LOS ANGELES

ALPERN AT LARGE--My experience of seeing grassroots, non-elected individuals empower the rest of us to build projects like the Expo Line has been a first-hand, first-rate experience of recognizing the beauty of our democracy and civilized society. 

VIEW FROM HERE--As much as I am personally sickened by President Trump's handling of the border crisis, historically speaking, his draconian policies are far from unprecedented.

GUEST WORDS--We should never get used to what we are seeing at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Trump administration, facing an enormous challenge as large numbers of families and unaccompanied children from Central America seek to enter the United States (more than 144,000 of them in May of this year alone), has made the problem worse in multiple ways.

EASTSIDER-I’ve written before about the troubling shift from verifiable print media to an ephemeral electronic “news” universe.

GELFAND’S WORLD--Two fascinating experiences over the past month -- and are they connected, I wonder.

URBAN PERSPECTIVE--Trump may win. Though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would never in a million years publicly say anything like that.

ANIMAL POLITICS-Tens of millions of dogs are brutally tortured and killed every year in the Dog Meat Trade in China, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, and Cambodia. 

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The City of Los Angeles has moved beyond mere corruption: It is a criminogenic city.

VOICES--The ongoing attacks and counterattacks in Israel and Gaza demonstrate their governments’ inability to extricate their people from an awful situation, decades in the making

@THE GUSS REPORT-Of the various celebrities seen in my local supermarket, the easiest to recognize may be actor and mid-octogenarian Robert Blake, due as much to his sleeveless shirts and cowboy hat as the familiar face hidden by the latter. 

CAL BUZZ-Amid the Kamala Harris triumphalism now reverberating through the Beltway echo chamber, Calbuzz interrupts this program to bring Democrats this public service reminder: 

The 2020 presidential election is about three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

UNION POLITICS--Janus got the superhero treatment during a June 27 gathering of the conservative faithful at a meeting space in downtown Los Angeles’ Wells Fargo Building. At a conference dubbed The Janus Victory:

ALPERN AT LARGE--It's no secret that our society wants better, faster, and more reliable bus service.

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-City officials have offered Angelenos two, or possibly three, local versions of the Congressional Green New Deal.

BCK FILE--For those of us who live in Southern California, earthquakes seem to be the penance for eternal sunshine and a majestic coastline, along with nonstop traffic on the 405.

HOUSING CRISIS-Call me naïve. I used to think that to win a public debate you needed sound facts and rational arguments. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--For the past decade, the soaring stock prices and nosebleed valuations of Silicon Valley’s IPOs and unicorns has been a boon for California, helping create a record budget surplus of almost $22 billion.

NUCLEAR DISASTER IN THE WINGS-We are THIS CLOSE to an unimaginable apocalyptic horror.

GELFAND’S WORLD--Saying that we told you so isn't polite, but it's something we should all be saying to the politicians in the aftermath of the twin earthquakes and the thousand or so aftershocks that centered out in the desert -- almost as far away as Death Valley it turns out -- and not directly under our feet.

DIGGING INTO MILITARY POLICY-But there’s something deeply troubling about O’Rourke’s proposition:

FIRST PERSON-The Civil War ended in 1865 with the occupation of the South by Northern troops, which established a Reconstruction plan to try and dismantle the South's several-centuries-old culture founded on slavery and the institutional legalized inferiority of African Americans.