Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has the celebrity hook AND the real deal anti-Marxist analysis today behind the eviction of fading actress Daryl Hannah from a tree on private property once used as a urban community garden.

Hannah's arrest, along with those of a few dozen other protesters, was a Hollywood moment if ever there was one. The farm story has been beaten to death for years, but Hannah only heard about it a few weeks ago. And then suddenly she was Mother Teresa among the poor, laying her head down in a cabbage patch each night. When I got to the show, protesters were behind the barricades at 41st Street and Long Beach Avenue, singing and dancing and yelling at cops in riot gear as the last squatters were evicted.

"What are you here to protect?" one foaming protester shouted at the cops, calling them slaves of the system. "Fascism?" It was like being at a Mumia Abu Jamal rally. I liked the spirit of the young Che wannabes and gray-haired greens, but Mumia killed the cop in question, and Ralph Horowitz owns the farm in question. Which means he can do with it as he pleases, as the courts have ruled more than once.

...."I'm very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers," Hannah told the Associated Press moments before her arrest. Call me a cynic, but I've got to wonder why she, Baez, Laura Dern, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover and other Hollywood supporters couldn't help raise the dough to back up their principles. And if they believe poor folk ought to do their farming on private property, I'm wondering when they'll ask some of their Hollywood pals to open the security gates to their sprawling compounds. I'm just guessing, but there must be thousands of acres of fertile soil out there, ripe for planting.

Ah, but for celebrity do-gooders, it's always someone else who's supposed to don the mantle of altruism. As Peter Schweizer detailed so painstakingly in his great book, "Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Profiles In Liberal Hypocrisy" (related essay here).

Johhny Depp and Hannah should meet for goat cheese and truffle-filled ravioli in a nettle-saffron broth at Spiaggia, to trade war stories about greedy, self-interested property owners. The L.A. Times reports Depp's sister is appealing a $10 million lawsuit he has lost once already, against the West Hollywood City Council. Depp's attorneys argued that the council violated environmental quality laws because a retail development they approved would block views of Sunset Strip for his children when they played outside his hillside home. Only, the Times notes, his kids live in France.

TECHNORATI TAGS: LOS ANGELES, DARYL HANNAH, TREE, URBAN FARM, PROPERTY RIGHTS, CELEBRITY PROTESTS, JOHHNY DEPP, PETER SCHWEIZER