Weekly archive
December 11 - December 17, 2005
Friday, Dec. 16
Veteran actor John Spencer died today of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital. He plays Leo McGarry, the former White House chief of staff and current VP candidate...
Execs at La Opinión sent over word that their owner, ImpreMedia, has acquired the #1 Spanish-language paper in the Bay Area, El Mensajero. Already the biggest Spanish-language newspaper publisher in...
L.A. blogger Tim McGarry grew up with the Ambassador Hotel in his life. He accepts that the new schools will be a good thing and he likes where Koreatown is...
A major technical malfunction has thrown blogs on the TypePad service from Six Apart—all of them, apparently—back to their older backup versions. Bloggers can't log in nor can readers add...
Federal rules finally taking effect mean that Los Angeles' uncovered city reservoirs will no longer hold drinking water, the Times says. Unlike most places, L.A. has traditionally treated its water...
Hey kids, it's Jack Valenti Day in Los Angeles. The former head of the movie-rating and politico-lobbying MPAA gets the key to the city from Mayor Villaraigosa in the council...
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman's party to raise campaign cash for Senate Democrats was supposed to be the last big Hollywood political event of the season. Melissa Etheridge came to...
Thursday, Dec. 15
One of the Valley busway intersections where red-light cameras will not be tried is at Kester Avenue in Van Nuys. Two of the Orange Line accidents have occurred there, however,...
Animal activists don't have Guerdon Stuckey to kick around anymore. If they want to protest the new guy, they'll have to find out the home address for Ed Boks, who...
Mayor Villaraigosa has gone back to the Broad Foundation (from where he lured Chief of Staff Robin Kramer) and signed up Marcus Castain to be his Associate Director for Education,...
⇒ Retired NFL defensive lineman Darrell Russell and a former Trojan teammate at USC, Michael Paul Bastianelli, died early today after a high-speed car crash on La Cienega near Pico....
Remember the grocery store strike-lockout that seemed to last far longer than it should have in 2003? Ralphs was indicted today on federal charges of hiring workers under false names...
Factor's Deli on Pico makes the whole valet parking transaction way too complicated. Just what makes nighttime parking exactly fifty cents less valuable than lunch (except on weekends)?...
From L.A. writer, producer and blogger Lee Goldberg: Dear Friend, I am a former general in the Nigerian army who has managed to steal countless millions from my people. It...
They almost had him: City News Service was alerted to a 4:30 pm press conference, but Guerdon Stuckey changed his mind and refused to step down as head of Animal...
Wednesday, Dec. 14
Gawker reports that the staff of Radar magazine was just told that it's over. Also at FishbowlNY....
David Zahniser reported in this morning's Breeze that Mayor Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff, Jimmy Blackman, gave Guerdon Stuckey the word that he's out as head of the Animal Services...
Bill Mueller continues the exodus of Boston Red Sox who names are pronounced "Miller" and signs for two years with the Dodgers, the Times website says. The third baseman has...
Scott Martelle writes that for staffers at the LA Weekly, the coming regime change "is like being eaten by a monster they thought they had already killed." Laurie Ochoa, the...
While I'm playing around with Microsoft's Windows Live Local pics (and burning up bandwidth), just for yucks here's the pool grotto of the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills (or as...
Like a lot of others with fast Internet connections, I've been losing hours to Microsoft's free new Windows Live Local satellite (and aerial photo) service. I've scoured the L.A. mountains...
The L.A. Times is dropping the shell that remains of its national edition. Once a full-scale newspaper sold on the street in Washington and New York as part of a...
Tuesday, Dec. 13
Angry Dodger Milton Bradley has been traded to Oakland for an outfield prospect, ESPN is reporting. To make the deal, the Dodgers had to include young infielder Antonio Perez. The...
Painter Gregg Chadwick photographed yesterday's demolition of the garage at the Los Angeles Museum of Art where murals by Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee inspired a spirited but unsuccessful salvage...
Tomorrow's meeting of the City Council rules and elections committee will take up an urgent matter of supreme interest to the electeds: how many days off to build into next...
HBO is planning a half-hour comedy based on the life of, well, Ruth Reichl. She is the editor of Gourmet who used to be the restaurant critic in disguise for...
The police commission voted to publish its decisions on use of force by LAPD officers, but without names. Union head Bob Baker of the Police Protective League applauds the move:...
A bunch of movies and actors got Golden Globe nominations today. If you care, Variety has the lineup. It's at all the other new awards-hyping sites too since today is...
Mayor Villaraigosa today appointed his commissioners for the Board of Information Technology. Natalie Cole, publisher of Our Weekly, is among those named. Full release with bios after the jump. *...
UCLA emeritus professor of linguistics Peter Ladefoged gets credit in today's New York Times for inspiring the rare addition of a new symbol to the international phonetic alphabet. The labiodental...
Mayor Villaraigosa appears before the police commission at 9:30 am to urge more transparency in use of force investigations by the Inspector General. The LAT does an advancer on the...
Monday, Dec. 12
Gov. Schwarzenegger opted not to step in and stop the execution of Tookie Williams. In his message (PDF file), Schwarzenegger recounted Williams' crimes and said he did not merit clemency....
At midnight on the Wednesday of finals week, it has been a recent UCLA tradition for a thousand students to strip to their underwear and gather at the corner of...
It's Carolyn Kellogg, who blogs on her own time at Pinky's Paper Haus. She replaces Jason Toney, who took over in February. * Today's LAist Interview: Adrienne Crew puts questions...
New media reporter Anne Riley-Katz's LABJ piece on Robert Scheer's venture Truthdig.com focuses less on the deposed L.A. Times columnist and more on co-founder and publisher Zuade Kaufman. With good...
Don't miss posts from the weekend on the DreamWorks sale, the QM2, Richard Pryor's passing and a little media roundup. On to today: ♦ The state Supremes nixed a stay of...
Sunday, Dec. 11
Although I link every day to the front page of La Opinión (and have had a standing link to the paper's website since day one), I only post about individual...
Variety's latest celebration of its centennial is a weekly countdown of the Top 100 awards ceremony fashions. They've reached the final ten on Variety.com. In order, they are worn by:...
Tookie Williams has asked for a stay of execution by the state Supreme Court. No word yet. (* Also: Gov. Schwarzenegger won't divulge his ruling on clemency until Monday, his...
Paramount today confirmed the huge Hollywood shocker that it will pay $1.6 billion for DreamWorks. The story began to get out Friday in the Wall Street Journal, and on Saturday...
The new Queen Mary 2 will arrive for its first visit at the Port of Los Angeles on February 22. But it won't be easy. The world's largest cruise ship...
