It seems the City of Light has developed a bit of a dark side not readily visible to the casual visitor. Lovers still stroll hand-in-hand along the banks of the Seine, ignoring the obvious signs of pollution. They share drinks at sidewalk cafes (the tap water is still fine) and embrace in doorways and on the grass in every park.

And the parks are still beautifully kept, lawns mowed, hedges clipped and flowers to die for. Any Brits who think their island has a lock on prize gardens should take a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, the Tuilleries or Parc Jardin des Plantes (more of this later).

Paris in summer is notoriously steamy, but in this year of unprecedented rainfall (the worst in 128 years) heat is not the major source of irritation. Parisians are blaming the new municipal government for unbelievable traffic jams, but ‘tourists add few vehicles to the mix and most residents enjoy their famous long vacations in July and August, taking their cars with them. Well, the city fathers, or whoever, thought this would be a swell time to shut down about three miles of a main artery running through the heart of the city on the Right Bank of the Seine. The bright idea was to give skaters, joggers and dog walkers free rein on the expressway, which is kind of like turning the Sepulveda Pass portion of the 405 over to hikers. Popular with the Greens maybe, but hardly the way to win votes from thousands of motorists forced onto surface streets. They crossed the river en masse, ground to a halt on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and clogged the Champs-Elyses, and that’s before the Tour de France cycled into the Place de la Concorde Sunday (Vive Lance Armstrong).

Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, instead of chucking a bad idea before it blooms, is digging his heels in, saying the plan just needs to be better explained. I think this is like launching a P.R. campaign to explain the benefits of genetically engineered food–it will work when pig genes fly. And now that the weather is heating up, it will be hard to explain to thousands of sweaty kids why 42 of the area’s public swimming pools are closed during July and August. Couldn’t they repair them after school starts in September?

But these inconveniences pale in comparison to pipe bomb attacks on police stations and blazing cars set alight the past two weekends in the Seine-St.-Denis district (just outside Paris proper). This is not the work of terrorists, authorities say, but mischief by gangs of poor youths. However, the area is the site of the Stade de France, which would have featured prominently in the 2008 Olympic Games had Paris not been passed over in favor of Beijing, which is, of course, the final ignominy for the mayor and his city.

Still, it’s a great place to visit, even in the rain, even when it sizzles. After you’ve done the Louvre, the Muse d’Orsay, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, watched the artists doing charcoal portraits by the bridge opposite the cathedral, checked out Shakespeare’s book store and the shops on rue St. Louis en l’Ile, work your way to the outskirts. There are huge, magnificent parks everywhere: Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Parc Zoologique de Paris, a clean, densely landscaped animal park on par with San Diego Zoo, and adjacent to miles of jogging and bicycling paths, boating, ponies at the Bois de Vincennes. The Jardin des Plantes is the place for die-hard garden lovers. An adjunct to the school of horticulture, plants are clearly marked as to species and variety, not that one could find many of those varieties here. But the techniques used to lay out the flowerbeds wouldn’t be too difficult to follow. We had taken the train to Giverny to see the famous garden created by Claude Monet, but it was such a riot of color and texture and so densely planted that it was impossible to figure out how it was done.

Our last evening before leaving for Clermont-Ferrand, our hosts drove us out to an amazing place called France Miniature. It didn’t sound too exciting in the Periscope, so we were surprised to find a finely detailed scale model of the whole country: the sea, rivers, mountains, chateaux, trains, dams, roads, cathedrals spread over about 10 acres. At dusk, the paths are lit, and the castles and churches, ports and boats are illuminated by candles. Lessons in architecture and history.

Magnifique!

I would like to thank and commend your publication, and reporter Suzanne Marcus Fletcher for the excellent article she wrote on our Vital Intervention and Directional Alternatives (VIDA) Program.

As the captain of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Bureau, I appreciate that Ms. Fletcher had her facts straight, did an exceptional job of including the program’s elements and she did it with style. Her article was informative, very interesting and quite easily read, and I’m sure it will be appreciated by the public we serve, as well as our excellent deputies and marines in the program.

This program is another excellent example of how the Sheriff’s Department is reaching out to all communities under the leadership of Sheriff Lee Baca.

When he saw this program working so well, after being started by two deputies on their own time at East Los Angeles sheriff’s station, he ordered it be expanded to all the sheriff’s stations. In addition, he directed that the program be made available to any youngster within Los Angeles County.

On January 15, 2000, this program was started at 11 additional sites (12 total with ELA) and since has expanded to 14. Over 500 youngsters have successfully graduated through the program and we are tracking their continuing progress after graduation. Parents, schools, courts and law enforcement officers have commended the program and the results, and we’re doing everything in our power to help it continue to grow.

