Grass Roots

Fundamental change usually proceeds from the bottom up, which is why it often blindsides most politicians and much of the media. For example, the "tea party"-style rage that is this election cycle's defining characteristic grows out of a broad, if inchoate, sense that the American economy no longer apportions prosperity or opportunity in anything close to an equitable fashion. As David Cay Johnston reported Monday, last year the 74 highest-paid Americans each earned an average of $519 million annually ?

WASHINGTON - Leaders of a new advocacy group formed to back President Obama's second-term agenda sought Wednesday to cast the group as a vehicle for average Americans to engage with their government, seeking to dispel criticism that the nonprofit provides special interests access to the administration. Kicking off a two-day “founders summit” to inaugurate Organizing for Action, longtime Obama political strategist David Plouffe noted that top aides to the president only formed the group after a survey of the campaign's volunteers showed that more supporters wanted a way to stay involved than even after Obama's first win in 2008.

Peter Prescott, who reviewed Gunter Grass' "The Call of the Toad" (Nov. 29), is well-respected and sincere. However, he got up on the wrong side of the bed, and sleepily, to review the book. He starts by attacking German writing sharply, saying that in Hell one would be doomed to read it. Then he moves puzzlingly on to extol "the many virtues of German literature." Next he complains of the lack of wit and humor in German writers. One wonders: When were Grimmelshausen, Heine, Brecht, Wilhelm Busch and Baron Munchausen, through Raspe, posthumously declared to have lost their sense of humor?

Citizenville How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government Gavin Newsom with Lisa Dickey Penguin Press: 272 pp., $25.95 California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has a lot more time on his hands than he used to. When he was San Francisco mayor, from 2004 to '11, Newsom was busy, busy, busy. He (briefly) legalized gay marriage. He helped reform the city's generous welfare cash payment program. He worked on universal healthcare. His messy personal life provided endless fodder for a mercilessly snarky local press.

From its formation in 2004, it always seemed more than a bit incongruous that the tea party political group FreedomWorks chose as its chairman one of the erstwhile top power players from the halls of Congress. Nothing Dick Armey did in eight years changed that perception, including the way he exited Washington-based FreedomWorks -- with an $8-million payout, according to the Associated Press, the kind of platinum parachute available only to the canniest and coziest of the capital's inside players.

Yes, people still get high ("Just Say Maybe," by Dan Neil, 800 Words, Sept. 24). And maybe the reason boomers are finding their way back to marijuana is that they are retiring in large numbers and are no longer subject to random drug testing by their employers. Charlotte Costello Fountain Valley I agree with Dan Neil. I'm not surprised that baby boomers are returning to their "grass roots." If an otherwise responsible adult chooses to decompress after a long day or on the weekends, what's the harm?

As the going gets tougher for President Obama's plans to overhaul healthcare, the president this week is launching a renewed effort to build grass-roots support for his plan, supplementing his tour of town-hall meetings with outreach to Americans by way of opinion leaders they already know and trust. This afternoon, the president will take part in a telephone conference with clergy members of different faiths, who will talk about problems of healthcare access, and then detail his proposals for fixing those problems.

For exactly six years, the Grass Roots Cultural Center has been a meeting place for folk singers and revolutionaries, Communists and (please don't say this too loudly) a handful of quiet Republicans. So what does this suggest? A lack of focus? A lack of coherence? Changing times, marked mainly by eclecticism in thought and action? Maybe all of the above. For whatever reason, Grass Roots (which opened in October, 1981) will officially close on Thursday.

Let us count the ways to concoct a potboiler. There's politics, sex, white supremacy, rape, assassinations, homophobia, nymphomania, evangelism, suicide, the CIA, the FBI and the local sheriff. NBC's untidy "Grass Roots" (at 9 tonight and Tuesday on Channels 4, 36 and 39) has them all. At least they're spread over four hours. Naturally, all this gothic horror and chaos happens in a small town in the Deep South, which writers and moviemakers consider more ill than the rest of the country.

The grass roots came to the lush and rolling green of Brentwood on Thursday night as People for the American Way--perhaps too long known as "Norman Lear's thing"--kicked off its organizing effort for a Southern California base.

Despite her rivals raising more money and garnering more attention in Los Angeles' mayoral race, City Councilwoman Jan Perry said Saturday she should not be counted out. “People focus on money as a measure of status, and if this was a race just about money, then you might as well hold it today and elect the one who has the most money. But I think this is not about that,” Perry told The Times. “It's about the democratic process and about empowering people and energizing them and getting them to turn out and whether or not you have a message and a record and whether or not you connect with people.” Perry recalled her first run for office, and how the conventional wisdom was that she had no shot at success.

From its formation in 2004, it always seemed more than a bit incongruous that the tea party political group FreedomWorks chose as its chairman one of the erstwhile top power players from the halls of Congress. Nothing Dick Armey did in eight years changed that perception, including the way he exited Washington-based FreedomWorks -- with an $8-million payout, according to the Associated Press, the kind of platinum parachute available only to the canniest and coziest of the capital's inside players.

A small group of opponents to a three-decade transportation sales tax extension on next month's ballot huddled this week for their first news conference, a thinly attended event in a Hyde Park parking lot. Only two television stations showed up - one from USC - signaling the kind of David versus Goliath battle they face. The Coalition to Defeat Measure J included a smattering of groups with accumulated grievances against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

President Obama may be playing humble these days , but his campaign isn't afraid of puffing its chest a bit. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on Thursday declared the campaign's operation the “largest and most innovative grass-roots campaign in American political history.” The fact check on that statement will come on Nov. 6. But as the Obama campaign tries to recover from the president's ugly debate performance against Mitt Romney,...

Broken sidewalks may not be quite as dangerous as rutted streets, but they too can be treacherous. An estimated 42% of the 10,750 miles of sidewalks in the city of Los Angeles are crumbling or buckling, lifted by tree roots in some places to scarily high inclines. The city gets about 2,500 "trip and fall" claims each year, and wheelchair users have sued the city, contending that the sidewalks are an obstacle course that violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. That they need to be fixed is a no-brainer.

Re "A party no one attended," Opinion, May 17 I disagree with Doyle McManus that Americans Elect failed for lack of a charismatic leader. The"tea party"didn't have a charismatic leader; its success in 2010 was based on a powerful message to its targeted audience and a grass-root movement. Americans Elect lacks both. I have advocated a third centrist party in Congress representing moderate Americans, folks with principles but realistic enough to know that governing is possible only through compromise.

John Glover is a reluctant villain, but he decided he could get some good out of yet another bad-to-the-bone role. Glover plays an assassin for a white supremacist organization in NBC's two-part political thriller, "Grass Roots," which airs Sunday and Monday. The four-hour miniseries also stars Corbin Bernsen and Mel Harris. (A conversation with Mel Harris, Page 7.

Barack Obama wanted to be a transformational president, and as we head into the general election, he may have gotten his wish - just not the way he or his supporters might have thought. Obama seems to have transformed the cohort of 18- to 29-year-olds, a whopping 66% of whom preferred him over John McCain, from passionate voters who thought Obama really did offer change they could believe in, into people feeling, in the words of veteran political analyst Charlie Cook, "disappointment and disillusionment.

The story of "The First Grader" is a classic underdog tale: an 84-year-old Kenyan man fights to be educated, even if that means attending an elementary school. Now the film's producers are launching their own against-all-odds effort, trying to bring the movie to the attention of Oscar voters with little help from its distributor. After its premiere at last year's Telluride Film Festival, the independently financed feature was acquired by National Geographic Entertainment, a relatively new player in the theatrical world.