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• Former Fleishman-Hillard executive John Stodder pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday on 11 felony wire fraud charges. His trial in the case of inflated Fleishman billings to the Department of Water and Power is scheduled for August 2.
• I'm told that "L Word" creator Ilene Chaiken, mentioned below, subscribed to KCRW during the current pledge drive and announced that one of the show's characters (Alice) gets a job at the station in an upcoming episode. Also in KCRW Land, Mickey Kaus gets to talk about his favorite issue, welfare, with Jason de Parle on Tuesday's Politics of Culture at 2:30 p.m. Kaus also writes today at Slate that the FCC and Middle America were only upset about the sexism of Justin Timberlake ripping the covering off Janet Jackson's breast at last year's Super Bowl. He also has a long take on the Bernard Weinraub farewell piece (scroll down at Kausfiles to Friday's entries.)
• Mack Reed narrowly escapes an unhappy meeting with a speeding SUV while driving his daughter to school this morning.
• Nancy Rommelmann, formerly of L.A., now of Portland, wrote the cover story on alternative death rituals in the Sunday L.A. Times Magazine.
• Hop Studios, run in Vancouver by Travis Smith (formerly of Variety and LATimes.com) and Susannah Gardner (formerly of USC Annenberg and LATimes.com), redesigned the websites of five local Tribune papers, including the Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader.
• Robert Eversz writes Los Angeles-based mystery novels from San Pol de Mar, a small village on the Spanish coast near Barcelona. He's in town this month to sign and do readings from Digging James Dean, his newest.
• Carl Ferraro wasn't a media figure but his restaurant, The Dresden, figured prominently in the films Swingers and The Two Jakes. It's been a hangout off and on for media types over a couple of generations. Ferraro died January 20 at age 91 and his obit hit the LAT today. Blogger Joseph Mailander pays tribute.
• Lew Harris, the former Los Angeles Magazine editor-in-chief and US Weekly senior editor, is teaching a "boot camp on magazine editing" in Los Angeles for Mediabistro. First class is Feb. 15.