If you haven't registered, hurry up. Only 134 days until the election.

No, I mean it. You have until midnight to register for the historic Nov. 4 presidential election, with its 12 California propositions and its bevy of taxes and bonds. But vote-by-mail ballots for that one have been out for two weeks, and I’ve moved on. If you live in the city of Los Angeles, the days just before and after election day are the ones that count. Nov. 3 begins the five-day period for candidates for city or school office to file a declaration of intention to run in the March 3, 2009 primary election. And Nov. 5 is the deadline for the City Council to put measures before the voters.

Expect five measures on that ballot, along with the election of mayor, city attorney, controller, eight City Council seats, half the school board and half the community college board. And hope those races aren’t close, or else you’re getting a runoff in May. And, a month after that, you’re most likely getting one of the most important California special elections in recent history, with measures to change the way we do budgeting, and maybe taxing, plus perhaps a measure to bail ourselves out of financial disaster. But if the special election doesn't happen in June, it will happen in November. And then, after a couple months off, it will be time for the state primary – governor, attorney general, and all of that.

You can get a leg up on the March election by checking out Wednesday’s Rules Committee meeting at City Hall, where the panel is expected to sign off on four ballot measures. They are:

Extended nighttime hours and family-friendly activities at parks in eight of Los Angeles' most violent neighborhoods led to a 17% drop in crime in those areas this summer and a whopping 86% drop in homicides, according to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office. The program, called Summer Night Lights ran from July 4 to Labor Day, and offered movie nights and other events during peak gang hours, four nights a week. Given that police estimate that each murder, in addition to the anguish it causes families and neighborhoods, costs taxpayers $1 million, it certainly seems like antigang news to celebrate. So kudos to Chief Bill Bratton, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and especially to the mayor's gang czar, Jeff Carr, for working together to make this program a success.

This reminds me of a similar effort made by some women in Boyle Heights a few years ago. When they decided to take back a park that had become a gang hangout, they didn't call the mayor or the police (or get private funding). The neighborhood women simply set up some card tables and sat down to play Loteria and other card games late into the night. Night after night, the women would play cards and eat sandwiches, chatting and laughing, and the gang members would look on, baffled and kind of cranky at this invasion of their turf. But finally, the bangers gave in and found another hangout. When I asked some of the gang members why they ultimately moved, one looked at me like I was crazy and said: "Yo, we had to leave. You can't disrespect your mother."

But back to Summer Night Lights, here's my question. This concept, nighttime recreation as anti-gang strategy, has been around forever. Remember midnight basketball leagues? So if this is such an effective way to prevent gang violence, save lives and even recruit some of the kids into jobs for the city (some of the at-risk kids helped out at the parks), why isn't this an annual program?  City council members could get behind this and raise funds for programs in their own districts without breaking a sweat. And county supervisors certainly wouldn't miss the modest amounts these programs cost.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and William J. Perry say John McCain is wrong to suggest throwing Russia out of G-8. Author Jennifer Block pushes home births to the medical establishment. Columnist Tim Rutten offers a requiem for L.A.'s one-time status as a boxing town, and former "Tonight Show" writer Brad Dickson imagines L.A. as run by The Grove creator Rick Caruso:

Transit: Several MTA buses are replaced with streetcars on faux cobblestone roads going nowhere. After a near-catastrophic collision, Caruso deflects criticism by asserting that the fake roads are, statistically, still safer than the Orange Line.

Economy: Caruso balances the city budget. He accomplishes this in part by eliminating all street parking and building city-owned parking structures that charge $8 for the first hour and $6 for each subsequent 15 minutes, with a maximum rate of $179 a day for a lost ticket.

The editorial board says good riddance to the anti-gang program L.A. Bridges, reminds educators to focus on learning, not testing, if they decide to OK a statewide algebra test, and urges SAG to start negotiating so that the industry can start working again.

On the letters page, readers discuss Colombia's hostage rescue operation, which had government operatives posing as NGO officials. Long Beach's James L. Kilgore doesn't think it was so great a move:

In creating a fake nongovernmental organization, it has given license to insurgents and rogue governments all over the world to treat humanitarian aid workers as enemy combatants. In simpler terms, which the editorial board might understand, it is as though it distributed maps of Doctors Without Borders clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo marked "bomb them."

