In order to face the upcoming deep LAUSD budget cuts, we need to make some hard choices.

Which of the following services do you believe we can afford to lose the least? Please mark these in order of priority – 1=most important, 7=least important:

• Academic coaches
• Technology/computer program
• School library
• Physical education
• Kindergarten aides
• Teacher training to match instruction to student skill levels.

Here’s the pathetic part – these are all services funded BY US BECAUSE LAUSD DOESN’T PAY FOR THEM. Our school community had to raise $150,000 last year just to keep the three (vital) academic coaches. Now we have to try raising more than $320,000 to keep them AND all the other stuff.

Dozens of parents have been laid off from their jobs their district, and it’s plain that we’re not going to hit our mark.

And we’re in Silver Lake, in one of L.A.’s most affluent school districts – I can only imagine the horrible choices being faced at more-average schools in L.A. where people can’t afford to backfill the gaps left by a stingy, short-sighted and horribly mismanaged state educational policy.

For years now, the Legislature has been underfunding education across the state and in Los Angeles in particular, and the Los Angeles Unified School District has been squandering what little money we have on a bloated bureaucracy and wishy-washy, half-assed improvement initiatives without ever attempting the bold innovation or real top-down reforms.

<Everyone in power – from the district leadership to the teachers’ union> – seems to be doing what it takes to maintain the status quo and cover their little slice without considering what all this is doing to the people who will be working in and running Los Angeles 10, 20 years from now.

As a result, California ranks almost dead-last in education among the United States.

And what’s the solution to the basic bottom-line debacle that all this adds up to? Pull seasoned teachers out of the classroom and replace them with Beaudry Street bureaucrats who haven’t held a piece of chalk in years.

Yes, I’m ranting.

But that’s because it’s plain to me that this situation no longer deserves simple pitchforks-and-torches-to-Sacramento anger. We’ve tried that.

This warrants prosecution because it is a fucking crime.

But we have to wonder – just a little bit – who’s really behind the please-SAG-don’t-strike site SaveTheBiz.org.

Veteran actor James Cromwell pleads in the video above for both parties in the ongoing contract haggling between the Screen Actors Guild and the AMPTP to remember the gaffers, grips, craft-service drones and honey-wagon drivers – and don’t bring on a strike.

So – is this a non-partisan plea for parity, reason and good-faith bargaining?

Or is it a well-muscled push from the non-acting screen trades to dissuade actors from picketing if they’re faced with fuck-you terms from the AMPTP?

Discuss.

I swear, I’ll never understand haute couture.

(via the Jewish Journal. )

L.A.’s Twitter users, especially LAFD are posting a good running newsstream on evacuations, is carrying a pretty good running tally on evacuations, weather, firefighting progress and relief efforts.

As grim as things are, some very good people are doing very good work out there. Please keep safe, everyone.

Scaremonger?

So – it’s a new day in America. The majority of us decided it was time for a change from the ugly, grasping, lying, bloodthirsty stance our federal government has spent eight years building. And we put a better man in office.

The campaign horrors – all the lies, character assassination and bald-faced bullshit – it’s all been washed away in a red-white-and-blue tsunami of hope and progressive momentum.

McCain actually could be a decent guy instead of a libelous demagogue? So what.

Palin really was nothing but an undereducated prop? Meh.

But the fact that LAPD Chief William Bratton poured gas on that hellacious political wildfire by predicting a terrorist attack and now he’s been proven wrong?

Nope. I’m not willing to forgive that.

Hope the hollow shield-thumping and irresponsible (and rankly political) scaremongering was worth whatever little bureaucratic post the Obama administration gives you, Chief.

The crowd at the Atwater Masonic Lodge, Silver Lake, 7 a.m.

This was the scene at 7 a.m. in Silver Lake – fully 100 people lined up, and I’ll predict it’s gonna get heavier as more people hit the polls and wade through the huge number of ballot issues (and judgeships!) – in addition to deciding who gets to lead the United States out of the war, divisive politics and economic disaster we’ve been suffering.

If for some reason you’re registered and still on the fence about voting, please, for the love of our future as a nation as well as our general health, well-being and sanity in the Republic of California and county and city of Los Angeles, GET YOUR ASS OUT THERE AND VOTE.

What’s the scene like at your polling place today? Post a comment below.

Gutted and sawn

“Great, the junkies are at it again, digging for those tasty sellable morsels of copper wire. Only now they have a frickin’ concrete saw.”

Then I skated a little farther and saw a different vault situation (after the jump) …
Wonder of wonders, it looks like the city is methodically replacing all the electrical vaults, pouring slabs of concrete around them.

