Editor: This is in response to the May 13 opinion piece by Bill Bauer (“Nothing like clueless politicians,” My Write). Mr. Bauer makes untrue assertions about Senate Bill 333, which increases penalties on false 911 calls. Dangerous false 911 calls, also known as swatting, are not just a problem in the city of Los Angeles, as Mr. Bauer asserts. I was requested by countywide law enforcement to carry this legislation because false 911 calls potentially affect everyone. Technology is not [...]
Archive for Category: "Opinion"
May 14, 2013 6:27 PM
Don’t leave ‘em with two nickels to rub together
May 14, 2013 6:26 PM
Now that’s news I can really use
May 14, 2013 6:25 PM
Letter: Going easy on ‘em
May 14, 2013 6:24 PM
Letter: Obama gets a free pass
May 13, 2013 7:08 PM
Blogging and dogging it
May 13, 2013 7:08 PM
Letter: Make a little space
May 12, 2013 9:50 AM
Nothing like clueless politicians
May 10, 2013 6:00 PM
Q-Line: Scene of the crime
Other News
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If your name is ‘mud’ can ‘grunge’ be far behind?
Matthew McConaughey is the personification of mud, physically and emotionally. “Mud” is the story of a lovelorn loser and the teenage boys who help him evade the avenging family of a man he’s killed. It’s also a love story in which everyone loses. And a bittersweet coming-of-age story — for Mud (McConaughey) as well as for the boys. While the plot and the surroundings would lead one to assume that the film is going to be an emotional downer, it [...]
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Featured Life Play Time -
New source of natural gas
The name “natural gas” might be a puzzle. After all, how could there be such a thing as unnatural gas? The reason we call natural gas what we do has to do with history. There was a day that people made burnable gas by heating coal. The gases that came off the coal were piped around cities where they did things like light street lamps and even power cook stoves in homes. Coal gas had its downside. For one thing, [...]
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Columns Opinion Your Column Here -
Letter: Who’s it for?
Editor: Will the light rail really serve the residents of Santa Monica? The more I read about the Expo Metro rail, the more I get an impression that it is built only to bring more people to Santa Monica and not to serve the residents of the city. There is no mention of the parking arrangements if you want to use the Metro rail. After all, very few people live within walking distance from the rail stations. At least in [...]
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Letters Opinion -
Letter: No civility
Editor: Last Thursday evening I was looking forward to hearing more about the environmental impact report concerning the Miramar Hotel’s proposed development from City Hall’s Planning Director David Martin and his staff. When I got to the library, it was clear that a professionally organized opposition group was hell bent on sabotaging the meeting. Flyers were being handed out which were nothing more than scurrilous attacks on the owner of the hotel, computer innovator Michael Dell. After a short presentation [...]
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Letters Opinion -
City Hall calls for cuts, increased fees to balance budget
CITY HALL — Life in Santa Monica could get more expensive for residents, visitors and businesses as City Hall works to close a potential $13.2 million budget gap that looms within the next four years without cutting services residents have come to expect. The City Council will get its first crack at proposals next week, which include new programs that officials hope will net $1.1 million as well as increased fees that could bring in $1.45 million in new revenue. [...]
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Featured Government News -
UC hospitals say patients safe despite strike
LOS ANGELES — Thousands of workers at University of California medical centers began a two-day strike on Tuesday that prompted the postponement of dozens of surgeries amid reassurances that patients were safe. A union representing some 13,000 hospital pharmacists, nursing assistants, operating room scrubs and other health care workers began the walkout at 4 a.m. at medical facilities in San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco and Sacramento. Nurses were not on strike, emergency rooms were open, and about 450 [...]
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Featured News -
Softball: Rout ends Pacifica Christian’s surprising season
CLOVER PARK — Pacifica Christian was just bounced from the playoffs 12-0 at the hands of Academy for Academic Excellence, but there wasn’t a long face to be found. Instead of pouting over the loss in the second round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 7 softball playoffs on Tuesday at Clover Park, the Seawolves came together for one last cheer before packing it up for the off-season. The first-year team exceeded everybody’s expectations, including those of head coach Mike Dolan. [...]
