The enormously congenial Mike Reynolds, assistant superintendent for business services for the School District for the past five years, will retire next month. Mr. Reynolds underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery last summer. He possesses twin towers of talent, one for which Irishmen are known and one that is foreign. Mr. Reynolds’s brimming collegiality is his most obvious gift. He would … Read More

When a guy is an obscure state senator from East Los Angeles and he hungers for higher office, he is tempted to commit an outrageous act to force people to stare at him. If Dickie Lara, Democrat, fails to become California’s next insurance commissioner next year, he can sign up for an actor’s union card — or the next medicine … Read More

Third in a series   Re “Vice Mayor Small Is Going Home – Sort of” Jim Clarke, the immediate past mayor of Culver City, is beginning his technically shorted final year on the City Council with a spectacular splash. Like executing a high dive from the roof of a skyscraper. The  political lifer who enjoys his career more than breathing … Read More

Thirty-six years ago this morning was the happiest dawning of my life.  Matt, a miracle, our first son, was born a few weeks before our fifth wedding anniversary. We had moved across the country and back again, hoping and praying to start a family. On an orange juice-fresh sunny spring morning just outside of Los Angeles, Matt blinked awake, drank … Read More

If a Holocaust survivor had digested the hateful words of Davy Maharaj in an editorial in yesterday’s Los Angeles Time, he probably would have folded from a fatal heart attack. Too many Jews in the White House, charged the historically anti-Semitic Times. How can this happen 72 years later even with bigoted liberals in charge of most media? The Maharaj … Read More

Second in a series   Re “New Mayor and Friends Are Off to Sicily” When Thomas Small, Culver City’s new vice mayor, was 19 years old, he took a year off from college. “I went to Italy and spent the whole year there,” said the architectural journalist, inarguably the smartest dresser on the City Council. “It was life-changing. I feel … Read More

I have tried to imagine how I would react if I were President Trump and were being subjected to the daily brutal criticisms by envious liberals –because Mr. Trump is white. Because amateurish B. Hussein Obama played his blackness like a concert violinist, the cream puff journalists at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today took … Read More

First in a series   The freshly elected mayor of Culver City is going continental. Two weeks from today, Jeff and Rafia Cooper, approaching their 33rd wedding anniversary, will fly off to Italy – Capo d’Orlando, Sicily, to be precise, on business. Accompanied by Vice Mayor Thomas Small, his wife Joanna, their 9-year-old twins, Lyra and Joey, and immediate past … Read More

Second in a series Re “Reluctantly, Weissman Serves a To-Do Dish for Cooper”   Besides a likely financial crisis of daunting size, former Mayor Andy Weissman cited a handful of further imposing challenges confronting week-old Mayor Jeff Cooper. Since leaving office a year ago, he has been closely tracking City Hall finances and the City Council’s performances. “We have aging … Read More

Both liberals and conservatives arched their eyebrows the other day when The New York Times, ultra liberal, hired conservative essayist Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal, decidedly conservative. No doubt Mr. Stephens’s somewhat surprising virulent and unrelenting opposition to the candidacy and the presidency of Donald Trump influenced the decision on both sides. The inevitable followed. Raging fires broke … Read More