{"id":348,"date":"2005-11-01T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-01T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=348"},"modified":"2005-11-01T08:58:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-01T16:58:00","slug":"observations-on-the-news-changes-truth-and-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Observations on the News: Changes, Truth, and Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t done an &#8220;Observations on the News&#8221; in a while, but today there are a few articles worth commenting upon (although one is older). All are from the LA Times online.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Hotels Going Upscale<\/b>: The Los Angeles Times <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-hotel1nov01,1,405887.story?coll=la-headlines-business\" target=\"_blank\">is reporting<\/a> that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ichotelsgroup.com\/h\/d\/hi\/1\/en\/hd\/laxbw\" target=\"_blank\">Brentwood Holiday Inn<\/a> (that round hotel you see just north of Sunset Blvd off I-405) closed yesterday. It is being remodeled and will reopen in February as the boutique <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jdvhospitality.com\/company\/comingsoon.php\" target=\"_blank\">Hotel Angeleno<\/a>, owned by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jdvhospitality.com\/hotels\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joie de Vivre Hospitality<\/a>. It will be operated at a ***&frac12; ranking and daily room rates will start around $140 &#8212; about $35 more than Holiday Inn charged. Improvements will include a new sound baffle to reduce freeway noise, makeovers of the guest rooms and lobby and upgrades of the pool and fitness center. A new restaurant and lounge will open on the top floor.  Somehow, I don&#8217;t think they are upgrading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ichotelsgroup.com\/h\/d\/hi\/1\/en\/hd\/laxlb\" target=\"_blank\">the parallel hotel in Long Beach<\/a>.\n<p>But upscaling isn&#8217;t just happening in Brentwood. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-housing1nov01,1,4323158.story?coll=la-headlines-california\" target=\"_blank\">the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, the Bristol Hotel in Downtown LA is evicting its cadre of homeless residents were evicted so that it can be converted into a luxury boutique hotel. Signs of the times?<\/p>\n<li><b>Changes at Fidelity<\/b>: Meanwhile, there are also changes in store for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fidelity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Fidelity<\/a>&#8216;s largest Mutual Fund, <a href=\"http:\/\/personal.fidelity.com\/global\/search\/inquira\/resultsindex.shtml?question=Magellan\" target=\"_blank\">Magellan<\/a> (where I happen to have some IRAs). Although the fund did spectacularly under Peter Lynch, its performance has been so-so under Robert Stansky. Fidelity is pushing Stansky out, replacing him with Harry Lange, 53, manager of the Capital Appreciation Fund and Advisor Small Cap portfolio. I do hope this boosts performance.\n<li><b>Telecom Changes<\/b>: The FCC <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-fcc1nov01,1,4674802.story?coll=la-headlines-business\" target=\"_blank\">has approved the merger<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbc.com\/gen\/landing-pages?pid=3308\" target=\"_blank\">SBC<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.att.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">AT&#038;T<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbc.com\/gen\/press-room?pid=7368\" target=\"_blank\">which will be renamed AT&#038;T<\/a>), as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/www22.verizon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Verizon<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mci.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">MCI<\/a> (which will be renamed General Telephone). The FCC did get some useful concessions out of the behemoths: The two companies will be required to sell stand-alone high-speed Internet service, and they have agreed not to interfere with competing online services that customers choose to use.\n<li><b>Smile, You&#8217;re Not on Candid Camera<\/b>: According to Dennis Zine, LA City Councilman, the Red Light cameras in Los Angeles <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-redlight1nov01,1,903813.story?coll=la-headlines-california\" target=\"_blank\">have been turned off since June<\/a>. The contract for operating the cameras, which take photos of drivers who plow through a red light, expired as the city was deciding which company to choose for the next contract. According to the Councilcritter, they didn&#8217;t bother to tell the public, noting &#8220;There&#8217;s an advantage until the public finds out they&#8217;re not doing anything. It&#8217;s like parking a police car in front of a building and not having a police officer nearby. What good does that do? It&#8217;s good until people realize there&#8217;s a police car parked there and there&#8217;s no one connected to the car.&#8221;\n<li><b>Wither the Truth?<\/b>. Lastly, remember the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.umkc.edu\/faculty\/projects\/ftrials\/mcmartin\/mcmartin.html\" target=\"_blank\">McMartin Preschool mess<\/a> from over a decade ago? Well, one of the children in the case, now grown up, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/features\/printedition\/magazine\/la-tm-mcmartin44oct30,1,6187225.story?coll=la-story-footer&#038;track=mostemailedlink\" target=\"_blank\">admitted that he lied<\/a>. This is not to say that abuse does not happen, but that sometimes the furor of adults goes beyond the truth.<\/ul>\n<p>Well, the tea is cool now, and it&#8217;s off to mangle a document&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t done an &#8220;Observations on the News&#8221; in a while, but today there are a few articles worth commenting upon (although one is older). All are from the LA Times online. Hotels Going Upscale: The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Brentwood Holiday Inn (that round hotel you see just north of Sunset <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=348\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,1],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","category-lj-xfer","tag-los-angeles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}