Interest

Edward A. Frieman, a leading figure in American science for decades as a researcher with wide-ranging interests, a top-level governmental advisor on defense and energy issues, and director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has died. He was 87. Frieman died April 11 at UCSD's Thornton Hospital in La Jolla of a respiratory illness, the university announced. His legacy extends to leadership posts in academia, government and private industry. There are "not many like him, and he will be sorely missed," said John Deutch, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CIA director and deputy secretary of Defense.

More than 25 pro baseball scouts are crowded around the bullpen at Westlake Village Oaks Christian to catch a glimpse of senior right-hander Phil Bickford warming up. Some are holding stopwatches; others are carrying video cameras. It's an all-out study session that will repeat itself each time Bickford steps on the mound. Whether he smiles or frowns, whether he winks or sighs, every reaction is being watched and evaluated. The reason: Bickford has put himself in position to be a possible first-round pick in the June amateur draft.

Perhaps Americans aren't so enamored with the stock market. More than three-quarters of individual investors say in a new survey that agonizingly low interest rates are not coaxing them into stocks. According to the study by personal-finance website Bankrate.com, 76% of people are not more inclined to invest in equities because of rock-bottom rates on bank savings accounts and certificates of deposit. That's roughly the same percentage who shied away from stocks in a survey by Bankrate.com last year.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti has amended two years of financial disclosure statements to belatedly report his ownership interest in a Beverly Hills property linked to an oil drilling operation. Garcetti, who has the Sierra Club's backing in his race against Wendy Greuel, signed a 20-year lease in the late 1990s that gave Venoco Inc. the right to drill under the retail property from the company's oil wells at nearby Beverly Hills High School. However, the city councilman from Silver Lake failed to report in his 2010 and 2011 disclosure filings that he co-owned the Wilshire Boulevard property, which houses a hair salon.

I wonder if the curators of the excellent "War/Photography" show at the Annenberg Space for Photography were tempted to include Jeff Wall's "Dead Troops Talk (A Vision After an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol, Near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter, 1986)". It certainly made a strong impression on Susan Sontag, whose book "Regarding the Pain of Others" ends with a long discussion of a work she considers "exemplary in its thoughtfulness and power. " An image of a "made-up event," this huge photograph was constructed in Wall's studio.

SACRAMENTO - As Gov. Jerry Brown returned this week from his trade mission to China, his decision to have his travel and that of 10 staffers paid for by special interests was raising eyebrows. The dozens of delegates who joined Brown on the tour for $10,000 each - footing their bills and that of the governor's entourage - included about 15 groups that lobby the state for favorable treatment on their agendas. The California Hospital Assn., Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors and other interests sent along representatives - in one case a lobbyist - affording them face time with the governor during layovers, meals and receptions.

One of the most intriguing things about the new crime drama "Pawn" is Michael Chiklis' British accent. It's not that it's particularly bad or good, but every time he speaks - which is a lot - it does make you wonder why ? The movie is a bit like that accent and joins the pantheon of mildly entertaining thrillers having a go at the domino logic we've seen so often in these movies, starting with that classic flaw in the criminal mind that makes two-bit thugs think they can outsmart compromised cops.

SACRAMENTO - Let's welcome the governor back home. It must be sobering. The work has been piling up. The real, difficult work. Actually, it was piling up even before Gov. Jerry Brown departed on a weeklong "trade and investment" mission to China with 90 lobbyists, business execs and pals - who kicked in enough extra money to pay for him and his aides. As I previously wrote, if this was really worth the governor's time and energy - if the state actually did benefit, and it probably did - then the state should have paid for it, not a horde of favor-seeking special interests.

The CHIME Institute charter school of Woodland Hills would be hard pressed to make ends meet without the help of a program sponsored by the Local Initiatives Support Corp., a New York nonprofit active in underprivileged communities across the nation. So why would everybody be happy if this LISC program went away? The answer has much to do with the insane way California has been financing all its public schools, and charter schools in particular, for more than a decade. Since the financial crisis of 2001, the state has balanced its books in part by deferring money due to public schools by months at a time.

California Democrats on Sunday condemned efforts led by members of their own party to overhaul the nation's schools, arguing that groups such as StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Before delegates overwhelmingly passed a resolution excoriating the groups on the final day of the party's annual convention here, speakers urged them to focus on protecting students and teachers. "People can call themselves Democrats for Education Reform -- it's a free country -- but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you're not a reformer, you're not helping education, and you're sure not much of a Democrat," said state Supt.