Ridley-Thomas and Mayor Seek a Partner for Their Three Stooges Act

Ari L. NoonanEditor's Essays

The typically inattentive Los Angeles Titanic is so maniacally in the thrall of the gay boys and girls who set the Titanic’s obsessive editorial policy that they have failed to remotely report on the way downtown’s politicians with the loudest mouths arrogantly are deceiving the black residents of South Los Angeles about their intentions for the light rail line.

Mayor I Love Me and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas both are making a fancy living with their bologna scam.

MRT and I Love Me grab bullhorns and start spewing:

There is ample money, they tell white and upper-class Angelenos, to fulfill their light rail wishes, whether they desire elevated, underground, roller coaster-style tracks.

As for the lied-to black people in South Los Angeles, MRT and I Love Me say, “We may consider your two objectives, a train station at Leimert Park Village and a subway from 48th to 59th streets, if the construction bids (on Thursday, May 23) come in light enough.”

In other words, MRT and I Love Me are saying, “black people, you are the wrong color.”

They think these black victims don’t look about them and see that people of other colors, especially white, get what they want.

Naturally, neither Mr. Ridley-Thomas nor the useless mayor had the courage to show up at last evening’s meeting of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition at a huge church on 54th Street near Crenshaw.

The mayor pretends he doesn’t know where Crenshaw is. He is not smart. Maybe he doesn’t. MRT only would surface if he were being honored. That is the Napoleonic gene. He dispatched his favorite deputy last evening. A nice guy, but the wrong guy.

For decades, he has run for a wall full of offices on the challenged claim he is a favorite son of the South L.A. community. Pal, you couldn’t find him with the most sophisticated tracking device.

A Man’s Work Allergy

Like Napoleon, show, warm, warm air is his dominant talent. Work? Producing? Think Maynard G. Krebs from the Dobie Gillis days.

He loves playing hero, taking splashy bows. It’s earning the points to merit hero status that bores him.

Answering questions or criticism is against his political religion. How do you think he keeps his job? Not through effectiveness.

He possesses a world-class sense of humor and a sense of priorities that looks as if it has been baking 20 years too long.

The last time either I Love Me or MRT took criticism seriously was when they were in grammar school.

My golly MRT talks impressively.  Then he runs away and resumes his loose-necktie gin rummy game in a back room, quaffing iced tea by the pitcher. Your turn to deal.

Mayor I Love Me has been so irrelevant in his second term that he should be unworthy of examination.

Let’s count bottle caps instead – of legislative wins by President Obama.

However, the slick-haired little mayor – isn’t it the condensed types every time? – controls four votes on the Metro board. Technically, he is important. If he switched to driving a garbage truck tomorrow, who but his hairdresser would notice the flies? If he were Santa Claus, they would have to cancel Christmas. His mind is so empty that if he were the Easter Bunny, he would divide instead of multiply.

Yet another Napoleonic moment for the richly disappointing Mr. Ridley-Thomas, voluble and erratic as ever. He is a genius at letting down the South Los Angeles community, blowing up his tissue-thick, straight-faced promises.

He looks and sounds so sincere. That is how he gets elected.

Frequently, Napoleon Ridley-Thomas has vowed to Crenshaw Subway Coalition leaders to don his Superman cape and persuade his Metro board colleagues to build a light rail station at Leimert Park and champion a subway on the Crenshaw-LAX line from 48th to 59th streets.

Then he strolls over to the roaring fireplace and, when the crowd is distracted, he doffs his cape and lordly says, “I pronounce you kindling.”