Shake

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

"I just want to cry," Parnelli Jones said, and a moment later tears welled in the eyes of the legendary race car driver Thursday. The tears were for veteran driver Jason Leffler, a Long Beach native who died Wednesday night from injuries in a sprint-car racing crash in New Jersey. He was 37 and left behind a 5-year-old son, Charlie. As tributes from the racing community poured in for Leffler, who also raced in all three of NASCAR's national series, his death was acutely felt at Jones' race shop in Torrance.

Of the hundreds of exercise gadgets that have graced TV airwaves over the years, only a handful ever become big-time sellers and even fewer become cultural phenomenons. The Shake Weight is definitely in that rarified category. Over 3.6 million people have watched the Shake Weight ad on YouTube, and millions more saw the device featured on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and spoofed on "Saturday Night Live." If you've somehow missed the hoopla, an introduction is in order. The Shake Weight is a 2.5 pound dumbbell-shaped device with spring-loaded weights on each end. Instead of simply lifting the Shake Weight, users are instructed to grip it with two hands and shake it up and down as if priming a bottle of soda to explode.

ARDMORE, Pa. - There were no priests in black robes, no curtained booth to slip into, no screened window to talk through. But Sergio Garcia, star golfer currently suffering the aftereffects of foot-in-the-mouth disease, had it different than those who preceded him Tuesday to pre-U.S. Open news conferences. Sergio's was a confessional. Bless me, everybody, for I have sinned. He didn't have to come in. A U.S. Golf Assn. official confirmed that. But he knew, as did the USGA, that it was the right thing to do. And to his credit, Garcia did not try to brush through it, did not duck questions, nor do the common athlete non-apology apology.

So the poor downtrodden, starving Russian masses can now drink Pepsi. Gorby, shake hands with Marie-Antoinette. GEORGE MARGO Malibu

Re "Green shake," Opinion, June 11 As I was reading the Op-Ed article headlined "Green shake," I was convinced that after the author graduated from the petty crimes and misdemeanors while working at Wrigley Field in Chicago, he probably led a life of crime, became a Chicago mob boss or ended up serving time. How surprised I was to learn that he became an attorney. Mike Clark Los Angeles :: I had always suspected how business was done in Chicago: The power of the "green shake."

A jukebox tune that brings back fond memories During the '50s, when I was 9 years old, every diner had a jukebox ["Keeping the Jukes Jumping," Aug. 10, by Dean Kuipers]. I was crazy about them and always saved up money so I could go just to listen to the jukebox. One diner at Newport Beach had "Shake, Rattle and Roll," by Big Joe Turner, on its jukebox, and I would go there almost every day to listen to it. That must have been the song that was played the most often. Once when I put in my nickel and punched "Shake, Rattle and Roll," I got some ballad by the McGuire Sisters.

Regarding "Touting Initiatives, Eschewing Principles," Golden State, May 26: Since we are all so busy, I am glad that columnist Michael Hiltzik has simplified Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's upcoming initiative campaign by explaining it in one article. The three initiatives are designed to decrease state government spending, shake up an entrenched state Legislature with new redistricting and make teachers more accountable through delayed tenure. This is why we sent Arnold to Sacramento.

Your editorial "The Squeeze on the Middle Class Is a Chokehold on the State" (Sept. 30) has got to be a classic. Hooray for you. I hope you have started something. How can we entice the inactive majority to get out and register and then vote on a regular basis? If 75% to 80% of the potential voting population got out and voted and still voted to maintain the present type of self-serving politics, well then so be it. However, I'll stake my life on the proposition that if a miracle did happen where everyone eligible to vote made that effort, there would be a difference.

In Martha Groves' "Screen Parable Explores Dynamics of Workplace Power and Ethics" (Corporate Currents, Aug 3.), she states that because of downsizing and concomitant job insecurity, "angst, misery and anger reign in many fast-shifting companies." Every day the media tout the terrific economy while employees are being laid off to cut expenses and enhance corporate profits. Investors gleefully up share prices every time a layoff is announced. There exists a sense that the structural foundation of America's corporations may wobble, shake and collapse.

