Fund Raising

The Republican Party is using the newfound fame of the lawmaker who shouted "You lie!" at President Obama to raise money for GOP candidates around the country. Although party leaders initially called Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's recent speech to Congress disrespectful and unacceptable, fundraisers have apparently decided it can be an asset. Wilson, a previously obscure South Carolina Republican, is slated to appear at a fundraiser next month for Tim Walberg, a former Michigan Republican congressman who was defeated in November and is seeking his old seat.

When a wildfire swept into the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden last May, it left behind a smoldering mountain of debris. Except for one shovel, flames destroyed every tool the gardeners had accumulated over 83 years. Thousands of plants were gone, and thousands of botanical volumes too. A century-old, 9,500-square-foot house, eight of the garden's nine vehicles, the director's home, the split-rail fences lining tranquil paths -- all were turned to cinders. Until a Los Angeles nonprofit, ART from the ashes, saw a transforming opportunity, it was rubble without a cause.

Don Foley made his first AIDS Walk Los Angeles 25 years ago, when the annual event first started. And he hasn't missed a one. On Sunday, Foley, 79, joined 30,000 others who walked the 6.2-mile route through West Hollywood to raise money and awareness to fight AIDS. While some marchers hoisted signs high into the air and chanted, Foley, moving with the others along Melrose Avenue, reflected on how much has changed over the years. Decades ago, there "wasn't much to do those days except watch your friends die," Foley said.

One group started walking on Oct. 18 from Cal State Long Beach. The other set out a week earlier from Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. Although the Southern Californians were 1,700 miles from this small Missouri town made famous as the site of Sir Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946, the two groups had the same goal: to fight hunger in the U.S. and around the world. This is the 40th anniversary of Crop Hunger Walk, a national interfaith program sponsored by Church World Service and viewed by many as the granddaddy of charity walks.

None of them know sign language. But the value of a Koreatown rehabilitation center for the deaf came through loud and clear to the three short-term "temps" when they were sent there by their agency to do clerical office work. Now they are fighting to save the center. Those enrolled in daily classes at the Center for Communicative Development have spent their lives in silent illiteracy and isolation. Most are from countries that do not provide a formal education to those who cannot hear -- and who have never spoken.

Every morning for 19 days, Dave Jurasevich awoke on Mt. Wilson to sunrises darkened by smoke and ash. Every night, the superintendent of the Mt. Wilson Observatory slept at the site he hoped to protect. He was too worried to catch more than three or four hours of rest a night. When he did sleep, he bedded down on a mattress on the floor of a small office. He was usually hungry. Firefighters slept in the next room. Overhead, the night sky glowed hot as the Station fire raged closer.

The most telling image at the Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th anniversary gala wasn't hanging on a wall. It was a vignette that a few early guests might have seen: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gazing intently at a Mark Rothko painting during a private tour. For MOCA, which recently made what Eli Broad called one of the "biggest turnarounds in the history of the art world," the sight of one of pop culture's most royal couples taking in one of Abstract Expressionism's most influential pioneers was just the kind of image the museum was trying to project at Saturday night's lavish affair.

The final note of Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign may very well be sung by Jon Bon Jovi. The musician is performing at a fundraiser for the former presidential candidate as she tries to close out her campaign debt, which stood at $6.3 million as of last month. Tickets for the Jan. 15 performance are $75 to $1,000.

These days, one of Michael Govan's private pleasures, flying a single-engine prop plane, gives him a useful perspective on the challenges of his public role: piloting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during a time of economic turbulence. "I know head winds when I see them or feel them," he says. With the 1979 Beechcraft Bonanza he keeps at Santa Monica Airport, Govan has the option of waiting out bad weather. With LACMA, he has to keep airborne and on course no matter what: The museum is about midway through a multipronged, multimillion-dollar "Transformation."

Despite a sagging economy and a recent lightning strike that reduced the station's power, classical music station KUSC-FM (91.5) had its second-most successful membership drive this month, President Brenda Barnes said Thursday. KUSC raised $1.24 million in its winter on-air fundraising campaign between Feb. 4 and Feb. 13, a figure Barnes said came from a record-setting 8,691 donations. The amount trailed only the fall membership drive in 2007, Barnes said, when KUSC received $1.35 million from 8,618 donations.