*Cartoon by Ted Rall, Universal Press Syndicate

...featuring a command performance by one of Opinion L.A.'s own:

Huge raid targets gang: More than 500 agents storm an insular L.A. neighborhood in a federal racketeering case. By Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fisk

Justices slash Exxon Valdez verdict: Fishermen and others hurt by the oil spill are to share $507 million, a fraction of the initial punitive award. By David G. Savage

State acts to fight global warming: In a pioneering blueprint, the air board proposes to slash greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels. By Margot Roosevelt

Pastor rallies clergy against gay marriage By Jessica Garrison

COLUMN ONE: Do you take this stranger? A visit to India offers a new look at arranged marriage By Swati Pandey

Mandela condemns Mugabe By a Times staff writer

Inside Today's Times:

Hollywood items entering new stage: A touted memorabilia collection is moving to be auctioned.

A sub-prime day? Countrywide shareholders ratify its sale, and the state sues it.

Golfers, this section is for you: Get tips on your game and information on every public-access course in the Southland.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains how isolationist Pat Buchanan was rehabilitated into a liberal darling for opposing the Iraq war:

Buchanan claims to be a man of abstract foreign policy rules -- in his case, the notion that we must act from objective national interest. As a result, he has earned a strange new respect among antiwar liberals and self-described realists for his opposition to the war in Iraq in recent years. He is a man of principle, we've been told.

In reality, Buchanan is a wonderful example of how those who claim to follow a strict set of abstract foreign policy rules are often just disguising their own biases.

National Interest senior editor Jacob Heilbrunn says Big Oil isn't the problem, and efforts to go after producers won't help us. LAPD chief of detectives Charlie Beck argues Sheriff Lee Baca was wrong to say race is the motivating factor for gang violence.

The editorial board urges action against Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, discusses the state Legislature's struggle to approve mortgage reforms, and remembers George Carlin:

Carlin, having begun his career as a clean-cut observational comic...enjoyed a long, lustrous career as the kind of beloved anti-establishmentarian you'd trust to play Thomas the Tank Engine's Mr. Conductor. His funniest routine -- a side-by-side comparison of baseball and football -- wasn't even dirty. The comedian didn't push the limits of free speech so much as explore the borders of our word choices and the ludicrousness of those who would regulate those choices.

On the letters page, readers discuss urban planner Vaughan Davies' suggestion for a Central Park for L.A. Len Frank of Los Angeles says, "Vaughan Davies appears to be adept at using other people's money." But Sherman Oaks' Mark Donnelly calls the idea "brilliant and innovative." 

*Cartoon by Scott Stantis, Birmingham News

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says race is central to understanding the county's violence:

We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.

Some people deny it. They say that race is not a factor in L.A.'s gang crisis; the problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members (and yes, they acknowledge, sometimes the gangs are race-based).

But they're wrong.

Author David A. Nichols asks if Barack Obama should neutralize Hillary Clinton by offering her a spot on the Supreme Court. Columnist Rosa Brooks knows which candidate could best handle high gas price (hint: not the one who sang "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran"). And columnist Patt Morrison heads to Bakersfield to find out what people are saying about the gay and straight marriage stoppage in Kern County.

The editorial board looks at two state measures that would weaken the security of prescription records, and urges readers not to drive with dogs in their laps. And editorial writer Karin Klein hears former Bishop Geoffrey Robinson speak about sex abuse in the church.

On the letters page, readers react to LAUSD's teacher walkout and the budget crisis. Sherman Oaks' Joe Tishkoff says, "Our children did not create this budget crisis, so why should they have to pay for it?"

*Cartoon by Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader

Jonah Goldberg lays the Senate's management problems on the dining room table, while NewSchools Venture Fund's Jonathan Schorr and Ted Mitchell warn that rising costs and a focus on the middle class are shutting low-income students out of higher education. New America Foundation fellow Rick Wartzman explores California's split political personality through the prism of gay marriage, and cartoonist Joel Pett takes on women's issues beyond Hillary Clinton. Contributing editor Rob Long sets up a mock interview for the Democratic vice presidency between Clinton and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg:

[Kennedy]: "How are you with Excel and PowerPoint?"

[Clinton]: "Am I being punked? 'Cause that's what this sounds like."

K: "Oh God. I'm sorry. I know I'm screwing this up. It's just that, you know, I've never done anything like this before. So I got a copy of 'HR for Dummies,' and it says to tape everything and try to make the applicant feel comfortable and pay attention to their shoes."

C: "Their shoes?"

K: "I didn't get it either. But apparently people who take care of their shoes are trustworthy and detail-oriented. So could you just ... lift up your leg?"

