Month: April 2024

The Danger at Home: A Secular Rescue Story

The Danger at Home: A Secular Rescue Story

Published by skeptic

[ Adobe Stock | pics721 ] Matthew Cravatta Secular Rescue sees its fair share of endangered atheist activists at our door requesting our help and advice. Many of the more prominent social media activists relate to us the anger and threats that are hurled at them by online extremists as well as strangers whose fury knows no bounds.  But for the large number of reserved and reluctant activists who don’t make a splash on social media, the greatest threats they face are typically not from online mobs but rather members of their own families: fathers, brothers, and uncles obsessed with family honor. Bahir, a young ex-Muslim from Iraq, is a teenager mature beyond his years. Last year, he applied to Secular Rescue asking for our immediate help. Bahir was bold in refraining from using an alias in the public sphere, but the primary source of his danger and fears came from his abusive Shiite family. Even his mother was a source of danger, and he provided us with the audio recordings to prove it.  When …

7 epic day trips you can take by train from Los Angeles

7 epic day trips you can take by train from Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

Train travel time: About 2 hours 40 minutes Known for its sprawling beaches and iconic architecture that pays homage to its Spanish colonial heritage, Santa Barbara has long been a favorite destination for Southern California residents. Many of us first became familiar with it as a college town for students of the University of California at Santa Barbara (even though the school is technically in the city of Goleta). Santa Barbara’s main train station also happens to be one of my favorites; built in 1902, it’s designated as an official city landmark and its wooden ticket booths and benches and hulking metal light fixtures will transport you back in time — you’ll swear you’re hearing the echoes of someone yelling, “All aboard!” in an old-timey voice. The Funk Zone, an area next to the Amtrak station that’s bustling with boutique wine and beer tasting rooms, cafes, galleries and shops, has become one of the city’s most-visited spots. Relax with a nice rosé at Santa Barbara Wine Collective, a martini at the elegant Pearl Social or …

Best L.A. restaurants for brunch from the 101 Best Restaurants guide

Best L.A. restaurants for brunch from the 101 Best Restaurants guide

Published by Sam Flores

Carlos Jurado, a veteran chef of Los Angeles restaurants, including stints at Vespertine and Border Grill, returns to the foods and the town he knew growing up: His parents relocated from Colombia to Long Beach when he was 3, and he started making regular trips to see family in South America when he was a teenager. His dinner menu revolves around smoky meats and soulful sides like grilled arepas filled with corn and queso, braised greens flecked with pork belly, and first-rate smashed and fried plantains served with hogao, an ubiquitous Colombian tomato-onion condiment. Sunday brunch is my favorite meal at Selva for two keystone dishes. Bandeja paisa is a one-platter feast synonymous with Colombia that arrays steak, grilled chorizo or morcilla, extra-crisp hunks of pork belly, plantains, smoky beans, white rice, an arepa, a fried egg and sliced avocado on one monumental platter. As if that weren’t plenty, brunch is also when Jurado makes his joy-ride version of a Colombian hot dog. A link of paprika-stained Colombian chorizo peeks out from beneath charred onions …

A guide to Larchmont and Larchmont Village, Los Angeles

A guide to Larchmont and Larchmont Village, Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

This is the L.A. neighborhood you want to cheat on your own neighborhood with. There are, as there always is with philandering, many reasons you may find yourself stepping out on your own ’hood. Maybe it reminds you of your very first neighborhood, with its Main Street, Anytown, USA, feel. Maybe it’s you know, convenient and uncomplicated, the accessible, shoppable equivalent of hooking up with a hometown honey in the big city. Larchmont never asks too many questions, Larchmont makes you feel seen. And, most of all, good old familiar, reliable Larchmont, even when it changes its look or tries to get fancy, always seems to have what you need — even when you don’t know you need it. I say this as one of those cheaters. Even though we broke up almost two decades ago when I moved a few miles west (why is it always west?), it’s still where I go to get my prescriptions refilled, have my eyes checked and score the occasional slice of practically perfect pepperoni pizza (from 27-year neighborhood …

The best 9 public golf courses in Los Angeles for every skill level

The best 9 public golf courses in Los Angeles for every skill level

Published by Sam Flores

Los Angeles is an ideal place to golf. Not only does our perpetually sunny weather and proximity to nature make it pleasant to play outside but — thanks to golf course architects like William P. Bell, George C. Thomas Jr. and, more recently, Gil Hanse — the city is also home to some of the most aesthetically pleasing fairways and greens ever made. Prestigious tournaments and iconic pro players like Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer have graced these fairways for more than a century. The same with Hollywood icons like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, many of those storied courses are private and can cost you upward of $250,000 for an initiation fee alone. I’m certainly not in the tax bracket for that, but I am an avid golfer who makes it to a course at least once or twice a week. (Don’t show this to my boss.) As someone who was swept up in the wave of new golfers that arrived in summer 2020, I’ve spent the last four years playing …

Xochitl Gomez’s 5 favorite Latino-owned businesses in L.A.

