Weekly archive
November 2 - November 8, 2003
Saturday, Nov. 8
Joseph Mailander at Joyrides Without Maps could do without Virginia Postrel's free market philosophy, but it's her writings on style that really frost him:Ms. Postrel, in short, like most economic... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Ex-mayor Richard Riordan has shelved his Los Angeles Examiner project, semi-officially, while he prepares to assume the advisory post of state education secretary. Riordan himself doesn't comment, nor does Tim... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Journalists Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair and their two young daughters have returned to Los Angeles from Rarotonga in the South Pacific. Mark posts at bOINGbOING, which he co-founded: We'd... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Attention L.A. media party hosts -- in making your invite lists for the holidays, think twice about putting Slate's Mickey Kaus and the New York Times' Bernard Weinraub around the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Friday, Nov. 7
National Journal's Wiliam Powers surveys the architectural reviews of Disney Hall and awards Herbert Muschamp of The New York Times the prize for "baroque exuberance verging into meaninglessness." His excerpt... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Brett Pulley in a Forbes magazine cover piece examines the Matrix franchise and says it has so far taken in $1.9 billion in gross revenue -- with the third film... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
This week's New Yorker includes fiction from T. Coraghessan Boyle and a piece on the Los Angeles Iranian community by Tara Bahrampour, journalist and author of the memoir To See... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Thursday, Nov. 6
Tim and Nina Zagat respond in the L.A. Times to David Shaw's criticism last month of their restaurant guides. Say the Zagats: Ever since we started asking diners to rate... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
The bookstore has sent email to customers saying it will reopen in Santa Monica today at 5 p.m., in the new location at 1450 2nd Street. Earlier post.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Eugene Volokh usually teaches law and posts to his blog at UCLA, but this semester he's in a strange and alien place far, far away. I've noticed that the trees... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
At CalPundit, Kevin Drum and many of his commenters are horrified by an L.A. Times story today on the debate over the handling of evolution in Texas biology textbooks. The... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Cathy Seipp's media column in today's CityBeat visits with the L.A. Innuendo team, out with their second issue of what they call L.A.'s scrappiest satirical newsmonthly. "Well, its just the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Reuters' Dan Whitcomb followed up on Tuesday's post about the L.A. Times halting use of the term "resistance fighters" to describe the attackers of U.S. troops in Iraq. LAT assistant... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Joan Kroc, widow of the McDonald's founder, left almost $200 million to National Public Radio. She listened to KPBS in San Diego before she died last month. "No one saw... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Mickey Kaus, self-described "Ward Connerlyite opponent of racial preferences," picks apart L.A. Times coverage of UC admissions practices and connects on some points. I actually don't understand the entire basis... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Cathy Seipp asks on her blog if the online registration at LATimes.com is the worst on the planet. That's a rhetorical question, because the answer, hands-down, is yes, as everyone... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Nikki Finke's LA Weekly column this week is about Rhonda Miller, who says she has yet to get an apology from Arnold Schwarzenegger or his aide, Sean Walsh, for spreading... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Chicago film critics are joining their L.A. counterparts in dropping the handing out of awards unless Jack Valenti allows reviewers to receive screeners, Variety reports. The Los Angeles Film Critics'... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Wednesday, Nov. 5
Mark Bowden's October cover story in The Atlantic, "The Dark Art of Interrogation" -- which explored the role of torture and other tactics in interrogation of suspected terrorists -- has... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Nancy Rommelmann discloses how she and Hillary Johnson became acquainted, hooked up with Buzz magazine and rented a Hollywood office together -- nicknamed the Super Vixens Dymaxion Lounge.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Robert Tagorda at Priorities and Frivolities recycles this quote from former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan. Did she have certain bloggers in mind? Beware the politically obsessed. They are often... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Tuesday, Nov. 4
After five days of testimony in the Scott Peterson prelim, lawyer blogs on the left (Talk Left) and the right (SoCalLawBlog) agree: so far they got nuthin' on him.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Courthouse News, the Pasadena-based legal website, has a blog by journalist Matthew Heller. His latest item is about a lawsuit against L.A. Focus magazine by community activist Najee Ali, who... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
The L.A. Times will no longer refer to the attackers in Iraq as "resistance fighters." The word came down last night from assistant managing editor Melissa McCoy, keeper of the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Catherine Hamm, the L.A. Times deputy travel editor since 1999, ascends to replace Leslie Ward effective immediately. Freelancers and travel industry flacks should revise their contact info. The memo follows.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Don Barrett at LA Radio.com says the response he's hearing to KNX dropping the Drama Hour "has been swift and mostly negative." He calls it "Post-Dramatic Shock Syndrome." Skeptical observers... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Blogger Lonewacko's tour across the country stops in Gallatin, TN, hometown of his idol Huell Howser. Some knew The Enthusiastic One, most didn't. Lonewacko says that the L.A. Cacophony Society... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
The Downtown News' Jason Mandell has a feature this week on the designs for Disney Hall that were rejected -- as well as a look at Frank Gehry's original vision.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Nice interview at mediabistro with Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason. The libertarian magazine is nominally based in Los Angeles, but he is near Cincinnati. We're probably far and away the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
I hate to see anyone lose their jobs, but the decision by E! News Live to cut back to half an hour was overdue. Living in a household where the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Favorite L.A. blurb from this week's Publishers Lunch round-up of fiction sales, but try not to picture it: Lynn Isenberg's MY LIFE UNCOVERED, likened to Mary Tyler Moore meets Boogie... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Monday, Nov. 3
A couple of liberal politics blogs, Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo and Atrios, are publicly pondering the pros, cons and blog ethics of taking candidate ads. Atrios already accepts them,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Laura Chick -- she's the city controller in Los Angeles -- has hired veteran City Hall hand Miriam Jaffe for the new post of director of government and community affairs.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
KNX 1070 has been airing nightly dramas for three decades, but the run ended Friday night with "War of the Worlds," LA Radio.com reports. The "all news" station is going... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Bill Rosendahl, a familiar figure in local politics who has hosted public affairs shows on Adelphia for 16 years, plans to step down this month and announce he is running... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Back in August I observed on journalist (and former LATimesman) Phil Garlington's self-exile to the remote desert. Sunday he made the S.F. Chronicle and today he's the lead item at... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Michael at Franklin Avenue compares and contrasts the fire coverage at KPCC, which has invested in a local news operation, with KCRW, which has gone in other directions. Warren Olney,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
He talks about Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power at LAPL's "Aloud at Central Library" program Tuesday night at 7 p.m. On Wednesday, Simon Winchester comes in to talk... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
This is Arnold York's week in the L.A. Business Journal. The owner-publisher of the Malibu Times (with his wife Karen) is in the front page lead of an LABJ story... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Dan Weintraub's California Insider reported Sunday night that Richard Riordan will be appointed Gov. Schwarzenegger's secretary for child development and education, probably today. Given the anonymity of such posts in... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Sunday, Nov. 2
Rochelle Krich slips onto the L.A. Times Book Review bestseller list at #11 with Dream House, her novel of an "Orthodox Jewish true crime reporter [who] investigates vandalism, arson and... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
The Seattle-based City Comforts blog -- "cities, architecture, the 'new urbanism,' real estate, historic preservation, urban design, land use law, landscape, transport etc etc from a mildly libertarian stance" --... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
David Shaw and Andrew Sullivan both find Shattered Glass close enough to the truth -- uncomfortably so for Sullivan, a former editor of the depicted magazine. The beginnings of the... $MTEntryExcerpt$>