LA Observed archive
for September 2008

If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.

Introducing Run On

Run On is our newest blog in the LA Observed family. Sara Catania, whose work I knew from the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and her occasional blog, emailed...

Sam Zell's birthday party pics

Sam Zell had another of his big birthday bashes over the weekend in Chicago. A blogger connected to a relative posted a report and pics at the Philadelphia City Paper...

Yeah, the Register can cover its news

Of course Orange County judge David C. Velasquez was going to lose on his order barring the Register from reporting on a lawsuit against the paper by its news carriers....

Abbot Kinney killing gang inspired?

Tibby Rothman's Venice Paper picks up street talk that the murder of a young man Sunday night after the Abbot Kinney Festival was a targeted gang hit. Just talk at...

And in French dip news... *

Oddly, Philippe The Original's hundredth anniversary celebration next Monday isn't the only French dip sandwich news in my mailbox. On that day from 4 to 8 pm, Philippe's will roll...

Harvey Weinstein owes Nikki Finke $1 million

According to Nikki, producer Harvey Weinstein told Page Six he'll give $1 million to charity if she can produce an email that Scott Rudin wrote about Weinstein's "alleged callous treatment...

New county reporter at LAT

Garrett Therolf gets a partner in the Times' big but lonely office tucked away in the Hall of Administration on Temple Street. Molly Hennessy-Fiske has worked in Washington, Baghdad and...

When L.A. was Smogtown

"Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles" will be published Thursday by The Overlook Press/Penguin U.S.A. The book, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, looks like it...

Why journos will lose the Internet fight

Ex-LAT reporter and editor William Lobdell took some meaning from a recent perusal of the most-viewed stories at the Times and Register websites, concluding that the opinion pieces, crime briefs...

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 9.30.08

The Daily News' decision to publish the names and salaries of individual LAUSD teachers is under fire and defended by editor Carolina Garcia. Witness LA, UTLA, DN, plus reaction...

Bell Gardens gets interesting again

The city council of Bell Gardens has hired itself a new city manager — and it's Steve Simonian, the former chief of investigations for District Attorney Steve Cooley. What's intriguing...

Wendy McCaw gets SLAPPed

Santa Barbara's looniest newspaper owner — ruiner of the once-respectable News-Press — lost in her lawsuit against journalist Susan Paterno, who had reported on the Santa Barbara saga for the...

Morning Buzz: Monday 9.29.08

Activate Storm Watch 2008: a quarter-inch of rain threatens Los Angeles. LAT Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will unveil a $5-billion, five-year housing plan calling for thousands of new homes along...

Dodgers go to Chicago

The Dodgers will open the playoffs on Wednesday against the Cubs, play two at Wrigley Field, then come home Saturday for game three and, if neither team sweeps, another game...

You know it's in your blood when...

Upon hearing of Paul Newman's death, Times sports writer Lisa Dillman had to go right out and rent "Slap Shot." Does "Slap Shot," and its player-coach leader, hold up or...

Paul Newman, 83

The Hollywood legend died yesterday at home near Westport, Connecticut, according to his publicist, Jeff Sanderson at Warren Cowan and Associates. Newman had been battling cancer for years and recently...

Blatchford does the Mexican Mafia

Fox 11 crime reporter Chris Blatchford is out with "The Black Hand," which Dominick Dunne calls in a blurb, "A gripping, powerful, chilling inside look at a criminal organization that...

LA Observed's rooftop party

More than 200 journalists, authors, bloggers, Los Angeles political types and other readers of this here blog filled the outdoor deck of the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood Thursday night...

Friday desk-clearing

No felony charge for Kanye West in that scuffle with a photographer at LAX. Reuters New editor assignments on the L.A. Times city desk — involving Nita Lelyveld and...

Programming notes

My KCRW spot this afternoon talks about the story possibilities of having the Dodgers and Angels in the playoffs, and about the star power of Manny Ramirez. LA Observed on...

Such a deal

Daily News staffers newly moved in to the Burbank Boulevard newsroom are happy to have windows and general cleanliness compared to the dark, dusty old offices on Oxnard Street. A...

