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A few fun holiday reads (and videos) to clear the palate between bbqs and brewskis: They say it there, it comes out here Inland Empire news anchor reports the local...
LA Observed archive
for August 2007
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Parents talk about Kid Nation, high-flown sales pitches for 'artists lofts', and - we're shocked, shocked! - speculators make up the majority of mortgage defaults. It's LA Biz Observed...
Headed for the beach this weekend? Rather not swim with salmonella? Try Heal the Bay's new Beach Report Card texting service, launched yesterday. Say you’re driving to Surfrider in Malibu...
A bison attack, Orwellian surveillance, hard times at King-Harbor, and it's hot hot hot in LA. Not a bad line-up for the last day of August. Join us......
Dear Kevin, It's a week into the new direction here at LAO and so far, not too bad. We've managed not to burn the place down and have even gotten...
Foothill Cities is looking for a few good bloggers. The San Gabriel Valley-based anonyblog (which has riled local city leaders with past coverage) invites citizen journalists to join the fray....
Labor Day crunch, KTLA land and buildings for sale, and seedy airport lounges. And more! Check in with Mark Lacter in LA Biz Observed. David Davis links to chats with...
LAT's style and fashion section, Image, finds a regular spot in the rotation with Booth Moore as editor and chief critic. Michalene Busico, deputy features editor who oversaw Image's launch,...
Feral pigs, bad spinach, no parking, and Antonio's got a thing for uniforms. Entrez....
Paul MacCready, the internationally acclaimed engineer known as the father of human-powered flight, died at his home in Pasadena on Aug. 29. He was 81. MacCready was perhaps best known...
Tidbits from the Times we missed the first time around. (Hey, can you think straight before sunrise?) Steve Lopez spanks the Governator for cutting mental health programs to save money,...
The great white shark living in a portable pen off the coast of Malibu for the last few weeks is now on view at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Outer Bay...
Mark Lacter's got details on rising temps, rising incomes, fewer Californians with health insurance, and more changes to Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers plan another $70 million in renovations on the...
The WSJ (kind of) starts a Sam Zell rumor, the CoCo Times wins a peek at paychecks, wacky guy starts Burning Man a bit early, and AT&T stops time. Who...
Francisco Linares, a South Bay resident who built "a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete columns" is going to county jail for six months for doing...
That lunar eclipse early this morning was spectacular. Check out these lovely photos, shot by Travis Longcore, science director for the Urban Wildlands Group....
The bidding is open for Barry Bonds' record-tying/breaking home run ball. David Davis in SoCal Sports Observed has the details on what else is for sale in the mid-September auction....
Eva Georgia steps down as general manager A glowing memo for the embattled GM as she takes her leave. Here's LAT coverage on the background of the tumultuous tale, which...
Five days ago [see previous posts here and here] The E.W. Scripps Co. announced that its publisher at the Ventura County Star, Tim Gallagher, would be stepping down to start...
Bumping jets at LAX, gardens on wheels on Skid Row, and Wonder Bread leaves LA. Enter for info....
Take a hike Nearly four months after a wildfire burned more than 800 acres in Griffith Park, three hiking trails in our lovely urban wilderness are open again, KABC reports....
It's a national contest, right? The Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) announces 42 winners in its Awards Competition 2007. They received their awards at a reception and banquet held on...
That's the news at Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood. A federal judge today has effectively blocked that subpoena for NYC journalist John Connolly's Verizon phone records which Anthony Pellicano's defense was...
Mark Lacter's on the job with new posts at LA Biz Observed. David Rensin has a new favorite viral marketing campaign for...All Bran? He explains in Native Intelligence. Jenny Burman's...
NYT beats the pack with the first story....
It's only Monday morning and already we've got sleight-of-hand in City Hall, a winning debut for the Dodgers' newest pitcher, a really big bus, a censored penguin, and a sentence...
*MONDAY UPDATE: A report from Editor & Publisher's editor-at-large, Mark Fitzgerald. Ventura County Star Publisher Tim Gallagher's column on Sunday answered some (but not many) of the questions raised by...
Countrywide as boiler room? That's how Mark Lacter sees it in LA Biz Observed, where he parses the details of a NYT piece about the Calabasas-based mortgage lender....
Dip into the new post on Native Intelligence by Erika Schickel....
Jenny Burman has the details in Chicken Corner....
*Update Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007 — A bylined story published Saturday in The Star rehashed Friday's Web site announcement with a couple quotes from outside the company and a bit...
