Bugs, bones, birds, and millions upon million more things fill the museum's collections, second only to the Smithsonian's. But there's nothing dusty about this 100-year-old archive of what was and what is Los Angeles.
Angelenos often have a hard time convincing the so-called more progressive Bay Area and New York that there is an L.A. that is not consumed with a plastic way of living.
In October, I criticized plans to widen a road in Joshua Tree National Park. Not long after, the park's superintendent persuaded me that I might need to reconsider my position. And he did so with one sentence.