OPINION

Somewhere, anywhere, the call to prayer in Turkey is a marvelous, murmured song. Born aloft five times a day, the music of Islam’s call to the faithful, cast from loudspeakers over busy streets of Istanbul or rising with the sun in tiny Anatolian villages, leads me directly into the mystery of Islam. Every mosque has at least one minaret and a balcony where the muezzin cries out ‘Allahhhh …u Akbar,’ God is great, the same Arabic phrase Muslims have used for nearly 1,400 years. Muslims believe that by offering prayers five times a day they are strengthened and enlivened in their beliefs in Allah, and that they are inspired to a higher morality. Perhaps my first visit to a country sculpted by over 600 years of devotion to Islam caused me to focus on the potential for peaceful awareness that these intermittent time-outs allow. While for Muslims, the prayer is one of the five practices required by their faith, imagine the effect upon us all if we were to take 10 minutes out five times a day to make a quiet interruption to our hectic pace. Breathing deeply, stretching, looking up at the flowering trees or listening to the birds’ spring tizzy adds up to almost an hour of rest. Imagine being reminded of the call to prayer on the car radio, much like a civil defense drill. You’d turn off your radio or cell phone and come back to yourself. Islam is very simple. For Westerners, the religion, evangelized by the prophet Mohammed in the 600’s A. D., has grown from mythology to menace. Not immune from the distortions all religions suffer, Islam has served the purposes of craven despots and crazies. But to approach a philosophy at first blush as I have is to see the fundamental strength of the faith. Istanbul, strategically located on the Bosphorus, straddles Europe and Asia, symbolically reflecting its historical prominence as both the center of early Christianity in the Byzantine period, and Islam under Mohammed. The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith in the 16th century, solidifying the conservative influence of Islam. Today, mosques silhouetted against the open sky, dazzle the Western eye. Like Rome, this city is built upon seven hills, each crowned by a mosque with its wide classical dome and towering minarets pointing upward. Much like the churches and steeples that dot a New England landscape, these reverential institutions attest to the ecclesiastical foundation of the city. Turkey is a decidedly secular country, but 98 percent of the population profess to be devout followers of Islam. Not wanting to sound na’ve or doctrinaire, I nevertheless am drawn to the idea that prayer plays an important role in the day and the life of every pious Muslim. No matter how you define ‘prayer,’ taking a breather seems like a healthy retreat.

VIEWPOINT

By LEN R. SMALL Special to the Palisadian-Post It’s 1982, and I’m standing in an anteroom at the Vatican, waiting for a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I remember what was going through my mind: Life is not fair. I have many Catholic friends, but I’m the one who gets to meet the pope. The event was unexpected. I was visiting Rome as the chairman of United Press International, a large news agency, when the phone rang in my hotel room the night before. Our bureau chief had wangled a meeting in honor of the 75th anniversary of the agency, which had a close relationship with L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper. Our bureau chief advised me to have comments ready, and to offer an appropriate gift to the Church. After some head-scratching, my colleagues and I decided to offer a wireless radio for a priest serving in a remote location, playing on the theme of communications. The next day, we met at the newspaper, and suddenly an ambulance appeared and stopped next door at the Vatican. We learned that the patient was a key aide to the pope, who had just collapsed following an exhausting tour of Spain. (The pope was fine, notwithstanding his being shot not long before.) That crisis cut short our meeting. While waiting in the anteroom, we learned that the cherubic ceiling paintings by Raphael had subtle distortions to please the eye in terms of perspective, as the ceiling was curved, and that the gold leaf came from Columbus’ treasure from the New World, by way of Queen Isabella. Suddenly a large door to our left opened and the pope came in. He greeted my associates and me quickly, with a thank you in English, giving us a rosary, while his official photographer, with lightning reflexes, got a good shot of each handshake. I was used to Italian popes, and was struck by his white-blond hair and blue eyes: Goodness, he looks Nordic, I thought. Then he was gone, and from the right-hand side came a large group of excited African priests, colorful in their splendid tunics, who were awaiting their visit with the pope. I also recall another pope, John XXIII, who fell mortally ill in 1963 when I was a young journalist in UPI’s London bureau, through which all communication flowed from Europe to the U.S., via a direct cable to New York. That pope was a down-to-earth, much-loved character who was supposed to be a caretaker, but changed the Church profoundly by calling an Ecumenical Council to reexamine doctrine and procedures. Several veteran journalists there had covered the Vatican for years, and regaled me with inside stories and political gossip. I can remember only one story. At one point in John XXIII’s career, an intoxicated priest came to him to give confession. ‘Remember who you are,’ John told him, changing the man’s life forever. I think John Paul II also remembered who he was, always. (Len Small is president of the Illinois-based Small Newspaper Group, which owns the Palisadian-Post.)

