Connecting California

Remember the good old days when Californians were scared of the dark? When Hollywood was king and we all knew that there was no monster or ghost scarier than the one we couldn’t see—the one lying there in the dark?
Those days are over. Today, the light is scarier than the dark ever was.
It’s not just because the sunshine is so much hotter and longer …

Is “Eureka” still the state motto? I suppose so. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll soon redesign the California official seal to express the real code we live by: Pay more and get less.
That’s the bad new California deal that underpins so many daily transactions. The price of the fundamentals of life keeps getting jacked up, even as our money buys less of them.
Watch …

Fresno regularly ranks as one of the poorest metro areas in the United States. So why do people keep moving there?
The short, if incomplete, answer: Fresno is in California. And there is something very different about our state’s poor cities.
In other parts of America, people have abandoned cities labeled poor—because of high poverty rates and low rates of education among residents—in big numbers. Detroit’s …

The most important political campaign in California has died prematurely, and without a proper obituary.
That sad fact speaks volumes about the challenges facing our state’s media. Because the deceased campaign wasn’t for a Senate candidate or for a ballot measure. It was a campaign on behalf of the Los Angeles Times.
The campaign didn’t get very far. In September, Tribune Publishing, the Chicago media company …

I’m feeling guilty for having failed, as of this writing, to fulfill a central responsibility of California citizenship.
I haven’t been to my county’s fair this year.
The Los Angeles County Fair can be an ordeal. It is an event as sprawling and vast as L.A. itself, and parking is $15. The county insists on holding the fair in September, when the Pomona fairgrounds can feel …

Could sainthood be bad for Junipero Serra’s reputation?
Serra has long been a singular figure in California, widely called the state’s “founding father” for the Catholic mission system he started in the 18th century. Schools, parks, roads, and even one of the state’s most beautiful stretches of freeway (I-280 from Daly City to San Jose) were named for him. California schoolchildren are still taught the story …

You better anchor me, baby.
Because I find it impossible to write with restraint when politicians start using babies—babies using babies!—to prey on prejudice and misinform the public in the service of winning votes.
That’s exactly what’s happening in the Republican presidential contest, as Donald Trump and his opponents make xenophobic nonsense about “anchor babies” the number one issue in the race. I won’t rehash here all …

A wiseacre neighbor walked by the corner where I was standing and shouted, “Is this the line for the U2 tickets?”
Nope. The line, which extended out a brick building for about a block, was just another group of California parents forced to prove, in this age of hyper-regulated childhood, that we actually live where we’re trying to send our kids to school.
With a new school …

Don’t believe all the hype around Straight Outta Compton.
Reading about the new hit movie about the groundbreaking rap group N.W.A., you might think the biggest problem facing Compton is its unfair and outdated reputation for the violence and gangs that were the subjects of N.W.A.’s music. But today, Compton may have a bigger problem: the reality that it’s boring.
The Compton depicted in the film, …

At the risk of sounding like Donald Trump, let me say it’s just stupid that California won’t play a significant role in picking the next president.
It’s even dumber that a small state, like Iowa, with its first-in-the-nation caucuses and swing status in general elections, is a presidential kingmaker. And who are the morons who have let this sad state of affairs go on for more …