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• The L.A. Times has an obit today on Marcus Arnold, who rocketed to Internet stardom as a 15-year-old legal expert on AskMe.com. Turns out Arnold died back on May 1, but the Times says his death was not publicly disclosed until a Dec. 19 opinion column in the Times by Michael Lewis. He had first written about Arnold in a book and a New York Times Magazine story.
• Cher Calvin is the replacement for Sharon Tay on the KTLA Morning News, RonFineman.com says. She is an anchor on the Fox station in Las Vegas and has been in show business in the Phillipines, where her father was a matinee idol. Her website has a bio and several photographs, including the uncropped version of this one.
• Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski endorses Flora Gil Krisiloff to replace her in the 11th district.
• There's a new blog on the local news and politics scene. The mantra at Jim Bursch's West L.A. Online is "our number one criterion (and perhaps our only criterion) for evaluating politicians and public officials is the quality of their communication online."
• Local Liberty is a new group blog on the right from the small government, property rights, founding principles-fixated Claremont Institute. They are based in, yes, Claremont.
• Ross Johnson writes in the New York Times about Toronto filmmaker and advertising executive Barry Avrich, who tapped local author Kathleen Sharp and researcher Barbara Gregson for work on his feature-length documentary, "The Last Mogul: The Life and Times of Lew Wasserman."