Articles like yours are a great assist to our efforts and I thank you again for your excellent coverage.

Captain Ken Johnson

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department

Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Bureau

The American Way in politics is to back your candidate or issue of choice wholeheartedly, but fairly, no lies, no slanders, and no false facts. Use facts not innuendo, not unfounded gossip, please, no character assassination! That not only unfairly and cruelly damages reputations, but also presents a rather clear picture of exactly who you are. It also reflects very badly on the causes you espouse.

Anyone who supports another candidate or is on the opposite side of an issue is not fair game. You have every right to be a partisan for your own cause, even biased, but take care you also have the responsibility to be fair, not petty, mean and slanderous. Disagreeing with someone does not make that person a bad person. If you think otherwise, then you should get a life, starting with a basic ethics course.

Some of the Letters to the Editor recently have become downright slanderous about prior city leadership.

Worse, they tend to perpetuate misconceptions and wild rumors and border on petty character assassination. Look at your own life experiences. Don’t you find that people tend to act like human beings, even those in public office or those who seek public office? While not perfect, the majority of brave citizens willing to serve in thankless leadership roles do not have a hidden agenda, they merely want to help lead the community in shaping the future of Malibu.

Go ahead, support candidates whose ideas you agree with, but do not fall into that trap of thinking the worst about “the other side” and calling them names in public. Sadly, that behavior is totally juvenile and not what we expect from adult citizens.

People of good will can still disagree, and those who hold views counter to your own are not monsters but merely other concerned citizens who support candidates and issues you do not happen to agree with. This is America. They are entitled. Lighten up!

Ray Singer

Mr. Fakehany has done it again. Just viewed the local city cable channel and heard his declaration to the Malibu City Council on the general bond issue to be placed on the ballot in November.

Rolled with amusement at Tom’s tongue-in-cheek delivery. Did Councilman [Ken] Kearsley’s face turn red.

From what I heard and saw, Fakehany’s declaration of disagreement on behalf of the Lily’s Coffee Group was not against kids, as an angry Kearsley claimed, but giving the Malibu City Council a blank check for $15,000,000.

M. Scott

The tribal wisdom of the Malibu Coastal Indians, passed on from council to council, says that when you discover that you are riding a deceased bond proposition, the best strategy is to dismount.

B. Grant

They say that wisdom comes with age.

The truth is, I haven’t noticed it.

If anything, resignation comes with age. If resignation is the same thing as wisdom, then I guess we get smarter as we get older.

What you have as you get older is the benefit of having lived through a few cycles of everything, so you’re resigned to the fact that things change. Therefore, you are not so quick to jump on the bandwagon, or that fast to jump off. And you know that what goes up, invariably goes down and vice versa. It’s amazing how smart everybody is on an up market and how dumb they get on a down market.

For example, when the high-tech market was red hot, I could never figure out why everyone thought it was all so great, particularly since the dot-com world didn’t seem to be making a lot of money, or, for that matter, any money.

People just seemed to be spending a lot of money. I had a few 20-somethings explain to me, in patronizing detail, that I was just incurably an “old thinker” and just about hopelessly mired in outdated economics. These 20-somethings declare the new Holy Grail is “market share.”

I could never understand how owning a 50 percent share of a money-losing market was somehow twice as good as owning a 25 percent share of a money-losing market. Apparently I was absent from school the day it was explained.

But like everyone else, I got caught up in the headiness of spiraling stock prices and figured, why not?

I really should of known better.

Karen and I went to a launch party for a dot-com company at Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel on the Sunset Strip. The party cost a fortune. The expensive champagne flowed. The place was populated with young, handsome Hollywood boys who were all so “au courant.” The girls were gorgeous with necklines cut down to their navels. It’s an inflexible rule–the lower the necklines of the hostess at the kick-off party, the higher the risk of investment.

The event was covered on streaming video, online and there was enough high-tech equipment to launch a spacecraft. The next giveaway [that this was a risky investment] was that Karen had a client who actually wanted to advertise on the dot-com company’s Web site and she spent the next few weeks trying to get a rate card and finally gave up when none was forthcoming.

Whatever was in their business plan apparently didn’t include doing business.

Fortunately we never put any money into it because there was a line-up of very smart venture capitalists throwing money at it already and the company didn’t want us. Thank heavens.

I know it’s always easy to look back and see with perfect clarity that the emperor had no clothes and it’s a lot tougher to do it prospectively. Still, I’m going to go out on a limb and make some predictions.