Citizen of the Year Stuart Muller has spent most of his life in Pacific Palisades. He was born here in 1945 and immediately honored with a ‘Most Beautiful Baby of the Year’ award. He attended local schools, went to teen dances at the YMCA and rollerskated on clay wheels at the Recreation Center, which he remembers as ‘Palisades Park.’ His parents, Wayne and Mary, raised all five of their children in the same house on Radcliffe, where they still live today. They moved to Radcliffe in 1955 from Fiske Street, where Muller, at age 4-1/2, used to catch the bus to Canyon School. Muller’s Aunt Ruth (Mary’s sister) taught at Canyon for about 30 years, and some of her students included Randy Newman, Richard Zanuck and Norma Shearer. ‘Sometimes I think my Aunt Ruth’s spirit invaded me,’ says Muller, a licensed marriage, family and child counselor who enjoys teaching and working with children. His aunt came to the Palisades ahead of his mother, in the mid-1920s. She and her husband bought a home on Hartzell, near the house her grandfather had built on Galloway in 1929. They owned an awning shop in the Palisades that Muller says put up the original awnings on the Swarthmore Business Block building. Originally from South Dakota, Muller’s mother moved here in 1931 and married her high school sweetheart Wayne about a decade later at St. Augustine’s in Santa Monica. At the time, the Palisades was hardly the hot spot it is today. Rather, Muller’s parents were asked questions like ‘Why would you live out in the sticks like that?’ Muller, the oldest of the five kids, admits ‘We never had a key to our house until the Watts riots.’ As a teenager, Muller got his first job working as a gardener in the Huntington. A couple years later, in 1960, he worked after school as a printer’s devil at The Palisadian, loading paper and pouring hot lead into the machines, skills he had learned in print shop class at Paul Revere. ‘I worked with the Brown boys,’ Muller says, referring to Charlie and Paul, who formerly owned the newspaper. Muller was one of the first students in ‘B-7’ at Paul Revere the day it opened in 1955, just as he had been in the original first grade class at St. Matthew’s. (Muller’s parents were founders of St. Matthew’s Parish Church, and his mom was chairman of the St. Matthew’s Thrift Shop for almost three decades.) He remembers going to school with the same group of kids year after year and everyone ‘constantly talking about how we were (Continued from Page 1) going to get a Recreation Center,’ he says. ‘And finally we did.’ It was then that the fun began’square dancing, volleyball, rollerskating and a beauty contest with Peter Graves as a judge, as well as scrapbook making, shuffleboard and crafts”the old park stuff,’ Muller says. He always felt a strong connection to the Rec Center, and years later would serve as director of the Early Childhood Program and lead special recreational programs for children. Muller graduated from University High School in 1961, the year PaliHi opened, and went on to film school at USC, which he says was considered ‘the nerd school’ at that time. ‘I wanted to be a feature film director,’ says Muller, whose classmates included George Lucas, John Milius (who wrote ‘Apocalypse Now’) and Randal Kleiser (who directed ‘Grease’). His film pursuits transformed into the desire to be a still photographer after he graduated in 1967 with a degree in cinema. So he set out for Spain (having studied Spanish in school), where he traveled via motorcycle around the country before settling in a small Andalusian village. Here he created a photographic portfolio of life there. ‘A lot of my life has been about pictures,’ says Muller, who bought a small camera in Gibraltar but later received a more sophisticated model as a wedding gift from his father. As luck has it, Muller met a Time-Life photographer in Spain and ended up working as his assistant on two cookbooks. ‘We got to eat at three-star restaurants whenever we wanted.’ Also while living in Spain, he reunited with a woman he’d grown up with in the Palisades and the two returned to the United States to marry at the Riviera Country Club in 1968. Their son, Payson, was born the following year. Back home, Muller started working in the mailroom at Walt Disney Productions, eventually moving up to the imagineering department (or theme park division) in creative development and marketing. ‘I was there before it was taken over by big companies,’ says Muller, who was involved in the creation of Walt Disney World, EPCOT Center, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland. At age 38, Muller left Disney to pursue a career in clinical psychology. ‘I was interested in human crisis and turning crisis into opportunity,’ he says. ‘I always enjoyed working with kids’I find it really pleasant.’ Muller earned his master’s degree from Antioch University in 1987 and interned at several mental health facilities, including Cedars-Sinai, where he got involved in early childhood education and therapeutic teaching methods. Before receiving his state license as a marriage, family and child counselor in 1992, Muller travelled around the world for one year, backpacking through Europe and Asia. ‘Those images are fresh in my mind,’ says Muller, whose children Payson, 35, and Daniela, 31, are also well travelled. Payson is a craftsman, a rock carver who recently graduated from trade school in London. Daniela is a musician pursuing modeling and acting in New York City. Currently, Muller works at Step by Step Early Child Development Program in Santa Monica, offering in-home and in-school counseling and psychotherapy. He specializes in relationship issues and early childhood development, and works mainly with children ages 2-1/2 to 7. When Muller’s not working with children, he uses his creative energies as an area representative on the Community Council (since 1994) to lead community projects such as the beautification of the Sav-on loading dock area on Swarthmore (photo, page 1). He also formed a Car Wash Noise Committee last year that helped solve some of the noise and visual pollution problems at Palisades Gas and Wash. ‘It’s a good hobby,’ he says about his community activism in the Palisades, which earned him a Community Council Sparkplug Award in 1998. ‘It’s something you can put your mind to.’ Muller will receive his Citizen of the Year Award next Thursday at the Riviera Country Club. Citizen of the Year Stuart Muller in front of the Clearwater mural on Swarthmore Avenue. Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer

