Los Angeles

The New American Judaism

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Ever since God chased Adam and Eve from Paradise, the Jewish experience has been defined by constant movement. In the past 3,000 years Jews shifted from a small sect escaping exile in Egypt to a national Temple-based model, then to a Talmudic diaspora, hunkered down in European ghettos and shtetls. That was followed by waves of migration at the turn of the 20th century that inaugurated a new promised land in America and over 100 years of Jewish American advancement organized around what became a lavish institutional Judaism.  read more »

‘Call Your Mother’ Sitcom Is Coastally Out of Step

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Call Your Mother is lame enough as it is. But a major extra shortcoming of ABC’s latest sitcom, which recently debuted with a pilot episode, is that one of its foundations is a banal juxtaposition of Flyover Country with the coasts.

Get this: A central premise of the show is that an empty-nester widow moves to Los Angeles from Iowa to be near her two adult kids who like living in California right now. In that important regard, Call Your Mother is so, well, 2019 – and so heedless of the current zeitgeist.

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California and Urban Cores Dominate Overcrowded Housing

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Concern about overcrowded housing has been heightened by its association with greater COVID-19 infection risk. As a disease transmitted by human proximity, exposure is increased by being in overcrowded and insufficiently ventilated spaces where sufficient social distancing is not possible. Exposure density for a person is intensified by the amount of time spent in such circumstances.  read more »

Pandemic Changes More Than Where We Work and Live

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Pandemic Changes Congestion

Until the pandemic, people’s choices were largely shaped by their workplaces and commutes. A 25-minute drive to work could become an hour and a half at rush hour.  read more »

Peak Progressive?

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In the minds of most progressives, as well as some horrified conservatives, California is the harbinger of America’s future.  read more »

Governor Preen: Newsom's Woke Posturing Masks California's Dismal Economic Record

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If Hollywood were to cast a governor and future president, and if a straight white male were still politically acceptable, he would look like California’s Gavin Newsom. The 53-year-old governor, a former mayor of San Francisco, Newsom handsomely epitomizes the preening politics of the California elite class that has nurtured and financed his career from the beginning.  read more »

California and Its Contradictions: Rumblings of Realignment Beneath a Solid-Blue Surface

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California remains deep blue, but the good news from this week’s elections is that it has not yet achieved complete ballot-box unanimity.  read more »

The Limits of Rhetoric

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Deep-blue cities and states are eager to declare their social-justice credentials.  read more »

The Roots of California's Tattered Economy Were Planted Long Before the Coronavirus Arrived

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California is in far worse shape economically than the great majority of other states also struggling through the pandemic. COVID-19 may be the primary cause of our current distress, but the evolving structure of our economy has exacerbated this calamity. The worst part is our state leaders should have known this all along.  read more »