The critical need to protect JPL from the approaching fire appears to have diverted public safety resources from West Altadena, and likely contributed to the enormous loss of life and structures there.

JPL appears to be lying by omission about what many first responders, lab staff and public servants know to be true about the dangerous conditions on their property.

Please read with care, and seek help if you need it.
esotouric.substack.com/p/jpl

We are publishing her letter in the public interest, recognizing that its contents are extremely disturbing and will likely exacerbate the trauma that Eaton Fire survivors are living with and cause upset to members of the wider San Gabriel Valley and scientific communities.

But today, Shelby Eidson sent a letter to JPL’s Director David Gallagher, NASA’s Acting Director Sean Duffy and to NASA’s General Counsel Iris Lan that lays out the public safety concerns her work reveals.

To our surprise, JPL’s social media accounts posted in our comment section with an extremely strong denial; we updated our post to direct concerned readers to their response.

On 9/29, we were reading the agenda for the LA County Supervisors’ 9/30 meeting for the first airing of the McChrystal Group’s after-action reviews on the Eaton and Palisades Fires, and spotted something alarming in the public comment section (see pages 2-3). file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos...

Impossible to understate the impact this book had

Literally on fire if it’s Arthur Aslanian, who set fire to his property while his low income tenants were sleeping there.

www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr...

Anyway, yay for walkable cities with solid public transit! Boo for the developers who might set half the working class LA neighborhoods on fire in order to do it

The LA Weekly raised me from a rebellious teen in the 90’s, thru my aughts hipster 20’s until it’s sale and mass layoffs in my mom years, maybe ~8 years ago. Really exceptional reporting, and counted Jonathan Gold as a contributor.

Anyway. I have two book projects on my desk right now but I'm thinking I might like to edit an anthology of alt-weeklies, 1970s-90s. I'd exclude the Village Voice, which is well-represented elsewhere. Alts from San Diego, LA, Boston, DC, Seattle; Cleveland, Albany, Denver...

Aw poor baby troll doesn’t know the history of colonization and how it influences naming. That’s ok, as long as you promise to never ever visit Los Angeles, I won’t bother you about it!

2 of the 44 were white European Spanish, the rest were brown and black www.laalmanac.com/history/hi03...

Santa Monica is still majority white in 2025 and the Hispanic population is around 15%. This is why they are known for bland Mexican food.

It hasn’t really changed that much since he was born. As a reminder, Los Angeles was founded by black and brown Spanish speaking migrants from Sonora.