Why Californians Secretly Love Earthquakes?
CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-Of all the lies Californians tell ourselves, one of the biggest is that we hate earthquakes. The unspoken truth is that we love earthquakes, as well we should.
CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-Of all the lies Californians tell ourselves, one of the biggest is that we hate earthquakes. The unspoken truth is that we love earthquakes, as well we should.
AN ANIMAL STORY-I recently responded to a casting call for a reality TV show. Producers were seeking folks to confess crimes—secret crimes for which they’d never been caught.
OTHER WORDS-You’ve heard the cliché: If you’re taking heat from “both sides,” you must be doing something right.
NEW GEOGRAPHY--A critical component in the rise of market-oriented democracy in the modern era has been the dispersion of property ownership among middle-income households
PLATKIN ON PLANNING-No, your eyes aren’t lying. Los Angeles is experiencing a building boom, mostly high-rise luxury hotels and apartments in a few select neighborhoods.
BCK FILE--President Trump took to Twitter Sunday am, more than doubling down on the accusations he’s a racist.
AT LENGTH-“Don’t you know … They’re talkin’ bout a revolution … It sounds like a whisper …” -- Tracy Chapman. The psychology of fear is one of the most motivating and debilitating factors of the human condition.
ONE MAN’S OPINION-Query: What is wrong with Los Angeles? Answer: Angelenos. “The fault rests, dear Brutus, not in the stars but in ourselves.” -- Cassius, Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
@THE GUSS REPORT-This weekend, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched raids in a handful of American cities to capture and remove from the United States thousands undocumented immigrants who are not only in the United States illegally, most of whom committed other crimes while here, but who also who ignored a federal judge’s orders to exit the U.S.
ENVIRONMENTAL BOOK REVIEW-In his new book, “Food or War,” Julian Cribb writes, “The most destructive object on the planet…is the human jawbone.” (Cambridge University Press, 2019, p.177).
GELFAND’S WORLD--We've been talking a lot about earthquake awareness of late, but there's one more topic that bears mentioning. It will seem science-fictional at first, but there's serious, real-world significance to it.
NEW GEOGRAPHY--It would be comforting if Nike’s decision to ditch its “Betsy Ross” flag sneakers at the behest of former NFL quarterback and social justice warrior Colin Kaepernick was exceptional, but, sadly, it is not.
ALPERN AT LARGE--This piece is neither "pro-Trump" nor "anti-Trump” and is neither "pro-Democrat" nor "anti-Democrat".
CHARTER WARS-An email thread documenting the unseemly coziness between LA schools superintendent Austin Beutner and the California charter school lobby set off political pyrotechnics late last month when the investigative blog — and indefatigable California public records miner — Michael Kohlhaas dot org published a cache of documents revealing the covert relationship in the midst of last year’s contract stalemate with UTLA.
@THE GUSS REPORT-My days start in pitch darkness, but rarely are those wee hours of stretching and caffeine the highlight of the day, like last week when I received an overnight message that actor Robert Blake saw my recent column about him and wanted to talk.
DEEGAN ON LA-Ella Fitzgerald had it right when she belted out “Too Darn Hot,” the song written by Cole Porter for his musical, “Kiss Me, Kate” in 1948.
ESSAY--It’s always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a recent U.N. report about the prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East, pleading with foreign leaders to support “Sentinel.”
IN PRAISE OF THE HUMANITIES-America’s tech giants are accused of many sins, including invading our privacy and even degrading our democracy.
ONE MAN’S OPINION-“Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” -- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
OTHER WORDS-It’s hard to find the nuggets of good news in the media these days. Many people are so burnt out on the Trump news rollercoaster, which goes around the clock, changes frequently, and often shocks and outrages, that the least painful option is to skip the news entirely.
GUEST COMMENTARY-Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism and the state of Israel, envisioned the idea of Jewish immigration to Palestine to create a Jewish state.
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