First thing Monday, 10/10

 ♦ The Supreme Court hears oral arguments this week in Garcetti v. Ceballos, the case involving a whistle-blowing L.A. County prosecutor who was fired and claims his First Amendment rights were violated. The Daily Journal leads Monday's paper with an advancer, and the New York Times runs an op-ed piece.

 ♦ In honor of the Angels-Yankees series, here's a Deanne Stillman piece from the Village Voice in 2003 on rocks in the Mojave Desert that look like Billy Martin.

 ♦ Sports talk host Joe McDonnell was fired Friday by ESPN Radio, AM 710. He blogs it here. Steve Mason and John Ireland go into McDonnell's 4-to-7 p.m. weekday drive spot.

 ♦ Jon Regardie of the Downtown News goes precinct walking with Huizar and Pacheco in the 14th council district race.

 ♦ Rick Orlov's Monday column observes what went on when the mike came unplugged during Mayor Villaraigosa's 100-days show last week in City Hall.

 ♦ Matt Szabo credits Villaraigosa with playing the first hundred days just right, if political invincibility is the game.

 ♦ Sam Nazarian, labeled a "budding nightlife impresario," is buying the 297-room Le Meridien hotel on La Cienega for more than $90 million, Andy Fixmer reports in the L.A. Business Journal, citing sources close to the deal.

 ♦ Renovations at the Century City shopping center will begin to reopen next month and the 15-screen AMC theater—billed with stadium seating, digital technology and surround sound—will open before Christmas, says the L.A. Business Journal. Smartly, Westfield has dropped the lame "Shoppingtown" name from all its L.A. area malls.

 ♦ Michael Schneider of Franklin Avenue has a new blog where he is chronicling in photos the final weeks of the Ambassador Hotel.

 ♦ Patt Morrison guest-hosts for Kitty Felde Monday and Tuesday on KPCC's Talk of the City.

 ♦ Brady Westwater thinks the LAT should give classical music writer Mark Swed a column.

 ♦ High school sophomore Miranda McOsker, daughter of Jim Hahn's former chief of staff Tim McOsker, threw three touchdown passes in Bishop Montgomery's 55-14 rout of Ribet Academy on Friday night. One TD went for 65 yards.

 ♦ Hit-maker Linda Perry does a reluctant (sort-of) interview with the New York Times from Kung Fu Gardens, her studio in North Hollywood.