In what will be a disappointing move for medical marijuana providers and beneficiaries, the Los Angeles City Council is in preparation to close a legal exemption to the city’s marijuana law. Voters may remember when, in 1996, they approved Proposition 215 (the Compassionate Use Act), which made legal the production and consumption of marijuana for [...]
Author Archives: Benjamin Brody
Obama’s Paradoxical Stance on Gay Marriage
June 16, 2009 – 4:14 pm
All politicians make promises on which they cannot or will not deliver. That they do has to be one of the oldest truths in politics. You watch them at rallies and fundraisers, throwing promises out like confetti and know – with hardly a dash of cynicism – that political reality will swallow most of their [...]
So You Want To Be A Live Studio Audience?
June 12, 2009 – 8:53 am
When a friend invited me to attend the first CBS studio taping of So You Think You Can Dance (now in its 5th season), I did not think of it as a journalistic opportunity. However, on reflection, I was given no notice or instruction toward discretion, nor was I consigned to a grim and lengthy [...]
The Best Pirates Are Swedish
June 9, 2009 – 10:10 am
Welcome, pirates, say I! But wait – the word has had a somewhat ballooning course through Western culture – to what pirates do I refer? Certainly it is not to the ones lurking about and around the Somali high seas. Though they have the most ready claim to the title “pirate,” used with its original [...]
It’s Draining Cats and Dogs: Senate Bill 250
June 5, 2009 – 7:48 am
The state of California is in for a very interesting succession of years. And that is putting it mildly! In the words of it’s governor: “California’s day of reckoning is here … Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.” Next year, the state will have a 24 billion dollar [...]
Obama Must Either Try or Release Guantanamo Detainees
June 1, 2009 – 10:30 pm
Foreword by Stan Lerner: Ben is a brilliant, rising star in the downtownster universe, whom in the case of Guantanamo detainees I disagree with vehemently—always the test of an editor. But it is the mission of downtownster to bring its’ readers the best of free speech—and as usual Ben makes a compelling case. By his [...]
Halting the Gay Marriage March: The California Supreme Court and Proposition 8
May 28, 2009 – 9:44 am
It has been a rough past few weeks for gays – especially those from California. First, their representative to the Miss USA Beauty Pageant, Miss California Carrie Prejean, disavowed her support of gay marriage on national television (introducing into the lexicon the weird term “opposite” marriage). Immediately following her loss to Miss North Carolina, the [...]
Nancy Pelosi Might Have Lied About Torture – Get Over It!
May 26, 2009 – 9:22 am
A friend and I were having lunch the other day when the topic of our most recently discredited politician joined us in conversation. I suggested – and still believe – that President Obama will marginalize the issue of whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew the CIA was using techniques labeled “enhanced interrogation.” Digging through past [...]
San Francisco “Clean-Up” Tax
May 22, 2009 – 2:37 pm
It seems there is nary an issue Californians will not legislate. And, as it turns out, there are other problems to be faced apart from the abysmal state of the economy. Cigarette butts have been dirtying the streets of San Francisco for years and, smokers be warned, Mayor Gavin Newsom has finally decided to put [...]
NO ON 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E!
May 15, 2009 – 11:55 am
Foreword by Stan Lerner: this is Ben’s second blog for downtownster and as you may have already guessed we are happy to have him on our team. With respect to the following blog it gives me great hope that Californians are ready to say NO TO PROP’S 1A and 1C. May 19th, Special Election Imagine [...]
