Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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I take no joy in writing this piece, but feel it must be done for the good of political cause everywhere in California. Before going any further though, it must be stressed that he countless hours of volunteer labor, sweat, and tears poured into the effort to Recall Gascon can never be discounted nor diminished. Nor the pain the victims have gone through, time and again, especially after being given false hope with two rounds of recalls. Sadly, precious resources were...
Dear Mayor Himmelrich: This Cease and Desist Order is to inform you that your harassing and intimidating actions against me have become unbearable. Such anti-social behavior is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. This letter is to demand that your harassment and intimidation cease and desist immediately. Should you continue to pursue these activities in violation of this Cease and Desist Order, I will not hesitate to pursue further legal action against you....
A few weeks ago I submitted a story about the desperate situation in front of the Mar Vista Library at Venice Blvd. and Inglewood, complete with images of the depravity that no civilized society should tolerate. Last week I returned to the area. I am happy to report that things have changed dramatically. The filthy encampments and their entitled flipping-you-the-bird "residents" are gone, replaced by a clean, normal sidewalk and large galvanized metal planters weighing...
Santa Monica's great lie. The Mayor has said: "(...) the benefits we enjoy here, from our pothole-free streets to our glorious beachfront to our wonderful schools." The oft-repeated mantra is that we should all suffer horrific sales taxes, weak policing (not the fault of the police, but of city hall), overdevelopment of rentals and a dearth of affordable home-ownership, that leaves our residents permanent rent-slaves, is justified because Santa Monica is such a lovely place...
It is this Council's responsibility to the voters to demote Sue Himmelrich from the position of Mayor – in order to protect democracy. Himmelrich acts like a dictator who controls, intimidates and manipulates Council proceedings even though she is supposed to act as a neutral meeting facilitator only. Himmelrich is reported to have effectively bought her Council seat in 2014. Himmelrich is an elitist, disconnected, virtue-signaling fauxgressive in a City which overwhelmingly v...
The Santa Monica City Planning Department has never from all appearances, met a variance it didn't like. Every one of those exceptions over the years, including those for the Lincoln Center project on the current Gelson's site, has benefitted developers and penalized residents. That was true with the Hines project, the Plaza, and others reaching back to the 1980s. It's enough to make one want to follow the money and look for Cayman bank accounts. Lincoln Center is merely the...
Dear Chief Batista, I am pointing out the activities shown in the following photos contained in the link below, asking for your help. Since you say you have a full staff at night from 12 midnight to 7 am, would you please authorize your officers to patrol these areas? The photos and video clips are not in order, but tagged with date , time and location. And I have more images showing disgusting and illegal activities. We need your attention Chief, and City Manager David White...
As our children start their 3rd week of school, it's business as usual over at the SMMUSD district office and school board. There has still been no mention of a plan to address the learning loss students are experiencing after the school closures during the last two years. Instead, our current school board and Superintendent Dr Drati continue to focus on anything but education and further continue to neglect the needs of our students. In the fall of 2020, our schools closed....
Sustainability has gone mainstream, with more people than ever before concerned about the environmental impacts of the products and services they buy and use. They understandably want to do the right things for the planet, but the explosion of greenwashing is causing consumers and businesses to use – or in the case of paper, not use – products without any basis in fact. The Oxford Dictionary defines greenwashing as "Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to pre...
September 5, 2022 - As the latest vaccine aimed at Omicron is about to be unleashed upon us, it would be helpful to all who can read to pay attention from one paragraph to the next when trying to understand the risks and efficacy of this latest shot. Recently, a major newspaper was disingenuous when it led us to believe that the unvaccinated were significantly more likely to get covid, be hospitalized or die than their vaccinated counterparts. This is true only if they...
Hi Santa Monica City Government, You are exercising government overreach. Stop the mandates. You are city servants. Not health dictators. You do not have the right to force city employees or law enforcement to be guinea pigs for drug companies. When you started the mandating game it was "in a state of emergency" and "just to keep the hospitals from overflowing." Right? Now what's the excuse? The hospitals are not overflowing. We're not in a state of emergency. Everyone who...
In February 2021, 16-year-old, straight-A student Sammy Berman Chapman asked his dad for a cheeseburger. An hour later his mom, TV therapist Dr. Laura Berman, went into his room in their Santa Monica home to talk with him about a summer internship and Sammy was dead – poisoned from a single Xanax pill, illicitly manufactured and laced with fentanyl. Sammy had been feeling isolated throughout the pandemic and ordered the pill from a brightly colored menu of "prescription" d...
WASHINGTON, DC, -- Reading, writing, and arithmetic aren't the only lessons being taught in our public schools these days. In some schools -- too many of them across the country -- teachers have added transgender ideology to the curriculum, according to Moms for Liberty co-founder, Tiffany Justice. But Moms for Liberty is not just a place for moms; "Dads, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Friends" are all welcome and are urged to join in the defense of parental rights. Justice had...
