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By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist I just know there are many, many of you out there who are in deep shock over the passing of Alexander Shulgin. He was born in Berkeley, CA on June 17, 1925 and is the scientist who created over 200 compounds used in psychotherapy, including Ecstasy. Back on Jan. 28, 2014 an Artesia woman’s home was broken into by a man breaking a kitchen window. He was covered in blood as he wrestled her in the living room. The victim broke away, ran to a neighbor’s hom...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist It was one hundred years ago the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was started. Sixty years ago the Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, and the country moved ahead with such laws as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act signed into law in 1968 and affirmative action policies in education and in the workplace. But today all is not we...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer columnist I didn’t know and nobody told me about the law which took effect on Jan. 1, 2013 and set a 2018 target date for public employees to pay half their retirement costs. Please raise your hand if you frequently take the Metro Rail or AMTRAK in and out of Union Station. Boy oh boy, do I have good news for you and the other travelers. To save 15 to 20 minutes either leaving or arriving at Union Station, the Los Angeles transportation officials will soon start m...
On May 26, 2014 well over 5,000 attended the Memorial Day program at the Los Angeles National Cemetery. 48 hours prior, approximately 6,000 Boy and Girl Scouts from troops across Southern California placed American flags on 88,000 graves. Although this special Memorial Day event occurred almost four months ago, it is worth noting, as I’m sure you will agree after reading the following narrative by 96-year-old Lt. Yoshito Fujimoto regarding his occupational duties in Japan, which has been r...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Can anyone help me understand what is going on with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the deputies who man the central jail? I know some deputies who are truly good people with ethics and a caring personality, and yet we hear of alleged violent beatings, “gladiator” type fights – and sometimes the deputies film them. Six deputies and a sergeant went on trial at the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. I have been told the first job dep...
It was 21 years ago in 1993 that the 50-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas ended as, some believe, federal agents caused the fire which destroyed the structure and killed so many. Can we take a moment to remember Culver City resident Jose de la Trinidad, 36? He was allegedly shot five times in the back by Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies as he held his hands above his head. It was on Nov. 10, 2012 on East 122nd St. at 10:30 p.m. when deputies claim Jose was reaching...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Douglas Lydic, 29, escaped from a police car in December 2013 in Commodore, Pennsylvania while handcuffed. Prosecutors declined to charge him with fleeing since he was merely being “detained” at the time. However, they did charge Lydic with the theft of the handcuffs. This fall for the first time the freshman class at the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses will have more Latino (17,589) than white (16,378) students admitted. Thanks to a f...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Beginning in 2016 students at California community colleges must maintain a 2.0 or C average to be eligible for a waiver to exempt them from paying tuition. Now that we are in a super duper drought, can we return to an ancient garden practice? Try burying a narrow-neck unglazed pot up to the neck, place plants close by, fill the pot with water, cover the pot hole with a stone and the pot (called an olla) will seep water to the plants’ roots without losing a...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Have you read or heard about Operation Stingray? For those not in the loop or in the process of being cleared by the FBI for non-classified rumors, Stingray supposedly identifies itself to be the telephone company’s tower, but in reality it sends the police all data that you broadcast on your cell phone. Don’t worry. As of this time my source on the Culver City Police Department said, “We don’t use Stingray.” This person is so believably honest that if I...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist With states decriminalizing marijuana and scaling back 1970s-era drug laws, admissions to state prisons have fallen from 689,536 in 2006 to 553,843 in 2012. New York has closed 24 prison facilities since 2011. I sure hope none of the 165,200 employees who received Wall Street bonuses totaling 26.7 billion in 2013 get a rupture taking their checks to the bank. Recently I went through the file folder labeled Culver City Court and would you believe I found a...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist On July 27 in Louisville, KY ex-POWs of the Korean War will gather for their 61st and probably final reunion commemorating the armistice which paved the way for their release. Visit koreanwarexpow.org. Do you realize there are 7,861 United States military personnel still unaccounted for? I was looking through one of my five four-drawer filing cabinets recently when I came across a letter dated May 24, 2005 from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Ladies, are you considering the military as a career? Does becoming an officer appeal to you? We know about West Point but have you heard about The Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (WWIL) at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA? Since 1995 it’s been the home of our nation’s only all-female corps of cadets, grooming young women for military command. May 13, 2014 was the 150th anniversary of Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington was the home of Ge...