Over the past couple years, the copper thieves basically ripped open the wiring vaults with prybars or simply smashed the sides with something nice and heavy (little more than a short-handled 4-pound sledge would do it) and plunged the path into total darkness for anyone riding pre-dawn or post-dusk.

Now they’ll have to smash through what looks like a nice thick slab of cement – or just use a good prybar again. Unfortunately, the new lids look just like the old ones – cast iron.

I wonder how effective this will be.

Blogger Veronique deTurenne Twittered, posted at her HereinMalibu blog at LAObserved, and then just now posted something at the Times blog. In the event the editorial higher-ups yank the post later today in a fit of revisionism, the text follows the jump here.

I just found out I’m among the newest round of layoffs here at the L.A. Times and I wanted to say goodbye.

When I started this blog last February, we were ranked 8-millionth in the vast Wild West that is the blogosphere. Today, we’re in the top 5,000. We get tens of thousands of hits a day, scores of comments, and get to share what we know about Southern California with the rest of the world. It was hard work and great fun and I loved every minute of it.

Here’s a photo of the Sunday sunrise in Malibu, the day Tony Hillerman, one of my journalism teachers passed away. The sorrow of that loss blends into the grief of this one. I’ll miss him, and all of you, very much.

–Veronique de Turenne

Still waiting for Kevin Roderick to post all the layoff news that’s doubtless pouring into his inbox, but take a good look at that paper, folks. It’s just going to keep getting smaller until it winks out of existence entirely, taking a good chunk of L.A.’s formal journalism and investigative reporting with it.

Update:
Yep, like clockwork, here it is: Roderick’s post containing yet another bloodless editorial notice about noticeable editorial bloodletting:

From: Stanton, Russ
To: yyeditall
Sent: Mon Oct 27 08:31:50 2008
Subject: Newsroom job cuts

Colleagues,

The growing economic downturn is forcing us to undergo another round of job reductions and cost cuts. I deeply regret to report that today, 75 of our friends, colleagues and capable staff members in Editorial will be told that they are losing their jobs. This is about 10% of our total staff and these cuts are comparable in scale to those made on the business side of The Times last week.

The severance terms being offered to our colleagues are similar to those offered in the other reductions we’ve faced this year.

I appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation during this difficult period. Your department heads and the senior editing team, including John, Davan, Meredith and I, are available to hear your concerns and answer any questions.

Russ Stanton
Editor
Los Angeles Times

(Image via Wikipedia)

Well, here’s another clue to the payoff: Times blogger Joel Rubin’s scoop that Bratton has recorded a robo-call announcement shilling for presidential candidate Barack Obama – or, more to the point – attacking GOP rival John McCain’s record on crime and punishment:

The message reportedly criticizes the record of Republican Party presidential nominee John McCain on law enforcement issues.

A spokesperson for Bratton confirms that he has recorded the political campaign message but would not provide details of its content or where the Obama campaign plans to use it.

My beef’s not with anyone backing Obama – quite the contrary, the man is currently the best man in the race for the job, and I’m curious to hear what he has to say about McCain’s law-n-order chops.

My quarrel is with Bratton abusing his taxpayer-funded position to engage in politics waaay out of his jurisdiction. Sure, law enforcement is a local issue everywhere. But if Rubin’s sources are correct, this feels suspiciously like chair-fluffing for a cabinet seat in an Obama administration.

So, what’s your bet – Homeland Security or Department of Justice?

Al Quaeda may be planning a terrorist attack to somehow influence the U.S. elections, LAPD Chief William Bratton and co-author R.P. Eddy warned today in an op-ed in the New York Daily News …

This is a critical election for AlQaeda. The U.S.-led invasions of two Muslim countries during the Bush years and scandals such as Abu Ghraib have been aboon for Bin Laden’s demagoguery. He and other Islamists continually (and dishonestly) cite these wars as evidence of a U.S. war on Islam. That has helped create a steady stream of suicide bombers eager to destroy U.S. targets on their way to paradise.

Bin Laden is likely to believe that a President John McCain – who has jokingly sung of bombing Iran and who championed the troop surge in Iraq – is more likely to engender Muslim anger and resentment than would his opponent. Indeed, international polls, including those in Muslim countries, show striking support for Barack Obama.

Sorry, but what are the angles on this? Bratton’s been all over the world lately, including Scotland Yard but claims he’s not pushing to run another department.

So what exactly does Bratton hope to gain by broadcasting this theory into an overly-charged political environment instead of simply informing the feds, readying the LAPD and generally waiting in vigilant – if slightly paranoid – silence like the rest of us?