Culver City Father Shot in Front of Child

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

     A thirty-year-old Culver City father who had gone shopping with his young daughter on Sunday morning, Dec. 11, was shot numerous times in front of his horrified child by an enraged gang member, Culver City police said.
     Officials asked that the father¹s identity be withheld for safety reasons. He is reported to be recovering from his wounds. Steven Hernandez of Los Angeles, the twenty-two-year-old suspect, was captured later the same day. Lodged ever since in the County Jail, downtown Los Angeles, police said that he has been charged with attempted murder.
     The frightening 11:30 a.m. shooting grew out of a parking lot brouhaha near the Bed Bath & Beyond and Target department stores on Jefferson Boulevard, across from a U.S. Post Office. According to police, Mr. Hernandez, described as an "off-duty gang member," was with a woman friend when he "began behaving inappropriately."
     With his daughter at his side and shopping on his mind, the father took umbrage at the gentleman¹s actions. Apparently concerned about the effect such conduct would have on his child, the shooting victim sternly began scolding Mr. Hernandez.
     Heated words sailed in both directions.
     With that, police said, an irate Mr. Hernandez stalked back to his car, withdrew a handgun and quickly began firing at the father. By early evening, within eight hours of the shooting, police had the suspect in custody.

Remembering Ralphie

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

     A slender but steady rainfall at mid-day melted noiselessly into the vast, sloping, hungry green grass of Holy Cross Cemetery on the early November day that Ralph Vera, the elder son of the mayor, was buried.
     The inclemency signaled a fitting, if not ideal, backdrop of lamentation for the overflow crowd attending Mr. Vera¹s funeral at the crest of the cemetery, one of the highest landmarks in Culver City.
     For the hundreds of mourners entering Risen Christ Chapel, they traded dreary wet weather for the traditional religious majesty of a solemn Catholic ritual framed in a marble and stone setting. An artful ceiling that seemed to nearly reach the belching clouds was brightened by stained-glass etchings.
     All who led, sadly participated or stonily watched were bathed whitely in the glow of brilliant electricity.

     Amidst the traditional architectural curvature of the Catholic church, every spoken word caromed inside a huge echo off the marbled walls, as if

the walls formed a vertical pool table.

Emily Fisher’s Valiant Fight

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

One of the truly snapshot moments in the modern history of the City Council was essayed in the week before Thanksgiving by the Bentley Avenue activist Emily Fisher.
     With the unusual co-operation of Mayor Albert Vera as a co-conspirator, Ms. Fisher spoke brilliantly on behalf of her neighbors, against building a four-story Hampton Inn and Suites Hotel on Sepulveda near Venice.

Your Life or Your Car? That’s Easy

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Near the end of our daily telephone call the other morning, my father said that after lunch he was going to drive to the pharmacy for a prescription and downtown to City Hall to pay a bill. He is ninety and a half years old. He should not be driving. Only when his fingers are cold, though, will they be able to peel his firm grip from the steering wheel.
     As long as he can walk to the car, he can drive — that is Pop’s credo. My stepmother, who will be ninety-one in February, purchased a new car not long ago. That, Murgatroyd, is optimism.

In Mary Pickford’s Time

Ross HawkinsOP-ED

    For many years, the home at 10865 Pickford Way was known as the Mary Pickford House. Mxs. Pickford never lived there. But, according to eighty-seven-year-old Betty Lehman, her uncle, Col. William H. Evans, who built the house, named it the Mary Pickford House because he was a great fan of hers. He also named the street, "Fairbanks Way" because he was a fan of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Frederick Sisa: No Sacred Cows

Frédérik SisaThe Recreational Nihilist

sisa.jpg     Happy Holidays!
     There. I¹ve offended you. Mortally wounded you, even. On this day after Christmas, I¹ve just wished upon you a horrible, gruesome, drawn-out, agonizing, torturous death. A plague on your house both of your houses, actually.
     Oh, wait. Scratch that. Sorry. I wrote "Happy Holidays," not "Drop Dead."

Newsflash 1

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Mambo 4.5 is ‘Power In Simplicity’!. It has never been easier to create your own dynamic site. Manage all your content from the best CMS admin interface.

Newsflash 2

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Yesterday all servers in the U.S. went out on strike in a bid to get more RAM and better CPUs. A spokes person said that the need for better RAM was due to some fool increasing the front-side bus speed. In future, busses will be told to slow down in residential motherboards.

Newsflash 3

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.