Librarians are some of my personal heroes, providing a beacon of light in a world that often seems hellbent on devolving into the movie Idiocracy faster than you can say illiterate.

This weekend, more than 12,000 members of this noble profession from around the country and as far as Norway descended upon Anaheim for the annual American Library Association conference, participating in panel discussions, snapping up new releases at publisher booths and learning what’s new and helpful in their field.

I was there Saturday and Sunday, signing books and chatting with librarians. They are a groovy bunch who are unabashedly enthusiastic about books and reading, and we can talk openly about having 1,000 books at home without feeling like freaks.

But what I want to leave you with is not a tale about how librarians are beleaguered, or have reinvented themselves for the digital age, or now sport tattoos and pink hair, but rather to muse on three short stories about librarians that I read recently.

Headlines we can plan to see a lot more of, because of the Justices' not surprising trouble with punctuation in the Bush era—just a very few that the Los Angeles Times and New York Times reported on this year.

But please don’t just think of of the victims. Think also of the families and friends—of the many hundreds, of the huge circles of people--that just these very, very few homicides have touched.

14 people slain in L.A. County over the weekend
Groom found shot dead in Pico Rivera
Crash investigators find man shot in the head
Handguns discovered with five bodies
Boy, 17, fatally shot in Hollywood
A Torrance man kills son and mother-in-law
Student shot in Oxnard
Woman shot to death in Gardena
Rifleman opens fire before festival at Granada Hills church
East L.A. rocked by double homicides
Woman shot dead on Hollywood Freeway offramp
Boy, 12, is killed, man wounded in Long Beach shooting
Second homicide in four days in Santa Monica
Street shooting claims another child—this time in Echo Park
Man shoots wife, kidnaps 2 sons
Boy, 6, shot in the head
A youth ‘on track’ until fatal gunfire
Shooting at south Florida restaurant leaves two dead
In Maryland, boy charged in four deaths [of parents and brothers]
One survivor at shooting in Illinois mall
Gunman kills five people at City Council meeting
Student kills two and himself at a Louisiana college
Student shot at a school in Memphis

In my last post, I wrote that one of Malibu's best-kept secrets is that Carbon and the other public-private beaches are open 24 hours--that's true--and that the 17 access gates, while they close at sunset, remain unlocked from the beach side.

Which turns out to be true with one exception--the Carbon Beach gate at 22126 PCH. To leave Carbon after dark, you have to exit a mile up the coast at the other Carbon accessway at 22706 PCH. (Keep an eye on the tide, though, since the high tide sometimes covers part of that mile.)

I think that's the best-kept secret in Malibu.

Enjoy the beach--and watch out for the paparazzi.

The Orange County Register's decision to outsource some editing to India shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our ailing newspaper industry, particularly here in Southern California, where a Pasadena news outfit flirted briefly in 2007 with the notion of outsourcing reporting to the subcontinent.

With 2008 shaping up to be the worst year on record for ad revenue, more creative solutions, and associated workforce reductions, are likely.

Not so in India.

They're accepting applications in India.

The company that the OC Register hired, Mindworks Global, has several job listings* posted on its Web site.

Because I've never worked on a copy desk, most editors would probably say I lack the experience necessary to perform the duties of a "copy editor." However, as Mindworks has made copy editing part of its mission, I thought I might help clean up its Careers page*. Consider it a bit of reverse outsourcing.

My edits are noted in the excerpted copy below. Strikethroughs and [suggested changes in bracketed bold italics] are mine. In the interest of brevity, I've omitted some of the copy, as noted with a [Snip ...]:

WASHINGTON D.C., JUNE 25, 2008: In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier today struck down as cruel and unusual punishment a law that allowed the death penalty for child rape, reserving the ultimate punishment only for cases involving murder. "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," wrote the Court, in voiding a Louisiana law.