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist I was scanning a California history book and came across Hong Yeng Chang. The State Supreme Court in 1800 denied Chang’s application to practice law because of the federal Chinese Exclusion Act even though he studied at Yale and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1886. You just have to love the Los Angeles Police Department unless you just happen to be a taxpayer. Perhaps everyone remembers the paragraph in this column when the officers were given t...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist The North Korean government has officially approved 18 hairstyles for women and 10 for men in an effort to clamp down on Western influences by trimming their hair in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle. INC., in the March 2014 issue, mentioned a Culver City company I never heard of. It’s Media Temple that started in 1998 and does IT services. In 2013 it had 207 employees with almost $50 million in revenue (2012). This company increased head count e...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist My, oh, my, I just finished reading the May/June 2014 issue of Mother Jones. Yes, I know it isn’t cheap, but after winning big bucks shooting craps in the alley behind the post office I decided to read about the crazies. Check out Page 7 and you can read the “rumors” about Hillary Clinton. For example, she majored in lesbianism at Wellesley and entered into a sham marriage to Bill Clinton to cover up the truth. Then, when Bill was governor, the Clint...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Were your toes tingling when you heard home prices in the Los Angeles metropolitan area went up 18-20% from February 2013 through February 2014? My tootsies were jumping up and down so much I almost called everyone’s friend, Fire Chief Chris Sellers, to send the paramedics. We bought our condo in 1977 from the builder for $52,000 and soon thereafter Prop. 13 was voted in. I hope you remember the “good old days” when prices and taxes were not low in relat...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist As a longtime member (since 1977) on May 14, 2014 I attended the monthly meeting of the Culver City Democratic Club, held the second Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. in the Rotunda Room of Veterans Auditorium. The speaker was Bob Stern AKA “the godfather of modern political reform in California,” who discussed the many reforms over the past 30 years he had been involved with. We can all be pleased. Councilman Jim Clarke is actively pursuing my sug...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to our meeting last night. Yes, the Progressive Leadership of Culver City comes together at 7:30 p.m. in the Harry Culver Room in the Veterans Memorial Building whenever the stars are in the right conjunction. The discussion focused on the legislator who has done the most for our city of 40,000 residents. The first person to shout out our hero’s name was the happy recipient of a dozen kosher tacos. After several n...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Oh, Maria, do you think I can qualify for a payday loan if I don’t have a job? Or perhaps for a reverse mortgage, the one Fonzie from Happy Days pushes on television 24 hours a day? Hmmm . . . Should I go to Wells Fargo and apply for a home equity loan? I hope you know who still works there. No, I don’t need the money to travel to China and see the American jobs we lost; no, I don’t need a new car although a Tahoe would be nice, but why enrich the oil compa...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist I know it isn’t November but let’s talk turkey. Get a little closer so I can whisper a deep, dark secret that the Board of Education doesn’t want you to know. Before I start, take a look around. See anyone listening to our conversation? Okay, here it is. This bond issue, if passed, will go up every year if the value of your home or apartment goes up. The Board – and you just have to love them – isn’t concerned with seniors and renters. If you cannot pay,...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist If you are undecided as to whom you should vote for as Los Angeles County Sheriff, please consider Todd Rogers. Todd is an Assistant Sheriff and Vice Mayor of Lakewood. As sheriff he would restructure the department’s chain of command to ensure shorter spans of control and greater accountability, as well as immediate review of deputy-involved shootings, community policing and at-risk kids’ programs. Look at the website, www.rogers4sheriff.com, and vote for...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist Is your child musically talented? For those students who would like to develop their vocal skills from the most basic concepts through the college level, the National Children’s Chorus rehearses each week at UCLA and will have auditions on Saturday, May 3. Visit nationalchildrenschorus.com. Many years ago, as a member of the California Army National Guard, I and several others “volunteered” for the assault helicopters. As you recall, the choppers would...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist I honestly don’t know what’s so fascinating watching someone trying for hours to outrun the highway patrol and the helicopter. Nowadays police use the pit maneuver or the spike strip or just follow until the bad guy runs out of gas. Has anyone ever escaped? To stop this craziness the British have an invention which uses radio waves to scramble the bandito’s electronic controls. The criminal’s getaway car stops dead in about 55 yards. Can someone please...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist For those who are familiar with the terms par, eagle, birdie and tee, you just know the lead paragraph is something about golf. And you would be right. Golf began over 200 years ago in Scotland at Saint Andrews. Now here is the big question: What is the only thing that hasn’t changed in two centuries? If you said, “Women cannot play at Saint Andrews,” you win!!! Later this year members will vote whether ladies can tee off. I just dusted my old bugle and soon...
By Neil Rubenstein Observer Columnist It wasn't that long ago that many of us were called by Barbara Netzel and Harry Jones to attend the formation meeting of the Culver City Education Foundation. Barbara was the wife of Paul, who was on the Board of Education for eight years and on the city council for two four-year terms. Harry was the Chief Administrative Officer for our town. So we gathered in one of the rooms in the Veterans Auditorium complex and longtime city treasurer Lu Herrera put a...
