It’s a week for notable days of honor and remembrance. This past Tuesday, April 22, was Earth Day. Today, April 25, is Arbor Day — OK, not in California, but in some states — a good day to visit OC’s parks, such as the copse of redwood trees up in Carbon Canyon. Sunday, April 27 is Holocaust Remembrance Day. (For some of us, the day actually starts at sundown.) Timed to honor the latter is the “premiere screening” of a new documentary, “3½ Years Without a Toothbrush: Growing Up in the Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany,” with an appearance by Walter Lachmann, a man who did so as a young boy. He is the subject of the film to be shown at the Frida Theater (Santa Ana’s new art theater) as a fundraiser for Congregation B’nai Tzedek.
To crib from and paraphrase the flyer:
Walter was 13 when he and his Grandmother were resettled from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia. She was shot the first week. Walter’s story is told with archival photographs and the actual film footage of the British Army as they rolled through the gates of Bergen Belsen April 15th 1945.
The premiere is Saturday, April 26th at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, 305-100 East 4th St. Santa Ana, CA 92701. There is a parking garage behind the theater ($1.00/hr.)
The doors open at 7:00 p.m. Rabbi David N. Young will conduct Havdalah (a prayer marking the end of the Sabbath) at 7:15 p.m; the 50 minute documentary will start at 7:30 p.m. Walter Lachman will speak and answer questions following the film.
Tickets available at the door and at: http://tinyurl.com/toothbrushfilm.
The event is a fundraiser benefiting Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Walter’s name. The suggested donation is $10.00. Come share in Walter’s message of Tolerance, although the documentary is not likely suitable for children under 12.
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that, or whatever else you want, within reasonable bounds of discretion and decorum.
And, for those of you who have somehow missed it (or just want something lighter), here’s our lumberjacking video of the week:
So they were discussing the DA’s race at Pedroza’s blog. Jeff Gallagher said this:
“The real problem with Diamond is his ability to actually manage the office, assuming he did win. T-Rack should have been voted out long ago for his failures. The egotistical move to personally prosecute the Fullerton officers is just the latest in poor judgment moves from a used car salesman whose true forte is in protecting corrupt cronies. I would rather Diamond take the helm, fail through incompetence or inability, and the AG’s Office have to take over. But, you assume Kang-Schroeder will be handed the reins. I’m not so sure she is all that well liked by the BoS (I can think of one or two who don’t think much of her) who would be charged with replacing the used car salesman.”
And that led me to a thoughtful — well, at least long — reply:
“Sorry to disappoint, Jeff, but I could actually manage the office. Apparently, they even let the DA have a certain number of assistants to help him or her do so!
“Here are the three most important things that I would accomplish before even taking my oath:
“(1) Introduce uncertainty — and therefore deterrence — in the minds of OC public and private actors who now reasonably think that, if they are well-connected, they can currently get away with almost anything.
“(2) Change the payoffs for current OCDA employees. Under my leadership, they will be evaluated not based on how good they can make the DA look, but on how well they follow the state and federal constitutions and laws. Attorneys who conscientiously follow the law would do well — and would, I suggest, appreciate my leadership. Attorneys who take the sorts of actions that we see happening in the Scott Dekraii prosecution in Seal Beach would do poorly. Those who simply aim to maximize the quantity of convictions, jail time, or death penalties — regardless of the merits — would do poorly; those who aimed to maximize their quality, with appropriate punishments rather than the ones that raise the most funds or pay the most to prison interests, would do well.
“(3) In some ways, the most important thing that I could do by being elected would be to derail the conveyor belt currently set to install Kang Schroeder in office as soon as T-Rack retires — probably in late 2016 or early 2017, depending on how the 2016 Supes races go. (If Nguyen loses this year, she’ll owe him for the very gentle Cal-Optima investigation.) SKS will hire him as a well-paid consultant; I won’t.
“Perhaps you’re suggesting that the attorneys there would simply flee — despite the fact that I can work with UCI Law, the LADA’s office and others to identify those who would make the best, most honest, and most effective supervisors. If that happened, I have plenty of contacts from law school of people highly placed at the DOJ, Manhattan DA’s Office, Los Angeles DA’s Office etc. who would love to reinvent the DA’s office from the ground up — if necessary. But I don’t think that it will be necessary. I think that there is amazing talent in the DA’s office that can work wonders with a boss who rewards the right sort of behavior. And that’s what I’ll do.
“Would I be able to do well enough to win re-election in 2018? In every way other than fundraising, probably so — but that’s a big exception. I’m going to just ignore anything other than doing proper justice — and whether I’m in there for 4 years or 24, the rest will take care of itself.”
Nice job.
Wow the state of Colorado is having problems coming to grips with its new found fame. All from a drug that has been said to have no harmful effects.
“ An autopsy report listed marijuana intoxication as a significant contributing factor in the death of 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi.
“Twenty-six people have reported poisonings from marijuana edibles this year, when the center started tracking such exposures. Six were children who swallowed innocent-looking edibles, most of which were in plain sight. Five of those kids were sent to emergency rooms, and two to hospitals for intensive care, Bronstein said (medical director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center.)”
“Kirk, 47, who was charged in Denver with shooting his 44-year-old wife to death while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher,. Police said his wife reported that her husband had consumed marijuana-laced candy,”
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/how-government-and-industry-is-trying-to-eliminate-farm-to-table-operations/
An analysis of the reasons the NAACP was going to honor D. Sterling:
” Given his reputation and this history, why would the Los Angeles NAACP honor Sterling for “lifetime achievement?” The answer? For the same reason that the NAACP is scheduled to honor Javier Angulo, Walmart’s director of community affairs, at the same May 15 banquet. Sterling and Walmart are both NAACP benefactors and the civil rights organization has been happy to take these corporation donations.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/racist-donald-sterling_b_5223223.html
Tim Carpenter, a former Orange County resident and prominent activist passed away. I met Tim years ago as a tireless advocate of just causes. RIP.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179588/tim-carpenters-politics-radical-inclusion-streets-and-polling-booth
We’d happily accept an article about Tim Carpenter, if any readers would like to produce one.