Columnist Tim Rutten puts bluntly his opinion of the Los Angeles Unified School District:

Every day, the Los Angeles Unified School District fails its tens of thousands of ambitious students, dedicated teachers and hardworking principals in so many ways that it's difficult to imagine how its elephantine bureaucracy could shamble into some new outrage.

Difficult, but not impossible, because the LAUSD runs this city's schools about like the generals run Myanmar.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has a proposal for reviving King-Harbor Hospital. Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell discusses the demographic tricks behind political polling. And 27-year-old Erica Sackin says tax rebates won't help her in-the-red generation.

The editorial board encourages Bush to veto a bill that would stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and wonders why Congress is allowing the banning of all flavored cigarettes except the most popular kind, menthols. The board also says environmentalists have more work to do to prevent sprawl on Tejon Ranch.

On the letters page, readers question Nick Turse's Op-Ed linking the purchase of consumer products like Krispy Kreme and Pepsi to supporting Iraq war profits. Thomas J. Weiss of Ft. Hood, Texas, says, "Nick Turse's Op-Ed article has to be one of the most ridiculously alarmist articles I've ever read."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains what Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common:

Well, there's the obvious stuff. Both have Spanish names. Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government.

Oh, and both are essential tools in wars a lot of people claim they want to win.

Boston University's Andrew J. Bacevich argues that Iraq has illustrated the limits of U.S. power and new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) wants an independent review of the state's revenue. And freelance writer Mary Kolesnikova says KMN (that's "kill me now") in response to a Pew report finding that teens let Internet chat speak into their homework.

The editorial board notes a new study finding that many Iraq veterans suffer from untreated brain injuries, and supports a state bill that would create CalPERS-managed portable retirement plans for private employees. The board also laments the sad state of the Southern California bookstore and the latest one to fall into financial dire straits, Libreria Martinez:

...Libreria Martinez, Santa Ana's nationally honored Latino-themed bookstore, is now threatened. After all, how many booksellers win a MacArthur Foundation genius grant? (Though Rueben Martinez was forced to use some of that $500,000 to pay his store's bills.) For that matter, how odd is it that the landlord forcing the store to move is a charter school for the arts with a well-regarded creative writing program?

On the letters page, readers react to the notion that Barack Obama's biggest problem is his elitism, not his race. Long Beach's Charles Q. Clay III says, "Hogwash! Obama has exactly half as many Ivy League degrees as our current president, who, you might recall, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was not raised by a single mother on food stamps."

Newsweek correspondent and author Michael Hastings knows too well that war is more than statistics:

While I was in Iraq covering the war for Newsweek for two years starting in 2005, the woman I planned to marry was murdered in Baghdad by insurgents on Jan. 17, 2007. Her name was Andi Parhamovich; she'd come to Iraq to work for the National Democratic Institute, an NGO....

We -- Andi, me, Jeff, Greg, Scott, Ferris -- all chose to go to Iraq, volunteers for our respective causes. We were under no illusions about the risks, though that's a glib way of putting it. I don't think anyone can fully grasp the risks until whoosh, wham, through the looking glass you crash on the way to the rehab center at Walter Reed or a funeral parlor in Ohio.

Iraq often gets treated by pundits, writers and politicians -- all those thoughtful cheerleaders turned war critics -- as an intellectual exercise. It's not.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez reports that people will often ignore their self interest if they can get a fair deal. And New Republic assistant editor James Kirchick says South African President Thabo Mbeki shouldn't stand by as Robert Mugabe ruins Zimbabwe.

The editorial board says no on Prop. 98, yes on Prop. 99, and asks why phone customers should have to pay to keep their numbers unlisted.

On the letters page, Long Beach's Iris Ingram says to those who would ask Hillary Clinton to quit the race: "The primary season ends in June. So suck it up and stick it out."

Sorry, Bill Johnson supporters, but your man really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Devoted Johnsonians will recall that the good judicial candidate first appeared on our radar screen thanks to his help with an effort to unseat a group of Latino jurists and get Filipino-Americans get onto the bench. That effort was led by a minister in Carson, who explained his ambition:

"When you're running against a Caucasian, it's kind of hard," the Rev. Ronald C. Tan of Carson said. "As Filipinos, our names are almost the same as Hispanics, so that puts us on co-equal ground."

In Johnson's book they're already on co-equal ground. Amendment to the Constitution, the 1985 book written by Johnson under the alias "James O. Pace," presents the text of the proposed "Pace Amendment" mandating expulsion of non-whites from the United States, along with an extensive, Federalist Papers-style unpacking of the proposed law's text. Here's what the book has to say on Filipinos in its explanation of how folks of various ethnicities will be sent packing:

Filipinos. The Filipinos are generally new arrivals, and many are still Philippine citizens. Accordingly, they can be repatriated without much difficulty. The Philippine government can be encouraged to assist.

This is more mildly worded than Pace's suggestions for assorted Latinos ("The Puerto Ricans should be returned to Puerto Rico," "Central Americans should be returned to Central America," "It should be noted that repatriation has become necessary primarily because of the abuses that the Hispanics have made of our system"). But while Pace allows that "Hispanic whites who are basically indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is the British Isles or Northwestern Europe, need not be repatriated," he is silent on the matter of Filipinos who can pass. (Are there any of those? Is there a whiteometer we can check?)

