New UC logo a no-go with students and alumni

University of California officials said they were trying to project a "forward-looking spirit" when they replaced the university system's ornate, tradition-clad logo with a sleek, modern one.

What they got was an online revolt complete with mocking memes, Twitter insults and a petition to restore the old logo. Students and alumni have taken to Facebook and Photoshop to express their displeasure, showing the new symbol ready to be flushed down a toilet and as a permanently stalled computer operating system. One critic suggested the controversial image be tattooed on its creators' foreheads as punishment.

UC campuses in the past have been the site of war protests, sit-ins against tuition hikes and Occupy camping demonstrations. This week, the schools are dealing with a unlikely debate about graphic design and whether the new logo demeans the university.

"To a generation all too familiar with circular, fading loading symbols, this is an attempt to be revolutionary. But it comes off as insensitive," Reaz Rahman, a 21-year-old UC Irvine senior who started the online petition, said of the UC's new logo. "To me, it didn't symbolize an institution of higher learning. It seemed like a marketing scheme to pull in money rather than represent the university."

UC officials were caught on the defensive. They emphasize that the traditional seal, with its "Let There Be Light" motto, a drawing of an open book and the 1868 date of UC's founding, is not being abandoned and still will be used on such things as diplomas and official letterhead. But they say that the 1910 seal is so ornate that it does not reproduce well for many Internet uses and that it is often confused with variations created by the 10 individual UC campuses. UC websites are now adorned with the new logo.

It was introduced with little fanfare about six months ago and is now being extended to more UC websites and publications. Officials said it is adaptable and will provide a unified image for fundraising, recruiting and public affairs campaigns.

"We want to convey that this is an iconic place that makes a difference to California and that there is a UC system," said Jason Simon, the UC system's director of marketing communication.

In various colors, it shows a large U that echoes the shape of the old seal's book and contains an interior C at the bottom. The words "University of California" are on its right, and Simon complained that critics usually don't include that text in their depictions of the logo.

Simon said UC has received much favorable feedback about the logo, which was developed by an in-house team of designers. There are no plans to immediately change it in response to the protests, but he suggested that the symbol might evolve over time.

Marketing and design experts said emotional responses are common when institutions change their marketing images. For example, over the past few years, changes in the logos for Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice and the Gap clothing chain triggered consumer protests and the companies then restored the original.

Drastic changes in long-time logos disrupt "a sense of connection," explained Kali Nikitas, chairwoman of the graduate program in graphic design at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. "It's as if you show up at the same coffee shop for years and they start serving you a different coffee. Your routine is broken," she said. And at colleges and universities, reactions can be particularly powerful, she added, "since people really love tradition and legacy at their alma mater. They are really passionate about where they go to school and view it as the cornerstone of their lives."

The older UC logo, she said, conveys a sense of stability while the new one looks "incredibly progressive." She said that people probably will come to accept the new one and "in five years, no one will care."

Such debates have reached college campuses because schools are looking for ways to better compete for donations and applicants, said Petrula Vrontikis, a graphic design professor and branding expert at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. "It is much more about brand differentiation," she said, noting that many of the old college seals looked too much alike. UC has shifted dramatically, she said, "from an institutional look to a marketing look that is young-skewed and vibrant."

But some young people rejected it with online mockery and slashing comments, similar to the ways they reacted to last year's pepper-spraying of student demonstrators by UC Davis police.

"New UC logo is an abomination," wrote one Twitter-user "Back to the drawing board." Another tweeted that "Whoever signed off on this UC logo should be forced to have it tattooed on their forehead for life."

David Bocarsly, UCLA student body president, attributed some of the unusual attention to exam period procrastination.

"During finals week, you have more people on their computers than ever looking for something to do other than study," said Bocarsly, a senior.

Tomo Hirai, a 24-year-old UC Davis graduate, thought the new UC logo looked like "a loading logo" for a computer operating system such as Windows or Mac.

"It cheapened the entire UC System," Hirai said. "That's not what you do to 144 years of history."

So about 30 minutes on Adobe Photoshop was all it took for Hirai to create a logo with the C endlessly circling.

