Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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"Pity the poor Russians, the heirs to Byzantium, in an Era dominated by the descendants of Rome." -- Richard Pipes According to a poll conducted by the Levada Center, 72% of Russians consider the U.S. is a threat, 48% think Ukraine is "hostile" and 29% think Turkey is an enemy, newspapers reported. The United States topped the list of countries, being named as hostile by 72 percent of respondents, followed by Ukraine with 48 percent of respondents. It is the highest level...
Fox News is reporting that US Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders, will jump out of an aircraft, and parachute into a stadium in California this evening. The event comes close to California's June 7th primary, this Tuesday. The jump would not be without American presidential precedent. George Bush Sr. jumped out of airplanes to celebrate his 88th and 90th birthdays, for example. He would have continued to jump, but Barbara put a stop to it. And former Illinois governor...
Update, 6/9/2016: President Obama today whole heartedly endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. This seems to create a conflict of interest for the Dept. of Justice, which has announced publicly that they are investigating her for violations of several statutes. It seems to require the appointment of an independent counsel prosecutor under statutes enacted in response to Nixon's transgressions. Stay tuned. Last Saturday, a journalist employed by liberal Huffington Post...
In a final attempt to placate Progressive Democrats disappointed with his Presidential legacy, at 11 a.m. PST, President Barrack Obama emerged from a meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders, and endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. Clinton locked up the nomination on June 7th, when she won a string of state primaries, including California. Sanders vowed he would still compete in the Washington DC Primary, but did not say whether he would contest the Democratic National...
Inventing yet another word that no one has heard before to explain why their hiring yet another staff member who will be paid more than Governor Brown; the City of Santa Monica has announced a Downtown Community Plan workshop features urbanist John Bela". John's an architect with an impressive resume and experience. The City press release, which is too difficult for us to translate says: "The City of Santa Monica will host I © Downtown Because... a community conversation...
Update: Cricket Wireless has still offered no explanation for the nationwide cell phone outage that began 2 PM on Friday, May 27 and lasted until 7 a.m. PST on Saturday, May 28, 2016. However, they are offering a credit of $5 per line to each customer. You do have to call 611 from your phone and ask for it, and then wait on hold while some dude in Costa Rica processes the refund. That $5 per line, so in my case, it was $25. It was an unprecedented national cell phone outage...
Update, 10:45 p.m. PST: Sen. Sanders took the podium in Barker Hanger in front of a crowd of cheering supporters. He refused to concede, and said he would take the fight to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. This surprised analysts, who noted that Clinton now has the majority of delegates, both pledged and "super-delegates." He smiled as he stood with his wife and family. He thanked supporters for their hard work "for being part of the political revolution,"...
Residocracy, the group behind signature gathering for the Land Use Voter Empowerment Initiative, has announced that they believe they have enough signatures from qualified local voters, to qualify for the November 2016 ballot. Enough signatures is about 6,500, and is based on a percentage of the number of registered voters in Santa Monica at any one time. Led by Laura Wilson, the group feels that City Hall has been too quick to grant large developers with massive projects,...
Aeronautical engineering professor William S. Klug has been identified the victim of a fatal shooting on the UCLA campus on Wednesday. According to students and the UCLA online catalog, Dr. Klug taught aerospace and mechanical engineering at the university and was a married father of two. The professor was one of two pronounced dead following what police called a "possible murder-suicide" that took place around 10 a.m. PT on Wednesday. The campus was placed on lockdown for...
It looks like enough is finally enough. After paying 14 employees each more than California Gov. Brown, the Assembly has finally had it. The State Bar, funded entirely by bar dues, is unable to fund its operations without billing its members. "This is new territory for me," said Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) as he counted the votes for his committee's simple bill to reauthorize membership dues imposed on attorneys, who must join the State Bar of California in order...
One day in 1984, an 81 year old immigrant turned entertainer, walked into to a Hollywood recording studio. Bob Hope came to Sunwest Recording Studio to sing a comedic number about another entertainer, an old friend of his named Bing Crosby. It lasts for three minutes and is entitled, Of Bing I Sing. The song was intended to be incorporated into a television broadcast of the Pebble Beach Masters Golf Tournament of 1984. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't; but either way, the...
One of the two bodies found at UCLA had a suicide note, indicating that one of the dead people shot the other, UC Police confirmed. All finals for June 1 have been cancelled, and students have been asked to stay away from campus, as the LAPD conducted a search to be sure there are no other suspects. Los Angeles Police Department officers in tactical gear were all over the campus, and the FBI and ATF were also reportedly responding. Los Angeles Police chief said the shooting...
The pizza dough was ready to be tossed; the fresh vegetables were ready to be diced and and the mozzarella cheese had already been shredded. Nevertheless, Dagwoods Pizza Parlor on Wilshire Blvd had to close early Sunday night, unable to take orders since the phone was down; unable to take internet orders, since their internet access was down, and unable to do business. Frontier was experiencing another widespread outage. "It's a bad situation," said Dagwoods manager Mark...
