The most fascinating and disgusting story of the political campaign season took its ugliest twist this week. I do not know Peggy Fox. I do know she is a journalistic punk. She plies her trade on a television street corner in Washington, D.C., for WUSA, channel 9. A political liberal, she is ignorant, mean or, likely, both. Last Monday, she appeared on a debate panel with Sen. George Allen of Virginia and his Jew-hating opponent in Tysons Corner, Va. Questioning the incumbent, Ms. Fox asked: Could you please tell us if your forebearers (sic) include Jews, and at what point your Jewish identity ended? To their strong credit, the stunned audience of 600 business persons responded with boos for Ms. Fox. This ignorant question might have been asked of a slave in the South in 1850. Or of a suspected Jew in Berlin in 1935. But from a Democratic reporter this week in Virginia? Hours before Rosh Hashana begins this evening at 6:32, isnt it remarkable to realize that a stinking stigma still attaches to a (conservative) political candidate if he is suspected of being a Jew? I dont think its relevant, whatever one person believes, the 54-year-old Mr. Allen answered. Id like to ask you, why is that relevant? My religion, (my opponents) religion, or the religious beliefs of anyone out there? Honesty, the cunning little lady replied with practiced dishonesty. The genesis of the story goes back to last month to a few self-hating liberal Jews in New York at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. They seem to have vowed revenge on Mr. Allen because of an earlier incident. With self-loathing Jews, their political beliefs govern their lives, always trumping their scanty to anti religious or cultural loyalty. That is the answer to the question of why secular Jews routinely turn against fellow Jews, hoping to embarrass them. Early in August, Mr. Allen, in a campaign speech, committed a major gaffe. Many candidates assign truth squads to the campaigns of their opponents. Their objective is to catch lightning with just such an incident as occurred to the Virginia senator. Spotting one of his opponents very familiar truth-squaders in the back of the room, where he hung out at many Allen events with camera in hand, the senator hurled an epithet at the young idealist.
Kronenthal Dashes Down the Recovery Road After Surgery
To almost no ones surprise, one of the premier elder statesmen in the history of Culver City, Syd Kronenthal, says he is making an amazing recovery from triple-bypass surgery in late August. I am like a squirrel in a cage, he said this afternoon. I am ready to uncage myself. I really feel great. Doctors pegged the recuperation period, especially for a gentleman of his advanced years, at 6 to 8 weeks. Triumphantly, he announced, Its been 3 1/2, and I am ready. Floating somewhere in the stratosphere above his middle 90s, the superbly conditioned and resilient Mr. Kronenthal says he is ready to return to the ring of an active life. He is one of the pioneer leaders of the 30-year-old Therapeutic Learning Center which hosts blind adults who have at least one more disability.
The Newest Couple on Campus They Are Suave and West
The most obvious change wrought by a new Presidential administration is that “suave” and “West Los Angeles College” are appearing in the same sentence for the first time since West was founded in 1969. Dr. Mark Rocha’s mere appearance projects portrait-perfect imagery, which, in these early days, seems to be matched by sweeping flourishes of well-grounded rhetorical vision. The gentleman exudes a sense of class that is no more welcome than a medium-rare porterhouse steak to a man at the end of a 200-day fast. Could he be the long and desperately needed tonic for West Los Angeles College, which was born reputationally poor and then lost ground? Ivy League-resplendent in his navy blazer, gray trousers, blue shirt and striped necktie, his movie star-handsome presentation is rounded out by a butterscotch complexion and tightly cropped, waved salt-and-pepper hair. An English teacher by training, he communicates the old-fashioned way. When he speaks, you listen. With effortless flourishes undetected in his predecessors, who had different agendas, he sketches a vision for the community college that he describes as a complete reversal of direction. Within his first 100 days, Dr. Rocha — New York-born, Philadelphia bred, Southern California-shaped — has decided the West campus is where he wants to spend the rest of his professional life. “The chemistry is right — you can tell,” he says, with the cool confidence of a captain solidly in command of his new ship. Defining the most crucial distinction between his fresh newness and those who have gone before, Dr. Rocha said, “Their direction was internal. Mine is external.” What was instructive, perhaps revealing and definitely different about Dr. Rocha from his immediate predecessor was his cucumber-ness, his coolness. As his nimble, excited mind navigated a labyrinth of separate and interlocking visions for his new home, his verbal temperature never wavered one degree. He may, indeed, be excitable, but there were no outward traces. More pertinently, he has organized, categorized and catalogued a wide-roaming volume of improvements, deletions, tradeoffs and innovations in an academically calculating fashion. Much of what lies before Dr. Rocha is gravely serious. Face-creasing smiles, or grins, were well spaced.
Police Union Has a Deal But Will Members Say Yes?
Almost 15 months after the last contract expired, the Police Officers Assn. has reached a tentative agreement with City Hall on a new four-year deal, union President Jim Raetz announced this morning. A good sign of a successful negotiation is that nobody is really happy, he told thefrontpageonline.com. But this is the best we are going to get. Both sides made concessions. Everyone worked very hard. I am happy that the city moved to the middle ground. Matters easily could have gone in the other direction. The settlement was attained under familiar conditions. By the end, Mr. Raetz said, there was such a feeling of fatigue on both sides. The 97 members of the Police Union will convene two weeks from today, Thursday, Oct. 5, for a ratification vote. Because of two potential landmines, Mr. Raetz realizes the going could be sticky and gooey before a simple majority of his members lend their support. The good news, he said, is that full benefits for retirees will remain untouched. In recent weeks, the citys negotiating team had insisted that retirees in all city unions share the expense of paying for their medical benefits. Some union leaders called that proposal a dealbreaker.
