with full support from neighbors. What they are technically doing is vandalism, but it is also known as guerilla gardening.

Guerilla gardening is the act of secretly gardening neglected property that does not belong to the gardener. It was coined 30 years ago and practiced around the world. The fun hobby has recently caught on for some Los Angeles residents.

What started off as a cool idea for a birthday party two years ago, turned into a lot more than a hobby for Rebecca Pontius. She has created about dozen gardens around Los Angeles, maintained by her and other guerilla gardeners.

"The best part for us is the community aspect of it," Pontius said. "Having people stop by and ask us excuse me do you work for the city and we say no we are just volunteers and that starts a conversation were they want to get involved and beautiful their community as well."

Although guerilla gardeners try to be discrete with their activities, they are really easy to find. Rebecca, who is also known by her guerilla gardening name "Roly Poly," created the website laguerillagardening.org with a partner. They organize groups of volunteers to garden predetermined sites for gardening projects. Using hundreds of donated plants and sometimes flowers they are unafraid to get their hands dirty picking up trash and pulling up weeds.

What they are doing is bringing a community together by cleaning up small pieces of abandoned property into something they can be proud of. Although this seems like a harmless practice, they face a few negative set backs now and then.

"We had one spot that was city property and that garden only lasted about a month and it was taken out by the city," Pontius said. "We don't even know exactly what part of the city did that but they just completely pulled out that garden."

One concern a city might have is that the plants being used are not poisonous or dangerous. A prickly cactus for example, might not be the kind of plant they want in a public space.

Pontius tries to pick gardening spots that are on orphaned land.

"Orphaned land is kind of this no mans land," Pontius said. "Where it could be owned by the city or it could be owned by Cal Trans. We try to find something that's in between so when we modify it they don't know who did it.  It could have been the city that did it and Cal Trans thinks that, or the city thinks Cal Trans did it."

Scott Bunnell, has been guerilla gardening in the Norwalk area for 15 years and runs the website socalguerillagardening.org. He is a veteran of guerilla gardening and has also seen many of his gardens destroyed. What's worse is that people will sometimes steel his plants.

"Every once in a while I will see someone walking down the street with an plant and I will just think, well that plant looks familiar." Bunnell said.

Lately, someone has been chopping down the flowering part of his agaves in his Norwalk garden. A friend told him that people from some cultures eat the flowers.

"It is something that's expected," Pontius said. "I mean we are gardening on property that is not even ours to own."

Many of the sunflowers in a guerilla garden started by Pontius on Centinela Ave. in Los Angeles had been chopped down.

 Overall, the gardeners have had only positive feedback from city officials and residents. One neighbor stopped to chat and praise Pontius on the giant sunflowers that were planted just four months ago. 

"Sometimes people just drive by and do a round of applause and it is more rewarding than we ever expected it to be," Pontius said.

Any good deed comes with positive and negative results, but for these gardeners the good far outweighs the obstacles they face in their endeavors.

 

On your early morning walk you might have seen him digging in the dirt on the San Gabriel Valley riverbed. If you missed him hopefully you had a chance to admirer his work. Scott Bunnell is a guerilla gardener and he may be coming to a neglected patch of land near you.

                Guerilla gardening is the act of secretly gardening neglected land on private or public property that does not belong to the gardener.  Guerilla gardening was first coined in 1973 in the Bowery Houston area of New York were a group of locals took over a private plot of land and created a garden.  It recently became popular after a frustrated gardener named Richard Reynolds wrote a book titled On Guerilla Gardening last year.

Bunnell, 49, is a poised veteran to the guerilla gardening movement with 15 years experience in the game. He maintains over a dozen gardens on abandoned plots of land between Whittier and Hollywood in his free time. When he is not guerilla gardening, he works a regular 9-5 for the United States Postal Service. He chats only briefly about some of the bureaucracy at work. Gardening is his passion and is the subject he saves his words for.

Bunnell's home looks like it came out of a story book. It is painted dark blue with a small white fence around the yard. The front yard is covered in an array of precisely planted flowers and plants. Small garden statues of cats give the impression a feline is dwelling within. His backyard is an oasis, dark and damp with clean chilled air filling the space. Thousands of plants sit in endless rows leading a walking path from the entrance to the back. A small greenhouse in the back corner is filled with delicate baby plants and on the opposite end of the garden sits a prickly cactus patch.

