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The other Angelenos: What a naturalist's survey of Los Angeles wildlife reveals

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The other Angelenos: What a naturalist's survey of Los Angeles wildlife reveals

Book Review

Unnatural Habitat: The Native and Exotic Wildlife of Los Angeles

By Craig Stanford
Heyday: 264 pages, $24
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Los Angeles tends to strike outsiders as a borderless mishmash of suburbs spread over an unfriendly landscape with no significant natural source of water. When it’s not on fire, it seems to be sliding into the ocean or collapsing under the weight of its own untamable development.

And yet Los Angeles transplants will still brag to their loved ones across the country that they could go skiing and surfing in the same day (if for some reason they felt so inclined). As the conservationist Craig Stanford reminds us, however, you don’t have to drive to Big Bear or the beach to feel the pulse of nature in L.A.

In “Unnatural Habitat: The Native and Exotic Wildlife of Los Angeles,” Stanford offers Angelenos — and anyone interested in the function and dysfunction of (sub)urban ecosystems — a guide to the natural life that teems beneath our freeways, wanders into our backyards and fights for survival in the deserts and mountains that surround our city.

Stanford, who has conducted field research around the world, lives in Pasadena, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As he details more than 150 species of L.A. flora and fauna — from native mountain lions to exotic earthworms, weeds that occur naturally and palm trees that, surprisingly, don’t — he evokes a portrait of an unusual city’s special, bizarre and unexpectedly fragile wildlife. He conjures up evolutionary histories, stories of foreign species’ arrival and their effects on an ecosystem that is massively and continuously altered by human influence.

But Stanford’s mission here isn’t simply to describe the creatures at hand — though he does do plenty of that, never hesitating to anthropomorphize even the most inhuman of them; to him, snakes are “secretive,” tarantulas “ominously deliberate.” The book excels — feels necessary, even — when it unravels the intricate interplay between human and animal habits; societal institutions and nature; common sense and our desire to decorate and navigate Los Angeles however we please.

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He also offers prescriptions, micro and macro, private and public, for better stewardship of our environs. We can decide what we plant in our own gardens, for example, so Stanford advises readers to fill their yards with something native and drought-tolerant that can contribute to a more robust, stable and diverse ecosystem. (Of course, most of our city’s residents probably won’t get the memo.)

On the public front, Stanford highlights potential institutional improvements as well as bureaucratic roadblocks. In what is perhaps the book’s most compelling chapter, he writes about the man-made challenges to L.A.’s mountain lions. The gravest threat to these magnificent animals is our ubiquitous freeway system: Since 2015, more than 500 California cougars have become roadkill. Perhaps anyone could guess as much, but what a layman might never know without Stanford’s book is that our busy roads severely circumscribe the territory cougars can roam, leading to isolation and inbreeding.

A wildlife crossing is under construction over the 101 to allow cougars to traverse the freeway safely, expanding the territory they can access. But the cost of the project is high (about $90 million), as is competition for land that might otherwise serve as sanctuary for wildlife. Stanford, who usually comes across as optimistic, can wax cynical in the face of such frustrations.

His unexpected insights range from comical to shocking. He offers a snapshot of his cat having a field day with the finches in his backyard birdbath — and then explains the vicious cycle that creates invasive populations of feral cats that kill literally billions of birds across North America every year.

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Stanford’s self-proclaimed ecological purism doesn’t mean he believes we should do away with nonnative species altogether, though. In fact, human interference has helped many species worth keeping around. Hummingbirds, for example, stay in L.A. year-round because our backyard feeders preclude any need for them to migrate in search of sugary plants. With that comes the responsibility to care for the wildlife we cultivate in this landscape that he acknowledges is “beautiful but largely nonfunctional.” It’s not clear whether he thinks we’re up to the task.

At his best, Stanford interweaves vivid prose, a reverence for nature and a seasoned Angeleno’s eye for what makes this city unique. At times, however, he fails to draw a connection between a species and the city, punctuating the book with vignettes laden with contextless taxonomy.

Regardless, the overall effect is a worthy and illuminating entry in the tradition of works exploring urbanization’s effect on the environment. (Stanford references Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” and that author’s influence is felt throughout his book.) Moral questions abound, ranging from animal rights to humanity’s role in nature. Stanford’s fundamental message is clear and simple (and oft-repeated): To preserve a Los Angeles in which humans and nature benefit from one another, we must increase our understanding of our city’s fragile wildlife mosaic.

Stanford is heavy-handed only when he has to be, and his subtlety often hits harder. One chapter concerns a succulent so common in Los Angeles that I never knew its name: It’s called the live-forever (genus Dudleya), and, ironically, it’s at risk of extinction due to poaching. You can buy the plants at Home Depot, and yet they’re disappearing from our cliff faces and hiking paths. At the chapter’s close, Stanford articulates a profoundly upsetting truth: “Each generation grows up accustomed to the scope of Nature that surrounds it.”

Despite all he has to say about it, L.A.’s biodiversity is waning before our eyes. Fortunately, with Stanford’s help, we can acquire some of his vision for preserving our native species while effectively introducing exotic ones. Los Angeles is, after all, a city of transplants.

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Daniel Vitale is a writer in Los Angeles and the author of the novel “Orphans of Canland.”

Lifestyle

In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

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In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.

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In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:

Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!

Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.

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I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.

Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)

He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.

So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.

Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.

It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”

Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.

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There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.

Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade. 

The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates. 

What they’re saying:

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Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion. 

“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.

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Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.

“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.

“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.

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Dig deeper:

The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.

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“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.

The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction. 

There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.

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City officials say these projects will bring more jobs. 

The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.

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“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.

The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen

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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

Wyle, who spent 11 seasons on ER, returns to the hospital in The Pitt. Now in Season 2, the HBO series has earned praise for its depiction of the medical field. Originally broadcast April 21, 2025.

Hear The Original Interview

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