The editorial board, aghast at the spike in murders over the weekend, still praises the LAPD's gang crime reduction efforts, and gives two thumbs-up to Orange County for conducting a transparent search for the successor of ex-Sheriff Michael S. Carona. The board also does the wave for Major League Baseball, whose teams each symbolically drafted a surviving member of the Negro Leagues:

Thursday's draft was a joyful event, devoid of breast-beating on the part of baseball and bitterness on the part of the players. It served to remind that progress and healing sometimes come from momentous events -- a victorious campaign or landmark lawsuit -- but also from quieter gestures. The honorees said the event was one of the greatest moments of their lives, a day they thought would never come. As he waited to be drafted, one erstwhile infielder said it felt like being born again.

Readers react to an editorial reflecting on Proposition 13's 30th birthday. Robert Somerville writes:

What a bunch of drivel. You really want to give Proposition 13 a haircut? The barber needs the real clipping. How about doing away with government-defined benefit pensions for all new hires? How about reducing fringe benefits? How about kicking elected officials out of office if they cannot balance a budget?

Mayoral candidate Walter Moore said Thursday he has begun a drive to put "Jamiel's Law" on the March 2009 Los Angeles city ballot — the same one in which he is trying to unseat Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

If adopted, the law would permit Los Angeles police officers to arrest gang members for breaking U.S. immigration law. It would supersede Special Order 40, a 29-year-old LAPD policy that bars officers from arresting or questioning people solely on suspicion of being in the country illegally. Moore told a crowd of about 200 people — gathered at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre to hear about his proposal — that he decided on an initiative after hearing no response from City Council members to his request for an ordinance.

Jamiel's Law is named for Jamiel Shaw II, 17, who was shot to death by suspected gang members on March 2 close to his Arlington Heights home. Police arrested Pedro Espinoza, 19, who reportedly entered the U.S. illegally at age 4. Police say Espinoza is a member of the 18th Street Gang. He was released from jail, where he was being held on a weapons charge, a day before the killing.

Espinoza had been arrested by Culver City police and jailed and released by the Sheriff's Department, so the LAPD and Special Order 40 did not come into play. But Moore has dismissed that point, saying, in effect, that if his law had been in place, LAPD officers at some point prior to his weapons arrest would have seen Espinoza, identified him as a gang member, and arrested him on immigration charges.

The killing of Jamiel Shaw II, and Moore's advocacy for the change in the law, has united some black and white illegal immigration opponents, threatened to widen a gulf between African Americans and Latino immigrants, and forced city officials to refocus on Special Order 40. At least some LAPD officers appear to believe, incorrectly, that the policy prevents them from cooperating or even communicating with immigration authorities. A senior lead officer who misquoted Special Order 40 in a March newsletter, adding in anti-cooperation language, acknowledged that he got the wording not from the LAPD manual but from the American Patrol anti-illegal-immigration web site.

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said he would clarify the policy for his officers. He also told the Times editorial board that he would make no changes to the order.

Moore repeated his assertion that the Times caters to Latino illegal immigrants because its parent company, Tribune, also owns the Spanish-language paper Hoy.

"The mayor, the City Council, and L.A. Times/Hoy won't take action," Moore said. "It's up to you."

Also speaking at the event were KRLA radio personality Kevin James and the young victim's father, Jamiel Shaw Sr.

James called for audience members to support Moore's campaign financially. "It's really expensive to run for mayor of Los Angeles against a former gang member who is the incumbent," James said.

Villaraigosa was not a gang member, but the claim that he was has become popular among illegal immigration opponents.

Shaw criticized the deputy district attorney prosecuting Espinoza, saying he worried she would try to portray his son as a gang member because he was carrying a red Spiderman backpack. "I want everybody to know," he said, "the fix is in."

People are talking about Special Order 40. Take a dip in the hard water of post-modernity, find out what 40 prominent Angelenos are saying on immigration and law enforcement, and please leave a comment. It's 40 on 40, but we're not going to rest until we get all 4 million or so opinions in L.A. You can comment below as well.

Author David K. Shipler explores how candidates' words can strike a nerve:

Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps.... But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

Columnist Tim Rutten analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's State of the City address. Internist Albert Fuchs says the only way for a doctor to do a good job and make a living is to reject insurers. And contributing editor Gustavo Arellano notes that Fullerton's efforts to paint over murals is par for the Orange County course.

The editorial board maintains its anti-execution stance as the Supreme Court considers whether to allow the death penalty for rapists, and comments on the start of SAG negotiations. Editorial writer Lisa Richardson writes in from San Francisco, where Chevron Corp. faced off against a couple Ecuadorean environmentalists.

Readers discuss Irvine's Great Park. L.A.'s Danila Oder says, "The American 20th century experience was an anomaly and should be treated by governments and builders as such. The environmental factors that are assumed to underpin bonds for the Great Park project are no longer operative."