This past weekend, after Hirai shared his modified logo with the world, he said he received a letter from the UC Davis alumni association seeking a donation.

"I'm not paying them a single penny," he said, adding that the logo debacle was the "bitter icing on the cake."

larry.gordon@latimes.com

matt.stevens@latimes.com

Times staff writer Samantha Schaefer contributed to this report.

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Romania Faces Upheaval as Ponta Coalition Wins Vote

PARIS — Romania’s center-left government overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections, according to partial results released Monday, an outcome that threatened to push the country into further political upheaval because of bitter rivalry between the prime minister and the president.

The central electoral office said the center-left alliance led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta won about 59 percent of the seats in the 452-seat legislature, followed by about 17 percent for a center-right group linked to President Traian Basescu. Around 81.45 percent of the votes have been counted.

The clear victory in Sunday’s election made Mr. Ponta the front-runner for prime minister. But Mr. Basescu, who has the power to appoint a prime minister, has indicated that he would not select Mr. Ponta, in part because Mr. Ponta tried to have him impeached over the summer.

During the campaign, Mr. Basescu called Mr. Ponta a “compulsive liar” and an “ogre” and said that appointing the man who tried to oust him would be like swallowing a pig. Mr. Ponta’s coalition, in turn, threatened a new impeachment effort if it won a majority and Mr. Ponta was not named prime minister.

Analysts said Mr. Basescu could be forced to back down due to the large margin of the center-left’s victory, which made Mr. Ponta’s reappointment seem inevitable. As of Monday morning, the president had not announced his intentions.

If he refused to appoint Mr. Ponta, the standoff threatened to produce a protracted political fight that could destabilize the country, undermine its struggling economy and delay a loan deal from the International Monetary Fund that Romania is hoping to negotiate when its current arrangement expires early next year.

In Bucharest, the Romanian capital, political commentators called the election “Basescu’s revenge.”

“The most we can hope for is that it is not a long war, and the parties find a compromise,” said Cosmin Stan, a leading Romanian broadcaster with Realitatea Television.

Romania, a poor Balkan country that has struggled to shed the legacy of decades of dictatorship under Nicolae Ceausescu, has undergone some of its worst political turbulence in recent memory. The country has weathered a series of unstable governments and come under criticism from the European Union and the United States. In October, the European Commission, the union’s executive body, said that concerns about corruption and fraud had prompted it to block development aid potentially worth billions of euros. All the while, the public remains deeply disillusioned amid a simmering dissatisfaction with austerity — including a 25 percent cut in public sector wages — for which many voters blame Mr. Basescu.

Mr. Ponta, at 40 the youngest prime minister in the European Union, has been locked in a bitter power struggle with Mr. Basescu, a 61-year-old former sea captain. The acrimony was made worse by the July impeachment vote, which Mr. Basescu called a “coup d’état” and which drew sharp criticism from the European Union and the United States. Mr. Ponta had accused Mr. Basescu of overreaching his mandate by, among other things, refusing to appoint ministers chosen by the prime minister.

Many Romanians say they are tired of the dueling leaders, and in a sign of that discontent, the populist People’s Party of Dan Diaconescu, a flamboyant television station owner who campaigned in a white Rolls-Royce and is being investigated for fraud, won about 14 percent of the vote, according to the partial results. As part of his campaign, Mr. Diaconescu has promised around $26,000 to every Romanian who starts a business.

But the feud between Mr. Ponta and Mr. Basescu dominated the election.

Under the Constitution, the president must name a prime minister from the party that receives a majority, in consultation with the party. Mr. Ponta is the coalition’s choice. The candidate for prime minister then needs to be approved by the Parliament, where Mr. Ponta’s center-left coalition has won a strong majority. While the Constitution gives the president the prerogative to name the prime minister, he cannot ignore the popular vote.

George Calin contributed reporting from Bucharest, Romania.

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#OccupyCheerios: A Facebook Revolt

It wasn’t an obvious forum for an anti-GMO protest.

