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Archive by Month
July 31, 2006
That's Mel Gibson's booking photo, posted minutes ago at LATimes.com. Gibson is supposedly in rehab already for his alcoholic binge, Orin Aviv of Disney...
Desperation strikes. Publisher Jeff Johnson just announced that the Los Angeles Times will begin to accept advertising on the front pages of some news and...
KPCC's Adolfo Guzman Lopez surveyed the local radio en español scene today and finds news and talk on the rise, especially on the AM dial....
The race will begin at Universal Studios and end downtown at the Central Library. Mayor Villaraigosa and Bill Burke said the new course should relieve...
The annual gaming trade show that the geeks drool over is cutting way back and will move out of the downtown Convention Center — but...
In her blog diatribe about suffering bad service at a Los Angeles area restaurant, visiting Bon Appétit online editor Martha Simon doesn't name the place....
Inspectors with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services descended on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center today to see if the troubled hospital...
If you noticed small groups of World War II airplanes swooping low over the San Fernando Valley this weekend and thought huh?, here's the answer...
In this week's double issue of The New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann struggles to comprehend the rise of blogs as a news source and the boosterish...
Morning Buzz Reopening the Biggie Smalls investigation LAPD chief Bill Bratton is throwing senior homicide detectives at the rap star's 1997 murder, which Chuck...
July 30, 2006
Well, that was a good week. New blogs, new contributors, new design, plus the usual original posts and meaty news. These were some of the...
Author James Ellroy writes in today's West Magazine about returning in June to live in Los Angeles after a lengthy self-exile. "The L.A. mandate," he...
July 29, 2006
So much for Mel Gibson wrapping himself in God. When he was arrested Friday on suspicion of DUI in Malibu, a very un-pious Gibson resisted...
Who knew it's illegal to play ball on L.A. streets?: The Los Angeles Municipal Code forbids playing "ball or any game of sport with a...
Air traffic controllers described this week's runway encounter as "the closest call they have seen at LAX in seven years." A small passenger jet speeding...
Each of the local billionaire media moguls-in-waiting — Eli Broad, David Geffen and Ron Burkle — sent separate letters to the Tribune Company board this...
July 28, 2006
You can walk into a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company emporium on Maui or at the Mall of America and find pretty much the same menu:...
Mayor Villaraigosa's independent fundraising committee for his school reform effort reported raising $1.1 million. James G. Robinson, head of Morgan Creek Productions, lambasted Lindsay...
TMZ.com says that Mel Gibson was arrested this morning on suspicion of DUI by the Malibu sheriff's. He made the mistake of speeding in the...
Is there a lazier media and blog meme going around right now than the anti-Westside digs over the 310/424 area code overlay and resulting addition...
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is swirling through California for a bunch of appearances, including the Rupert Murdoch bash in Pebble Beach. On Monday he...
Mayor Villaraigosa's preferred course toward reform of the LAUSD — Assembly bill 1381 — came up for endorsement before the the City Council's Intergovernmental Relations...
Top News Unprepared for the worst The DWP was "shocked" at the peak levels of electricity used during the heat wave and overestimated the...
July 27, 2006
Those instructions on how aides are supposed to "staff" Mayor Villaraigosa are still being passed around. The demand for unlimited Listerine breath strips and room...
Author Mariane Pearl describes getting behind the wheel in the NYT's New York Observed column [editor's note: harrumph] last Sunday. It's what prompted her to...
David Rensin has been a contributing editor of Playboy since before web browsers came along. He has written more than a hundred interviews for the...
Aquaman the movie? John Horn reports on the Times website that the real Ari Emanuel is at the center of real "informal talks" on a...
News out of Mayor Villaraigosa's office is that Rafael López will serve as interim executive director for the Commission on Children, Youth, and Their Families,...
Rushmore Cervantes is general manager of El Pueblo, the City Department with responsibility for Olvera Street. He will come to City Hall East as Controller...
Former model Tina Teets came forward today to talk about appearing on the Sheriff's roster of 54 missing women — and her run-in with photographer-murderer...
Top News Leads on missing women pour in Sheriff's detectives get the help they hoped for, including a single email from an unidentified tipster...
July 26, 2006
Writer, producer, novelist (and significant other of Helen Hunt) Matthew Carnahan had his personal home page taken hostage by pro-Palestinian hackers. Ray Richmond blogs that...
Former CityBeat columnist Erik Himmelsbach has taken his Valley Boy persona to the blogopshere. In his second post, he talks about the book he is...
