Let the hand-wringing begin! In last week’s primary election, just over 16 percent of Los Angeles voters turned out at the polls, less than four years...
For all the talk of saving and rebuilding the middle class, no public official from the President on down has mentioned the U-word. The U-word? “Unions.”...
My friend pastors a vibrant congregation in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles. Her people reflect the neighborhood and the church worships in both Spanish and...
When the President finished his inaugural speech the other week, I said to my wife Susan, “That was a great piece of rhetoric.” By that I...
In an action that already feels like ancient history, Congress voted earlier this month to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” While much remains to be settled, the...
Turning over the calendar makes me think about nature. Partly, because it marks the end of one cycle of our lives and the beginning of another....
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” Those are...
’Tis the season of miracles. There’s only enough oil to light the lamp for a couple of days, but it stays lit for eight. A peasant’s...
Despite the conventional wisdom that Southern California only has one season, some wag suggested it does indeed have four: Fires, floods, earthquakes and riots. So far...
My mail delivery guy just got happier. He can finish his route while it is still light outside – this despite the change back from ...
“Kick the can down the road” may be a politician’s mantra, but it’s certainly not what some Native Americans meant when they spoke of the Seventh...
During much of this, my second year of retirement, I have been reading the three volumes of Taylor Branch’s history of America during the years of...
When a man makes millions a year and pays a paltry tax of 13 percent and then demonizes people too poor or too old to pay...
A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a meeting of the leadership of some local hotels. These were not the hotel managers, but the...
When my wife Susan and I walk down our neighborhood’s sidewalks, we often face the specter of some much younger person so focused on their cell...
My grandchildren live on pizza. Oh, they eat other things that young children like, but whenever mom or dad work late or events intervene, the call...
Earlier this summer some friends invited me to a small dinner party where I met a man who manages money for people who have some. He...
I have been wading through the three volumes of Taylor Branch’s history, America in the King Years, and reliving the dozen years between Montgomery and Memphis....
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The Fourth of July parade rolled down Main Street in Santa Monica while I sat at the computer writing this. Only half a block away, I...