The greatest show on earth -- ever
Spectacular, spectacular -- the level of social discipline and intellectual ingenuity displayed by China in the opening ceremony answers my questions about why everything I buy seems to be made in the world's most populous nation. It also has me wondering how we're going to compete when we can't even decide on national health care or immigration policies or figure out how to educate our kids.
Prices at the gas pump fall 33 straight days
Running around the Valley over the weekend, I spotted gas at $4.03 a gallon at one station with cars lined up to refuel. Can we back to $3 plus soon?
Bill Bratton won't you please stay home
"If there is anything we have all learned about LAPD Chief William Bratton, it is that he likes to do things his own way - and doesn't like having his motives questioned." Rick Orlov in the Daily News made that point in reporting that Bratton has withdrawn his request for the city to pick up his tab for a trip to the Democratic National Convention in Denver at the end of the month. The Police Commission delayed a decision last week and Bratton's request was still on this week's tentative commission agenda as of Friday morning but the chief pulled it later in the day so it appears his stated purpose of learning about security measures wasn't that critical. "Our people were there helping them and I want to see how it works out," Bratton had told an interviewer. Perhaps Antonio Villaraigosa, Controller Laura Chick, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Council President Eric Garcetti and council members Richard Alarcón, Herb Wesson, Wendy Greuel, Janice Hahn and Bernard Parks who are going to Denver can fill Bratton in on what he missed. You can bet they're all paying their own way.
Believe it or not, there's corruption at City Hall
City Hall's lax ethical culture surfaces in the latest chapter in the head of the city pension fund who quit one day and then started seeking advantage for his new employer the next day -- despite a widely ignored requirement one-year cooling off period intended to limit conflicts of interest. David Zahniser in the Times moves the story forward with damaging emails from Robert Aguallo Jr. The Ethics Commission is investigating so don't expect more than a slap on the wrist over Aguallo moving from LACERS to managing partner of Cardinal Americas, a private equity firm run by the extremely well-connected George Pla. Pla has cashed in handsomely through his Cordoba Corp. on minority allocations of major public works construction projects and contributed generously to support the city political machine.
Spectacular, spectacular -- the level of social discipline and intellectual ingenuity displayed by China in the opening ceremony answers my questions about why everything I buy seems to be made in the world's most populous nation. It also has me wondering how we're going to compete when we can't even decide on national health care or immigration policies or figure out how to educate our kids.
Prices at the gas pump fall 33 straight days
Running around the Valley over the weekend, I spotted gas at $4.03 a gallon at one station with cars lined up to refuel. Can we back to $3 plus soon?
Bill Bratton won't you please stay home
"If there is anything we have all learned about LAPD Chief William Bratton, it is that he likes to do things his own way - and doesn't like having his motives questioned." Rick Orlov in the Daily News made that point in reporting that Bratton has withdrawn his request for the city to pick up his tab for a trip to the Democratic National Convention in Denver at the end of the month. The Police Commission delayed a decision last week and Bratton's request was still on this week's tentative commission agenda as of Friday morning but the chief pulled it later in the day so it appears his stated purpose of learning about security measures wasn't that critical. "Our people were there helping them and I want to see how it works out," Bratton had told an interviewer. Perhaps Antonio Villaraigosa, Controller Laura Chick, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Council President Eric Garcetti and council members Richard Alarcón, Herb Wesson, Wendy Greuel, Janice Hahn and Bernard Parks who are going to Denver can fill Bratton in on what he missed. You can bet they're all paying their own way.
Believe it or not, there's corruption at City Hall
City Hall's lax ethical culture surfaces in the latest chapter in the head of the city pension fund who quit one day and then started seeking advantage for his new employer the next day -- despite a widely ignored requirement one-year cooling off period intended to limit conflicts of interest. David Zahniser in the Times moves the story forward with damaging emails from Robert Aguallo Jr. The Ethics Commission is investigating so don't expect more than a slap on the wrist over Aguallo moving from LACERS to managing partner of Cardinal Americas, a private equity firm run by the extremely well-connected George Pla. Pla has cashed in handsomely through his Cordoba Corp. on minority allocations of major public works construction projects and contributed generously to support the city political machine.
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Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
China is a totalitarian regime that does whatever it desires to it's people. Our country has become de facto totalitarian in it's ability to deceive and manipulate the citizens, by stealing elections through voter fraud, and by secretly buying off influence using public money. China's "secret police" is overt. Ours is covert.
Note Bratton's infamous comment "if you don't like it, you can leave", referring to individuals who don't like Special Order 40. It was a slip of the tongue, he would probably say. This POS is actually fawned and lauded upon by our media, the LATimes and LADaily News, by citing statistics of death, a few less than last year, to manufacture some level of accomplishment. Understand that our leader's measurement of accomplishment is nothing similar to ours.
If Bratton is counting deaths then he must believe that he controls the hand of G-d. That's quite an accomplishment. When someone is shot, does the LAPD control who lives and who dies?
The opening ceremonies were amazing, and Ron, I got the same impression as you. Seeing the precision, imagination and excellence of the Chinese people really drove home what a Third World joke our city has become. We need to take control and make L.A. the world-class city it can and should be. There's no legitimate reason for America's second-biggest city to be a dump.
Corruption in City Hall?! I'm shocked -- shocked, I tell you. I admit that I have not been monitoring the City Hall situation for long -- only about 15 years -- and when I started, I was confident that things could not get worse. So much for my confidence. I am sick of this. Let us S.L.A.P. them all!
You can bet they're all paying their own way.
I bet not... They may be more adept at hiding it, but I do not believe for a minute that Antonio Villaraigosa, Laura Chick, Rocky Delgadillo, Eric Garcetti, Richard Alarcón, Herb Wesson, Wendy Greuel, Janice Hahn and Bernard Parks are paying for their trip fully out of their own pockets.