A YouTube video posted on Cheerio’s Facebook page depicts an elderly woman leaning over the highchair of her infant grandchild, cooing about family and the holidays, drawing a map with pieces of cereal representing relative’s far-flung houses. “But don’t you worry,” the grandmother says, pushing two Cheerios together, “we’ll always be together for Christmas.”

More than 1,200 users have commented on the vintage Cheerios commercial since it was posted last week, expressing outrage over the General Mills-owned brand’s use of genetically modified ingredients. Commenters have also been critical—like heavy-exclamation-points-use critical—of General Mills’ significant financial support of Prop. 37, California’s defeated GMO-labeling ballot initiative

Comments like “Can you please inform the public exactly why it is that General Mills spent $ 1.2 million to keep consumers in the dark about GMOs????” and “Nostalgic old commercials are no substitute for healthy ingredients. I won’t buy Cheerios until they are GMO-free” are a far cry from the stories of spending holidays with family—and perhaps a bit of Cheerios nostalgia—the post was surely intended to elicit.

The protest campaign was stoked by GMO Inside, an organization born of the failed Yes on 37 campaign. The group also called on people to comment-bomb a Cheerios app, which has since been removed from the company’s Facebook page. But beyond that, Cheerios’ response to the criticism has been . . . nothing. Anti-GMO comments are still piling up on the post, and no new material has been added to page in order to bury the video in the timeline.

Do 1,256 comments (and counting) cancel out $ 1.2 million of anti-Prop. 37 funding? Of course not. But just as the Occupy-style tactics being employed by protesters at Cooper Union and the Michigan State Capitol exhibit, showing up and voicing an opinion can be a powerful gesture, even if it’s not overpowering. 

Similar stories on TakePart

• Will GMOs Spell the End of Mexican Maize?

• Kellogg Recalls 2.8 Million Boxes of Cereal Due to Hazardous Metallic ‘Surprise’

• Anna Breslaw’s 600-Word Sprint: Nude Protests, Stripped Down

---

Willy Blackmore is the food editor at TakePart. He has also written about food, art, and agriculture for such publications as Los Angeles Magazine, The Awl, GOOD, LA Weekly, The New Inquiry, and BlackBook. Email Willy | TakePart.com

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kyra Sedgwick: Kevin Bacon Makes Me Feel Like I'm the 'Only Girl in the Room'

By Maggie Coughlan

12/10/2012 at 08:00 AM EST

Kyra Sedgwick

Courtesy Good Housekeeping

Ever wonder what Kyra Sedgwick finds sexy?

Her husband of 24 years, Kevin Bacon, has it all figured out.

"He is so honorable. He is so ethically true. He has high moral standards, and he doesn't lie and he doesn't cheat – and I find that sexy!" the actress, 47, says in the January issue of Good Housekeeping.

"I don't know how he does it, but he always makes me feel like I'm the most beautiful woman in the room – the only girl in the room," she says of her relationship with Bacon, 54, whom she married in 1988.

"He says 'Honey, you look beautiful. You are sexy!' Always, always, always!"

While their love has lasted over decades – an eternity in Hollywood – the couple is experiencing a kind of "second-honeymoon" now that their children Travis, 23, and Sosie, 20, have left the nest.

Kyra Sedgwick

Courtesy Good Housekeeping

"There's a lot more walking around the house naked," Sedgwick says.

But it's clearly more than occasional nudity that keeps their love alive.

"I am constantly in awe of Kevin's levelheadedness and his lack of 'crazy,' " she says.

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Angel's statue offers solace to the grieving

Brandon Ty Garner died on the day he was born: July 1, 2011.

He came into the world at 24 weeks, 5 days. His lungs hadn't developed. He lived for six hours.

Very few people ever saw him.

Nearly a year and a half later, his parents remain swaddled in grief.

They visit his grave twice a week, even though it's an hour's drive from their Menifee home, and decorate it for each holiday he cannot share with them.

Recently they put up a small Christmas tree, full of colorful lights and ornaments. They surrounded it with stuffed animals, some wearing Santa hats.

Most people, they say, do not understand.

But on the night of Dec. 6, Janet and Ty Garner, both 33, were far from alone in their sorrow.