But I'd rather light a candle than curse anybody's darkness. A few days ago our news side had an interesting story about the proliferation of headline-driven legislation bearing names like "R.J.'s Law," "Adam's Law" and so on.

Would the Pace Amendment have fared better if it had a nice round name attached?

"Ziegfried's Law," maybe?

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:

Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....

Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.

Don't fall for it.

The editorial board agrees that it's over for Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.

The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.

On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."

European policy experts John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell look to 'The Godfather' for diplomatic pointers:

[Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"] is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

Freelance writer Lionel Beehner has another proposal for smoother diplomacy: pronouncing foreign dignitaries' names properly. Columnist Tim Rutten tells an L.A. version of "A Tale of Two Cities," and contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan explores why poet and long-time Watts resident Eric Priestley is fighting City Hall to keep his home.

The editorial board praises a California Supreme Court decision voiding the death sentence of Adam Miranda, presses for a shield law, and says now isn't the time to scold Myanmar's leaders:

It has been clear for more than a decade -- and especially since last year's suppression of the would-be Saffron Revolution -- that Myanmar's odious junta cannot be shamed into reform. It is too isolated and xenophobic to worry about its image, too paranoid to learn from outsiders and too blood-drenched to believe it can survive any loosening of control over its hapless people. The contradictory combination of U.S. sanctions and an engagement strategy adopted by its neighbors has failed to produce any improvement. Attempts to use the catastrophe of Tropical Cyclone Nargis as leverage to pry open the country will almost surely fail as well.

So we've had all this back-and-forth about the effect of immigrants (legal and otherwise) on the economy, dwindling natural resources and societal well-being, as if it were a one-way street. But what about the economy's effect on immigrants? From NPR:

Fewer immigrants living in the United States are sending money back to their home countries. A survey by the Inter-American Development Bank shows remittances by Hispanic immigrants are flat. But the percentage of immigrants sending money home to Latin America is down dramatically in just two years. The report cites the U.S. economic slowdown and a tougher line on illegal immigrants.

Anti-immigration advocates need not gloat: This isn't doing the home front's economy any good. One undocumented construction worker told NPR he's only saving out of fear that he'll be rounded up: "We're not spending money. What we earn, we save, because we may need it."

So, no silver lining for the U.S. — though there is a catch-22: Restriction of immigration may be fueling the drop in remittances, but if that money doesn't keep supporting families abroad, more people may try to cross into the U.S. to find work. Let's hope Tom Tancredo needs some remodeling done.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg says issues that may seem irrelevant actually give us clues about the candidates:

Whatever the true import of Obama's relationship with Wright may be, or whatever the proper weight voters should give to his view that poor whites "cling" to guns and religion because they've suffered under bad economic policies, or, for that matter, what Clinton's "sniper fire" story says about her, it strikes me as absurd to argue that these data are meaningless but their stance on a gas-tax holiday is of enduring importance.

Pacific Council on International Policy adjunct fellow Joshua Kurlantzick profiles China's educated, wealthy next-generation nationalists who aren't afraid to be aggressive toward the West. And USC's Sara Catania has an idea for the Silver Lake Reservoir: a new kind of urban park.

The editorial board thinks a tax on services might work for California if done right and explains why Yahoo and Google's teaming up on advertising would be bad for consumers. The board also responds to the death of racehorse Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last weekend:

As we explore the limits of physical performance, sports trend toward the more extreme, even if it harms rather than enhances the athlete's health. Steroids in baseball, eating disorders in prepubescent gymnasts, whatever it takes to win, until there's a public pushback that threatens the sport. Without industry reform in the near future, it's easy to imagine such a pushback against the biggest athlete of all -- the racehorse.

On the letters page, readers discuss May Day. Chino's Raul Perez asks, "How is it that I have to have a passport to enter the country in which I was born, raised and served in the armed forces while others come and go as they please?"

Journalist and food critic Alice Feiring explores why California wines aren't what they used to be:

Forget "Eureka," the new state motto can well be: "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Today's California wines are overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated.

When I first stopped drinking the Left Coast, it was because I was offended by the overuse of wood, boring flavors and lack of structure. The wines, many of which had plenty of edge and personality, seemed neutered to me. I soon learned that the other part of the story was that an arsenal of technology was deployed to make them that way: yeast, enzymes, tannin, oak and acid, as well as over-extracting techniques, micro-oxygenation, dialysis and reverse osmosis.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez calls out Barack Obama for flip-flopping on Rev. Jeremiah A Wright Jr. And Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System trustee Kelly Candaele says CalPERS should stick to being an "activist" investor.

The editorial board warns Angelenos that a racial separatist running for judge could win if they don't get out the vote. The board also checks in on trouble in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia and thinks California should bring fairness to its school spending.

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."

