Steve Mikulan, the staff writer who has been the main writer on the LA Weekly's blog LA Daily, parted ways with the paper this afternoon. A newsroom source said Mikulan was let go over "aesthetic differences," but I haven't talked with Mikulan. Editor Drex Heikes replied to an email with: "We have no comment." Who knows what else was going on, but I liked the aesthetics, if you will, that Mikulan brought to the Weekly's blog. He seemed to rise above the overheated city is falling apart while the Valley suffers meme that's currently in vogue at the Weekly, and his range of posts was a main reason I began checking the blog, well, daily.

* Reax: LA Weekly partisan turned critic Marc Cooper praises Mikulan, blasts Jill Stewart and calls strike two on Heikes.