American Idol: Early Favorites Eliminated in Hollywood

TV Watch

American Idol

By Steve Helling

02/07/2013 at 10:30 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

At the beginning of Thursday's American Idol, there were 43 men left in the competition. The next hour was a bloodbath, with many tears and a few tantrums – as well as some standout performances. Curtis Finch Jr., for example, performed a version of Christina Perri's "Jar Of Hearts" that was arguably the strongest of the evening. It may be the season's most overdone song, yet Finch successfully infused it with a rising gospel vibe.

Like every reality show, the contestants learned valuable life lessons as they fought to stay in the game. Here are five:

1. Never Let Them See You Sweat
Paul Jolley looked like he was going to throw up when he took the stage. "I'm so nervous," he said as he fought back tears. The judges watched quietly as he pulled himself together and gave a strong performance of Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away." He advanced, but not before Nicki Minaj criticized him for showing his nerves. "You walked out so defeated and that really irritated me," she said. "Just give us one minute of professionalism."

2. Be Funny and Unexpected
Admit it: It was kind of funny watching Gurpreet Singh Sarin nail "Georgia On My Mind." The judges liked him, perhaps because he doesn't fit any mold. Neither does Charlie Askew, who worked his quirky awkwardness into an intriguing version of Gotye's "Somebody that I Used To Know," complete with a spoken-word intro. "I am obsessed with you," Minaj said, prompting Askew to respond, "Baby, I could say the same thing." She ate it up.

3. Too Much of A Good Thing Can Be Lethal
Matheus Fernandes, one of the standouts from the Los Angeles auditions, was eliminated after a shaky rendition of Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger." The 4'9" contestant made one too many self-depreciating comments about his height, prompting Minaj to say, "Sometimes things can go from being inspiring to becoming you wanting a pity party." When Carey called him a "good person," his face said it all – Fernandes knew he wouldn't be advancing to the next round. In contrast, Lazaro Arbos said nary a word about his stutter, yet he advanced easily, despite an unspectacular rendition of Lady Gaga's "Edge of Glory."

4. If You Lose, Lose Gracefully
The night's "Sour Grapes Award" goes to Papa Peachez, who performed a karaoke-worthy version of Gaga's "Yoü and I." Minaj was unimpressed. "I'm so disappointed," she said. "I don't know why you chose that song." After he was eliminated, Peachez decided he didn't want to win American Idol, after all. "This isn't the competition for me," he said. "I just don't like singing other people's songs."

5. Big Risks Can Reap Big Rewards
Nick Boddington was eliminated in Las Vegas last season, so he came back determined to take some risks. He accompanied himself on the piano while singing Grace Potter's "Stars." It was a strong performance that the judges loved.

After the dust settled, 28 contestants remained. The judges corralled them onto the stage and announced that they would eliminate eight more male contestants next week, after the ladies' auditions.

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East L.A. murals come to life in school plays

In East Los Angeles, murals are as common and overlooked as clouds in the sky, but both take shape and significance when looked at through a different lens.

A group of students from Monterey Continuation High School learned this lesson recently by writing and performing one-act plays about the wall art in their neighborhood and the muralists who put them there.

About…Productions oversees the Young Theaterworks program at the school and encourages students to communicate through the arts.

"We're realizing there's a living history that the students don't know about," said Rose Portillo, associate director of About…Productions. She and artistic director Theresa Chavez arranged for the students to meet with muralists Barbara Carrasco and Yreina Cervantez, and with Wayne Healy and David Botello, founders of the East Los Streetscapers, a public art studio.

Students gathered information during a brief but intense interview with the muralists and, with the help of mentors, wrote the plays based on each of the artists and their work.

"These Walls Tell Stories" focuses on a group of artists who rose through the Chicano civil rights movement of the late 1960s and documented the history of their city, the barrio and its people by putting paintbrush to stucco. The murals brought to life in the plays are mainly in East L.A. but the artists' work has been featured across the country. Carrasco's rendition of union organizer Dolores Huerta is used on a Girl Scout badge.

Students gave life and personalities to the characters in Healy's mural "Ghosts of the Barrio." In the painting, men sit on the stoop of a house in East L.A. and, in the play, they are discussing the current gang culture.

"It's very humbling because we're still working with the community and the youth," Cervantez said. The professor of Chicana/Chicano art at Cal State Northridge said she liked the artistic license the students took with pieces of her story.

A prominent figure in her work — the jaguar — was used in the students' narrative as a type of fairy godmother, transporting the actress playing Cervantez through time to show the events that shaped her art and explain some of its mythology.

"I appreciate that they did this because some of my own students don't know their history," Cervantez said.

