Anti-union sentiment has always been strong in California, with today’s particular emphasis on resentment of public employee unions whose members’ pay and benefits sometimes equal or exceed the levels to which recession has reduced similar […]

There’s a two-word description for the loud whining that has followed release of nearly finalized new political district lines by the state’s rookie Redistricting Commission. Sour grapes. Some people and interests didn’t get what they […]

More people are out of work in the United States than have ever been in most of our lifetimes. This is the real economic crisis. Yes, we should not be a debtor nation. Yes, some […]

I had just visited the Santa Monica Recycling Center, which lies between Michigan and Delaware near Cloverfield, when I read in last week’s edition of the Mirror of the impressive numbers related to our city’s […]

It is one thing to say “We’re all in this together” and another for everyone in the lifeboat or the subway car being jolted by King Kong to agree with you. One would think that […]

It’s fair to say they did it to themselves. The future of California’s more than 400 municipal redevelopment agencies is completely unclear today, more than one month after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a budget-enabling bill […]

A sunny, summer day, a good day for a grandmother to push her one year old grandchild in a stroller along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. Then the unthinkable occurred. It was shortly after 3:30 […]

May 4, 2011. Santa Monica High School. A brown practice dummy with a rope around its neck, an African-American student chained to a locker, and racial slurs being used, are all allegations currently under investigation […]

Here’s one way to get a conversation started at your next party: Ask everyone in the room to define the purpose or function of public art. Does public art add beauty? Must it commemorate? Should […]