Category: Links

The New Immigrants.

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Photo credits : Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly.  Mosaic: by HIVN.

The other day, emerging into the sunlight, at the LA Fitness parking lot, in Universal City, I was confronted with the painful sight of five cars with out-of-state license plates: Ohio, Wyoming, Virginia, Tennessee and Iowa.

These are the new immigrants to California. They are mostly young, white, tattooed and illiterate, post-collegiate settlers.

I see them hogging up the freeway, and texting while driving. Many of them are sub-intelligent, and speak in grunts and groans: “Yeh” or “Hey” or “What’s up?”

Compared to the well-groomed and nicely mannered young people who immigrated to California 50 years ago, this bunch seems to have no manners.

They are taking some of the best jobs in California and some of the worst ones too.  Real Californians are now almost completely shut out of the job market.  Waiters, receptionists, valet parking, graduate students, personal trainers, bank tellers, retail sales—every once viable occupation is now taken over by people under 25.

Many of these recent immigrants live like pigs. One young woman I met, a native of Massachusetts, kept moldy French fries under her bed for months. She smokes pot and actually made one of her male roommates into her boyfriend.  She has a backyard full of dog shit.  These are the type of people that are now crowding the Golden State.

Their blank faces and gleaming white smiles cannot hide the devious truth that they are almost all out to get married, get rich, get famous and find happiness.  They greedily eye real estate, hoping to buy houses that rightfully should be occupied by real Californians.

And many of these lazy young people sit for hours in coffee bars and cafes, talking about idle gossip, surfing the Internet and sometimes even asking their parents for financial help. Most of them lack health insurance, while many will get sick and then depend on health insurance to pay their medical bills! Others are addicted to such exotic and useless hobbies as video games, yoga, running, drinking liquor, music downloading, and chin-ups.

It’s time that the people of California followed the example of Arizona and made immigration a top priority for law enforcement. The social fabric of our state is decaying, and California will no doubt become just a repository for the young and the useless, the confused and the ambitious, the intelligent and the stupid….in short just a magnet for young Americans who contribute too much and too little to the problems of this state.

An Abnormal Place

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An Abnormal Place: 900 Block of Kenmore, Hollywood, CA.

In my car yesterday, looking for a shortcut to avoid traffic on Melrose near Normandie, I turned up Kenmore and drove north.

On the 900 Block, I found a strange and eerie neighborhood of old houses.

There were no cars parked on the street, and hardly any automobile traffic.

Jail bars covered the doors and windows of every home. The street was baked in blistering sun, and without any shade trees.

No people were outside, and at the end of the block, at Santa Monica Boulevard, vagrants sat along the curb outside of a twin-steepled church.

I wanted to know what this neighborhood was, and what it had been, a long time ago.

Was there a time when children played in the front yards, rode bikes on the street, and adults sat on the porch drinking iced tea?

Why did every window sit behind steel bars? And was there a time when people lived in homes without protective glass gates?

And who lives here now? Are they mostly Korean or Armenian?

And why does this sunny place seem so frightened, closed-up, hermetic and cold?

There are some streets in Los Angeles where things just do not seem normal.

The 900 Block of Kenmore in East Hollywood is one of these.

Jewish War Veterans: San Fernando Valley, Post #603.

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Jewish War Veterans/San Fernando Valley/ Post #603

At the Veteran’s Hospital in North Hills, a Passover luncheon was enjoyed by close to 100 guests this past Sunday.

More photos here.

Vintage LA.

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From Neat Stuff Blog

Conversation at the Dentist’s Office

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I got to the dentist’s office today, and was greeted at the front desk, not by the usual person, but by a visitor, a friend of the doctor.

He was a friendly, chatty man; a Filipino born immigrant.

He said he was disgusted with the state of California and how much taxes were going to people who used up the state’s resources.

He had come here legally, he told me. In daylight.

He said that illegal immigrants were crowding up classrooms and costing all taxpayers money. “Of course”, he said, “education is important.”  But it shouldn’t come at the expense of legitimate citizens who were paying for the services used by illegals.

Mr. Pancho: Kester and Delano, Van Nuys, CA.

“Some people don’t want to work. I say if you don’t work, you don’t eat,” he said.

He was angry about people who come to America to work illegally, but also disgusted with those, presumably same individuals, who do NOT want to work.

Like those braceros who stand on Kester and Oxnard every morning? Or those bussed-in cleaning ladies walking along Sunset, on their way to clean the mansions of Brentwood?

Trillions of dollars have been wasted in the meaningless military pursuit of government change in foreign nations.  Billions were showered on Wall Street and the banks so that America’s economy could be saved. Health insurance is for the rich and any attempt to modify its dispersal is called “socialism.”

Every state and every city in America is fighting to stay solvent. Los Angeles is firing government workers by the thousands, and the schools are cutting teachers and classes.

And still the great wisdom of the street, one that captivates and controls our minds, is that Carlos and Maria pushing the shopping cart down Victory Boulevard is our greatest enemy.

Why do the barely powerful beat up on the less powerful instead of going after the real thieves in this nation?

LA: Portrait of a City

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