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Another near-miss at LAX, Vin Scully signs on for three more years (but that's probably it), chiding Erin Aubry Kaplan on race, the editor of the LAT's Home section moves on and the New York Observer figures out why both Timeses sold out to the Oscar hype. From yesterday: Martin Ludlow resigns, and exclusive to LA Observed: the LAT names a New York publishing reporter.
In The Valley Observed: Novelist Luis J. Rodriguez blogs about the fourth anniversary celebration at his Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural in Sylmar.
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♦ Quick pilot action averted disaster after an LAX air traffic controller directed three planes onto the same runway Friday night. "It was pretty close," says an FAA official.
♦ Three more years of Vin Scully at the Dodgers microphone looks to be all we get. He begins this season at age 78.
♦ Variety columnist Brian Lowry questions LAT op-ed columnist Erin Aubry Kaplan swiping all whites with the same racial attitudes brush. He also objects to the current Hollywood stereotype that "whites could hardly be more clueless [and] blacks could hardly be more racist."
♦ Political Animal blogger Kevin Drum has an op-ed in the LAT about the Winter Olympics.
♦ Kelly Scott, editor of the L.A. Times' weekly Home section, is transferring to the National desk as an assistant editor.
♦ Kevin Nealon on making the Pellicano list: "Never in my wildest imaginings did I actually ever think "Kevin Nealon" and "wiretap" would appear in the same news article. It's like seeing Dick Cheney's name on an invitation to a PETA gala."
♦ Both the LAT and NYT are included in a New York Observer piece looking at why newspapers have rushed to promote Oscars buzz to a disinterested audience. It's the studio ads, baby.
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa is interviewed today on Univision Channel 34 (6:20 pm) and sits for the Ask the Mayor segment on KCAL-9 (9:15 pm).
♦ Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder of Boing Boing and editor of Make magazine, sold a new book Rule the Web—"providing powerful and little-known tips, tricks, and workarounds the Internet offers"—to St. Martin's at auction, says Publishers Lunch.
♦ With the closure of the Unocal station on Gayley Avenue, is there just one gas fill-up spot left in Westwood Village? Used to be a row of them strung along Lindbrook, all topped with art deco pylons and neon to compete for business.
♦ UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall law school sent email to 7,000 applicants congratulating them on their acceptance. Uh, they weren't accepted. Story in the Daily Journal.
♦ Bruce Feirstein, the New York Observer's man in Hancock Park, imagines a more Islamically correct New York Times.