On the day before a mature mans 35th birthday or the anniversary thereof even a Sensible Person can morph into curmudgeon with just a cursory glance at the daily newspapers.
Turning the keyboard at all but two or three newspapers in America over to Liberals Without Borders is like putting your pre-schooler behind the wheel of the family car on a hairpin curve.
What troubles me most about the new and quite a bit smaller Culver City Summer Music Festival, that starts Thursday night at 7 at City Hall, is the absence of candor of the several City Hall people staging the series.
They have wandered all over Culver Boulevard dropping prosaic excuses for shrinking the series from 13 concerts to eight, tweaking the individual programs and humiliating the promoter.
Throughout the recent terminal illness and temporary expiration of the South Sepulveda Boulevard redevelopment, members of John Wackers citizen-based Culver Alliance said they love Culver City the way it is. Leave it alone, especially their neighborhood.
Just so you dont think they were blowing smoke from funny cigarettes, on the Fourth of July you should consider the following areas of civic superiority:
The Mayor of Culver City, unlike the Mayor of Los Angeles, lives like a veritable monk. Not that the nearest Trappist Monastery is recruiting the Mayor of Culver City who is known for his loquacity. The Catholic order of monks is known for forbidding all talk.
Uncharitably, my first impulse yesterday after hearing of the misfortune of the developer Bob Champion was to recall the classic line from motion picture history uttered about 75 years ago by Oliver Hardy to his pal Stan Laurel:
Well, Stanley, another fine mess you have gotten us into.
When the eager young automobile entrepreneur Hooman Nissani beat out Mr. Champion for a contested piece of property Mr. Champion was trying to buy and redevelop for the South Sepulveda project, wasnt this one more sign from the gods?
In this election week, we are reminded again it is good that politicians hardly ever are held accountable.
Otherwise, this afternoon, a brawny weightlifter from Golds Gym would have to stand on the curb and shove two greedy ladies, Laura Richardson and Jenny Oropeza, into oncoming traffic.
Since we met last year, I have been drawn to the artistry of Culver City-born Stacie B London.
What makes this notable is that Ms. London specializes in esoteria.
The fineness Ms. London devotes to amoeba-sized details in each undertaking is extraordinary, and it merits your attention.
She is opening a new exhibit on Saturday night from 6 to 10 at her second-story gallery in Silver Lake — that is Hollywood to you and me — at 3740 Sunset Blvd. (323.668.0734.)
The saddest sight of the week in Culver City:
Thousands of unclaimed, technically unwanted but by no means undesired books lying about the rear property of the Julian Dixon Library.
Soon they would be on their way to, as Jay Handal would say, Book Hell.
The story goes that the thousands of books unknowingly condemned to their death beds had been returned to the library late last week, a couple of years after having been acquired by a film studio from the Friends of the Library for movie set purposes.
Perhaps you heard this mornings news from Afghanistan.
Virulently anti-war National Public Radio reported the story of seven Muslim students being purposely sealed inside a madrassah. They were fiendishly set up as U.S. bombing target, a tragedy that played out shortly afterward.
Converting vulnerable children into juicy targets for even juicier propaganda purposes is a staple of the cowardly modern warfare practiced by Muslim terrorists.
Tuesday nights School Board meeting yielded more civility than anticipated, perhaps because both sides in the Kill the Kindergarten dispute were fully candid with each other.
Of course, it is easy for you to believe all of the parents from El Marino Language School were controlled and honest in their assertions.
At 11:30 last night, I left the School Board meeting at Lin Howe School and walked straight into what felt like a Disney movie set.
Stepping swiftly but congenially past the Principal Rosie LaBriola who was smiling as she stood in the foyer, I slanted into the charmingly lighted late-night darkness.
