LOS ANGELES

THE DOCTOR IS IN - I say this as a Republican who LOVES transportation/infrastructure (T/I) but T/I spent WELL. 

GELFAND’S WORLD - In a previous article, I told you about a proposal from city government that would give unprecedented authority to one person to censor and punish neighborhood council board members for thought crimes.

LGBTQ NATION - Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender, spent years living in front of a television camera as part of the Kardashian clan.

President Joe Biden has nominated Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti as ambassador to India.

EDUCATION POLITICS - The full-court press* against public education began in earnest during the Reagan administration.

CLIMATE POLITICS - On July 21, I was walking in the forests surrounding the German Air Force Base at Büchel in the Eifel Mountains with three Catholic Worker friends,

PLANNING GONE AWRY-Re: Opposition to March 2021 Guidance Memo from Director of Planning Vince Bertoni Regarding the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan. 

EASTSIDER-This week I have two stories that you couldn’t make up even if you smoked a doobie and drank a bunch of alcohol.

FALSE SOLUTIONS-It is important that Californians up and down the state understand just how terrible Senate Bills 9 and SB 10 are and that action must be immediately taken by all to express opposition to these measures to your local State Assembly representatives while the Assembly is in recess and returns on August 16th. Your local Senator should also be contacted.

VIEW FROM HERE-All politicians’ favorability ratings fluctuate, often based on factors beyond their control. 

CALIFORNIA DREAM REEXAMINED-California being what it is – a very large state with a complex social and economic matrix and a unique political structure – it generates an endless stream of analysis and criticism. 

THE DOCTOR IS IN -- That there's a new Delta Variant of the COVID-19 virus which is more contagious and aggressive than before is not new news.

GELFAND’S WORLD - Here's a short list of a few cultural presentations I'm looking at: 

COMMENTARY-Much as many of us have come to dislike Zoom meetings and long for in-person interactions when great ideas are discussed in Neighborhood Council meetings, there are many powerful arguments to maintain virtual attendance as a robust option. 

VIEW FROM HERE-On May 17, 2021, four days after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s atrocious statement that vaxed people need not wear masks inside, I wrote: 

VOICES - White supremacy in America was never simply a rightwing phenomenon.

DEEGAN ON LA-This is Number 5 in a series. Councilmember Nithya Raman (CD4) sat silently in the council chamber on July 28, as her colleagues spoke for and against a motion to regulate homeless encampments.

THE CITY - Home: The dense metropolis of Kolkata is among the only places in India -- and one of the few left in the world -- where fleets of hand-pulled rickshaws still ply the streets.  

COVID WATCH - It was more than two weeks ago that Dr. Peter Hotez, a nationally recognized vaccinologist, put it in plain language.

COVID WATCH - The next time someone tries to tell you that implementing restrictive COVID-19 policies affecting the public is nearly impossible, point them to San Francisco. Or New York City. Or the State of California. Or even Pasadena,

BRAINPOWER DUMBING - The near hysteria, though justifiable, among conservatives concerning the imposition of racialist Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools fails to address how this theology both reflects and contributes to the “systemic” decline of education itself.