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Steve Lopez |
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It's 90 degrees in November, the full glory and perennial curse of Southern California on fierce display. Devil winds, hill-hopping infernos, smoked mansions, torched trailers, barren freeways, and brilliant sunsets lingering in low-hanging canopies of burnt dreams.
"I never felt like this before. Ever!" 23-year-old Myra Esparza of Pacoima was telling me, explaining the excitement she and other young people feel about President-elect Barack Obama and his call to public service. "People will definitely stand up."
It was a point I hadn't considered.
Maybe I'm a pushover, but twice now I've been to the Junior Blind of America center in Windsor Hills near the Crenshaw district, and each time I've come away humbled and inspired.
"It's a glorious day," Lawrence Tolliver declared at the kitchen table of his home on West Adams Street.
The moment was captured by Times photographer Gary Friedman in August, when Maria Reyes, an 86-year-old native of El Salvador, became a U.S. citizen.
Felix had Oscar.
So who is this Catholic priest from Fresno who stood up and spoke out against Proposition 8, putting his career on the line? As a gay man who finds the church's views on homosexuality so objectionable, why has he been a priest for more than 20 years and subjected himself to such moral conflict?
The uniformed children were a nice touch Tuesday at the Crenshaw Christian Center, marching out of school with U.S. flags -- like good little soldiers in a holy war -- to hear ministers preach against the evils of gay marriage.
Malcolm Robertson was hoping to coax the 8-ball into the side pocket in the billiards room of Clubhouse Three at Laguna Woods Village. But at 82, with a small but worrisome portion of his retirement funds shriveling up in the stock market, he had trouble focusing.