Morning Buzz: Friday 9.26.08

Yeah, John McCain will attend tonight's debate in Mississippi after all. Politico Also: Sarah Palin rally at the Home Depot Center in Carson Oct. 4. Breeze Gov. Schwarzenegger signed...

Comparing Azusa and Ventura

Rick Cole, the city manager of coastal Ventura, Calif., writes a blog essay at New Geography comparing his current locale to Azusa, the San Gabriel foothills city where he used...

Prop. R upheld

A state appeals court says the ballot measure that extended the term limits for Los Angeles City Council members will stand. Five incumbent council members are running for reelection based...

Dodgers clinch the division

Arizona lost 12-3 today in St. Louis so the Dodgers are back in the playoffs. First-round opponent is TBD. Maybe this is the year the Dodgers and Angels play each...

Another new LAT staff blog

The staff-written Fabulous Forum hopes to deliver "the who, what, where, when, why — and why not — of L.A. sports." That makes 43 blogs listed on the Los Angeles...

Warren column moves to HuffPost

Recently departed Chicago Tribune managing editor Jim Warren will move his On Magazines column to a blog at the Huffington Post. From the release: "I have been an obsessive reader...

Morning Buzz: Thursday 9.25.08

Dodgers could clinch the NL West today, already ensured of at least a tie for first. A non-resident of the USC area was arrested in that knife killing of...

Sand in Arnold's shorts

Heal the Bay is out with a new beach report card today saying that California's beaches were much improved this summer due to a monitoring program — but that Gov....

Eagle-eyed readers check in

1) An LA Observed reader spots this politically balanced — if illogical — disagreement between facts on a news story up on the Los Angeles Times website this morning: [The...

'SoCal Connected' debuts tonight

KCET's replacement for the late, lamented "Life and Times" premieres on Channel 28 at 8 pm. Val Zavala is the anchor of SoCal Connected, as she was on L&T. The...

Times adds a culture blog *

The Los Angeles Times went public today with Culture Monster, its new blog by the Calendar section's critics and arts writers that goes by the slogan "all the arts, all...

Zev 'haunted' by Chatsworth *

In a personal reflection on his county website, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky writes about going to the scene of the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth and talking with the relatives of victims....

Mayor orders Yom Kippur sensitivity

Responding to last year's raid on high holiday services in Hancock Park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent Building and Safety GM Andrew Adelman a letter that urges more awareness seminars for...

More newspaper circulation tricks

Sure, the L.A. Times website uses cuddly animals, sex and celebrity photos to pump up the numbers, but that's so old school. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cuts right to the chase...

Give them an A

James Hibberd, senior reporter and blogger at the Hollywood Reporter, grades the 25 best and worst ad art for fall TV shows. Of the "Gossip Girl" poster he writes, "On...

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 9.24.08

A judge ordered the Register not to publish stories or testimony about a class-action suit by the newspaper's delivery workers, and fined the Register $23,000 for destroying evidence. Register...

L.A. Live Channel could be next

AEG has shopped around a proposal to partner with a Los Angeles TV station on a digital channel to feature events at Staples Center and the Nokia Theater. They would...

KNBC censors Conan jokes about trains

When Conan O'Brien began a bit last night (this morning actually) about trains crashing together, KNBC Channel 4 cut in with anchor Colleen Williams introducing footage of Sen. John McCain's...

Tour the new Chicago Tribune

The editor and managing editor introduce the new look newspaper on Chicago television — watch the video....

SF Weekly pokes fun at LAT kitty

Last night's contrasting of New York Times and Los Angeles Times web editing choices elicited a bit of snark from up north. The SF Weekly suggests at least a different...

Daily News moves to new newsroom

Dennis McCarthy columnizes on the weekend move from the DN's (formerly) own building on Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills to rented space beside the freeway on Burbank Boulevard. It was...

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 9.23.08

LAPD officer Robert Hill received $3.1 million from a jury after claiming he suffered retaliation for reporting that his superior used racial epithets and might have been involved in...