Big Sunday founder David T. Levinson reflects on the idiosyncrasies of pop volunteerism, and Ronald Brownstein picks apart John McCain's true views on the U.S. military's future in Iraq. Merrick J. Bob, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, investigates better ways to track racial profiling by LAPD officers, and cartoonist Rob Rogers snarks at Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's problem relationships. Joel Stein finds out that a new citizen's vote is worth $6 and a cookie:

There's an emotional ceremony every month in which 3,500 newly naturalized citizens pledge their loyalty to the United States, and it really feels like they've joined a community of shared values, goals and purpose. Then, as soon as they pass through the gates of the L.A. County fairgrounds and enter the parking lot, they are charged from the right by Republicans and from the left by Democrats, begging them to register to vote. It is a bit like kissing the bride and being told your new father-in-law is a Capulet and your mother-in-law's a Montague and they've each registered you for a Glock.

The editorial board calls for the Supreme Court to let a murder victim's posthumous testimony stand, and wonders how to turn the beleaguered Santa Barbara Plaza project around. The board also whips out its pen to defend taco trucks against a new L.A. County ordinance:

Supervisors may have expected the new law to attract little controversy; after all, it was backed by Eastside restaurateurs and developers, a group with considerably more money and political power than the largely immigrant entrepreneurs who own taco trucks. But it has raised the ire of a far larger group: the thousands of Angelenos who have long gathered at taco trucks, in many cases since childhood, for quick carnitas burritos or mouthwatering cemitas, central Mexican sandwiches filled with avocado, cheese, fried meat and other gut-busting goodness. An Internet-driven movement started by a pair of Highland Park residents has already produced 2,200 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. Sign us up too.

Readers also react to the LAPD's dismissal of all complaints of racial profiling from last year. Leni Fleming writes:

"Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit" is, bar none, the most hilarious sentence I have ever read in The Times.

And I'm white!

It just goes to show what can happen if you don't pay attention to judicial elections. Los Angeles voters could unwittingly end up electing white separatist Bill Johnson to the court. Vote-by-mail ballots are available Monday, so it's important for anyone planning to vote anytime soon to first read an April 29 Metropolitan News-Enterprise profile on Johnson. The story by editor Roger Grace exposes the candidate as the author of a proposed constitutional amendment to reserve U.S. citizenship exclusively to white people "of the European race."

Last month The Times endorsed James Bianco for the Los Angeles Superior Court seat, saying that  Bianco was "impressive as a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner and would make an excellent judge." We didn't mention Johnson, his opponent, who ran for Congress in Arizona in 2006 on an anti-immigration platform; we simply focused on the fact that Bianco is the better choice.

I did note in a blog entry the previous month that Johnson helped circulate petitions for Carson minister Ronald C. Tan, whose petition campaign forced six Latino judges to be put on the ballot to face possible write-in opponents (none apparently have stepped forward).

Grace writes that Johnson wrote a 1989 book, under the name James O. Pace, called "Amendment to the Constitution," backing what became known as the Pace Amendment. Here it is, in part:

No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.

This would likely come as news to Reverend Tan, the Filipino-American minister who got Johnson to circulate petitions to help him oust Latino judges — so Tan could try to get Filipinos elected. Tan earlier claimed not to know that Johnson was active in the Ron Paul for president campaign; here's something else for him to be surprised about.

The MetNews story also notes that Johnson ran for Congress in Wyoming 1989 under the name Daniel Johnson in a special election to replace Dick Cheney, who had been named secretary of defense in the administration of the first President Bush. Times stories from the 1980s connect attorney Daniel Johnson with the League of Pace Amendment Advocates and identify him as the author of the Pace amendment.

So here's a candidate for judge who espoused (and may still support) disenfranchisement and deportation of non-whites, and who ran for Congress from two different states, once under a different name, while maintaining his law practice in Los Angeles.

(Full disclosure: I worked for Grace at the Metropolitan News-Enterprise for 11 years. But I wish I'd gotten this story before he did.)

Could voters elect Johnson? Yes, they could, if they don't learn anything about the candidates. The MetNews story — and, I hope, our link to it — will help voters make wise choices.

And in case there was any doubt, we still support Bianco, now more vociferously than before.

Either that or nobody can afford to take a day off in this economy. The May Day march is a total bust. People are finally starting to arrive (police estimate 8,500), but for most of the day It looked like Omega Man outside the L.A. Times building this afternoon.

Well, maybe it looked like Omega Man would have looked if Matthias and his followers had a Latin band and sold hot dogs wrapped in bacon. In fact, if you're around downtown, you may want to try and bargain down the price on some unsold bacon dogs. No matter how much you pay, you'll be participating in a crime, as this fairly stunning Drew Carey video about the war on bacon dogs makes clear.

The American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein pities the uncommitted superdelegate, while columnist Patt Morrison laments the possible loss of local Channel 36. And columnist Rosa Brooks takes a more generous stance than most on Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s latest shenanigans:

Something about our collective willingness to throw Wright under the nearest subway train strikes me as a bit too easy.

Sure, Wright's a self-centered jerk, but he's unfortunately not the only man in the United States who believes the conspiracy theories he's been spouting....

We can dismiss Wright as bitter and twisted -- but are we prepared to also write off somewhere between a quarter and half of all African Americans? If not, we'd better ask why do so many ordinary people give credence to such wrongheaded theories?

