We know when summer has arrived in Los Angeles: The coast is foggy, valleys are roasting and streets are bloodied.

There's just something about warm weather that brings out gangbangers.

A few weeks ago, many, many American eggheads - those who study the incessant contortions of our social phenomena the way Gypsy seers peruse tea leaves - seemed convinced that paramilitary Rightwing militiamen were set to burst from their tule outhouses and overthrow American social and political apple carts. This was in the wake of some scattered violence linked to "conservative" or religious extremists, notably the assassination of an abortion doctor in the Midwest.

But for some of us out here, clinging to the underbelly of sticky unpleasantness that today passes for reality, the signal crisis facing this country isn't "hate" - white or otherwise.

It's violence.

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When will the first lawsuits be filed attempting to recoup Bernard Madoff's victims from the public dole - from taxpayers' pockets?

This brilliant creep was sentenced to a 150-year stretch today. Good. Although, it would be foolish to assume the veteran con man doesn't have some cash socked away in a mattress somewhere, and so we can be sure his expensive lawyers will continue energetically - and lucratively - pursuing justice for the poor, put-upon weasel. I see it all in my Coke-bottle crystal ball: fine candidate for early parole, just for his mop-bucket integrity alone.

But, from the beginning, this sad tale has been one of nonregulation connecting with prideful, sociopathic rapaciousness to produce a financial Frankenstein. The Securities and Exchange Commission seriously - and, perhaps, deliberately - dropped the ball here.

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