This year’s Echo Park Artists Festival–which will take place on Saturday, Oct. 10– will expand its offerings to include dance and spoken word performances.

Local writers Steve Abee and Gordon Henderson are working on a line-up of 10 writers to present their work during a two hour, outdoor performance. In addition, entertainment coordinator Sonya Mims is working on adding a flamenco dance group as well as a live theatrical performance that will take place on Lemoyne Street at Sunset Blvd. (more…)

On Echo Park Avenue is a mural Aaron Donovan painted in homage to a man across the street who has bunnies, chickens and a pony—and at one time, a cow—in his sprawling yard just steps from Sunset Boulevard. Entitled “Chicken Corner,” the huge, colorful mural announces a new presence in the neighborhood: a triple-threat response to the often snobby West Side art world. The opening of three new galleries this year, all dedicated to providing a venue to emerging artist who have been shunned by the more conservative art machine, promise to transform this vibrant working-class community with artistic energy. (more…)

Need a graphic designer to create your business cards? Or a musician to help you complete a composition? Then look for the upcoming “Made in Echo Park: A Directory of Designers & Creative Services.”  (more…)

Fototeka Gallery will present during the month of February “Love Hurts,” a solo exhibit of the recent works of photo-collage artist Carlos Batts.

The artist’s photo-manipulations, lush and brimming with imagery and texture and a wide range of emotion, are hand-produced, using traditional collage-making techniques, mixing painting, photography and film. (more…)

Echo Park based International Metal Supply consists of Paul B. Cutler, who was involved in the early punk and post-punk scenes in Los Angeles, and Jean-Pierre Bedoyan, a former soloist with the Percussions de Strasbourg avant-garde ensemble in France, also composer for the critically acclaimed Diavolo dance company in Los Angeles. Together they reclaim the current supply of metal offered by our post-industrial age - discards found in the junkyards of Los Angeles - and, through collage, welding and random imagination, create original instruments. Against the grain of mass-produced entertainment, they control every aspect of their production - from improvisational composition to design and manufacturing. Their collaboration is playful, entertaining, and generously ironical.

The second oldest cultural institution, the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States, more than 33 million specimens and artifacts.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Center for Biological Diversity filed a groundbreaking lawsuit today challenging the City of Banning’s approval of the sprawling “Black Bench” development, charging that it will contribute to global warming, air pollution and other environmental harm. The proposed development would place more than 1,400 new houses on natural grasslands and chaparral at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, remote from Banning’s core. (more…)

While fluoride compounds occur naturally in some water supplies, the past 50 years have seen a dramatic - and troubling - increase in the volume of man-made industrial fluoride compounds expelled into our water and air.

Pouring fluorides into water supplies has generated controversy and opposition for five contentious decades. Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to the fluoride pollution that pours into the atmosphere from thousands of industrial plants around the world. (more…)

Difficulty exists in explaining why firms differ in their levels of success in implementing management initiatives in operations, such as environmentally responsible manufacturing (ERM), total quality management (TQM) and just-in-time manufacturing (JIT). It is even more difficult to explain why success varies among programmes within a firm. (more…)

Lucent Technologies’ wireless business unit, the Mobility Solutions Group, has successfully developed and implemented a product-based environmental management system (PBEMS), which utilises environmental and business processes to manage significant product aspects. Through the PBEMS, sustainability concepts are applied to the design and development of wireless hardware products worldwide. The PBEMS conforms to the ISO 14001 standard and is third-party-certified. (more…)