May Day Melee: One Year Later Panel Discussion Tonight at the LA Press Club

If any of you are interested, the Los Angeles Press Club, in partnership with the Media Image Coalition, is hosting a free May Day Melee panel discussion at the Steve Allen theater (4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA).

It is open to the public and speakers include Yareli Arizmendi, Rich Nahmias, Laura Angelica Simon, Ray Bradford, and Chris Woodyard. There is ample parking behind the theater and on the street.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Drinks and light refreshments will be served. There will also be a silent auction. The program starts at 7:45 p.m.

(Full Disclosure: I am the Publicist for the Press Club)

Easter Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Sycamore, St. George, 3.20.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

It's Easter, and Tony Castro has the scoop. Easter hasn't been this early since 1913, and it won't fall on this early date again until 2160, so enjoy this one.

Pedro Espinoza, the alleged gangbanger suspected of killing Jamiel Shaw, Jr., may have been in the US illegally, Zahniser says. He is said to have been smuggled into the country from Mexico when he was four years old.

KFI says that an LAPD-commissioned report on SWAT will be fairly critical of some operations. The police union is alert to a possible ruse on behalf of department change, the Daily News implies: "All the issues are not being put on the table," said Tim Sands, president of the league. "We aren't bringing in the experts. We haven't had an opportunity to see this report that was leaked. We just need more information."

LA can neither grow its own newspaper editors, its own department heads, nor even its own cultural leaders, and the Times celebrates the latter fact in an aren't-we-wonderful puff piece.

Korean-styled BonChon Chicken at 6th and Catalina has opened for bidness. Most desperate cultural stretch of the month: "Think of it as Pinkberry…with fried chicken."

The Other Alcalde

JM, El Alcalde Veridad, 12.11.07

The Mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, is in town, and he popped in on Council this morning, addressing the Chamber as a celebrated guest. Introduced by Zacatecas-native Jose Huizar and presented pumpkin bread by Tom LaBonge, el Alcalde Ebrard, spoke in English of tourism and the strong relationship between the two pueblos. Huizar felt it necessary to mention that the City of Los Angeles was the world's largest Mexican city outside of Mexico City, and also that more Americans live in Mexico City than in any other City abroad. The word "immigration" was not used by any speaker all through the morning visit.

Maybe Ebrard, a great hope for lefty Mexican politics, will give some of his transit tips to our own Alcalde?

In conclusion of the visit to Chamber, Ebrard was presented by Huizar and LaBonge with a road sign that indicated the mileage between Mexico City and Los Angeles. Huizar noted that the sign pointed out "how far---how close---the two cities are" to each other. The sign will join other such signs at Olvera Street.

Teeth and sanctuary

Jon Regardie in the DowntownNews has taken on the Mayor's inimitable smile before. But with this column, it's Regardie himself who's showing the teeth.

Thus, I have come up with a few personal ads that Villaraigosa might consider trying if he doesn't want to be solo in Los Angeles....

Those are all funny, and what a concept. But the Mayor's affair has not only complicated la vida loca at Sixth and Irving. It's also complicated his er, sweetheart affair with the Democratic Party.

And not only that, but as a Former Fishwrap of Record scribe pointed out this week (even if she did try to spin it as a "problem" for the GOP---m'am, it's no problem), the word "sanctuary" especially when coupled with the word "city" is becoming a dirty word in the Republican Party, and one suspects it will become one in national politics before long, if it isn't already.

Now who do you think the national GOP is ready to make the poster child of the sanctuary city movement? If the immigration debate that ignited the biggest sparks in the GOP debate last week proves so formidable that it starts attracting GOP interest, what kind of photo will Rudy or Mitt's ad people be looking for as photo-op gunpowder in 2008?



I said it before, here goes again, and regardless of your politics, you can admit it any time you like: "What sounds reactionary in Los Angeles sounds believable elsewhere." "Sanctuary Cities" are a great wedge issue for the GOP because people are actually are split over them in cities themselves...out there in the tules, it's not even a contest.

Dems had better face it now, or at least the sooner the better: sanctuary cities, fair or no, are revving up to be the Swift Boat issue of 2008.

Uno de cada ocho

As far as I could tell, La Opinión was the only local quotidien pescados-wrap today to put the big national immigration study on the primera pagina.

Según estudio, uno de cada ocho residentes en Estados Unidos es inmigrante, la cantidad más elevada de los últimos 80 años...

The Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning DC thinktank, painted a fairly dystopic view. To the two of you sweethearts still hanging on to your fearless national leader, it can't be good for you that both immigration and illegal immigration has climbed over these past seven years to heights unseen in modern times.

USA Today's predictably droll version is here. It says that the study concludes that undereducated immigrants hurt the country. What sounds reactionary in Los Angeles sounds believable elsewhere.

The nation's lone remaining serious fishwrap of record says that:

Immigration over the past seven years was the highest for any seven-year period in American history, bringing 10.3 million new immigrants, more than half of them without legal status, according to an analysis of census data released today by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

One in eight people living in the United States is an immigrant, the survey found, for a total of 37.9 million people — the highest level since the 1920s.

Boldface mine. If this is considered a "problem" for most of the rest of the country---wouldn't it stand to figure that it's a matter of considerable interest for LA? Just wondering out loud.

Open Thread for Friday: TR on Immigration

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag.... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.'

Theodore Roosevelt 1907