Tale of two news websites *

Major economic news from Wall Street and the nation's capital, or cute furry kitties speaking baby talk? You decide. These screen grabs of the New York Times and Los Angeles...

UCLA astronomer gets the MacArthur call *

Andrea Ghez, the UCLA professor of astronomy and physics who showed that a monstrous black hole resides at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, was named a 2008 MacArthur...

Steve Harvey gets a blog

If you've missed Steve Harvey since the Times dropped his long-running "Only in L.A." column, he has moved offshore to a new Blogspot blog....

Obama's California team becomes official

Mitchell Schwartz, a veteran of Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Gray Davis and Antonio Villaraigosa campaigns, is state director of the Barack Obama campaign. Schwartz is also president of the Los...

Morning Buzz: Monday 9.22.08

Steve Lopez has gone to Nome to see Russia and write about Sarah Palin. LAT Also: Donna Barstow's first Sarah Palin cartoon. Former Gov. Gray Davis says recalls, such...

Leader of the pack

Tina Fey won Emmy awards for acting, writing and being one of the executive producers on "30 Rock," which got the trophy for outstanding comedy series. Fey then took a...

Dodgers season as TV series

LAT baseball writer Bill Shaikin asked television writer Scott Kaufer to analyze the Dodgers season as if it were a series being filmed on the Paramount lot. Matt Kemp is...

Linda Ronstadt at 62

The singer whose voice wowed the L.A. music industry at the Troubadour and Palomino clubs so long ago — one of the top selling female recording artists ever — now...

Rob Saltzman and Edward Pierce

Los Angeles police commissioner Robert Saltzman was married on Saturday night to Edward Pierce, who retired as the general counsel and vice president for legal affairs of GeoCities. In addition...

LAO on KCRW

My KCRW segment on Friday said that Denise Tyrrell deserves our respect for cutting to the chase in her statements on the Metrolink disaster in Chatsworth. Listen here (or grab...

Newton returns as Times editorial page editor

I guess Jim Newton really didn't want to leave the Los Angeles Times to write his book about Dwight Eisenhower — and that Publisher David Hiller was the main reason...

Back to back to back to back

Last night was the second anniversary of the game where Dodgers Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson hit consecutive home runs in the ninth inning to tie...

Morning Buzz: Friday 9.19.08

Budget deal reached in Sacramento. Bee, LAT, SFC A Blue Line train collided with a Metro bus near near Washington Boulevard and Griffith Avenue this morning, causing 13 minor...

Metrolink contractor already in court

Veolia, the French multinational company that provided Metrolink with engineer Robert Sanchez, is already facing trial in Los Angeles federal court on suits alleging the firm routinely denied workers' rest...

Greene way out of the PR closet now

Remember last year when I posted on the million-dollar wedding of real estate mogul Jeffrey Greene and New York real-estate executive Mei Sze Chan, at the groom's 27-acre Beverly Hills...

Hmm, did they leave anything out?

Why yes, I believe they did. Terry Christensen's law firm sent out a press release today (via Sitrick & Co.) that says he'll be "withdrawing" from the practice of law...

Details on Stephanie Edwards' deal

She's getting $50,000 to make nice and sit in the KTLA Rose Parade booth with Bob Eubanks again, says columnist Frank Mickadeit at the Register. A couple of weeks ago,...

Morning Buzz: Thursday 9.18.08

USC student stabbed to death on a street near campus this morning. LAT Hundreds of LAPD officers are attending the funeral downtown for Spree Desha right now. No live...

Rocky blasts McCain-Palin on health care

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo put up an entry this morning at the Huffington Post titled "Protecting families from McCain's broken health care plan." Sample: In the name of "choice," the...

LAFD posts 911 calls from Metrolink crash

Three calls to 911 are up on the LAFD news blog: one from a passenger on the Metrolink train, one from the adjacent school and another from up on the...

Wesson III exits Parks campaign

The son of Councilman Herb Wesson has left the building at the Bernard Parks for Supervisor campaign, where he was field director or campaign manager, depending on who's talking. And...