Those who wrote the plays admitted being unaware of the murals' symbolism.

"Before, I would pass by them without thinking. Now I stop and pay attention to what the murals are trying to say," said Jessica Miranda, 20, who is completing her credits at Monterey, an alternative school on the Garfield High School campus.

The program has opened the students' eyes to opportunities in a creative field, whether in theater or other art forms, Portillo said.

"This shows them that having a creative inclination can lead to a career," she said. "Some of the brightest artists are in continuation high schools because they don't function well in regular settings. Here, we can balance that out."

The exposure to history, art and culture is an invaluable gift to both the students and the muralists, Carrasco said. Her daughter is a playwright and remembers only having Shakespeare classics to perform in high school.

"This is something not everyone has. It's great that our story continues and that this can be shared with others in the future," said Carrasco, whose strong friendships with union organizers Cesar Chavez and Huerta were depicted in one of the student plays. Her battle with lymphoma and her family life were also main story lines, much to Carrasco's pleasant surprise.

"It really took me back," she told one of the students as she wiped a tear from her eye. "I was really fighting for my life for my daughter."

dalina.castellanos@latimes.com

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IHT Rendezvous: In Worldwide Soccer Corruption Scandal, an Asian Tie

BEIJING — Soccer is probably the world’s most popular sport, commanding billions-strong audiences from slums to palaces. It may also be the world’s most corrupt sport, with the epicenter of the global corruption in Asia, investigators said this week.

The problem is illegal gambling that is tied to corruption and match fixing, said Chris Eaton, a former head of security at FIFA, the world soccer organization based in Switzerland, and now the director of the International Center for Sport Security in Qatar. Asia was attractive to criminals in this area for its lax regulation, he said, and the biggest gambling houses each transacted $2 billion a week. “It’s all done with algorithms and machines, almost like any commodity house in the U.S. or London,” he said.

Soccer gambling “is bigger than Coca-Cola, which is a trillion a year. This is a global economy, a growing global economy, and it needs to be regulated and supervised, and governments aren’t doing this,” Mr. Eaton said in one of a series of Reuters reports this week documenting the scandal.

On Monday, European police said hundreds of matches, including some involving the World Cup, the European Championships and the Champions League, may have been fixed in a global betting scam largely run from Singapore, the Southeast Asian nation with a normally squeaky-clean image.

This colorful account on the investigative Web site Invisible Dog offers apparent details of a trail that it said began with a goalkeeper in an Italian third division team and led to gambling masterminds in Singapore.

If the brains are in Singapore, the three largest gambling houses in Asia, IBCBET, SBOBET and 188BET, are in Manila in the Philippines, Reuters reported. Their operations were “very opaque” and what was known of them came from talking to people familiar with their workings, as there was no government record, Mr. Eaton, the soccer security expert, told Reuters.

“You have under-regulated, gray-area gambling where the regulators are not really serious, transparency rules are not to best practice and government oversight is almost nonexistent,” he said.

Exactly how it works was explained by Laszlo Angeli, a Hungarian prosecutor cited by the news agency, who drew on an example of a member of a gambling syndicate in Hungary.

“The Hungarian member, who was immediately below the Singapore head, was in touch with Hungarian referees who could then attempt to swing matches at which they officiated around the world,” he said. Accomplices would place bets on the Internet or by phone with bookmakers in Asia.

So far, the German police have concrete proof of 8 million euros ($11 million) in gambling profits from the match fixing, but this is probably the tip of the iceberg, experts say.

In response, FIFA has set up an online reporting site that guarantees anonymity to whistleblowers.

But Asian nations must work together to counter the gangs that run operations, said an analyst quoted by Reuters.

“There has to be collective effort from law enforcement agencies in Asia and beyond to address this issue,” said B.C. Tan, head of organized crime research at World-Check, a risk analysis firm.

In January, 41 South Korean players involved in match fixing were banned for life from the game by FIFA, extending earlier sanctions against them (though 21 were offered a reprieve, according to reports.) Three South Koreans involved in the scandal have committed suicide, this report said.

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American Idol: It's a Guys' Night in Hollywood

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

02/06/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

George Holz/FOX

Caution: Contains spoilers!

"It does feel a bit like The Hunger Games," said Keith Urban, ramping up the drama as American Idol kicked off the first day of Hollywood Week. Although producers didn't unleash any tracker jackers on the contestants, they did throw in a couple unexpected twists: This season the week started off as a guys-only competition (the girls arrive in Hollywood next week), and after surviving a round of sudden death solo sing-offs, contestants would then be put into groups from which they couldn't escape.

