Power Politics

Two months ago, the American Assn. of Retired Persons said--to the skeptical raised eyebrows of some--that 25,000 people would attend its national convention, which opened Tuesday in Anaheim. It does indeed appear that the estimates were wrong: 20,000 had shown up by noon Tuesday, some arriving as early as 7 a.m. despite the fact that activities did not begin until 9. By 7:30 p.m.

Joseph Alsop, power-wielding syndicated political columnist for three decades, died Monday in his home in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. He was 78. Patricia Alsop, widow of his brother and writing partner, Stewart Alsop, said death was attributed to lung cancer, anemia and emphysema. He had been ill for several months.

Although surpassed in popularity by social media, campaign posters continue to serve as a fundamental, democratic form of expression used by grass-roots organizers and artists to convey a message for social change. "Decades of Dissent," a collection of 28 silk-screen protest posters from 1960 to 1980 on view at the Skirball Cultural Center, offers a historical perspective of one of the most volatile periods of California politics illustrated through this graphic art form. Topics featured in the posters include women's issues, gay rights, immigration reform, union empowerment and disillusionment with an unpopular war - issues that have hardly disappeared this election season.

One of the more charitable appraisals of "The Meeting" about the proposed Music Center expansion was that it was a disaster. Held in MCA chairman Lew Wasserman's office on Dec. 18, 1985, "The Meeting" was called so that Music Center chief executive Daniel Frost and director Wasserman could view architectural renderings for the expansion's placement on a 3.6-acre county-owned parking lot across from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Stumping for reelection to his fourth term in Los Angeles recently, Mayor Tom Bradley was surrounded by more than 100 well-dressed, young black professionals at a fund-raiser in fashionable Ladera Heights. The mayor looked around the room and was astounded. "There aren't more than six faces here that I know," said the mayor, who prides himself on knowing the movers and shakers in the black community.

In the final minutes of the hypnotizing 1997 film "Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y," by Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez, the soundtrack fills with the seductive opening strains of Van McCoy's 1975 smash, "The Hustle," which ushered in disco. On the screen, an Air France jetliner glides into view from the distance, soaring over a pastoral green landscape toward an airport runaway. Oooo-oo-oo-oo-oo! Do it!

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin backed away Tuesday from an electoral test of strength with conservative lawmakers by dropping his insistence on an April referendum that he had hoped would bolster his executive powers. Instead, he called for "a year of moratorium on all political fistfighting" to let Russia stabilize its plummeting economy, followed by elections of lawmakers in 1994 and a new president in 1995--each a year ahead of schedule.

The state Supreme Court on Monday released a plan for new California congressional and legislative districts that portends electoral disaster for incumbents of both parties and could shift the balance of power in the Legislature to the Republican Party. The tentative maps would improve prospects for Latinos in the Los Angeles Basin, but would not go as far as Latino political groups have demanded.

Sometimes in the state capital, what matters most is not what you know or even whom you know. It's where you eat. Take the case of Sen. Joseph B. Montoya, the Democrat from Whittier on trial in federal court on political corruption charges. Montoya was captured on videotape taking a $3,000 check from an undercover FBI agent at a restaurant near the Capitol. Montoya has denied any wrongdoing.

Enlightened bureaucrats at Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry set worthy national goals and then marshal the country's resources to reach the goals. If you think that is how Japan Inc. works, you might want to take a look at the nation's energy policy.