Email From A Friend: Democratic and Republican Holiday Greetings
For My Democratic Friends:"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.
Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in theWestern Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.
By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."
For My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 12/14/2006 12:14:00 AM
23 Comments:
Mayor Sam,
Merry Christmas from the high reaches of the RED SPOT INSTITUTE.
Sincerely,
"RED SPOT OF REASON IN CD 14"
P.S. HAPPY BLOGGING NEW YEAR!!!!
May ALVIN AND HUISAR get BLUE CHUNKS OF COAL IN THEIR POLITICAL STOCKINGS.
To my favorite Republicans...
I hope the GOP doesn't eliminate net neutrality and screw up this site's bandwidth before I can wish everyone a merry chri
This is funny but sadly true when you read what is going on. We can't even agree on the year anymore. C.E. is now used instead A.D. I don't know what will be next. Someone is going to sue and the 9th Circuit will declare Christmas an illegal, racist and eurocentric holiday. Just watch, this will happen in a few years and we won't be able to celebrate Christmas any longer.
Can you say "Stephen Reinhardt"?
I got that email from four different people in the past week. Mayor Sam, do you know who wrote that holiday greeting?
Where is Walter Moore and Councilman John? They had great articles on threads. I noticed when Zuma posts only a handful of people blog an average of 5. C'mon Mayor Open a thread.
I wonder what Antonio promised Verizon. Instead of using the $1 mil Verizon gave for the schools in low income high crime areas Antonio will use it for "his schools."
....The size of the donation marked a notable step up for Verizon, which has given about $175,000 to the program in the past — most of it in 2001, when it made a $150,000 contribution. The company has no new deals pending before the city, according to a company spokesman, but has an existing $20-million contract to install communication systems in city buildings.
Verizon executive Tim McCallion, a close friend of the mayor who has contributed to his election campaigns, said it was important for the company to support the mayor's reform plan. The hope, he said, is that the cluster schools will produce results that can be implemented elsewhere.
Twelve LAX Hotel Workers Told They No Longer Have Jobs as National Battle Looms over Living Wage Legislation
Workers at Four Points Sheraton LAX Let Go by New Owners
California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez Urges Owners to Return Living Wage Supporters to Work
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Coalition for a New Century announced that twelve workers at the Four Points Sheraton hotel near Los Angeles International Airport were told yesterday they no longer have jobs by the new owner of the 573-room hotel, American Property Management LLC, on the same day the company took control of the hotel.
Show courage: Send cards that read, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."
The Z Files
Pulling a Huizar
An insider talks trash as he eyes his boss’s lucrative City Council seat
By DAVID ZAHNISER
Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - 6:00 pm
Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar made a major name for himself at City Hall this year, in large part by joining Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s push to take over L.A.’s public schools. Standing at the mayor’s side, the affable Princeton graduate told anyone who would listen that L.A. Unified is an educational basket case, a place that will not thrive without the strong hand of city government.
Huizar seemed like a guy who would know. After all, he’d seen the district from the inside, spending four years on the school board before joining the council in December 2005. Yet there were lingering doubts too: How could Huizar blast an institution that had been his political home without also taking some of the blame for its shortcomings? And if things were that bad at L.A. Unified, why should anyone expect Huizar, who spent two years as school-board president, to do a better job at City Hall?
Then something poetic happened in Huizar’s Eastside council District 14, which stretches from the hilltop homes of Mount Washington to the desperate squalor of Skid Row. One of Huizar’s aides, Alvin Parra, abruptly quit his job, announcing 90 minutes before the November 11 candidate-filing deadline that he would challenge his boss in the March 6 election.
In short, the 38-year-old Parra pulled a Huizar. Just as Huizar had been talking smack about a school bureaucracy where he had been top dog — serving as the powerful school-board president — Parra began pulling back the curtain on Huizar’s many missteps during his first year in office. Parra, who handled the calls from council District 14 residents on everything from cracked roads to dumped furniture, dinged Huizar for doing a lousy job on what is known in City Hall as “constituent service.”
Now, turning on one’s boss might look shifty under normal circumstances. But in the Villaraigosa era, with candidates routinely caving to pressure from the powers that be to drop their campaigns, Parra has miraculously come off as a profile in courage. That’s especially true now that Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez and City Hall insider Felipe Fuentes — each worried about the blowback from challenging veteran pol Richard Alarcón — abandoned their own bids for City Council.
