Quite a media zoo at UCLA today as Rick Neuheisel, who led the Bruins to a Rose Bowl victory as quarterback back in his day, returned as head football coach. He took questions from a couple dozen reporters, columnists and bloggers on what's been a slow news day otherwise. Phil Wallace gives his take on Neuheisel's hiring at SoCal Sports Observed. Also around LA Observed:

• Murals keep disappearing all over the Echo Park area, and Supervisor Gloria Molina still has her sights set on the murals along the Los Angeles River walls, Jenny Burman observes at Chicken Corner.
• Who you going to vote for, David Rensin was asked at a holiday dinner in the Valley. The answer gets complicated. Native Intelligence
• Deanne Stillman offers a Christmas haiku, Jenny Price dissents on the health care plan in Sacramento, and TJ Sullivan ponders the question that fiction writers dread. Native Intelligence
• Half of a top ten posts of the year from Veronique de Turenne in Paradise Cove. Here in Malibu
• New letters on camping in Malibu and the simpleton stylings of the Times' new consumer columnist. We Get Email

And if you didn't see it, Bill Boyarsky sang the praises of Ed Guthman, the retired journalist and USC professor who was his predecessor on the City Ethics Commission.

Photo: LA Observed