During the solo round, the standouts included two memorable contestants from the nationwide auditions. First up, Navy man Micah Johnson, who developed a speech impediment after suffering through a botched surgery to remove his tonsils. After a rousing rendition of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Johnson was the first to get the green light to the next round.

Joining him soon after was Cuban-American Lazaro Arbos, a 21-year-old ice cream scooper from Naples, Fla., who speaks with a severe stutter but sings with ease. Although Arbos admitted to being both "scared" and "petrified," he quickly won the judges over – Nicki Minaj made her fingers into a heart-shape while he sang – with his take on the Robbie Williams hit, "Angels."

When it came time to form groups of four, the Idol producers threw a few more curveballs – such as pairing a couple of country crooners with two flamboyant (think glitter and faux fur) dudes Ryan Seacrest described as the show's "resident divas."

The result: a quartet that dubbed themselves Country Queen, which delivered a train wreck of a performance. Still, somehow three of the four made it through.

Meanwhile, Arbos's group experience also proved to be a bit of a disaster – which some of his cohorts blamed on his inability to quickly learn the lyrics and melody to the Beach Boys hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Although his main nemesis got the boot, a tearful Arbos got the chance to sing another day.

The day of auditions came to a close with what was possibly the most heartbreaking Idol exit ever. New York City subway singer Frankie Ford got a case of the jitters before going on stage, then proceeded to screw up the lyrics and sing off key – leaving the judges no choice but to pull the plug on his dreams. Before walking off into the night, a sobbing Ford stared into the camera and said, "I swear to God I'm coming back next year and I'm going to win."

There will be more solos Thursday (8 p.m. ET), as the judges have to whittle the 43 men left in the competition down to 20 lucky fellas.

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Chris Brown's attorney calls community service probe 'fraudulent'

Singer Chris Brown's lawyer fired back Wednesday at the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, accusing prosecutors of conducting their own "fraudulent" investigation into allegations that the entertainer had failed to fulfill his community service on a 2009 assault conviction involving Rihanna.

Attorney Mark Geragos said there were countless examples of officials in Virginia witnessing Brown carrying out his court-ordered manual labor, which he said included shredding documents at the Richmond Police Department and cleaning the agency's stables.

He angrily disputed the district attorney's allegation that there were discrepancies between a report prepared by Richmond police about the number of hours Brown had served and the R&B singer's actual schedule. Geragos cited an email Richmond police sent the district attorney's office late Tuesday in which the department's general counsel accused Los Angeles prosecutors of including false statements in a court motion that questioned how much labor Brown completed.

"Exactly what the D.A. claimed is absolutely false — and I don't mean false, I mean fraudulent," Geragos said at a news conference after Brown appeared in court Wednesday in downtown L.A. "This motion, frankly, was a travesty."

District attorney's officials declined to comment.

Brown wore a dark gray jacket and a skinny tie during his brief appearance before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Brandlin. Rihanna accompanied him to court and sat in the second row with other Brown supporters.

The judge ordered Brown to report to his probation officer within 48 hours and provide any documentation related to his community service. He also asked the county's probation department to report back to the court about how much labor Brown had done, and scheduled another hearing for April 5.

Brown is serving five years' probation after pleading guilty to a felony count of assault in connection with a 2009 attack on girlfriend Rihanna. As part of his probation, Brown was required to perform 180 days of community labor in Virginia.

The motion filed Tuesday by Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary A. Murray said an investigation into Brown's community service found "significant discrepancies indicating at best sloppy documentation and at worst fraudulent reporting," and asked a judge to order Brown to carry out his court-ordered labor in Los Angeles County instead of in Virginia, where he lives.

The filing outlined a series of inconsistencies with a report prepared by Richmond police, and alleged Brown was not in the city — or even the country — during times he reportedly was picking up trash. Among the instances cited in the motion was that Brown said he completed four hours of trash pickup between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on a day when he was actually on a private plane to Cancun, which he boarded at 4 p.m.

Geragos, however, said his client completed the labor by 2 p.m. and was still able to make his flight.

In another incident, the district attorney's office said Brown reported he was picking up trash in a Richmond alley while he was actually hosting a charity event about 100 miles away in Washington, D.C. In his motion filed Wednesday, Geragos contended that the district attorney's office made the accusation without knowing when Brown was in the nation's capital and when he got back to Richmond, though the lawyer did not detail when Brown carried out the labor.

Geragos' motion did not address prosecutors' concerns that they had been unable to find any evidence that Brown completed more than 500 hours of community labor at Tappahannock Children's Center, where his mother had once served as director and where he spent time as a child. The center is an hour's drive from Richmond and rarely visited by police, according to Murray's motion.

