It may have been a short holiday week, but news didn't take a breather. There was plenty happening around LA Observed:

1. Michael Richards commits career suicide at the Laugh Factory, but Bob Baker sees a way out while Andrew Gumbel just sees mass media banality.
2. Kill ten people, don't go to prison.
3. O.J.'s book gets a lot of attention for Judith Regan, but not much else.
4. Mike Davis and Nick Goldberg exchange mash notes exclusively at LA Observed.
5. When Tennie Pierce got $2.7 million you wondered "who's he got pictures of?" You were half right, even if Rocky Delgadillo just looks wrong.
6. Tony Castro's diagnosis of Villaraigosa and CJR's 1993 take on Castro.
7. Paul Conrad skewers Tribune with his pen.
8. Patrick Goldstein rates the Oscar bloggers.
9. Akiva Goldsman gets $4 million to pen the sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
10. Robert Altman dies of cancer at age 81.
11. Mapping the power tables at The Grill in Beverly Hills.
12. The Dodgers sign a center fielder, but not a very good one.

Plus some media notes: Caitlin Flanagan leaves The New Yorker behind, the Times puts Lennie LaGuire in charge of Calendar (read the memo), and LA Observed's new video blogger meets the mayor beneath Boyle Heights.

Last week's Morning Buzz