In an accompanying decision, the Court voted 8-0 in declaring that a public outcry for the immediate death of Bonnie Overturf, a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchisee whose employees (she was not on the scene) refused a mother’s multiple urgent request to use the employee bathroom because her five year old daughter with explosive diarrhea was in danger of soiling herself, "is also a little over the top." With the restroom unavailable, the child was forced seek another bathroom in a nearby theater, but did not make it in time. "My daughter was humiliated, forced to defecate on herself due to the lack of compassion exhibited by the store," the mother later said, according to a story in the Orange Country Register. Overturf said her employees were following insurance policies for her store, and there were at least a dozen restrooms near the store the mother could have used.

Though the Court refused to rule on the legality of the lynch mob's second choice -- throwing feces at Overturf's home -- Justice David Souter opined that "Boycotting the store" in Huntington Beach, CA's Bella Terra Mall "is probably sufficient remedy. Besides, it will take at least a week to clean all the chocolate-dipped strawberries -- and even then will you really be able to tell if she got everything? It's a chocolate store, for Chrissakes! Ms. Overturf will be lucky to have any customers until after the July 4th holiday."

Justice Clarence Thomas abstained on principle, saying, “The Constitution has no jurisdiction over fecal matters.”

It's not everyday that an Angeleno publicly discloses a 70th birthday.

But Chinatown is no ordinary Angeleno. First, it's a place--one of our oldest neighborhoods-- rather than a person. And the neighborhood is more than a neighborhood: it's a legend, landmark and portal of possibility all rolled into one. L.A. Chinatown Business Improvement District with cooperation from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, the Chinese American Museum, the L.A. Chinatown Corporation, and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles plan to highlight all of the area's dimensions on Saturday, June 28th with a free festival celebrating the birth of the "New Chinatown."

City leaders will be on hand to re-dedicate of one of area's original plaques—recently discovered buried in storage—and an original replica on which is inscribed the words “Dedicated to the Chinese Pioneers Who Participated in the Constructive History of California.” This plaque was originally dedicated by California Governor Frank Merriam on June 25, 1938.

The fun starts on the Central Plaza from 7 to 11 p.m. with 1940’s style big band music and dancing, cocktails from the era, a video montage of the many movies shot in Chinatown, and a narrated video presentation of historic photos. Judges will be on hand to award "a "Best Costume Contest" for those who choose to come in 1930’s or 1940’s attire. Other entertainment will feature Chines martial artists, lion dancers, and book-signings and readings by authors whose books celebrate Chinatown history.

h/t to Blogdowntown.com for the reminder

The Coastal Commission has now posted highly user-friendly maps of the public easements on Carbon Beach, aka Billionaires Beach—the places where you are welcome to use the dry sand. Warmly welcome. This 1 1/2-mile mile beach has 56 easements. Fifty-six. All are large and inviting. The maps also show you the locations of the two accessways you can use to get on to the beach—at 22706 and 22126 PCH. Download all 6 maps--they proceed west to east--and be sure to use a color printer, since unlike the maps for Broad Beach, these are color-coded.

That's one of Malibu's best-kept secrets: the existence and locations of the dry-sand easements. Here's the other: This beach is open 24 hours, as are all the beaches that are part public and part private—and that includes the easements. Here’s the catch: the access gates close at sunset. However, most of the gates (though not 22126, sadly) remain unlocked on the beach side--you can always leave, in other words--so as long as you enter before sunset, you are quite warmly welcome to stay as late as you want. Moonlight picnics on the beach! Also feel free to arrive after dark via kayak, parachute, jetpack, or breast stroke.

For a guide to Malibu’s public-private beaches, you can download the handy 1-page Los Angeles Urban Rangers guide, as well as my 3-part LA Observed guide, on the Los Angeles Urban Rangers website.

I can't believe that George Carlin is gone.
A hugely influential force in stand-up comedy.
One of the greats; Carlin is irreplaceable.
He changed comedy forever for the better.
Once, we rode in an elevator together.
I got to shake his hand. Wow.
Seven words that describe how I feel ...