Scott Martelle has been busily covering the presidential election for the Los Angeles Times, including many posts to the Top of the Ticket blog. But he was tapped on the shoulder in last month's layoffs and his position was eliminated. He worked up to the end and checked out yesterday, with this email to the staff:

From: Martelle, Scott
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 4:27 PM
Subject: With a nod to Freddie Mercury ...

... another one bites the dust. In lieu of flowers, emails may be sent to xxxxxx, or you can reach me through my website, www.scottmartelle.com (where, ahem, there are links to buy my book). It's been quite a ride -- more than 1,200 LAT bylines over 11 years, near as I can figure, with datelines from Mongolia to Kosovo and who knows how many states (and nearly 400 Top of the Ticket blog posts during the presidential campaign). If I could figure out how to put in another quarter, like with those machines outside KMart, I would. But this falls into the category of "stuff you can't control." Best of luck to you all in surviving the new meritocracy -- I'm off to innovate my way to the future.

Martelle is the author of "Blood Passion" and is working on "The Fear Within," called "a narrative retelling of the 1949 trial an­­­d conviction of 11 leaders of the ­Communist Party-USA under the 1940 Smith Act, convictions that helped unleash the McCarthy era."