Why do I love what I do so much? You never know what to expect on any day. Clients bring a multitude of different issues. Here is a fun one. A client asked if I would do three sessions, back to back to back. One for him, one for his sister, one for his mother. Back in 1976, he said, … Read More
The Gates Swing Open for New Leaders
Photo: Ted S.Warren / AP
Breath-stealing social pressure to conform to just-thought-up norms may, arguably, be the ugliest dangling tentacle in an otherwise beautiful contemporary life. It never washed with Mom to argue that “everybody else is going.” You are not everybody, she rejoined. You are my son, my responsibility. But then Mom was a traditionalist. As every good progressive is taught, tradition is just … Read More
Walsh and Where: Look Who Gave Times a Bath
David Ryu. Photo: Korea Times
In reality, the reason for David Ryu’s un-surprising victory over Carolyn Ramsay for the last Los Angeles City Council seat was: * The support of, and in some cases, ringing endorsements from, diehard political bloggers. That is what caused all the difference in this race made so complex by Council President Herb Wesson’s nefarious reapportionment a few years back that … Read More
Why I Voted for the Minimum Wage
Bernard Parks. Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles
[Editor’s Note: Term-limited Mr. Parks, 71 years old, is in his final days on the Los Angeles City Council.] Last Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council adopted forthwith (14-1, for once I wasn’t the one, Mitch Englander was) a motion to allow the City Attorney to draft an ordinance that would eventually raise the minimum wage in L.A. to $15 by … Read More
100 Mazdas – No Room for Homeless Veterans to Live
Fellow Veterans and Friends of Veterans, For the first time in decades, fellow Veterans believed we had won a major victory when U.S. District Judge S. James Otero entered a federal judgment adjudicating nine real estate deals on VA land as “unauthorized by law and therefore void.” When the VA appealed the judgment, fellow Veterans sent VA Secretary Robert McDonald, … Read More
Why One Man Will Miss Abu-Ghazaleh
President Abu-Ghazaleh
Re “West L.A. College President Leaving” Some have said that the presidency of West Los Angeles College is the academic equivalent of the government’s witness protection program. Obscurity, thy name is West. When presidents departed, the only person who noticed was the neighborhood launderer. Not so with the impactful Nabil Abu-Ghazaleh, who announced yesterday that he is leaving this summer, … Read More
Spreading Personal News About Another Armenian Genocide
The Survivor, by Dr. Rosemary Cohen
Before the dust of the great Armenian Genocide of 1915 had settled, Armenians suffered yet another mass murder, this one farther east. In 1918 Turkish Ottoman soldiers occupied the city of Khoy (in Armenian, Her) in extreme northwest Iran and massacred the Armenians who had lived there for centuries. The noted author/journalist Rosemary Hartounian Cohen’s memoir, The Survivor, tells the true story of her grandmother … Read More
Runner Salutes New Pro-Police Law
President Obama signs federal Blue Alert law. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Dateline Sacramento — Board of Equalization Vice Chair George Runner this afternoon applauded a new federal law that creates a nationwide alert system to help catch anyone who injures, kills, or makes credible threats against a peace officer: “As the author of California’s Blue Alert law,” Mr. Runner said, “I applaud Congress and the President for helping ensure the safety … Read More
What, Me Worry?
Not me. I don’t have my wife’s permission to go on the roof. Our gardener/handyman will be coming over to put my three solar panels back on the roof. For one thing, we will save a lot of money by not using the gas pool heater so much. For another thing, I just LOVE getting free heated water into my … Read More
Heat Is Sign Arabs May Strike
Western Wall in Jerusalem, remnant of the Holy Temple. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Dateline Jerusalem — The Hebrew word for heat wave is sharav. The more familiar Mideastern term to describe the unbearably hot dusty winds that accompany temperatures between 95 and 105 degrees is khamsin. Israelis know that means air conditioners 24/7, driving instead of walking, staying indoors. It is chokingly hot, dry, a time when forest fires rage throughout the country. … Read More