The editorial board offers its take on Wright, too:

Obama countered Wright's angry oratory with graceful rhetoric once, but it didn't keep his erstwhile pastor quiet. So rather than giving another thoughtful critique of Americans' attitudes about race, Obama was right to denounce, clearly and specifically, Wright's most objectionable statements. It may have been a capitulation to his fiercest critics, but it was the repudiation that circumstances -- and Wright's latest pronouncements -- demanded.

The board looks ahead to "a new May Day," without the violence that marred last year's protests, and explores the dangers of overusing antibiotics in livestock.

Readers discuss Wright on the letters page. Saugus' Art Saginian says: "Wright is a radical. So what? Americans are as well-known for their brutal savagery as they are for their compassionate philanthropy."

Previously I noted what the editorial board said of the past two May Days. Today I'm going further back, when May Day was an occasion not for marches, but for labor-bashing, springtime celebrating, and making up new holidays.

On April 30, 1906, the board attacks French anarchists for subverting what would otherwise be a fine celebration of labor:

Every right-thinking man is sincerely desirous of increasing the earnings of the working classes...diffusing comfort, happiness and the sunshine of life over the very widest area that is possible. So when the artisans of Paris march by in peaceful parade, there are only hearty huzzas to greet their passing.
But the trouble lies in the fact that the annual demonstration has been seized on by those members of society who have the least right to call themselves honest workingmen. May first is the chosen day for the anarchists to display their red flags, and for the Socialists to declaim their subversive doctrines.

The following year, the board was a lot crueler:

This is the day that "organized labor" — that is, labor organized not to labor but to put all possible obstacles in the way of peacefully doing the work of the world — has selected as its own. This is the day the totemites have parades as an adjunct of strikes and general disturbance in the labor world....
[A]ll got together on May Day, and vied each with the other in the attempt to show who could make most noise, and show most contempt for law, for order, for industry, for any man's rights.

And it didn't end early in the century. On May Day 1962, the board declared in its editorial headline: "May Day is Law Day U.S.A." That designation — and the creation of a separate American Labor Day — is sometimes considered a direct rebuke to the worldwide celebration Labor Day on May 1. Americans had previously declared it "Loyalty Day" and "Americanization Day," and many presidents past (and one current) have underscored the point.

Does Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo have too many non-lawyers on staff? The question is at the center of a verbal and email budget squabble between the city attorney and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office, which is backing the mayor's proposed 60-person reduction of Delgadillo's non-attorney staff of 497 (the office has 556 lawyers). That amounts to a budget reduction of close to 5%.

After releasing his proposed 2008-09 budget last week, Villaraigosa visited the Times Editorial Board and had this to say about Delgadillo's office:

By the way, just so you know, they're about a 1,000-member department; only 500 are lawyers. What we're proposing to cut is administrative staff. They have administrative staff ratios, you do the research on it to confirm it, but as I understand it, they have administrative staff ratios that are greater than Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, O'Melveny & Myers, and some of the biggest law firms, which are basically three lawyers for each administrative position.

Well — not quite. Not even close, actually. Law firms have become notoriously tight with what many call proprietary figures, but several of the largest firms confirmed that the numbers published in an annual survey by the Downtown News are just about right. If you take a look at the survey and do a little simple math, you'll see that the ratio generally is the other way around: most large firms have at least twice as many non-lawyer staff as attorneys.

Delgadillo's office jumped on the Downtown News figures and argued that in fact, he's quite thinly staffed in comparison with law firms in the private sector. On Monday, Delgadillo's budget chief, Jennifer Roth Krieger, sent an email to the mayor's budget chief, Sally Choi, asking for the "source data for the information your office has put out (which shows that our office has a higher percentage of support staff than law offices in the public or private sector)." Choi responded by email that the only information the mayor's office put out was the 1:1 ratio of attorneys to non-attorneys; both emails were attached to a letter to the City Council's budget committee from top Delgadillo deputy Richard H. Llewellyn Jr.

Time to pull over and figure out what "staff" means. Law firms have in fact moved to a ratio of about three lawyers for every secretary, in part because lawyers with computers on their desks now do much of the document drafting that they used to dictate, and that their secretaries used to type up back, say, in the 1980s. But the mayor wasn't talking about the city attorney's lawyer-secretary ratio, but rather lawyers to staff.

Private firms have bulked up on paralegals, tech support, billing, marketing, and even complementary professional services like accounting. They are all administrative or support staff, and most large L.A. firms have two or three such non-lawyers for every lawyer. Delgadillo may not need a lot of that work done in-house, but he does need people to back up misdemeanor prosecutions and other functions that private firms don't have to worry about.

The comparison of city attorney and private firm staffing figures actually tells us very little, except that Villaraigosa and Delgadillo are spoiling for a fight. The city attorney told the budget committee that his staff is needed to make the mayor's LAPD build-up work. "But, without prosecution and resulting jail time," Delgadillo said, "an arrest is meaningless."

To interpret: Moving money from the city attorney to the police doesn't accomplish much.

Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said the staffing ratio was a "tangential issue." "We actually have to make real cuts to save real dollars," Szabo said.

By the way, here's something else Villaraigosa told the Editorial Board about Delgadillo:

"One council member said that if he doesn't agree to a 5% cut, maybe we ought to make it 10."

