Friday desk clearing

♦ The state's new high school exit exam was blocked by a judge in Alameda County, possibly affecting 47,000 students who did not score high enough to graduate. The state says it will seek a stay, with graduations due to begin next week.
♦ Bernard Weinraub sends off his old NYT editor Abe Rosenthal at the Huffington Post.
♦ Kim Masters comments at Slate on Sony's unusual strategy of not showing The Da Vinci Code to any of the usual preview audiences.
♦ At the invitation of Tom Wolfe, Marc Weingarten wrote an essay about the author on the occasion of his receiving an honor from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
♦ West Hollywood City Council member Jeffrey Prang takes over later this month as president of the California Contract Cities Association. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky will administer the oath of office.
♦ Donnell Alexander guests on "Deadline L.A." to talk about Barry Bonds, Saturday at noon on KPFK.
♦ I guess La Parrilla on Cesar Chavez Boulevard is the Canter's of the Eastside—on Saturday at 11 am, Phil Angelides plans a stop-in with labor chief Maria Elena Durazo and state Sen. Gil Cedillo.
♦ The zine Dumb Angel now has a blog rich in local surf music lore with a focus on Jan and Dean, Balboa and Newport Beach.
♦ Lisa Johnson writes at FilmStew about trading in her Robertson-adjacent condo hand-painted by Madonna's brother, Christopher Ciccone, for a four-bedroom house in Santa Monica that comes with a hunky boyfriend: "A cool quarter of a million was wired into my bank account today, and while I should feel euphoric, I'm a little disheartened. To get the money, I had to literally give up hearth and home, as well as my two degrees of separation from Madonna."
♦ Comments posted on Chief Bratton's welcome greeting at the new LAPD blog range from Councilman Eric Garcetti's "thanks for being a great part of moving our city government closer to our constituents" (the majority tone) to a snarkier quip: "The best thing about your blog is you can post it while at an airport. That way no one will know you are out of town! :)"