LOS ANGELES

BCK FILE--In 2000, the number of measles cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was 86.

Richard Lee AbramsONE MAN’S OPINION-Angry men with guns reflect the rage of suppression.

EDUCATION POLITICS-A compromise brokered by Governor Newsom will allow unelected county officials to continue overturning decisions by local school boards. 

LABOR WAR-United Teachers Los Angeles Members (UTLA)—including Adult Education, K-12, Teachers on Reduced Workload Status, Health and Human Services Professionals, and Substitute Teachers—went on strike from Monday, January 14, 2019 through Tuesday, January 22, 2019—when a deal was announced and overwhelmingly approved by members. 

ALPERN AT LARGE--I have always been in awe of those who give so much of their time to their community.

ENERGY POLICY-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti should rethink his short-sighted decisions to cut three much-needed natural gas power plants generating electricity.

EASTSIDER-We’ve already covered the disastrous failure of Mayor Garcetti’s “ownership” of the City’s homeless crisis. However, in a separate initiative, Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell seems to be dead set on throwing them out of town. 

CLIMATE POLITICS-The oceans are “crying for mercy,” a fact that is starkly revealed in a telling 900-page draft of a forthcoming UN report due for release September 25.

WORLD WATCH--Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or Iran deal) was sadly based on a lack of understanding of its importance and potential contribution to a future nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

PLANNING WATCH-If you follow the news regarding including housing-related legislation bubbling up in Sacramento and at LA’s City Hall, you have been subjected to a series of big lies. 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Over the past few years we’ve been hit by hurricanes that build up to enormous sizes and then hover over the target area – sometimes for days.

GUEST WORDS-For the past six years, homelessness in Los Angeles has increased by more than 75%.

SMILE, YOU’RE ON COP CAMERA--Since its inception, predictive policing has courted controversy.

CHATMATES-I assume this is my third and final installment of WILTL. It was a pleasure sharing with readers of all political stripes my previous two pieces of the same name. Coincidentally, "Why I Left the Left," part 1, was posted in late August of 2017; part 2, was published in late August of 2018.

THE CALLOUT CULTURE-What do you do when someone says something offensive?

ONE MAN’S OPINION--We put criminals in charge and then are bewildered why the criminals are robbing us blind.

AT LENGTH-At one point in the early 1990s, this newspaper hosted the famous Nation magazine columnist Alex Cockburn to speak at Los Angeles Harbor College.

IMMIGRANT WORKER RIGHTS-In 2017, Raul Novoa, who had been detained at the Adelanto Detention Center in the Mojave Desert near San Bernardino between 2012 and 2015, filed a class action suit alleging that he’d been forced to work for $1 a day at the facility, which is operated by the GEO Group, the nation’s largest for-profit detention firm, whose 2018 revenues totaled $2.3 billion. 

LABOR 2019--When workers don’t have a voice in their workplace, they eventually lose their voice at the ballot box, too.

ALPERN AT LARGE--You've heard it before--Labor Day is too often a holiday of barbecues, the un-official end of summer, and a time for family gatherings more than the actual celebration of labor.

GUEST COMMENTARY--I am in agreement with Bianca Barragan’s August 29, 2019, CityWatch piece, “6,000 LA Bus Stops Leave Riders in Rain and Boiling Heat.” I ride buses and trains, and in City Watch I have written articles on the need for more covered bus shelters.