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Thursday's intriguing people
Ed Reyes
The Los Angeles, California, City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a boycott of Arizona-based businesses and governments unless the state repeals a new law giving police the power to question a detainee's immigration status. The city's legislative analyst reported that Los Angeles currently has $56 million in contracts with companies headquartered in Arizona.
According to The Los Angeles Times, during their debate on the resolution, council members compared Arizona's legislative behavior to Nazi Germany and the beginning of the Holocaust, as well as the internment and deportation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
"Los Angeles is the second-largest city in this country, an immigrant city, an international city. It needs to have its voice heard," said Councilman Reyes, a resolution sponsor. "As an American, I cannot go to Arizona today without a passport. If I come across an officer who's having a bad day and feels that the picture on my ID is not me, I can be ... deported, no questions asked. That is not American."
CNN This Just In: Los Angeles passes Arizona boycott over immigration law
Los Angeles Times: L.A. council bans most official travel to Arizona
John Legend
The singer-songwriter-pianist is helping to raise funds for Gulf Coast fishing families and environmentalists facing the challenges of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Legend and many other top artists will perform May 14–16 at the Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Along with Legend will be such performers as Zac Brown Band, Alison Krauss, The Black Crowes, and Jakob Dylan.
Legend, the winner of six Grammy awards, is also scheduled to appear at the Gulf Aid benefit concert in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Sunday.
Robert MacLean
An administrative judge has ruled that the Transportation Security Administration was within its rights when it fired the federal air marshal for leaking sensitive information to the media.
MacLean was fired in 2006, two years after he told an MSNBC reporter that the agency planned to remove air marshals from flights that required costly overnight hotels. The disclosure embarrassed the agency, coming only days after the government had sent out a warning about planned terror attacks on U.S. aircraft.
MacLean said he will appeal the administrative judge's decision and that he hopes for a suspension, not termination, as the appropriate punishment for his actions. He told CNN in 2009 that he never had to make an arrest in five years flying missions as an air marshal.
"It was a well-paying job with enormous responsibility, yet extremely tedious and mundane," he said. "You did the same thing every day, there was nothing new. You sat in your seat and prayed that nobody would set off an IED or ambush you mid-flight."
CNN This Just In: Judge upholds firing of federal air marshal
Maryam Ali
The 16-year-old sophomore at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia, wants to race with her school's crew team.
In a moving Washington Post profile, reporter Annie Gowen describes the challenges facing Ali - asthma, overweight, lives in subsidized housing - and how tough it was to pay for her $260 uniform and the team's $750 fees. And because she's not strong enough to row with others, her coach found her a separate boat to practice in.
Ali, who is African-American in a sport dominated by white competitive rowers, told the newspaper that her goal is to get in a race before the end of the season.
"I just want to do the best I can ... and be an important part of the team," she said.
Washington Post: Rower confronts class barriers with spot on crew team
Piers Sellers
The British-born NASA astronaut is taking a small piece of Sir Isaac Newton's famous apple tree into space on Friday on his trip to the International Space Station.
According to the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the mathematician and physicist saw an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666. Newton then hypothesized that the same gravitational force that made the apple fall also governed the motion of the moon.
London's Guardian newspaper reports that Sellers, who has dual UK-U.S. citizenship, said he will let the slice from Newton's tree float around in the Atlantis shuttle.
"While it's up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn't fall. ... Sir Isaac would have loved to see this, assuming he wasn't spacesick, as it would have proved his first law of motion to be correct."
The Guardian: Isaac Newton's apple tree to experience zero gravity
Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences: Newton's life
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I think I'll pray that the big one hits Cali this year.
This is a link to all of the companies that are leaving the fabulous economy of Ca.
http://thebusinessrelocationcoach.blogspot.com/2010/02/californias-hostile-business-climate.html
Ca has been broke for better thn 10 years, why do you think I left? Because of all the free stuff the state gives those who dont work. Why should working people pay for this? Why should a person who is here illegally draw social security, something all legal citizens pay into.
Can people quit saying "Founding Fathers" as a way to further some lame argument. THe world has changed more than our Founding Fathers could have ever imagined. It is simply a false arguement all the way around. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY WOULD THINK!!!!!! Live in the present folks.
Ed Reyes needs to stop the hyperbole and get real. Let's face it Ed, you're playing to your citizens not to your senses. The problem in Arizona is real, not an opportunity for you to better align your self for the next election.
Your statements are ridiculous
Shadi.......you should have kept your mouth shut. Don't argue with Americans over American issues. Just shut up, keep paying your taxes, and maybe the man will pass you by.
P.S. – It wouldn't hurt to display an American flag on your property or in your vehicle.
Mr. Reyes;
Try visiting Mexico without I.D. Let us know how you make out.
There is no doubt in my mind that this country is fu&$&n RACIST but give it 10 or 20 years and we are going to take back what you F*&% took from us all great civilizations have fallen it's just a matter of time
You want to see racist? Walk down any back street in SW America AFTER DARK!
I find it amazing that we can waste so much time on something that is so open-and-shut. Wake up people the key word here is illegal. Arizona is taking a step in the right direction. If you disagree and support illegal activities then maybe you are part of the problem. Like they say if you don't like a law vote to change it.
If the Federal government would do its job and secure our borders, Arizona wouldn't have to deal with it as a State issue. This is NOT the same as Nazi Germany. Read your history before making such foolish and knee-jerk comments.
Instead of boycotting Arizona, all states should support this initiative and force the Feds to get off of their backside and put the border problem on the front burner. Forget about regulating the fat in McDonald's food, or the sodium in supermarket products. Secure this country !!!
If LA wants to cancel some contracts, that are convenient for them to cancel, then AZ should cancel their ends of contracts to LA... like for providing electric power and water. Let them go elsewhere for it!
I understand, that immigration is a big problem in states like Arizona, but that is not the way to solve the problem. I don't think anybody wants to have open borders, but do you really want to let cops decide who looks like an illegal and who doesn't? That is gonna cause a huge division and is unnecessary. It is a proven fact that the police will abuse its power and most likely they will do it this time. Remember that most cops don't have enough training to fight real crimes and now you are giving them more responsibilities. Everyone knows that this law is designed to find that scape goat and blame it on the immigrants. It's happening all over again.
Arizona is not worrying about LA businesses, Arizona is worrying about protecting the citizen of Arizona. Arizona could care less if LA boycott against Arizona. Arizona will stand strong and firm regardless what other state impose. In Texas, I hope we will do the same. We are all sick and tire of these blood sucking rats that come to America to take advantage of our system so that their own country can benefit leaving us all broke and corrupted like California. It no wonder why they are all broke because of these illegal immigrant...The Hell with California and the Hell! with city council man Reyes...
Response to Imran: Welcome to the way the world works Pollyanna! Yes, everyone came from somewhere you may want to go back and try to reclaim what your ancestors lost but what makes you think you can when you couldn't hold on to it in the first place? The strong survive and the weak whine about it.
Here's Ed's email. Give him a shout. This is the kind of garbage we have to vote out of office.
councilmember.reyes@lacity.org