LOS ANGELES

PLANNING WATCH -  Even though the local evidence for the climate crisis is overwhelming: a 12 month wildfire season, a megadrought, a water shortage, heat storms, and sea level rise - 

ENTERTAINMENT WATCH - If ever there were steps of power that need storming by an angry mob, they are those of the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on Oscars Night.

JAIL TIME - Just before I started graduate school, I was arrested and spent a night in jail.

LABOR WATCH - When William Dudley “Big Bill” Haywood — future secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners and thorn in the side of mine owners west of the American Rockies —

THE VIEW FROM HERE - In the 1950's game show, To Tell The Truth, three contestants tried to fool a celebrity panel as to who had done something unusual or had a strange occupation.   

RantZ and RaveZ - Mayor Garcetti implemented “Vision Zero “ in 2015 to ELIMINATE traffic deaths on Los Angeles streets by 2025. 

PLANNING WATCH - Sometimes a cure is worse than the disease, especially supply-side/trickle-down solutions to the housing crisis,

GUEST COMMENTARY - Watch out when our elected officials stump for affordable housing. The results so far have been the reverse. 

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Dunning-Kruger refers to the situation where people with limited knowledge of a particular subject tend to over-estimate their ability to understand the subject.

DEEGAN ON LA—-As rich a target it may seem to be, Rick Caruso’s yacht “Invictus” does not have a place on the starting line of the mayoral race.

HOMELESS CRISIS - By the lone tent under the cement overpass, just visible from the Hollywood Freeway, Fernando Maya waited with several backpacks stuffed with clothes, electronics and food.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - For two previous decades of grassroots/neighborhood council transportation advocacy, I (and so many others) watched in horror as a multimodal and environmental-friendly transportation/mobility program descended into a developer- and lobbyist-oriented money grab. 

THE VIEW FROM HERE - First, The Bad:  To no one’s surprise the debate-charade concealed Los Angeles’ core problem. 

SHOW BIZ - “Scary Lucy,” the much-maligned statue of comedy legend Lucille Ball in her hometown of Celoron, New York, was just a brief blip on the cultural radar when a fan campaign demanding its removal went viral several years back

LA MAYORAL ELECTION - Is there any among us so naive to think that the Los Angeles mayoral debate scheduled for Tuesday, March 22^nd will be anything more than a non-stop stream of BS? BS is too mild a term for the caca-doodoo which the candidates and the moderates throw at us. 

UNHOUSED - I’m @rooflesser and I live in public in LA.

THE EASTSIDER - The LA Times article said it all: Attorney awaiting sentencing in DWP case accuses Feuer of aiding extortion, perjury. 

RantZ and RaveZ - The LAPD deployment of Patrol, Detectives, Administrative and support personnel is shrinking at an alarming rate with the number of experienced Police Officers retiring, moving to other law enforcement agencies and selecting professions that don’t require them to be armed and wear a bullet proof vest to remain alive and “Protect and Serve” the people of a community.

TRANSIT WATCH - Business will have to be shown that a good climate can be made for needed job growth here in Los Angeles.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - There is a wonderful, and very long-overdue, rail line that would serve southeast L.A. County communities (largely working-class Latinos) that was approved by Metro. 

HOUSING WATCH - Los Angeles voters approved Prop HHH in 2016 to allow the City to issue $1.2 billion in bonds to house the City’s homeless – a simple matter of building 10,000 units within ten years.