Bunnell has an obsession with gardening. With every plant I admire he gives me a meticulous explanation of what it is and how he uses it. He uses mostly succulent plants or aloes, because they do not require a lot of water.  Just walking through his backyard it is clear hundreds of hours are spent maintaining just this garden alone.

On Sunday Bunnell was preparing to make a short trip to a garden in Norwalk he has been maintaining. He packed a small trailer with a shovel, pick axe, gloves and delicately placed the day's lucky plants, mostly succulents, in individual boxes. Dressed in khaki shorts and a white t-shirt he traded his walking shoes for a bicycle pair.  Bunnell rode his bike quickly to his destination along the San Gabriel Valley river bed with the trailer jolting back and forth.

Bunnell gets many of his plants donated from friends and supporters of guerilla gardening.

"This year I've gotten literally over 1,000 plants donated just dropped off at my house," Bunnell said. "I'll come home from work and there will be a pile of plants in the driveway."

The majority of his plants come from propagation. He takes the bulbils or small plantlets that form on the flower stems and replants them. Propagation creates a new plant from the original by innocently manipulating nature. Naturally only a few of the bulbils from the agaves Bunnell plants would fall to the ground and take root. By collecting the bulbils and planting hundreds of them in pots, Bunnell has found an economical way of supporting his guerilla gardening.

"The plants give you more plants," Bunnell said. "That's also my guerilla gardening name, Bulbil."

Bunnells garden in Norwalk is a small plot of land about 20 feet above the riverbed. He parks his bike and trailer on the curb and gets to work.

 He prefers to get up early earlier than daybreak to do his gardening before any neighbors or city workers are out to see him.

 "I grew up going on fishing trips where you're out the door before the sun comes up and that's how I do these things," Bunnell said. "Unless I am with a group, most people don't like to get up early."

"The energy of the group dynamic is amazing and it is really something special when everyone is working together," Bunnell said. "Sometimes I will send out a mass email and think only a few people will come and 20 people show up. Most of them have never gardened before."

Many bike riders and early morning walkers passed him and he politely said hello or good morning to each one.

"If you act like you're supposed to be there then no one questions anything," Bunnell said.

"Most of what I do is pick up trash and litter people have left around," Bunnell said. "I notice that people will litter less when they see a garden is here, they respect it.

                There are many reasons people do guerilla gardening. For some it is a form of rebellion, for others it is the opportunity to make their city a little more green and appreciated. Bunnell has many personal reasons of his own.

"It's not something you can say in a catch phrase what it is," Bunnell said. "What you don't know is the feelings you get from doing it. The feelings you feel years down the road and you come back and it is still growing."

Sometimes Bunnell creates a garden or plants a tree for a friend that has passed away.

"To come back later and see it grow and think about the time that has passed is special," Bunnell said.

                He uses a pick axe to break into the hard soil and then places a plant inside each new space. He dances around the plant, stomping the dirt down, sealing it inside its new home. Bunnell takes a satisfied look around before packing up and riding back home.

                "After doing this for so long I look at the garden and think it needs so much work but others think it's beautiful," Bunnell said.

                The Norwalk garden now had a few more succulents added to it and some much needed weeds removed. None of the plants were in rows but scattered around sporadically.  A Candelabra cactus stood in the middle of it all, and with all the disarray it looked balanced and natural.

                "When I was in my twenties I used to listen to punk rock and would always go out to Sunset and Wilton," Bunnell said. "It was part of my rebellious days."

                Recently he put in a garden on Sunset and Wilton with a group of fellow guerilla gardeners. He said he felt everything had come full circle. At one time that place symbolized his rebellious youth and now it symbolizes growth.

                Bunnell hopes that he will someday work with the city on gardening projects instead of his covert gardening escapades. He simply would like them to turn on the water sprinklers to water the plants and the security of knowing a garden would not be destroyed as they so often are.

 

               

 

               

                 Six thousand Michael Jackson fans danced to "Thriller" this Saturday at LA Live in an attempt to break the world record.

                Dancers in over 37 countries followed the choreography of the six minute music video at exactly 5:30 p.m.

