Websites and the blogosphere

The daughter of BoingBoing editor Mark Frauenfelder was going through security with a school group at LAX on Sunday when a male TSA officer hissed at her, "You're only 15, COVER YOURSELF!" Not cool.

"Melville was the most extraordinary advocate Los Angeles theater has known," says the CEO of LA Stage Alliance.

As the Center for Investigative Reporting, the newsroom in Berkeley will take a more national focus and cut back on the number of stories it undertakes. California Watch has been one of the most successful nonprofit journalism startups in the country.

Radio Titans is an Internet outlet for podcasts that was started by Carl Kozlowski (arts writer for the Pasadena Weekly), Jake Belcher and Brant Thoman. They do Grand Theft Audio ten hours a week and other shows that have guests including Richard Linklater and Burt Bacharach.

Since it looks as if the SoCal fire season is going to be long and mean, scientist-blogger Grace Peng offers a primer on the physics of flames and wind here. Plus: Reuters photographer Jonathan Alcorn on an eerie night at the Camarillo Springs fire.

If you have been following the ruckus over Wikipedia editors deleting women from the list of American novelists, and moving them to a separate list of female novelists, it keeps getting worse. Note also just how retrograde the trolls are who seek revenge via "edits" on Wikipedia.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was among the top law enforcement and government officials whose address, social security number and credit reports were posted online. The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, also had some personal information posted, as did vice president Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Beyonce, Ashton Kutcher and Mel Gibson, among others.

February was Madonna month at East of West LA, the blog of photographer Kevin McCollister. "Because both the devotion to and the prevalence of the Virgin of Guadalupe seems to be under-appreciated in this town," he writes.

Jesus Sanchez, the creator and editor of the blog The Eastsider LA, will hold a public reading — by actors — of selected comments from his blog next Saturday at Taix. It's a performance and a meetup and a fundraiser.

Two years ago, when Los Angeles magazine themed its February special issue the "Hidden LA" issue without credit, W. Lynn Garrett wasn't amused. When it happened again this year, the founder of the wildly popular Hidden Los Angeles Facebook community and website sued in federal court.

Users of the Chrome web browser, and that's more of the web all the time, were met by a big scary malware warning today at popular news sites. There's no real threat.

The Los Angeles bureau of BuzzFeed continues to ramp up. Today Richard Rushfield et al are announcing the hire of Adam Vary as senior film reporter. He comes from the...

Mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti is sitting today for what the Reddit online community calls an AMA. He posted about two hours ago: "Hi I'm Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Councilmember and candidate for Mayor. Ask me anything. I will be back around 4:00 PT to answer your questions."

Arianna Huffington moves to president and editor in chief of the media group. Jimmy Maymann, previously AOL senior vice president of international, becomes CEO.

In a post rife with punnery, celebrity gossip site TMZ says that contrary to a report that originated in the San Francisco Chronicle, it has no interest in using airborne, unmanned drones to gather news.

In a piece at the Los Angeles Review of Books getting some nice social media buzz, Laurie Winer considers Wallace and the reality, and literature, of depression and suicide. Plus: a pitch to donate.

Self-serving questions from constituents for the 'Ask Paul" column on AOL Patch are actually written by the councilman's press deputy. But let's hope you knew that.

Patrick Frey and his wife, both veteran prosecutors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, are victims of one of the more despicable political dirty tricks practiced in America these days. Over his blogging.

"Please be advised that PMC employees, including but not limited to Nikki Finke, Mike Fleming, Pete Hammond and Nellie Andreeva, are under long term employment contracts," says the lawyer letter.

Amid talk that the owner of Deadline.com is on the verge of buying Variety, Nikki Finke announced on Deadline.com that her staff will be too busy next week on some unstated business to post breaking news nuggets.

Prospect Park publisher Colleen Dunn Bates created the site in 2006 as a companion to the book "Hometown Pasadena."

For them it's about the quality of the content, the most precious commodity in the competition for readers' brains.

"Vintage mugshots have an eerie beauty to them that’s lost in current mugshot photography," says the website Mugshot Doppelganger. "What would celebrity mugshots, the ones we’ve become accustomed to seeing on TMZ, look like if instead they were taken in the 1920’s?" Asked and answered.

The anonymous Twitter spoof account that poses as Deadline.com's Nikki Finke currently rings up suspended if you try to visit. And for whatever reason, the real Finke account is also suspended as of now.

HuffPost Live will begin with eight hours of live web programming out of New York and four hours out of Los Angeles each weekday. It's starting with ten hosts, including the former LA Observed video contributor Jacob Soboroff in the Beverly Hills studio, plus contributions from Huffington Post editors, bloggers and readers.