New art gallery in Westlake neighborhood According to the web site: rampART is a community art gallery in the flourishing art district near MacArthur Park in downtown Los Angeles. Focus...
Alicia Unger, the ">Azteca America reporter who was shoved hard into a cargo crate during one of Mayor Villaraigosa's more exciting press conferences, ">filed an injury claim against the city...
You know it if you've traveled the 101 east toward Downtown: The most gloriously weird and inspired sign in Los Angeles, Western Exterminator's Coral neon lettering and a long string...
Plenty, judging from the batch of e-mails that stacked up soon after Eric Estrin's request for something new to call the LAT. Some replies weren't printable, but most reflect affection...
Seems the best thing about Fox's series "Anchorwoman" was Mary McNamara's review of the dopey reality show. If you hate women, men, Texas, Los Angeles, television news and any of...
We've got news, opinion, gossip posing as news and (it's Friday!) a naked guy. Click click......
The wooden table from the board room at the New York Times sells to a Canadian antiques dealer for $5,000. (Globe and Mail) It is a 26-foot, four-pedestal mahogany dining...
Une petite update to this morning's item about Jason Reid heading off to cover football for the WaPo. The mention about the LAT's sports section losing two African American reporters...
A mix of news and, well, gossip, to ease you through the a.m.:...
A medical doctor from Dana Point has a long-board solution for fostering friendship between Israelis and Palestinians. According to a Richard Boudreaux LA Times story today, the doctor, Dorian Paskowitz,...
Dear Kevin, We've been thinking it over here in the main office of LA Observed and we're taking the site in a new direction. Less LAT and more TMZ. Maybe...
Sincere condolences on Maxwell Schneller's loss -- the LAist contributor's bicycle was stolen, all of it except for the tire that was locked to a pole, as the photo will...
LA Times' Column One today recoats the ethnicity picture of Los Angeles Spanish bluebloods. According to various people who have looked into their own genetic pasts, a significant portion of...
It has been a couple of years since I put down the keyboard for more than a few days at a stretch. This time I'm vowing to stay away for...
Some items in the news: Sam Zell's offer to perhaps overpay at $34 a share for the Tribune Company was accepted today by shareholders in Chicago, but at the L.A....
The Hollywood Reporter's legal site gives up the ghost as a standalone publication effective, well, immediately. Coverage of Hollywood's legal movers and issues will become a "dedicated channel" on THR.com,...
The September issue has a long story by Jesse Katz on the scuffle at Royce Hall between a freelance writer (Rachel Neuwirth) and an anti-war UCLA Hillel rabbi (Chaim Seidler-Feller)...
Since the U.S. government appears to be sharing his email with journalists, the Times' Chuck Philips figures it's only fitting to get out the rest of the story. It begins...
There's queasiness about the Zell deal with Tribune, a who's who of L.A. political lawyers, a debate over sexual athletes and a new dispatch from New York on Theresa Duncan...
Today's Times Opinion section runs another piece proclaiming the blogosphere lacking — this time in factual political reporting. It read to me as if journalism professor Michael Skube wasn't familiar...
Michael Deaver worked for Ronald Reagan in the governor's office and in the White House and was known both as a clever image shaper and one of the insiders who...
In Friday's story about actor Steven Seagal feeling burned by the Pellicano scandal, Chuck Philips of the Times reported that U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek "declined to comment" on questions...
When Dean Hill began as a reporter for United Press International he watched the construction of the downtown state building's parking structure outside the bureau window. More recently, he watched...
Geoff Mohan takes over the Times environment desk for Frank Clifford, who left via buyout to work on another book. Clifford had national status in the LAT's hierarchy of desks,...
After Ruby De Vera finished third in the 2005 City Council race that elected Jose Huizar, her boss — Councilman Ed Reyes — fired De Vera as his office manager....
The National Labor Relations Board unanimously rejected a challenge by owners of the Santa Barbara News-Press and ruled that the union vote by newsroom staffers last year was proper. The...
The Huffington Post's better commenters can now become bloggers for the site. Arianna explains. The editor of USC's Online Journalism Review really didn't like this morning's Times editorial about...
Elizabeth Guider, the new editor of The Hollywood Reporter, is out of state but ordered the trade's website to take down this morning's story by Ray Richmond about Merv Griffin's...
Jason Middleton has something to say about Lesley Balla's dig at LA.com earlier this week. He emails: Normally, I wouldn't respond to a competitor's blog posting, but there are some...
Glendale's water went for a pot farm in the Verdugos, Merv Griffin's sexual orientation, and some advice to avoid the Century Freeway near LAX this weekend — plus Betty Pleasant...
