The Week: Cathleen Decker analyzes news from the last seven days
December 6, 2009
THE WEEK
Damon Dunn wants voters to do what he didn't
It is either breathtaking, or brazen, or both: After voting exactly once in his 33 years, Damon Dunn is running for statewide office in next year's elections. He wants to be secretary of state. In other words, the once-only voter wants to run the state's elections. And why not, he argues.
February 14, 2010
THE WEEK
Diane Watson's retirement inspires a look back
In Los Angeles, history often seems to careen on with hardly a backward glance. Last week, as Diane Watson announced that she would retire this year from Congress, history suffused the room and there were backward glances aplenty.
July 26, 2009
THE WEEK
Pat Brown's California takes a beating in Sacramento
Forty-two years after Pat Brown left office and 13 years after he died, his California took quite a beating last week.
August 2, 2009
THE WEEK
L.A.'s gold medal event is still a winner 25 years later
Unheralded, a ribbon of aqua runs along the outside rim of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Down the street, on the side of a neighborhood recreation center, rests a set of Olympic rings.
September 13, 2009
THE WEEK
Californians agree: State government doesn't serve them
As metaphors go, last week served up a doozy. A married member of the Legislature resigned his office after blurting out over an open microphone salacious details about relationships with two women, at least one of them said to be a lobbyist.
December 20, 2009
THE WEEK
Money doesn't always buy the office
Like an out-of-town gambler trying to elbow his way into the big game, Steve Poizner announced last week that he'd ante up $15 million of his own money for his campaign to become California's next governor. He's hoping that money changes everything. Or at least something.
August 30, 2009
THE WEEK
Youth and age in California governor's race
The pictures that dominated the news last week formed two parallel realities.
November 22, 2009
THE WEEK
Poor California: No money and no leadership
In the new movie "2012," whose video trailers were bombarding television airwaves last week, the world as we know it gives way three years hence under a siege of floods, eruptions, undulating continents and earthquakes. In other words, it's not much different from what is happening in California, fiscally speaking, except that the state will be lucky to hang on that long.
May 31, 2009
THE WEEK
Still short on details, Meg Whitman takes two stands that could hurt her
Occasionally, like a trail of water finding a path through stone, honesty seeps into a political event. Proof came a few days ago at an Orange County gathering for Meg Whitman's campaign for governor.
May 24, 2009
THE WEEK
A state in search of a leader
In the end, the numbers were almost identical, give or take a billion. Last week's election decided measures meant to diminish California's $24-billion deficit. And just about 24% of voters turned out to do the deciding. Woeful turnout, woeful state.
May 3, 2009
THE WEEK
Swine flu scare gives hospital a practice run
In the emergency room at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, where scores of frightened people arrived last week to have their nerves eased and their fevers abated, the triage was simple:
September 27, 2009
THE WEEK
College radicalism redux
The campus protests of the 1960s happened long enough ago that the images filter through in black-and-white, the tint of television newsreels and newspaper photographs back in the day:
May 10, 2009
THE WEEK
Schwarzenegger needs a boost, but his chances recede with the economy
As he stood before the cameras in Santa Barbara last week, the freewheeling showman that Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be was evident only in his attire.
October 25, 2009
THE WEEK
Public health departments are on the front lines against the flu
Government employees tend to be easy fodder for mockery. That is particularly true when the ribbing suits the needs of political candidates trying to appear vigilant about the growth of government.
October 11, 2009
THE WEEK
Polling shows little to please Republicans in 2010
Republicans had to look for a very long time at last week's Field Poll of California voters to find something remotely uplifting as they ponder the 2010 state elections. There it was, eventually: Against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat running for governor, the assorted GOP candidates were losing by only single digits.
November 1, 2009
THE WEEK
A woman's nation: tears and empowerment
The state Women's Conference, when it began almost two decades ago, was all about women changing the world. The speakers tended toward the practical. The frills were nonexistent.
August 9, 2009
THE WEEK
Even the ACLU is sorry to see Bratton go
William J. Bratton's announcement that he will soon leave his job as Los Angeles' police chief drew the expected murmurs of dismay from city officials last week. But another lament was enough to make Joe Friday sit up and take notice: It came from a historic LAPD nemesis, the American Civil Liberties Union.
October 4, 2009
THE WEEK
Can lean times also be green times?
As the giant cargo cranes at the Port of Long Beach loomed behind him, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week cut quickly to a debate gaining intensity in his Republican Party: Should the state's passion for environmental protection survive a foundering economy?
October 18, 2009
THE WEEK
On the La Crescenta mudslide line, no blast from the past -- fortunately
From her home in the high reaches of La Crescenta, Jackie Genofile watched last week as hillsides so recently denuded by fire, and so ripe for collapse, bore the new insult of rain.
April 26, 2009
THE WEEK
California voters want more state services but resist tax increases
In the pages of one day's Times last week were two in a lengthening procession of articles explaining what happens when governments run out of money, as city and county officials across the state cut programs to save cash. Four pages earlier was the kind of story that keeps them awake at night as they slice.
April 12, 2009
THE WEEK
Recession can be fatal for those too poor for insurance
Those looking for good news last week were not drawn to the subject of healthcare.
April 19, 2009
THE WEEK
Georges Marciano is rich, so of course he wants to be governor
Georges Marciano was holding court at the Polo Lounge last week, making the case why a man best known for the snazzy jeans that made him a multimillionaire should be California's next governor. A political independent untethered to the usual party schisms is, he argued, the solution to the state's perennial financial mess.
September 6, 2009
THE WEEK
A political lesson from the fire lines
Fire exploded last week across Southern California, from the apple orchards of Oak Glen to the enclaves of Tujunga. As fire does, it ravaged acreage -- more than 154,000 acres in Los Angeles County alone by early Saturday -- and lives. Two firefighters died. Others were injured. Dozens of residents found their homes turned to ash. And if autumn's history is any guide, last week was a siren warning of things to come.
April 5, 2009
THE WEEK
Drivers go shopping
For a while last week, buyers lined up to drive shiny new cars off the lots at auto dealers in California, just as they did in the old days.
March 29, 2009
THE WEEK
Getting voters to polls for budget measures will be tough
Voters streamed to the polls in November, lining up from before dawn until after nightfall, a tableau of involvement that cheered fans of democracy whether or not they supported the winners.
March 15, 2009
THE WEEK
King plan nurtures a fragile hope
Hope and despair have always resided side by side in South Los Angeles, and the hospital complex named for Martin Luther King Jr. has evinced both. It was forced into existence in the tense aftermath of the Watts riots, and nothing has been easy since.
May 17, 2009
THE WEEK
Schwarzenegger's doomsday message may be too late
Arnold Schwarzenegger unleashed Armageddon last week. No, not the sequel to the movie where the giant asteroid threatens Earth, but rather his proposed budget, which seemed to menace California.
March 22, 2009
THE WEEK
For Obama, mayor and governor: a win-win-win situation
President Obama's visit to California last week demonstrated anew that politics is just like junior high: Everyone wants to hang out with the popular guy.
June 7, 2009
THE WEEK
Two mayors make Jerry Brown look traditional
The mayor of Los Angeles has another girlfriend, we learned last week. Like a previous one, whose presence inspired the breakup of his marriage, she is a newscaster; she had a bikini shot on her website -- at least before it was blocked.
March 8, 2009
THE WEEK
Another seismic shift emanates from California -- this time on gay marriage
*Today marks the start of a new column called The Week that, each Sunday, will examine one or more of the previous week's major stories and their implications for our state or our region.*
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
E-mail
Twitter
Facebook
Read This Later
Connect
L.A. for less than the price of sunblock. 
