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CityWatch Los Angeles
Politics. Perspective. Participation.
ONE MAN’S OPINION-People do not realize that sprawl reduces their tax burden and significantly lowers the cost of housing while increasing its quality. Even a dimwit, however, should realize that if they spend most their consumable income on high rents or on excessively high mortgage payments, they are working to support two entities: the government and Wall Street.
@THE GUSS REPORT-The blissfully ignorant LA City Council will be back soon from its frolicking, multi-week summer recess despite the tumult, crises and emergencies it caused and failed to remedy, including the immediate health risk of a bubonic plague outbreak, according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, the apolitical M.D. heard on KABC-790 AM from noon to 3 p.m. each weekday.
NEW GEOGRAPHY--When there is a general change in conditions, it is as if the entire creation had changed, and the whole world altered. —Ibn Khaldun, 14th-century Arab historian
CALBUZZ--Fans of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris rejoiced last week when the well-known Quinnipiac University Poll found her leading former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in California.
PERSPECTIVE--Trump rally participants chanted about Ilhan Omar: “Send her back! Send her back!” They are shameless so I feel shame for them.
GELFAND’S WORLD--I would like to extend upon Tim Deegan's excellent article from last week, "Help wanted: a climate Czar for LA" The article comments on action taken by the Los Angeles City Council to create the Climate Emergency Mobilization Department.
DEEGAN ON LA-Inspired by President Barack Obama to pursue a career in organizing to build community and advocate for change, Aura Vasquez (photo above) became a community organizer early on, a path that led to her leadership role as an organizer and activist for environmental justice.
ONE MAN’S OPINION-Rats, disease, pestilence are merely symptoms of a city run by criminals.
RANTZ & RAVEZ-For the skeptics among you who are reading this edition of RantZ and RaveZ, if you think that I’m going to continue discussing the ever-increasing homeless population in Los Angeles and beyond, please read on…
EASTSIDER-This one is going to tear up the communities in Northeast LA for a long, long time, particularly Eagle Rock, Glassell Park and adjoining areas.
JUST SAYIN’--As I navigate life as a queer disabled woman, I frequently think of Yale political scientist James C. Scott’s concept of the “weapons of the weak.”
GELFAND’S WORLD--The tension is almost unbearable. And that’s just watching the PBS recreation of the Apollo 11 mission that culminated in the moon walks of July 20, 1969.
ALPERN AT LARGE--For those of us looking beyond the soap opera in Washington ("Go back to where you came from?"
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)
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