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Featured High School Sports -
Rockers help raise $125K for arts
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jackson Browne headlined the 10th annual Artists for the Arts benefit concerts this past weekend at Santa Monica High School’s Barnum Hall, helping to raise $125,000 for arts programs. Browne shared the stage with fellow rock icon Gary Wright, known for “Dreamweaver” and other classic rock hits, and local rock band Venice, a touring group with more than 20 years playing with some of the biggest names in music, officials with the Santa [...]
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Education Featured News Public -
Experiencing death too soon
“I saw a man die,” Amina says as she explains why she’s not smiling in her passport photo. We are sitting in the teenager’s modest living room — which doubles as a bedroom and dining room — in Damascus, to where she and her family fled after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. I have joined Abdullah, whom I met in Baghdad in 2003 just before the war, and his teenage daughters at their spotless, spare two-bedroom flat that they share [...]
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Columns Opinion -
Legislature’s assault on Prop. 13 begins
Last week we alerted California taxpayers as to the immediate threats to Proposition 13 being heard by a California legislative committee. As fully anticipated, the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance approved all six of the anti-Prop. 13 proposals. All of the bills in question would gut one of the most important provisions of Proposition 13 — the two-thirds vote requirement for additional “add on” parcel taxes. These “add on” parcel and bond taxes are on top of the property [...]
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Columns Opinion The Tax Man -
Letter: Clogged by commercial greed
Editor: I am more than a long-time Santa Monica resident. I was born in Santa Monica Hospital, as was my father and my brother. My family has remained here for over a century because of the lifestyle it provides. Yes, growth is a natural aspect and we’ve all seen the steep rise in foreign visitors, which helps our local economy. But I’m stating the obvious to point out that what now attracts those visitors and dollars is threatened when access [...]
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Letters Opinion -
Letter: Santa Monica’s Trump Tower
Editor: We’ve already lost our beach town. If the Miramar expansion goes through, it will be for the residents living around the Miramar, their worst nightmare. One of my friends living near Sixth Street and Wilshire Boulevard has fewer visitors due to the parking situation. There are times she can’t find a place to park, and she has a permit. I got hit by a bicyclist on the boardwalk and suffered injuries. My friend was hit by two skateboarders on [...]
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Letters Opinion -
Health worker strike set at SM-UCLA Medical Center
MID CITY — Patient care workers at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center will join thousands of others at UC hospitals across the state in a two-day strike to protest what they say are unsafe staffing levels while administrators rake in fat-cat salaries and pensions. Members of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees union will walk off the job between 4 a.m. Tuesday until 4 a.m. Thursday at both the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and the Ronald Reagan [...]
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Featured News -
New state standards may cut advanced math course
SMMUSD HDQTRS — A proposed shift in the progression of math classes at the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District could eliminate the highest level course taught in the district, which some parents feel put students at a disadvantage when applying to top-tier universities. The class, Calculus DE, focuses on multivariate calculus, a class not often taught until students go to college. To take it in high school, a student must have taken algebra in seventh grade, a year earlier than [...]
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Education Featured News Public -
To cash in or let it ride?
It seems to me that a lot of people that buy and sell stocks are a lot like the people that go to the racetrack. When you are at the track you are investing — some call it betting — on a short-term result, which horse comes in first in the next few minutes. Of course you do your research. How did this jockey (the CEO) do in the past? How did the horse (the enterprise) perform recently? How is [...]
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After The Bell Columns Opinion -
Remembering those who sacrificed so much
As we close in on Memorial Day, the time America has set aside to honor the men and women who have given their lives for our freedom, a controversy rages. Politicians are using yet another tragedy to once again try to make political hay for their party. The Republican Party is aghast that on-duty diplomats were killed in Benghazi. The Democrats are fighting back by saying that attacks on our embassies have occurred under both parties’ control of the White [...]
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Columns Opinion What's the Point?