An eagle-eyed (female) reader with a sense of Los Angeles history spotted a paid obit in the Times for Big John Mazmanian, a legend of...
Posting has been a tad light today due to the intrusion of life and preoccupation with the changes around here. This makes it worth it,...
Funny you should ask. The former NPR reporter and KPCC host is in Kenya with a delegation from St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica...
Rip Rense has written about his devotion to the Beatles before. After attending the Las Vegas premiere of the new Cirque du Soleil show he...
The Onion plans to peel off a Los Angeles edition to hit the streets Aug. 10. They plan to dump about 50,000 copies at the...
Morning Buzz is late today due to some technical snags. Hope you find the new look to your liking. Top News Missing women update Multiple...
Duke Helfand of the LAT's city-county bureau got his hands on a fascinating instruction sheet given to staffers who accompany Mayor Villaraigosa in his travels...
July 25, 2006
Around LA Observed's sites this afternoon: Warner Bros. deal with iTunes, new prez of Disneyland, and who to blame for power woes. Jered Weaver is...
The KCRW host returns to court August 15 to be sentenced on a cocaine possession charge, the only prosecution to come out of his June...
They had to bribe Kansas City to take him. Story at SoCal Sports Observed....
Santa Barbara News-Press owner and co-publisher Wendy McCaw delivered another missive to readers today claiming that she's the victim in the explosion of upset over...
After my Monday scooplet (yes I mean it ironically) about Los Angeles Times managing editor Doug Frantz giving Metro reporters pony rides at lunch hour...
The Times editorial page today follows the Daily News in wagging the finger of shame at the politicos and local leaders who lined up to...
The OC Post launches Aug. 21 as a six-day, full-color home-delivered tabloid that will feature many of the stories and columns that run in the...
On his blog over at TV Week, Christopher Lisotta is letting readers vote on the dumbest question asked during the the Television Critics Association pressfest...
In the increasingly bitter match of wills over control of LAUSD schools, Mayor Villaraigosa aced today's serve. He named former superintendent Ramon Cortines to be...
Sheriff's homicide detectives plan to ask for the public's help in locating 54 women (!) whose pictures were found in the home of multiple murderer...
Time for a change. A fairly major change, in light of the way things have been done here so far. There won't be a Morning...
July 24, 2006
Staffers at the Los Angeles Times are giggling about a morale booster that managing editor Doug Frantz perpetrated in the midday heat downtown today: pony...
Philip Anschutz's image as the most important Angeleno that most people have never seen — or even heard of — got a big boost with...
There's some chatter out there about today's Daily News editorial lambasting last week's Holmby Hills fundraiser for Martin Ludlow, the ex-councilman who had to give...
We've got Arnold and Antonio, Frank and Jamie, Ramona and Joel, Mike and Sylvester, and even Bill Handel. It's a full helping of the Morning...
July 21, 2006
By David Davis For those keeping score at home, it's been a banner year for Terry Cannon's Baseball Reliquary. In February, Cannon and his...
Karen Constine, the former chief of staff to Laura Chick and director of the California Film Commission under Gov. Gray Davis, gets the mayor's nod....
KCRW thought they had U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad all lined up to guest with Warren Olney on "To the Point" at 1 pm,...
A year into his Administration, Mayor Villaraigosa has named his members of the commission that oversees the city's police and fire pension plan. It's inside-baseball...
Longtime ACLU of Southern California supporter Joel Bellman yesterday circulated an open letter to executive director Ramona Ripston protesting the group's decision to honor Salam...
The Times breaks out a new Hollywood and politics column, the City Council gets the love it wants from Chief Bratton, and the city of...
July 20, 2006
Supt. Roy Romer used today's "state of the schools" speech to stress that campuses are getting better under his watch and to blast Mayor Villaraigosa...
Today's Wall Street Journal cranks out a piece on GOOD, the magazine for young people who do good things (get it?) that is being pulled...
William Dean Singleton, owner of the Daily News and several other local papers through his MediaNews Group, will take over as chairman of Associated Press...
They threw a party last night in Pasadena for a Stradivarius violin. Jerry Kohl fell in love with the idea of owning a Strad after...
The weekly Highway 1 section in the Los Angeles Times always skews toward the few who are buying a vehicle and usually has little if...
Over at his blog From the Desert to the Sea, John Stodder goes literary and recalls that the reclusive author Thomas Pynchon wrote much of...
Demolition of the final remnants of Marineland of the Pacific gets started today on the Palos Verdes peninsula. The Daily Breeze reports that about 20...
