Last night, I had a pleasant dinner, spontaneously arranged, with one of my closest friends in LA.  He and I had met about six years via an online dating service.  We didn’t feel much romantic chemistry, but did enjoy each other’s company and became friends.

as we occasionally do, we shared our stories about online dating, he kvetching about a man who didn’t call when he promised, but who subsequently kept pestering him with texts, I sharing stories about a number of decent dates I had with guys whose profiles presented a pretty accurate portrait of their personality, profession and passions.

And then we fell to talking about guys who misrepresented themselves on line, with both of us recalling dates with men who just didn’t look like their pictures.  I related a tale about a guy I met depicted as thin in his online pictures, but who in person, suffered from a severe shall we say, a severe absence of thin.  (After our coffee date, I went back home and checked his profile and ascertained that that was clearly the guy depicted online, but the pictures were at least ten years old.)

And we wondered last night, my friend and I, we wondered what these men thought when they posted these pictures, that their scintillating personalities would make up for the difference in appearance?  Didn’t it occur to them that men who responded to the ad would be attracted to that picture and expect to meet someone who looked like the guy in the picture? Or did they believe that the picture merely served to draw the potential date to the profile and that the qualities delineated therein constituted the real nature of said date’s interest?

Or did they believe their own propaganda, that they actually looked today like they did ten years ago, despite the fact that ten years ago, they exercised regularly whereas today they’re making plans to exercise next week? (more…)

Our next Meatless Monday steak dinner will take place on Monday, February 25 in the Los Angeles area and will include both Bruce and myself, together for the first time since 2010.

Drop me a note for details and to RSVP.

In his post yesterday about the Los Angeles shooter, Jeff pointed out the noteworthy lamestream media silence on certain key elements of the shooter’s manifesto.  Indeed, as Noah Rothman notes today at Mediaite: When crazed shooters can’t be linked to the Tea Party, the media displays admirable restraint.  The story of the shooter in Los Angeles, in fact, is–like several other recent shooters–only of interest to the press corps to the extent that it helps feed the narrative about “gun violence” and the need for more gun-control.  Elements of the story that don’t fit with the narrative are omitted, and especially those elements that contradict the narrative or help to fuel competing narratives.  Because the Los Angeles shooter’s manifesto complains about perceived “racism,” this could theoretically turn into a story about how the racial grievance industry has created a monster, but of course it never will because that is not an agenda the media has any interest in promoting.

Most of the times these days it seems that the press corps is pushing several different agenda items at one time, and news stories are only of interest or worth covering to the extent that they help advance one of those agenda items.  Rather than report the facts and let things fall where they may, the press tries to shoehorn as many stories as possible into the service of one agenda item or another.   The other day, for instance, I woke up to this story on NPR explaining that:  “The gun violence that scars some Chicago neighborhoods has been a plague for one woman. Shirley Chambers first lost a child to gunfire in the mid 1990s. In 2000, a daughter and a son were shot to death just months apart. On Monday, Chambers buried her last child.”  The story could have focused on the horrible failure of gun-control in Chicago, it could have talked about the problems with gangs in the city or crime related to drugs, it could have talked about the plight of inner-city blacks caught up in a dysfunctional culture, but it didn’t do anything like that.  No, the story had to be forced to fit the current narrative about the evils of “gun violence.”

But it’s not just “gun violence.”  As I write, a huge winter storm is bearing down on the Northeast.  When I spent a few years in New England in the 1980s, this sort of thing was to be expected and was known simply as “winter.”  These days, every storm of any magnitude is a big story, people are encouraged to panic and to scurry about, and inevitably, the articles begin to appear linking the storm to “climate change.”

Other common themes of note these days include the repeated focus on “bullying” as a way of pushing “anti-bullying programs” and “anti-bullying” legislation.  Hence, this horrible story is of interest to the media because it is seen as a way of advancing the “anti-bullying” agenda.  In years past, it may have been reported simply as a brutal fight in a school yard, but not any more.   I’m curious to know more about the attacker, but the story doesn’t tell us, nor does the journalist who wrote the story have any interest in reporting what the actual issues in this case are, because doing so would only undermine the “anti-bullying” agenda.  Even NFL cheerleaders are of interest largely to the extent that they can help advance the cause.

