Sara is one of my favorite people. She is probably the favorite person of everyone who has ever known her, being one of those people from whom sparks of life pop off like a Fourth of July sparkler. She has what the social pages might call [...] Continue reading …

When I was young, I used to pretend I could control the outcome of Alabama football games from my distant perch in front of the TV. “If I can eat this hot dog before the first quarter ends,” I’d tell myself in a typical scenario, “Alabama will come [...] Continue reading …

On December 29, 2011 the State Supreme Court dealt California’s 400 redevelopment agencies an unanticipated death blow. This includes the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, where I have served as a commissioner since 2002. Based on the court’s decision and the legislation that eliminated redevelopment [...] Continue reading …

Poverty and environmental degradation go hand in hand. Research has shown that the lower your income, the greater the likelihood that you will be exposed to toxic chemicals and air pollution at home and on the job. This increases the likelihood of suffering from serious diseases ranging from asthma [...] Continue reading …

I went home for Thanksgiving this year, home being Birmingham, Alabama, Alabama being the state known for its history of hardheaded, mean hearted, and soulless racial politics. After a century and a half of lynching and bombings, and institutionalized hatred of African Americans, things seemed to [...] Continue reading …

I admire the Occupy movement but because I’ve worked with homeless people for 16 years, I need to clarify something: Homeless people were the original “Occupiers.” In the early 1980′s, as more and more youth, women and men were becoming homeless in Chicago and across the U.S., [...] Continue reading …

I do not know what killed eighteen-year old Joaquin Luna Lorma Jr. I mean, I know about the artifact that was allegedly used to take his life a day after Thanksgiving Day. What I do not know is what led this quiet and gentle undocumented student originally from Nayarit, Tepic, to [...] Continue reading …

ley Equal Voice Network It was the first Friday of November, and cool, clear, autumn weather has finally reached the southernmost part of the nation. On this first Friday of the month, as in each and every month, a meeting hall in San Juan began to fill up with people. [...] Continue reading …

One evening, about a month ago, a man was pulled over to the side of the road by one of the city of Mission’s police patrols. The fellow was arrested, and then, he disappeared. Frantic, his wife went from the city jail to the county jail, [...] Continue reading …