Happy New Year

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Let’s Make 2011 a Year of Reckoning for the LAUSD

We live in a democracy.  No one group or individual has a monopoly on the type of government running the federal, state or local levels. Whether we like it or not, compromise is part of governance.  That’s mostly a good thing, especially when you consider the demise of ideological juggernauts such as the former Soviet Union [...]

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West Side Story: The Play vs the Movie

I attended a performance of West Side Story at the Pantages on Sunday. Thanks to my daughter, we had excellent seats in the mezzanine along the rail. It is hard to believe that was the first time I had seen it on stage.  The cinematic version is etched into my mind, so comparing the two comes naturally. [...]

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Time in a Bottle

I will be publishing the fourth segment of my Civil War Susquicentennial series in January. However, I thought my readers might be interested in this recent find.  A message to the Confederate General commanding the besieged garrison at Vicksburg was removed from the sealed bottle, where it was contained undisturbed for 147 years, and decoded. It [...]

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Greuel Should Read Chick’s Letter

When Laura Chick served as City Controller for Los Angeles, she gradually came to the understanding that audit reports by themselves meant little.  She became more assertive in her dealings with the mayor as her term in office progressed. Reports are nothing more than recommendations.  Recommendations are worthless if not enacted or not enacted on [...]

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“It’s Not My Job”

All of us have probably heard that expression before, and most of us may have used it ourselves. As reported by both the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News, Mayer Hoffman McCann, the firm that was responsible for auditing the financial statements of Bell, did not believe it was their responsibility to reveal the [...]

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Former Spider Coach John Beilein Turning Things Around at Michigan

Before the Richmond Spiders basketball program went into the tank for a few years courtesy of Coach Jerry Wainwright( who left after 2005 and then proceeded to derail DePaul’s program), the team was competitive and almost always had an impact in the postseason, including first round wins in the NCAA tournament as 12th, 13th, 14th and [...]

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Whistling in the Dark

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer wrote what amounted to a pep talk in the Los Angeles Times. He proclaimed the state is not broken. His message was a sharp contrast to the one broadcast on 60 Minutes last Sunday, which painted a realistic picture of the fiscal swamp where states and local governments are mired. He is [...]

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The Christmas Story According to Social Media

Enjoy!

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2010: An Exercise in Denial

City officials have a habit of blaming the city’s deficit on “the worst recession since the last depression.”  That statement has become a mantra of denial, more so this year than in the prior ones. If it had been a matter of simply misjudging the severity of the recession, you could cut them a little slack. However, [...]

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