Simone Paz

Umar Hakim is pushing the Los Angeles City Council to adopt a Responsible Banking Ordinance.

​ The offices of L.A. Voice, where Umar Hakim is in residency, are on the third floor of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles. So when it comes time for Hakim to offer his daily prayers, he finds a quiet room, faces Mecca and turns his thoughts to God.

"Most people don't object to prayer," he says. "They just object to control."

Hakim, 41, says that as his faith deepens, so too does his desire to "be disruptive." Muslims are present in Los Angeles' civic life, he explains, they're just not organized.

Hakim is learning how to change that as a fellow in the Jewish Funds for Justice Community Organizing Residency program, which has embedded him with L.A. Voice, a mostly Catholic, Christian and Jewish interfaith organization. His goal is to help establish similar grassroots organizing within Muslim communities.

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Nanette Gonzales

Trying to keep Mulholland Drive clean

​Green signs announce that the stretch of Mulholland Drive between Laurel Canyon and Coldwater Canyon has been declared a "No Litter Zone," and for the most part, they're right. Considering the volume of traffic that passes through here, there is surprisingly little trash along this road.

That's because of Raul and Jackie.

Raul is bright, outspoken and vivacious. He's upbeat about his daily task of keeping this road clean. He's also homeless.

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CBS2

This guy.

​Here's a little advice for L.A. city workers. Figure out when the quarterly "sweeps" TV ratings periods are and don't engage in any of your vices in the weeks leading up them. There, problem solved.

Because if you don't take this advice, CBS2's David Goldstein might come looking for your drinking and/or strip-club attending ass (sometimes it's both).

For the last sweeps of the year Goldstein came up with the goods again:

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AnimalPhotos.info

Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris, aka the capybara

​The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum has plenty of bizarre beasties in stock, many of them from creatures not found within a thousand miles of L.A. -- or within a thousand years of 2011. Which is why the museum is captivated these days by a creature that could wind up in its collection.

The 2-foot-high animal has been seen around a wastewater treatment plant in Paso Robles, about 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The furry monster was spotted again at a Paso Robles golf course, and again when it scared some horses and had an encounter with a Labrador. The dog's irritated owner took a shot at the intruder but missed what witnesses said was a 120-pound target.

Is it a giant rat? A baby big cat? A lost beaver? A mutant turtle, flushed down the pipes when it grew too large for the Ninja-loving kids?

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Anne Fishbein

The sign of the cross at Holy Angels

​Holy Angels Church of the Deaf in Vernon seems caught between two worlds, an anomalous ray of spirituality shining through the city's now famous corruption and graft, a tribute to life and resurrection across the street from a closeout toilet paper dealership and in the shadow of the slaughterhouse. If the Word is God, the Holy Angels Church of the Deaf embodies a level of irony that's almost divine.

Vernon is on the brink of dissolution by the state, a plight brought on by corruption and embarrassingly high salaries for city officials. [Ed. note: Vernon was spared the ax on Monday, after this story went to print.] Yet amid that maelstrom, baptisms continue at Holy Angels, as do weddings and quinceañeras. A spaghetti dinner is held to raise funds for a parishioner trying to make it to the 2013 Deaflympics.

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