Larry Rand, Patch Staff

I sold a photo to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and played my first professional folksinging gig when I was 14.  I have been doing journalism and folk music ever since.

My writing and photographs have appeared in Chicago magazine, where I was a contributing editor and won a Peter Lisagor Award; Playboy, Field & Stream, National Lampoon, Ozark, the Chicago Reader, and three Chicago daily newspapers.

In California I have worked as a staff writer for the Victorville Daily Press and the Banning-Beaumont Record Gazette before joining Patch.  I also freelanced, most recently for Discover the Pass magazine.

My radio experience includes a drivetime show on WXRT-FM in Chicago and a "live" folk music show, "The Flea Market," on National Public Radio.  I've guest-hosted "The Midnight Special," a radio show begun by film director Mike Nichols that is syndicated nationally from WFMT in Chicago and has played my music for many years.

I've appeared on HBO, Comedy Central and the Chicago public television station's "Made in Chicago," which won a local Emmy the season I hosted a segment. 

<b>My Beliefs</b>

<b>At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license for you to inject your beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that your beliefs are on the record will cause you to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know.<br></b>

I&#39;m a lifelong environmentalist hippie, but I&#39;m also a veteran and a fan of capitalism.  Journalism, I believe, is not the first draft of history, but the assembling of pertinent facts.  The belief system stated above no doubt affects what I believe to be pertinent.  I try to make allowances for that when I&#39;m conscious of it.

<strong>Politics</strong>

I am a registered Democrat and liberal.  I ran for office once in Chicago with orders to lose, and I did (a long story).  I worked my first two precincts at age 13 and carried both 70-30; they had gone 60-40 Republican in the previous election.  Two of my political heroes are Mahatmas K. Gandhi and Cesar Chavez.  They are not the only two.  Ronald Reagan is not one of the others.

<strong>Religion</strong>

I do not attend services regularly, but I pray every day.  I don&#39;t think the Bible is the literal word of God or literal in any sense, except that the 10 Commandments are literally the best advice ever.  I meditate.  I believe in God but have a limited tolerance for organized religion.  Most, but not all of my family was Jewish growing up, a big influence on me, and a number of my adult friends are Buddhists, another influence.  

<strong>Local Hot-Button Issues</strong>

<strong> </strong>Banning is in terrible financial trouble, most of it due to the recession.  I doubt that there is much the city council can do about it except to keep the losses to a minimum.  

I don&#39;t believe that politicians can &#34;create jobs,&#34; other than government staff jobs—and there&#39;s no money for that.

Beaumont&#39;s city manager and department heads, employees of private firms, were not eager enough to be transparent about their salaries.  Privacy goes away when you feed at the public trough, whether or not you&#39;re technically a government employee.  I do not believe that these same people are crooks or hiding shady practices, but their reluctance to be transparent worries me.  

Water has been California&#39;s political hand grenade, and Banning and Beaumont water politics are no different.  I don&#39;t think many local residents are doing enough to conserve water, myself included.  I believe that the septic systems in Cherry Valley are polluting the drink water of the Beaumont Basin, which isn&#39;t a good thing, but I&#39;m okay with another round of tests as long as they&#39;re on the up-and-up.

I&#39;m not anti-growth or anti-development, as long as it&#39;s done well.  People are moving to California and have to live somewhere.  But environmental review of development is a good idea.

I think Proposition 13 was and is a disaster that ruined the best public school system in the US.  Before Prop 13, poor kids from Banning and Beaumont used to be able to attend top-notch state colleges for free.

I don&#39;t believe in gay marriage, because I don&#39;t think that government should be involved in marriage, which is a religious ceremony.  Rather than legalize gay marriage, I think we should abolish state marriages of all kinds; they violate our separation of church and state.  People should get married in church, not at City Hall.  The Libertarians, it seems to me, got this one right.  (If we refuse to abolish state marriages, then yes, I&#39;m in favor of including gay and lesbian couples in that ongoing Constitutional violation.)