Steven Mikulan: Labor 411 has expanded into both printed guides and a Web site that caters to socially conscious consumers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Click on an item and information about both the manufacturer and the union that represents the company’s workers pops up.
Michele Waslin: Passage of the TRUST Act would be an important step toward mitigating the harmful impact of the Secure Communities Program (S-Comm). Immigrant advocates from across the country are calling on Gov. Brown to sign the bill into law.
David Lyell: The current LAUSD school board majority needs to remember that the immeasurable elements of nurturing, protecting, and fostering growth and development in every single child are qualities that simply can not be quantified in a score.
Jerry Drucker: In all of Los Angeles County, except for Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach, which conduct their own census counts, the 2011 census count of the homeless was 51,340, 3% less than 2009 at 52,931.
Leonard Isenberg: What LAUSD has done is to front an alternative group called Parents as Equal Partners that it believes it can control, while arbitrarily and without legal authority disbanding DAC without even minimal guarantees of due process of law.
Leonard Isenberg: What LAUSD says in terms of parent, teacher, and student input is belied by the reality of the clear legal language that again and again say the principal and superintendent maintain absolute control.
Yasha Levine: The police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than reported, with most of the abuse happening while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the media.
Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Margaret Flowers, M.D.: The refinery and export terminal may depress tourism, an important local industry. And the increase in cancer, disease and early deaths from the toxins released by the plant will place a financial burden on local families.
Joe Mathews: California, for all its wealth and advantages, looked to be in a precarious position in the second decade of the 21st century. The state’s government was broken, with its budget and tax systems unable to produce the kind of investments to make every child educated and healthy.