Part of the singer's labor reportedly included waxing floors at the center. But a longtime janitor at the facility told investigators that he had maintained all of the floors for eight years and was unaware of anyone else doing so, prosecutors said.

Geragos told reporters he would file additional materials with the court to show that Brown had completed his service, and he accused prosecutors of relying on "supposed statements from somebody who is supposed to be waxing the floor."

"What we have uncovered so far in a very short amount of time should shock the conscience of the court," Geragos wrote in his court filing, which described the district attorney's accusations as a "vicious and unwarranted attack on Mr. Brown" and Virginia authorities.

The legal wrangling comes days before Sunday's Grammy Awards, where Brown's album "Fortune" is nominated, and follows a series of controversial incidents involving the entertainer, including a fight in January with singer Frank Ocean at a West Hollywood recording studio and a February 2012 encounter in Miami, where Brown allegedly drove away with the cellphone of a fan who took a photo of him and his then-girlfriend.

Another incident referenced was in March 2011 at the "Good Morning America" studio in New York City, where Brown became enraged after he was questioned about his assault on Rihanna. Brown threw a chair through a glass window, an act prosecutors said was "another demonstration of the defendant's anger-control issues and violent temper resulting in a violation of the law."

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

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Tsunami Causes Damage, Possible Deaths, on Solomon Islands

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — A powerful 8.0 magnitude earthquake caused a tsunami that sent strong waves crashing into several South Pacific islands, with officials in the Solomon Islands fearful that some residents had lost their lives.

The earthquake prompted tsunami warnings and watches from several island chains to Australia and later New Zealand, but many of those were later canceled.

The low-lying Solomon Islands, however, were not spared. George Herming, a government spokesman, said the tsunami sent two nearly five-foot waves into the western side of Santa Cruz Island, damaging at least 50 homes.

The police commissioner of the islands, John Lansley, said his patrols reported that at least four people and perhaps more were likely killed by the waves and ensuing flooding.

Richard Dapo, a school principal on an island near Santa Cruz, told the Associated Press that he had been getting calls from families on the coast whose homes had been damaged by the waves. 

“I try to tell the people living on the coastline, ‘Move inland, find a higher place. Make sure to keep away from the sea. Watch out for waves,’” he said.

The earthquake struck around 11 a.m. local time in the Santa Cruz Islands. There were conflicting reports as to the depth of the quake.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the tsunami warning was limited to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, and Wallis and Futuna.

A lesser alert, a tsunami watch, was declared for American Samoa, Australia, Guam, the Northern Marianas, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia.

The earthquake was not only powerful but also shallow, which gave it significant potential to cause damage, said Barry Hirshorn, a geophysicist with the National Weather Service in Hawaii. Moreover, it was a thrust earthquake, he said, meaning that the sea floor moved up or down, not sideways, contributing to the potential for a dangerous tsunami.

But after the earthquake, as scientists watched to see how far a tsunami might spread, there were few early indications of a major threat beyond the immediate area, Mr. Hirshorn said. A water rise of about three feet had been observed close to the quake, he said, still high enough to be potentially damaging but probably not big enough to threaten distant shores.

In New Zealand, thousands of people were at the beach, swimming in the sea on a glorious summer afternoon on Waitangi Day, a national holiday — quite oblivious to the potential for a tsunami. Tsunami sirens were set off late in the afternoon there, and people in coastal areas were being told to stay off beaches and out of the sea, rivers and estuaries.

The New Zealand Herald reported Wednesday afternoon on its Web site that tsunami sirens in Suva, the capital of Fiji, had been warning people to stay inside or go to higher ground.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site on Wednesday that the Solomon Islands’ National Disaster Management Office had advised those living in low-lying areas, especially on Makira and Malaita, to move to higher ground.

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Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Is No Reason to Speed Divorce, says Kris Humphries

By Mike Fleeman

02/05/2013 at 09:20 PM EST

Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian

Seth Browarnik/StarTraks

Kim Kardashian's baby is not even born yet and already is being drawn into mama's divorce.

Kardashian, carrying boyfriend Kanye West's child, has bristled at what she sees as stall tactics by estranged husband Kris Humphries to close the legal books on their 72-day marriage.

But Humphries's lawyer Marshall W. Waller writes that "what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy" is being used by Kardashian as "an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage (to) prematurely set this matter for trial."

He adds parenthetically that the pregnancy is "something (Humphries) had nothing to do with."

Waller explains his reasoning for calling the pregnancy as unplanned: "Indeed, why would (she) plan to get pregnant in the midst of divorce proceedings?"

Kardashian, herself, recently addressed the timing.

