Justin’s Newsletter: May 2023
Vol. 3, Issue 5
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What’s Up With Me
I’ve been nominated for five LA Press Club journalism awards!
1. Anchor/Host, Pasadena Media
2. Talk/Public Affairs, "NewsRap Local with Justin Chapman"
3. Culture News, Pasadena Now, “Paradise Springs Eternal”
4. Entertainment News/Feature, Pasadena Star-News, “Author Jerry Stahl treks through Holocaust heartbreak with biting wit, historical perspective, concern for future”
5. Feature Music/Arts, Alta Journal, “Welcome to Slowjamastan”
Watch a video about the nominations from Pasadena Media here, and read an article in Alta Journal about the nomination here. Here’s a list of all nominations. The award ceremony is June 25.
Check out my new story in Culture Honey Magazine about the Bombay Beach Biennale, a Burning Man-esque art festival by the Salton Sea that’s revitalizing the apocalyptic area. Read the story here. Photos by Mercedes Blackehart.
Watch the latest episode of “Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman,” featuring an interview with Sycamores president and CEO Debra Manners. Sycamores is a behavioral health and child welfare agency founded in 1902.
I was interviewed by Voyage LA Magazine. Read the story here.
Around Town
Stories to Keep an Eye On
International: Uganda has passed an absolutely despicable law criminalizing homosexuality, one of the most repressive in the world. Anyone convicted of homosexuality can face life in prison, “aggravated homosexuality” can result in the death penalty, and attempted homosexuality can result in 10 years in prison. Keep in mind that American religious extremists have advised Ugandans lawmakers on this and earlier versions of this bill for years. It’s just so shameful, horrific, ugly, wrong, and sad. I spent two months in Uganda, and while I can’t say I’m surprised, I’m certainly beyond disappointed. Do better, Uganda.
National: So we’ve [probably] avoided a globally catastrophic debt default. What should we all panic about next?
California: I’m surprised LA Mayor Karen Bass went all in on promising to solve homelessness, because what an easy thing to fail at. It’s nearly an insurmountable problem at this point, and there’s only so much the city government can do. What’s really needed is lower rents, higher wages, and fewer people. Easy peasy.
Local: Speaking of which, the first meeting of the City of Pasadena’s new Rental Housing Board, which will implement and administer Measure H, the recent voter-approved rent control and just cause eviction charter amendment, was recently held. My friend and District 6 appointee Ryan Bell was elected chair of the board. He’s the right man for the job. He knows this stuff better than anyone and he’s dedicated to making it work for everyone. We’re in good hands.
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for great books I’ve read recently:
Khrushchev Remembers—Nikita Khrushchev
If you thought Soviet premier Khrushchev’s Secret Speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 dragged Joseph Stalin through the mud, get a load of his 1970 autobiography! His behind-the-scenes perspective on Stalin’s long reign of terror is truly fascinating, detailing the slowly warping paranoia and lethal ruthlessness of Stalin from the Russian Revolution to his death in 1953. Khrushchev also lays out how he undermined and thwarted Lavrenti Beria’s diabolical scheme to seize power after Stalin’s death. If Beria had been successful, he surely would have eliminated Khrushchev and the rest of the Soviet high command at that time. At it was, Beria himself was arrested and shot, but not before he took countless—and many innocent—lives with him, and raped and plundered along the way. If you haven’t already, besides reading this captivating book, do yourself a favor and watch the dark comedy “The Death of Stalin.”
The Way I See It—Jürgen Schadeberg
I interviewed Schadeberg for Pasadena Weekly many years ago, so I was excited about reading his autobiography. He was a photographer for Drum Magazine in South Africa during apartheid, and he took many of the iconic photographs of Nelson Mandela and the ANC’s struggle for civil rights and independence in the 1950s and 60s. Schadeberg, who passed away in 2020, was born in Germany and spent his childhood in Berlin during World War II, where he developed an intense hatred of Hitler and racism. He thought that ideology was over after the war, but then he moved to apartheid South Africa. His photography has been showcased all over the world and this book is the interesting story of his eventful life.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
With the pandemic-era immigration policy Title 42 having come to an end, and the much-hyped border surge having failed to materialize, here’s a look back at an actual surge during Trump’s (one) term, when I visited El Paso and Juárez with the Pacific Council.
And read all of my journalism here.