Holiday notes *

Posting will be light through New Year's Day. But I will probably add a few notes here during the coming week, with the freshest at the bottom. See you all in 2005. The photo of what L.A. looks like at Christmas is by Nitsa at StreetsofLosAngeles.com.

• PR Week's year-end roundup ranks the troubles at Fleishman-Hillard #3 on the list of business events that caused a stir in 2004, and proclaimed Controller Laura Chick #1 among "communicators who awed." The trade's "most daunting job in PR" goes to Richard Kline, the Fleishman executive who has to clean up the mess left by Doug Dowie's tenure: "Kline needs to rebuild the agency's image..."

• Times reporter David Willman got good bounce on NPR's "All Things Considered" for his front-page story this week showing how researchers at the National Institutes of Health take fees and stocks from drug companies.

• Cardinal Roger Mahony publishes a letter in this week's Jewish Journal saying he was "surprised, astonished and shocked" to read in the paper of controversial comments about Jews by William Donohue of the U.S. Catholic League.

• Cathy Seipp has gone national in her online feud with the liberal bloggers at Martini Republic.

• The Volokh Conspiracy won the popular vote for best group blog in the Wizbang Weblog Awards earlier this month. Patterico and BoiFromTroy campaigned hard and got the most votes in "best blog" categories.

• I'll be on "Deadline L.A." Sunday on KPFK at 1 p.m. talking about Fleishman-Hillard. Howard Blume, formerly of the LA Weekly, is expected to join Barbara Osborn shortly as regular co-host. I'm also quoted in my "Valley historian" hat in a Times piece by Amanda Covarrubias on the vanishing industrial base of Canoga Park.

• I have a piece on Bill Wardlaw, the power player who has chaired the last three winning campaigns for mayor, in the January issue of Los Angeles magazine. It's out now, but not online. My piece in the December issue on District Attorney Steve Cooley talking about his investigations of political corruption is on the magazine's website. After publication all of my articles can also be found on my website.

• Franklin Avenue's "Name Our Baby" derby moved out of the conceptual realm on Christmas Eve. Evan Michael Schneider was born at 4:51 p.m.

• The blog Mayor Sam's Sister City speculates that commissioner Ellen Stein will soon leave the Board of Public Works. She is the wife of Ted Stein, the controversial former airport commissioner whose name has come up in connection with the grand jury investigations of the Hahn administration.

• The Los Angeles Business Journal unveiled its new website as a source of fresh local business news. As before, some stories in the weekly print paper are free but most require a subscription.