Zell: 'We are all in this together' **

Sam Zell responded to yesterday's class-action lawsuit by Los Angeles Times employees — which was first reported here — in a Dear Partners note to the company. He calls the...

Brad Pitt puts up $100k for gay marriage fight

Brad Pitt announced today that he will donate $100,000 to oppose Proposition 8, the November initiative that seeks to re-eliminate same-sex marriage in California. "Because no one has the right...

Online Journalism Review revived

USC Annenberg mothballed the original Online Journalism Review in June. But Geneva Overholser, the new director of the Annenberg School of Journalism, announced today that OJR is coming back under...

Train victim's phone kept calling family, they say

Chuck Peck's cell phone called family members 35 times on Friday night and Saturday during the hours while they waited to hear whether he had survived the Metrolink train crash...

KTLA gives: Stephanie Edwards returns

Sam Zell's Channel 5 may be trying to distance its news from the Hal Fishman legacy, but the station announced yesterday that it's going back to the future with Rose...

Dorothy Green talks about her cancer

Steve Lopez visits in today's column with Dorothy Green, the longtime water activist and founder of Heal the Bay who is in hospice care for metastasized cancer. She is 79,...

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 9.17.08

Tribune has no response yet to Times staffers' class-action lawsuit. LAT (The suit also made the Daily Journal front page) Mayor Villaraigosa said he is satisfied by the May...

Riordan calls himself an Obama man

OK, here's a last report (I think) from Tuesday night's Obama funder in Beverly Hills. On his way in to the event, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan — a...

Metrolink engineer never hit the brakes

Only four seconds elapsed from the time the two engineers could have seen each other around the curve in Chatsworth where the Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight...

Pool reports from tonight's Obama event

Here's what the pool reporters filed from Beverly Hills for the traveling national media and the locals. Pool Report – No. 1 Sept. 16, 2008 Beverly Hills, Calif. No News....

Text message from Beverly Hills *

An LA Observed source who is at tonight's Barack Obama fundraiser (the cheaper one at the Beverly Wilshire, not the $28,500 shindig at the Greystone Mansion) messaged that it was...

Joel Stein gets naughty again

Remember last year when Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein was billed as a guest instructor on oral sex at Babeland, then dropped out after we and others wrote about...

Ethier reviews Mozza: it's good

Andre Ethier, the food-blogging Dodger, showed up at Pizzeria Mozza between lunch and dinner, got a seat right away, and enjoyed himself. "Love at first bite," he writes as a...

Officer Desha funeral will be Thursday *

Signs have begun going up in Downtown advising commuters. A funeral procession for Officer Spree Desha will begin at Parker Center at 8:45 am Thursday and move to the Cathedral...

LAPD wants to discipline May Day officers *

The LAPD has apparently decided to convene Board of Rights hearings for some of the officers who abused media and protesters in MacArthur Park on May 1, 2007. I know...

Scroll down for details on Zell lawsuit

A few minutes ago I added the names of the Los Angeles Times columnist and former reporters who sued Sam Zell in federal court today, alleging he messed with the...

Trailer for 'The Soloist'

The film in which Robert Downey Jr. portrays LAT columnist Steve Lopez, and Jamie Foxx plays downtown street musician Nathaniel Ayers, must be getting close. The trailer runs 2:31 on...

Email subject line I had to open

"Giant Eddie Murphy Head Spotted On The 405" is irresistible. He was right. Courtesy of TheJay.com: That's the San Diego Freeway in Sepulveda Pass, headed in from the San Fernando...

Ex-Times reporters sue Zell *

I'm told that lawyers representing current and former Los Angeles Times newsroom staffers are filing a class-action federal lawsuit against Sam Zell and Tribune this morning in Los Angeles, alleging...

Annenberg Foundation to open photo gallery

The Annenberg Space for Photography is scheduled to open next spring on the former site of the Shubert Theater in Century City. The release says it "will be a 10,000...

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 9.16.08

The Legislature finally passed a state budget, throwing the political hot potato into the hands of Gov. Schwarzenegger, who is threatening veto. LAT, Dan Walters Times columnist Sandy Banks...

