What do the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the disastrous Iraq war, corruption on Wall Street and within the banking industry, and the crash of 2008 all have in common? They all were horrific events which caused unbearable loss in life and treasure and for which no one was held accountable. Who was fired after 9/11? Comedian Bill Maher. (He lost his late-night ABC “Politically Incorrect” show when he said the 9/11 terrorists were “not cowards.”) What was the unacceptable [...]
Archive for Category: "Laughing Matters"
September 20, 2012 6:47 PM
When the smoke doesn’t clear
September 20, 2012 3:57 PM
9/11 memories or mammaries?
August 23, 2012 8:14 PM
Todd Akin is a legitimate idiot
August 16, 2012 8:04 PM
Grand Prix of Ocean Park
August 13, 2012 1:35 PM
Is there life after the Olympics?
Other News
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Letter: We’re people, not eyesores
Editor: It is a debacle of human civility and liberty as an American citizen born in this country to not only have to endure the ignorant prejudices of others towards the homeless, such as myself, but also to be subjugated to harassment at the bullish hands of law enforcement or, more appropriately, Santa Monica’s henchmen. Being illegally detained without being read one’s rights for alleged “camping,” only to be held for the sole purpose of being told that the condition [...]
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Featured Letters Opinion -
Letter: Lesson to be learned
Editor: Sometimes less is more. Case in point, Santa Monica Place. Our shopping center recently won the 2013 Best-of-the-Best VIVA Global Design and Development Award from the International Council of Shopping Centers. When the center owner, Macerich, first proposed building three 21-story towers on the site, residents and the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City protested mightily. Macerich listened and the plan was abandoned. Instead, Macerich renovated within the footprint of the existing building. This is a shining example [...]
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Featured Letters Opinion -
Report: Pier water quality hit hard by dirty birds
SM PIER — Water quality near the Santa Monica Pier dropped in 2012, reversing much-celebrated gains from the year before, according to a report released Thursday by local environmental group Heal the Bay. Santa Monica went from all A’s during dry weather in 2011 to a B-grade in the summer and failing grades in both winter reporting periods, according to Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card, an annual accounting of water quality on the West Coast. Other measurement areas in [...]
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Environment Featured News -
Task force blasts tree reports
KEN EDWARDS CENTER — Members of the Urban Forest Task Force ripped into consultants’ reports on the health of Santa Monica’s trees Wednesday, and vowed to send their concerns on to the City Council for further review. The reports examined a small sample of Santa Monica’s 35,000 street trees and management practices surrounding the multi-million dollar contract with West Coast Arborists (WCA), the company charged with caring for the local urban forest. The reports were in response to claims raised [...]
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Environment Featured News -
Softball: Samohi romps way to semifinals
MEMORIAL PARK — By the end of the first inning, it was clear who would be moving on. Santa Monica softball put a five spot on the scoreboard in the first frame punctuated by a leadoff home run by junior Sara Garcia that essentially spelled the end of Paloma Valley’s trip to the CIF-Southern Section Division 4 quarterfinals on Thursday at Memorial Park. The 8-1 win sends the Samohi Vikings to the division semifinals for the first time since the [...]
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Featured High School Sports -
Brief: Additional 405 lane to open on Friday
This weekend, drivers on the Westside can expect a lane opening instead of a closure for a change. Metro, the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project contractor and Caltrans announced they will officially open 1.7 miles of general purpose lane on today, Friday at 5 a.m. The opening will be northbound on Interstate 405 between Interstate 10 and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles. This opening is touted as a significant “project milestone” that will add lane capacity to one [...]
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Featured News Transportation -
Brief: SMFD hosts free CPR training
Get some hands-on, hands-only CPR training for free, in honor of National CPR Week. The American Heart Association is collaborating with the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency to coordinate a countywide effort to instruct hands-only CPR. Throughout the week, emergency responders and healthcare providers will be going out to demonstrate and teach how to save a life. The Santa Monica Fire Department will join the effort by hosting a CPR training session on June 4 at Santa Monica [...]