• It’s a safe bet to say the economy is going to shrink 10 percent or 20 percent and then it’s going to start on the slow road back. It needs that time so people can once again remember that stock prices don’t double every 20 minutes, and no one’s net worth can multiply geometrically, unless of course you’re in the energy business. But then, of course, you always risk being indicted.

• In the meantime, the pundits who previously were predicting a 30,000 Dow are going to be talking about the coming depression. They were wrong before and they’ll be wrong again.

• Some people are going to make money on the fall and again on the rise. Timing is everything and some people are really good at it. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at it, as I suspect most of you are not. Some people are really good at money. Recognize it’s a very rare skill, which is why it’s so profitable.

• The President’s going to take it on the chin a bit because the leader always gets credit for the ups and the blame for the downs, and there’s probably not a lot he can do about it either way.

• The talk show hosts will continue to shout at each other about the down economy and whose fault it is and it will mean just about as much as it meant before in the up economy.

• And lastly, if any of you have a really good stock tip for this new economy, please, don’t tell me.

The sheriff’s department is synonymous with law enforcement, correction and response to crime after it happens.

But L.A. County’s sheriff’s deputies have yet another weapon in their arsenal–prevention aimed at young elementary and middle school aged children.

“Why do the sheriffs take kids to camp?” asked a deputy at on the first morning of camp. “To keep them focused on the future and keep them off drugs,” he answered.

Among the many programs offered by the Sheriff’s Youth Foundation’s S.T.A.R. (Success Through Awareness & Resistance) program are two-week-long camp sessions that focus on enabling local youth to resist drugs and crime, and keep them focused instead on a productive future.

Last week, 110 children from age 7 to about 12 attended the first of two weekly sessions at Camp Calamigos in the Santa Monica Mountains.

S.T.A.R. deputies who, during the year, visit local schools, educating children about drugs and crime prevention, lead the campers in the mountains above Malibu through a fun and lesson-oriented curriculum, touching on a variety of subjects such as Internet safety and martial arts.

Camp organizers also cater daily lunches and snacks and take the children on field trips to Magic Mountain, Point Mugu Naval Base, or a Dodger game.

The Sheriff’s Youth Foundation was created in 1985 based upon the belief that crime prevention programs focused on youth are the key to developing safer communities.

COURT JESTERS

Malibu’s Kelsey Grammer hit the tennis court to help pal David Foster raise $100,000 for his MusicCares Financial Assistance Fund at the opening event of the Mercedes Benz Cup. The annual “Night at the Net” fundraiser at UCLA serves up lots of laughs as well as professional tennis.

After a VIP cocktail party sponsored by MusicCares, guests made their way to UCLA’s Los Angeles Tennis Center and settled into their seats, joining a sellout crowd of 7,000. Every year, funnymen like Robin Williams and Billy Crystal team up with the world’s top pros for a tennis experience that is like no other.

This year’s match had Grammer, “Saturday Night Live” alum David Spade, Greg Kinnear and Matthew Perry, rotating in and out with powerhouses Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.

With their off-the-cuff quips, wacky lobs, lopsided serves, long shots, dinkers and drops, the stars of “Just Shoot Me,” “Fraiser” and “Friends” made for an evening as entertaining as their popular sitcoms.

“How would you like it?” queried Agassi, whose serves top 100 miles per hour.

“Oh, about 45 and right in the middle,” Grammer replied.

“I don’t think it will make it there at 45,” answered Agassi.

For the most part, the pros took it easy on the celebrity partners. But the stars did manage to get in a few good shots. When Perry missed his first serve, Spade quipped from the sidelines, “You serve like a girlie little girl.” But Perry aced his opponent the second time around, to which Spade replied, “An angry little girl.”

The stars sat through some final points while Sampras and Agassi took some real shots. It was close, but team Spade came out on top, winning the game 21-20 and laughing all the way.

DALI HIGH

Meantime, lovers of prolific surrealist Salvador Dali got a fascinating eyeful of cropped torsos, melting clocks and oversized insects at the opening night kickoff of the artist’s exhibition at UCLA. Art enthusiasts joined Dr. Stephen Cederbaum for a sneak peek at the show, while helping raise money for the university’s School of Medicine. The gallery walls were filled to the brim with oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, sculpture and tapestries, which made up the largest Dali exhibit ever shown in Los Angeles.

THE PLAY’S THE THING

Locals like Donna Mills and Ed Begley Jr. have been among those making the theater rounds these days. From glitzy productions like “Contact” at the Ahmanson, to the Black Box Theater’s hysterical one-woman show, “Note to Self,” to the lavish “La Bayadere,” the curtains are calling to keep you cool during the dog days of summer.