In a two-person political contest, voters only occasionally get the chance to judge candidates on their personal qualities of character. These rare chances can come when politicians are suddenly confronted by unexpected, unscripted crises of […]

[Editor’s note: This is an abbreviated and edited excerpt of Thomas Elias’s originally submitted column.] The most contentious issue University of California campuses last year was whether the Board of Regents should divest itself of […]

Whew! The LUCE is finally approved. After six years of well-attended community meetings, single-minded focus by dedicated planning staff, and beaucoup bucks spent on consultants, the City Council approved Santa Monica’s Land Use and Circulation […]

On the one hand, the exultant high following Obama’s election had to wear off or at least morph into something new at some point, and we are in Year Two. It was beautiful and real […]

Near the holiday weekend one of our cable channels offered-up a kind of festival of “Teens-out-of-control!” movies from the 50s and 60s. “Rebel Without a Cause” and “The Blackboard Jungle” made the list of course, […]

Ho-hum. Another summer, and on other state budget deficit, another impasse in the Legislature, and once again a major part of the solution stares lawmakers in the face and they do nothing about it. Oops. […]

Class stratification doesn’t have to be part of the dialogue about every single thing in America. Or does it? You can certainly point to a lot of on-going problems and argue that because those who […]