Bill Cosby went back to court Tuesday in Pennsylvania, for a preliminary hearing on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted Temple University employee Andrea Constand 12 years ago. She says she only came forward after numerous other women accused the famous comedian of rape or sexual assault. Counsel for Cosby argued People v. Bill Cosby couldn't proceed, because Cosby settled Constand's claim civilly, but this is not much of an argument, given that criminal cases are...
Through a robo call left on our message machine and perhaps yours, Santa Monica High School Principal Eva Mayoral has confirmed that Bernie Sanders will be speaking at SamoHi tomorrow (Monday) evening. "While the program doesn't begin until the evening," Ms. Mayoral says,"folks will start lining up in the afternoon. Therefore, the 4th street gate will be closed all afternoon. Traffic is expected to be more congested than usual," she says. The call says that the Bernie Sanders...
The State Bar, perhaps California's most useless and anachronistic organ, overpays its leaders and its recent financial reports "contained errors and lacked transparency." This according to a new Audit released Thursday. The review, released by State Auditor Elaine Howle, says the top 13 executives at the bar are paid more than Gov. Jerry Brown, who takes home $182,791 a year. This in addition to lavish pensions, full medical and dental coverage, travel expenses, and other...
As of July 1, 2016, Santa Monica will have a local citywide minimum wage. This from a City press release. I suppose it's a good thing that folks behind the counter at the local Taco Bell (Santa Monica has three--believe me, I would know); will earn more. From the City's press release: Phased in over four years, the minimum wage will start at $10.50 per hour in 2016, rising to $15.00 per hour in 2020. There will be a one year delay for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and...
Ever wonder why Santa Monica's streets are so well maintained, while the alleys are generally as broken up as rural roads? Technically, the City of Santa Monica's alleys are County of Los Angeles roadways. Which means the City's road department could ignore them, the County did ignore them, and the State of California, well forget about it. They do give out parking tickets in the alleys (see photos). As I've said before, the City of Santa Monica functions like a corporation,...
If you've seen the trains conducting "tests" for the last six months along Colorado Avenue, you're probably aware that the Expo opens on May 20. A recent City press release says: "Mobility options include 500 Breeze bikes at 75 locations citywide, extended North-South corridor Big Blue Bus service connecting to each Expo Line Phase 2 stations, 1.5 miles of new off-street bike/pedestrian path along the Expo route in Santa Monica, and 12 pedestrian scrambles downtown. These, alo...
The City of Santa Monica has it's own City forester, "Sustainability Manager," and ambassadors who rove downtown on two wheels. It does everything itself, from paving to publishing its own newspapers. But apparently managing the City's last trailer park, is just beyond it. The City Council voted 6-0 Tuesday night, to issue a Request For Proposals (RFP) for an "affordable housing organization" to purchase the Mountain View Mobile Home Park. The City acquired the 4.8 acre park...
Update: Alix Hobbs, the President of Heal the Bay, called me to say that Thuy Tran's death, while tragic, was not connected to Heal the Bay, as she was not participating in their beach clean up event. For this reason, they have no more information on the circumstances of this tragedy. She said that Heal the Bay has procedures in place to train volunteers about beach safety. Nevertheless, she said, it's impossible to watch everyone at every moment, or to prevent people from...
In an attempt to force the City to change its Charter from city-wide to districted Council and School Board elections, several groups have sued Santa Monica alleging civil rights violations. And the moving force behind the lawsuit is Mrs. Oscar de la Torre, a school board members wife. The Pico Neighborhood Association (PNA), Maria Loya and Advocates for Malibu Public Schools (AMPS) filed the suit in the Los Angeles Superior Court, according to a press release received by the...
My wife finally made me drag that rug in our storage pile downstairs to a rug store. I took it from a client in exchange for $1000 in services about 20 years ago. It's a nice rug, I thought. But it's been, well, lying around ever since. With reluctance and a last yell from the wife, I threw the old rug into the backseat of an Acura, then sped off to Ruben's Rug Gallery & Jewelry. "Hand Wash Carpet & Repair Old & New Silver Handicrafts," says Ruben Saidan's card. Saidian really...
Despite criticism from the local pundit class, including yours truly, Caltrans appears to be nearing completion of the California incline, reasonably on time and within its $4 billion budget. The bridge deck appears to be entirely completed, save the striping. Two years have passed since they closed the bridge, and while the original time estimate was 18 months, they did say at the time that the project could easily require two years for completion. The bridge was originally...
An hour before dawn on April 5, a man was stabbed to death. No one saw it but the murderer. Officers responded to a homicide call at 1548 5th Street, Apt. 408. The building is a homeless halfway shelter called Step Up on 5th" at 4:30am on Tuesday April 5, according to the SMPD. Police said they found an unidentified adult male inside the apartment, with an apparent stab wound to the chest. Paramedics were called to the scene at 4:34am . They took an adult male in critical...