At El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest, in the children's section where Brandon is buried, several hundred people gathered before a bronze angel on a pedestal.

Some stood. Some sat in camp chairs. Extended families huddled on blankets on the grass.

They held candles. They listened to songs. They let the tears fall freely. They didn't try to hold them in.

And when the time came, they lined up to speak the names of their lost children and to lay down white carnations on long green stems.

Children's voices squeaked: "My sister Emma." "My big brother Jack." Adult voices cracked and quivered at "our baby girl," "my great-grandson," "our beautiful, beautiful boy."

One young couple grieved for newborn twins who had died the month before. An older man remembered his son, a fire captain, who had died years back, fully grown.

For nearly 20 minutes the names kept coming, one lapping over the next, as flowers filled the angel's open hands and blanketed her feet.

Similar scenes played out at more than 100 angels across the country.

The Dec. 6 tradition started with a self-published book, "The Christmas Box," which has become a staple of grief support groups.

In the 1993 story by Richard Paul Evans, a woman never stops mourning her daughter, who died at age 3 on that day.

The fictional child's grave features a statue of an angel.

After Evans had one erected in Salt Lake City, others followed. (The statues can be ordered through his website.)

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Changes to Agriculture Highlight Cuba’s Problems

HAVANA — Cuba’s liveliest experiment with capitalism unfolds every night in a dirt lot on the edge of the capital, where Truman-era trucks lugging fresh produce meet up with hundreds of buyers on creaking bicycle carts clutching wads of cash.

“This place, it feeds all of Havana,” said Misael Toledo, 37, who owns three small food stores in the city. “Before, you could only buy or sell in the markets of Fidel.”

The agriculture exchange, which sprang up last year after the Cuban government legalized a broader range of small businesses, is a vivid sign of both how much the country has changed, and of all the political and practical limitations that continue to hold it back.

President Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady rollout of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

“It’s the first instance of Cuba’s leader not being able to get done what he said he would,” said Jorge I. Domínguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard, who left Cuba as a boy. “The published statistical results are really very discouraging.”

A major cause: poor transportation, as trucks are in short supply, and the aging ones that exist often break down.

In 2009, hundreds of tons of tomatoes, part of a bumper crop that year, rotted because of a lack of transportation by the government agency charged with bringing food to processing centers.

“It’s worse when it rains,” said Javier González, 27, a farmer in Artemisa Province who described often seeing crops wilt and rot because they were not picked up.

Behind him were the 33 fertile, rent-free acres he had been granted as part of a program Mr. Castro introduced in 2008 to encourage rural residents to work the land. After clearing it himself and planting a variety of crops, Mr. Gonzalez said, he was doing relatively well and earned more last year than his father, who is a doctor, did.

But Cuba’s inefficiencies gnawed at him. Smart, strong, and ambitious, he had expansion plans in mind, even as in his hand he held a wrench. He was repairing a tractor part meant to be grading land. It was broken. Again.

The 1980s Soviet model tractor he bought from another farmer was as about good as it gets in Cuba. The Cuban government maintains a monopoly on selling anything new, and there simply is not enough of anything — fertilizer, or sometimes even machetes — to go around.

Government economists are aware of the problem. “If you give people land and no resources, it doesn’t matter what happens on the land,” said Joaquin Infante of the Havana-based Cuban National Association of Economists.

But Mr. Castro has refused to allow what many farmers and experts see as an obvious solution to the shortages of transportation and equipment: Let people import supplies on their own. “It’s about control,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research group.

Other analysts agree, noting that though the agricultural reforms have gone farther than other changes — like those that allow for self-employment — they remain constrained by politics.

“The government is not ready to let go,” said Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College. “They are sending the message that they want to let go, or are trying to let go, but what they have is still a mechanism of control.”

For many farmers, that explains why land leases last for 10 years with a chance to renew, not indefinitely or the 99 years offered to foreign developers. It is also why many farmers say they will not build homes on the land they lease, despite a concession this year to allow doing so.