WASHINGTON - In filling two key positions on his national security team, President Obama on Wednesday elevated longtime loyal advisors known for advocating U.S. intervention for humanitarian missions overseas - in some cases more aggressively than the president has embraced. Two years ago, Susan Rice and Samantha Power helped persuade Obama to take military action in Libya, where Moammar Kadafi was seeking to crush a rebellion that ultimately overthrew him. But White House officials said Obama was not signaling an intent to move toward intervention in Syria when he announced that Rice would be his next national security advisor and Power would take her place as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In the desert, Nicolas Shake piles up old tires, dried palm fronds, mounds of dirt, wooden pallets, old car parts and other stuff scavenged from remote roadsides then decorates them with colored lights. As night falls the makeshift, temporary sculptures are photographed, the resulting prints becoming permanent records of an ephemeral art. In Shake's five photographs at Western Project, the slow slide between daylight and darkness underscores the transitory nature of the subject, which is an art conceived as something with a fragile life span rather than being timeless or eternal.

Operating on just four hours of sleep and trailed by a swarm of journalists, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel asked for votes and talked up the historic nature of her campaign during a lunchtime stop in Chinatown. "I'm the most qualified candidate, and I would be -- I will be -- the first woman mayor," she told two women eating French dip sandwiches at Philippe The Original. To an elderly woman with a walker, Greuel said: "You've lived to meet the first woman mayor of Los Angeles!"

After the coffee. Before my last day of upfront presentations. Phew! The Skinny: I love New York but it seems to have gotten even more crowded since I left years ago. I can't deal! Thursday's headlines include CBS's new fall schedule and a restructuring at the Warner Bros. TV Group. Also, a cable company is the latest to sniff around Hulu. If you are interested in receiving an email alert when the Morning Fix is live please send me a note . Daily Dose: The pilot episode for the new CBS sitcom "The Crazy Ones" starring Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar as a father-daughter advertising team gave McDonald's a lot of love.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has reassigned three of his deputies, including the head of the department's internal affairs division, in a shake-up the chief said is meant to usher in "fresh perspectives. " The most notable of the moves will see Deputy Chief Mark Perez, who has run internal affairs for several years and oversaw a dramatic shift in how the department handles discipline, be replaced by another deputy chief, Debra McCarthy. McCarthy, 52, currently commands the department's West Bureau, which includes police stations in Venice, West L.A. and Hollywood.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has reassigned three of his deputies, including the head of the department's internal affairs division, in a shake-up the chief said is meant to usher in "fresh perspectives. " The most notable of the moves will see Deputy Chief Mark Perez, who has run internal affairs for several years and oversaw a dramatic shift in how the department handles discipline, be replaced by another deputy chief, Debra McCarthy. McCarthy, 52, currently commands the department's West Bureau, which includes police stations in Venice, West L.A. and Hollywood.

Most of us consume milk. We put it on cereal and add it to coffee. We give it to our children by the glassful to build up their bones. Women are encouraged to drink it throughout adulthood to maintain those bones. We select this milk from an ever-expanding range. Milk comes in whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat versions. We have organic milk and milk labeled as coming from farms that do not use hormones. But to Northern Californian dairy farmer Ron Garthwaite, these milks aren't milk at all.

ARDMORE, Pa. - There were no priests in black robes, no curtained booth to slip into, no screened window to talk through. But Sergio Garcia, star golfer currently suffering the aftereffects of foot-in-the-mouth disease, had it different than those who preceded him Tuesday to pre-U.S. Open news conferences. Sergio's was a confessional. Bless me, everybody, for I have sinned. He didn't have to come in. A U.S. Golf Assn. official confirmed that. But he knew, as did the USGA, that it was the right thing to do. And to his credit, Garcia did not try to brush through it, did not duck questions, nor do the common athlete non-apology apology.

Tom Jones sits in a cozy booth along one wall of a favorite Beverly Hills restaurant. At 72, his curly hair and neatly manicured mustache and goatee are more salt than pepper after his decision to give up black hair dye a few years ago. But Jones appears dapper as usual, ultra-tan and fit in his smart black suit and dark, ribbed crew-neck shirt. The era-spanning entertainer is here to talk about his new album, "Spirit in the Room," coming out Tuesday. His latest work continues a career rejuvenation that kicked off in earnest three years ago with "Praise & Blame," a collection produced by Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns.

The bendy brilliance attained by practicing yoga has become a treasure sought after by many Americans. Hindu monks brought the 5,000-year-old practice to the West in the late 19th century, and by the mid-1980s, yoga was heralded as a way to cultivate strength, mindfulness and calm. And as yoga has gained popularity, newfangled ways of practicing have emerged. Love the ocean? Had a few too many Appletinis last night? Want to be surrounded by "bro" energy? There's a class for you. It seems only natural that people who practice yoga will combine it with other interests.