Nithya Raman for LA Council District 4!

February 24, 2020

...the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, served as executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment and worked for the city on homeless policy. Frankly, she’s one of those people who have already accomplished what would take me ten lifetimes to get around to. She is much more qualified than the incumbent David Ryu, who has a thin resume and a record of opposing housing and transportation improvements. This is an important election. City councilpers...

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Go Plant a Million Trees

Mr. Homegrown

September 13, 2019

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Reviews

1 Comment

...trees, a bunch of ponds, enriched soil and wild stories.” In our own small urban yard, we’re beginning to see the fruits, literally, of our own small-scale arboreal efforts that we began over ten years ago. This month we had a abundant crop of Mission figs, avocados, olives and pomegranates. And that pathetic vegetable garden I blogged about? My heretical thinking is to give up annual vegetables entirely and use the space to plant two small citrus...

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Lead in Backyard Eggs: Don’t Freak Out But Don’t Ignore the Issue

Mr. Homegrown

March 11, 2019

Animals, Bees, Lead

3 Comments

...d ate more than three eggs a day. I’d suggest that if you live in an older urban location, next to a gas station or other industrial site or a recently burned area you may want to get your eggs tested. Odds are that your backyard eggs are safe to eat but, as the study showed, some of the lead results were well over safe levels. Here’s what UC Cooperative Extension suggests if you have a lead issue, Once potentially contaminated areas are identifie...

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Hey New York Times Let’s Dump the Wheels Column

Mr. Homegrown

August 23, 2019

Bikes, Transportation

4 Comments

...f communities, thanks to the insatiable hunger for space cars claim in our urban spaces. Failing to point out these objective facts makes your auto columns little more propaganda. Where is your bike column? Where is your transit advice column? Where is your walk-ability coverage? Sure, you touch on these issues elsewhere but these subjects have no dedicated column like “Wheels.” Perhaps it’s time to start treating cars the way you might treat ciga...

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For the Locals . . .

Mr. Homegrown

July 12, 2019

Animals, Events, Thoughtstylings

5 Comments

On that foot sign Alissa Walker, one of my favorite journalists, covers urban design here in Los Angeles. She wrote a great piece on our nieghborhood’s iconic podiatrist sign. Walker agrees with me that we need much more than kitschy signs to mark our neighborhoods. She concludes, We need more reminders of what history predates our presence. We need more streets that are designed to connect us instead of being fast-forwarded through in cars. We n...

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