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West Is Eden:
It is true that picking up trash for a few hours won't realign the Earth's axis. But it is also true that it is a fine place to start.
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Where We Are:
The friendly docent who chatted with me seemed a little dazed at what it will require to take the Crystal Cathedral and turn it into a Catholic church.
Where We Are:
Southern California is being refigured by the imaginations of all of its interpreters. "Ghost" inhabitants are making their historical claims. Shadows are being illuminated by a new generation of authors, academics, and cultural critics.
Cakewalk:
Just when you think you know everything about where you live, you find out that you don't. Sometimes the information can be too much.
Notes of a Native Daughter:
The intensity required to open your own business in 2013, when large corporations are still sitting on millions and billions of dollars, hesitant to give out loans, forces you to think creatively.
Cakewalk:
Celebrating community spirit should be easy. Not this year.
Where We Are:
Shelter took on a new meaning under the threat of global thermonuclear war. Decades of uneasy peace have followed. "Shelterists" are sure that it won't last.
Where We Are:
Remaking the Los Angeles landscape balances risks and benefits. That balance has been part of the Los Angeles River revitalization plan. Can it be achieved for the Long Beach breakwater?
West Is Eden:
Poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems (nocturnal bird migrations, bat behavior and sea turtle movements), and disrupts teenage necking.
Where We Are:
Stone and glass. Anchored and slipping away. Wayfaring and rest, on a Palos Verdes bluff.
Where We Are:
The click-click-click-click of a sprinkler on the hottest morning of summer tolls passages into September.
Cakewalk:
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington -- and despite some memorable words from notable figures in the capitol, it was a day in L.A. like any other.
West Is Eden:
Such memories might seem small and inconsequential, but anyone who has traveled knows they are not inconsequential at all.
Where We Are:
I'm not - to myself - an authentic Angeleño. But my status as a tourist in the country of wheels does allow me to be dispassionate about those who are drivers.
Where We Are:
The investigation is widening to include grand jury testimony by several state legislators. More records of contractors have been subpoenaed. Behind the corruption probe are the ties between small time politicians and big city political operatives.
Cakewalk:
A half century after the March on Washington and King's galvanizing speech about American possibility, we have not realized nearly enough of it. Lost in the mists of time, but still very alive, is the crisis of black employment.
West Is Eden:
When I closed my eyes to the animal-shaped clouds I could hear wing beats and the zipper-quick whine of a passing bee. Little things, but perhaps not so little.
East CA:
There are dangerous places in the California desert. You don't want to get within striking range of a Mojave green. When there's a thunderstorm you don't want to be in a slot canyon. And you definitely don't want to get in between Assemblyman Tim Donnelly and a press opportunity.
Where We Are:
The makers of California's disastrous electrical deregulation scheme were convinced that the market they constructed was infallible. That corrupting belief led them blindly into the hands of market manipulators.
Where We Are:
Termed-out state legislators fill city council seats that would have been filled in the past by crusaders, activists, and community organizers. Conflict is muted in a body that has begun to look like an adjunct to Sacramento. And that's not a good thing.
SoCal Focus is a blog about the people, places, and issues in and around Southern California.
I Am Los Angeles: Strings of Success
Sasha is content just to be living his life on his own terms, doing something he thoroughly enjoys: building and playing guitars.
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