By Jim Smith On June 5, I was peering through Chuck Bloomquist’s telescope in his front yard as a tiny black dot – actually the size of the Earth – slowly made […]
Ray Bradbury and the Free Monorail System
Ray Bradbury may have had his head in the sky for The Martian Chronicles and other amaz- ing stories set on other worlds and dimensions, but he knew a good thing here […]
Summer in Venice, in 2062
By Jim Smith Hello, and Welcome to Venice! If you’re visiting the City of Venice this summer, there are some things you should know. Venice is easily accessible by mass transit and […]
Voting Like It Mattered
By Jim Smith While some countries, including Egypt, Greece and recently France, are making a change from their old regimes to, well, something else, here in Venice we are stuck with the […]
The Fire Next Time
By Jim Smith Christine Burrill’s stunning exhibit of photo collages of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising has an impact and immediacy that few other art forms can convey. Three of the large […]
Tenants Reclaim Lincoln Place
Six years after they were booted out of their homes by corporate landlord AIMCO, happy tenants began returning to newly refurbished apartments on April 15. Evictees and their union, the Lincoln Place […]
How Peter Douglas Saved Venice and the California Coast
By Jim Smith Peter Douglas, who was the chief guardian of the California coast for the past 40 years, died April 1. It would have been much better for Venice if this […]
Scene of the Crime: Marker Unveiled Where Japanese-Americans Were Taken to Camps
It was 70 years later, to the day, that more than 100 Venetians gathered in support of a handful of Japanese-American survivors of the Manzanar Concentration Camp. In 1942, they had been […]
No one ever said it would be easy: Saving the Venice Post Office
By Jim Smith In spite of a lawsuit brought by the Coalition to Save the Venice Post Office, the Postal Service has plowed ahead with efforts to sell the historic building and […]
Where’s the Transparency? – L.A. Confidential
By Jim Smith When City Controller Candidate Cary Brazeman expressed shock that the city of Los Angeles was corrupt, I was reminded of the scene in the film, Casablanca, when Inspector Renault […]
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