The five social-climbing sour-faced boobs and boobettes captured in the accompanying photograph look as if they have just swallowed a passel of ripe pickles in one fewer bite than planned. They would finish third in a two-woman beauty contest.

I believe Duke Helfand, the Los Angeles Times reporter who interviewed the sourpusses, is a Jew. In the sixth paragraph, he pointed out that the liberal boobs and boobettes he interviewed are Jewish sourpusses.

Timing Betrays Their Arguments

Mr. Helfand argues their Jewishness is germane to his story because the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the umbrella under which the Museum of Tolerance flies, is Jewish. Many of the protesting sourpusses are museum members.

Now it is my turn to be shocked and appalled by the alleged sincerity and honesty of the sourpusses.

Unless these sourpusses moved into the neighborhood when their paternal grandparents still were in the womb, they knew what they were getting into when they bought their expensive homes:

The edge of a densely traveled, upscale, not uniquely ambitious, commercial neighborhood.

Unlike some dreamers and wannabees in Culver City, they ain’t living in Mayberry.

No matter how many times they stomp their feet, slap their cheeks, flap their tongues or raise their glasses, Pico-Roxbury has not been the pastoral scene they fantasize about since warring Indians were creating a need for gentrification 300 years ago.

Pico-Roxbury is home to panting, social-climbing conspicuous consumers.

Come on, boys and girls. Your days to play virgin are over.

The aging, panting, social-climbing conspicuous consumers featured in the Times story are beefing about the Museum’s plan to build a two-story cultural center on its grounds, with a café and rooftop garden. They will rent out the center for private parties — horror of horrors, what a ghastly profitable idea.

This seemingly sensible proposal offends the delicate sensibilities of the sourpusses.

All Laugh at the Count of 3

Mr. Helfand, who appears to possess a sense of humor, wrote, with a straight computer, that the organized sourpusses “believe (the enhancement) would further spoil the peace and quiet of their West Los Angeles neighborhood.”

At the least, the sourpusses are guilty of lousy aim. Gad. They were shooting for Mayberry, and they missed by 3,000 miles. I hope the sourpusses don’t shoot the next burglar. They might strike me.

We can safely conclude the sourpusses did not pay for their lovely homes with their inheritances. They are older people. Doubtless, they have worked hard for decades to reach the level of comfort where they presently reside.

Remember When You Were Working

A reasonable person would presume that when they were in their prime in the workplace, they did not conduct themselves mousily. Micey people can’t afford the pricey Prixco/Roxbury neighborhood.

They pushed forward, hard, in their careers, the same way Rabbi Marvin Hier, the power at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum, is doing now.

Simple social arithmetic, pal.

I studied the faces of the five sourpusses on page B-3. Those are punims I would remember. I don’t recall having seen any of them at the foot of any Southern California freeway off-ramps, wrinkled arms extended, seeking either alms or pickles to stock their meager kitchen pantry shelves.

Rabbi Hier, So Far, Is 2 and 0

Rabbi Hier came to Los Angeles in the late 1970s to build an empire, which he did, and to weaken the grip liberal secular Jews traditionally had on the Jewish community of Los Angeles, which he did in spades.

Rabbi Hier has vulnerabilities. But he is the nearest Los Angeles has come to producing a Jewish genius in the last 30 years.

As the only major American Jewish organization headquartered on the West Coast, he has successfully dwarfed all secular Jewish organizations in the always-competitive Jewish universe.

Rabbi Hier will be favored to defeat the secular sourpusses.

But, in politics, that leaves him as far from victory as the Culver City businessman Jin Kwak, who wishes he were a sure thing this evening at City Hall but is not.

Mr. Kwak will be in the dock at tonight’s City Council meeting hoping to convince the Council to reverse the Planning Commission and to permit him to construct an automated car wash and convenience store while continuing to operate the gas station he has run since 1973.

Compromise or Cave-in?

Bearing white flags in each hand, plus the stem of one between their teeth, the ever unpredictable City Council lately has yielded to the cries of protestingneighbors, which probably should be written as one word.

Once the cries of protest rise to the skies over Culver City tonight, will the Council raise a white flag or a green flag?