And of course, gay issues are another big agenda item for the press corps, but only insofar as gays and lesbians can be portrayed as either victims (of hate or discrimination or abuse) or as inspiring and selfless humanitarians.  Hence, this story about a supposedly “gay” dog in Tennessee was picked up by the national press because it helped advance the narrative that people in “red states” are stupid bigots who hate gays;  in truth, it is really a story about how there are people in all states who shouldn’t own dogs either because they are irresponsible and self-centered or because they have no knowledge or understanding of normal canine behavior.  Had the dog been euthanized after having been abandoned by a gangster or a meth addict in the inner city, you can be certain it wouldn’t have made the news.

Just cause this on Instapundit:

REASON TV: LA’s New Crack Epidemic: Sidewalks. Have you noticed that the more time and energy cities put into things like banning big sodas or plastic grocery bags, the worse jobs they do at things that used to be considered basic functions of government?

They should have interviewed me.  In late November when it dark, walking from my gym to my car, parked on an adjacent side street — in the City of Los Angeles, I didn’t see a spot where a tree roots had pushed one square of the sidewalk up so that it was no longer level with the square next to it.

I tripped on the higher square and fell.  For a few days afterward, whenever I turned in a certain way, I felt a severe pain on the side where I had fallen.  The pain eased up after a week.

A friendly guy from the gym who had seen me fall — and rushed over to assist me — said he had seen such uneven sidewalks all over the city.

Should I have sued the city had I broken a rib?

Monday night when returning from our Meatless Mondays Steak Dinner, I asked a reader who had traveled with me to there event if he noticed that there were more chain stores opening up across LA.  On the way back from Burbank (to West Hollywood), within fewer than five minutes, we passed a new Walgreen’s and two Rite-Aids, one of them new.

There do seem to be more such drug stores opening up across LA, not to mention fast food restaurants, with a Chipotle replacing a flower shop on Melrose and La Brea and what appears to be an Old Navy moving into space on Beverly vacated by an independent furniture store.

Given that big companies have large staffs to help them maneuver through regulatory hoops — and making the cost of compliance (through economies of scale) cheaper per storefront than for an independent operation, it seems that big government makes it easier for the big guys and more challenging for individual entrepreneurs.

Ironic that more often than not, those who lament the increasing presence of chain stores tend to vote for the politicians whose policies serve to give a competitive advantage to those chain stores.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  David Boaz suspects

. . . there might be two things going on. Chain stores probably have efficiencies of scale, bigger marketing budgets spread over more stores, more research on what consumers like, etc. But yes, it is also often argued that compliance is easier for larger companies. They have lawyers, HR departments, and so on. Charles Murray — maybe in his book “In Pursuit” — has argued that increasing complexity requiring verbal and paperwork skills benefits educated people — the sort of people who write regulations and get hired by big companies. Small business folks may be less likely to be college-educated and proficient at navigating bureaucracies.

David’s book Libertarianism: A Primer is quite a good read — and highly recommended.

Just a reminder about our next Meatless Monday steak dinner this coming Monday, January 28.

Drop me a note to RSVP and for details.

I began my holiday shopping yesterday in Westwood Village, the shopping/dining district immediately adjacent to UCLA; was struck by the amount of vacant retail space.  On Westwood Blvd itself, I counted five empty storefronts on each side of the street just on one block (between Kinross and Weyburn).  And that’s not counting the signs on the second floor.

And I could see signs advertising “Space available” on other buildings beyond this block.

When I mentioned this in one store where I bought some gifts, a clerk commented that someone had just said the same thing about Beverly Hills.  He noted that Westwood Blvd had been particularly hard hit, with a Mexican restaurant that had served the area for twenty-five years, recently vacating its Westwood premises.

I believe this the space that restaurant once occupied:

Note these two storefronts, immediately adjacent to one another: (more…)

It’s not too late to RSVP for our Meatless Mondays Steak Dinner today, Monday, December 10 here in LA.

Have not been in much of a blogging mood today, perhaps because have been focusing on other writing projects, so will use this space to remind y’all about our Meatless Mondays Steak Dinner next Monday, December 10 here in LA.

Drop me a note for details.

In honor of the Los Angeles City Council’s recent approval of a resolution “endorsing the ‘meatless Monday’ campaign and asking residents to make a personal pledge to ditch meat for one day a week”, our next steak dinner will take place on Monday, December 10.

Drop me a note to RSVP — and include the word “Steak” in the subject.

We had such a good time at our steak dinner Monday night that we all talked about making this a regular event, celebrating the LA City Council’s declaration of meatless Mondays by eating steak.

