VOICES

THE VIEW FROM HERE - The original “The Need For Perspicuity” appeared in a 1968 newsletter of Adelante, Inc, Mexican American Organization for Progress, in Claremont, California, addressing the need for everyone to step back and take more thoughtful looks at government and social issues.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - Those who've profiteered off our homelessness crisis (and it IS a crisis) and the related affordable housing crisis have created a NEW crisis: the Homelessness Industry Crisis.

POLITICAL DIVIDE - The remarks this past August by President Biden describing former President Trump and the “extreme MAGA philosophy” as “semi-fascism” provoked predictable outrage from Republican propagandists and leaders.

POLITICS WATCH - Republican members of Congress who denounced or voted against President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed in late 2021 are now begging out gay Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for some of the bill’s funding.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - Let me start by stating that I'm a dermatologist--I am all too aware of the skin-deep differences between the different races that comprise humanity.

GUEST COMMENTARY - Like many of you, I was absolutely disgusted at the litany of racist remarks that were both spoken and tolerated by members of the Los Angeles City Council.

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Decades ago, Nancy Pelosi thought that introducing racism into politics was a crackerjack idea.

RESPONSE TO JACK HUMPHREVILLE - Jack Humphreville is a conservative commentator well-known for his opposition to even progressive taxes.

OPEN LETTER - We are writing to you to express our deep dismay and anger over the reports of a recorded conversation between Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmember Kevin de León, Councilmember Gil Cedillo and LA Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.

SUPER RICH - Spin a globe, then stop it with any finger. Some fantastically rich individual will most likely be living—or yachting—somewhere close to wherever your finger lands.

ACCORDING TO LIZ - Microsoft is not “micro” nor is it “soft.” It is a monopoly profiting off of, and unyielding in its disregard of the needs of the common people. 

GUEST COMMENTARY - Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2097, which prohibits cities from imposing parking minimums on either commercial or residential buildings built “close to transit,” which essentially means there needs to be a bus within a half-mile radius that runs four times an hour during peak traffic times.

CORPORATE LANDLORD - While millions of renters struggle to make ends meet, corporate landlord Stephen Schwarzman, whose company spent mountains of cash to successfully kill rent control ballot measures in California, has bought another multi-million-dollar mansion, according to a news report.

GUEST COMMENTARY - When I came to LA 40 years ago---LA was an energetic, happening place--full of life--vibrant--entrepreneurial--with limitless possibilities---and there was a sense of joy throughout the city--- 

GUEST COMMENTARY - We're all in this thing together.

ACCORDING TO LIZ - Everyone acknowledges that there is a huge homelessness problem in California.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - One of the first things a newly-elected President Joe Biden did was to kill the Keystone pipeline,

GUEST COMMENTARY - The decision to “suspend” Councilmember Ridley-Thomas last October 2021, continues to cast a growing cloud over the governance of the nation’s second largest city and the leadership of its fifteen-member City Council.

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Predator, scammer, religious bigot, liar, bully, briber, developer are a few of the faces which Rick Caruso has revealed to Angelenos, and none of them are good. 

MY THOUGHTS - I ALWAYS LOVED THAT OPENING LINE FROM JOAN RIVERS. It sounded like we were asked to have coffee together.

EDUCATION - Who would have imagined that after the past two tumultuous years, when so much was written and said about how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had convinced American parents that public schools were “failing” institutions, that as the 2022-2023 school year begins, “Americans’ ratings of their community’s public schools reached a new high dating back 48 years.”