LOS ANGELES

EASTSIDER-The other day I was sitting on the freeway on the way to see a friend in Santa Monica, and after 1 1/2 hours of getting from Glassell Park to the beach, I realized that the LA I grew up in and around is gone, gone, gone. 

GRIPES, GRUMBLES, GRUDGES--The Thursday rundown: Devin Nunes has made a name for himself by carrying water for the right wing, even when he has to resort to logic that is, to put it mildly, illogic. His latest exploit as chair of the House Intelligence Committee is the release of a memo that purports to expose FBI wrongdoing. The best response comes from Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.  who writes in The GOP and Big Lie Politics, 

ALPERN AT LARGE--As stated in my last CityWatch piece, we're not refusing to give up our cars but still are quite OK with paying for more mass transit.  This piece focuses on a few "tough love" answers to that paradox.  And thanks to Steve Lopez of the Times for his excellent piece. 

CORRUPTION WATCH-UCLA’s Institute for Transportation Studies issued its January 2018 report, “Falling Transit Ridership: California and Southern California.”  Here are some observations: 

LABOR WATCH--While online shopping has fundamentally changed retail and several major brands have shut down shops, America is not experiencing a so-called retail apocalypse. Brick and mortar stores still employ almost 16 million retail workers nationwide, and according to Forbes, “90% of consumer spending is still happening in the real world.” In fact, the 2017 holiday season saw the “strongest growth in holiday retail sales since the end of the Great Recession.”

When all of my belongings were in storage and I was living out of the second-bedroom of my best friend’s apartment while her son was off at college –unless you knew my situation you had no idea that I was homeless–but I was. That’s why I can tell you now that the 2018 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is going to be woefully inaccurate and the full magnitude of the crisis underreported if we continue to put the focus only on the homeless that we can see.

FIRST PERSON --On February 12, 2018 at 9 a.m. in the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) before Judge Eileen M. Cohn, at 320 West Fourth St, Suite 630, Los Angeles, CA 90013, the California Attorney General, on behalf of California Teacher Credentialing (CTC), will attempt to culminate LAUSD's more than 10-year war on me using fabricated charges and by moving to definitively take away my teaching credential claiming I am a racist. What follows will be my Opening Statement. 

PERSPECTIVE--We've been talking with many of you for over three years now about the fact that high speed trains do NOT belong in our residential communities or sensitive environmental areas. Before anyone gets numb from these constant occurrences or gets bamboozled by CHSRA that it can mitigate this old technology to somehow prevent such occurrences from happening in your Districts, it is time NOW to stop this lunacy called high speed trains from Palmdale to Burbank. 

RANTZ AND RAVEZ-California State Assemblyman Matt Dababneh recently resigned from office leaving the 45^th Assembly District seat open for a Special Election. The 45^th District covers a major portion of the West San Fernando Valley and the Bell Canyon, Hidden Hills and Calabasas communities.  

ECONOMY--On January 28, 2018, the Dow Jones stock index closed at a record high of 28,610. Nine days later, on February 6, the Dow index hit an intraday low of 24,198, a drop of over 15 percent. Since then the Dow index has recovered somewhat, along with other stock indexes and the underlying stocks around the world.

DEEGAN ON LA-Now that it’s been killed in committee, the attempt to repeal the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a state law that prohibits rent control in new housing constructed after 1995, moves the controversial subject from the hands and minds of state legislators to the voices and votes of the public through a prospective ballot initiative in November. 

GENDER PROBLEM IN SACTO?--Texas has done it. So have Kansas, Alabama, Oklahoma and North and South Carolina. Arizona has done it four times.

BELL VIEW-Driving home listening to Trump’s State of the Union speech on the radio, I began to understand – for the first time, really – what his supporters see in him beyond the obvious affirmation and elevation of the filthiest parts of their bitter souls. He sounds like a truth-teller – a bull in a china shop gleefully smashing all the tropes of our moribund political system.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Our city, county and region are filled with individuals who report they want an alternative to their car, but are buying and using cars as much as ever.  And they still predominantly prefer the suburban lifestyle, especially if they want families.

GELFAND’S WORLD-- (This is another article in a continuing campaign to inform, educate and energize  Angelenos on the reformation of city government … explaining the how, the why and the possibilities.) Let's review a list of outrages that might have been prevented by the reform I will discuss here.

The city wants to pick carting companies for businesses, rather than let businesses decide who collects their commercial waste.

CORRUPTION WATCH-While being a psychopath may not be a requirement to become a judge, it seems to be an advantage. But what exactly is a psychopath? 

BCK FILE--On Friday, Donald Trump declassified a memo authored by Devin Nunes (R-CA-22nd) aimed at destabilizing trust in the FBI. The memo cites the FISA warrant issued to pursue surveillance of Carter Page, who acted as a foreign policy advisor to Trump during the 2016 campaign, was an abuse of the FBI’s powers. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-In a statement born of sheer delusion, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell referred to last week’s shooting (of students by a student) at Sal Castro Middle School as a “crisis averted.” 

LABOR WATCH--Just how patriotic is Patriot-wear? Is Eagle gear as American as our national bird?

CORRUPTION WATCH-For decades, women and sometimes men in Hollywood suffered in silence at the grubby hands and other gross appendages of repulsive creatures like Harvey Weinstein.  Perhaps the most telling comment was made by Matt Damon who remarked that within five minutes of being with Harvey Weinstein, one knew he was a “asshole.”