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Archive: Master of Pirates

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Mike Spasoff is a tireless servant to this community -- at least for a few months out of the year -- and that's good enough for me. It's also more than good enough for the 600 trick-or-treaters he delights and terrifies with the elaborate, Disney-rivaling, pirate-themed yard display at his house on San Fernando Mission Boulevard (near Shoshone). When I was a kid, I used to always wish someone in the neighborhood would do something beyond carving a pumpkin. Fortunately, kids in Mike's neighborhood will never have to cope with that same unfulfilled sense of longing that I always had. What makes you want to invest the time, money, and resources into such an elaborate production? I can remember the magic of walking the streets of our neighborhood each Halloween and the excitement of finding a house that did something more than just a jack-o-lantern or a cardboard skeleton. My parents and I always made a special effort to do something extra but it wasn't until we move
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Thoughts on Joe's Cafe and cancel culture

On June 1, 2020, the date when people planned to gather in Granada Hills to protest George Floyd's killing, fearful rumors began flying early. The protest was certain to be violent. The claims that it was planned as a "peaceful" protest was certain to be cover for looters. Some started spreading the rumor that "the organizers have cancelled the event," presumably with the hope of making that come true.  I spent that afternoon trying to debunk the myths that seemed designed to suppress the event from happening. Myth debunking has, at times during 2020, seemed like a full-time job for me, starting with my pointless and overmatched efforts to argue with "the pandemic is a liberal hoax" theorists. I still find it difficult to believe that my pleas for evidence-based reasoning would so often be dismissed as radical.  Yet I stubbornly cling to my insistence that without evidence to support them, beliefs are worthless.  On social media, I pled with fear-sprea
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Granada Hills Gets Its Own Farmer's Market

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I've been wishing for a while now that Granada Hills would have a farmer's market we could call our very own, and now we will! This Friday evening, from 5-9pm at the Granada Hills Masonic Center on Rinaldi (near Hayvenhurst), the Granada Hills Farmer's Market will have its debut. And unlike the April-October market at the Northridge Fashion Center, market manager Ric Alfafara plans to make this a year-round Friday night event. Alfafara, who also co-manages the Van Nuys and Sylmar Farmer's Markets, says, "Everybody's been talking about it, friends who live in Granada Hills have been saying we need a market out here. And so I talked to the Freemasons (who sponsor the market), and they said that they want to get involved with the community, they want to get the community up and strong. "It's a certified farmers market, and a family festival too. We'll have jumpers, kids' rides, entertainment," Alfafara said. In addition to farmers fro
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