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is a politician after LAPD Chief William Bratton's heart. The  governor vetoed a bill Monday that would have required police departments to, as the NY Times put it, "join the federal immigration posse." The governor's merciless pen has received mixed reviews, but it's no surprise. The two-term governor holds her state's record for most vetoes issued.

As noted here a few weeks ago, the bill had an interesting parallel to Los Angeles' current drama over Special Order 40, the LAPD directive that bars officers from stopping people "for the sole purpose of asking about immigration status." The order came under fire when high school football star Jamiel Shaw was gunned down, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, but Bratton has defended the policy to the hilt — and rightly so, according to The Times:

The order was adopted in the late 1970s by then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, hardly a soft-on-crime liberal, who knew that the LAPD would be more effective if undocumented witnesses and victims felt free to speak with officers without fearing deportation.... It was good policy then and remains so today.

The governor didn't actually pull the "crimefighting" card herself when she vetoed it:

Napolitano, a Democrat, had been urged to reject House Bill 2807 by Latino activists who feared the measure would lead to racial profiling and further alienate the Latino community. But Napolitano cited neither of those issues in vetoing the measure. Instead, she relied on fiscal concerns, noting a provision that would have required the state to pay for the training of local officers in immigration enforcement if federal funds were unavailable.

In fact, Napolitano has been very clear that this ain't no sanctuary state. In an Op-Ed for the Washington Post urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform last year, she wrote:

Don't label me soft on illegal immigration. As a U.S. attorney (predating the Gonzales Justice Department), I supervised the prosecution of more than 6,000 immigration felonies. I govern a state where, in 2005, there were 550,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants. I declared a state of emergency at our border that year, and I was the first governor in the nation to call for assistance from the National Guard.

Okay then. In any case, go Janet!

Time to turn the page on April, which means no more gazing at the standout photo in this year's Tom LaBonge calendar.

You know LaBonge, of course, the Los Angeles city councilman for portions of Hollywood, North Hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hancock Park and Toluca Lake. And Griffith Park, of course, where the councilman took this photo of the Observatory, with downtown's two tallest buildings poking through the low cloud layer. LaBonge is a veritable Mr. Los Angeles, so he would probably bristle at this notion, but you could almost mistake this photo for something in San Francisco.

Now get ready to flip your Tom LaBonge calendars to May, where you will be greeted with a very different photo of Griffith Park — one with flames from last year's fire climbing the ridge and consuming Dante's View.

The June 3 stealth primary actually starts Monday. That's when voters can pick up (and mark and send in) vote-by-mail ballots. They're often are still called "absentee" ballots, but unlike the old days, you can take care of business early without having to pretend that you won't be around on election day. True "absentee" ballots, for people who can't vote in the regular mail voting because of military or other commitments, began April 4. So hurry up.

Click here to apply for a mail-in ballot if you live in Los Angeles County. Of course, there are other ways to go; you could apply at the registrar-recorder's office in Norwalk, or you could send in one of those applications that you may get in the mail this weekend, courtesy of one of the campaigns with skin in the game.

Campaigns are counting on mailbox voters and will try to reach them with glossy slate cards and brochures starting -- well, it's every campaign's closely-guarded secret, but probably Saturday, with big spurts planned for every weekend in May. Very few people are expected to actually go to the polls next month, so the mailbox is where the action is -- and now is the time the action starts.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. This election was going to be the presidential primary, when a record number of Californians would go to the voting booth to very likely have the final say in whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. But last year the Legislature decided to strip out the presidential portion of this election and put it on the earlier February 5 ballot -- so our vote would have more impact. Ironic, huh?

The rest of the June ballot goes forward: Proposition 98 to curb eminent domain and phase out rent control, Proposition 99 just on eminent domain, party primaries for state Assembly and Senate, and in Los Angeles county, elections for Superior Court judge, district attorney and county supervisor.

Click here to see the Times endorsements for Superior Court, and here to see our endorsements for district attorney and two of the three supervisorial contests. Endorsements in the other races are coming soon, and of course you shouldn't even dream of voting early until you get the benefit of our guidance. But suit yourself.

And click here for the latest on the June 3 election, the November 4 election, and every election in between.

Tim Rutten marvels at the questionable artistic value of "Grand Theft Auto IV," and writer Gary Ferguson laments the senseless violence that hunters are unleashing on the gray wolf, just released from the endangered species list. New York University professor Stephen F. Cohen says hold the baloney: It's the U.S., not Russia, that's responsible for the heightened tensions of late:

During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised U.S. view of how the Cold War ended. In that new, triumphalist narrative, the U.S. won the 40-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan -- a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad.

The editorial board also worries about the gray wolf, and calls on Mexico's politicians not to fuel the debate over the future of the nation's oil industry with hot air. The board also gives Obama a thumbs-up for not falling victim to easy political gimmicks as gas prices rise:

High gas prices can prompt political hysteria in the best of times, but when they soar during an election year, the fumes rising from candidate stump speeches can make a person sick. Of the three candidates and the president they're out to replace, only one is telling the truth about oil -- and he may suffer for his political courage.

Readers rip into an editorial commending McCain for not indulging in political pandering. Fred Sokolow asks:

In your editorial, you characterize McCain as boldly preaching an unpopular message, but it's the same old, tired, free-market deregulation dogma.

