Slake is everything the LA Weekly was at its best, without the pages of ads or the listings we never read anyway.

Today is the last day for Brits to buy their way to victory. By midnight GMT, that’s 4pm PST and only a few hours from now, the votes will all have been cast. At this point, it could go either way… the Rage Against The Machine group states that “some indications are putting us BEHIND by 10,000 copies”. Others claim the opposite. Tom Morello told the Sun newspaper: “This really does seem like the biggest ‘which side are you on?’ moment in the history of UK music.”

British health care gets unrepentantly demonized. It’s called “filthy.” It’s accused of having low standards. It’s labeled “socialized medicine” and snubbed.  Rarely do we even take a second look.

If we did, we might realize that what separates the U.S. from the U.K. in terms of our health care systems is ideology. What “socialized medicine” stands [...]

A new adventure begins: seeking creative writing about South LA. This is part one.

You might say I’m a moody foodie.

I love eating out, and I love eating in. It all depends on what’s happening inside the bowl of spaghetti that is my brain. Sometimes I’m in stale, frustrated knots and need to get out of the house, sip a frou-frou cocktail and eat warm chips with fresh pico-de-gallo [...]

It’s obvious that poverty can be a negative force for developing children. But what is lesser known is that poverty — in a wider context — can also be a catalyst for motivation. Of course, this is just a personal theory, which I’m going to name “I-need-to-get-the-hell-outta-here” syndrome.

Angry parents gather outside John Liechty Middle School (Courtesy of NBC)

Silent Protests at Liechty Middle School

Initial reports suggested that 65 students from Liechty Middle School were denied diplomas after silently protesting against graduation speaker and LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia during the ceremony on Thursday, June 18. On Monday, 50 of those diplomas [...]

It’s not often that South Los Angeles makes it way onto the front page of the Los Angeles Times. In fact, coverage of the area has been so consistently bad that some (including “LA Four” rioter Henry Watson) partially blame the closed mindedness of the dominant paper in the city for the LA Riots of [...]