Venice Beach

In a New York Minute

Boston Redsox, East Coast, John Tully, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York City, New York Yankees, Venice Beach, Washington Bullets, Washington Redskins, West Coast

IN A NEW YORK MINUTE
BY John Tully
THE LOS ANGELES SUN
BBRIDGE

JUNE 17 2004

Being a vocal, loyal fan of the Redskins, Bullets and Redsox at an upstate New York boarding school didn’t go over too well with the lads. He hated their teams right back, as any good D.C.- loving boy would but he was badly outnumbered. The Big Apple’s teams and in turn, the City, had been his nemesis for years and moving to the coast only strengthened that rivalry.

He used to fly People Express in and out of Newark and it was hell. The bus to Port Authority and the cruise to Canal Street was always a fun adventure but he had absolutely revelled in not being a Newyorker.

Seventeen years and a minute later he fell hard.

MISTA? Hello?!
Can you blame him?
Every polish waitress, every Ecuadorian launderer,
Indian Cabdriver, downtown hipster, bodega owner and Yankee Stadium attendee treated him like a king.

Gettheheckouta’ere!
What gives?

The smell of burnt pretzels and Sabrett hot dogs with cars whizzing/honking by; a beautiful day in Central Park and the sun going down right exactly over the West Village. Thirty Irish bars in ten square blocks, thousands of great restaurants and a subway that works.

He gave in.

Seventeen years later he fell in love with a city that never sleeps and it was all over. But it wasn’t until he flew back to the coast that evening that he choked-up when he figured it out:
this was a truly great town that had been attacked; it’s heart broken just two and a half years before.

Just when he had lost faith in pretty much all of mankind, this good, noble, wounded yet resilient city had given him some hope that America could still be great.

The beautiful woman didn’t hurt either.

KNBC Anchor Paul Moyer Leaves Door Open

Hollywood, KNBC, Los Angeles, Media, paul Moyer, Venice Beach

moyerLOS ANGELES TIMES

His departure from the station doesn’t necessarily mean the end of his news career, he says.

By Greg Braxton

April 27, 2009

Veteran news anchor Paul Moyer may be done with KNBC-TV Channel 4, but he may not be finished with local news.

“I’m officially retired from Channel 4, but that doesn’t mean I’m officially retired from the news business forever,” Moyer told The Times on Friday. “I can’t predict what will happen in the future. I’m not closing the door, but there’s nothing out there at the moment.”

While on vacation early this month, Moyer unexpectedly announced he was retiring from KNBC after 22 years but would return for a short time before selecting a final broadcast date. However, station News Director Robert Long told staffers Friday that Moyer had “decided to make the transition from vacation to retirement a seamless one, and he will not be returning to our air to say goodbye.”

“I just didn’t feel there was anything to gain by going back and working for another few weeks,” said Moyer. “I hope that people understand why I’m not going back. I get very uncomfortable with big formal goodbyes.”

Moyer is considered one of the last of a breed of well-paid and highly promoted local news anchors. His departure follows speculation that his salary, estimated at more than $3 million a year, had been too costly for the station in a time of declining revenue and viewership industrywide.

The newscaster said he has been moved by viewers who have expressed their sense of loss about his departure. “What really touches me is they thank me for being there,” he said. “I really feel like I have a relationship with the people of Southern California. I feel connected to them. I will really miss that.”

For now, Moyer said his focus will be on his family and his children: “I’ve got two kids, 16 and 19, and they need their dad. Now they’ve got him, full time.”

Newsflash: Dogs Get Jealous, Especially Ones That Don't Live In Venice Beach California

Austria, Dogs, Those Wacky Researchers, Venice Beach
Test reveals dogs’ jealous side
annoy

Scientists in Austria say they have found a basic form of jealousy in dogs.

The Vienna-based researchers showed that dogs will stop doing a simple task when not rewarded if another dog, which continues to be rewarded, is present.

Writing in the journal PNAS, the scientists say this shows a sensitivity in dogs that was only previously found in primates.

The researchers now plan to extend their experiments to look at co-operative behaviour in wolves.

The experiment consisted of taking pairs of dogs and getting them to present a paw for a reward. On giving this “handshake” the dogs received a piece of food.

One of the dogs was then asked to shake hands, but received no food. The other dog continued to get the food when it was asked to perform the task.

Reward value

The dog without the reward quickly stopped doing the task, and showed signs of annoyance or stress when its partner was rewarded.

To make sure that the experiment was really showing the interaction between the dogs rather than just the frustration of not being rewarded, a similar experiment was conducted where the dogs performed the task without the partner. Here they continued to present the paw for much longer.

Dr Frederike Range from the department of neurobiology and cognition research at the University of Vienna, says this shows that it was the presence of the rewarded partner which was the greater influence on their behaviour.

“The only difference is one gets food and the other doesn’t, they are responding to being unequally rewarded.” she said.

The researchers say this kind of behaviour, where one animal gets frustrated with what is happening with another, has only been observed in primates before.

Studies with various types of monkeys and chimpanzees show they react not only to seeing their partners receiving rewards when they are not, but also to the type of reward.

The dog study also looked at whether the type of reward made a difference. Dogs were given either bread or sausage, but seemed to react equally to either. Dr Range says this may be because they have been trained.

“It’s through the fact they have to work for the reward, this confers it with a higher value,” she said.

Evolution

The researchers say this behaviour, reacting to others receiving rewards, may represent an earlier stage in the evolution of co-operative behaviours seen in human and primates.

“I think it’s a precursor, simpler than in humans, it’s a selfish behaviour, they don’t react to seeing others treated unfairly. With humans they react, say it’s unfair, we can’t see anything like that in the dogs,” said Dr Range.

The researchers say the type of behaviour exhibited in the experiment is probably due to the dog’s close association with humans. Dr Range says other animals need to be studied to really show how animals naturally exhibit jealousies or cooperate.

“I’m sure that it’s not something that evolved with the dogs, we will have to test it in wolves and other cooperating species,” she said.

Dr Range is currently rearing wolf cubs in order to perform similar experiments. She says the wolves will be able to do the paw test, but that it is really the wrong experiment. She regards this as something unnatural, that dogs are taught by their owners.

“They can give the paw, but it’s not the right test. We must take the human out of the equation, then we can compare directly wolves with dogs.”