In January, 2024, graffiti artists began converging on a trio of abandoned skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles, and tagging them up from top to bottom. Within a short period of time, most of the 36 floors of each structure in the Oceanwide Plaza development had been painted with large, ornate and colorful lettering, which started receiving worldwide attention. By early February, the Washington Post published a piece explaining what had happened , and why the marking up of the structures was so significant. I took a picture of the buildings each of the last two summers, in disbelief that they were still tagged up. This photo is from last month: These buildings are visible for many miles in each direction. Coming into downtown from any of the major freeways, drivers see different angles of the above. It is ugly, to say the very least. I don't know any city that has allowed such a thing, and especially for such a long time. Given that, is it any wonder that LA has seen a 50 percent in...
Greetings from Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A. Today is the 18th anniversary of the commencement of my popular women's basketball blog, "They're Playing Basketball," which I thought was a perfect day to launch this new blog, The Knowledge Network . There is much to discuss. In 2008 the U.S. was in the midst of the greatest recession since World War II. Smart phones weren't yet prolific, and people still rented movies from Blockbuster, used paper tickets to get into events, played CDs, and went to shopping malls, among many other past times. Over the course of one generation, the United States and the world has changed more than in thousands and thousands of years before it. Our methods of communication have been altered greatly, into ways that our ancestors didn't dream. People get, process and transmit information in completely different ways. Industries have fallen, while others have risen. The gap between the wealthy and the poor has widened more than ever before...