Opinion

Paris climate conference: Without Congress' support, Obama's dealmaking powers are limited

Was Robert Lewis Dear inspired by the Planned Parenthood videos? So what if he was?

Barbara Ehrenreich: White working-class longevity drops along with white privilege

Kobe Bryant (finally) heads to the lockers

Porter Ranch gas leak is a wake-up call

Must Planned Parenthood critics share guilt with the shooter?

Tech billionaires follow the climate-change money

Young '60s civil rights heroes should be a model for today's protesters

When it comes to Syrian refugees and fighting Islamic State, Trump wings it

Frenzy about Syrian refugees echoes the unfounded fears of past eras

Paris terrorist attacks shock Americans numbed by Mideast atrocities

Paris attacks: Islamic State rips the veil of civilization

We can't fight climate change without addressing overpopulation

To the editor: If only the climate change summit underway in Paris were to lead to the most direly needed global accord: recognition that our planet has a finite carrying capacity for humans, with agreement on how and when to bring our numbers within environmentally sustainable limits. ("Paris...

Planned Parenthood shooting: Vicious rhetoric has consequences

To the editor: The horrific killings by an American terrorist in Colorado Springs are a direct result of the hatred that has been fomented against Planned Parenthood by the Republican Party. ("Planned Parenthood shooting suspect's statements could suggest motive," Nov. 29) Unhinged individuals...

Lift kids out of poverty before expecting higher test scores

To the editor: The No Child Left Behind law gets undeserved credit for making schools pay attention to students living in poverty. ("Finding the sweet spot of reason in evaluating schools and teachers," editorial, Nov. 27) Experienced educators have always been aware of the effects of poverty and...

'Gentrification' is a euphemism for market cruelty

To the editor: If I see the word “gentrification” again in print, I might go postal. What a lovely euphemism for throwing hard-working “American dream” followers out onto the street. ("Developer's offer doesn't add up for mobile home holdouts," Nov. 28) What does life matter? Nothing compared to...

Another city snubs high cost of Olympic games -- and makes L.A.'s bid more likely

Blowback: Why Palestinians think what they do about Israel

Trump's appeal exposes a national undercurrent of intolerance

Here's how we get a real deal on street vending

The younger you are, the less you support free speech

Federal registry for personal drones takes a big step closer to reality

The solution to storing San Onofre's spent nuclear fuel

No one really likes the idea of storing spent nuclear fuel rods at the edge of the mighty Pacific Ocean, even if they are sealed in stainless steel canisters, encased in concrete and partially buried. What would happen to the millions of people living within 50 miles, or the Pacific's marine life,...

Bill McKibben: What the Paris conference on climate change can do for planet Earth

Starting Monday, diplomats and scientists, activists and heads of state at the 2015 U.N. climate change conference in Paris will scramble to reach the first truly global agreement on the greatest problem the planet has ever faced. It will make for compelling headlines, but it's not the real story....

For sale: U.S. citizenship, $500,000 to $1 million

Depending on how you look at it, a federal immigration program that offers foreign investors a shortcut to naturalization is either tantamount to selling American citizenship or a shrewd tactic to draw job-creating investments from overseas. In reality, it's a bit of both, and as a key part of...

How I learned to stop writing for old white men

There are few things more revealing than a fervent hobby. If you expose someone's passionate pastime, you somehow learn more about him than the activity alone should reveal. Think Vladimir Nabokov's butterflies, or George W. Bush's portraits. As for me, I've practiced only one activity with near-religious...

Is pumping as good as breast-feeding?

Over the last decade, pumping breast milk has become an integral part of the American practice of breast-feeding. One study found that 85% of women who breast-feed in the United States use a pump, although breast pump manufacturers put that number even higher. American women make up 40% of the...

Prioritizing fighting terrorism over climate change is a no-win scenario

The start of the Paris climate summit on Monday should be a moment of glory for President Obama. His administration has instituted the country's first serious action against climate change by requiring dirty coal plants to drastically lower emissions. He played a key role in China's dramatic attitude...

America's drunk history

Consider this a "trigger warning": The following essay may disturb and upset your view of American history, a history mostly written by scholarly types who distill vast amounts of research into erudite narratives. The trouble with their reverence and their gravitas is that they tend to leave out...

