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| CLICK ON THE PICTURE FOR A FULL SIZE VIEW. |
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| WATCH THIS SPACE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE EVENT! |
SCROLL DOWN FOR A NEW COLUMN,
but read this to understand the figure you see.
I hope you'll appreciate the new feature provided above,
and urge you to follow the link for details on the costs of this war in terms of dollars, but more importantly in the lives
lost to date. For the current number of casualties, CLICK HERE.
The folks providing the financial figures also offer
documented details on the war's cost specifically for California, and even for Los Angeles County. Just follow
the links! Of course, you'll still find the latest columns just an inch or two down from these words.
Thanks, w
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HOW
I SPENT MY
SUMMER
"VACATION"
September 27, 2007
It never ceases to amaze me how many assume I fill
this space for free, apparently investing hours, days and even weeks of my time in following stories because I have nothing
better to do. If we count only the overflowing “job jar” at my house,
the list of repairs, remodels and paint jobs awaiting my attention, there’s no way my wife would permit web site diversions
if there weren’t a respectable paycheck involved.
That’s the real reason I’ve been off-line
since April. Four years ago I contracted with the sponsor of this site to write
roughly one column every three weeks. In previous years when I wrote more columns
than required, typically during election seasons, the sponsor generously paid for the additional pieces on a pro-rata basis. This year he made it clear in advance he couldn’t do that. So, when I wrote as many as three or four columns in just days back in February, March and April, I did
so realizing I was effectively shooting the fiscal year’s budget well before the year ended.
The original plan for this site included the sponsor
advertising his Pasadena-based business. When controversy and threats of boycotts
arose in the very first batch of reader feedback letters, he decided to hold off on the ads.
He’s stuck by the site since, but enjoys being
part of what happens here. In exchange for that privilege he’s paid out
a fortune.
We do cut costs where we can, employing every last
“free” web service and software program we can find. The sponsor
even added service of this site to his firm’s “I.T.” staff’s duties.
But there is still an editor, photographers and the infrequent royalty or “use rights” to pay for, to say
nothing of legal fees, and the sums sent my way.
Some readers have written to assure us that ads at
WillRogersHome.com would not offend their sensibilities, and research is underway to look into additional sponsors, all of
whom would actually post ads. But for the time being, I’m content with
the status quo.
Unfortunately, local news didn’t stop while I
was busy elsewhere.
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| Glendale's City Hall & Day Care Center |
Over the months I’ve paid scant attention to
local issues, occasionally seeing parts of a Burbank or Glendale city council
meeting. I’ve been fascinated to see Glendale
change its system of appointing commissioners for city panels. Should any appointee
dare publicly express an opinion with which an elected official might disagree (or claim to disagree with in the aftermath
of a public outcry), now the strings can now be promptly cut, with a new puppet quickly installed.
I’ve also been so puzzled with some of the votes
by freshman John Drayman that I just HAVE to make some time to try and sit down for a chat with him. His senior counterpart, however, Dave Weaver, has been every bit as predictable as always. That is, not at all. Of course, in recent days we had the
spectacle of councilman Yousefian on the brink of a public physical altercation with City Manager Jim Starbird, and it seems
the Glendale
powder keg is almost ready to blow.
In the mean time, Burbank’s school board promised
more than $11 million to install new synthetic surfaces to replace high school athletic fields, this while some students in
an elementary school serving the poorest families in town still attend class in rooms that are not air conditioned. And the board agenda circulated and posted on-line in advance of the vote didn’t include a word about
the price tag. Not so much as a digit or dollar sign.
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| BUSD HQ seems to prize athletes over students. |
Sometimes city news has been delivered to my Burbank
doorstep. In July I received a city newsletter dated “June.” It announced
the “upcoming” start of work to improve 2.2 miles of Burbank Blvd.,
and warned of potential traffic delays. Of course, the work and attending
lane blockages had begun weeks earlier.
The newsletter spelled out the various phases of work,
and how each had been developed to minimize disruptions. Problem was, as I was
reading the newsletter, first-hand observation revealed the “phases” schedule had apparently been tossed out the
window, and many projects were underway simultaneously.