                Participants poured into the LA Live and expanded out into the streets. As the dancers moved to the routine the smell of baby powder from the ghoulish costumes filled the air. Participants were encouraged to dress as dead celebrities and zombies.

                "I've done the thriller dance since I was a kid and to do it with a bunch of people instead of your living room is really cool," Ariel Aguire, a resident of Covina said. "Also it's a tribute to Michael and I think it's a nice thing to do for him."

                Several dance rehearsals where held in Los Angeles so that participants could learn the dance. There was also an online tutorial for those who wanted to learn from home.

"You know I only started preparing 3 days ago," Jennifer Lamar from Los Angeles said. "I had a rehearsal on Tuesday night and then we would go to our friend's house - he has an empty basement and we would just practice all through the night."

                Thrill The World in LA severed a multitude of purposes. The original intention was to beat the previous world record of 13,597 people set in Mexico City in August. Ultimately it served as a successful promotion to the movie "This Is It" premiering Tuesday. The film is a behind the scene documentary from Michael Jacksons planned tour before his death.  It contains over 100 hours of Jackson's rehearsal footage at the Staple Center.

                Los Angeles is still in dispute with AEG over the cost of Jackson's memorial at the Staple Center in July. AEG owns the Staple Center, LA Live and the rights to the film. It is estimated the memorial costs Los Angeles $1.3 million dollars in police services, portable restrooms and traffic control. The actual costs to the city for the memorial according to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich could exceed over $5 million dollars.

                Thrill the World Los Angeles also raised money for Inner City Arts, a local non-profit. Inner City Arts inspires learning and creativity for children living on Skid Row. The charity accepted gifts of all sizes from art supplies to money.

                "I just got the latest numbers in and we raised over $3000 so far, but our numbers are still climbing," Nyla Wren spokesperson for Thrill the World LA said.  "Sometime in the next week or so we will know if we broke the world record but currently over 21,000 zombies danced."

                "Thriller" solidified Jackson as the King of Pop.  It was the first music video of its time to combine a short movie with music. Michael Jackson never failed to bring people together. The event inspired several generations, cultures, dance lovers and genders to dance to one tune.

 

               

 

West End Shelter for Animals is located in Ontario, CA. It is a non-kill animal shelter that rescues many of its animals when they loose their homes or from the humane society.

 

Rusty, a three month old puppy was recently adopted.

 

Every animal at West End shlter has a sign that gives information about the pet. These notes also tell potential owners about the personality of each dog.

 

Animals are kept in kennels like these after they have been spayed/neutered, defleed and dewormed. Then they are ready for adoption.

 

Chatty is a 2 year old dog who is on his best behavior. His family lost their home recently and he has been waiting for a new family.

 

                                                                                                                                                     

Every dog at West End needs a home but they all have an igloo for now. Richard Garcia a member of the staff said there are over 60 dogs at the shelter right now.

 

Some of these pets go to great lengths for attention. Coco never jumps out of her kennel despite how easily she could. The staff at West End take each dog for a walk once a day.

 

To adopt a pet you must fill out an application and spend some time with the pet of your choice to see if there is a bond. Richard recommended picking a pet based on a connection with their personality, not on how attractive they are.

 

 

                                                                                                                                   

West End also shelters and adopts cats.

 

West End is a non profit organization that works through donations, volunteers, and government funding. The Human Society of the United States estimates 3-4 million animals are euthanized each year. This is why it is so important to adopt a pet.

This beautiful alter was so special. It was the one quiet place on Olvera St. Most of the people here were giving flowers as alter offerings.Other offereings innclude fruit, skeletons, salt and even chicken mole.

Olvera St. has a small market place filled with cultural food, gifts, and religious idols. Olvera St. is the first settlement in Los Angeles. Could you imagine all of Los Angeles back in 1781 being occupied by only 44 settlers.

 

 

Every cowboy needs one. No seriously they do. The settlers in Los Angeles raised cattle. Themes of bulls and cowboys can be seen all over Olvera St.

 

  These puppets are colorful but dangerous. They are a party novelty and used to entertain.  The one on the right has a gun. Look at the detail used to make them.

   

 

I wouldn't want to get in the middle of this war. Here are some small childrens toys being sold in one of the markets. If you notice they are small bulls with cowboys riding them. Again the theme of bulls is strong because they were a big part of life in old Los Angeles.

