Ominous Eye in the Arts District Downwtown | Photo by unobtanium via Flickr Monday Sloane Crosley presents I Was Told There'd Be Cake 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Rauschenberg presents Paris Changing: Revisiting Eugène Atget's Paris 7pm @ Central Library Valerie Mendenhall Cohen presents Woman on the Rocks 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Mary Roach presents BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex 7pm @ Central Library David Samuels presents Only Love Can Break......

Tomorrow may be the day we observe today's holiday, yet today our local newspapers honor the men and women of the past and present who have fought for us. Here are their stories: Steve Lopez takes his weekly LA Times Sunday column and dedicates it to telling the story of Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta, who lost his sight, taste and smell in Iraq. Lopez follows Acosta as he commutes on the bus in Los Angeles.......

"This is the guy who once called me the worst columnist in America," Steve Lopez explained in his column today about downtown activist, blogger and now King, Brady Westwater. "I did not," Westwater responded. "I called you the worst columnist in history."If you move downtown, Westwater will be your neighbor. Try, though you might, you will not be able to shake him. At every turn, you'll see Westwater wearing a cowboy hat and a......

Núñez represents downtown Los Angeles, to the south of, and East LA in the state assembly. It is rumored he wants to run for Mayor. It is not like Democrat Fabian Núñez, Speaker of the California State Assembly, is some bogus politician with bad intentions and total self-serving motives. I am not going to argue with him for looking into universal preschool, high speed rail and global warming solutions for California; in fact, I......

Rally champion Colin McRae dies with son in helicopter crash. McRae participated in the last two X-Games, rolling his car both times at the Home Depot Center. He last competed here on August 5th, his birthday by the way. Complete with an interactive map, Daily News finds that Pedestrian vs. Automobile accidents are high in the Valley. (Author's note: after being hit by a car in a hit and run when I was legally......

Steve Lopez randomly challenges Dodgers Pitcher Derek Lowe to a golfing home run derby at the stadium for charity. Steve loses and donates $500 to the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. A journal of sorts following Kristina Ripatti, the LAPD Officer who was shot and paralyzed while on duty in June of 2006. There are only two places in the states where you can be a police officer whose job is to board cruise......

See the 1995 60 Minutes segment about the horrendous Red Line subway construction. Apparently, in democracy you cannot run against your boss' political allies without getting fired. That's what happened when city councilman Ed Reyes fired his office manager after she lost the 2005 election to Jose Huizar. She sued. She won. All the Wilshire Blvd. bus lane info you could want. The Zaca wildfire has been going for a month and now Governor......

The LA Times has definitely had its fair share of scandals in the near past with firings and hirings. Yet recently, content wise, the watchdog coverage of scandalicious politicians has been riveting. There is Mayor V and then there was the daily pounding of Rocky Delgadillo. The newest politician in the ring is 74-year-old 2nd district county supervisor Yvonne Burke who represents Watts, Culver City, Compton, South LA, Hollywood, Marina Del Rey, Inglewood to......

- Attention Blacks - Dreamworks wants you to audition to be Donkey for the Broadway production of Shrek - Defamer - Was Mayor Tony up to the same monkeybusiness that the Frisco Mayor admitted to? - LA Observed - Now that we know where the Westside of LA begins (La Cienega), has the Associated Press determined that Toluca Lake is in the Hollywood Hills? - LA Brain Terrain - Muslim man in Van Nuys......

The inspiring and occasionally hilarious Points West columnist delivered the commencement address to graduating undergrads and graduate students of USC's Annenberg School of Journalism (and Strategic Public Relations) on Friday.......

- The Police will play Dodger Stadium on July 23. There's that number again - NBC 4 - Gov. Schwarzenegger's killer plan to export California prisoners out of Cali and let other states deal with our problem was declared "unlawful" by Sacto County Superior Court judge - The Merc - "Homeboy Goes to Harvard" founder speaks to Reseda's Cleveland High thanks to people like Fluke Fluker - LA Daily News - Over 28,000 people......

Office of the Mayor: It's a Private Matter Los Angeles Times: It's now a public matter Back in May of last year, LAT's Steve Hymon rounded up who drives Hummers at City Hall and found that the city's Transportation Deputy for the Mayor drives a Hummer H3 (link expired). Now Columnist Steve Lopez is pressing the issue in today's paper. It's easy to jump on Lopez's bandwagon because Hummer's are, like, evil and stuff,......

