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Tim Rutten |
Recent Columns:
Apart from understanding how and why the Bush/Cheney administration tricked the American people into going to war in Iraq, no question is more urgent than how the White House forced the adoption of torture as state policy of the United States.
As The Times reported Friday, Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca "are increasingly at odds" over the role racial hatred plays in fomenting gang violence.
A proper insalata Caprese is one of the jewels of Campania's incomparable cuisine.
Thursday's arraignment before a military tribunal of five Al Qaeda members accused of planning and assisting the 9/11 terrorist atrocities seemed custom-made to assist the loathsome defendants in achieving exactly what they desire -- an aura of martyrdom.
Two things already can be said about the pro- posed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that on Tuesday qualified for the Nov. 4 ballot. One is that the coming campaign is sure to be nasty and divisive; the other is that recent history suggests that such electoral struggles over fundamental rights are likely to have unintended consequences.
Alittle more than 50 years ago, George C. Marshall, the greatest American general and statesman since George Washington, turned down an offer to write his memoirs for a national magazine because, he said, it was unseemly to profit from a life of public service.
If there's one issue that epitomizes the culture wars that have so deeply divided American politics over the last eight years, it's abortion. That's why those who benefited most from those wars are desperate to revive abortion's single-issue virulence in this presidential cycle.
Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is one of California's most gifted politicians; filmmaker Spike Lee is a remarkable American artist. This week, both of them made utter fools of themselves, and understanding exactly how they did so tells us something important about where we are as a people and as a country.
Change is in the air this political season -- in the ever-increasing likelihood that an African American will stand as the Democratic nominee for the presidency, and in the near-certainty that Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate's liberal lion, soon will exit the institution he has bestrode like a colossus for nearly 50 years.
When the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state Constitution's fundamental right to marry extends to couples of the same sex, it settled a legal question and opened some critical political ones.