* Investigating why LAX shut down* Incredible shrinking movie business* Analyzing Broad's break with VillaraigosaThere's a whole bunch of news and observations today. Click the...
July 19, 2006
At gunpoint, no less. Channel 2 News says the actor's Thunderbird jumped the curb, sped into the parking lot of Nina's Kitchen Bath and Hardware...
We bloggers are not supposed to mention the ads that Google AdSense places on our sites, for fear that the mention will trigger click fraud....
Back in April 2004, when he was under full attack for the Fleishman-Hillard deal with DWP that began under Dick Riordan, then-Mayor Jim Hahn banned...
We told you on Monday that Helene Elliott would become a general columnist for the Los Angeles Times sports section. Today the memo came down:...
LA Weekly's Steven Leigh Morris looks at how the Latino Theater Company, which had never run a theater and possessed few assets, was awarded control...
Sam Singer, the San Francisco PR attache for Wendy McCaw and the Santa Barbara News-Press, is described as "resigning" — and won't say why —...
New from 5900 Wilshire, home of the Emmis magazines that hit the streets this week with their August issues: Los Angeles does its annual, hyper-selling...
We grow it, saute it, stuff it, roast it and slice it into ratatouille. Now the Times' food section tells us that there's a long...
The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond generously blogs for newbies his ten unwritten rules for getting along at the Television Critics Association's group grope in Pasadena...
* KFI tops radio ratings* Bratton is defiant* More signs the honeymoon is overMuch more local news and media tidbits inside the Morning Buzz. Come...
July 18, 2006
The 5:30 pm shutdown was way up in Palmdale at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center, but it kept numerous flights on the...
Furillo was the sports editor of the late Herald Examiner, wrote his column "The Steam Room" there for many years, and served a couple of...
Because I'm at the desk and there are things to note: SoCal home sales tumbled in June, but prices still edged up to an all-time...
VICA (the Valley Industry and Commerce Association) is the one San Fernando Valley business group that seems to have some clout downtown. Its board voted...
Author and former Los Angeles Times science writer K.C. Cole explains why, in her view, print media too often shy away from difficult stories on...
Things seem kind of cozy down in the second city. The newly elected mayor of Long Beach, Bob Foster, will be "officially sworn in" today...
For nine years, Rosie the arthritic bulldog has been part of the Belmont Shores scenery, riding in a little red wagon behind her owner. Well,...
* Garcetti chides Bratton* More Tasers out there* Four more years?Details and more inside the Morning Buzz. Just click to come on in....
July 17, 2006
Some kind of problem at Dreamhost has knocked LA Voice.org off line. We're all hostages to our hosting services, unfortunately. Best of luck to Mack...
In this week's New Yorker, Ken Auletta focuses on the Hollywood presence and Pellicano-tainting of powerhouse lawyer Bertram Fields. Auletta congratulates himself on getting "the...
She has been the editor in charge of entertainment coverage for the Los Angeles Times business section since last year, after returning from Los Angeles...
Back in June when the LA Weekly proclaimed that a serial killer had preyed on ten Los Angeles-area prostitutes, the paper fingered its favored suspect...
When I posted in the Morning Buzz about Rick Orlov's story on the relatively new Los Angeles Civic Alliance, the members' names had not yet...
Bob Tur of Los Angeles News Service sued YouTube in federal court for letting users post copyrighted video, including his often-aired aerial footage of trucker...
L.A. Times beat writers will no longer routinely cover road trips of the Kings and Ducks, Sports Editor Randy Harvey tells LA Observed. Hockey columnist...
Malibu's last big spread for sale.Mike Kinsley headed for brain surgery.Wendy McCaw speaks.Details and much more when you click on the Buzz. And now our...
July 16, 2006
In addition to running alt weekly ads that brag she's the dopest attorney in Los Angeles, criminal defense lawyer Allison Margolin has taken up blogging...
July 15, 2006
On his Angry Poodle blog at the Santa Barbara Independent, Nick Welsh breaks the news that ex-News-Press columnist Barney Brantingham has been served with a...
Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad sent Mayor Villaraigosa a letter critical of the mayor's schools compromise for muddying the control issues. Broad's foundation has provided key...
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOS ANGELES/OXNARD CA 954 AM PDT SAT JUL 15 2006 ...DANGEROUS HEAT EXPECTED TODAY ACROSS THE VALLEYS...
July 14, 2006
Slugger Barry Bonds' lawyers are preparing for the San Francisco Giant to be indicted in federal court as soon as next week. The charges could...
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a new job posting of some importance to Mayor Villaraigosa and his Los Angeles Unified School District ambitions: Position: Superintendent...
