Photo of crowd at Los Angeles debate in January by shredded77 via Flickr Last Friday, Sarah Miller's Open Letter to Barack Obama in the LA Times Opinion section caught my eye. Got me thinking. Had me nodding my head. I'm not the only one, as the comments on her letter are getting heated. As an Obama supporter, she raised some concerns about his seeming inability to be concrete and clear about how he is......

As the culminating event of a fifteen week workshop that joined veterans, performing artists, and activists in a series of verbal and physical conversations about their lives and aspirations, "Action Conversations" was presented at Highways Performance Space for only three performances, February 8-9. Through a collaborative process under the direction of UCLA professor and choreographer Victoria Marks, the performers revealed some of the highlights of their explorations of identity, heroics, mortality and civic responsibility in......

We always encourage you to press that little recommend button at the bottom right hand corner of every post if you enjoyed it. For one, it tells us what you want more of here it LAist. So here's this week's five most recommended posts, as recommended by you: 1. LAist Interview: Matt Reeves, Director of Cloverfield: It was nice to have so many Cloverfield fan sites point to this in depth interview. Who knew that......

The Los Angeles Police Department has decided against instituting a plan to "map" the city's Muslim communities, in what was being billed as a counter-terrorism effort. According to the LA Daily News: "It's been put aside," said LAPD spokeswoman Mary Grady. "It became clear to us [that Muslim communities] were not comfortable with the word mapping and what they believed it meant: racial profiling." Instead, Grady said the Los Angeles Police Department would build......

On Friday night, Bill Maher spoke to Michael Scheuer, former head of the now defunct C.I.A. Bin Laden Unit and author of the upcoming book,Marching Toward Hell: America & Islam After Iraq. His previous book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, was mentioned in one of Bin Laden's recent tapes mentioning that if the U.S. wanted to understand why the Iraq War is a losing war, then they need......

It's a fairly busy release schedule tomorrow with a few studio pictures and a bunch of indies hitting the screens. Neil Jordan directs Jodie Foster in The Brave One (or, as it was originally titled, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang: The Lady Bernie Goetz Story). Reviews are mostly positive and it does have the supremely underrated Nicky Katt (and the formerly underrated, now probably properly rated Terrence Howard), so I'll give it a......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Deadliest attack of the Iraq war claims at least 250 lives and as many as 500. Want to learn more about the local opportunities and challenges presented by global warming? Check out the Global Warming Forum at Cal State LA tomorrow from 9 AM to 3 PM. Progress made in improving California's public school system stalled this year after two years of promising gains. The L.A. City Council says no dice to Home Depot's......

If there's one thing I hate more than the MSM's obsessive coverage of the presidential campaigns, it's the gross fickleness and inanity inherent in the coverage itself. Given that the next president will need to tackle a whole host of weighty issues immediately upon taking office — global warming, the Iraq war, healthcare and the deficit, just to name a few — you might think the press would be busy providing in-depth and insightful......

More video snippets of Bush administration "truthiness" about the war in Iraq than you can shake a stick at... If this doesn't push you over the edge and make you at least consider the prospects for impeachment, I don't know what will (h/t to Juan Cole).......

Blogger, YouTube-er and Representative extraordinaire George Miller (D-Calif.) has long been a strong progressive voice on issues such as employee rights, higher education and pensions and has been a consistent critic of the Iraq war. He recently started a series of webisodes on YouTube, known collectively as "MillerTV," in which he answers questions from his constituents that you can help pick. In a political system rife with intrigue and secrecy in which most politicians......

While you were being yelled at yesterday by the lifeguard not to run by the pool, Maxine Waters was celebrating the opening of the nation's first Impeachment Center (8124 West 3rd Street), a place that has suddenly grown in interest in the wake of President Bush's recent controversial move involving Scooter Libby's conviction. Waters said that this impeachment movement, "is one of the most important efforts this country has ever seen." Indeed, some say......

You know that beautiful corridor between Westwood and Brentwood on Wilshire - all that grass, and lack of skyscrapers, and what's the word: open space? It belongs to the Veterans. It's called the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus. George Bush and the feds want it, they want to be able to build on it, and lease or sell it to Big Business. And when it looked like the $120 billion Iraq War spending bill......

The Dodgers lost to that pitcher. Let me just say that he is one ugly man. That’s all. You can come up with your own insults. Trust me, my friends and I made up plenty ourselves. Back to the game. There is only one word to describe the pitching performance of Brett Tomko: PATHETIC. Another word to describe Grady Little’s managing decisions: ABHORRENT. Before I could settle in and focus on the game, Tomko......

Wake up and look around you! There's a war going on. It's not some piddling scuffle over oil in a distant, dusty land. This is a serious battle that's playing out in supermarkets and convenience stores across America. While the mainstream media hypes up fluff like governmental corruption, attorney firings, the collapse of the subprime lending market and the floundering Iraq War, some of us in the blogosphere are covering the issues that truly matter.......

