ROBERT F. KENNEDY’S ASSASSINATION: THE MORNING AFTER

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June 1, 2018 · Posted in Commentary · Comment 

By Bob Vickrey

For many of us of a certain age, the year 1968 was a year like no other.

The Vietnam War had quickly escalated after the January “Tet Offensive” by the North Vietnamese army, and at one point that year, more than 500 American soldiers were losing their lives each week in a war that had already been deemed by many Pentagon officials as “unwinnable.”

Back home, college students were staging protests against the war on campuses all across the country. Civil unrest in our cities had often turned confrontational and violent.

Civil Rights demonstrations were being met with police resistance, as they resorted to fire hoses and batons in their attempt to quell protesters. Read more

Tom Brokaw hit on #MeToo when I was a young reporter

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June 1, 2018 · Posted in Commentary · Comment 

 

Mary Reinholz

First published May 1, 2018, in The Villager, A Manhattan weekly.

Tom Brokaw

[The writer says when she was a reporter in Los Angeles, Tom Brokaw — after helping her get a police report for a story she was doing for the L.A. Free Press — made a sudden unwanted sexual advance: He tried to put the moves on her, abruptly embracing and French kissing her, she said.]

A recent e-mail from the Newswomen’s Club of New York reminded me that I had been confirmed to attend an April 5 panel discussion called “#MeToo for Journalists: Where have we come from and where are we going?” at The New York Times’ skyscraper, that glassy and classy 52-story edifice at Eighth Ave. and 40th St. Read more

Dunga Brook Diary: BINGO

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June 1, 2018 · Posted in Commentary · Comment 

Vicki Whicker

May, 2011

After a sparse farm to table dinner, and after a mean (Jim=ruthless) game of BOGGLE, in the semi-dark of his “rustic” farmhouse (because, no electricity/no running water), right before I’m to trudge up the dark and dusty stairs for an unsteady sleep on an unstable old bed, Jim nonchalantly says, “I’m leaving at four a.m. for The City, can you feed Ichabod, tomorrow?”

Did he say leaving? At four a.m.? He’s leaving? For The City? This house has no locks, is missing windows, and he’s leaving at four a.m.? For NYC? That means I’m going to be asleep, no, scratch that, lying awake in the dark for at least two more hours before sunrise…ALONE. And then, if I’m not murdered, I have to go to that barn? For three feedings? Holy F! I can hardly say no, right? I can’t be responsible for the death of a baby goat, can I?

“Sure, no problem.” I hear myself saying. “But I’m staying at a BNB tomorrow night, so…I won’t be around to take care of Ichabod after that…I’m catching my flight back to L.A.” Read more

SIDESTEPPING HISTORY AT THE IVY

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June 1, 2018 · Posted in Commentary · Comment 

Photos by Barry Stein.

By BOB VICKREY

Los Angeles has to be the only city in the world where a 35 year-old restaurant could be described as a “landmark” institution.

I’m reminded of Steve Martin’s character in the 1991 satirical comedy “L.A. Story,” as he toured the city while hosting his British girlfriend. He described the sights they witnessed with wonder and awe, as he pointed out the city landscape to his friend, “Some of these buildings are more than 20 years-old!”

Our monthly lunch club decided to dig not-so-deeply into LA’s culinary history for one of those “landmarks,” as we chose The Ivy on Robertson Boulevard for our May dining destination. The Ivy opened in 1983, a year many L.A. residents consider to have occurred sometime during the Paleolithic Age. Read more

Honey travels through portals of time

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June 1, 2018 · Posted in Notes from Above Ground · Comment 

Introduction to the portals 

Figure 1: Toypurina mural, Ramona Garden

The people who lived in Los Angeles when it was part of the Spanish empire and during the years Mexico governed it often appear in history books as two-dimensional: cardboard men in sombreros riding pretend horses fitted with painted silver decorated saddles and paper cut out dark eyed women with high combs that lift masses of hair veiled with lace mantillas.  They speak pure Castilian Spanish.

This is a cartoon image of the Pastoral Era after secularization of the missions, largely inspired by a “boomer” subsidized by Southern Pacific Railroad to increase the number of passengers on trains to Los Angeles.

The forty-four people that walked from the Mission San Gabriel in 1781 are silent. Read more