Parra, a three-time candidate with suitcases full of political baggage, has been telling anyone who will listen that eight other Huizar employees have also left their jobs in the past year, making it nearly impossible for the staff to serve people living and working in Huizar’s district. Parra said Huizar was less interested in this thankless but omnipresent side of city business — painting out graffiti, cleaning up blight and visiting homicide scenes — and more engaged in traveling to Japan with the mayor.
In fact, Parra argued that Huizar has been as effective at City Hall as he was at L.A. Unified — which is to say, not at all.
“He behaved the same way when he was in the school board,” said the soft-spoken Parra. “He was condescending to the constituents. He did not want to spend a lot of time with them. He works hard when it comes to media events, but he doesn’t roll up his sleeves when it comes to the policy work. He loved the schmoozing and the power lunches. That, he worked hard for.”
Why they fight: Richard Alatorre won the 14th District in 1985 and made it the seat of Latino power. Now it’s 72 percent Latino, 30 percent non-citizen, and houses 10,500 people per square mile. (Photo by Ted Soqui)
So now voters in the 14th District face another ugly election, the third in four years in a district known for ugly elections. District 14 was the original seat of Latino clout — in 1985 elevating to office the Machiavellian Richard Alatorre, the first Latino on the council in 23 years, and serving as a citywide springboard for power players such as Villaraigosa. The district has seen so much upheaval that if Parra wins, he’ll be the district’s fifth councilman in eight years. That scenario is seen as the longest of long shots, since Huizar, like Villaraigosa, is highly skilled in fund-raising, grabbing media attention and getting elected.
The election could actually make a difference in the 14th, which serves as a hub of L.A.’s emerging immigrant middle class. The district ranges from the tony cafés of Eagle Rock to the working families of El Sereno. Blight and lack of economic investment are constant worries. And while homicides are down 20 percent in the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division, which takes in Boyle Heights, robberies are up 20 percent, with 459 so far this year.
Alatorre, a veteran pol who represented the district until 1999, understood clearly that nuts-and-bolts services are the key to political survival. His successor, Councilman Nick Pacheco, attended to residents’ needs but on a broader scale was politically inept, losing to Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa promised to serve a full four years and then reneged, spending much of his two years as councilman running for mayor and leaving the district in the lurch yet again. Huizar is now polishing off Villaraigosa’s unfinished term.
Parra, a longtime El Sereno resident, promised to refocus the council office on crime and constituent service. Huizar, on the other hand, labeled Parra as a hothead who let the district down. “We demoted him because we recognized that he wasn’t responsive to constituents,” Huizar said. “He was making his own major decisions in the field without running them through the proper authority — well, without running them by me, let’s put it that way.”
Yet even Huizar’s allies say the councilman’s first year has been rocky. Within months, he demoted his chief of staff and replaced him with Joe Avila, a veteran City Hall policy analyst best known for his scrutiny of the Department of Water and Power. Avila, a newbie in the district, quickly committed a faux pas, telling a crowd of volunteers in Glassell Park that he was thrilled to be in Eagle Rock. But Helene Schpak, a Huizar supporter who lives in Glassell Park, said the councilman is trying to turn things around.
“I was up-front with him about the fact that we didn’t think that his staff was quite up to snuff,” Schpak said. “I was there with a friend, and we were as polite as we could be about it, but we were also direct. And he said he was working on it.”
Huizar isn’t taking any chances. After Parra’s surprise entry into the race, Huizar quickly shifted into fund-raising mode, vacuuming up as much cash as possible from development interests that appear before the council’s powerful planning panel, on which Huizar is vice chairman. Huizar has already scheduled one mid-December fund-raiser with bare-knuckled land-use lobbyist Ben Reznik playing host. The event is the second $500-per-ticket fund-raiser held by Huizar at Reznik’s office this year.
Huizar has already voted in favor of one Reznik client, who is at odds with the Mount Washington Homeowners Alliance over a hillside home project. Reznik also represents Geoff Palmer, the bottom-feeding apartment builder who has refused to follow the city’s affordable-housing rules — and whose cases frequently go before Huizar’s committee.
Huizar stumbled once in a high-profile way when he carried Villaraigosa’s water on an unpopular Skid Row homeless legal settlement that would have allowed the city to legalize overnight homeless encampments in one tiny section of downtown. Councilwoman Jan Perry persuaded her colleagues to reject the settlement, telling them that they would never put up with such encampments in their own districts.
But Parra has his own problems. He hasn’t overcome a reputation as someone naive in the way of politics — which may explain his boneheaded effort to get Eli Broad to fund his wife’s 2002 school-board bid. Furthermore, even those who backed Huizar’s opponent last time aren’t ready for another change. After all, they’re still tracking the comings and goings of Huizar’s aides.