Wow, 3 earlier Metrolink survivors were on #111

Gregory Lintner walked away from the deadly 2005 Metrolink crash in Glendale &mdash and was hailed as a hero — but died in last week's head-on accident in Chatsworth. Two...

KCRW adds program on David Foster Wallace

KCRW (89.9 FM) will devote this week's "Politics of Culture" to the death and literary legacy of David Foster Wallace, who killed himself last week at home in Claremont. "Bookworm"...

26th Metrolink victim dies of injuries

The man in his 50s died today at County-USC Medical Center. His name has not yet been released. The Los Angeles County coroner's office today also formally identified the engineer...

Poizner makes it official

State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner made official Monday what's been expected for months: He's formally exploring a run for governor in 2010. From the Sacramento Bee: The state's only Republican...

Downtown blog goes non-profit

Exciting and fairly big news in the world of Los Angeles blogs. Eric Richardson announced today that his blogdowntown has been accepted into an incubator program at Community Partners and...

Tyrrell elaborates on her resignation

Former Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell, who resigned overnight when the agency's board did not back up her statements about the engineer's culpability in the Chatsworth train crash, just talked to...

Transitions at L.A. Times continue

New York-based publishing writer Josh Getlin signed out over the weekend with an email to his colleagues. His job was eliminated in the July cutbacks. From: Getlin, Josh Sent: Sunday,...

Live-blogging the market

Mark Lacter is keeping tabs on the morning's fast-moving stock market and financial world developments over at LA Biz Observed....

Photographer criticized for McCain photos

Atlantic magazine and its writer Jeffrey Goldberg are unhappy that Los Angeles photographer Jill Greenberg turned in manipulated photos of John McCain for a story, then announced that she had...

Labor's pull for Ridley-Thomas

Labor unions that already put up more $4.5 million to elect Mark Ridley-Thomas to the county Board of Supervisors plan to spend millions more, says Garrett Therolf in the Times....

Tyrrell resigns Metrolink post

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell, who had said publicly on Saturday that the agency's engineer ran a red light and caused the Chatsworth train crash, resigned after the agency's board released...

Mayor will ride Metrolink in morning

With officials concerned that commuters will abandon Metrolink, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to meet the buses arriving at Chatsworth station from Ventura County at 6 am. He will then ride...

Sunday Metrolink crash updates *

A Metrolink dispatcher reportedly called train 111 to alert the engineer that a freight train was ahead, but reached the conductor too late. LAT Two more names of the...

Wall Street, Sarah and 'The Women'

My KCRW commentary on Friday talked about the Sarah Palin Effect with an eye toward the media and blogs, in particular here at LA Observed and the UCLA faculty blog...

Engineer texted with teens before crash, CBS2 says

Channel 2 aired reports tonight showing text messages reportedly sent by Metrolink contract engineer Robert Sanchez just before his train crashed head-on into a Union Pacific freight train, killing at...

Names of victims in Chatsworth crash

Here's a partial list from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office (via Associated Press) of the passengers and crew killed in Friday's Metrolink train crash in Chatsworth. City News Service...

David Foster Wallace, writer was 46

Novelist David Foster Wallace, best known for "Infinite Jest" and other books, hanged himself at home in Claremont, police said in the city east of Los Angeles. He had been...

Seach for Metrolink train crash victims ends in Chatsworth; 25th dies

Paul Long, an English teacher at Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village, died this afternoon after being taken off life support at County-USC Medical Center. He had been riding the...

Chatsworth death toll at least 24, engineer to blame *

The 18th victim, possibly the Union Pacific freight train engineer, was pulled from the scene about 8:45 am. Authorities say that more bodies remain in the wreckage of Metrolink train...

Officer Spree Desha, 35, dies in Metrolink train *

The Los Angeles Police Department officer who died in the Chatsworth train collision was identified by the LAPD as Spree Desha, a seven-year veteran who worked in the Office of...

LAPD officer among the dead *

Channel 7 says an unidentified Los Angeles Police Department officer has been confirmed dead in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash. Updates from media monitoring: * Rescue workers have been pulled out...

