David Blumenkrantz

Tim Wallach

You don't need me hurling the "nice guys finish last" cliché anywhere near this post, but it's utterly unavoidable after the latest series of Dodger disappointments and I just can't help it. So apologies all around.

Yes, Don Mattingly is a good guy, ostensibly supported "to a man" in the clubhouse and universally loved in at least one major American city. He was a fine ballplayer. A great player, in fact.

The Dodger leader is also an unremarkable man, of above average intelligence and little imagination, who got his job primarily because of the insistence of his predecessor and the disinterest of the man writing the checks. Joe Torre had trained Mattingly in his image and wanted his promotion to skipper assured, while Frank McCourt was too busy with other problems to make a fuss. The outgoing "steward" didn't care a lick, actually, and the new thoroughly-more-together owners weren't going to charge in with a prominent firing right out of the gate.

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Wendy Greuel

In an internal memo this weekend, Wendy Greuel's pollster took aim at the new USC/L.A. Times poll and argued the race is a "dead heat" heading into Tuesday's vote.More »

Susan Slade photography for LA Weekly

Most of you want to limit the number of marijuana dispensaries in town to 135 or less. So says a USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/Los Angeles Times poll of 500 likely voters conducted last week and released over the weekend.

That means that you're probably favoring the City Hall-sponsored Measure D, which would do just that and shut down as many as 9 out of 10 pot shops in town. The poll, however, is flawed:

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Eric Garcetti

Eric Garcetti has a 7-point lead over Wendy Greuel in the race for L.A. mayor with just four days to go before the runoff election, according to a new USC/L.A. Times poll out this evening. The results:More »

Wendy Greuel attacked Eric Garcetti on his home turf today, challenging his jobs figures and blaming him for a recent spike in rapes, which she called the "dirty little secret" of Hollywood.More »

philosophygeek / Flickr

After a flurry of anti-drunk-driving operations this spring, culminating with a massive Cinco de Mayo crackdown, the cops around here seem to be mellowing out.

Maybe just a little.

Our weekend DUI cheat sheet contains info on only three checkpoints (that we know of). Here you go:

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other98

Some folks are really scared that billionaire conservatives are going to run the "free press."

News flash: Billionaire conservatives already run the free press. Anyway, there's a crowdfunding campaign afoot to buy the Los Angeles Times so that the ultra-right Koch brothers don't get their Mr. Burns-like hands on it:

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David Blumenkrantz

Rebounding from an eight-game losing streak with victories in four of their last five, the Dodgers have hit the road. Beginning tonight at 4:30 p.m. it's three at Atlanta followed by three in the former home of the Braves, in Milwaukee to face the Brewers.

While we wouldn't use the word "surging" to describe L.A.'s recent state of play exactly, back-to-back series wins and a 17-22 record looks a whole lot better than the previous 13-21 and buried in last by two and a half games. In fact, with any luck and the Padres losers of four out of five, the Dodgers could pull into fourth place, as close as five games back of the Giants by the end of play Friday.

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Mylyn Johnson via LASD

It's upskirt season is Southern California. The sun comes out, and so do the pervs.

Our latest suspect is Mylyn Corniche Johnson (yes, he shares his middle name with a Rolls- Royce model), a 29-year-old whom cops say was taking upskirt cellphone video at a Lancaster Target over the weekend.

He was arrested yesterday:

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Nick Young

Former NBA Clipper Nick Young is accused in a lawsuit of drugging and raping a woman after a 2011 encounter at Crown Bar in West Hollywood.

Young, now a Philadelphia 76er, says it wasn't me. He took to Instagram this week to deny the allegations. (And note here that prosecutors have not charged him in the case):

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@brittanieweaver / Twitter

Model Brittanie Weaver says a perv "picked the wrong girl" when he used an iPad to take upskirt photos of her at a Sherman Oaks pet store in March.

The L.A. City Attorney's office this week might just be on its way to validating that claim. Prosecutors announced that suspect Julio Mario Medal, 38, has been charged in connection with Weaver's allegations:

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Google Maps

You know what we really need more than a man with 16 or so pipe bombs in his Westside apartment? A man with 16 bombs, an explosive device in his car, a gun and meth.

Because we want people with destructive materials to be extremely edgy and violent. We kid, of course, but the allegations against Robert Colt Wilson, 29, are serious and chilling:

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Antonio Villaraigosa

So much for staying neutral. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said that he would not get involved in the campaign to succeed him, saying he wants to maintain good relations with both Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti.More »

This year's People issue celebrates the 56 Angelenos we find most intriguing. But some of the people in this year's issue aren't just interesting -- they're downright inspiring!

Check out all of our 2013 People Issue profiles

From Dr. Coley King, who's working to treat Venice's homeless community, to Armando Gonzalez, who's keeping at-risk kids out of gangs and on skateboards, we've highlighted the five people who are doing what they can to improve this city. From East L.A. to Venice, they're making L.A. a better place.

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gkarber / YouTube

We've been hating on Abercrombie & Fitch for more than a decade now, ever since T-shirts depicting stereotypical Asian characters hit the shelves in 2002. The company appeared to reprise that misstep 10 years later. And then there's its Hollister Co. offshoot, inspired by surfing but really having nothing to do with the sport.

USC grad Greg Karber, 26, found other things to dislike about Abercrombie, and set about vilifying the brand in a social media campaign that just might work:

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John Liu / Flickr

The final black cloud over the Los Angeles Police Department has lifted.

A 2001 consent decree that put LAPD under federal oversight following allegations of false arrests, excessive force and unreasonable searches and seizures in the wake of the Rampart scandal is officially over:

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NALEO

With nearly one in three people in the L.A. electorate claiming Latino heritage, the city election Tuesday could be decided by the brown vote.

So says the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), which notes that 29 percent of registered voters in Los Angeles are Latino.

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Al Pavangkanan / Flickr

You've heard of good and bad cholesterol before, right? Fish oil good, Big breakfast with hotcakes bad. Simple enough.

Maybe not. UCLA researchers this week announced that merely breathing some of the air around here could turn your good cholesterol into bad. And that's before you even hit the drive-thru:

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Timothy Norris for L.A. Weekly

If you thought .08 was a tough blood alcohol limit for driving under the influence, just wait.

There's a movement afoot to lower the threshold to .05, which some of the lighter weights among us could hit in under an hour with just a few drinks under their belts. In fact:

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Charles G. Thompson/L.A. Weekly Flickr Pool

Ah, Hollywood. Beckoning transplants west like our own little Statue of Liberty. We kind of wish it wouldn't.

See also: Fear and Loathing of Los Angeles: Let Them Keep Hating. We Know Better.

Every day, hundreds (just to go with a nice round number) of hard-working, diverse, interesting people come to Los Angeles and feed our desperately sluggish economy, buying tacos and facial treatments and what have you.

But let's face it. We get a lot of the wrong kind of people moving to Los Angeles, too. We see them every day, clogging our bars, taking our parking spots and hitting on our women. 

If only there were some kind of limit on certain people, like the United States used to have under Warren G. Harding to keep out all the Chinamen.

Here are the six kinds of people City Hall should put a hard quota on -- and by hard quota, we mean zero.

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