From Associated Press and Yahoo in the post below....
Lucinda Michele Knapp, managing editor of the L.A. Alternative, nominates S.A. Griffin as Beat avatar and should-be poet laureate of Los Angeles. Her cover story...
At today's demonstration and rally outside the Santa Barbara News-Press offices, I'm told that most of the paper's reporters many newsroom staffers including several reporters...
It's a lazy Friday in July so why not post a little travel writing, even if it is about home. Notes from the Road calls...
Members of Southern California Transit Advocates like to challenge themselves — and explore the region — by taking long group excursions on public transit. They...
Jim Benning, who edits the travel website World Hum, wrote about lucha libre wrestling in Tijuana for last Sunday's Washington Post. It’s Friday night in...
If you watch traffic maps online or listen to radio reports, the earliest freeway snarls are often out in western Riverside County where commuters get...
LA Frog refers to herself as "Parisian euro-pudding whose karma ran over her dogma. Met a California surfer dude, traded high heels for flip flops...
Chief Bratton's long honeymoon with the City Council appears to be over, there were two more murders on South Robertson while the mayor was in...
Are they: Early L.A. stage actorsElected officialsCaltech scientistsReporters at the L.A. Record, circa 1905 Answer follows....
July 13, 2006
It was a big news day around the Santa Barbara News-Press situation. Here is some of what I've confirmed tonight: Star investigative reporter Scott Hadly...
Well maybe you will, but it's an interview with the indefatigable, if media shy, Romenesko himself in Hyperlink magazine at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism....
Buttons began in burlesque, had his own TV show in the early 1950s and won a supporting actor Academy Award for the 1957 film Sayonara,...
The News-Press has posted openings for reporters, design editor, business editor and assistant city editor on JournalismJobs.com. The biz editor needs two whole years of...
Barney Brantingham, the "beloved" longtime columnist of the Santa Barbara News-Press, explains why he accompanied all of the top editors in resigning in a piece...
After El Vaquero reported accurately last month on two suicides by students in the nursing program, Glendale College president John Davitt complained that the story...
Every summer it seems the whale boat captains talk up sightings of blue whales out in the channel. This year Channel 4 has video....
I knew that the threatened Nickelodeon Theatre had a lengthy history in Hollywood, but I had rushed out Tuesday's Morning Buzz item without researching all...
Welcome to The Newshour with Jim Lehrer on KCET.org and PublicAffairs Books....
In today's feast are a couple more reasons not to get hurt in this town, plus a narrow victory for the mayor's school plan, a...
July 12, 2006
Excuse the Wrong Coast diversion, but this is too cool to pass up. Spotted on the L.A.-rooted Boing Boing (posted by Angeleno Xeni Jardin): Today,...
The collection of close-to-home travel narratives titled My California has been newly chosen as the One City, One Book pick for Whittier, Santa Barbara and...
Chris Ayres writes in his L.A. Notebook for the Times of London that going native is one of the worst career moves a foreign correspondent...
Rampart and LAPD news rules today, including more details on the off-duty officer shot and critically wounded by his young son. Also: what was the...
July 11, 2006
Came across a nice shot of the council chambers at City Hall the way it (and the elected members) looked during President Franklin Roosevelt's first...
News and observations from around town, mostly off the police beat today: Chief Bratton told KPCC's Patt Morrison that an internal investigation is looking into...
Alexandra Zavis comes from the Johannesburg bureau of Associated Press. Memo to the staff from foreign editor Marjorie Miller follows:...
Orange County Register reporter Valeria Godines is in the midst of a courageous five-part series disclosing her personal battle with bipolar disorder. Brainstorm opens on...
The founder of the Coalition Against Police Abuse and former Black Panther died Sunday at home in Pasadena. A longtime activist and police critic in...
Top jobs are still open, but the acting publisher whose DUI case was ordered covered up promoted three editors from within and named a "contributing...
This morning on KPCC's "Airtalk," Prof. Robert Bruegmann will explain and probably defend his thesis that "sprawl is not the worst thing that ever happened...
We're in a blood shortage, folks. Give if you can. The old Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood is eyed by re-developers, a huge bill to fix...
July 10, 2006
The Dodgers' Brad Penny today was named as starting pitcher for tomorrow's All-Star Game. One of the guys he was traded to Los Angeles for...
CityWatch is out with an extra edition on the weekend election of downtown activist Brady Westwater as chair of the Neighborhood Council Congress. Westwater (right,...