"God brings you things at a time when you least expect it," she said last month. "I'm such a planner and this was just meant to be. What am I going to? Wait years to get a divorce? I'd love one. It's a process."

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Giving kids a view to a better future

Bosko Magana, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Dolores Mission School in Boyle Heights, began noticing about a year ago that her world was getting a little fuzzy around the edges. But eyeglasses didn't fit into the family budget.

Joanna Hernandez, 13, already had glasses, but for the last several months, they weren't strong enough.

"I couldn't see the board very well," she said.

Eugene Flores, 12, began noticing a year ago that when he looked to the right, "My eyes would take time to adjust."

On Monday morning, a mobile eye lab from Vision To Learn, a one-year-old nonprofit, rolled onto the Dolores Mission campus and students were called up, one at a time, to claim their new, free glasses. Bosko, Joanna and Eugene were among 31 students who got specs, and after a ceremony, some of their classmates lined up outside the van for eye tests.

At Catholic and L.A. Unified Schools throughout Los Angeles, kids are seeing better because Austin Beutner, a former investment banker and deputy mayor who lives in Pacific Palisades, was shocked by what he heard from an acquaintance.

"An educator who I know came up to me and said about 15% of the kids in public schools can't see the board," Beutner said. "I asked around and said, well, this seems like a problem we can solve, so I went out, bought this vehicle, hired some doctors, put together a team."

In less than a year, Vision to Learn has tested 5,000 students and distributed almost 4,000 pairs of prescription glasses. Beutner said his research suggests that 30,000 to 40,000 elementary school students in the city need glasses, and that 60% of so-called problem learners are visually impaired.

"They get fidgety. They can't pay attention. Think about the life track that puts them on, versus a simple fix — glasses."

Karina Moreno-Corgan, the Dolores Mission principal, told me that about a third of the school's 240 students were in need of glasses.

"We did screenings, or a teacher was able to tell because of squinting or something else," Moreno-Corgan said.

But in many cases, the parents' health coverage didn't include vision care, or they had no health insurance at all and couldn't afford glasses. Or, she said, the healthcare bureaucracy was impossible to negotiate.

"This is unfortunately a symbol of the problems with the larger healthcare system and the way it segments people out and divides service," said Steven P. Wallace, a professor of public health at UCLA.

Vision care, dentistry and audiology are "the stepchildren of the medical system," Wallace said, and it's particularly difficult for low-income people to get those services, even though they're essential to growth and development. Fall down and break an arm, Wallace said, and the system works. But short of an emergency, good luck.

"Some children don't even realize" they have vision problems, optician Sherry Pastor told me as more students were being tested in the van on Monday. "They lose interest in school, their grades fail, they become outcasts because they're not learning at the same level as the other children. It's amazing to know, once they get glasses, how differently they see the world. They can actually read a book and enjoy it and not get frustrated."

We live in a city that offers unlimited world-class medical resources and easy access for the more fortunate among us. On the elective side of the industry, you can get a colonic in the morning, a facelift in the afternoon and choose from a thousand anxiety specialists if you don't like the results. Across the highway and into the next area code, kids are lined up outside a van because they can't see the blackboard.

"Sometimes I have to be telling the teacher, 'Can I move up?'" said Fernando Variente, 12, who told me he has trouble reading his assignments. He was waiting in line with Leslie Alcon, 12, who said she's been nearsighted for about four years.

On Monday, Father Greg Boyle, who was once assigned to the Dolores Mission Church, encouraged students to think more broadly about the word "vision." To some, it's the ability to read a book, to others, it's the dream of a community in which everyone matters equally, and help is provided to those in need. Vision To Learn has gotten backing from the William Hannon Foundation, former Mayor Richard Riordan, City National Bank, the Adamma Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Rotary Club of Westchester, among other groups. If you'd like to volunteer or donate — or to set up a visit at your school — go to http://www.visiontolearn.org.

Emily Plotkin, Jamie Chang and Alex Radan — all of them seniors at the exclusive Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City — were helping out Monday at the eyeglass giveaway. Emily, head of her school's community council, a service organization, said they planned to hold a dance at their school to raise money for Vision to Learn. She said she felt both fortunate to go to Harvard-Westlake and inspired by the students at Dolores.

Inside the van, Beutner told me he met a teacher a couple of weeks ago who told him a story about a bright fifth-grader with an erratic academic record. The girl would test gifted one year, not the next, then gifted again, then not.

"They went back and looked, and it was a single-parent household. The mother was in and out of work, and when she could afford it, the kid had glasses, and when they couldn't afford it, they didn't have glasses," Beutner said. "A $20 pair of glasses can change your life."

steve.lopez@latimes.com

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