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Media reaction to the Hiltzik blog disclosure, a city budget with money for more cops, some awards, some obits and General Zinni is in town. Much more after the jump...
♦ End of an era: Boeing yesterday rolled out its final 717 aircraft, ending the production of large jetliners in Long Beach.
♦ Sock puppetry: The Hiltzik blog suspension made this morning's Washington Post, in a story by Howard Kurtz that mentions LA Observed, Patterico and Hugh Hewitt. The Online Journalism Review also picks up the thread. Patterico, meanwhile, blogs that he doesn't think that Hiltzik should be disciplined in any way and should simply acknowledge a mistake and move on. The heck am I yammering about? Previous post.
♦ By the numbers: Mayor Villaraigosa released his first budget for the city, vamping for the cameras in front of Van Nuys City Hall to kill time while waiting for Chief Bratton to arrive after flying in from San Francisco. When the chief got there, he pronounced himself "very, very pleased" with the budget then he and the mayor strolled down Van Nuys Boulevard, shaking hands and stopping in shops to say hello. Coverage of the record budget, which begins the addition of 1,000 new cops using higher trash collection fees: Times, Daily News, Business Journal,
♦ PI's on the side: It now looks like more than a hundred LAPD officers and detectives have private investigator licenses.
♦ Reggie is awake: The alligator was spotted sunning near the sixth hole of Harbor Park Municipal Golf Course, beside Lake Machado.
♦ Awards: Daily News photographers Tina Burch and Hans Gutknecht won Associated Press News Executives Council honors.
♦ Celebrity Scientologists: NBC-4's website has up photos of 49 present and past celebrities with a connection to the Church of Scientology, in alphabetical order but without explanation for why they are there. Franklin Avenue turned them up.
♦ New journo blog: Marc Weingarten's Two Jakes: "I'm a freelance writer and author in L.A. It's hard out there for a pimp."
♦ In town for breakfast: General Anthony Zinni, former Commander in Chief of the US Central Command, appears at Town Hall Los Angeles in conversation with Los Angeles Times Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller. His latest book is The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose. At City Club.
♦ L.A. obituaries: Elaine Young, one of the first Beverly Hills real estate agents to the stars and the former wife of actor Gig Young, died at 71. Factoid: She underwent 46 surgeries trying to correct bad plastic surgery...Amanda Duff Dunne, former actress and the widow of screenwriter and director Philip Dunne, died at age 92. Their Malibu home was a salon for liberal Hollywood.