LOS ANGELES

ALPERN AT LARGE--You've heard it before--Labor Day is too often a holiday of barbecues, the un-official end of summer, and a time for family gatherings more than the actual celebration of labor.

GUEST COMMENTARY--I am in agreement with Bianca Barragan’s August 29, 2019, CityWatch piece, “6,000 LA Bus Stops Leave Riders in Rain and Boiling Heat.” I ride buses and trains, and in City Watch I have written articles on the need for more covered bus shelters.

LABOR 2019--For the past 125 years, Labor Day has been a time to celebrate the relevance, and political power, of the American working class. As recently as the 1990s, organized labor’s big day was an important milestone on the political calendar, particularly for Democrats.

BCK FILE--Just one month after the bloody weekend when a gunman killed 22 victims at an El Paso Walmart and another nine people were killed by a gunman in Dayton, Ohio, yet another mass shooting left another 7 people dead and 22 injured.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-Although the modus operandi of Trump and der Wunderkind Garcetti are different on the surface, they are almost indistinguishable underneath their veneers.

CLIMATE POLITICS--After two weeks of sailing, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in New York on Wednesday with an urgent call to action.

CURBEDLA TRANSIT REPORT--With more hot days expected in the future, transit advocates say the city must add shade at bus stops and transit hubs.

RANTZ & RAVEZ- Talk about throwing more and more tax money down the drain with little improvement to the ever-increasing homeless population in Los Angeles and beyond! 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Once Upon a Time, there was bipartisanship, a Common Enemy who was either Hitler or Stalin or the Ayatollah Khomeini, and both Democrats and Republicans disagreed with each other but respected each other's talking points as issues that we ignored at our collective peril. 

NO ONE ABOVE THE LAW-On August 27, 2019 I sent the following complaint to LA County Deputy District Attorneys Alan Yochelson and Michele Gilmer: 

OTHER WORDS-This Labor Day, Democratic presidential candidates will no doubt be touting their support for a $15 per hour minimum wage. None have opposed the idea. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--2UrbanGirls has long been skeptical of the “friendship” Los Angeles Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson (MHD) struck up with the late Nipsey Hussle. (Photo above: Councilman Harris-Dawson (l) and Nipsey Hussle.)

PERSPECTIVE-You may have read the recent news about the City stepping up enforcement of homeless encampments within the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZA). 

EASTSIDER-After being passed by the voters in November 2018, Measure W disappeared into a black hole.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The existence of the two secret weapons is rather bizarre as both are beyond his control and none of the pundits will mention them. The first is Nancy Pelosi’s Group Rights (Identity Politics) agenda, and the second is Trumpy-Doodle’s Histrionic Personality Disorder. 

AT LENGTH-No, I didn’t invent the single word headline I’m using this week, and it isn’t a political term that you got wrong on your Advanced Placement government exam in high school.

LABOR DAY 2019--Author Steven Greenhouse is convinced that too few Americans fully understand what, he says, “unions have accomplished for tens of millions of workers in the United States.”

@THE GUSS REPORT-Last week, in case number 19STSC02923, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ray Santana ordered the City of Los Angeles to pay this columnist $2,000 for the LAPD’s continual abuses of my 1^st Amendment rights, fraud, breach of contract and denial of due process rights as I pursue stories about corruption and failure in local government.

VIEW FROM HERE--In his book, Atlas Of A Lost World, author Craig Childs points out that "The first arrivals keep getting older and older because we’re finding more evidence as time goes on.

ACTION ALERT--SB 330 is set for a public hearing at 9 AM, Wednesday, August 28, 2019, before the State Assembly Appropriations Committee. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California likes to think of itself as the brain center of the universe, but increasingly much of that intellectual content comes from somewhere else. Once a leader in educational innovation and performance, California is now toward the bottom of the pack.