He did not pay anyone to threaten reporter Anita Busch and pretty much loathes PI Anthony Pellicano, says the actor whose name was prominently mentioned when the feds first began...
Former ICM co-president Ed Limato is moving back to the William Morris Agency, as Nikki Finke reported earlier in the week. LImato spent ten years at WMA between stints at...
Ex-Times columnist J.A. Adande has resurfaced as the NBA columnist for ESPN.com, a move that David Davis comments on at SoCal Sports Observed. Adande's first column talks about why he...
Alex Ben Block reports at Hollywood Today that production of "Desperate Housewives" has been kicked out of Stage One at Universal Studios and that talks are underway for "The Tonight...
Rosendahl's traffic hyperbole, Home Depot loses in Sunland, Mirthala has a new boss at Telemundo 52 and more on that lack of Spanish posters at LACMA's Latin America exhibit —...
Rumors circulating in the L.A. Newspaper Group newsrooms talk of the papers and their staffs eventually being mashed into one universal operation with cookie-cutter front pages and, for journalists at...
City editor Jennifer Hamm is leaving the Daily Journal for a communications gig at law firm Skadden Arps. Here's the newsroom memo from Daily Journal editor Martin Berg: It was...
Lesley Balla helped in 2003 to launch LA.com as an informed, even sassy hub of opinionated takes on Los Angeles. She doesn't like what has happened now that the Daily...
L.A.'s most famous hard-to-catch alligator slipped out of his enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo last night, but was re-incarcerated after a short walk on the wild side. Donna Littlejohn...
Sickcandy has given it up: Sickcandy was a blog published from May 15, 2003-July 4, 2007. It died for several reasons, including (but not limited to) me not wanting to...
Analyzing the LAX computer glitch and the failure of King-Harbor hospital, the Valley's West Nile breeding ground, Beckham claims he'll play and a close-up of KCRW's guy who calls with...
Pedophile Jack McClellan is staying behind bars, charged with violating a court order to keep away from children. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $150,000 bail. He's...
Smoke was spotted a little after 4 pm in the brush west of Griffith Observatory, but the threat of flames spreading appears to have passed. The observatory was evacuated as...
Now I see better why Rich Kane returned to the OC Weekly as managing editor. Two years ago, he predicted the newly launched OCSqueeze would last two years. Well, yesterday...
The transsexual sportswriter formerly known as Mike Penner is interviewed by host Madeleine Brand on tomorrow's NPR show. It airs at 9 am on KPCC-FM or can be heard online....
Sam Zell doesn't yet have control of the Tribune Company — and tried to reassure a skeptical stock market today that he will — but he's billed as the special...
Jaime Cardenas has been covering soccer as a Times sports intern. He apparently impressed enough to stay — and inspired Sports Editor Randy Harvey to put some writing into his...
Reporter Chip Yost simply asked if the self-professed pedophile Jack McClellan wanted to talk after his release from UCLA custody last night — and he did, says Channel 5 executive...
Down to $24.87 in mid-day trading today, almost ten dollars below what Sam Zell is supposedly going to pay for the struggling company. It's the lowest value for Tribune stock...
Former L.A. Times feature writer-turned-novelist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez had been a victim of journalist Cathy Seipp's gratuitous mean side, and gave it back to her. But she was sad to learn...
Did Channel 5 pay to interview the pedophile at UCLA? Channel 4 says so. Plus a New York view of L.A.'s Manhattan envy, a link to the King-Harbor inspection and...
The largest pre-industrial metropolis in the world, in today's Cambodia, relied on elaborate waterworks — and died away in the 16th century after "overpopulation and deforestation filled the canals with...
Channel 5's Prime News plans to run selected old commentaries by the late anchor Hal Fishman all week. Tonight it was Hal weighing in on Snoop Dogg being arrested a...
If you figured Shea Hillenbrand's baseball career was over after he was cut loose twice this season by contending teams — the Angels and Padres — then you'll be surprised...
Admitted pedophile Jack McClellan was arrested this afternoon lurking with a camera outside the Megan E. Daly Infant Development Program at UCLA. He is to be released by the UCLA...
I'll resume posting on the front page this evening....
Federal regulators completed their latest evaluation of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital and decided it can't meet meet minimum standards for patient care. That means an end to federal funds...
One of TMZ's cellphone video spies caught up with Mayor Villaraigosa and Mirthala Salinas doing some shopping at Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks. The report says that — no surprise...