Xochitl Gomez’s 5 favorite Latino-owned businesses in L.A.

Published by Sam Flores

For Xochitl Gomez, there’s no better place than Los Angeles. “My work has taken me to a lot of different places, but I always come back to L.A. with this feeling of how lucky I am to live in a city with so much diversity,” said the 17-year-old actor best known for portraying America Chavez, the first queer Latina superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Most recently, Gomez won Season 32 of “Dancing With the Stars,” where she paid homage to her Mexican American heritage through her song choices, costuming and stage design. Though she was born in Hollywood, Gomez was raised and still resides in Echo Park. She considers the diverse neighborhood her Angeleno anchor. “Latino-owned businesses are a big part of what makes L.A. special and one of the best ways of taking in culture is through food and art,” she says. “Echo Park is right in the center of all that and I’m lucky to live here.” As part of our “Mi Los Angeles” …

Best restaurants and bars near Dodgers games in Los Angeles

Best restaurants and bars near Dodgers games in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

The garden behind Cassell’s in Victor Heights is an Echo Park-adjacent haven, where sitting down for a burger or sandwich with fries feels like a respite from the city — a picnic-perfect way to kick off a day at Dodger Stadium. Burger patties are made from Aspen Ridge chuck and brisket, and the vegan version is house-made with farro, mushroom, zucchini, miso and flax. Both are among best-of-category burgers in L.A., served with crisp iceberg lettuce, tomato, red onion and thickly sliced pickles. Foldable takeout boxes double as convenient makeshift food trays (easily packed into a stadium-approved clear bag if needed). As delightful as the sweet potato waffle fries are, eat them on site while they’re hot. Otherwise, opt for a side of coleslaw or mac and cheese. Source link

A guide to Topanga Canyon: What to do, see, eat

A guide to Topanga Canyon: What to do, see, eat

Published by Sam Flores

There’s still magic in Topanga Canyon. The fabled mountain community famed for its bohemian sentimentality and artistic mythos has, for decades, garnered a reputation as L.A.’s funky, hippie, commune-happy enclave that bridges Woodland Hills and Pacific Coast Highway. The notoriety is well-earned. A restorative drive through the canyon’s roughly 20-mile main road reveals art installations, roadside vendors and sun-dappled oak trees through twists and turns and vistas each more scenic than the last. It’s a drive worth making, especially now. After a particularly rainy season, multiple mudslides have blocked Topanga Canyon’s entry from PCH for more than a month. Shops, restaurants and other businesses that depend on visitors are struggling, with access more or less limited to Route 27’s northern entrance, in Woodland Hills. Get to know Los Angeles through the places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to discover now. It’s a great time to explore the canyon and support its tight-knit community and natural beauty. According to linguist, author and Native American language specialist William …

The best and most beautiful sound baths in Los Angeles

The best and most beautiful sound baths in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

It’s 8 o’clock on a Saturday night and I’m standing in my pajamas on the third floor of a nondescript office building in Beverly Hills waiting for a man dressed in white to clear my energy with sage. Behind me, two women clutch fleece blankets and giggle nervously. “I feel like I’m going to an adult sleepover,” one of them says. But this is no sleepover. We’re about to walk into one of the many sound baths L.A. has to offer. Once a fringe practice more likely to be found in a conference room at the Conscious Life Expo, sound baths have vibrated into the mainstream in recent years, popping up in yoga and meditation studios, public gardens, churches, beaches and even the occasional BDSM dungeon. “When I started in 2003 there were hardly any sound baths in L.A.,” said Jamie Bechtold, a veteran practitioner and co-founder of the Soundbath Center in Eagle Rock, where she offers six to eight sound baths weekly. “Now every time I turn around, I see another one.” With this …

The ‘Reluctant Activist’: Being Outed as an Atheist in a Muslim-Majority Country

The ‘Reluctant Activist’: Being Outed as an Atheist in a Muslim-Majority Country

Published by skeptic

Secular Rescue’s mission is predominantly rooted in protecting emboldened atheist activists whose lives have become the targets of extremists because of public or social-media based human rights advocacy. It is relatively easy to spot an activist from a sideliner: nearly all or a majority of activist writing focuses on the inhumanity of hateful intolerance against those who choose no religion over some faith. However, many of those who seek emergency assistance from the Center for Inquiry’s Secular Rescue program are deemed “reluctant activists”: those who do not intentionally engage in public advocacy for freedom of conscience or the freedom to not believe in God but nevertheless become de facto activists. Such is the case of Ali, a young Tunisian ex-Muslim who was outed in his community, in a public way, as an apostate from Islam. He didn’t deny it and continued to try to live a secular life but was persistently harassed and unable to find work—declined because of his atheism. Like most atheists in Muslim-majority countries, early threats came from family: he was threatened …