Creating a green Los Angeles needs to start with our buildings, not our cars

Many of us living here in Los Angeles try our best to be as environmentally responsible as possible. It’s a difficult task, because, until recently, we’ve essentially been operating blind when it comes to information on one of the biggest energy users in our lives: buildings. Buildings emit nearly...

Preparing to declare a 'local emergency' could save L.A.'s homeless people when El Niño rains hit

I represented my first homeless client in 1983. She was living in an old Chevy while she tried, for six weeks, to get help from the county. At least in the old car, she told me, she didn't need to worry about rainstorms. Even in the relatively mild L.A. winter, getting wet can be fatal if you have...

If France wants to succeed against Islamic State, it should study the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

The wisdom of the U.S. decision to keep troops in Afghanistan on a semi-permanent basis will be long debated. What is beyond debate is the brilliance of the post-9/11 invasion, which holds lessons for the French people following the massacres of Nov. 13 in Paris and the similarly appalling loss...

CalPERS needs to play it safer

To pay the retirement benefits owed to more than 1.7 million current and former public employees, the California Public Employees' Retirement System should have about $410 billion stashed away. Today, however, the pension fund is holding less than $300 billion, thanks in no small measure to the...

Marco Rubio, meet 'Boxcar Ben' Fernandez, America's first Latino presidential candidate

One year before the 1980 general election, in November 1979, 10 Republicans competed for their party's nomination. Most held the usual credentials — congressman, senator, governor — and famous last names, such as Reagan, Bush and Dole. But among them also stood a man from Calabasas named Benjamin...

California's Prop. 47 revolution: How to spend the savings

Thousands of felony cases that would have been prosecuted by the office of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey became misdemeanors late last year because of Proposition 47. Lacey's caseload dropped precipitously — first, because police were making far fewer arrests for drug crimes and theft,...

Islamic State's Achilles' heel: Its Sunni identity

The "Islamic" identity of Islamic State has understandably attracted a lot of notice. There is no question that it is a fanatical group with a twisted religious ideology at the core of its identity. And it is the appeal of that ideology, along with the sheer thrill of adventure, that leads foreigners...

Take a cue from Ralph Ellison: Don't demean minority students by overprotecting them

In a 1967 interview, the African American novelist Ralph Ellison denounced the commonplace idea that blacks had been permanently "damaged" by slavery, segregation and institutional racism. Instead, Ellison insisted, blacks' survival in the face of discrimination and hatred demonstrated their strength...

Keep a cross off the L.A. County seal

When I was a boy growing up in Boyle Heights, I had an unobstructed view of the City Hall tower from our apartment on Breed Street. Each year during the Christmas season, our city lit up its seat of government in the shape of a cross. I remember wondering why the city was favoring one religion...

Just what did Blue Shield promise?

To win state regulators' approval for its purchase of a rival health insurer, Blue Shield of California promised (among other things) to contribute $14 million annually for 10 years to healthcare-related charities to improve access to care. Not long after the state issued a news release trumpeting...

Hollande's war talk gives Islamic State what it wants most

In calling for a war against Islamic State, French President Francois Hollande is engaging in a tragically counterproductive enterprise. Under international law, "war" can only exist between sovereign states. Hollande is rashly giving Islamic State precisely what it wants: legal recognition. Such...

They're Syrian refugees, not political pawns

Next week Americans will sit around overflowing dinner tables and stuff themselves in celebration of how Native Americans greeted the Pilgrims, who came here as religious refugees from England. Think about that within the context of the current demonization of Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq....

Black Lives Matter and Michael Bloomberg: the oddest couple?

When media outlets from the National Journal to Rolling Stone cover the bipartisan push for criminal justice reform — an effort that includes everyone from Rand Paul to Cory Booker, the Koch brothers to even the ACLU — their go-to phrase to characterize the movement is "unlikely coalition." Actually,...

Should Princeton dump Woodrow Wilson?

The recent protests by college students across the country are mostly about racial insensitivity and charges of discrimination and mistreatment on campuses today. But there also are complaints about what students see as symbolic vestiges of a racist past. Some of these objections are more valid...