 

  I wasn't sure what you use bulls feet for at first. Soup? Christmas ornament? Voodoo ritual? Actually some people told me you can make ash trays out of them. Other people use them for decoration.

 Here is the dining room in the adobe house on Olvera St. It is over 150 years old and very historic. The furniture is very small, but the rooms are actually spacious.

The office has a saddle inside. All the furniture is leather and wood.

Overall Olvera St. is a very unique cultural experience. Food, shopping and historic landmarks all in one small street. It's located right accross from Union Station on Alameda St.

Soledad O'Brien inspires two new words to the English dictionary: omniracial and news anchoress. When reading her busy background it's easy to see why. The woman is so well rounded that ordinary words don't do her justice.

Soledad or "Solly," as her brother Orestes calls her is an anchor and correspondent for CNN. She most recently produced "Black in America 2,"a documentary about the positive things leaders are doing for the black community.

 

  Her background and personal life seem to be far more interesting than her career when her name is searched online. O'Brien has pages of fan sites and admirers.

O'Brien is married and has four children: Sofia Elizabeth, Cecilia, and twins Charlie and Jackson.  She admitted balancing the task of mother and anchoress is interesting at times.

"When I came home from covering the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, I walked in the house and the first thing I did was fix my daughter Cecilia's hair. I had come home to a blonde Afro. My daughter has curls and when I asked my husband [Bradley Raymond] what happened, he said, 'I just kept brushing and combing it and this is what happened."

O'Brien's black Cuban mother and Australian Irish father couldn't even get married legally in their home state of Maryland in the 1960's due to segregation laws. They had to go to neighboring Washington D.C. to walk down the aisle. How ironic that their daughter would cover the election of America's first Black President [technically multi-racial] just 50 years later.

Oh and then there is the factor that she went to Harvard. Actually, Soledad and all five of her siblings went to Harvard and obtained degrees. It's hard enough for a family to get one child through college and an extraordinary accomplishment to get all six through Harvard.

Even O'Brien's awards and affiliations are unique. The popular news anchor is a member of both the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and she has been awarded by the NAACP once, named as one of 100 Top Irish Americans twice and awarded a prize as Groundbreaking Latina of the Year. She is comfortable being all aspects of her nationality.

There is one negative thing about Soledad O'Brien and it's that she may not be the dog lover of the year. Earlier this year the NY Post reported that O'Brien, as the secretary of her co-op board, signed a notice to evict a family that lived in her building for 5 years because of their dog Ugo.

The notice complained that the Neapolitan Mastiff smelled, drooled and was gassy. Sounds like a bunch of rich people over reacting, but not everyone is perfect.

Despite this one fact Soledad O'Brien still remains one of America's favorite news anchors and a truly positive role model.

(Photo from CNN.com)

For many of you who don't know that hip hop artist Kanye West jumped on stage at the MTV awards last week here is the short story.

 

Once on stage Kanye grabbed the mic from sweet went on a rant that Beyonce had the best video of all time and she shTaylor Swift after she won an award for Best Female Music Video. Kanye then ould have won the award. He then left the stage leaving little miss Swift standing there like a deer in headlights.

 

Later, President Obama was all over the news because he called Kanye "a jackass."

 

The part you didn't know was that story broke on Twitter. Obama was doing an interview with CNBC and talking off the record before the interview about the Kanye incident.

 

Obama was joking around and said "I thought that was really inappropriate -- it's like she's getting an award -- why are you butting in...He's a jackass"

 

Terry Moran, a report for ABC who was in the room tweeted that the President called Kanye a jackass. He has over one million followers and the story spread like wildfire. ABC has since apologized for the off the record incident, but the damage was done.

 

The Twitter universe is still talking about this a week later. There are even polls to vote for or against the President's name calling.

 

In some ways Terry Moran is the story.  One user Einley wrote, "I haven't read what Terry Moran had to say, but I believe that he tweeted Obama's answer knowing full well that he shouldn't have."

 

Another user Vchandel wrote, "ABC's scandal-mongering Terry Moran has hit a new low in the sensationalist American journalism. He is now fit to work for TMZ."

 

It's clear that this story is not only an example of the power of Twitter to spread the news and be news, but also the danger journalists get into when using it.