For giving a fresh new look to Palisades Elementary School, Jim Blumel has been chosen by the Pacific Palisades Community Council as this year’s Golden Sparkplug winner, an award that ‘honors citizens who ignite ideas and projects into community action which affect us all.’ He will receive his award at the Citizen of the Year celebration at the Riviera Country Club on April 14. ‘He re-landscaped Palisades Elementary out of his own pocket, with enthusiasm,’ said Council Chairman Norman Kulla. ‘He initiated the kind of volunteer and community spirit that is so characteristic of Palisadians, so essential of being part of the community where people appreciate one another. People felt enthusiastic about how he approached what he did, as well as what he did.’ Blumel has lived in the Palisades for three years with his wife Jill, also an active community volunteer, and their three daughters’Leah, a third grader at Palisades Elementary; Juliana, a first grader at the school; and Isabella, 3-1/2, who attends Methodist Preschool. ‘I have two kids at the school and one more who will be attending,’ Blumel said. ‘I just decided it would look nice [to have new landscaping]’for the community, the kids and the school. The architecture is nice, it’s a beautiful school, but the landscaping was old and terrible.’ Blumel, who owns Sunset Landscaping, provided the plants, design and labor. Fifteen of his employees came out on a Saturday to remove all of the old plants and some of the trees and trim other trees in front of the Via de la Paz school. A team of five spent a week on the planting of a dozen varieties of plants, including daylilies, variegated pittosporum, pink breath of heaven and birds of paradise. They also fixed the aging sprinkler system. ‘I planted a lot of perennial shrubs that bloom throughout the year,’ Blumel said. ‘Plants that have flowers’reds, pinks and purples at different times of the year.’ He also made sure the plants and bushes were low-maintenance, and that they would ‘thrive on neglect.’ ‘We appreciate that he supplied not only the physical landscaping, trees, grass and dirt, but all the manpower. He brought in the workers over several days, and made it a reality,’ said principal Tami Weiser. ‘The kids and parents appreciate how it looks so fresh, clean and modern.’ Blumel, 40, grew up in Palm Springs and graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science. He began his career working in the banking/brokerage business in New York City, but left to explore his entrepreneurial bent. He started Sunset Landscaping with his brother Daniel 15 years ago. The company, which has 380 employees, specializes in commercial landscaping in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego counties. ‘What I like about landscaping is you can physically see the results of what you do for a living,’ said Blumel, who will graduate next month from the Executive MBA program at USC. Blumel travels frequently to different sites for his job, including offices in Carlsbad and Valencia, where the company’s 9-acre nursery is located. Traveling on the 5 Freeway from the Santa Clarita Valley last April, he stopped to help driver Jos’ Sanchez climb out of the window of his burning big rig’a heroic deed that was reported in the Palisadian-Post. Blumel said he was embarrassed by the coverage, but moved by the response from Sanchez, his children and his boss. ‘The act was more rewarding than any recognition.’ Blumel has provided other donations and volunteer service to schools. In 2000, his company was commended by County Supervisor Mike Antonovich for ‘outstanding community service’ to schools, Boys and Girls Clubs and churches in Santa Clarita. ‘We always support the local community where our business is located; they support us and we want to support them back,’ Blumel said. Since moving to the Alphabet Streets in August 2002, he feels a strong sense of community in the Palisades. ‘It’s nice to be part of the neighborhood.’

