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Pension reform or else

Pension reform or else

Just since Christmas, we've learned that San Francisco's retiree health plan is $4.4 billion in the red, that Santa Clara County's fire...

 

America's China syndrome

Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit this week has rekindled the familiar debate over American "decline." Our sole-superpower moment is...

 

Not your 1992 LAPD

The Los Angeles Police Department let down this city in varied and profound ways during the early 1990s. Officers beat Rodney G. King into...

  • The U.S. and China -- mending fences

    Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S. this week, with its summit in Washington on Wednesday, comes 14 months after...

     
  • California Gov. Jerry Brown's 'parent trigger' trap

    Without question, Gov. Jerry Brown has the right to make his own appointments and craft his own policies. But his picks for California's...

     
  • Politics' dark passions

    Once you get a look at the evil smirk captured by the mug shot of Jared Lee Loughner, it's hard to believe that mere heated political...

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Haiti's political earthquake

Haiti's political earthquake

Here's what's wrong with Haiti right now: A year after an earthquake ripped through the capital and nearby towns like an atomic bomb,...

A nuclear Iran? Not so fast

A nuclear Iran? Not so fast

After years of warning that an Iranian atomic bomb is right around the corner, Israeli officials now say Iran is at least four years away...

Mouthing off in America

Mouthing off in America

You think too much. And you're not alone. Everybody's thinking too much. We live in an era in which it is important to have opinions. Not...

Black man's burden

Black man's burden

At some point, most African American men experience a painful social initiation. My son Ryan was 13 when his came. At the time, we were...

Political speech today -- it's not Bobby Kennedy's America

Political speech today -- it's not Bobby Kennedy's America

Is our political speech really more bitter and poisonous than it's ever been?

Look it up: Wikipedia is turning 10

Look it up: Wikipedia is turning 10

Wikipedia is 10 years old Saturday. It is the fifth-most-visited site on the Internet. About 400 million people use it every month.

Palin comes out swinging, and misses

Palin comes out swinging, and misses

Sarah Palin wasn't responsible for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) last weekend — not directly, not indirectly. She'...

In Afghanistan, a woman's place is at the peace table

In Afghanistan, a woman's place is at the peace table

Looking for a way out of Afghanistan? Maybe it's time to try something totally different, like putting into action, for the first time in...

Rhetoric as comfort food: The mac-and-cheese instinct

Rhetoric as comfort food: The mac-and-cheese instinct

If only we could go back to Monday. Discussions about Saturday's shootings in Tucson, which killed six and wounded 13, including...

Cuban exile on trial

Cuban exile on trial

In the trial of Luis Posada Carriles, which began this week in El Paso, U.S. prosecutors will for the first time publicly present evidence...

China stealth jet is no reason to boost U.S. defense spending

China stealth jet is no reason to boost U.S. defense spending

The world may be in turmoil, but in the defense business there are signs of a return to normalcy. After dreary decades in which the U.S....

Brown's budget plan -- pain everywhere

Brown's budget plan -- pain everywhere

Every governmental budget is inevitably a political document, and the crisis blueprint Gov. Jerry Brown proposes for California is,...

Cause and effect and Tucson

Cause and effect and Tucson

The news media once again scrambled this past week to find the deep underlying causes of shocking events. We saw this impulse in the rush to...

In deep at the port of L.A.

In deep at the port of L.A.

Amid the mountainous shipping containers that crowd the Port of Los Angeles, an emblematic battle is underway — one that involves...

The exploitive rhetoric of tragedy

The exploitive rhetoric of tragedy

In the wake of the horrendous shooting rampage in Tucson, why isn't anyone talking about banning "Mein Kampf"? Or "The Communist Manifesto"?...

The pitfalls of 'realignment'

The pitfalls of 'realignment'

The budget proposals Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to unveil Monday have had those of us in local government in California holding our...

From ugly to just plain American

From ugly to just plain American

The ugly American — the stereotypically brutish, ethnocentric, bumbling traveler abroad — is dead. He's gone the way of global...

Who killed the whistle-blower bill?

Who killed the whistle-blower bill?

It is ironic that a major anti-secrecy reform was thwarted by a single senator's secret "hold" just before Congress adjourned in December....

America's good food fight

America's good food fight

Our holiday table got quite tense. We are a mixed family — Jewish, Christian, Republican, Democrat –— but the tension...

A retooled White House

A retooled White House

Barack Obama's White House is looking more like Bill Clinton's every day.

Tighter belts, later bumps

Tighter belts, later bumps

'True Grit' vs. 'The Social Network'

'True Grit' vs. 'The Social Network'

Someday Mark Zuckerberg's perfectly parabolic jaw line will crumble and sag until it resembles the craggy, blurred topography of Rooster...

'Huck' and 'Rent' done wrong

'Huck' and 'Rent' done wrong

It's been a tough week for the arts in academia.

Education reform the union way

Education reform the union way

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in an inflammatory speech last month, referred to United Teachers Los Angeles as the "loudest opponent and the...

An essential mandate

An essential mandate

The individual mandate provision of the 2010 healthcare reform law is winding its way through the courts, and will probably be decided by...

A modest speaker not to be underestimated

A modest speaker not to be underestimated

The new speaker of the House, Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, isn't the most brilliant statesman ever to hold the job ( Newt Gingrich beats...

Narcissist -- give it a rest

Narcissist -- give it a rest

At any given moment a whole lot of people are accusing a whole lot of other people of being narcissists. In recent years, the term for a...

Southern Sudan's shaky future

Southern Sudan's shaky future

At a roundabout in Juba, southern Sudan's capital, stands a digital clock. It has four faces, each titled "Countdown to Southern Sudan...

The real blasphemy

The real blasphemy

In June 2009 in Punjab, Pakistan, Asia Bibi, a mother of five and a farmhand, was asked to fetch water. She complied, but some of her Muslim...

Sanction Iceland, the world's whaling outlaw

Sanction Iceland, the world's whaling outlaw

Weighing up to 80 tons and almost twice the length of a school bus, the massive fin whale — known as the greyhound of the sea for...