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Sure we all know that Mayor Villaraigosa has spent a lot of time on the road—but this much? Dean Singleton, Zuma Dogg and Doug Dowie are also in the news. Just click on the Morning Buzz to get started.
And since it's Monday, here are some choice morsels from the past seven days of LA Observed, in case you need to load up:
Fans rant about Dodger Stadium lines, security etc
Here are the richest people in Los Angeles and environs
Doug Dowie and John Stodder convicted, but Stodder blogs on
Traffic on Highland Avenue will join 21st century
Rocky's identity problem
IATSE takes on Madonna
Piece of the Berlin Wall in L.A.
Councilman and his pumpkin bread
Living with fire in the canyons
Anson Carter, hip-hop hockey player
Here are the richest people in Los Angeles and environs
Doug Dowie and John Stodder convicted, but Stodder blogs on
Traffic on Highland Avenue will join 21st century
Rocky's identity problem
IATSE takes on Madonna
Piece of the Berlin Wall in L.A.
Councilman and his pumpkin bread
Living with fire in the canyons
Anson Carter, hip-hop hockey player
Plus: A whole week of the Morning Buzz, and an invitation to join LA Observed on the Museum of Neon Art's Neon Cruise.
♦ Reminders: Today is the last day to register to vote in the June 7 6! primary. Tonight, the Clippers face the Suns in a Game 7 after which somebody goes home. And weekend posts included more bad press for the City Attorney and a comment on the originality of the LAT's kidney transplant series.
♦ Frequent flyer: Mayor Villaraigosa's office has budgeted $200,000 for travel by the mayor and his staff, ten times what Hahn spent, Beth Barrett reports in the Daily News.
♦ Who is Dean Singleton?: The New York Times asks and tries to answer with a story on the Daily News' owner.
The big challenge, he says, is figuring out how to make money from the Web, where most news is free and ads are cheap. "If we don't start getting paid for news, we can't continue to afford to produce it," he said. Mr. Singleton wants to help steer the industry collectively toward a solution; no one paper, he says, can do it alone.
♦ You could stay home: "Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel," the NYT says. "Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II." You could always drive—oops, gas is $3.50 a gallon.
♦ Attention-getter: When Zuma Dogg speaks, the council pretends to listen.
♦ Bailing out: MJW Investments is putting the Eastside Sears site up for sale and hoping someone else will take its redevelopment.
♦ Going green: Times columnist Al Martinez jumps into the South-Central farmers' cause, which faces a deadline today that could shut the whole thing down.
♦ An opinion on Doug Dowie: Colleen Cason didn't care for the tactics Dowie used on behalf of Fleishman-Hillard in a hospital case, but her time working for him at the Daily News is what the Ventura County Star columnist wrote about on Sunday:
I detested that job within minutes of signing my W-2. It took me a year to extricate myself. Meanwhile, it was like watching one of those Discovery Channel "nature-is-horrible" shows. He prowled the newsroom each afternoon and then he began to circle one particular desk. Soon, one of my co-worker's autonomic nervous systems would be on overload. One editor in particular seemed to fear a Dowie encounter. That guy sported a thin, white moustache, which upon closer inspection was not facial hair but where the Maalox bottle had left a crusty imprint on his upper lip...While I worked at the Daily News in 1989, the newsroom staff voted in a union...Not long after the union came in, Dowie resigned from the Daily News "to spend more time with his family."
♦ Fixing up the Farmer's Daughter: First they had to kick out the prostitutes and thieves.
♦ They were rusty: The Ducks lose and go down 2-zip in their playoff series. Today at 11 am, the Kings will announce their new coach.