Inglewood City Council's new hours aren't exactly welcoming

The Inglewood City Council, fresh off an unsuccessful effort to sue a City Hall critic into silence, voted this week to move all of its meetings to the early afternoon instead of the evening. The decision to hold meetings when many city residents will be busy at work was presented as a way to use...

We should look less hard for cancer

There's a new cancer treatment strategy in the news: Wait and see. Time magazine ran a cover story on simply watching small breast cancers; the Wall Street Journal similarly reported on watching small thyroid cancers. So-called watchful waiting has been a long-standing option for early prostate...

A common-sense solution to the Uber vs. taxi wars

Since Uber's launch in San Francisco five years ago, government officials have wrestled with how to address this new type of transportation service. Meanwhile, taxi drivers have cried foul over the unequal regulatory environment. They face a mountain of rules, ranging from sensible to comical and...

Should public housing be totally smoke-free?

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is working on new regulations that would bar people living in public housing from smoking tobacco not only in the buildings' indoor common areas and administrative offices, and not only within 25 feet of the buildings, but also in their own...

Can we care about terrorism and campus activism at the same time?

After an international tragedy like the terrorist acts in Paris last week, we perform a relatively new social media ritual: We attempt to collectively rank the importance of various injustices. Some of us are outraged that attacks in Western Europe have garnered more attention than similar violence...

The Expo Line hasn't reduced freeway traffic. So what?

Take note, L.A. political speechwriters and Metro marketing staff: Building public transit may not reduce freeway traffic. You probably want to cite other benefits when urging Angelenos to support a new sales tax to fund rail and bus projects. But, don’t worry, there are plenty of other reasons...

Charlie Sheen's blackmail fears show HIV stigma is still a career-killer

I learned two important things from actor Charlie Sheen’s revelation this week on the “Today” show that he’s HIV positive: that he’s just as skeezy as I thought and that more than 30 years after the height of the AIDS epidemic, there’s still an astonishing amount of stigma attached to this disease. ...

Enlisting Apple and Google to fight terrorists: Is it a good idea?

In the aftermath of the bloody terrorist attacks in Paris, top national security officials, law enforcement leaders and their allies in Congress called again for technology companies to ensure that the government can unscramble the files and communications that users have encrypted. Here, for example,...

Do we have the will to stop TB?

Doctors swear to do no harm, but I knew I was about to inflict great suffering on my patient Gary, who had been diagnosed with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR TB. Many people wrongly assume that tuberculosis has been eradicated. In fact, according to the World Health Organization,...

What does the Border Patrol have against body cameras?

To assure the public of their commitment to transparency and accountability, many law enforcement agencies across the country — including the Los Angeles Police Department — have embraced body-worn cameras with admirable rapidity. However, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, the U.S. Border...

Give the community college accrediting panel room to improve

The semi-public commission that accredits community colleges in California on behalf of the federal government deserves to be upbraided. Even some of its own members concede that it has done too little to help the colleges it oversees improve, and has instead just sanctioned them at a rate much...

What happened to L.A.'s state of emergency on homelessness?

Eight weeks ago, Mayor Eric Garcetti and members of the Los Angeles City Council stood on the grounds of City Hall and declared a state of emergency on homelessness. Their actions since then, however, have hardly lived up to that billing. What the council really did that day was introduce a motion...

Stop the fear-mongering on Syrian refugees

It was inevitable that the terrorism attacks in Paris last week would echo quickly through the U.S. presidential campaign. Given the stream of nativist rhetoric already out there, it was also inevitable that some politicians' responses would be highly objectionable, beginning with Texas Sen. Ted...

California must capture water, not waste it

We don't know for sure whether the El Niño we face this winter will be a drought buster or a bust. But we had better prepare for a lot of rain and the potential flooding, landslides and disruptions we know especially heavy winter storms can bring to California. At the same time, we need to look...

Barring Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks would reject America's very roots

If fear-mongering politicians were sincere in their desire to shut off access to the United States by those coming from the source of the Paris terror attacks, then they would be looking not at Syria, but at Belgium and France itself. So far, five of the six attackers identified by French investigators...

What students of color are fighting for on college campuses

When I was 19 years old, I was turned away from a party because I am black. I was standing at the door of a fraternity on the University of Southern California’s Greek Row. I'd arranged to meet a friend there. I expected to walk through the door with ease, the way students do at student parties...