Blood donations requested

First news round-up, second news round-up, media scan. Blood donations of all types are needed in the wake of the Chatsworth train crash, UCLA Medical Center says. The UCLA Blood...

Chatsworth crash: media scan

First news round-up, second news round-up. At 8:30 pm, Channels 2 and 7 are the only Los Angeles TV stations still airing full coverage. The Los Angeles Times story (timestamp...

Family information for Chatsworth crash

Information on victims will be gathered and distributed to families at Chatsworth High School, at De Soto Avenue and Devonshire Street. Thats's also where families will be reunited. Family members...

At least 10 dead in Chatsworth train crash*

Picking up from the earlier roundup: * It's a bit clearer now what probably happened. A source with good connections in the transit agencies emails that Ventura-bound Metrolink train #111...

Bad Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, at least 6 dead *

An outbound Metrolink train headed for Moorpark collided with a freight train on the Chatsworth side of Santa Susana Pass. Cars are off the tracks and rescues are underway. Triage...

George Putnam, TV news figure was 94

L.A. Radio.com reports that George Putnam died this morning, citing Putnam's long-time friend and producer Chuck Wilder. Putnam moved to Los Angeles in 1951 and quickly became the city's dominant...

Morning Buzz: Friday 9.12.08

The MTA removed Measure R materials from its website after complaints the agency illegally supported the sales tax measure. LAT, DN San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom dumped his Lincoln...

Sarah Palin has science on her side

Here's the most interesting blog post I read all day. Political scientists at UCLA who asked students to rate the faces of hundreds of American candidates found that Alaska Gov....

Fade out, not fade away

Over at the LA Observed Script Project, Eric Estrin writes a working screenwriter's two sweetest words: fade out. In the seven or eight months since this site has been active,...

Morning Buzz: Thursday 9.11.08

Local media figures David Hume Kennerly and David Devoss (as well as Ted Koppel and others) show up in today's opener of a three-part series on Roxanna Brown, the...

Two more homers for Manny

That's 14 homers and 40 RBIs for Manny Ramirez in 38 games with the Dodgers, who are now 3½ games in front of the second-place Diamondbacks. "When he hits the...

Alice Broude, Redwood waitress was 89

Every big newspaper used to have a bar nearby where reporters stayed too late, editors brought new hires to get acquainted over drinks, and Pulitzers were celebrated. For the L.A....

Villaraigosa's calendar reviewed

During his last campaign for mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa slammed Jim Hahn for not releasing his appointments calendar. Now the LA Weekly has pored over Villaraigosa's calendar for a ten-week period...

Back to the future at NYT

The New York Times is re-grouping its media reporters from the second-floor Business desk and the fourth-floor Culture desk into a new mid-way pod on the third floor, in the...

Zell looking to...buy?

Even the original item sounds skeptical, but the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street page speculates today that Sam Zell may share the newspaper empire-building gene of his predecessors...

More reactions to LAT magazine

The NYT's T Magazine also noticed the resemblance between its cover and the Los Angeles Times Magazine cover. (My post from yesterday.) The LAT mag's creative director, Rip Georges, calls...

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 9.10.08

Gov. Schwarzenegger is quoted in Der Spiegel saying he has almost no relationship with "out there" California Republican leaders and praises the Obama campaign, and also has some comments...

Dreadlocks fever

OK, let's face it, the Angels are the better baseball team in SoCal and may prove to be the best anywhere this year. But Manny Ramirez and the mediocre Dodgers...

Hats off to Linda Deutsch

Poor Linda Deutsch. AP's legendary Los Angeles-based trial reporter is back on the O.J. Simpson beat. She is in Las Vegas for the start of Simpson's latest criminal trial —...

Channel 5 moving into Times, editor says

I finally listened to the whole interview that Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton gave the Daily Sundial at Cal State Northridge, linked in Monday's Morning Buzz. He drops a...

SoCal media notes

Item 1: The Register may go tabloid (in size and shape, not necessarily in mentality), Publisher Terry Horne said today. He says it's 50-50 the change will happen. "“I think...

