LOS ANGELES

OTHERWORDS-Even as the Biden administration commits to environmental justice, people in the Fifth District of Louisiana’s St. James Parish are mobilizing to stop a Formosa plastics plant accused of environmental racism in the majority-Black community.

A WORD WITH HIGHTOWER--It’s time for America to go back to the future — a future of true greatness created by a people united to build a strong nation for the common good.

POLICING THE POLICE-Three weeks into the Minneapolis trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd, a white police officer in the neighboring suburb of Brooklyn Center killed a young Black man named Daunte Wright,

CLIMATE POLITICS-The 21st century serves as an inflection point of acceleration of climate instability caused by human-generated greenhouse gases, as CO2 emissions increase well beyond the rate of the prior century.

CLASS DICTATORSHIP-Since most U.S.-Americans know little about social and political reality beyond their own limited experience and bubbles, powerfully deceptive narratives and images disseminated by the corporate media easily distort public perceptions. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--One commonly accepted definition of a mass shooting is 3 or more wounded or dead in a single incident.

PRESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTABILITY-The Biden administration on Thursday laid it right out in the open. It's time to seriously discuss a 60-year problem we've had with treasonous and illegitimate Republican presidents. 

POLICE KILLINGS-“Get out of the car! Get out of the car now!!”

HOMELESSNESS POLITICS--On March 24, hundreds of police officers swept Los Angeles’ Echo Park Lake of its unhoused encampments after City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell directed the park’s closure.

THE DOCTOR IS IN--I've never been a fan of bullies and/or bigots, and we're living in a world where those screaming about bullies are too often THEMSELVES the bullies, and those screaming about bigotry are too often THEMSELVES the bigots. 

THE CITY-Announcing the publication of the Civic Memory Working Group’s report and its topline recommendations,

RACIAL DIVIDERS-Jamil Ford still recalls the disorders of late May. “It was like Baghdad,” he recalls,

AFGHAN WITHDRAWAL-An Afghan taxi-driver in Vancouver told one of us a decade ago that this day would come.

VIEW FROM HERE-Most enterprises have unintended consequences.  After harmful results materialize, people often press ahead ignoring the injury they are causing. 

AT LENGTH--I find it curious that on the very night that the last Los Angeles City Council District 15 homeless working group held its recent meeting in which they were discussing a possible homeless campsite on Lots E and F on Port of Los Angeles property,

‘WHEN DOES IT CHANGE?’--The just-released Chaleff report on the Los Angeles Police Department’s actions during the protests following the George Floyd murder in May 2020 find lack of training and preparedness as the culprit for LAPD’s failures-

PLANNING WATCH-As the homeless crisis gets worse in Los Angeles, California, and the entire United States, two narratives dominate media coverage, both of which blame elected officials. 

VIEW FROM HERE-When was the last time a sitting Los Angeles City Councilmember in District Four lost his re-election bid?  Since 1929, the answer is “never.”

BCK FILE--The City Controller’s Fraud Waste and Abuse (FWA) Unit is tasked with investigating allegations of the misuse of resources by city employees, contractors and others.

GUEST WORDS-I was absolutely shocked the other day when, low and behold, Councilman O’Farrell appeared on Twitter announcing a start of his safe camping pilot program.

DIEDRA’S LA--“The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results” …. Albert Einstein