June 16, 2017

Hometown Hero Frank Gehry


Frank Gehry LARB Event Susan Morse House
photo credit Susan Cloke

Hometown Hero: Frank Gehry
SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror
June 16, 2017

Frank Gehry likes to say, “You know, I’m 88.”  He was born in Toronto, Canada in 1929.  As one of only 30 Jewish families in town at that time, he often found himself called names and physically attacked. 

Gehry is now a ‘starchitect’ - a label given to the current group of world famous architects who have variously expressed the culture, angst and beauty of our time through their architecture.  It is a label he does not seek. “I’m still in my head the outsider and I feel comfortable there. I like it there,” says Gehry.

Santa Monicans will have seen his new house, under construction on Adelaide, built for his wife Berta and designed by their son Sam with a lot of kibitzing from Frank.  The front form holds one bedroom, a living room, a dining room and a family room.  The back form holds two guest rooms and a small caretaker’s apartment, a music room and the garage.  The house boasts an impressive use of geothermal energy. Gehry applauds the environmental benefits but deplores the cost. He thinks as costs decrease the use of geothermal energy will become mainstream.

“The chain link in the front is only temporary,” said Gehry - a tongue-in-cheek reference to his house on Washington and 22nd in Santa Monica.  Built in the 1970’s, his use of chain link and other ubiquitous materials to build this “inside/outside” house made him both revered and scorned.  
Gehry Adelaide House 2017

On a banner sunshine-into-dusk day, with the Pacific sparkling in the background, people gathered to hear the Architecture Critic Joseph Giovannini interview Frank Gehry.  The LARB (Los Angeles Review of Books) sponsored event was held in the home of architect and painter Susan Morse.  

Giovannini introduced Gehry saying, “He is a world historical figure.”  Giovannini’s introduction is supported by Gehry’s work.   A partial list includes the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota; the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, CA; Opus Residential Tower in Hong Kong; Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, France: and the Boulez Hall in Berlin, Germany.

Gehry’s interest is currently focused on the LA River Project.  Asked by LA Mayor Garcetti, Gehry is working, pro bono, on a study of the River.  “The thrust of what has happened so far is habitat and recreation,” said Gehry. 

“The ideal,” said Gehry, “is to divert water during storms and return it to the river or clean it and return it to the aquifer.”

Gehry wanted to understand the communities along the 51 miles of the LA River.  As part of this work he prepared an index of public health issues, specifically through South LA to where the LA River meets the ocean in Long Beach.  Gehry found staggering numbers recording high health risks of diseases that public health officials correlate with limited open space and few recreational activities.

Gehry studied reports from the Army Corps of Engineers to gain understanding of the engineering challenges of the LA River project.  The Corps now also supports habitat and restoration of the LA River and ties the LA River project to environmental quality.
Tension and conflict in the LA River project come with locating available land, which is difficult in some areas, and flooding which is always dangerous. “Hard not to get stuck,” Gehry mused, “Where to go?”  

Gehry is turning his attention to the Boyle Heights part of the LA River thinking, “If you could build a park it would connect the City.” 

Continuing his interest in education he is contributing to a Michelle Obama program for Arts in the Schools. “Melissa Shriver runs our program and we now have 14 schools we fund where we bring arts to the classroom. It is similar to my work in the 70’s on a program directed by my sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, called Design Based Learning.”

Gehry describes one class where “David Hockney came to Menlo Park.  He brought vases and flowers, arranged them, drew on the computer and projected the drawings on a wall.  60% of the children in the class were homeless.  We gave them each a computer and they then made their own drawings which are now on display at Zuckerberg’s office.”  (Zuckerberg funded this project.)

From schools in California to music in Germany, Gehry continues to use his status and his art to create buildings and to work for world changing communities.  In Berlin, working with Daniel Barenboim, Gehry designed the Pierre Boulez Saal where young Arab and Israeli musicians could train together with the combined idea of creating music and creating hope for the future of the Middle East.

The journalist Joseph Morgenstern, writing for the NYT in 1982, said about Gehry, “Even in California, where idiosyncrasy is a mass movement, Frank O. Gehry is in a class by himself. He is the most important architect in the state, indeed in the West.”  That was 1982.  He is now one of the most important architects in the world.  Gehry’s work expands the definition of starchitect to include a person who uses skill, knowledge and position to make a more interesting, more fun and safer world.










April 20, 2017

The March for Science: Santa Monicans on the Issues of the March





The March for Science: Santa Monicans on the Issues of the March
Susan Cloke. Columnist. Santa Monica Mirror
April 21, 2017

The Los Angeles March for Science is one of over 500 Science Marches taking place in the U.S. and around the world on Earth Day, April 22, 2017. 

The organizers of the March write, “Science, scientists, and evidence-based policymaking are under attack.  Budget cuts, censorship of researchers, disappearing data sets, and threats to dismantle government agencies harm us all, putting our health, food, air, water, climate, and jobs at risk.”   
Agreeing with the concerns stated is Anton Bilchik, M.D. of the John Wayne Cancer Center in Santa Monica.

Dr. Bilchik, a renowned cancer researcher and surgical oncologist said,
“My understanding is that there is a purposed 20% cut in funding for NIH (National Institute of Health) research.  The consequences of that are massive. There will be fewer research studies and fewer clinical trials.  It will slow the process of developing new treatments and new detection methods and surgical quality measures.  

“The impact is on cancer centers, universities, training of new doctors and specialists and the long term inevitability of people not wanting to go into research because there will be no reasonable expectation of funding.

“One of the most exciting areas in cancer therapy is immunotherapy, over the past 5 years there has been enormous progress changing how we treat cancer - breakthroughs made possible by research supported by NIH.

