AltWeeklies Wire
A Voyage To The Eastnew
A few days before President Obama gave his rousing speech on healthcare before Congress, my wife Boryana and I made a journey to the east, visiting relatives inside the Beltway and taking what might possibly be my last look at New York City.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
09-11-2009 |
Commentary
Driving California Off the Edgenew
We should be so lucky as the State of Alaska that our celebrity governor would simply resign at this point. That’s what I think of Sarah Palin’s resignation the other day –– a lucky break, and it’s what I think Schwarzenegger should do after his “line-item veto” ploy that cut another $500 million after the California legislature packed up for summer recess. The Governator claims to be forcing the state to live within its means, but in effect he is driving the Golden State right off the edge. We’d be lucky if he just resigned at this point.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
08-03-2009 |
Commentary
What We Missed in the Sotomayor Hearingsnew

The media hyped the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings as the must-see event of the summer, but they proved to be underwhelming at best. The hearings were also disappointing for their failure to spur discussion on three topics that were important for the country to hear, weigh and digest.
Random Lengths News |
Bobby Grace, Deputy District Attorney with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. |
08-03-2009 |
Commentary
How Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Using the Budget Crisis to Wreck California's Futurenew
Schwarzenegger sees himself as a man with bold, sometimes even liberal ideas who is forced to propose massive budget cuts as a result of a broken government and a deadlocked legislature. The reality the governor is attempting to hide is much different.
Random Lengths News |
Robert Cruickshank |
07-18-2009 |
Commentary
Single-Payer Advocates Crashing the Gatesnew
One of the main reasons I am running for Congress is to get single payer health care for all Americans. To push for it, I am running prime-time cable ads round-the-clock on CNN and MSNBC challenging my opponent, longtime incumbent Jane Harman, to sign on to Congressman John Conyers' bill for single-payer.
Random Lengths News |
Marcy Winograd |
07-05-2009 |
Commentary
A Few Thoughts On Health Carenew
Let's face it. National health care is no more socialist than say your local elementary school is socialist. Or for that matter no more socialist than our streets, highways, bridges, post offices, sewers or hydroelectric damns are socialist.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
07-05-2009 |
Commentary
Forget Trying To Make Nice With The Priests & Kingsnew
Author and columnist Lionel Rolfe calls on President Obama not to allow progress to stall in the name of bipartisanship. The stakes in the battles that are being fought on health care and other issues are far too high to allow it.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
06-23-2009 |
Commentary
Tags: bipartisanship, Obama
War, Wealth, Empire and the Obama Presidencynew
Karl Marx insisted that the only real source of wealth is human labor. The ruling classes may have expropriated some of that wealth with their system of paper and electronic bank statements. But at heart, the banking system turned out to be a fraud. Always has been.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
05-22-2009 |
Commentary
A Historic Stalemate Results in a Revolving Door of Crisis in Californianew
California's Democrats and the Republicans can't seem to get their minds around the solutions of paying for a state that dwarfs the economies of all but six countries in the world and that is the most populous state in the union. A new path is necessary.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
05-22-2009 |
Commentary
Tags: California, recession
The Symmetry of the African American and Gay Struggles for Civil Rightsnew
More needs to be done to integrate the message of equality into an all-inclusive community engagement strategy.
Random Lengths News |
Nii-Quartelai Quartey |
05-22-2009 |
Commentary
The $100 Billion Curenew
There are constant cries that the sky is falling, such as the state going bankrupt due to an $8 billion budget deficit, or that the City of Angels will go bankrupt without an increase in parking meter rates by three quarters. The penchant for panic is almost reflexive, but panic doesn’t elicit great decisions.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
05-11-2009 |
Commentary
Tags: corporate taxes, recession
Who Robbed the Bank?new
Bank robbery isn't quite what it used to be. The average modern-day stickup artist only gets away with paltry $12,000 or less and it's a federal crime to boot. Fifteen to 20 years is a long time to spend in a penitentiary for that kind of money. What's annoying is that the really, really big bank robbers are getting off scot-free.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
04-20-2009 |
Commentary
Tags: financial crisis
It's Bill Parker's Time to Walk Off the Stage of Historynew
Los Angeles is debating whether its new police administration building in downtown should bear the name of William Parker, the police chief from the '50s whose name has adorned the old building at 150 N. Los Angeles St. for more than half a century.
Random Lengths News |
Lionel Rolfe |
04-17-2009 |
Commentary
Will All Newspapers Die?new
There has been a great deal of hand-wringing lately over the state of our nation's newspapers, with the forecast that "print journalism is dead." The reality is that the decline of mainstream newspapers was foretold a long time ago.
Random Lengths News |
James Preston Allen |
04-04-2009 |
Commentary
Tags: newspaper industry, recession
International Rights Forum Addresses Free Speechnew
The ability to articulate how a society should be ordered, in response to such world-changing struggles, rests not just on the struggles themselves, but also on the public's access to the literary, and visual forms, as vehicles for addressing and digesting such transformative events.
Random Lengths News |
Slobodan Dimitrov |
03-21-2009 |
Commentary