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Our schools' sweet tooth

Our schools' sweet tooth

Soft drinks were banned in Los Angeles schools in 2004. But if you think that means kids are protected from too much sugar at school,...

 

Rising to shake off the fear in Libya

In the winter of 1978, soon after I entered my teens, I began seeking solitude on the roof of our leaky house in Benghazi. I'd head up...

 

Pay TV's full-court press

If you live in the Los Angeles area and are not a sports fan, Time Warner Cable's new 20-year deal with the L.A. Lakers is going to hurt you...

  • Movie math

    If you want to understand why it's so hard for governments, both federal and state, to put their accounts in order, consider the recent...

     
  • Playing with fire

    In recent years, as the city of Los Angeles has spiraled into deeper and deeper financial trouble, leaders have argued that they are cutting...

     
  • The fighters vs. the fixers

    "Pawlenty's attacks get more pointed," announced a headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "He's betting sharper rhetoric will spring...

The best in Southern California opinion journalism.
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Not a carbon copy of the U.S.

Not a carbon copy of the U.S.

If per capita carbon emissions in China and India rose to car-happy U.S. levels, global emissions would increase by 127%, according to the...

Stormy seas off Somalia

Stormy seas off Somalia

The killing of four Americans who were taken hostage aboard the yacht Quest off the coast of Oman serves as an ominous warning that pirate...

Hidden federal benefits

Hidden federal benefits

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what your country has done for you lately.

Winds of change in the Middle East

Winds of change in the Middle East

On Feb. 11, 1979, Islamic revolutionaries took power in Tehran. On Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorists launched...

Doyle McManus: Helping the Arabs help themselves

Doyle McManus: Helping the Arabs help themselves

A basic tenet of the U.S. war against terrorism under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama has been the need to "drain the swamp" — to...

The DWP's little pump that eats money

The DWP's little pump that eats money

Just above the Greek Theatre, on the edge of a sloping field adjacent to Vermont Avenue, sits a pump. To the layperson — to this one...

Tim Rutten: Cardinal Mahony and the city he shaped

Tim Rutten: Cardinal Mahony and the city he shaped

When the social and political history of Los Angeles in the late 20th century comes to be written, it's likely that two men will stand out...

True to the Peace Corps

True to the Peace Corps

In some ways, the Peace Corps, which celebrates its 50th anniversary Tuesday, is a shadow of what it once was.

A Peace Corps volunteer's journey

A Peace Corps volunteer's journey

Twenty years ago I was riding down a dusty road in rural Argentina gabbing in Spanish with a local journalist when suddenly a wave of...

Social Security: Just the facts

Social Security: Just the facts

A reader from Manhattan Beach wrote last week to ask for help in understanding the heated debate over Social Security.

Libya: To oust a tyrant

Libya: To oust a tyrant

A year ago, my colleagues and I organized an unprecedented news conference in Tripoli to release our report assessing Libya's human rights...

Rebel in a company town

Rebel in a company town

Several years ago I participated in a public "debate" about the exigent matter of whether Los Angeles was better than New York or vice...

Busting the unions

Busting the unions

The bloodiest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere essentially happened by mistake in the summer of 1863, when Robert E. Lee's...

What is the UC system worth?

What is the UC system worth?

In both of the two most respected global rankings of universities, the University of California system supplies at least 10% of the top 50...

Robbing California of energy

Robbing California of energy

The House of Representatives this week approved legislation that irresponsibly eliminates a key Energy Department loan guarantee program...

Battleground Wisconsin

Battleground Wisconsin

As students, teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops and snowplow drivers in Wisconsin continue to battle for their basic right to collective...

Talking terrorism

Talking terrorism

American counter-terrorism officials are increasingly, and rightly, concerned about Americans joining groups like Al Qaeda. According to a...

Jim Newton on Jose Huizar: Bare-knuckle politics II

Jim Newton on Jose Huizar: Bare-knuckle politics II

When The Times endorsed Rudy Martinez in the contentious 14th Council District election and I followed up with a column about Martinez a few...

Jonah Goldberg: Public unions must go

Jonah Goldberg: Public unions must go

The protesting public school teachers with fake doctor's notes swarming the Capitol building in Madison, Wis., insist that Gov. Scott Walker...

The pillars of conservatism

The pillars of conservatism

Of all the mischaracterizations of social conservatives, none is more stubborn and pernicious than the notion (promulgated by liberals and...

Gregory Rodriguez: Fundamental moral errors

Gregory Rodriguez: Fundamental moral errors

Political fanaticism fosters moral relativism. That's the lesson we should all learn from the gruesome case of Shawna Forde, the Arizona...

The nest-egg myth

The nest-egg myth

As the debate over the federal deficit heats up, Americans are going to hear a great deal about "greedy geezers" who are supposedly...

Rich man, poor man

J. Paul Getty, a miserly patriarch who loved art

In the fall of 1973, a package arrived in a Rome newsroom. Delayed by an Italian postal strike, its contents had begun to spoil. Inside were...

Doyle McManus: Rattling the palace windows in the Persian Gulf

Rattling the palace windows in the Persian Gulf

It's not easy promoting democracy and defending monarchies at the same time.

Revolutionary wisdom: A primer

Revolutionary wisdom: A primer

'No one should believe that with the downfall of the dictatorship an ideal society will immediately appear,' warns Gene Sharp's pamphlet...

They're doing it without us

They're doing it without us

The ongoing upheaval in the Arab world (and in Iran) has rendered a definitive judgment on U.S. policy over the last decade. Relying on...

A tipping point for labor in America

A tipping point for labor in America

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has released a fascinating poll that finds that people on the West Coast...

Anti-Semitic hall of shame

Anti-Semitic hall of shame

Sadly, there was no shortage of contenders in 2010 for the "Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs" list we put out at the Simon Wiesenthal Center each...

Keep the library doors open

Keep the library doors open

How do you assess a city's quality of life? I love Los Angeles. I've always lived here, my whole life, and I grew up being nurtured by one...

Debt and a tough-talking governor

Debt and a tough-talking governor

President Obama's new budget contains no serious proposal for solving two of the biggest fiscal problems facing the federal government:...