Republicans Experiencing Electile Dysfunction
Republicans have completely abdicated the ideaosphere in favor of cheating. That’s sad. As with any marketplace, the United States will be best served by at least two viable entities, competing for voters’ “business.” As of March 11, Republicans have this year introduced 253 voter suppression bills in 43 states, according to the Washington Post. Although […]
Biography of the Honorable Scott C. Clarkson
Scott C. Clarkson has served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Central District of California since January 20, 2011. His undergraduate degree is from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana and he received his J.D. degree from George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, Virginia (1982). From 1977 to 1982, Judge Clarkson was legislative assistant […]
Happy Turkey Day
Okay, it’s Thanksgiving, a day in which turkey features prominently. So I’d like to issue personal thanks to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of the Eastern European nation that shares its name with our beloved bird. President Erdoğan deserves acknowledgement for a brave stance calling for Saudi Arabian accountability in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. To think Khashoggi’s death […]
Icarus Reborn: The Short Life of Richard Russell
There is something incredibly poignant in the story of Richard Russell. Poetic, even. Kind of Holden Caulfield meets Icarus. Russell, of course, is the Horizon Airlines baggage worker who surreptitiously made off in one of his employer’s planes this past weekend, crashing it into a remote island, but not before fulfilling his dream of flight and […]
Nature Conspiracy
Because I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of girl, I try to find some sort of positive take-away in every situation. One thing I learned from disgraced former president Richard M. Nixon, America’s 37th: it can be handy to have an enemies list. Of course his got him into trouble. So taking several lessons from history, I will […]
Bargain Books a Reader’s Haven
There are few places I enjoy spending time as much as a bookstore, and used bookstores are my favorite. New books are certainly fun, but I love thumbing through well-worn volumes that have a past. Bargain Books on Friar Street in Van Nuys lives up to its name — its prices are very reasonable, and […]
Dear Microsoft…
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty,” said Theodore Roosevelt. But really, Microsoft, did you have to make it quite this excruciating to use a Windows phone? Much has been made over you ceding the handheld mobile turf to Apple and Google, but rather than being […]
Fyre Fest Lit Takes Criminal Bent
As the tangled web around the disastrous Fyre Festival continues to unravel — with 11 civil lawsuits, unpaid vendors, and many unsatisfied customers after the would-be luxury music festival was postponed before it even began — one question among many keeps arising: Is company founder Billy McFarland facing prison time?
‘One Love Manchester’
The One Love Manchester concert was a unique event, in that the crowd had as much star presence as any of the formidable talents that took the stage. The warmth and fortitude of that community in the face of atrocity was caught by the cameras, to the credit of broadcaster BBC One. That an event of […]
Toxic Bannon Bane of Eco Policy
I felt a bit guilty about taking a position on the Paris climate accord on social media before fully investigating the positions of both sides. The realization that it’s okay to support, in principle, proactive tactics to protect the planet’s rapidly deteriorating environment and a U.S. leadership role in same didn’t hit me until a […]