There's nothing contrarian about it -- it's the Bush line, which has put America in the terrible spot we're in today.

Won't you begin to assess this guy for what he really is? He's no maverick; he's a throwback, and more of the same poison that's been killing America (and Americans, and Iraqis) for seven years.

... and soars on hot air from the blogosphere.

After more than a month of studied silence, the reverend has stepped into the public spotlight to defend his controversial remarks on race in America -- and make veiled criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama in the process. On Obama's repudiation of his incendiary statements, the minister had this to say: "He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician."

Obama reacted angrily to his former pastor's comments, calling them "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth." Jonah Goldberg gleefully celebrated Wright's coming-out as "every bit as radical as his detractors claimed."

They're not the only ones with choice words about Wright's recent performances:

The Times' own Top of the Ticket blog asks, "Was Jeremiah Wright's speech set up by a Clinton supporter?"

... we should have been paying a little less attention to Wright's speech and the histrionics of his ensuing news conference and taken a peek at ... who was sitting next to him at the head table for the National Press Club event.

It was the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds ... an ardent longtime booster of Obama's sole remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.

Jeffrey Weiss over at the Dallas Morning News' religion blog wonders why pundits can't take Obama out of the equation:

After the NAACP speech, the all-news networks talking heads were mostly falling all over themselves to do political analysis about whether or not the speech would help or hurt Barack Obama, rather than attempt even a moment of thought about the meaning of what Wright actually said.

The Caucus over at the NY Times does a roundup of its own, observing:

Voices around the blogosphere say they’re tired of the media kerfuffle surrounding Barack Obama and his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., but they certainly keep writing about it.

They also say they’re sick of the expression “thrown under the bus,” but they keep using it.

For some Wright-Obama commentary with both local and international flavor, Ha'aretz's Shmuel Rosner invokes the "Bradley Effect," but also snarks at the minister's comments about Israel:

At moments he came off as mocking and somewhat vain, but made an effort to soften the hardliner perception his speech had left behind. He was also asked about his views on Israel. "Apartheid?" he asked, adding that Jimmy Carter used this term, not him.

Israel, Wright said, "has a right to exist". His only desire was that the Israelis and Palestinians live in peace. He made no reference to the sermon in which he connected the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the September 11th attacks, but he did make sure to emphasize his "Jewish friends". As it turns out, Jeremiah Wright also has a couple of those.

Daniel Nichanian at the Huffington Post compares Wright's position to one of the 2000 presidential election's most beleaguered political players:

Wright has no obligation to put Obama's interest above his own; dragged through the mud for news, the pastor has an opening to make people listen to him and hear the full context of his theology. Those who today profess themselves appalled that Wright would throw Obama under the bus miss the point that Wright does not think of himself as having any allegiance to Obama or to his election, just as Ralph Nader had no any allegiance to the Democratic Party making it hard to understand why 2004 was "a betrayal."

Wonkette agrees, in an offbeat sort of way:

He's blowing open the racial politics that Obama wants to close and claiming that Obama is insincere when he rejects Wright's "extreme sermons"; he's trying to balance a deserved self-defense with the collateral damage that that brings on Obama. He has an ego. Most importantly, he's just some old preacher and not Obama's surrogate father. He can say whatever he wants and Barry will just have to deal with it. Individual people have a right to defend themselves, and politicians have a right to disown them. That's all, goodnight.

While Sen. McCain had the plug pulled on the North Carolina Republican Party's ad highlighting the Obama-Wright connection, it seems the state party leaders will be getting the airtime they wanted for free.

Tomorrow Thursday is May Day, which, depending on your leanings, is a pagan pole-dancing holiday, a day of labor solidarity against The Man, a day off for immigrants and their supporters, or some combination of all three, a grab-bag of un-American activity. (To the latter group, Happy Law Day!)

The last two May Days have been major events in Los Angeles. May 1, 2006 was the Great American Boycott, when legal and illegal immigrants were encouraged to stay away from businesses and schools. The editorial board raised some eyebrows by leaving blank the space where a third editorial would usually run on the page, printing only the words "Pass comprehensive immigration reform now." One million people were said to have participated, and almost all marches were peaceful and law-abiding.

Fast-forward to 2007: no immigration reform, and quite a bit of violence from the Los Angeles Police Department against protesters at MacArthur Park, some of whom threw sticks and water bottles at officers. The boards praised most marchers for a May Day well spent...

Author Stefan Merrill Block remembers his home-school days:

When I tell people that I was home schooled, I frequently encounter an amalgam of awe, pity and curiosity. I can see the false images materializing behind their eyes -- a childhood spent idling in front of the TV in my pajamas, or spent subject to the fanciful whims of a flighty New Age mom, or spent imprisoned by my parents' ignorance and severity.

These myths have alternately amused and annoyed me, but now it seems they threaten the very survival of home schooling in California.

Hampshire College's Michael T. Klare says China and the U.S. would be wise to cooperate rather than compete for oil as the market heats up. And Bryan A. Liang of the San Diego Center for Patient Safety notes that drugs have to stay safe particularly as they grow more complex.