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Briefs News -
Briefs: BBB changes for Memorial Day
The Big Blue Bus announced that buses will run on Memorial Day. BBB will run its Sunday schedule on Monday, May 27, to accommodate users of public transportation during the holiday. Regular service resumes on all routes on Tuesday. Routes that do not operate on Sundays will not operate on the holiday. For more information, call (310) 451-5444.
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Featured News Transportation -
Brief: Local man commits suicide at UCLA
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office declared on Thursday that a body found near Boelter Hall at UCLA was that of a Santa Monica resident who committed suicide. The deceased was identified as Reynaldo Quitos, 47, a UCLA library employee who suffered “multiple traumatic injuries.” Quitos was an assistant in the Southern Regional Library Facility located across the campus. His body was found Tuesday. Quitos’ passing marks the second suicide this month on a college campus in the Los Angeles [...]
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Briefs News -
Miriam battles the bulldozers
The recent $4 million beautification of Ocean Park Boulevard between Main Street and Lincoln Boulevard has received rave reviews. But Miriam Ginzburg, an Ocean Park resident since 1948, wasn’t one of them. One day during the construction Miriam was sitting in the house she’s lived in since 1957, when she had an unsettling experience. (Pun intended.) When the asphalt-flattening bulldozer rolled back and forth, Miriam’s walls shook, or, as she recalled, “It felt like a 7.0 earthquake.” She suddenly saw [...]
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Columns Featured Laughing Matters Opinion -
Is this really how we honor our nation’s veterans?
Just in time for Memorial Day, we’re being treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians, corporations and others with similarly self-serving motives eager to go on record as being pro-military. Patriotic platitudes aside, however, America has done a deplorable job of caring for her veterans. We erect monuments for those who die while serving in the military, yet for those who return home, there’s little honor to be found. Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts [...]
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Columns Opinion That Rutherford Guy -
Letter: Not a fair measurement
Editor: At the historic Jan. 8 City Council meeting, over 200 people marched to save the Pico Youth & Family Center (PYFC), the only organic youth center built by Pico Neighborhood residents, and decry the City Hall reports as false. Twenty eight of 29 benchmarks were met, yet the city staff, under the direction of City Manager Rod Gould, asserted that PYFC did not pass the test. This is what rhetoric scholar Ralph Cintron calls the “Discourse of Measurement.” The [...]
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Letters Opinion -
Letter: Tax plan
Editor: It seems to me that there is a way to make sure all companies pay their fair share of taxes regardless of where they have set up their corporate offices. My proposed change to the IRS tax code: A corporation selling products or services operating in the U.S. pays taxes on all worldwide sales regardless of where an item was sold. The company can deduct taxes paid to other countries, but must deduct from those tax payments any incentives [...]
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Letters Opinion -
City Hall rethinking water usage
CITYWIDE — Taking a shower, flushing toilets, watering the lawn — daily life requires water, and managing that need in a town of 90,000 residents and upwards of 200,000 workers and visitors is a challenge that City Hall is trying to conquer. City officials saddled themselves with a stringent goal in 2010, the last time that they took on the Urban Water Management Plan required by the state, committing the city to consume only 123 gallons per person, per day [...]
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Environment Featured News -
Mr. Checkpoint goes to court
CITY HALL — A Santa Monica resident known for his website that shares DUI checkpoint locations has found himself on the other side of the coin fighting a civil rights case with City Hall over a 2011 incident in which he was arrested on suspicion of driving drunk. Sennett Devermont, the man behind mrcheckpoint.com, alleged in a lawsuit filed last year that the Santa Monica police officer who pulled him over for an illegal right-hand turn against a red light [...]
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Crime Featured News -
Playoffs: Samohi moves on; New Roads out
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Santa Monica softball used the long ball to dispatch No. 1 seeded Segerstrom from the second round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 4 playoffs on Tuesday. Samohi’s Sara Garcia blasted two home runs in the contest and starting pitcher Whitney Jones overcame two early runs to shut down Segerstrom’s offense. The win sends Samohi to the third round of the playoffs today, Thursday, at home against Paloma Valley. The game begins at 3:15 p.m. Samohi finished [...]
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Featured High School Sports