Naturally, a month later I received another newsletter
dated the previous month, and it announced a new plan. Alas, the new plan was
also obsolete before the notice arrived.
We’ve been told from the start the project would
be completed in December. But I note a construction sign at the north end
of the project promises a Dec. completion, while a sign at the south end promises February completion. I’m awaiting a newsletter that costs thousands to create and mail advising me both dates are wrong,
a mailer probably arriving weeks after the first deadline has passed.
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| The official word at the northwest end of Burbank Blvd. |
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| And here's the schedule at the southeast end. |
While I’ve been aware of these developments,
over these months of quiet at WillRogersHome.com, I’ve not been devoted to the job jar.
One of the projects I’ve worked on for other publications had me assigned to work with a partner to research
the world of “9/11 Truth.”
For those who don’t know, there is a large but
unknowable number of people out there resolutely convinced the United States government was directly involved in perpetrating
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that saw four commercial airliners crash into
the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Many theories are alleged, but most fall
under two broad categories. These are known as MIHOP (pronounced MY-hop) and
LIHOP (pronounced LYE-hop).
MIHOPers hold that powerful interests “Made
It Happen On Purpose,” this to serve any of several corporate, geopolitical or religious agendas. LIHOP, or “Let It Happen On Purpose” asserts the government, or some contingent(s) within it,
became aware of the planned attacks, but did nothing, this in order to serve any of several corporate, political, geopolitical
or religious agendas.
My research for four months focused on MIHOP proponents. These run the gamut, from charges the highjackers were sent by Al Queda, which is
a tool of the CIA, to the certainty of some that the World Trade Center Towers were destroyed with “controlled demolition,”
explosives used to intentionally bring down a building. There’s also a
theory that holds the towers were actually brought down by a “DEW,” a directed energy weapon - essentially an
enormous ray gun.
Such weapons do exist in military arsenals, and one
version has even filtered down to use by local law enforcement. The Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s department is experimenting with a DEW that can focus heat energy on a crowd, forcing them to disperse
without the use of tear gas or batons.
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| MIHOPers say this was the work of the US Government. |
If you find those ideas farfetched, consider there
is a significant branch of the movement maintaining there were no commercial airliners seen crashing into the WTC, the Pentagon
or the field. These “truthers” insist what many of us saw on television,
or have seen since in film and video clips, were all special effects foisted upon us by a complicit media.
Many who ascribe to these stories are not the radical,
ignorant and slightly unbalanced lot skeptics might assume. Indeed, many are
just like you; educated, experienced and well-traveled professionals.
Complicating efforts to refute or disprove “Truther”
theories is that government 9/11 investigations have been, at best, slipshod. Even
leaders of the various investigations have conceded they weren’t given all information they wanted, that government
officials clearly and repeatedly lied to them, and that the scope of their various jurisdictions were narrowed, sometimes
inexplicably.
To those realities add that the media has done an
atrocious job of reporting on and investigating the current administration and its record of contradictory claims and politicizing
both terrorism and war.
As usual, the absence of reliable information, and
being provided with information that clearly isn’t true or complete, leads to speculation to fill the voids.
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| This sequence supposedly proves that explosives planted in the WTC were responsible, not planes. |
As with many conspiracies, those who tout 9/11 Truth
always have an easy out when confronted with data that refutes or fails to support the theory.
The source is dismissed as “part of it.” For example, the
New York Times publishes a piece revealing a prominent truther has lied about their credentials and taken investigative findings
wildly out of context? Well, the New York Times is part of the conspiracy! After all, remember NYT reporter Judith Miller dutifully relayed reports from “confidential
sources” bogus claims Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and was working with Al Queda? And those sources
were later revealed to be the White House and one Iraqi-in-exile favored by the White House to be that nation’s next
leader.
That Miller’s stories were roundly discredited
and revealed to be the result of a White House committed to justifying an unjustified war PROVES the NYT continues to work
in service to the White House. Ta-da! Challenge
to 9/11 truthers dismissed!
