So here we go again, another week in the Hahn administration, and one would forbear: Cut young Jim some slack. The guy‘s only been here half a month. Give him a chance to get the feel of things before we get judgmental. Remember how long it took Dick Riordan to start rolling?But just last week, […]
Category: LA Weekly
Million-Dollar Understanding
Unfortunately, between a valve job on my beater and the usual payments to credit-card usurers, I just haven’t got a spare quarter-million dollars this month. Which is too bad.Because if I did, I could have my name engraved on a memorial metal thingy that would stand in front of City Hall forever, or at least […]
Green City
Just as Mayor Jim Hahn’s new administration was beginning to feel like the latest thing in regional torpor, last week saw a series of outright triumphs on the city‘s Green Front. Triumphs that promise a new era of livability to inner-city Angelenos and the rest of us besides.I’m not sure how much, if any, of […]
Times Cancels City Hall Party
With no detectable fanfare, the Los Angeles Times has spiked a special advertising section tied to a costly downtown Labor Day–weekend extravaganza called “The Celebration at City Hall.”Times corporate declined to explain the about-face, but there’s no doubt that the organization wants to avoid any comparisons with the 1999 Staples Center embarrassment, when the Times […]
A Case of Water Carrying
Traditionally, every citizen is subject to the call of public service. When you were young, you used to get a draft notice. In the fullness of retirement, you could be summoned downtown to jury duty. Along with taxation, such obligations are said to be the costs of civilization. Generally speaking, the only individuals exempted are […]
Animal Nature
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 […]
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 […]