These people are professional feeders at the public trough. Between officeholder accounts, party subsidies, gifts from wealthy "friends" and other freebies, some or all of their trips to Denver will be subsidized one way or another. Count on it.
Dear Walter Moore:
Los Angeles absolutely needs a substantive upgrade in leadership and vision in order to reach its full potential.
What we don't need are third-rate Babbitts who would so blithely hyperbolize that LA is a "dump" and a "Third World joke."
Your mediocre ideas and thinly-veiled separatist messaging would play a lot better up in the Idaho panhandle. Wouldn't you be happier running for mayor somewhere up there?
Back here in LA, we deserve better.
We need leaders who can bring people together around a common sense of shared vision and purpose.
People who understand that a $300 million Olympics opening ceremony a half-world away may be an amazing showcase of social discipline and intellectual ingenuity, may indeed demonstrate that China is a cultural and economic force to be reckoned with, and may in fact be a call to arms to all of us to stop squabbling over petty self-aggrandizement and rally around building a bigger and better community -- but is totally irrelevant as an indicator that Los Angeles is a "Third World dump."
I don't expect you to understand any of this, and I'm posting anonymously because I have neither the time nor the interest to engage you in a running debate ("Speak not unto a fool, for he shall despise the wisdom of thy words." Proverbs 23-9).
But c'mon, dude. Have you any self awareness at all?
So...hizzoner is planning to parade his motley crew of LACC lapdogs on opening night in Denver! Wow! Impressive! I wonder if they are all rehearsing for their 'closeups'!!! Lights, camera, action!!! Can we expect Laura Chick, Controller Extraordinare, to give us a complete accounting of exactly how much this little soiree is costing taxpayers? I didn't think so!
Is our top cop going to be able to convince presidential hopeful, Barry Obama, that L.A. is the safest city in the country, and that he, Williiam Bratton, would make a great Homeland Security Chief???
And wouldn't it be terrific if the brilliant court room prosecutor, Rocktard Delgadillo, could convince Mr. Obama that he would be the next best thing since Alberto Gonzalez to head the country's crime fighting department???
My diabolical mind keeps telling me that there is going to be an 'August surprise' in Denver...with Hillary taking the prize away from Obambi...is it possible??? Rumors abound! Just wishful thinking on my part, but stranger things have happened! I can just hear Villar saying..."But Hillary...we were with YOU before we were with Obama...REALLY!!!"
Yeah, Walter, we really need to emulate all aspects of Chinese society: Hitler and Mussolini made the trains run on time, too. Yeah, really amazing what can happen when you have a dictatorship without the cumbersome obligations of civil rights, so that police can arrest people for protesting (what do you think would have happened to you and McIntyre's mob, for starters?) something as innocuous as lack of freedom for Christians not "approved" by the state.
Never mind what they're doing to those protesting physical and cultural genocide in Tibet -- not just when it comes to their "citizens" including the occupied Tibetans, but the American man who's been arrested for unfurling a banner about Tibet last week, and the Chinese government won't even tell his wife where he is, despite our President being in their country at the very moment! This is just the beginning -- but your mindboggling naivity and provincial insularity is scarily apparent once again. This same inability to think two steps ahead of your superficial, naive and provincial rantings is evident in your drafting of jamiel's Law and how you think this entire issue is so utterly simple, hearings should be hold tomorrow with no further ado. Everything is always totally simple for the truly stupid.
2:20 pm- All I am getting out of that posting is complaints, criticism and more complaints about others who have described actions to take for change.
Even if opposed to those views, nothing is proposed or just discussed as something for an alternative course of action, except doing more nothing. Everyone has been doing nothing and you see how well that choice has been for the ordinary people.
This is just one of the many posts that demonstate that characteristic. No matter how strongly, elaborately or even just crudely you criticize the other posts and people, failing to offer something as a different solution doesn't say much about your own ideas.
7:58,
This person does the same thing almost daily. Loves the ad hominem and straw men. I'd love to know what the story is with him or her.
My Dear Anonymous O9:30, Aug. 11
C'mon, dude, a little city-awareness wouldn't hurt you either.
L.A. a both a "dump" and a "Third World joke" literally and metaphorically; it all depends on which part of "city awareness" you drive through.
It's especially true at city hall where a Mexican-style menu of corruption, self-interest and cronyism thrive and are served up daily.
In large areas of the city it's pushcarts and chickens [real ones, not the metaphor breed] run through the streets, because it's "their" tradition to raise chickens and eat them [or let the cocks fight].
Need any more proof that "they" don't want to be one with "us?" How about "their" inability or lack of interest in learning English and adopting American ways, while keeping some traditions as immigrants of the past have done.
You may think that posting anonymously will stop the discussion you started, but it won't.
You can run, but you can't hide under a cloak of anonymity -- you've been time-stamped and dated!
Just to let you know (re: gas prices), here in the Bellflower/Paramount area ARCO has been at $3.95 for a couple of days now, and going lower.
Ron --
Congrats! Your blog has obviously acquired a big enough readership that the staffers in City Hall feel the need to pour on the "spin." You've "arrived" in the L.A. political blogosphere.
If only the spin here were worthy of a reply. Anonymous name-calling is hardly what one would expect in America's second-biggest city. But then again, they're at a huge disadvantage: they cannot possibly make a case for their superiors' idiotic policies. What's left, then? Name-calling.
We need people from the "real world" to take back City Hall, so policy debates can be over the costs and benefits of alternative approaches to solving problems, instead of puerile outbursts from twenty-somethings hired because they're somebody's cousin.