Friday Buzz, 6.9.06

The month of May 2006 came in like a lamb but went out like hundreds of sick and dying neonate kittens...This was due to an unusually high number of orphaned neonates presenting clinical symptoms suggestive of infectious diseases such as Notedris cati, chylmydia, panleukopenia, and corona virus etc...254 orphaned neonates were euthanized in the month of May in North Central with well over 100 in the last week. South LA Animal Care Center euthanized 247 neonates in the month of May, and the entire LAAS organization euthanized a total of 823 orphaned neonates of the 2,035 dogs and cats euthanized.

If there is a silver lining to any of this news, it is that the Calendar 06 Year To Date Euthanasia rate for dogs and cats is down nearly 17% compared to the same time period in 05 and down 29.5% compared to the same time period in 04.

Los Angeles owes much to Raphael J. Sonenshein, a pioneering scholar of this city whose serious study has spurred interest in its dense, subtle politics and government....Sonenshein writes not just as an observer but also as a participant: He served as executive director of one of two charter commissions that led that ambitious and difficult reform effort.

It should be noted at the outset that charter reform as it played out in Los Angeles politics in the 1990s was a long and political process. Progress was often obscure or incremental. The scenes were set in offices and government buildings — all too often late at night in such glamour spots as the Department of Water and Power conference room. It was important work, which I covered for The Times, but it was hardly white-knuckle entertainment.

Sonenshein has energized that potentially bland narrative with meticulous research and observation, qualities vividly displayed in his landmark 1993 work, "Politics in Black and White."