First thing Monday, 9/26 *

♦ Rachel Uranga reports in the Daily News on the phenomenon of L.A. immigrants skipping English to learn whatever is spoken in their neighborhood: "Peruvian immigrant Miguel Aliaga always knew that coming to Los Angeles would mean a long struggle mastering a new language. He just never figured that language would be Korean."

♦ City Administrative Officer Bill Fujioka pulled his name out of the running for Chief Legislative Analyst, Rick Orlov says in the Daily News. The city council has cleared its schedule for Tuesday to try to pick the replacement for Ron Deaton. Meanwhile, Monday's Times runs what can best be described as a puff piece on council member Wendy Greuel.

♦ Monday's Daily News runs an AP story on the tainted Getty masterpieces, without acknowledging that the story is a rewrite of Sunday's LAT enterprise piece. * What the DN deleted: The second graf of the AP version reads "according to hundreds of documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times." 12:45 pm

♦ Ouch: USC�s Marshall School of Business jumped over UCLA�s Anderson School of Management in the latest Wall Street Journal rankings, the LABJ says. "Officials at the Anderson School did not return calls," the paper reports dryly.

♦ This is the week Michael Eisner turns in his mouse ears at Disney. Laura Holson sends him off in this morning's NYT.

♦ The Directors Guild reelected Michael Apted as its president.

Here are some of the entries from last week's LA Observed:

Antonio mounts up and goes for a ride
New CRA board members
Thunder and lightning
Mayor's first Asia junket taking shape
Writers Guild cleans house
The stench that ate Los Angeles
David Ulin on the LAT Book Review
Flight 292 commands L.A.'s attention
Speaking Spanish in Santa Monica
Rocket's red glare overhead
Alan Rosenberg wins at SAG

Hertzberg's embarrassment: While we're rehashing, this is kind of amusing. You might remember last week's five-liner about CityBeat's story on animal rights fanatics. About as routine as they come. CityBeat sends a pointer, the story looks interesting, I link to it and move on. Some days later, friends alerted me that former mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg's personal blogger, Brian Hay, posted a strange adolescent tantrum because I didn't include a link to his link of a wire story at Mayor Sam's Sister City—an entry I had never seen. I clicked over and, sure enough, the kid was good for an unintended laugh. He ranted that I was "stealing his shit," unimaginatively trotted out "Roderdick" (hadn't heard that since Holmes Junior High), then actually typed—yes—a fart reference including that pearl of school playground repartee: "whoever smelt it, dealt it." Hay has struck me before as the more juvenile and least professional of the Sister City bloggers, and he seems especially bitter about LA Observed. But good lord man, have some standards and take a look around here. My little one-person blogging operation can be criticized on lots of counts, but somehow I don't think a surfeit of links to stories and reputable bloggers is one of my flaws.