Lawyer Helen Zukin is City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's newest appointee to the City Ethics Commission. Zukin, a temporary judge in the Los Angeles County Superior...
Red-light cameras will be turned on in August at two intersections, LADOT officials said today. The first two corners where tickets will be issued are...
Movie City News has added rough, uncut video interviews to its mix of blogs. Up currently is a three-part chat with Vinessa Shaw, who strolls...
Channel 4 unveils "The Local Story: Summer Edition" at 3 pm., with L.A. news veteran Ross Becker anchoring. Toni Guinyard, formerly of KCET's "Life &...
Seven members of a family hiking at Hansen Dam in Lake View Terrace had to be rescued by LAFD helicopter Sunday night after becoming stuck...
As usual the day begins with a meaty meal of news briefs and observations — the Morning Buzz. Come on inside after you check out...
July 09, 2006
It's easy. You're the captain of your national team in the final minutes of the final match of the World Cup. The score is tied,...
July 08, 2006
Steve Greenberg in the Ventura County Star nails the Santa Barbara News-Press situation. Link. Up on State Street, meanwhile, sports editor Gerry Spratt has also...
July 07, 2006
Good guesses on the corporate name that used to adorn (or despoil) the Wilson Building before Mutual of Omaha, Asashi and Samsung: it was General...
Sell the Los Angeles Times, Devin Leonard advises the Tribune Company. The Chandlers of L.A. will never be confused with the Sulzbergers of New York...
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy David Stan Piquette died on his way to work this morning when a cement mixer overturned on his car on...
Gov. Schwarzenegger can finally ride his Harleys legally, Gray Davis is a happy (enough) man, and it might be time to sever your emotional ties...
July 06, 2006
Heiress Wendy McCaw bought the Santa Barbara News-Press in 2000 and for the past few months has outraged her editors and reporters with demands that...
At one time Wilshire and LaBrea was the most heavily traveled intersection in the city. It's still plenty busy, as marketers for Asahi Beer learned...
Tales about riding Metro Rail and buses make up a growing subset of the L.A. blogosphere. Doc on the Train is written by a resident...
The television academy's new selection system had an effect. TNT's mini-series "Into the West" received sixteen Emmy nominations, followed by Jack Bauer and "24" with...
Hilary Swank has been an LA Observed fave since she took her Oscar entourage (and newly won statuette) to Astro Burger. In the August issue...
Pacific Drift hosted by Ben Adair has run on Sunday nights at KPCC for a year and a half. The final show aired last Sunday,...
The New York Times' Pellicano reporter gets in trouble, politics of the Green Line, Los Angeles' pretty-horrible traffic future and an update on Heidi Fleiss....
July 05, 2006
Regular readers of The Wit of the Staircase know that writer, filmmaker and former video game designer Theresa Duncan lives in Venice and is likely...
• Protesters looked on as bulldozers began ripping out the South Los Angeles community garden where Mayor Villaraigosa couldn't broker a deal to mollify property...
Caltech has come up with a program that will put video depictions of the up-and-down ground movement produced by Southern California earthquakes on the web...
Other than proximity to City Hall when the top brass has to make a visit, is there anything smart about the plans to erect the...
Two of the contributors at Blogging.la are getting married this weekend — and not to each other....
Filmmaker, blogger and promoter Brian Flemming has cooked up a new stunt. He announced yesterday on his blog that for the next week he will...
After losing out on Jerrold Perenchio's Univision auction last week, disappointed executives at Grupo Televisa said they would step back and reflect on their next...
When LA Weekly lifestyle editor and Style Council blogger Linda Immediato lost her Venice home suddenly, she looked around and came up empty. No place...
Welcome back to the work week. Here's a little news to get you started. Click on the Buzz to check it out....
Some takes on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's first year in the corner office on the third floor at City Hall follow after the jump. Cartoon snippet:...
The Daily Breeze, perhaps a little hopefully, reports that on Day 327 of the great South Bay Gator Watch it's still possible that Reggie is...
© 2003-2008 • About LA Observed • Contact the editor
| Lots of luck. This is yet another example of the pitiful coverage of organized labor by local media.
| Anthony Pellicano and attorney Terry Christensen were found guilty of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of Kirk Kerkorian.
| Skylight Books celebrates its expansion with a party on August 30th and a new, racy blog. Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's guide to Southern California Literary and Book Festivals appears in the September issue of Westways magazine.
| Malibu resident, Dr. Richard Ehrlich, shares insights on an upcoming exhibit of his photos documenting a secretive Holocaust archive.
| Kickoff approaches for USC football; the Dodgers continue to struggle
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