We’re going to try to do another one on Monday, December 3 or possibly the 10th. Drop me a note if you’d like to join us and let me know which day works best for you.  Also please let me know where you live.  We’d like to find a more central location; one participant had come up from Anaheim and hoped not to have to trek so far for the next gathering.

Just a reminder to RSVP to me before 7:00 PM for our GayPatriot Steak Dinner tonight (November 19) in Hollywood (within the City of Los Angeles) in honor of the Los Angeles City Council’s recent approval of a resolution “endorsing the ‘meatless Monday’ campaign and asking residents to make a personal pledge to ditch meat for one day a week.”

Drop me a note for details.

On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a resolution “endorsing the ‘meatless Monday’ campaign and asking residents to make a personal pledge to ditch meat for one day a week.”

In honor of that resolution, I believe we should gather for a steak dinner at a Los Angeles restaurant next Monday.  Please let me know if you’re interested so I can begin planning.

It took me about 20 minutes to vote at my polling place.  The lines weren’t particularly long.  Four precincts voted in the same location and mine was the only one with a line.  When I arrived, one precinct had only one voter:

We had to check in three times, but they never once asked for ID, first at the front door where they directed us to the appropriately colored table, then once at that table, first by our last name, then by street address. It struck me that the man who lived in my apartment before I moved in was still on the books. He moved out in June 1999.

This is the shot of the whole gym where I voted:

This gal has guts, daring to wear a Romney-Ryan T-shirt to a Hollywood Trader Joe’s:

Posted with her permission.

BUILDING ON A READER’S COMMENT: Eric said he’d ”LOVE to have heard the comments she got wearing that shirt!”  When I saw the T-shirt and introduced myself, she was already engaged in a conversation with a woman in late middle-age delighted to discover someone so open about her support for Mitt Romney.

We had a nice chat and even took on a left-of-center patron shocked to see such a T-shirt. . . .

Parking a car with these stickers in West Hollywood:

. . . perhaps taking its cue from the largest paper in the Hawkeye State has just endorsed Mitt Romney for President, citing the failure of Barack Obama to live up to his promise or to do his job. . .

It is precisely this kind of partisan divide that Obama promised to end. He was going to make history not only as the United States’ first black president but as its healer, vowing to lead the nation into a new era of cooperation. But that promise to blend blue America and red America into purple America is an example of Obama’s failure of leadership.

Sad to say, the reservations our editorial board expressed about Obama in 2008 have been borne out. His inexperience in an executive position has been exposed. His naivete about his chances of getting much of his program through a deeply partisan Congress has been cured the hard way.

Instead of taking charge in Washington, Obama has shown unwillingness to take even the most basic step in presidential leadership: picking up the Oval Office phone to bring his influence to bear on reluctant representatives and senators.

By contrast, the editors find Mitt Romney to be

. . . an honorable, trustworthy and steady leader who, had he been the Republican Party’s nominee four years ago, would have given Obama a tougher challenge than the reckless duo of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Romney has proven his leadership qualities as a business success, as the trouble-shooting head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and as the governor of Democratic Party-dominated Massachusetts. (more…)

Vandal Keys ‘Obama’ Into 2 Cars In Alta Loma:

Someone keyed the word “Obama” into two cars and slashed seats in another outside a residence that had Mitt Romney campaign signs.

CBS2 and KCAL9 reporter Rob Schmitt spoke to Ken Slown, owner of one of the keyed vehicles.

Slown actually supports President Obama!

He explained to Schmitt that he and his wife — both currently unemployed — are staying with her parents and it’s her parents who support Romney.

it would be worse in West Hollywood.  Wonder how many more Romney-Ryan signs we’d be seeing in “blue” enclaves if Republicans didn’t fear the wrath of the forces of tolerance.  (Alta Loma in San Bernardino County is far less Democratic than the area where I live.)

Kudos to the local media for doing what their national counterparts fail to do–cover the news.

Editor’s Note:  He’s unemployed and he still supports Obama?!?!?

*and other “blue” enclaves.

Yesterday, I drove around Hollywood and up to Pasadena and didn’t see a single Obama bumper sticker (nor any Romney one for that matter). But, I did see a fading “O” window sticker just to the right of this bumper sticker:

This image seems to correspond with much of what I read on Facebook, liberal friends attacking the Republicans as horrible, no good and very, very, very bad.

It seems Democrats this year define themselves not by what they support but by what they oppose.