Observing Los Angeles

East Coast stereotype alert

Today's lede about hands-free cellphones and driving, under the byline of Jennifer Steinhauer, the New York Times bureau chief in Los Angeles, who should (and does) know better:

LOS ANGELES — On any given day on a California freeway, it is not uncommon to see a young woman, phone cradled against one ear, carefully painting her nails a winsome shade of crimson, looking up now and then to inch her car forward in traffic.

To anyone reading that in New York, just know that it's more than uncommon. It's laughable. At The Playboy Blog, the magazine's deputy editor, Stephen Randall, calls BS: "Anyone want to bet that the reporter actually saw it? And saw it more than once? We’re giving odds."


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