In one of the local Kansas City area school districts, a proposed levy increase that would have put an end to three years of major budget cuts failed, and so the cuts continue even as enrollment rises. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, cuts are driven not so much by the economy but by union-busting politicians. Elsewhere in the US, teacher layoffs are being announced. ‘Tis the season . . .

And yet, despite all this, the teachers still teach.

I am so grateful for those who taught me, and even today I am still realizing just how much of a gift they gave me.

While President Obama told Law Enforcement Against Prohibition member MacKenzie Allen, a retired deputy sheriff during an interview with the organization:

We have to think more about drugs as a public health problem

his comments on the new federal drug new budget show things in a different light.

Sugarcult — Los Angeles — set to video of landing at LAX International Airport via the SADDE Six Arrival, as viewed from the cockpit.

Tonight’s guest Gus Roxburgh is the executive producer of Crips and Bloods: Made in America, one of the most thoughtful and certainly the least sensationalistic documentaries I have ever seen about gangs in Los Angeles. Directed by Stacy Peralta (best known for his skate doc Dogtown and Z-Boys), and available for viewing on Hulu.com, Crips and Bloods presents not only startling figures (from 1960 to 1998 in Northern Ireland, 3526 people were killed in sectarian violence, while in thirty years, LA gangwarfare has killed 15,000), but takes and intimate look at gang members past and present.

One Too Many Mornings was a Sundance 2010 selection thanks to its realistic dialog, acting and melancholy black and white footage.

Fischer and Peter, now in the their late twenties, are best friends from childhood. Fisher moved to Los Angeles, where now he lives rent free in a church in exchange for coaching soccer, turning off the lights and locking up. Peter visits unexpectedly after a major fight with his girlfriend and Fischer tries to help him heal by picking up cougars for them in a bar and throwing Peter a fake birthday party.

The cougar adventure turns out a bit differently than expected, and the party explodes in a series of disasters which could resolve both their problems. Or not.

Friendship, adulthood, love, responsibility and a free place to live are at stake here. Will Fischer and Peter make the right choices?

This is the city. Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge. My name’s Friday. The story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I grew up watching Dragnet, which began its run in 1967 and lasted three and a half seasons. I thought it was a pretty weird, but I learned lots of things about my hometown, and about life in general–like how to judge the quality of a fur, from the episode where Joe Friday’s partner’s Frank Gannon went undercover to bust a burglary ring; and it was always fun to to try and guess the what the sentences for crimes would be.

Yesterday in downtown Los Angeles, 22 activists, including the head of SEIU Local 721 and members of ACCE (the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), were arrested outside a Chase bank for protesting the foreclosure crisis. The banks have basically disregarding all the legal constraints on their activities, and people have begun to fight back.

Translated LA Times: Today LA Sheriffs seized $234,000 worth of harmless products from small businesses in a move certain to harm their businesses, increase unemployment and withdraw money and trade from a lagging economy.

You’ve probably heard by now about the One Nation Coming Together event in Washington yesterday, which brought either “thousands” or as many as 200,000 people to the National Mall for jobs, justice and education. Regardless of the comparison to the Beck rally in August, One Nation appears to have been a success, getting labor and progressive groups fired up before the midterms.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony, the soon-to-be-retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, is of the opinion that Judge Vaughn Walker was wrong in his ruling on Prop 8, because he failed to make his decision based upon religious beliefs that bless only male-female relationships.

Mahony ends up proving Walker’s point, that the only basis for the kind of discrimination that Prop 8 sought to enshrine in law grows out of certain religious and moral positions.

Cardinal, you may be free to discriminate against gays and lesbians within the Catholic church as a matter of faith, but the state of California is not free to do the same as a matter of law.