Down Town LA

Down Town LA

On the 26 th of April 2014 when I was staying in Hollywood, I took the subway to have a walk around down town LA, I had breakfast at Subway and looked out the building above across the street. If you look carefully there are two people on the balcony, you take part in a fashion shoot for a fee.

Love these Art Deco Sky Scrapers.

So uptown I went.

Past old school theatres

The Tower

Many of the buildings are run down, but still attractive underneath the surface grime

A Truly Beautiful Sky Scraper

And another

A Spanish Mission design and then it was time to turn back

A Green Sky Scraper covered in green ceramic tiles

Back to the Square in the centre of town

Here is the Hotel whose name I will have to rediscover

So why is the centre of the most filmed city in the world so seldom seen?

Suite For The Soul - The Blog

Suite For The Soul -  The Blog

If you like the Furniture that I load on here from time to time, here is the story of it:

http://suiteforthesoul.blogspot.co.nz/

As well as Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/suiteforthesoul

Or the Website at:

http://suiteforthesoul.co.nz/

Here is the Canterbury Chesterfield the latest up-cycled couch.

Santorini

Santorini

I just found these photos as I went back through some of my old Photos, 2007 is the date:

First there is the parking lot for Cruise Ships:

The harbour is the Crater of a Volcano, word has it the centre of the Volcanic Eruption that caused the tidal Wave that destroyed Atlantis, which was actually the north coast of Crete.

Above is the "Red Beach" which they raved about on Santorini, but coming from New Zealand we know that red pumice that is used in landscaping and building is a mundane occurrence.

But it is picturesque.

Of course it is the architecture which the island is famous for.

Which I could fill several blogs with.

The tourist centre is perched on cliffs above the harbour.

Many sites have views like this.

The restaurants etc. are not too intrusive.

The day we were there was perfect as you can see.

Inland away from the cliffs it is more a typical Mediterranean geography.

But, when you look closer the blue domes are still there scatted among the building.

Then back to the ship via aerial gondola or a steep track with donkeys back down to the beach.

The Latest from Suite for the Soul

The Latest from Suite for the Soul

http://suiteforthesoul.co.nz/ or https://www.facebook.com/suiteforthesoul

More Suite For the Soul

More Suite For the Soul:

http://suiteforthesoul.co.nz/ or https://www.facebook.com/suiteforthesoul

The Passage of Power - Robert A Caro

The Passage of Power - Robert A Caro

Volume 4 of the 5 Volume Biography of Lyndon Bains Johnson.

A really big commitment, this is a major reading exercise with over 2000 pages.

This is the period 1958 to 1964.

Johnson having been the most powerful Democrat in the USA as Senate Majority Leader from 1954 to 1960 during the Republican Eisenhower Presidency.

He wanted the Presidency himself in 1960, but left his run to late, letting Kennedy win, because he under estimated his effectiveness and though he would get in through back room deals between divided candidates at the convention.

Kennedy then asked Johnson to run as his VP, mainly to pick up votes in the South and West which he did, narrowly beating Nixon.

But, after the election Kennedy cut him out of any real role in the administration and he lost his place in the Senate, so became powerless. Socially also he was ostracised from the bright George Town set of Camelot.

He also had a very deep and intense hatred and conflict with Robert Kennedy.

Then of course these was the assassination. Caro does not believe he had any involvement with the plot. The author's description of the  assassination and the the hours immediately following with Johnson's swearing in and the dash back to Washington is as good as any thriller.

But, he had to take over the administration while trying to hold on to the people from the Kennedy administration. Which he did successfully.

He was able to replace the Eastern Intellectual Kennedy persona with his own "Western Rancher " style.

He was also pass both a Tax Rate Reduction and the Human Rights legislation using his amazing skills as a legislator (see Volume 3), despite determined options from his former allies from the South,

Caro has a good style and for someone like me who is very interested in politics this is a great read.

Review in Book Depositary:

http://www.bookdepository.com/Passage-Power-Robert-Caro/9780375713255?redirected=true&gclid=Cj0KEQjwjtGfBRCN4-LU9ODG1-wBEiQAy_Xp7zt3aEMLsydk_4vC8bMwButaXOVT0L-h7HAaOym6QTgaAuB48P8HAQ

DescriptionWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZE " "ONE OF THE "NEW YORK TIMES" TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR "The Economist * Time *Newsweek * Foreign Policy * Business Week * The Week * The Christian Science Monitor * Newsday " "The Passage of Power" follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and most triumphant period of his career--1958 to 1964. An unparalleled account of the battle between Johnson and John Kennedy for the 1960 presidential nomination, of the machinations behind Kennedy's decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, and of Johnson's powerlessness and humiliation in that role. With the superlative skills of a master storyteller, Caro exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Robert Kennedy, portraying one of America's great political feuds. In Caro's description of the Kennedy assassination, which "The New York Times" called "the most riveting ever," we see the events of November 22, 1963, for the first time through Lyndon Johnson's eyes. And we watch as his political genius enables him to grasp the reins of the presidency with total command, and, within weeks, make it wholly his own, surmounting unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the office. It is an epic story, displaying all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the "Times" of London to acclaim "The Years of Lyndon""Johnson "as "one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age."

Review in Good Reads:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13049569-the-passage-of-power

The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #4)

by Robert A. Caro

4.54 of 5 stars 4.54  ·   rating details  ·  3,945 ratings  ·  696 reviews

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZE

NAMED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist * Time * Newsweek * Foreign Policy * Business Week * The Week * The Christian Science Monitor *Newsday
By the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power Broker.Book Four of Robert A. Caro’s monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the Times of London to acclaim it as “one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age. A masterpiece.”
 
The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career—1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy’s decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy’s efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy’s younger brother, portraying one of America’s great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy’s overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson’s heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity.

For the first time, in Caro’s breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks—grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery—he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.

In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson’s life—and in the life of the nation—The Passage of Power is not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation. It is an epic story told with a depth of detail possible only through the peerless research that forms the foundation of Robert Caro’s work, confirming Nicholas von Hoffman’s verdict that “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”(less)

Hardcover, 712 pages

Published May 1st 2012 by Knopf Publishing Group (first published January 1st 2012)

Furniture Up-Cycling

Furniture Up-cycling by Suite for the Soul

See those below and others at http://suiteforthesoul.co.nz/

This:

To this:

This:

To this:

And this:

To this: