Hardy Veterans Move from Rally to Rally on Sundays in Brentwood

Robert L. RosebrockOP-ED

A big thanks to the loyal Veterans and community supporters who showed up two days ago for the Fifth Sunday Rally, at the northeast corner of Wilshire and San Vicente in Brentwood, to save the National Veterans Home.

We urge all military Veterans to show up and support this noble cause. Do not neglect the enormous responsibility of saving the hallowed land of the National Veterans Land and passing it on to future generations of America’s military Veterans, just as previous generations have always done since 1888.

An Ode to Anon

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[Editor’s Note: Here is the latest volley in the continuing community debate over last week’s City Council approval of the 12-story, 190-foot Entrada Office Tower project. Our essayist Mr. Supple replies to the anonymously penned “In Rhyme with the Times,” last Thursday, April 17.]

You sat out there in the audience,

At the Council meeting Monday Night.

Among people opposing a big building,
­

And what just gives them the right.

Mr. Smith Goes Back to the City Council and Comes Away Still Undefeated

Ari L. NoonanNews

While sideline observers wondered if the heavy-stepping Hayden Tract landowner Frederik Smith —he who is a magnet for aroused feelings — was telegraphing a personal message last night in Council Chambers, the reclusive gentleman himself further annoyed his already infuriated critics by scoring a comfortable doubleheader victory.

What made Mr. Smith’s latest sally into City Hall particularly galling to his drum-banging claque of rivals and critics was winning a year’s extension on a soon-due payment on a disputed patch of precious land that he is said to have obtained — from the city — for below-market value, a so-far unverified assertion.

Guess Who, With Security in His Name, May Not Have Job Security

Ari L. NoonanEditor's Essays

Here is a fragrant bouquet of April flowers for those critics of the School District who complain that personnel cuts too often are made from the bottom up rather than off the top.

At the height of budget-cutting season, the citizens committee advising the rejuvenated School Board has produced an imaginative recommendation concerning the District’s campus security staff:

Unload the expensive Security Director, the expensive Director’s expensive deputy and slash the office’s mysteriously bulging “operating expenses” account by about 40 percent.

Culver High Lacrosse Is Called a Work in Progress

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The Culver City High School lacrosse team, which closes the regular season with two critical home matches, tonight at 6 against Downey High and Thursday at 6 against Beverly Hills High, played a most formidable opponent last Tuesday night. The Centaurs came away with an eye-opening and humbling 14-3 loss to Palos Verdes High, which truly ruled in every aspect of the game.

Palos Verdes won most of the face-offs, was faster, bigger, stronger and more skilled in the fundamentals. They executed more intricate plays on offense, intimidated on defense and hit so hard with their stick checks that they snapped two of the Centaurs’ poles in half.

Hearing Things That Aren’t There

Frédérik SisaThe Recreational Nihilist

When it comes to film criticism, or any kind of art criticism for that matter, I don’t subscribe to interpretations that reflexively assume that what’s on the screen serves a symbolic purpose. An individual character isn’t necessarily a symbolic stand-in for a whole class; a movie’s plot isn’t necessarily allegorical. Of course, in some cases, a film can evoke a deeper interpretation, something beyond what-you-see-is-what-you-get. A woman getting murdered on screen by a male slasher may not automatically be a symbolic victim of social misogyny, but if that woman is first paraded around naked and the filming technique creates an aesthetic that caresses the violence, it would certainly be reasonable to see misogyny at work. But any interpretation really depends on the individual movie; how it tells the story, how it presents characters, how it is filmed. It’s very easy to create meaning where there is none, highlighting the importance of drawing on what is in the movie itself to make a case for any given interpretation.

America, the Home of the Brave, Except for You-Know-Who

Ari L. NoonanEditor's Essays

As etymologists and sensible politicians long ago realized, the curious root word of the term “liberal” is “limp,” which rhymes with wimp — and we probably ought to stop there.

Liberals, the founding fathers of the moral handcuffs we call political correctness, are known for their proud inability to call an act by its true name.

Los Angeles Jews and blacks, who have not had much to do with each other since Dr. King was murdered 40 years ago, are pitted in a fascinating dispute this week that screams about a deficit of character.

Culver High Students Spend an Afternoon Learning with Their State Senator

Ari L. NoonanNews

State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) was at his pleasantly pedantic best last Friday afternoon when he detoured his campaign for his next higher office into the spacious Robert Frost Auditorium.

For 60 minutes, he gave a textbook display of how adults, and especially a fulltime politician, and students should interact with each other, with respect, virtually as peers.

This was the antithesis of a shrug-off campaign stop. The former teacher looked happy to be back in a classroom, and he did not act as if he were double-parked. The former Los Angeles City Councilman, state Assemblyman and leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said that teaching high school, shortly after college, “has been the highlight of my career to date.”

Rising in Defense of the Smeared Class: Those Poor Developers

Ari L. NoonanEditor's Essays

Pity the poor developer, attired in oversized bib overalls, fraying flannel red shirt and clodhoppers with mismatched shoestrings, who drives his wheezing, dying, dust-drenched old Chevy into Culver City, hoping to sell an imaginative enough project to City Hall so that he can feed his large, usually hungry, family down on the farm for the next several years.

Possibly you may not recognize the profile since it did not match up with any of the stone-faced team of suits that monopolized the first couple of rows at this week’s Entrada Office Tower deliberations by the City Council.

A View From Entrada Tower: A Way All of Us Could Have Won

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They sat there for about 12 hours; like a group of undertakers in their dark suits, white shirts and somber expressions; waiting for the service to end so they could finish their work with our dearly departed. Then late Tuesday evening, the representatives from the Carlyle Mortuary wheeled out of the Council Chambers, the casket containing the will of the people.

The meeting began with one City Council person informing the public that we had just elected three morons to replace them.