A proposal for two 4.5 mile tunnels linking the 710 Freeway to the 210 Freeway (from El Sereno in Los Angeles through South Pasadena to Pasadena), each with four traffic lanes, with likely costs in the tens of billions of dollars, is set to come before the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority along with other options later this fall.

Glendale Arts, which books and stages events including a city-wide annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration, is now mobilizing to keep the historic Alex Theatre as its premier venue and Glendale’s cultural center. California’s closure of all redevelopment agencies has hit the theatre with budget and ownership threats. City officials enacted zoning changes in July to prevent any attempt by the state to claim and sell the property.

“I am certainly one who appreciates all that America has to offer,” writes Glendale native Paul Ignatius in his personal memoir Now I Know in Part (2011). His maternal grandfather, Avedis Jamgochian, was likely the first Armenian to purchase property in Glendale (in 1911), and Ignatius was likely the first Armenian-American student at Herbert Hoover High School. His story spans the late 19th through 21st centuries, yet is so familiar to those like me whose families made the same journeys and ended up in the same places.

2012 is The Year of the Armenian Book, but I don’t need an excuse to visit any bookseller, bookstore, or online book site. These are interesting times for the product known as ‘the book,’ as the market struggles to keep up with changes in digital publishing technology.

Libraries are quiet places; perhaps that is why the news hardly mentioned that in addition to slashing funds for higher education and home health care, California’s recent lower revenue report triggered $16 million in cuts eliminating all funding for the California Library Services Act, the state literacy program, and the Public Library Foundation.