“Oh my God, practically half of his staff left,” said Rosa Rivas, who lives in the neighborhood known as Garvanza. “I don’t know if they were fired or what happened to them. So here we go, another change. And maybe that’s why projects are not finished.”
Rivas said that Huizar is finally showing up at community events, now that he has a challenger. And other longtime activists describe Parra’s candidacy as a well-timed political gift. Just as Huizar was starting to get lazy, they say, he has been forced to prove himself again. That means that even if Parra’s campaign craters, Huizar will have no choice but to be responsive — at least for now.
“He’s going to be handing out favors like lollipops,” said one community activist.
As a black lesbian trapped in a white man's body, this is the first time that I haven't felt like I wuz put upon by THE MAN. But in case I missed somethin, i', havin' my lawyer look over this greeting. I ain't lettin' you off the hook until he says he can't find nothin hidden that's racial or nothin. You know what I'm sayin? I know how you white boyz is... your words don't mean what they really mean...
7:59
Thanks for pointing out another gift to the 14th District, courtesy of Parke Skelton. It must be quite amusing looking down on all these moronic Mexicans going at it again - all from the comfort of that hilltop resort you own in the 14th District. And we thought fiefdoms were a medieval concept. Bush has his Iraq and Parke has his 14th District, what irony.
HOLY SHIT! Alex Padilla got brain surgery! WTF!
Short article in todays LA Times!!!
My vote 4 Morrison. Alvin & Huizar can eat my black coal.
On the Christmas wish list: 80 Neighborhood Watches for CD 14. Where is our favorite screamer on this subject and Chief Faker?
80 neighborhood watches out on vacation.
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QUICK HITS FROM THE RED SPOT INSTITUTE IN CD 14
"MONEY IS THE BREAST MILK OF POLITIC"
JESSE UNRUH
"LA to pay $28 million to settle port suit"
"BROKEN BRIDGES" CDD pays over a million dollors to anti gang program with connection to Mexican Mafia.
"POLLORAIGOSA directing school funds to schools in his control cluster"
"Pulling a Huizar" Huizar to host fundraiser to solicted money from developers for re-election.
The "breast" that is the Tax-money that all of us are force to pay, is being leached by Dirty Pols and their Trial Lawyers allies. Before long, The city general fund is going to need breast inplants.
Red Spot of Reason in CD 14
If money is the mothers milk of politics. then Parke Skelton is certainly suckling that teat. Anyone know how much money he has made from Antonio, Huizar, Montanez, Solis, Parra and Reyes - talk about a pimp whoring out his harem.
Parke is gorgeous! I'd do him.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen (bows low and removes hat): Christmas wishes abound, and good will to all in the red spot of reason. I do have one quick question. Who will be crowned Lord of Misrule? I nominate Zuma Dogg with Lisa Sarno, if you will, as the fool.
I would caution against giving lumps of coal as they become diamonds when pressure is applied. Instead, I would bestow cumquats on those nasty buggers who are not deserving of even a goody basket with sausage and cheese, savvy?
Ah Cap! Methinks I mayest bestow upon slattern Sarno and her ilk a few bottles of bilge water, or some water from the scuppers, mayhap?
If me supply o' bilge water is exhausted, kindly post a few bottles of L.A. Riverwater to them scoundrels for me.
joseph chapman the privateer
Good evening Lord Chapman (Bows low and removes hat with flourish):
Instead of bilge water, some oh-dee-twalett for those who have a need to smell nice. Indeed, there are some odors that Listerine breath strips cannot cover up, savvy?
As for Ms. Sarno, the wench is not slattern. I would describe her more as mal adroit, if you will.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!
ANYBODY OUT THERE?
I'm running for LAUSD district 3- and word on the street is that despite my experience and reputation as a long-term LAUSD teacher and CSUN teacher educator in EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY that nobody cares about anything except THE MONEY from UTLA and Antonio. Buzz is that he'll support the criminal prosecutor next. UTLA promised to meet w me, then bagged and endorsed Lauritzen. I haven't heard from anyone yet, and nobody returns my calls.I'm gonna hit the streets with a soapbox and megaphone and try to get some sanity into this mess. As long as these guys continue to be spineless and kiss up to the now-wayward notion of one-size-fits all curriculum and bogus testing schemes, NOTHING will change and kids will continue to suffer and dropout in spite of their millions.
Louis Pugliese MA, Ed.
www. SmartenUpLA.com
Candidate for LAUSD School Board
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