In addition to the May Day protests that rocked Los Angeles, yesterday (May 1) was also notable as it was the four-year anniversary of George W. Bush landing on an aircraft carrier and announcing we'd won the Iraq War. Actually, what he said was, "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in the Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq the United States and our allies have prevailed." And how!......

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash in Menlo Park, CA. He was 73. Halberstam’s work as a journalist ranges wide and delves deep. He covered the Korean War, the Vietnam War and civil rights but he was also fascinated with the humanity and spectacle of sports. He did not simply document the history he lived through – he explained complex societal constructs and cultural shifts in a way that anyone......

- Did you go to the Anti War Demonstration this weekend? Tony did - Tony Forberg - Life is so weird, when Gene Simmons was young he wore all that crazy Kiss makeup, now that he's old and hideous and in need of several layers of makeup he tries to keep it real - TMZ - A 9-year-old Novato boy is a hero after saving a drowning toddler from a swimming pool - CBS2......

Recommended Dixie Chicks - Shut Up & Sing - Remember when rugged individualism was the hallmark of the "American character"? Remember when that individualism was defined by a willingness to speak your mind? Remember when criticizing your governmental overlords was a patriotic duty? Yeah, me neither. But maybe country music trio The Dixie Chicks were trying to recall that mythologized frontier spirit when lead singer Nathalie Maines criticized President Bush for launching the Iraq......

Mafioso - In 1962, a decade before The Godfather, Alberto Lattuada came out with this crime drama starring Alberto Sordi as a factory foreman who returns to his hometown of Sicily and is unwittingly pressed into service as a hitman for the local Don. Considered by many to be the first Italian movie to portray the modern Mafia, the film is noted for its faithful and darkly funny depiction of mob life. Breaking and......

- Following up on Monday's story about a female high English teacher who was accused of having a sexual relationship with one of her teen male students... today we got a message from someone close to Alyssa Johnson who said that he had a better photo than the mugshot that we posted. And sure enough, on the right you will see the picture that was sent to us and sure enough Ms. Johnson does......

I know it's a bit late in the game, but tonight's the last night The War Tapes will be playing at the Nuart theater in West L.A. Of the recent spate of Iraqi war documentaries, The War Tapes is one of the best. In what may be the most documented war in history, filmmaker Deborah Scranton took the concept of embedded to a whole new level by giving the means of production to the......

- Man killed when two trucks collide in a firey crash on the 5 - CBS2 - Pomona man shot in the chest as he was attacking a security guard with a chair - SB Sun - Days after LAist asks if Bush is an Idiot, the Washington Post asks the same question. - Washington Post - Americans more opposed to Iraq War than ever before: poll - CNN Think Progress has video and......

Yesterday the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, effectively lifting a ban on medical marijuana in unincorporated areas of the county. The Daily News reports that several facilities had been dispensing medical marijuana anyway, including 20 in the San Fernando Valley. Long Beach police found 400 marijuana plants growing in a warehouse under the careful supervision of one Philip Northcutt. Northcutt had been using a silkscreen business as a......

George W. Bush started off tonight's State of the Union address combative, then turned suddenly toward a whole list of fairly compelling bipartisan ideas. Bush really believes what he says, and believes that what he wants is best for the world, and he believes the purity of his intentions translates to the purity of his actions. Unfortunately, he makes enormous logical leaps, and he basically said tonight that he won't listen to anyone who......

If you were forced to live in a neighboring county, which would you choose? Ventura County is a wussy answer. I agree, but so is Los Angeles County. As much as we naranjeros (Orange Countians) and Angelinos like to spit on it, I’d actually like to try Riverside County, just to say I once lived as a Neanderthal. ...

The Iraq War Casualties Map has been making us sad all afternoon. We found it via Lifehacker who found it through Kottke. At last tally, 191 of the soldiers who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom were Californians.......

People haven't crowded around TVs around the office like this since the start of the Iraq War. What that says about our culture we don't know but everyone was anxious with anticipation for the verdict and The King of Pop is not guilty on all ten counts for which he was accused. The fans outside are delighted. Before hand, they were randomly breaking out into tears. We're just glad we can now get back......

Tonight at Spaceland, have a quiet evening enjoying the music of Alan Sparhawk (of Low), along with Evan (of Parlour/Marjorie Fair) and Dina Waxman (of Space Mtn). Doors open at 9:00 PM and tickets are $12.00. At the The Fold at King King, KCRW presents eclectic country singer Jim White with Devotchka and The Mendoza Line. The show starts at 9:00 PM and tickets are $15.00. In film, the Egyptian Theatre is hosting the......

Music and film are two events that this town does better than most, and tonight is full of them. The early '90s are back to visit tonight in the form of both types of media, so get out there and relive some memories or better yet, make some new ones. It's a blast from the past at The Roxy, as Jordan Knight—yes, that Jordan Knight—takes the stage, preceeded by J-Me, Tina Landon and Nick......