The asking price was $1,200 a pup — high for what could have been giveaway mongrels. But these critters‘ grandfather was Bane, the nefarious attack dog — bred by prison inmates — who mauled and killed a young San Francisco soccer coach last spring. Thus the ad’s sales pitch: “Bad to the bone.” It might […]
Month: July 2018
Lucky Little Sleazebag
The question remains why Alatorre — arguably the most corrupt and corrupting Los Angeles politician of his generation — went down for just one easy count of income-tax evasion. And why the feds passed on their own investigators’ allegations of corruption, bribery, loan fraud, extortion and conspiracy. Under his plea bargain, Alatorre can never be […]
Fourth and Long Shots
A few of you lucky readers out there are going to get a chance to vote in next week’s special election to select the successor to the late John Ferraro, longtime City Council president and, for well over a generation, representative of Los Angeles‘ 4th Council District. Go to it!Last week, this newspaper encouraged an […]
Two Toms
Tom Gilmore walks fast, with a big man’s stride. “A developer is like a shark,” he says. “He has to keep moving.” Gilmore is moving west along Sixth Street at more than 4 mph. He’s heading toward lunch at one of Los Angeles’ fanciest downtown restaurants, Cicada, of which he owns a big hunk, from […]
Life Goes On
Fear is a strange passion that strikes from the sky, from the wind, from the air in the room. All sensible thought goes out of the mind. You’re consumed with a vision of an atom bomb or disease as you walk across the street and get run over by a trailer truck.—Jimmy Breslin, Newsday, October […]
Power Turf
In a city where many council districts seem to have been pounded together out of random bits, Los Angeles’ 4th District is right at home. It includes a smattering of the east San Fernando Valley and a bit of bohemian Silver Lake. It has a gangy smidgen of the Rampart area. It has most of […]
Guarding the Pound
Mayor Jim Hahn really put his foot in it last week. It might not be the biggest hornets’ nest at City Hall, but it certainly is the angriest: the one around which all the animal activists buzz.And sting.We are talking about the city Department of Animal Services, which has the largest and most devoted and […]
Giving In to Cops
With Gray Davis warning us about possible terrorist attacks, and the heightened consciousness about security in general, it seems a bit preposterous for the LAPD to keep talking about a compressed workweek. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the councilman from the inner-city 8th District, shares what seems to be the council’s general diffidence about the long-proposed and […]
Distant Port
Watts, San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City are the southernmost communities in Los Angeles. Together they form the 15th Council District — the most isolated in the city.The latter three communities live by (in both senses) the city’s huge port. Watts, on the other hand, has symbolized what‘s wrong with Los Angeles ever since the […]
Kiddie Diesel
Can the typically smog-belching diesel engine actually help launder the state’s fouled air? The South Coast Air Quality Management District will deal with that question this week. The issue at hand is whether, as the AQMD proposes, regional school districts must go with the cleanest available technology, or whether, largely for the sake of economy, […]