Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Wednesday

Thomas L. Barrett  12/10/62- 12/14/10

In case you didn't realize it yet, the end is very near.

And while we're waiting, San Jose steps up righteously, and becomes the largest US city to ban the environmental devastating plastic bag. Now it is time for the City of LA to do the same!

J. Michael Hagopian, a filmmaker that spent his life gathering the testimonies of over 400 Armenian Genocide survivors has passed away at the age of 97;

-The filmmaker was a survivor of the genocide, which historians estimate resulted in the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman-ruled Turkey beginning in 1915. The Turkish government acknowledges a smaller number of deaths and attributes them to war, famine and disease, not genocide. It also contends that both Turks and Armenians lost their lives.
Hagopian's determination to refute the Turkish claims led him to his life's work: compiling 400 interviews with Armenian genocide survivors and witnesses. He used their accounts in several films on the World War I-era disaster that historians consider the first major genocide of the 20th century.
"My main aim during all these 40 or 50 years was to catch our history for the future," Hagopian said in a video tribute to him in April arranged by Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian.
"It's an extraordinarily special thing to have a survivor of the genocide be the world's leading chronicler" of the event, Krekorian, whose ancestors came from the same Armenian village as Hagopian's family, said in an interview Tuesday. "There are a relative handful of survivors left throughout the world, which is precisely why his life's work is so critically important. Without that work, the memories that all of these witnesses carried with them would have been lost to history."

In the Oh No You Didn't Take Away My Parking Pass department; nothing will piss off volunteer NC members and activists faster than not being able to park for free at City Hall. CD2 spokesman Jeremy Oberstein is working overtime to smooth the ruffled feathers.

Paul Hatfield sees an encouraging sign in Governor-Elect Jerry Brown's willingness to go after a sacred cow.

Finally, a sweet goodnight wish for my dear brother, Thomas Barrett, who passed away yesterday at the tender age of 48. You are in my heart and I will miss you so much.