“Cultural center developer looks to allay critics after discovery of skeletal remains - Los Angeles Times” plus 1 more |
| Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:39 PM PST Officials at the planned Mexican American cultural center La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which is being built near Olvera Street, scrambled to do damage control this week after news about excavated skeletal remains generated more and more criticism. The fragile bones of dozens of bodies had been found in this historic downtown spot, buried beneath the site of a planned outdoor space and garden. Native American groups, archaeologists and the L.A. Archdiocese have voiced concerns over the removal of what may be the remains of the city's first cemetery. Spanish, Native American and Mexican people were among the early settlers buried in that Catholic cemetery, located south of La Placita Church. In 1844, when the cemetery officially closed, the bodies were supposed to have been moved and reinterred elsewhere, according to records of the archdiocese. On Sunday, some who claimed to be descendants of those buried settlers called for at least a temporary stop to construction. "Our excavation has not ceased," said La Plaza spokeswoman Katie Dunham. But La Plaza officials started meeting with members of the Native American community on Thursday and will continue to do so on Friday, Dunham said. "We're just figuring out what the next step would be and trying to understand the concerns." La Plaza officials say they have followed all legal and archaeological protocols. They said they had consulted with the archdiocese and were told to return the bones to the church for reburial. On Monday a church official had sent a stern letter saying that the chief executive of the development hadn't made clear the extent of the find. "That you have possibly discovered substantial remains, including full burials … raises for us a number of new ethical and legal questions concerning the current activity at your construction site," wrote Brian McMahon, director of the church's cemeteries office to La Plaza Chief Executive Miguel Angel Corzo, in a letter obtained by The Times. "We are not interested in helping to manage your public relations issue in order that the project may continue; we want to see the right steps taken and taken quickly to deal correctly and responsibly with this matter." The archdiocese does not own the land and has no involvement in the project. "We're trying to set up a meeting with them," Dunham said of archdiocese officials. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, the driving force behind the cultural center project, has declined to comment on the controversy. Her spokeswoman referred phone calls to Corzo. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| GTT: A Cultural Roundup - New York Times Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:53 PM PST Our quirky, discerning picks for the most interesting things to do around the state this week. AUSTIN Inconvenient Truths Shearwater is its own breed: an environmental rock band. The Austin group's last three albums form a trilogy of paeans to the world and its inhabitants, with operatic heft and symphonic attention to detail. "Rook" and "The Golden Archipelago" occupy land and sea, war and wilderness, vanishing human and animal worlds. "Palo Santo" interprets the life of Nico, the Velvet Underground singer, who died on the Spanish island of Ibiza. "She was kind of an island unto herself, a sort of unreachable, unknowable presence," said Jonathan Meiburg, the band's choirboy-voiced singer. For one night only — and before the band abandons its elegant sound for a new one that Mr. Meiburg calls "more messy, personal and ecstatic" — Shearwater will present The Island Arc, a single performance of all three releases, in sequence, at Central Presbyterian Church. There is no better forum for a sermon on creation and apocalypse. Central Presbyterian Church, Jan. 15, 8 p.m. SAN ANTONIO Kingdom Come Marc Lamont Hill thinks the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been reduced to "a multicultural action figure" used to further people's agendas. On his Web site, Dr. Hill wrote, "Instead of focusing on his critiques of American racism, his challenge to American imperialism, his project to eradicate global poverty, or his opposition to the war, we have allowed the image of Martin to be hijacked by the religious and secular Right, as well as the socially conservative Left." Dr. Hill, an associate professor at Columbia University and a leading cultural anthropologist of the hip-hop era, will seek to reclaim Dr. King's legacy on Wednesday when he delivers Trinity University's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture. Two days earlier, on Martin Luther King's Birthday, you can join Trinity's president, Dennis A. Ahlburg, and his students and staff for a peace march through San Antonio's east side. It's an opportunity for a new generation to symbolically walk a mile in the shoes of the freedom fighter. Lecture: Trinity University, Jan. 19, 7 p.m. March: MLK Freedom Bridge, Jan. 17, 10 a.m.trinity.edu MISSION Freshly Squeezed Orange and grapefruit growers in the Rio Grande Valley have reason to party hard at this year's Texas Citrus Fiesta. Earlier this month, the federal government lifted a ban on the distribution of Texas citrus to other citrus-producing states, thus restoring a major source of revenue. This small victory comes just in time for the fiesta, an annual two-week appreciation that culminates in a Rose Bowl-type parade and the coronation of King Citrus and Queen Citriana. The affair dates back to 1932, when Paul Ord and the Young Men's Business League of Mission came up with the idea for showcasing the area's agricultural bounty. Festivities begin Jan. 15, with the Product Costume Show, a grand display of outfits decorated with local citrus, and other fruits and vegetables. Mission Community Center, Jan. 15, 2 p.m. texascitrusfiesta.net HOUSTON Sugar-Free Pop Daniel Johnston, the mentally ill folk singer whom Kurt Cobain praised and who quantifies his success by his number of appearances on MTV, is turning 50, and nine bands are joining him to celebrate. The perfect birthday present for Mr. Johnston is a six-pack of Diet Coke — he'll probably down at least that many on stage while cruising and sputtering through a collection of three-and-a-half-minute ditties about ghosts and girls, fame and misfortune. This will necessitate a bathroom break or two for Mr. Johnston, which will, in turn, create the kind of crack-up awkward moments that make him so endearing. Consider it a rare opportunity to bask in the presence of this underground king of pop songcraft, who used the song "Freedom" on his last album, the overlooked "Is and Always Was," to meditate on his demise: "Last night I dreamed I died in my sleep, only to awake laying in a coffin." Fitzgerald's, Jan. 14, 8 p.m. hihowareyou.com KERRVILLE Breakfast Hash The seventh Annual Hill Country Cowboy Breakfast starts at the break of day, but you won't need coffee with an eye-opening slate of activities that includes bowling with frozen turkeys, speed-milking bleating goats and "throwing the bull" (tossing a dried cow chip in a bucket). Kerr County Courthouse Square, Jan. 14, 6 a.m. hcdjls.org EL PASO Freewheeling Four-Wheeling Aside from the havoc wreaked by Bigfoot in what will be the granddaddy of monster trucking's return to the mud pit, the Monster Truck Thunder Slam will feature the Globe of Death, in which motorcyclists ride the insides of a 16-foot circular cage. El Paso County Coliseum, Jan. 14-16, various times. amptour.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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