Sure, truthers also celebrate any NYT stories that
eviscerate current claims made by the White House and its champions. But as so
many neo-conservative Republicans have taught us, passionate dedication to beliefs means never having to apologize for hypocrisy.
The partner I was assigned to work with is a well-credentialed
writer a few years older than myself whose personal politics were certainly more conservative than my own. Ironically, while we wallowed together for months in the sometimes irrational ranting of some truthers,
this well-read, experienced journalist came to realize he’d been woefully uniformed on the ways in which the nation
was misled before the Iraq
war began, and for years afterward. (War issues often overlap in the 9/11 Truth
world.)
In the final weeks of our work together, my partner
shyly asked for one of the magnetic bumper stickers I keep on my car that reads, “Bush Lied to America: Ask me how!”
Glad to be done with the MIHOP crowd, I admit I repeatedly
saw similarities between MIHOPpers and some of Burbank’s gadflies. Still, I’m happy to get back to some local stories. That’s not to say everything everywhere has been a disaster locally in recent months. Some things have gone very well. But that’s not what
I get paid to write about.
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AN
OLD DOG’S LATEST TRICK
A tri-Cities trouble maker
reminds us why it was nice to see him leave in 1997.
March 18, 2007
“Bob Garcin just never
stops being a sneaky bastard, does he?” That’s just one of the messages
I recently received when we learned he had endorsed Phil Berlin's run for Burbank's city council.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of th entire column.
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NOTORIOUS CASE ENDS WITH SENTENCING
February 12, 2007
Today one of the last players
in a scandal that swept through Burbank
and eventually saw a sitting council member resign her office faced sentencing in a federal courthouse in downtown Los
Angeles.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of the entire column.
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BURBANK'S INHERITANCE
January 8, 2007
Local newspapers have finally
reported that former Burbank councilman Ted McConkey died on Dec. 23 at the age
of 77, a story first reported here a week earlier.
What reporters and editors of
today don’t know is that, from the very same machine that produced and protected Ted McConkey, we’re now presented
with current Burbank councilman David Gordon and the two front running candidates
in February’s election, Carolyn and Phillip Berlin.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of the entire column.
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BACK
TO SCHOOL ON PUBLIC INFORMATION
Editor's Note: SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS DAY'S COLUMN FOR A SEPT. 22 UPDATE
September 21, 2006
Is the public entitled to know
when an elected official resigns their seat? I sure think so, but that’s
not what some advising the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees thought
when one member of the panel secretly submitted her resignation shortly after a meeting this past Monday night.
On Monday Kathleen Burke-Kelly,
elected to the Board of Trustees in April, 2003, and its president since May, accepted the congratulations of her colleagues
on the board for a recent promotion. A former GCC student and teacher, Burke-Kelly
was a Dean at East LA College. (Trustees are not permitted to work for the college
they oversee, but can take jobs elsewhere in the system.) Burke-Kelly was taking
a new job as an interim Vice President at Mission College,
and the other GCC Trustees happily announced her move.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of the entire column.
___________________________________________________
HITTING
BACK AT HIT MAIL
GUILT BY A GROSSLY CONTORTED
ASSOCIATION
June 3, 2006
Just when you think you’ve
seen it all. A political action committee has sent out a mailer in the final
days before Tuesday’s primary election that smears Paul Krekorian, one of two Democrats looking to win the chance represent
the party – and likely win - in November’s race for the 43rd Assembly District. It easily stands as the ugliest, most appalling and hypocritical campaign piece I’ve seen in almost
20 years of covering the 43rd. Considering
some of the effluent discharged via US mail by campaigns in the past, that’s saying a lot.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of the entire column.
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COUNCILMAN SUBJECT
Of INVESTIGATION
January 9, 2006
According to numerous sources, just
before Christmas Burbank Police were called to a home across the street from the home of Burbank City Councilman Todd Campbell
because his fiancé had fled there after a dispute with Campbell.
CLICK HERE for a pdf version of the entire column.
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