Steven Mikulan

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Long Beach Says, "Take a Bike!"

Steven Mikulan
While many cities over the past 20 years have made cosmetic gestures of accommodation to the growing demands of bicyclists, some road modifications, such as the skinny bike lane, seem to be more of an attractive nuisance than help.  LAStreetsBlog has been examining how Long Beach has been moving far......
Credit: Glendale Harley-Davidson/Buell

Weak Economy Kills Love Ride 26

Steven Mikulan
While you can't say that Bernie Madoff killed Love Ride 26, but the cancellation of the annual motorcycle ride benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association is part and parcel of a collapsing economy whose victims include once-secure charities. The L.A. Daily News reports that the Love Ride, which is the San......

L.A.'s Rag Trade Faces Grim Outlook

Steven Mikulan
Today's L.A. Times Business section has an alarming story about the downturn in the city's garment industry. The plight of L.A.'s rag trade seldom gets the spotlight that, say, Hollywood's shifting fortunes receive, and even though their industry provides a powerful economic generator for the county, clothing manufacturers claim they......

Robinson v. Robinson: Pasadena's Naming Dilemma

Steven Mikulan
Corina Knoll has a compelling piece in the L.A. Times concerning the naming/renaming flap over Pasadena's Robinson Park. The park, so-named to cover brothers Jackie and Mack Robinson, is in the process of a $24 million upgrade. The dilemma is whether to officially rename the park Jackie Robinson Park (the......

Chief Bratton Defends iWatch Program

Steven Mikulan
As LAPD Chief Bill Bratton prepares to saddle up and ride into the sunset, Angelenos are already arguing over one part of the legacy he's leaving behind. According to a report by China's Xinhua news agency, the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union is warning that the department's iWatch program,......
Credit: Julien's Auctions

Auction Me Barbra: Babs Has a Yard Sale

Steven Mikulan
There are no fewer than two Hollywood memorabilia auctions taking place this week. Calabasas' Profiles in History is running one of its periodic prop-and-costume bidding wars ("Ever dream of getting into Megan Fox's shorts?" asks today's L.A. Daily News. "It'll only cost you about $3,000"), while this weekend the Hollywood......
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PBS' L.A. Times Documentary Rebroadcast

Steven Mikulan
If you missed Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times, PBS's documentary about the Chandler family and the city's newspaper of record they once controlled, be sure to catch the rebroadcast this Saturday at 9 p.m. on KCET. (Or watch it online on the station's Web site.) It's a hypnotic......
Credit: Wikipedia

Eddie Haskell, We Hardly Knew Ye

Steven Mikulan
Those of us of a certain age can never get enough of Eddie Haskell -- even if, as Ralph Keyes wrote earlier this year in Editor & Publisher, "Journalists who lace their copy with such retro terms or names risk alienating those who are too young to get the allusions."......

Valley Girl's Death Spurs Lawsuit Against CIGNA

Steven Mikulan
Today's L.A. Times' Business section looks at the battle of a San Fernando Valley couple fighting a health-care giant over the death of their daughter. Nataline Sarkisyan was 17 when CIGNA rejected her family's request for the medical insurer to cover a liver-transplant operation urged by her UCLA doctors. According......