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Michelle Branch's Daughter's Dream Job Is For the Birds - Literally

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/03/2012 at 02:00 PM ET

Sthanlee B. Mirador/Shooting Star

It seems as if Michelle Branch‘s daughter won’t be following in her musical footsteps any time soon.

While the Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter and her husband, bass player Teddy Landau, are no strangers to the stage, 7-year-old Owen Isabelle has found her niche in nature.

“I think because my husband and I are both musicians, she kind of feels like she has to do something a little bit more serious than her mom and dad,” the Cook Taste Eat host, 29, tells PEOPLE.

“Since she was 3 or 4 years old, she was always into science and dinosaurs and watching nature shows.”

In particular, all-things aviary has struck a chord with the little girl, who has already happily declared her future dream job.

“She’s obsessed with birds. She’s been begging to have a pet bird, which I will not allow,” saya Branch. “[Owen] claims she’s going to be an ornithologist when she grows up. Literally, it’s birds 24/7 — every book she wants is birds, stickers, drawings, clothes, everything.”

And as sure as she is of her pending career plans, Owen is just as confident in her political views. Happy to reveal who would have earned her support, the little girl has no qualms about divulging the deciding factor during the recent Presidential election.

“Around election time she said, ‘You know Mom, if I could vote, I would vote for Barack Obama.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really, that’s so interesting. Why?’” Branch recalls.

“And she said, ‘Well, remember that one time we got to go to the White House and meet him? I don’t vote for strangers.’”

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Gulp! The high cost of Big Soda's victory

Big Soda spent big bucks. That's how it defeated ballot measures to create soda taxes in two California towns.

In Richmond, in the Bay Area, and in El Monte, east of Los Angeles, the measures would have added a penny-an-ounce tax on soda. Had the taxes passed, they were projected to raise millions of dollars aimed at funding local recreation and nutrition activities to fight childhood obesity.

To bury these towns in an avalanche of billboards, mailers and ads, the American Beverage Assn. and friends wrote checks totaling $4.1 million. Supporters of the measures, primarily children's health advocates, spent $114,000.

Big Soda spent $115 per vote in Richmond and El Monte. In comparison, supporters of Proposition 30, the governor's tax measure, spent $5.85 per vote.

It was the most expensive campaign battle ever waged in El Monte. In Richmond, 99% of the funds used to defeat the soda tax poured in from out of state, 95% of them from Washington lobbying firms. Not a single cent for the "no" campaign came from an individual citizen.

Big Soda's sky-high spending was a new low for California. Its political strategists have surely been slapping each other on the back, proud of the strong message they sent to other cities that might consider similar measures.

Richmond and El Monte residents probably would have appreciated it more if Big Soda had spent that pile of cash in a different way, for example, to keep California kids healthy and active. Here's what that $4.1 million could have bought.

Daniel Zingale is a senior vice president at the California Endowment and a leader of its Health Happens Here campaign (www.healthhappenshere.org).

Sources for the graphic (click the image to the left for a larger version):

1,2. Most recent available campaign-funding disclosure forms (through Oct. 20 for El Monte measure; through Nov. 1 for Richmond measure)

3. Vote totals (as of Dec. 5): Los Angeles County and Contra Costa County election officials; for Proposition 30, California secretary of state.

Expenditures: Most recent available data from campaign-funding disclosure forms; for Proposition 30, California secretary of state.

4. MapLight Voter's Edge (Richmond)

5. $100,000 per playground — KaBoom!, Washington

6. $50,000 per mile of bike lane — Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, Chapel Hill, N.C.

7. $3,700 per fountain — Global Tap, Chicago

8. California Food Policy Advocates, Oakland

9. Richmond Steelers Youth Football League, Richmond

10. $185.02 per checkup — 2011 fee survey, American Dental Assn., Chicago

11. $31.50 per box of vegetables — Farm Fresh to You, Capay, Calif.

Households in El Monte and Richmond — U.S. Census, 2010

12. $1,000 per Swing-N-Slide Chesapeake Residential Wood Playset — Lowe's, online

13. $1,400 per Kwik Goal Academy soccer goal — Dick's Sporting Goods, online

14. $12.90 per Altus jump rope — Wal-Mart, online

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