About 100 hillside residents came to the community meeting on burglary at Hotel Bel-Air. An LAPD officer shot and killed a domestic abuse suspect who was choking the officer's...
The Times has a piece tomorrow saying that Mayor Villaraigosa and some other local electeds use more water at home than normal people — in some cases much more. OK,...
The Times has added a whole bunch of filters and details to the new interactive map that goes with Jill Leovy's homicide blog. If you want to just see the...
There's no question that CP Smith, A1 editor of the Orange County Register, was caught on camera picking his nose behind a TV set in the newsroom. Also no dispute...
Jim Bates, the deputy editor on the entertainment-tech desk in the Times' Business section, is jumping into the crisis PR game at Sitrick and Company. He has the second-longest tenure...
The reeling Dodgers had a couple of things go right today. First, they scored — five times. That hadn't happened in a while. They got a home run, from Rafael...
Former L.A. Times reporter and editor George Ramos has stepped down as chairman of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo journalism department. No explanation was given in the report in...
Retired L.A. Times garden editor Robert Smaus has moved to the Pacific Northwest and says goodbye to the soil of Rancho Park in a piece today. He's probably advised more...
Man-Ling Williams, 27, was arrested late last night on suspicion of murdering her husband and two young sons in the family home. Neal Williams, 27, had been found yesterday morning...
There's some chuckling going on in Singleton newsrooms over the front page of Tuesday's Wednesday's sports section in the San Gabriel Newspaper Group papers, San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley...
Steve Wasserman and Robert Scheer are together again. The former Los Angeles Times book editor, now managing director of the New York office of Kneerim & Williams at Fish &...
David Markland posts at Metroblogging L.A. that the circa-1925 Rialto Theatre on Fair Oaks Avenue will be shuttered by its operator, Landmark Theatres. It's a single-screen theatre listed on the...
This morning's quake, another Hal Fishman tribute, MOCA admits what they denied last week, and unhappy departures at LA.com — plus Reggie the alligator gets his own show at the...
Ed Padgett, the blogging pressman at the Times' Olympic plant downtown, posted this morning that a coroner had just delivered the awful news that his son Bryan died in a...
The jury weighing Phil Spector's guilt or innocence will head out to Alhambra tomorrow to view the foyer where Lana Clarkson died. Special correspondent Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press...
Jessica Guynn will cover Google, Yahoo and other Silicon Valley media companies from the Times' San Francisco bureau. She comes from the SF Chronicle and lives in Berkeley with Art...
The Lakers blog still leads the pack — followed by Show Tracker — and the Henry T. Nicholas sex story beat out the Antonio Villaraigosa sex story for visitor traffic...
KTLA reporter Eric Spillman writes on his official blog that "My colleague Hal Fishman died prematurely. If he had gone in for some routine tests, he might still be with...
Michael McLean's first violin concerto was recorded last year at Abbey Road Studios, performed on a 1728 Stradivarius accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra. How cool is that? Laurie Niles...
Denser downtown sails through, Pedro Guzman comes home from Baja, Dymally takes the Fifth and yet another Theresa Duncan story....
A reporter who has taken a job for Wacky Wendy McCaw at the Santa Barbara News-Press is going in with blind optimism about the, uh, working conditions and, apparently, not...
KTLA's Prime News team remembered and praised their late anchor and managing editor Hal Fishman for the first half of the broadcast tonight. When they finally broke for the news,...
Anyone who has watched the regular KOCE reports from the Register newsroom in Orange County knows it's hard enough to get print schlubs to give good television. It's even more...
If there was one art exhibition where you'd think LACMA would be sure to mount information in Spanish, it would be "The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820" that opened...
Controller Laura Chick says that "in our enthusiasm to put his expert abilities to work again for the city of Los Angeles, we lost sight of how this contract would...
Navy told to turn off its sonar for the whales, Marc Cooper reacts to the KPFK story and more....
The face of KTLA news died this morning at home, the station announced. Fishman was 75 and had suffered from colon and liver cancer and an infection. He last anchored...
How often do TV stations get to send their nightside crime-and-mayhem crews to a community meeting of angry, frightened citizens at the Hotel Bel-Air? Never! On Thursday night, the rich...
Directors of the Pacifica station at 90.7 FM expect to issue a statement of support for Eva Georgia, the general manager who faces sexual harassment actions from two women on...
Downtown's under-construction Nokia Theatre has booked its opening night for October 18. The theatre, part of the L.A. Live complex going up across 11th Street from Staples Center, promises that...
