News

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    Unsolicited Follow-Up for Our Unsolicited Traffic Stop Advice

    Byadmin

    Devoted blog readers will recall our unsolicited advice of last Wednesday to the folks in Murphy Hall.  We suggested that they spend their Thanksgiving weekend trying to figure out what happened when a UCLA police car stopped a motorist in Westwood for driving without a seatbelt buckled.  According to the Huffington Post, African-American Judge Superior Court Judge David Cunningham exited L.A. Fitness Gym around 10 am on Wednesday. [“Start” on the map above.] Presumably, he pulled out of the garage you can see above in his Mercedes – beltless – and proceeded north on Gayley.  According to the press release…

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    Reviving Westwood

    Byadmin

    Westwood went into decline after a visitor was killed in a shooting between rival gang members in 1988.  Since that time, various efforts have been made at reviving the area which still features empty stores up and down Westwood Blvd. Warren Olney on KCRW’s “Which Way LA?” did a segment on “Will Westwood Every Be Hip Again?” on Nov. 26, 2013.  The program notes the empty stores and the decline of Westwood as a popular destination since the late 1980s.  Yours truly had trouble downloading or playing the segment so we provide an alternative link to it below. (function(d, s,…

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    Monday Visit

    Byadmin

    From the Daily Bruin: University of California President Janet Napolitano and actress Eva Longoria will visit UCLA on Monday to discuss how to improve educational outcomes for Latinas. The speakers are expected to reveal new initiatives of their own to enhance Latinas’ educational opportunities, according to the UCLA Graduate School for Education and Information Studies, which is hosting the panel event…  Only those who RSVP’d can attend Monday’s panel. The event is currently full… Full article at http://dailybruin.com/2013/11/27/napolitano-longoria-to-discuss-latina-education-at-ucla/

  • Unsolicited Advice for All UCLA and UC Faculty

    Byadmin

    Yesterday, we provided some unsolicited – and maybe unwelcome? – advice for the folks in Murphy Hall.  Today, we provide some advice for all UCLA and UC faculty.  Actually, it is a reminder of advice that we give from time to time.  We live in an age where the word “transparency” has taken on an aura of unmitigated goodness.  In practice, transparency – at public universities – can mean invasions of privacy when it comes to emails.  Emails at public universities are subject to public documents requests.  From time to time, groups that don’t like what some faculty has said…

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    Unsolicited Thanksgiving Advice for Murphy Hall

    Byadmin

    Dear Murphy:  The Judge Cunningham affair is a real turkey for you.*  You might want to spend your Thanksgiving weekend finding out what happened.  A good place to start might be by asking why campus police would be bothering with a minor off-campus traffic infraction unrelated to UCLA.   Katehi apologizing It’s not a question of having jurisdiction, so let’s not get entangled with legalities of whether it was technically OK to stop the judge.  It’s a question of priorities and common sense.   Remember the Pepper Spray Cop affair at UC-Davis and how the chancellor there spent months apologizing, investigating, testifying,…

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    Eviction

    Byadmin

    There have been worse landlord-tenant disputes From the Daily Bruin:A former UCLA employee reached an undisclosed settlement agreement with the UCLA Foundation Monday morning, the culmination of an eviction lawsuit brought forward by the university. In late October, the UCLA Foundation served Roselle Kipp with a lawsuit asking the court to evict Kipp from the boarding house that the UCLA Foundation owned, said Magda Madrigal, Kipp’s attorney. The UCLA Foundation assumed control over the property after the owner, Jorge Estrada, died in December of last year and bequeathed it to the foundation in a trust deed, Madrigal said.Estrada operated the…

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    Losing Our Edge

    Byadmin

    Probably a different Edge Report: Calif. losing its edge in higher education SAN FRANCISCO — More attention must be paid to the California State University system and to the state’s community colleges if California is going to produce the educated workers its economy needs, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom says in a report set to be issued Tuesday.  The report commissioned by Newsom argues that the state is losing its place as a national leader in higher education.  The report, prepared by the nonpartisan Committee for Economic Development based in Washington, D.C., finds that the percentage of young adults earning associate…

  • Reflections Shortly After the Kennedy Assassination

    Byadmin

    JFK at UCLA, Nov. 2, 1959 Yours truly will be traveling and out of town for about a week so less blogging than normal is likely.  But we did post on Nov. 22, the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, some Kennedy material.  (A phone call involving Kennedy, then-Governor Pat Brown, and young student Jerry Brown.)  Shortly after the assassination came the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald over the weekend.  On the Monday following that weekend, New York radio commentator and humorist Jean Shepherd deviated from the usual format of his broadcast to talk about the Kennedy assassination, the office…

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    An Arresting Development

    Byadmin

    The story below is being picked up by various news sources.  From the LA Times website: An African American judge who has accused UCLA police of excessive force ignored officers’ orders to stay in his car, UCLA officials said Monday. David S. Cunningham III, a former Los Angeles Police Commission president, filed a complaint against the officers after they allegedly shoved him against his car, handcuffed him and locked him in the back seat of their police cruiser.” During the course of the traffic stop, police officers instructed the driver to stay inside the vehicle and returned to their patrol…