Acres of Books sets the date

October 18 will be the final day for the venerable Long Beach book store. Everything is 50% off as of now, with further markdowns to come. Ray Bradbury did what...

If you can't beat 'em...

In the foreground, the New York Times' successful fashion magazine. In the background, the L.A. Times Magazine that made its first appearance Sunday, hoping to be accepted as a fashion...

Who remembers Tim and Tom?

I enjoyed reading the story of Tom Dreesen and Tim Reid, who met at a Jaycees meeting outside Chicago in 1968 and struggled to break through as a black-and-white comedy...

Streisand to play for Obama

Potential attendees at Barack Obama funders next week at the Greystone estate in Beverly Hills and the Beverly Wilshire are being enticed with the prospect of Barbra. Friends: Great news!...

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 9.9.08

A judge rejected the government's plea deal that would let Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli pay $12 million and get probation instead of going to prison for lying to regulators....

Changes already at LAT Magazine *

According to an editor's email sent to Calendar staffers on Friday, Los Angeles Times Magazine publisher Valarie Anderson left the company even before the first issue came out on Sunday....

L.A.'s urban suburbs

Zina Klapper, a partner in Pop Twist Entertainment and a former editor of Mother Jones, writes at New Geography about some of the issues presented by family life in the...

Morning Buzz: Monday 9.8.08

The DA's public integrity division served search warrants in a probe looking into whether Alex Padilla and Tony Cardenas illegally controlled an independent expenditure committee in the northeast Valley....

Reading the new L.A. Times Magazine *

Sunday brought the first edition of the new Los Angeles Times Magazine that isn't part of the Los Angeles Times, but that comes in the Times. It's 144 pages and...

Speculation that Adam Gadahn died in Pakistan

Western intelligence sources think that Californian-turned-al Qaeda propogandist Adam Gadahn may have died in CIA-directed attacks by unmanned predator aircraft on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, says a writer...

Emmys for KNBC, KCET and MacArthur Park

KNBC Channel 4 led with eight local Emmys at last night's awards ceremony at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theater in North Hollywood. The trophies included Mary Harris for outstanding news...

Dodgers Manny their way into first place

Manny tied Ted Williams, Willie McCovey, and Frank Thomas with his 521st lifetime home run and the Dodgers knocked Arizona out of first place for the first time since April...

Walter Reed puts out a statement

Quick update from an item this morning: Principal Donna Tobin posts at the Walter Reed Middle School website that "permission to use the front of our school for the Republican...

A place to put your buyout bucks

Attention ex-journalists looking for something new to do. A bookstore in Big Bear Lake is for sale. "In the heart of Big Bear Village, a four seasons resort community in...

Andrea Wilson-Smith found

The 14-year-old South Los Angeles girl who vanished Tuesday night turned up this morning at 3 am in Pasadena. Police think maybe she ran away, but her mother tells LAist's...

NYT folds some sections *

The New York Times joined the trend toward merging sections to save on newsprint costs. Here's the memo just out from Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.: From: NYTIMES MAIL Sent: Friday,...

New L.A. Times magazine hits Sunday

House ads the past couple of weeks have revealed that the new magazine will indeed carry the old Los Angeles Times Magazine label, despite complaints from the paper's top editors...

McCain's Hollywood ties (and an arrest)

Sen. John McCain "has been relatively aggressive when it comes to tapping into the pool of Hollywood donors who, like their counterparts on the Democratic side, often give over concerns...

Morning Buzz: 9.5.08

Eli and Edythe Broad gave another $400 million to the Cambridge-based Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, making a total of $600 million. The gift is one of the...

Wrong Walter Reed?

The backdrop photo chosen to illustrate John McCain's speech last night sure appears to be Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. No one has said why a school in...

Getty drops late Fridays

The Getty Center galleries have stayed open until 9 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, offering a nice spot to meet someone in the evening and watch the sun set (or,...

LAist's editor makes the calls

A couple of weeks back I was on a blogging panel with LAist editor Zach Behrens and came to appreciate that he makes more phone calls than most bloggers, often...

