DEEGAN ON LA-This is Number 5 in a series. Councilmember Nithya Raman (CD4) sat silently in the council chamber on July 28, as her colleagues spoke for and against a motion to regulate homeless encampments.

LA WATCHDOG - The 2021 Assessment Roll for the 792,559 properties in the City of Los Angeles rose to a record $724 billion, an increase of $28 billion, or 4%, from 2020.  

ANIMAL WATCH-The deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean, two Black men who died from overdoses of methamphetamine injected by Los Angeles animal rescuer/activist and political donor Ed Buck at his WeHO apartment are appalling.

VOICES - With an ugly, abject lack of empathy constituting what now feels like another deadly epidemic  - of not illness but ill will -

COVID WATCH - It was more than two weeks ago that Dr. Peter Hotez, a nationally recognized vaccinologist, put it in plain language.

COMMENTARY-Much as many of us have come to dislike Zoom meetings and long for in-person interactions when great ideas are discussed in Neighborhood Council meetings, there are many powerful arguments to maintain virtual attendance as a robust option. 

GELFAND’S WORLD - Here's a short list of a few cultural presentations I'm looking at: 

CUBA LIBRE - In the weeks following the protests in Cuba on July 11 questions about how US President Joe Biden would react have dominated headlines.

COMMENTARY - The press is predictably singing the praises of Simone Biles, Olympic women’s gymnastics team captain, for her shocking withdrawal from competition.

LGBTQ NATION - Quinn, a non-binary Canadian soccer player, has become the first out transgender person to win a medal at the Olympics. Quinn uses they/them pronouns.

CALIFORNIA DREAM REEXAMINED-California being what it is – a very large state with a complex social and economic matrix and a unique political structure – it generates an endless stream of analysis and criticism. 

ANIMAL RIGHTS - The organization KoreanDogs.org has been working to end the Dog Meat Trade in South Korea for 10 years.

MY THOUGHTS - By now, George W Bush should have completed volumes one and two of his prison letters.

VIEW FROM HERE-On May 17, 2021, four days after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s atrocious statement that vaxed people need not wear masks inside, I wrote: 

ISRAEL MELTDOWN - Ben & Jerry’s decision to suspend its operations in the occupied Palestinian West Bank is an event that is proving critical to Palestinian efforts, which ultimately aim at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation, apartheid and war crimes. 

VOICES - White supremacy in America was never simply a rightwing phenomenon.

BY THE PEOPLE - Perhaps the best possible thing we could acknowledge being is a “divided nation.” Failing to do so justifies — or at least avoids noticing — all manner of violent cruelty and repression in the name of so-called democracy, from the jailing of whistleblowers who reveal U.S. war crimes and global criminality, to the lynching of men and women of color . . .  to the waging of endless war.

THE CITY - Home: The dense metropolis of Kolkata is among the only places in India -- and one of the few left in the world -- where fleets of hand-pulled rickshaws still ply the streets.  

THE GRID - The Energy Information Administration, the primary authority in the federal government on energy numbers, concludes that renewables, primarily hydro, wind and solar, rose to become 21% of electricity generation in the U.S. in 2020.

CLIMATE WATCH - Apocalypse is complete destruction of the world as described in some detail in the biblical book of Revelation.

HEALTH CARE - Activists in more than 50 cities across the United States marched and rallied on July 24 to demand a Medicare for All or single-payer health care system.