Friday shorts *

⇒ Geoffrey Mohan, an editor on the L.A. Times California desk, moves to assistant foreign editor. He was previously Latin America bureau chief for Newsday. The Times also posted an opening for a Las Vegas-based national correspondent and a reporter willing to spend a year in New Orleans.

⇒ It's proven once again (the hard way) that those flashing lights, lowered arms and honking Metrolink horns at train crossings should not be ignored. One woman won't be driving badly ever again.

⇒ Word around the LA Weekly is that City Hall and county reporter Rob Greene is jumping to the Times as an editorial writer.

⇒ KCRW will preempt Warren Olney's Which Way, L.A.? nightly to air NPR's recap of the Senate's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, which begin Monday. Live coverage of the hearings will stream over KCRW.com.

⇒ Catherine Seipp's From the Left Coast column in the National Review Online calls the Times' features sections weak and comes down (no surprise) on Patterico's side versus Hiltzik. * Added: Patterico took in Scott Kaufer's gathering of media types Friday night at Yamashiro. Just a guess that it's the first time he's shared a room with Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

⇒ People in the Arts District east of Alameda are getting tired of all the filming in their neighborhood: 800 shooting days last year alone.

⇒ Tonight at 7:30 pm the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica screens Hell's Angels, the 1930 film for which Howard Hughes built two complete airfields out in the Valley and stocked them with fleets of real World War I planes. The Brits were at Balboa and Roscoe, the Germans in Chatsworth. Took Hughes so long to make the film that talkies came in, so he fired Greta Nissen and her Norwegian accent after the film was done and reshot her scenes with newcomer Jean Harlow.

⇒ Tuesday's City Council meeting has been cancelled due to the Ernani Bernardi funeral. Wednesday will be the first meeting of the new year, with Eric Garcetti up in the big chair for the first time as prez.