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Public Radio International's Tavis Smiley interviewed condemned Crips founder Tookie Williams by phone on San Quentin's Death Row. Calls are limited to fifteen minutes, so it took two redials to complete their chat. It airs in Los Angeles Friday at 10 pm on KPCC. A snippet of audio is available here.
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♦ Defamer the other day made up a scene for Mel Gibson's coming Holocaust movie depicting a battle "with thousands of Jewish and Nazi combatants rushing at each other across an open field." Well, the down-under newspaper The Australian thought it was real.
♦ Rob Reiner says he won't run against Schwarzenegger next year. In case you were wondering about that.
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa gives his first State of the Valley speech at noon at the Hilton Universal City
and Towers.
♦ Once again, a crash on the Orange Line. Six injured. And again, it's not the fault of the bus driver.
♦ Sirius Radio's in-house liberals "The Young Turks" (Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz, and Jill Pike) are taking their talk show to the free Internet. Starting Monday at 3 pm they will stream their show as live video.
♦ TV books maven Connie Martinson likes Maureen Dowd's NYT column, but writes of her book: "Alas, this is a Maureen Dowd, who sounds like an overage Cosmo girl worried about having a date for Saturday night and whether she should offer to pick up half the check."
♦ Former Daily News scribe (and historian of the original L.A. Daily News) Rip Rense writes that newspapers can't be dying: "I think they died a long time ago."
♦ If the Times needs all the readers it can get, why are registered users of LATimes.com being made to endure email pitches from the Times for ViTrichol, "the complete all-natural hair loss treatment option?" Also this from a reader who sounds like he's wavering: "Did you know that LAT has outsourced its subscription department to Manila? When I called 800-252-9141 this morning and punched Operator, I went to a nice gentleman in Manila."
♦ The Cal State Northridge Journalism Department would like the time capsule from the Times' Chatsworth plant.
♦ Central Library has been wireless for awhile now, but thirty-seven Los Angeles city branch libraries—from Arroyo Seco to Woodland Hills—are now free wi-fi hotspots too.
♦ The 1947 Project bloggers have pulled out of the get your readers to vote for you blog popularity contest being run by Gridskipper, calling it "foolishness." Rodger at 8763 Wonderland too. The 1947s, by the way, are planning a bus tour of L.A. crime sites pegged to the coming Black Dahlia anniversary.
♦ Jenna Fatigue is a blog devoted to all things media regarding porn actress Jenna Jameson.