LOS ANGELES

GELFAND’S WORLD--Shakespeare's Richard III is a disturbing play to experience at any time, but it is particularly haunting in this era of ostentatious, authoritarian public lying.

GUEST COMMENTARY--In this once-reasonably-fair democracy in the year of our ostensible Lord 2018, two African-American guyssitting peaceablyin a Philadelphia Starbucks waiting for a friend to show up for a meeting were charged with "trespassing" by Starbucks staff, asked "politely" three times to leave, and thenarrested by a swarm of six cops when they declined to do so. 

TRANSIT TALK-Senate Bill No. 827, as newly amended in the Senate on April 9, 2018, was introduced by Senator Wiener, with principal co-authors Senator Skinner and Assembly Member Ting, and co-author Senator Hueso. It stirred a hornet’s nest when introduced, and the recent amendments have not calmed the swarm of angry hornets, but it did clarify their transit definitions: 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Our society has been burned so hard, and from all sides, by those breaking the rules getting rich--and at the expense of those following the rules--that this article might appear to be woefully naive and out of date.  Rules are for suckers, and lawbreakers WIN too damned often to decry the lack of rules, right? 

BCK FILE-When Dr. Asif Mahmood decided to throw his hat in the ring, he pledged “not to take a penny from insurance or pharma or tobacco, which place an obstruction between the common man or woman and their right to healthcare.”

EDUCATION POLITICS-Under District rules, every charter that is submitted to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for approval must contain District Required Language (DRL). Some of this language simply ensures that the charter conforms to the California Education Code. Other sections cover requirements specific to the LAUSD, like conforming to the Chanda Smith Modified Consent Decree.

@THE GUSS REPORT-Big, rich crocks teeming with irony landed on the LA Times last week, and the news got worse for it by the minute. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-The use of code words has no honest role in clean government. Yet this is exactly what the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, does. Using code words to signal to other people in the corrupt judiciary hierarchy, she makes her dictates known but escapes responsibility for her actions. 

CAL BUZZ--Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday yielded to President Donald Trump’s request for troops to control the Mexican border, agreeing to supply 400 members of the California National Guard for “targeting transnational criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers along the border, the coast and throughout the state.”

EDUCATION POLITICS-The story of LAUSD School Board member and former President Ref Rodriguez gets more pathetic. Hewas arrested recently on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena restaurant. 

THE VIEW FROM HERE-California has a housing deficit approaching 4 million homes, and our housing shortage is a huge threat to our state’s diversity, economy, environment, and quality of life. I introduced SB 827 to create more opportunities for housing where we need it  --  near public transportation. SB 827 increases housing density near transit while still retaining significant local control. 

RANTZ & RAVEZ-If you thought police recruitment and retention of police personnel were facing challenging times, wait until the newly proposed law by anti-police California legislators takes effect in our state.

FIRST PERSON-For anyone who bothers to look -- since school districts like LAUSD make no attempt to hide it -- there is an ongoing history of illegal attacks on, and removal of, thousands of expensive high seniority teachers from coast to coast on clearly fabricated charges. This is happening because they are too costly for school districts that are themselves in dire financial straits due to their own malfeasance. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-Passim is a legal word referring to something one finds throughout a system. For instance, raisins are passim in Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Swirl Bread with frosting on top. Thousands of times each day, some poor soul is being screwed in some court in California. That does not mean that every case and every hearing is corrupt. And just as there are ingredients other than raisins in the Pepperidge Farm bread, not every judge is abusive, but all are complicit by silence. 

BELL VIEW--The other day, driving West on Hollywood Boulevard, while stopped at the light at Hollywood and Western, I heard small, frantic voice to my left screaming “Wait! Wait! Wait!”  

CAL MATTERS--As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrapped up a second day being grilled by Congressabout whether the company adequately protects the personal data of its 2 billion users, news brokein California that Facebook will stop spending money to oppose a privacy measure aiming for the state’s November ballot.

MY TURN--The nearly one dozen tenants facing eviction after a woman running a transitional housing scam in a dilapidated, ramshackle house in South L.A. took their money and failed to pay rent to the landlord, announced with their attorney Nana Gyamfi that they’d been given relocation assistance through the City of Los Angeles.

ALPERN AT LARGE--I wish I could, and I think many of us wish we also could, be thrilled at the environmentally-smart but still untested (and very expensive) CoolSeal coating of our streets that is planned to reduce the heating effects caused by asphalt absorption of the sun's rays, and which creates a well-known "urban heat island effect".

GUEST COMMENTARY--The LA City Council’s approval of a homeless housing law that ends environmental review, eliminates height/density restrictions in many areas, and ends public hearings, will fail to stem the growing homeless crisis.  

CAL MATTERS-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra moved today to intervene in a Texas lawsuit aimed at undoing Obamacare. Becerra and 15 other attorneys general joined forces to file their motion to prevent “immediate and irreparable harm,” as Becerra put it, to California and other states.

EASTSIDER-For too much of my life, I’ve been involved with government -- working as an employee of public agencies, representing public employees before administrative bodies, and even running two administrative agencies themselves. That’s why I can’t simply let EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s behavior get a pass.