Sahra Sulaiman

Sunday evening, at approximately 7:20 p.m., a 20-something year old man was stabbed by two women -- one in her early 20s and the other in her early 50s -- while traveling southbound on the Metro Blue Line.

When people look at questions of transportation, livable streets, or complete streets, they sometimes look at them in isolation, as if they stood alone from socio-economic issues. Slate's recent touting of LA's transit system as the next big thing, for example, never addresses questions of who is riding, how, and why. Or, why not, in the case of many Angelenos, who may find public transit cumbersome and/or have less than favorable opinions of the "public" that rides it or the neighborhoods it passes through.

“Do you need any help?” I asked the tall Russian guy.

"That's a lot of wood," mused Ben Caldwell of the 400 trees on the chopping block along the Space Shuttle Endeavour's route to the Science Center.

When I first reported on the notices posted on trees along Crenshaw Blvd. back in July, I did not realize that those notices were more or less the extent of the outreach the Science Center had done with the communities that the Space Shuttle Endeavour would be traveling through.

If you were one of the participants in the South L.A. Healthy Food Ride/Walk this past weekend, you could be forgiven if you walked away a little confused about the purpose of the walk.

If you've been paying attention to our calendar, you already know that RideSouthLA and Community Services Unlimited, Inc. (CSU) are holding a Healthy Food Ride this Sunday, Sept 9. The ride/walk event is designed to take participants on a tour through the neighborhood and show them the fresh food opportunities that do exist in the area. The ride/walk meet-up site is Mercado La Paloma (3655 S Grand Ave), and the event runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

As a child, I had dreamed of becoming a diplomat. A product of the cold war who occasionally had nightmares involving mushroom clouds, I threw myself into Soviet Studies in college, honed my skills in several of the UN's official languages, and prepared intensely for the foreign service exam. When the cold war ended (with no help from me, I might add), I shelved my ambassadorial aspirations.

The link to the original photo is here.

“Are they going to actually listen to what I have to say?" a South L.A. community leader asked when I talked to him about getting involved with the LA/2B project (the effort to integrate Complete Streets principles and community input into the Mobility Element of the City's General Plan).