Drug Bust 3 Years After Police Broke up Narc Unit
The recent busting of a drug dealer who reportedly operated along the Braddock Drive corridor reminded several Culver City police veterans that the department has been without a narcotics detail for the past three years. What may seem like an obvious hole in policing strategy in the heart of one of Americas most drugs-conscious regions may not, in fact, be a deficiency. Drug-dealing is not one of Culver Citys problems, said a department insider who is familiar with the drug scene. When there is a drug bust these days, it is made by a patrol unit, and our patrol units are very effective. Once, as many as seven officers were assigned to the specialty unit. When its run ended shortly before the retirement of Chief Ted Cooke, it was a five-person detail.
An Unfunny Traveling Circus Soon May Come to Your Town
Apparently the main moral dilemma in Los Angeles this week is whether a suspected lawbreaking Episcopal priest in Pasadena should consent to a government demand to turn over church records because of alleged tax law violations. On the eve of the Presidential election two years ago, the previous, semi-legendary rector, a firebreathing liberal, raged against the re-election of President Bush. The IRS said that speech and the political fumes that drive the big Episcopal church imperiled its tax-exempt status. Now, instead of crying “Bush!” they are crying wolf. I feel a martyr story coming on. The Rev. Ed Bacon, who, by all accounts, considers the spotlight one of his closest friends, has 9 days to decide whether to cooperate with the IRS. Oh dear, oh dear, he says every afternoon, according to insiders. I walked out into the cool morning a few minutes ago, and the foul odor in the air smells familiar. Remember how Christians and Jews blindly rushed to defend “our Muslim brothers” during the anti-terror rally by a patriotic group at the King Fahad Mosque a week ago Sunday?
Handals Next Store Why It Still Is on Hold
Just like some fat people, the onetime Culver City entrepreneur Jay Handal, decidedly more gaunt than corpulent, has a wait problem. Four months and a few days after he ended a decade-long run as the ringmaster of the popular San Gennaro Café, and three months and a few days after he said he would be opening a new store in Beverly Hills, Mr. Handal is tapping his toes. But not all ten simultaneously. I am keeping busy at the Brentwood Village store, also called San Gennaro, making some renovations, he said. Negotiations with the owner of the still-new Beverly Hills emporium he seeks to take over evidently are being revived. They broke down last spring, after San Gennaro was closed. Just last Friday evening, Mr. Handal said, the owner we have been negotiating with called. He said that he is ready to sit down and have the meeting to finalize Beverly Hills. It is my hope that in the next week or two we will sit down. Hopefully, the owner has now seen that the restaurant business (which is new to him) is not the same as the aircraft parts business (his previous profitable enterprise). I hope that he is ready to make the deal that, basically, we made many, many months ago but never finalized. Assuming that I can get in there within 20 to 30 days, my goal would be to have a soft opening. Get it out there and let people know we are around. Then I would throw a big bash later, toward the end of the year or the first of the new year.
Spotlight on Mayor Villaraigosa, as Happily Shined by Mayor Villaraigosa
If the guests are slow to arrive at your next cocktail party and you are stumped to fill the intervening time creatively, dial Antonio Villaraigosa. While he was itemizing an impressive list of accomplishments at a luncheon in Brentwood this afternoon, the Mayor of Los Angeles took so much time off the clock that he could have tacked on the achievements of the mayors of New Orleans, New York, New Hope, Old Hope, In-Between Hope and New Brunswick. Fifty-five minutes, for no extra charge, at Efrem Harkhams Luxe Hotel, for the sponsoring Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He was interesting, informative, engaging, energizing and unabashedly campaigning for his next office with both hands, two feet and his considerable brain. Honey-sweet and matchingly smooth, the newly crowned Czar of Czars of the Los Angeles public school system stilled and drilled his audience of 250 normally utchy business men and ladies. Speaking extemporaneously as if he were delivering the defogged data on the worsts and bests of Los Angeles for the first time since his First Communion, he would have zinged the sharpest actor in Hollywood with his massive sense of recall. His informative but also worn data and revisited diary of last years campaign promises only slightly marred a swiftly-paced piece of always-me rhetoric.
The Way Nunez Plays, Villaraigosa Needs 4 Eyes
Not every leader is lucky enough to have a Dick Cheney-type as his lieutenant, a competent fellow who not only is content living in the background, but prefers his second banana role. The conventional wisdom says that Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles will win the governor’s race in ’10. He will then use Sacramento as the pad of preference from which to launch his White House bid in ’12. Mr. Villaraigosa’s current, but only current, Man Friday, Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), the Boy Wonder as the Speaker of the Assembly, would follow his big brother into the Governor’s Mansion, and later become the second Hispanic President in the 250-year history of America. At 39 years old, there is almost no drawing board large enough to contain the future plans of the vastly ambitious Mr. Nunez. Before term limits issues a death sentence, he has two more years as Speaker. This is a highly visible position that he has brilliantly utilized as a bully pulpit to promote the career of his favorite promising politician, Fabian Nunez. In his secondary role to his big brother, he has the delicious advantage of influencing and controlling the plusses while skillfully avoiding practically all of the minuses.