Los Angeles and the dying empire

Almost every night on local TV there's another story about the dire fiscal condition of Los Angeles city, accompanied almost always by various employees or union officials protesting loudly against anything like layoffs to cope with the budget crisis. Mayor Villairagosa has shown much more in the way of trying to instill a sense of reality than I thought he had in him. He called for laying off 1,000 workers last week and is saying this week that it might require 2,000 more layoffs. (I'm fascinated that there are as many as 3,000 people working for the city government in the first place and suspect that most of them make work for each other more than they "serve" the public.) But the desire for denial is strong. In many ways it resembles Washington DC, an Sacramento, where almost all the officials blithely proceed with spending plans as if the respective capitals were not alrady beyond broke.

It strikes me as symptomatic of a declining empire. As the structures of the institutions crumble about them, the officials find ways to pretend none of it is happening and they can maintain their extravagant ways forever.

LA dealing with dispensary hardship cases

Brett Stone brought this to my attention. LA has put an0other moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries, but some are appealing to stay open. Cahuenga Caregivers was one of the original authorized dispenaries but had to move after its landlord was issued an eviction threat from the DEA (I don't think the DEA ever followed up on any of those, it was just a harassment/intimidation technique by an agency that knew it didn't have the resources to begin to close all the dispensaries. Anyway, the city has told the outfit it has to close because it moved to its new location after the November 2007 moratorium and the appeal will be heard June 17. About 50 other clubs are in a similar situation.