[Editor’s Note: See Editor’s Essay, May 22: “Greed Gone Wild — The Times Loans a Wink to Ms. Deadbeat. Will She Pay It Back?”]
Over the holiday weekend, impressive investigative reporting by the Daily Breeze, to a level that is unusual for a small-town newspaper, turned up the news that U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) has defaulted on 3 homes in 3 cities in recent months.
By shading your eyes from the glare of the Westside overcast, you will notice that I am shlepping a shovel in one hand, a broom in the other on this holiday weekend morning.
My turn to play zookeeper.
I am holding firmly onto my favorite fire-engine red scooper as I walk behind the elephant-like Los Angeles Times to clean up the sad newspaper’s daily messes, starting with today’s dishonestly crafted lead story.
The political selectivity with which the Times covers Los Angeles is a permanent scar on its reputation. They are better than any wife I ever have had when it comes to keeping a secret — especially about Democrats who have shot themselves in the nose.
Stickiest hometown political story of the week is the financial mess that the frequently embarrassing Laura Richardson has created for herself.
Speaking of people who may not know when it is time to admit the decision is lost:
Are you sure that Hillary — running in 14th or 15th place — isn’t sneaking into Culver City late at night, after even the Police Chief has gone to sleep, to lend her shaky strategizing expertise to the diehard residents who still are whacking away at the Entrada Office Tower proposal?
Over the weekend while I was rolling across the carpets in the dining room and the living room with our elder grandson, 23-month-old Gabriel, on his home turf, I kept thinking how lucky I was, getting a belated second chance at fatherhood.
What with a nasty divorce and the accompanying acerbity, now in its 19th year, the earlier try at fatherhood was neither very long nor very fun.
I have long presumed that when a peace activist breaks his leg, his first stop, mandatorily, is his psychiatrist’s office.
Within minutes, the shrink with the scraggly hair, foggy glasses, barely noticeable body odor and funny German accent, will convince the peace activist that if he will just tune in to KPFK when he gets home, the pain and the blood wracking his leg will vanish.
I have long presumed that when a peace activist breaks his leg, his first stop, mandatorily, is his psychiatrist’s office.
Within minutes, the shrink with the scraggly hair, foggy glasses, barely noticeable body odor and funny German accent, will convince the peace activist that if he will just tune in to KPFK when he gets home, the pain and the blood wracking his leg will vanish.
Pardon me while I stifle a yawn during this week’s version of the Holy Hour, the disgustingly fawning coronation of Karen (I Hope Not Everybody Thinks I Am a Crock of Baloney) Bass as the Speaker of the Assembly.
Her ascension into Baloney Politics Heaven is the equivalent of being named the hardest worker between the ages of 34 and 36, of the female persuasion, in the 4900 block of Overland Avenue.
What Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger needs most, two weeks into his seventh year on the City Council, is a gift membership for the Toastmaster’s Club. This may solve the articulation problem, leaving us with one down and a few to go.
I am not sure. But I suspect Mr. Silbiger lays out his private speaking menu before each City Council meeting. Then, like a farmer riding a tractor into the eye of a storm, he ploughs through the soil regardless of the weather, regardless of the answers he receives, regardless of what his colleagues say to him, regardless of how circumstances change as an evening unfurls.
Miracles did not end with the Bible. The journalistic equivalent of walking on the moon was achieved yesterday. Inhaling enough oxygen to accommodate 50 people, large persons, The New York Times, historic paragon of intensely subjective objectivity, examined the most nearly-sinless liberal Man since Moses.
In a spiffy 5,080 words, spread across 13 columns and 95 paragraphs — roughly the size of Texas and California combined — the Times pronounced He Who Is Incapable of Sin a most worthy successor.
