LA Observed Notes: the latest 
Ballet costumes by ChagallBob Baker runs the writing website newsthinking.com. He was a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times for 26 years before leaving in 2004 to become a novelist and songwriter. (Current project: The heretofore-untold 1952 civil rights movement of left-handed golfers that shaped MLK’s Montgomery strategy.) Baker co-authored the autobiography of R&B radio legend Magnificent Montague ("Burn, Baby! BURN!," University of Illinois Press, 2003). He is also a longtime fan of the Los Angeles Clippers, citing Matthew 20:16: The last shall be first and the first shall be last. He lives on Mar Vista Hill. Email
Only one thing will save the L.A. Times: topless girls.
Dear Sportswriters and Athletes, Could we come to an understanding about the reigning sports cliché of the 21st Century? Could...
It was the greatest feeling: Blogging. Vrooooom! An idea struck me and with nary a thought I had posted it...
I have fallen in love with the new education column by a Times Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial writing, Bob Sipchen. A short Q-&-A.
I got the phone call at home an hour ago: The Tribune Company fired the L.A. Times’ publisher. Tribune insists on pushing into an arena it knows nothing about — greatness in journalism.
(Written in American Airlines security waiting line at LAX) Here I sit, watching X-rays of your suitcase for six twenty-five...
This is a great time to be living in California. With less than two months before the election, we’re about...
Tonight, trying to decide whether to watch the start of the ABC docudrama or the end of the Manning Brothers...
For once I can recommend a fact-based melodrama that doesn’t have to dip into cornball fiction. The film is called...
My car’s radio buttons are set to talk stations. I can’t find a music station I like, and my CD...
July 31, 2006 Laurence Apathe President Los Angeles ArtWorks Center for the Performing Arts Dear Mr. Apathe, Here, in answer...
For 39 years—from the 12th grade until the middle of 2004—I wrote in the dialect of journalese. I communicated through...