August 22, 2022 - The Los Angeles County Public Health Department claims that 31,291 residents have died of Covid-19 as of August 22 since the pandemic began in March, 2020. But have that many people actually died from the effects of becoming infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus? Given the loose definition health officials use for a Covid death, it is not at all clear. "We don't categorize deaths as 'because of' Covid vs. 'with Covid,' health officals wrote us. "All Covid...
UPDATE:ANOTHER CAR (The Tesla, attached) was smashed and grabbed at the same address two days after I sent the original message. Neighbors said they saw a black Honda Civic and racing away from the crime scene (They didn't see the license plate). Hi Santa Monica City Government, Criminals are increasing their activity in Santa Monica. Yesterday my friend's car & his neighbor's car were both smashed & robbed in Santa Monica (Pictures attached). I have two other friends who...
August 19, 2022 - In her most recent media briefing yesterday, Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health, had increasing trouble maintaining the notion that she either understood the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the result of the "safety precautions" her office ordered to control it or wished the public to understand. Rachel Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control, admitted a year ago, in August of 2021, that vaccines were not providing immunity...
If you shudder, as you pass the infamous, filthy, dangerous, druggie-filled "Boninville" camp under the freeway at Venice and Sepulveda, or the countless homeless vagrant encampments in Hollywood, or, indeed, that horrible homeless mess under the Pico/Centinela bridge as close as Santa Monica's eastern border with West Los Angeles, well, don't take comfort by telling yourself that that can't happen here in Santa Monica. Actually, it can, and IS already happening. And it all...
August 17, 2022 - Having failed in their attempt to make Ethnic Studies a high school requirement for admission to a University of California campus, proponents of "critical" ethnic studies are turning their attention toward training K-12 teachers in their politically trendy version of the nation's history. This version, in which people are divided into oppressor versus oppressed classes, has been accused by the AMCHA Initiative as "inherently anti-Jewish" and "can't help but...
On August 12, 2022, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial by Erwin Chemerinsky, Gil Garcetti, and Miriam Aroni Krinsky. The article criticized a recent state court appellate decision that ruled that District Attorney George Gascón violated California state law when he ordered his deputies not to follow California's Three Strikes law. No one at the Los Angeles Times wrote the piece, but a quick fact check would have turned up a slew of egregious mischaracterizations....
I'm going to tell a story for those people who think dealing with the IRS is somehow fair or "reasonable" - buckle up. When I was a kid, my dad owned a small cabinet shop. He decided (against better judgement of my mother) to go into partnership with another furniture maker. The business with both of them operated for about one year successfully. Dad ran the shop with about 55 employees. The other guy ran the books (you see where this is going.) Until one day, a bunch of...
If Arthur Jeon truly is running for SM city council, he needs to be honest and truthful. His letter in your July 25-31 issue was neither. SM voters -- who are mostly renters -- must know he clearly has an anti-renter agenda. Mr. Jeon threatens the very existence of rent control which protects so very many low- and moderate-income SM renters/voters. Mr. Jeon is wrong when he says the mayor's property tax measure would benefit only the homeless. In addition to our schools, the...
August 5, 2022 - At her media briefing yesterday, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, declined to answer a question from a Los Angeles Times reporter regarding to what extent it is safer to be around a person who is vaccinated. Ferrer does not typically miss answering a question from the press, even if multiple questions come from one reporter. Data from the Health Department's website on "Outcomes by Vaccination Status," clearly show that transmiss...
Open Letter to Sue Himmelrich and husband Michael Soloff: It was with dismay that I watched both your orchestrated attacks on councilman Phil Brock's alternate tax transfer measure at the July 12 City Council meeting (http://santamonica.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2). It was the definition of bad faith. Michael Soloff, in your labored straw man argument, you called Councilman Brock's measure a "poison pill." You used every cliche in the canon to push for endless...
Dear Editor, The Santa Monica city attorney, or the city council needs to act immediately to force the Mayor's recusal from all council discussions and votes regarding either of the transfer tax ballots currently under consideration. Fact: The Mayor is spending $200,000 of her own money to gather signatures and campaign for her transfer tax ballot measure. The presence of a competing measure will require her to spend additional funds to achieve success, which will lessen her...
If you have walked our iconic bluffs overlooking the ocean, you will find discarded cans, old backpacks, blankets and clothes on the other side of the concrete railings that spoil the otherwise majestic ocean view. While the rest of Palisades Park is kept up beautifully, the bluff's rim is riddled with trash. I asked a Parks employee about it and he said they weren't allowed to go over the fence to clean it up because it was too dangerous. So that's it? Are we out of ideas on...
