Some of the biggest winds in the world blow through the stormy South Atlantic, but none stormier than the political hyperbole that’s sweeping through the region lately. It’s just 30 years since the Falkland Islands war that took 900 young lives and saved the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while bringing down one […]
Category: LA Times
Will Latin America tolerate a free press?
Last month, one of Latin America’s top journalism prizes went to a man whose only known investigative coup was a recent finding that capitalism may have destroyed life on Mars. Yes, none other than Hugo Chavez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, waltzed off with the Rodolfo Walsh Prize, given by Argentina’s National University […]
Will UC buy into the ‘new’ King?
It still doesn’t have a name. But this week, L.A. County will try to sell the University of California Board of Regents on a plan to create a UC-supervised entity to run a new incarnation of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. The media has described the proposed 320,000-square-foot facility in South Los Angeles […]
Is UC opening the door to trouble?
For 13 years, University of California officials have wrestled with a seemingly insoluble problem: how to sustain a student body that reflects the state’s vast diversity without violating Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure banning race-based affirmative action. The latest attempt to formulate a policy that is both legal and capable of increasing diversity is […]
Resurrecting the moderate Republican
Sixty years ago last month, I watched my parents pull the curtains of their voting booths in a Michigan town hall basement to vote for the man who lost the 1948 presidential election. He was Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican widely expected, even by the Democrats, to vanquish wounded incumbent Harry S. Truman. Nearly all […]
A ‘green’ industrial belt should run through it
For more than a generation, great cities in the American West have sought to repossess, regain or even re-create the rivers that run through them. San Antonio vaunts its 60-year-old Riverwalk as Texas’ foremost tourist attraction. Dallas takes pride in the Trinity River it has reclaimed as a chain of lakes and greenbelt. And Denver […]
The undeveloper
The density wars in Los Angeles are heating up. On one side are homeowner associations, neighborhood councils and a smattering of politicians. They are becoming increasingly outspoken in their opposition to what they believe is City Hall’s insatiable desire to build taller in order to create more housing for a growing city population, now more […]
Unsnarling traffic can be a mess
It’s probably not a neighborhood in which you’d want to spend a lot of time. Not that it’s dangerous. It’s just 11 gritty blocks of small enterprises on West Pico Boulevard on the Westside. There’s a charter school, a couple of strip clubs, a mattress store and one that sells grand pianos. A couple of […]
The whole enchilada
BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner wants more foreigners to invest in her country’s economy, which is growing by 8% annually. But Argentina’s recent history of runaway inflation, currency devaluations and huge foreign debt, coupled with the generally low reputation of its politicians, banks and courts, make outside investors and major corporations […]
Revisiting ‘toilet to tap’
Los Angeles’ water supplies are getting lower. The once-desolate Owens River Valley burst into flower this year because the Department of Water and Power brought less water to the city. Other states are increasing the amount of water they are able to tap from the Colorado River, L.A.’s primary source of water. And this has […]