Mort’s Deli on Swarthmore was robbed at gunpoint last Wednesday evening, March 30, by two young male suspects. The robbery occurred at approximately 9:45 p.m., shortly before the restaurant closed. The two suspects were described as African Americans in their late teens to early 20s, wearing dark hooded sweatshirts and masks. According to a police report, they entered the restaurant through the rear alley door. Displaying a handgun, they approached the cashier and demanded money from the register. The suspects fled on foot out the back door with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale, who explained that ‘the rear door is normally unlocked when customers are still inside.’ One suspect has been brought in for questioning and others are being looked at by the West Los Angeles Area Robbery Homicide Unit. ‘Several employees and one customer also had their wallets taken during the robbery,’ Ragsdale said, citing five victims total. ‘An unknown amount of money was also taken from the Lotto sales cash box.’ Ragsdale added that it’s possible there were other victims since several witnesses had left the scene and were not available for interview when the officers were conducting the investigation just following the robbery. One of the victims was Scott Allen, who grew up in the Palisades and is now a high school teacher. Allen was having dinner that night at Mort’s with two friends. They had arrived at about 9:30 p.m. ‘At about 9:45, two individuals with dark sweatshirts, pants and gloves entered the restaurant,’ Allen told the Palisadian-Post. ‘Their hoods were over their heads and pinned shut across their faces to prevent them from being identified. I did not see them enter. They just looked like some young kids goofing off to me. They made no loud demands and did not wave their pistols around.’ When one of his friends alerted him to the fact that a robbery was taking place, Allen said to her, ‘This is Mort’s Deli in Pacific Palisades. No one is going to rob this place.’ Soon afterwards, he noticed about four of the employees standing just beyond the Mort’s counter talking to the assailants but did not hear what they were saying. One of the suspects approached the victim’s table and ‘demanded that we give him everything in our pockets”Wallets, cell phones!” said Allen, who was robbed of his wallet. ‘He held a semi-automatic pistol in his right hand. We complied.’ Of Allen’s friends, one had a cell phone taken and the other had both a cell phone and wallet taken. ‘As we were sitting at the table’still a bit in shock but not panicking at all’a police car dashed up to Mort’s, pulling up against traffic on Swarthmore,’ Allen said. ‘The officer got out of the car and asked a couple of questions, and then immediately sped off.’ According to the police report, six units from the LAPD-West Los Angeles area responded to the scene and surrounding area for the on-scene investigation and area search for the suspects. The first unit arrived on scene within two minutes of the call being dispatched.

Just 10 days after one Bank of America robbery and five days after a robbery at Mort’s Deli, the Palisades village was jarred Monday morning by yet another crime. The Citibank located at 15215 Sunset was robbed at approximately 10:10 a.m. when a man entered the bank posing as a customer. The suspect was described as a white male with blonde hair, blue eyes and a mustache, 5’7′, 170 lbs., 30 to 40 years old, wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. According to the LAPD police report, he approached a teller, displayed a handgun and demanded money. The suspect then fled on foot towards Sunset. Three patrol units and a helicopter responded to the call with the first unit arriving on scene within one minute of the call being dispatched. The robbery is being investigated by the LAPD-Robbery Homicide Bank section. About 30 minutes later, the Bank of America branch at 15314 Sunset received a suspicious phone call that led employees to conduct their own evacuation. The neighboring businesses’Affinity Bank, Sotheby’s, Tivoli, Quiznos and Starbucks’were then all ordered evacuated by LAPD. ‘An area search was conducted by the bank personnel and LAPD officers,’ said Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale. ‘It was later determined there were no suspicious packages.’ An investigation is being conducted by the LAPD-Criminal Conspiracy Division. ‘The suspects in these bank robberies are all serial robbers,’ Ragsdale told the Palisadian-Post Tuesday. ‘In other words, they are not targeting the Palisades. They’re targeting banks across the region.’ Ragsdale added that the suspect who robbed Bank of America on Saturday, March 19, has been identified and is a fugitive. He was connected to other crimes in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Ventura. ‘There’s speculation about why these bank robberies are occurring,’ Ragsdale said, explaining that ‘Banks on the westside have less bank security and are typically carrying much more cash in drawers.’ He pointed out that after Wells Fargo on Swarthmore was robbed repeatedly in 2003, it finally put up what are called ‘bandit barriers’ (bulletproof glass fronts on teller windows) at the suggestion of LAPD. Since then the bank has not had one robbery. ‘We’re looking at how to make the banks more secure from this type of crime,’ Ragsdale said.