Abramoff gets four more years

It's a long way from Beverly Hills High for disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. LAT story. Previously: Backhanded compliment...

The importance of being Vinny *

Sports Illustrated's Richard Hoffer pays eloquent homage to Vin Scully and his importance to Los Angeles in this week's issue. Hoffer used to cover sports for the LAT and may...

Programming slaughter at KCSN

Longtime music spinner Chuck Taggart blogs that his Louisiana-centric roots music show was dropped after 10 years on the Cal State Northridge FM station — and that every other live...

Another look at the Westside's salons

Actress-writer Heather Thomas's monthly breakfast gatherings (with her husband, entertainment lawyer Skip Brittenham) in Santa Monica lead the roundup of a "burgeoning breed of über-stylish salonistas" in the September issue...

L.A.'s dopest attorney still fighting

Allison Margolin has changed up her look a bit since we last checked in, but not her tune. She has an Op-ed piece in today's Daily News arguing that medical...

Times' new language rules

A lot like the old L.A. Times rules, with small adjustments for the more casual lexicon of the web. The Readers Representative blog discusses a memo from Deputy Managing Editor...

Morning Buzz: Thursday 9.4.08

City parks workers are still using water in ways we are banned from, such as hosing off tennis courts. LAT The City Council offered a $500,000 reward for information...

All in the family

The previous publisher of the Times, David Hiller, used to break out in song around the office (he favored pieces from musicals) and even belted out a respectable national anthem...

What GOP strategists really think of Palin

Los Angeles-based Republican consultant Mike Murphy calls the choice of Sarah Palin "cynical" and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan says the neophyte's pick means the race is "over." They had...

LAT editors happy with politics blog

Top of the Ticket has reached #85 on the Technorati hit parade, LATimes.com executive editor Meredith Artley says in her wrap-up for August. More highlights: Total traffic to the Times...

Yeehaw! Olney milks a goat

KCRW's Warren Olney, on convention duty in St. Paul, dropped by the Minnesota State Fair. KCRW's Republican Convention page....

Broads break ground at USC

At noon today Eli and Edythe Broad will break ground on another local institution with their names on it: the Eli and Edythe Broad California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)...

Morning Buzz: Wednesday 9.3.08

Mayor Villaraigosa unveiled his goals for the ten LAUSD schools that have moved under his guidance. LAT, DN There were 84 homicides in Los Angeles from June through August,...

Cheerleading at the L.A. Times

Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton welcomed the staff back from Labor Day with encouragement to do good work — and plans to reorganize where people sit. His email this...

Blogger's sad anniversary

Downtown blogger Celia (5th and Spring) marks the third anniversary of the passing of her sister Laura Esguerra. Laura's illness and death touched many in the L.A. blogosphere....

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 9.2.08

Bob Hertzberg, who was chairman of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's transition, says now: "I love the energy and I love the fact that he's out and about. I just wish...

Handling the Palin pregnancy

Today's New York Times story says right up high in the fourth graf that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her daughter Bristol's pregnancy "after a swirl of rumors by liberal...

Dodgers on bit of a roll

The Dodgers kept their playoff hopes alive by taking two of three from the Arizona Diamondbacks' best pitchers this weekend, then stayed within 2½ games of first place by beating...

Pacifica's Amy Goodman arrested in St. Paul

Amy Goodman, the host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now, was arrested Monday during a demonstration near the Republican National Convention. She was apparently trying to discuss with cops the...

Ed Guthman, professor and journalist was 89 *

Word was circulated tonight at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism that senior scholar Edwin O. Guthman has died. Guthman served as president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission...
Clinton fundraises in LA
kermit-la-brea-closer.jpg Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
porter-ranch-sign.jpgThe natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Wet coyote
wet-coyote-vdt.jpgSpotted between the storms at Here in Malibu.
Performing arts with cheer
guys-dolls-kevin-parry.jpgDonna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
Junkyard down
upick-firetruck-560.jpgAfter 53 years, Sun Valley's Aadlen Brothers and U-Pick Parts cleans out. Photos