We’ve got our game face on and our gloves laced and up for the Winter edition of the LA Forum Newsletter as we defend the indefensible: AstroTurf, ugly buildings, and the drought. Dramatizing the indefensible, the gaudy, the reckless, the petulant and perverse, we pro­mote a heuristic process of pot-stirring those allergic, irresolvable tensions—all their choreographies and contre­temps. Artist and filmmaker James Benning finds illuminating inspiration in the expressivity and blaring sincer­ity of Theodore Kaczynski’s (aka The Unabomber) architectural design and writings. Rob Berry raises eyebrows in an arid landscape. Steven Chodoriwsky relays a clumsily unfolding bad idea. Guest edi­tor Wendy Gilmartin builds a case for L.A.’s ugliness. Ian Besler is persuasive about fake nature. Barbara Stauffacher Solomon reminds us of the offenses of Good Design.