City Hall has spent millions trying to build a Champs-Élysées on Pine Avenue, and all we got was a downscale CityPlace that works

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
It’s the weekend, and you’re itchin’ for the night life. Or it’s midday on a weekday, and you’re lookin’ for a meal. Where to go? What’s hot, hot, hot? Pine [...]

Some people make things with their hands. The rest of us–well, we just buy stuff.
But a recent New York Times piece on crafters delivers one of the more motivated makers I’ve heard about recently: Faythe Levine of Milwaukee, who–as reporter Penelope Green tells it–started with “some sock monkeys and a handstitched felt owl.”
Sock puppets–Homer Simpson’s [...]

“Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit.”

Do you want it? Or need it? Depends
There’s one reason to shop at Wal-Mart and it has nothing to do with customer service. No, the only time I deal with the headache that is the CityPlace parking lot is when it’s time for new slippers. I know what you’re thinking: Can’t Jim forgo this travesty [...]

The cash value of charity in California politics
In addition to beating out faith and hope for the top spot in Christian virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13), charity is also a great way to influence politicians. Every politician worth his campaign war chest knows how to make himself look good by getting the deep-pocketed corporations and other [...]

Economic evangelist wows business gathering
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class spoke–is still speaking–to the Downtown Long Beach Associates annual gathering. His point: Long Beach is poised to take advantage of an economic change bigger than the switch from agriculture to industry: the rise of creative types.
We’ll deal with more in a [...]

Long Beach has a new Sister City — Mombasa, Kenya — thanks to Tuesday night’s vote by the City Council, and Randy Terrell of LBPost.com foreshadowed the latest addition to our international family with a funny bit that examined the resemblances between our old town and its new kid sister. Terrell points out that, [...]

LB Consumers For Choice is front for mega-retailer’s campaign. [From LBreport.com]
The Long Beach City Council hasn’t even decided if there will be a referendum yet, but Wal-Mart has already begun funding a supposedly grass-roots campaign to overturn a ban against big-box stores, according to Bill Pearl’s relentlessly excellent LBreport.com.