From medicine to sustainability, scientists in every field are concerned.  Mark Gold, D.Env, is best known as the first Director of HTB (Heal the Bay)
He is currently Vice Chancellor of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA

Gold spoke about being at the 25,000 person conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December of 2016, remembering, “There was a palpable anxiety about the future of scientific research in the face of the denial of the importance and value of science by President Trump.

“The thought of science on the chopping block in Trump’s proposed budget is nothing less than horrifying.”

Sarah Sikich is the current Vice President of HTB.  She holds a master’s degree in environmental science and a bachelor’s in marine biology.

“We are at a tipping point for climate change and for water protection.
With the Trump Administration questioning the importance of science and the reality of climate change we have to say it is irresponsible not to use science in the protection of our nation.

“HTB scientists’ research on the level of harmful bacteria present in the Santa Monica Bay and the frequency and severity of sicknesses for swimmers and surfers helped to lay the foundation for environmental laws and regulations that have dramatically improved the water quality of the Bay. 

“As an environmental organization whose work is based on science HTB
believes we have to be part of the Angeleno community coming together to let President Trump, all our elected leaders and the entire Federal Government know they must use science in governing.”

Joining in the protection of science and research is the NRDC’s (Natural Resources Defense Council) Water Director and Senior Attorney, Steve Fleishli.

“The new administration has expressed such disdain for science.  There is a fundamental assail on science which threatens our work to understand and combat climate change and water quality.

“Fortunately we still have a system of checks and balances.  Trump cannot rule by fiat.  He can’t undo laws with a wave of a magic wand.

NRDC is in litigation against the EPA for illegally rescinding the rule regulating discharges of mercury - a neurotoxin that can harm the nervous system and on the refusal to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos - linked to learning disabilities in children.

“I am confident we will prevail. While we are already moving against the Trump administration, the court process is slow and tremendous damage could be done in the interval.”

California is a world leader in biomedical research, technology, renewable energy, water conservation, environmental protections.  Innovation based in science.  

President Trump can’t tweet away facts.  The facts are that climate change is real, world temperatures are rising, oceans are rising.

Global climate change is a race.  Waiting out the Trump administration is not an option.   On an individual scale, biomedical research saves lives.  We are poised at a great moment in medicine.  Now is the time for science.  Now is the time for the democratic resistance.


Los Angeles March   http://marchforsciencela.com/
Date: April 22, 2017
Location: Pershing Square Park
Time: 9AM - 4PM














January 22, 2017

Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017







Women’s March On Washington
SUSAN CLOKE
January 21, 2017



This is What Democracy Looks Like” chanted the hundreds of thousands of women I marched with on Saturday, January 21 in Washington DC.  

We were talking about ourselves; women, men, all colors, all ages, people of all religions, from all countries, of all sexual identities.

It was the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. and women were reeling from the election of a person with his misogynistic and racist view of the world.

But make no mistake.  The March, which ended in front of the White House, was not about Trump.  It was about the empathic and compassionate values of democracy.  Women, and the many men who were at the March, carried signs they had made calling for human rights, health care, education and protection of the environment.

Signs were the manifesto of the March.

With self-deprecating humor and real defiance hundreds of thousands of marchers wore hand knitted pink pussy hats.

“P**** Grabs Back,” said signs made in outraged response to Trump’s, on tape, self-admitted groping assaults on women’s genitals.




Women are mightily offended by Donald Trump, by his assumption that women are fair game for his unwanted advances, his rating system and his self-admitted sexual assaults.  

Offense becomes defiance at the threat of taking away women’s rights to control their own bodies.  “My Body, My Rights.”  

Signs spoke to issues and values: Black Lives Matter, Voter Suppression, Russian influence on the U.S. election, Environmental Protection, Climate Change, Standing Rock,  Public Education, Criminal Justice, Bridges Not Walls. 

The serious messages of the signs mixed with the joyful spirit of the crowd.  Marchers were wonderfully patient and kind.  There were too many people to be able to reach the stage on the Mall and hear the speakers and singers.  The crowd overflowed the Mall, it was too big for the designated March route.  Calmly taking to adjacent streets, people found their own way to the White House.  

The point of the March was made and everyone knew it.  This march took people past election shock and into action.  People were going to stand up for democracy, for values of equality and inclusivity, for women’s rights, for the safety of Americans and human rights, for a worldwide expression of values of empathy and compassion.  

This is What Democracy Looks Like” was the constant refrain of the crowd of mostly women, women of all colors, ages, and sexual identities.  And they mean to stay the course.  



Lawmakers in Congress should know we have our eyes on this Congress, its votes and its leadership.  

Americans, of all races, religions, countries of origin and sexual identity will stand up for themselves and for each other. 

The March was an organizing triumph.  Teresa Shook, a 60+ year old grandmother from Hawaii, put up a Facebook Page on November 9, the day after Trump was elected,  calling for women to march.  Within a day thousands of women had responded.

On January 21, the day after the inauguration, women marched in all fifty states.  Crowd estimates available as of today’s date: DC. 500,000+, NYC 400,000+, Chicago 250,000+, Los Angeles 750,000+, Boston 175,000+, Montpelier 15,000+. 

Women marched in “Sister Marches” in  London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Nairobi, Cape Town and Sydney and more.

The Marchers know our democracy is strong.  Our rule of law is strong.  Our history is one of facing and overcoming our problems.  We are not a perfect country but we are a country whose Constitution and  Laws protect us as we work to peacefully make changes to law and culture.  

Marchers are defiant and determined.  They are afraid of what Trump can do with the power of the Presidency behind him. While no knows what will come.  They are committed to the fight. They are the new democratic resistance.