The Times endorses for district attorney and the Board of Supervisors, and asks the presidential candidates 10 serious questions.

Readers discuss proposals for converting carpool lanes into congestion-priced toll lanes. L.A.'s Samuel Gould says, "Charging anyone using special lanes at rush hour regardless of occupancy will merely give advantages to those who can pay and exclude those who cannot, selling convenience to the affluent."

Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore explains why China sees Tibet quite differently than the West:

Chinese history records dominion over Tibet as far back as the 13th century. China's control has ebbed and flowed -- but this is equally true in many other parts of China. Central control by the capital has never been consistent, shifting with the strength of the central government. But this much is certain: China has been in control of most of its territories longer than some Western nations have existed.

More important, the Chinese recall that the latest efforts to separate Tibet from China came as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, when British and U.S. agents were seen to be encouraging Tibetan independence while the new People's Republic was still weak.... Virtually no Chinese believe that Western governments have a strictly moral interest in Tibet. They are convinced that their efforts are only the latest efforts to dismember or derail China.

Author Carolyn See navigates Santa Monica sans car, and columnist Joel Stein finds a place for thoughts that aren't even well-formed enough to be blogposts: the tumble and the twitter.

The editorial board encourages Congress to extend unemployment benefits, urges California to fight proposed federal fuel emissions rules, and says there are small signs of a thaw in Turkey-Armenia relations.

Readers discuss McCain's disability pension and whether it raises questions about his ability to serve as president. L.A.'s Anthony Filosa says, "I'd like to remind The Times that Franklin D. Roosevelt's significant disabilities did not affect his ability to successfully lead this country through some of our most tumultuous times and be remembered as one of our greatest presidents."

And Long Beach's Barbara Hubbs hopes that "McCain is donating that money to the disabled veterans who were not able to put their lives back together."

Columnist Rosa Brooks plays Hillary Clinton:

Thank you, Pennsylvania! What an incredible margin of victory you gave me! Ten percentage points over Barack Obama. Count 'em! Ten!

All right, 9.2 points if you insist on actually counting. But they said I had to win by double digits to keep my campaign alive, and I think 9.2 points counts as double digits. And I am alive! And kicking! And punching and biting and kneeing my opponent in the groin!

Contributing editor Arianna Huffington says only a media filled with self-loathing could hire the likes of former Bush rep Tony Snow. USC emeritus professor Robert E. Tranquada argues for an independent authority to oversea L.A. county health services. And columnist Patt Morrison reveals what she and other Angelenos would do with the city budget if they had their way. (Coffee poured by the mayor at the Getty House Bed and Breakfast, anyone?)

The editorial board praises three African countries that stopped a Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe, looks to a 1983 report on education for present-day advice, and looks beyond the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania:

The Democratic race only seems interminable; there will be a winner, and he or she will reconcile with the loser and call for party unity. If Republicans can withstand the abrupt alliance of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, why shouldn't Democrats be united by an enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton by Obama, or vice versa? After all, for all the attacks, the two Democrats aren't far apart on policy.

On the letters page, readers take on the race, as well. Valley Village's Larry Margo has this to say to Clinton-bashers: "Quick! Stop her! Force her out before she wins again!"

New Republic executive editor J. Peter Scoblic says if you like George W. Bush's foreign policy, you'll love John McCain's:

Weaned by a military family on the lessons of that most classically Manichaean of modern conflicts, World War II, and psychologically defined by his own maverick streak, McCain's worldview may be more instinctual than intellectual. But it doesn't matter. Like Cold War conservatives, McCain has taken a moral observation that the United States is a force for good battling the forces of evil and turned it into a strategic guide.

Thus, he rejects negotiation with our enemies in favor of "rogue state rollback," repeatedly deriding as "appeasement" the 1994 deal that froze North Korea's plutonium program and mocking calls for unconditional talks with Iran....

Columnist Tim Rutten argues that immigrant bashers weren't right to rough up the pope. And author John M. Barry thinks paying for New Orleans should be the federal government's responsibility.

The editorial board urges Congress to pass a bill that would make it easier to assert pay discrimination in the work place, and analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's new budget. Finally, the board tells the Writers Guild of America to stop chastising the few members who broke ranks.

On the letters page readers discuss Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas. San Francisco's Joanne Minsky says, "I proudly voted for him twice, but his failure of memory and judgment calls into question the value of his forays into international politics. It is time to retire, Mr. President."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg asks how neo the neocons are, economist Bruce Bartlett reveals the truth about GOP tax cuts, and attorney Zachary Bookman says that secrecy is back in style in the Mexican government. Finally, former Times staffer and rural Pennsylvania native Shawn Hubler profiles her home state's bitter bloc:

Had they heard much talk about Barack Obama describing rural Pennsylvanians as "bitter"? Not too much, but thinking about it made my mother laugh.

"Bitter?" she asked. "Well, yes, of course we're bitter. Who wouldn't be?" She giggled until she started to cough.

Here's what I've thought as I've watched my hometown -- and so many others like it -- materialize so improbably at the forefront of this election: As much as the truth may hurt, Obama was right. Maybe he overdid it a bit, but generally, people don't feel secure when you leave them behind.

