And We Shall March

Like Just About Everybody Else I Have Many Reasons To Profoundly Dislike The LA Times...

but one of the minor reasons is its absolute crap approach toward the real estate section.

Let's take the "Hot Property" feature. Too often it has a lead story headline something like this:    CCH Pounder lists home in L.A.'s historic West Adams 

Which is followed by lead story text looking something like this: On FX's "The Shield," CCH Pounder played the fictional LAPD Capt. Claudette Wyms -- the self-appointed voice of morality at "the Barn," as her division headquarters was affectionately called. Her frequent clashes with bad boy Det. Vic Mackey (played by Michael Chiklis) underscored her determination and strength -- qualities that just might come in handy as she tries to sell her West Adams home.

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom Italianate home is listed at $1.25 million. It was built in 1915 and has been restored. The 3,284-square-foot house is in a designated Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, which means that the local HPOZ board would need to sign off on any exterior changes to the home, a walled and gated property. Pounder, who was raised on a sugar cane plantation in her birth country of Guyana and then later educated in British boarding schools, has also appeared in "Justice League" (2004-06) and several episodes of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." She will appear in the upcoming James Cameron 3-D film "Avatar."

Steven Portigiani of Deasy Penner & Partners is the listing agent, according to the Multiple Listing Service.

But when you click over to the actual story? The pictures are of somebody else's house! And because the LAT has yet to clue into the standard practice of providing a link back to the main story within the captions of a photo gallery, you're trapped clicking looking for a linkback until you give up and reset to the poorly designed main home page, then scroll until you find the story again, which you click on for the url so you can make a post complaining about how sucky the LAT is.

Happily there are other sources to go to and find out what The Magnificent CCH Pounder's house looks like and, more importantly, discover how close is it in relation to my apartment! Turns out it's not far away at all... Check out the copper pot & pan collection in the kitchen! And that FANTASTIC garden with the cool hand-crafted gate! Not quite sold on the green of the dining room walls, but I can just paint that over....

CCH Pounder / Shield / holding

Raised in Guyana and schooled in Britain, Pounder tells Terry Gross that it was only when she started using an American accent in her roles that she found herself the target of racial epithets.

"The thing about being black and having a different accent, in the beginning, is that it makes you foreign," she says. "It does not make you — how can I use this word? I'll say it and then you edit it some other way: a n——-."

"And so, with your accent, you are somewhat protected by being foreign. But I wanted to be an American actress. ... I knew that that was where the real stories would be; it would take England much much longer to come up with these stories. ...

"[So] I subjected myself to that feeling. ... When people talk to you, and you receive those insults and barbs ... you kind of become a part of society. It's part of the whole assimilation ... system, really. The moment you're not foreign, then you get hurts, and pains, and pangs. ... You are no longer protected by your foreignness."

Pounder talks with Terry Gross about her work on The Shield, about how fans reacted when her character was passed over for promotion (in favor of an officer played by guest star Glenn Close), and about how film and television directors have dealt — sometimes with a painful awkwardness — with questions of race and class.

"I've actually been [asked] by directors, could I be more black? And I would say sort of, 'Well, just look at me, and tell me what … What exactly do you want?

"Because I can't get much blacker than I physically am," she laughs. "But what attitude would you like?"

In the actual interview, I love the part where she talks about viewer reaction when Rawling got the captain's job the first time around.