Headlines still focus on the temperature and how Posh Spice has arrived to shop for the maybe next Scientology castle for David Beckham and family. Investigations over the plane crash in Van Nuys continue while the book is closed on the latest E.coli cases -- California is once again to blame for Midwest and beyond sicknesses. Tonight Hollywood (not the neighborhood) comes back big for 2007 with 24, Rome and Extras. Choices, choices. It's......

After hearing emotional testimony yesterday by the African-American LA firefighter who claimed racism when his cohorts mixed dog food into his spaghetti, the Los Angeles City Council could decide today whether they will overrule the Mayor's veto of the multi-million dollar settlement. Tennie Pierce (no relation) claimed yesterday that the photos that showed him apparently shaving some fellow firemen were all done in fun, quite different than the pet food that was served to......

Co-founder of In-N-Out Burger, Esther Snyder, has passed. We salute you with 4x4s and Grilled Cheeses. Steve Lopez visits Hillary Hauser, former Santa Barbara News-Press reporter and Ocean Environmentalist/Activist. Lopez's column comes after last week's five part series - Altered Oceans. The Warner Center in Woodland Hills might become more of mini-downtown for the Valley. Former music industry producer, Mark Steele, wants to build a $100 million dollar event center to produce events from......

L.A. Times columnist, Steve Lopez is asking some not-so-tough questions to L.A. County's 5th District Supervisor - Michael D. Antonovich. Yet they are not really getting answered. While we only have Lopez's side of the story, we're going to take his word for it: Antonovich is fond of putting staffers and clerks to work sending phonebook-size collections of his favorite "news" items to a few hundred friends and colleagues. Each time Uncle Mike gets......

This week, a rare occurrence for LA: a preservation battle was won! The Derby is saved, unless City Hall undoes the work of the Cultural Heritage Commission. Hats off to all involved. (via Blogging.la) In 2005, the South Bay saw a 9.1% drop in crime. You're less likely to get beat up, your car is safer and the stuff in your house is safer. But that iPod you're carrying? Hang on tight. LA Times......

The LA Times held its first publisher's forum last night with an impressive panel gathered to discuss homelessness. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, Sheriff Lee Baca, Bobby Shriver (Mayor pro tem of Santa Monica), LAPD Chief William Bratton, Lamp Community head Casey Horan and Dr. Marvin Southard, Director of the LA County Department of Mental Health sat in directors chairs as LA Times Editorial Page Editor Andrés Martinez moderated. That's Martinez in the picture.......

In the wake of all the Golden Globe coverage, we nearly forgot to mention that several California cities made a not-so-prestigious list this weekend. The National Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization that focuses on justice, economic justice, health care justice and civil rights issues, released a list of the 20 meanest cities in America in 2005. Criteria to make the list included "...the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement......

- Jill Elizabeth Davis has some great pictures of the hail falling in Pasadena today. We told you to stay home. - We are trying to keep all this discussion of Steve Lopez's Skid Row work straight but we just can't. - Disney Hall of the Valley (to go with our very valley-centric day of posting). - New Zealanders think we're lawless in Los Angeles. - Who needs Harriet Miers? Our local Japanese American......

Two major events dominate the week in LA politics–Bob Hertzberg’s introduction of the first TV ads in the mayoral campaign, and Laura Chick’s secret meetings with the mayoral challengers. (Sorry, fellow hacks–the Hahn signs at the sanitation yards aren’t that important.) Attack of the 50-foot Mayoral Candidate Bob Hertzberg released his first campaign ad to a variety of reviews. Boi from Troy says “Message gets an "A" but the imagery gets a kinda-spooky "C",”......

Why can't we get more funny and sharp long-form commentary on city politics? That's exactly what Marc Haefele provides in the latest L.A. Alternative Press with his essay on recent media flame-ups and Mayor Hahn's reelection. Some of these lines had LAist howling: So why did Bill Bratton meet with the Reverend? Probably for the same reason New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly would meet with former L.A. City Councilman Nate Holden whenever the......