Bill Booth wrote in Saturday's Washington Post that while he can't necessarily judge the beauty of Joe Bravo's artistry, the world is starting to "come around to knowing eccentric genius...
TJ Sullivan snapped the mayor on his cellphone in Westwood Village last week and culled through your caption suggestions. His favorites at Native Intelligence include: "Just tell Rocky to get...
The copy desk for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper group in the LANG empire — that's the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and I think they include Whittier —...
The mother of Slate blogger Mickey Kaus has put up a website to protest development plans for Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills. Peggy Kaus goes for a different style: there's...
The last bastions of incivility are disappearing from of one of traveling rock and roll’s mightiest icons — the Hyatt West Hollywood, Laurel Canyon author Michael Walker blogs. The hotel...
Mayor Villaraigosa on forgiveness, up close and personal with school board prez Monica Garcia, and L.A.'s cheapest valet parking — plus more, of course....
Douglas Anne Munson, author of an L.A. noir trilogy that opened with the admired Dogtown, has champions in Michael Connelly, Carolyn See, John Rechy and Jonathan Kellerman. Also in Denise...
Poet and New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear has begun Postcard from Los Angeles on the magazine's website. Her first blog post is an homage to the late Elizabeth Stromme,...
Jacob Adams, the man thought to have been mauled to death by dogs at the Brentwood home of Ving Rhames, is listed as the screenwriter of a current Rhames film...
New shorts will be tacked on to the end... Updated: A 19-year-old handyman at Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery told police he killed Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey over stories...
Jack McClellan, the self-proclaimed pedophile who has become notorious for hanging around local young girls and posting pictures on his website, flew to Chicago yesterday. Before he left, he was...
Doctors treating Fishman for yesterday's collapse found colon cancer that has spread to his liver, according to KTLA interim news director Rich Goldner on the Times website. "Hal is awake...
Republicans in Los Angeles are being offered $15 to show up at an upcoming taping of the "Half Hour News Hour" on Fox. From the email: The Half Hour News...
New York Times reporter and globe-trotting book researcher Sharon Waxman gives her side in response to some blog criticism of a post about ex-Getty curator Marion True. Waxman blogs, in...
KCRW swings into fund drive mode today, so the LA Observed commentary that usually airs at 4:44 pm on Friday won't be heard. Same thing next week. If you want...
Mayor Villaraigosa and his people are getting pricklier about his, um, situation. Out at the Port of L.A. today, the mayor tried to give a press conference about the environment,...
Los Angeles Times Editor Jim O'Shea didn't like reading a New York Times editorial suggest that the LAT has suffered "sharp reductions” in its national and foreign coverage. O'Shea sent...
Light day for a Friday with the LAPD turning to official videos, yet another Duncan-Blake story and more....
KTLA announced at the top of its 10 pm news — and on its website — that anchor Hal Fishman was in the hospital suffering from a serious infection. He...
Mirthala Salinas gets two months without pay for reading the news stories about Mayor Villaraigosa's marital breakup, but will keep her job at Telemundo 52. She apparently informed superiors about...
Tim Swanson will leave Portfolio to take over as film editor in the Times' Calendar section. He's formerly of Premiere and Variety. Memo below:...
Two stories — from Fashion News Daily and on the Guardian's website — say that MOCA will be including a new Louis Vuitton boutique in the Takashi Murakami retrospective that...
The boss announces firings in the Orange County Register's "content center" and asks people not to compile lists of the departing. Memo below. Question: They have a hockey rink?...
Former Assemblyman Paul Koretz put himself in the running for the 5th council district race that will be fought the next two years over the seat to be vacated by...
Henry Nicholas speaks a little, Marcus Allen comes back to City Hall through the consultants' door, Eric Garcetti profiled......
Ever wonder why KNX Newsradio didn't do much news in the late morning? Wonder no more. Bob McCormick's three-hour block talking about business will be dropped on August 13, in...
When Luke Ford blogged (accurately) in January that Mayor Villaraigosa had stopped wearing his wedding ring and hadn't been seen with his wife in months, the information came from Daily...
Time Inc. has told the staff of Business 2.0 to put aside the previous talk about the magazine shutting down and to begin work on an October issue. The suits...
Hard to believe now, but the biggest industry in the Los Angeles area used to be aircraft and rocket manufacturers and the smaller firms that supported them. Places like Santa...
The mayor spent how much to get his people on the school board? That and more after the jump....
Italian officials just announced a deal with the Getty museum to return 40 disputed pieces from antiquity, including the 5th century B.C. statue of the goddess Aphrodite. She will remain...
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
