Back home in Echo Park, the former director of communications for the National Endowment of the Arts talks about discovering that in politics, being right is no substitute for looking like you're right. Sergant masterminded the viral spread of Shepard Fairey's Hope poster for Obama, got a job in the White House Office of Public Engagement, then moved to NEA as a neophyte political flack. A few words on a conference call got him targeted as a bogeyman by the anti-Obama wing of the media, led by Glenn Beck.

Sergant gives his first in-depth interview since leaving Washington to a close friend, Hillel Aron, who reports for USC's Neon Tommy. Excerpts:

His tenure at the NEA was cut short by a seemingly mundane conference call that somehow became a national scandal stirred up by Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and one of his old bosses....

Yosi can be forgiven for being suspicious of the media. He's seen how they can take what you say, disassemble it, throw most of it away, and reassemble it into something completely different. He's not paranoid. Just a little shell-shocked.

Continued after the jump.

Photo cropped from photo by Darius Twin

Once again, residents of about 500 homes in La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Acton have been told to leave due to an approaching "very cold and vigorous storm system." The so-called mandatory evacuation order takes effect at 10 o'clock on Tuesday morning. Addresses affected

"Model Home," the first novel by Eric Puchner, is set during the Reagan presidency and tells the story of a family — Camille, Warren and their three kids — who move from Wisconsin to Southern California so Warren can get into the real estate game. From a review at The Rumpus:

Warren has built a housing development in the desert, on the risky assumption that suburbia will keep expanding; the development turns out to be located close to a construction site for an industrial waste dump. Warren’s car has been repossessed, his credit cards rescinded—though he’s not above trying to sell houses to unsuspecting customers, his project is in ruins and he has yet to admit the truth to his family. Before the novel closes, worse disasters will befall all of them.

Now that's a story for our times.

This week's SoCal bestsellers

Just to finish a thought from the weekend, the Kings lost tonight to the Ducks — ending their club-record winning streak at nine.

After hearing complaints from readers about last week's tweaking of the paper, Los Angeles Times editors have stopped printing the crossword puzzle on a fold, returned the British pound to the foreign currencies list, and resumed listing daytime TV movies. Apparently the readers also asked that the Times stop covering the Clippers. Saturday night's home game — start time 7:30, as usual — was missing from Sunday's Sports section. A story did get onto the web, meaning that paying customers got no story on the home team playing at Staples Center, but freeloaders did. "Not very promising for extra-innings Dodger games," a Times writer emailed. Well, it's worse than that. Even nine inning games tend to end later than the Clippers game did.

Until hearing otherwise, we'll assume the issue was the deadline crunch created when the Times moved most cutoff times earlier to economize on press runs. The LATExtra section was created to catch late stuff in among the local news stories, but it doesn't print on Sundays. There was worry in Sports from the get-go about Saturday night games, and it appears warranted. Meanwhile, Times news boxes now exclaim "Later deadlines," apparently a disingenuous reference to LATExtra. The Times' new readers' representative, the title given to an editor assigned to defuse complaints, contends the new section "has been received mostly well by readers, although there was some confusion over its content."

Begs to differ: Ron Olsen, who as a Channel 5 reporter was often stationed at the Times building to get an early look at the night's stories, is upset enough about the latest changes that he blogs:

Somewhere out there, there has to be someone sitting on a pile of money big enough to rescue this paper. Someone who can buy it, lock, stock and presses, and then give it back to journalism and Southern California.

On the other hand, in another post Olsen seems to miss the dozen stories by Times reporter Paul Pringle examining management of the Station Fire. [Noted: Olsen says not.]

Clippers photo from ESPN / Kevin Reece - Icon SMI

Judging by my email, a lot of people heard KCRW's fundraising pitch last week that included the news that Warren Olney, host of "To the Point" and "Which Way, L.A.?," had suffered a possible concussion in a bicycle accident. For those who have been asking, he's still laid up and is replaced by Sara Terry on tonight's WWLA, airing at 7:30 p.m. This is the last night of the pledge drive.

Noted: Friendly Fire blogger Jonathan Dobrer found the Olney-themed pitching a bit much.

We all knew that Dr. Conrad Murray would be charged today in Michael Jackson's death. The suspense was whether he would be arrested first by the LAPD or allowed to surrender. Well, he came in under his own power and was only taken into custody after being arraigned and pleading not guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Bail was set at $75,000, much higher than usual for the charge, but less than the $300,000 sought by prosecutors. Members of Jackson's family were in court to observe. LAT, AP at CBS 2

Raw materials: The Smoking Gun posted excerpts of the Jackson autopsy report, also released today.

Photo: CBS 2

It's community leadership day on LA Observed, I guess. New York Times bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer profiles Eli Broad as the "iron checkbook" whose grip on Los Angeles and its arts scene "has never been tighter." Included in the package is an snazzy interactive attempt to map and display Broad's influence on the cityscape, plus photos by Monica Almeida. Story excerpt:

Every American city has its power brokers, but only Los Angeles has an Eli Broad.

Mr. Broad dominates the arts here with a force that has no parallel in any major city. Los Angeles would literally not look the same had Mr. Broad not chosen it as his home 40 years ago, and his business-focused method of managing his giving has earned him a reputation as both a genius and a despot....

A billionaire philanthropist whose beneficence comes with not just strings but with ropes that could moor an ocean liner, he is known to pull his support, resign from a board or, in some cases, decline to fulfill his financial promises when a project comes together in a way he does not like.

“For me there has been no downside,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., an economics professor at Harvard who has collaborated with Mr. Broad on education projects and whom Mr. Broad, in typical fashion, hunted down one Christmas Eve in Austria, where he was on vacation, to discuss their work. “But I think if you’re not on your game, Eli will crush you.”

The story also surfaces the perennial topic among do-gooders and leaders here: why aren't there more Eli Broads active in L.A.? "His remarkable influence...says much about Los Angeles and its still-adolescent philanthropic culture, diffuse power base and lack of civic investment among many of its richest residents. 'Eli is not the problem,' said Ann Philbin, the director of the Hammer Museum..'The problem is that we don’t have enough Elis in Los Angeles to balance out his generosity and the power of his influence.'"