Marc Cooper

Staff writer, news editor 1983-1984 Media columnist 1986-1988 News feature editor, staff writer 2001-2008 It was in late 1983 and I was working as news...

After 25 years of an on-again-off-again association with the L.A. Weekly, and after nearly eight straight years of doing this column, this will be my last one. The Weekly and I are parting ways. Economic pressures have resulted in the cutting of much senior staff, yours truly included. I take......

Las Vegas, Nevada — My good friend Micah Sifry framed this historic day perfectly right about noontime: “The hands that picked the cotton are the hands that are...

With Obama way ahead in California polls, the Golden State might become the epicenter of voter complacency on November 4. But that would be wrong. We’ve got a crucial race for an all-powerful county supervisor to decide. And with a full dozen of those pesky, and crucial, ballot propositions up......

Colin Powell staged a historic gesture Sunday morning by crossing party lines and unreservedly endorsing Barack Obama, denouncing the smear tactics of the McCain campaign as “over the top” and calling boldly for a “generational change” in American politics. Powell also went where no American politician — not even Obama......

I can only imagine what sort of wire-brush scrubbing and firehose wash John McCain must have taken before appearing on the Nashville stage of Tuesday night’s second presidential debate. Something like that horrific radiation-detox scene in Silkwood. How else would the Gentleman from Arizona have sufficiently cleaned up for the......

FORGET ABOUT THIS FRIDAY’S presidential debate. The real drama of this political season is unfolding on the steps of Capitol Hill. Indeed, the commotion around the Great Economic Crash of 2008 looks more and more like a Sergei Eisenstein movie set piece. As the wobbly baby carriage of the national......

Play even a low-stakes game of Texas Hold ’em any night at the Bicycle Club or Commerce Casino and you can be sure that within an hour or so someone will predict your coming destruction by the feared, so-called “poker gods.” It goes like this. You tempt the fates and......