Bob 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...
| Our modern water systems have made it not only possible, but virtually inevitable, that we should forget where our water comes from and the responsibilities it carries. Myth and art may be our best ways back into that understanding.
| A judge's ruling that declares capital punishment unconstitutional in California causes Martinez to wonder if we are beginning to weary of the savagery and he hopes for the dawning of a new day of compassion.
| Take My Picture Gary Leonard is a regular weekly feature of LA Observed.
| The outdoors venues in Los Angeles this summer constitute one of America's largest Shakespearean hotspots. Let Don Shirley be your guide.
| Their voices were cutting in and out as they followed Marisol's path up the hillside.
Hot dogs wouldn't hurt. Hot dogs to fight a curse.
The latest version of the mayoral web site, Data LA, is greatly improved from its shaky first edition. Even modestly computer-savvy Angelenos get enough information to come to their own conclusions about the mayor and the rest of city government.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
Well that was interesting. Sold the house, traveled and blogged, house hunted and didn't blog and now, voila. Back...