The editorial board checks in on how Texas is deciding where to place kids removed from a polygamist compound earlier this month, and recaps the pope's trip to the U.S. The board also remembers Ruben Salazar, a one-time Times staffer and columnist killed during the East L.A. riots:

Journalism, by its nature, tends to focus on the immediate. Only a few of any generation leave a bold enough mark to be visible over generations. One such journalist was Ruben Salazar, whom we honor today as the United States Postal Service issues a stamp to commemorate his life and work.

On the letters page, readers react to Richard Dawkins' Op-Ed on intelligent design. Apple Valley's William S. LaSor says, "In the end, he, like everyone else, must confront one of two choices: Either the universe has always existed, or it was created by someone who has always existed. If the latter is improbable, as he claims, then why is not the former also?"

UCLA graduate student and Chow Digest senior editor C. Thi Nguyen bemoans L.A. County's requirement that taco trucks move after one hour, and New York attorney Scott Horton analyzes UC Berkeley professor John Yoo's role in the Bush administration's stance on torture. Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan hopes LAUSD will repair its relationship with charter schools, and Gregory Rodriguez scratches his head at Americans' insistence that politicians act like the average Joe:

Sure, high-ranking politicians of humble origins can lay at least some claim to being "common." But that's really a ruse. Because the best politicians wouldn't get as far as they do if they hadn't already successfully convinced large numbers of people that they were distinct from -- read: better than -- the rest of us.

And therein lies our dilemma. We hold to the belief that we are all equal, yet we yearn for distinctiveness for ourselves and those we choose to represent us. In a nation whose form of government exalts the illusion of uniformity among its citizens, we are collectively engaged in a struggle to be recognized as unique by our peers.

The editorial board publishes its endorsements for 17 seats on the Los Angeles Superior Court, and puts its money behind a House bill to force 401(k) managers to clarify the fees they charge "Jack and Jill Cubicle":

Unfortunately, as this newspaper detailed in a series of articles in 2006, many employees aren't being told how much of their nest egg is being frittered away on fees paid to the companies managing their 401(k)s. Buried in the fine print of incomprehensible forms or not disclosed at all, those fees can consume thousands of dollars over time. To address that problem, several lawmakers have introduced bills that would require mutual funds, insurers and other providers of retirement plans to make complete disclosures of their fees to employers and workers. 

Readers react to the Supreme Court's decision finding legal injections humane. Writes Joy Buckley, "State-sanctioned killing is barbaric, cruel and should be highly unusual. We should join the civilized countries of the world in eliminating it."

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.

If you have read my Op-Ed on the Vermont/Manchester project (and of course, if you have not, what are you waiting for?), you may be interested in seeing just what the two-block battlefield looks like. The project area today is smaller by about 30% than what it was back in the 1996, when the Community Redevelopment Agency was given its mandate to develop the area. At the time, the project area included the 8300, 8400 and 8500 east-side blocks of Vermont Ave. Most of this area remains unbuilt since 1992, though there are a few strip-mall-type buildings in the area, and a much larger develoment on the 8300 block, about which more in a moment.

This is the view facing southeast from the corner of 84th and Vermont. The vacant lot and the strip mall to the right are now owned by Eli Sasson, who gained virtual control of the 8400 and 8500 blocks in 2005 and 2006.

If we turn slightly to the left, we see the L.A. County Department of Public Social Services building that now takes up the entire 8300 block. It was completed last fall. The L.A. Times' Roger Vincent had that story on September 28, though it has since disappeared from our site. (It's called "In South L.A., hope rises along with concrete, steel" if you want to look it up at your local public library.)

The DPSS building generated enormous controversy when it was being built: Local residents had long been agitating for a large retail development featuring a supermarket, a sit-down restaurant and chain stores. The news that one block of the site would be devoted to a welfare office (leaving two blocks that wouldn't support a very grand development) hit with a resounding thud. Community Coalition executive director Marqueece Harris-Dawson described the building to me as having been "shoved down the throats" of the community.

Nevertheless, L.A. leaders promised that giving this piece of the project over to the county building would be a catalyst for retail development, on the logic that it would bring free-spending county employees into the area during work hours. Vincent's story, for example, quotes Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., calling the building "a magnet for potential customers" that should "provide a solid customer base." Councilman Bernard Parks has made similar suggestions, and the building has definitely increased foot traffic in the area.

Elie Sasson played a supporting role in the DPSS saga too, which didn't endear him to the retail advocates. He sold off four lots on the 8300 block to ICO Development, helping give ICO site control of that block while buying out a handful of other owners in the other two blocks and getting site control (less his brother Joseph's lot) on those.

Sasson says that he too heard a lot of catalyst talk and made his series of sales and purchases only on the promise of CRA assistance with his development. He did enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the agency in 2006, but that expired last year without success. At the time, the CRA's regional administrator Ricardo Nogera minimized the expiration of the ENA, telling me the agency was close to moving toward a Disposition and Development Agreement with Sasson. Nogera left the agency shortly afterward, and his replacement Carolyn Hull would not characterize her predecessor's talks other than to say that they failed to produce a development.

The area already boasts a public building, the Constituent Service Center on the other side of Vermont. This picture shows the service center from across Sasson's lot. I was standing along some parking lots the CRA owns when I took this