J.T. the L.A. Storyteller

You can also watch this conversation on YouTube.

Aida Ashouri is an Iranian-American immigrant running for L.A. City Attorney this year.

In this IG Live she speaks with me about her last few days on the campaign trail gathering signatures, and just what it’s gonna take to reach as many voters as possible before election day on June 2nd.

Keep up with Aida here.

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J.T.

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Because of course you don’t think it’s “Mission Accomplished” in Caracas already, do you?

On Saturday, January 3rd the U.S.’s unprovoked attack on Venezuela cost at least 40 people their lives and led to the unwarranted, illegal kidnapping of the acting president, Nicolas Maduro. If this becomes the new norm of a new Monroe Doctrine, then no leader is safe, be they in Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East.

Check out this map on US “Interventions” in Latin America since 1950 for yourself here.

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And to support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

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From Dana Williamson, who was outgoing Governor Newsom’s former Chief of Staff, to California’s own Attorney General Rob Bonta, to Oakland’s Ex-Mayor Sheng Thao, to Orange County’s Andrew Do, the last couple of weeks since the passage of Prop 50 have seen a number of corruption cases brought forward against state officials in California.

Plus, back in the Southland, a new report shows that from Pacific Palisades to Altadena, myriad officials in L.A. County absolutely failed their duty to the residents of L.A. County as wildfire tore through these communities. This was also the case even after the 2018 Woolsey fire was supposed to serve as an inflection point for L.A. County to better prepare for “natural disasters.”

You can read the McChrystal Group’s full report for yourself here.

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

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Prop 50 HAS PASSED. Now, could Gavin Newsom tell us about just why California has the second highest rate of unemployment in the nation, behind only Washington D.C?

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

PROP 50: “Requires temporary use of new congressional district maps through 2030. Directs independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to resume enacting congressional district maps in 2031. Establishes policy supporting nonpartisan redistricting commissions nationwide. Fiscal Impact: One-time costs to counties of up to a few million dollars statewide to update election materials to reflect new congressional district maps.”

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

At this critical juncture for creators and our online community, it’s time to make some changes to how we do it.

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Deeyah Khan’s “White Right: Meeting the Enemy” is a must-watch this weekend.

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

It’s been a little while since I sat down for some hot takes, but this week is exceptional! Yesterday in Los Angeles charges were announced by federal prosecutors against Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29 year old Uber driver who the state alleges is responsible for the blaze which became the monstrous Pacific Palisades fire over the first week of this past January.

I consider just what this means for victims of this unbelievable news, including since this recent L.A. Times analysis shows that after California wildfires destroyed nearly 23,000 homes between 2017 – 2020, to this day only 38% of them have been successfully rebuilt.

This podcast episode also shouts out the late, great Mike Davis’s Ecology of Fear, which discusses the perilous challenges for Los Angeles in the face of Climate Change. Please find it at your local library or bookstore, it’s never been a better time to get in the know.

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss my written work via Making a Neighborhood.

To support a Local Vendor Buyout campaign for East Hollywood, Virgil Village and Silver Lake, please do so via Quien Es Tu Vecindario.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode via YouTube.

In this installment of J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast, guest David Cowen and I discuss his being diagnosed with bipolar disorder as early as when he was 21 years old, Kabbalah and Zionism, Israel’s genocide through forced starvation in Gaza, as well as rising homelessness in Los Angeles and California.

We also shout out a special fundraising campaign for Khaled, only five months old as his family flees south from Gaza to the border with Sudan due to Israel’s latest campaign against the Palestinian people, known as “Operation Gideon’s Chariots II.” To learn more about Ibrahim and Nagham’s campaign for Khaled, please do so here.

From David: “Dave Cowen turns the religious into humor, finds the ​s​piritual in the digital, and makes serious comics fun. His popular series of comedy Haggadahs for the Jewish holiday of Passover have been featured in The New York Times and include parodies of Trump, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mel Brooks, Kanye West, and The Office. His debut graphic novel, 11 years in the making, AN IMPERFECT UNION, is available on his Substack SerioComics, which also includes Q&As with the best makers of ​g​raphic literature today such as Pulitzer Prize winner Tessa Hulls, Eisner winner Shannon Wheeler, ​Melissa Chan and Badiucao, Sina Grace, Yasmeen Abedifard​, etc.​ Follow his stories and more on Instagram at (@_davecowen_).”

Thank you also to Nicolas Jara (@nicthejara) for video, Jacob on Sound (@fuller.sound), and Esteban (@marsbuiltstudio) for sharing his space for this discussion.

J.T.

LET THE CITY KNOW:

You can also watch this episode via YouTube.

On Sunday, August 3rd in East Hollywood, Mark Casas and his partner Angel Maria Zavala spearheaded a special pop-up with Ondo Coffee in support of Who Is Your Neighborhood, also known as Quien Es Tu Vecindario. The pop-up featured home-style chilaquiles as well as horchata, with proceeds from the event going directly to street vendors in our community.

In this installment of J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast we speak with Mark and Angel Maria as to just how we did it, including the way that growing up in Los Angeles and observing our family traditions inspired us into action.

For more on this story, sign up for Making a Neighborhood, the newsletter, here: https://makinganeighborhood.substack.com

To support our ongoing Vendor Buyout campaign, please do so here: https://onevecindario.org/buyout.

J.T.