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How it feels when your dental hygienist somehow gets your number and asks you out, plus Chief Bratton argues for less oversight, Antonio's endorsement of a successor to Jackie Goldberg, another view of the new Griffith Observatory and memories of summer in Los Angeles. That and more when you click the Buzz...
♦ Antonio's nod: David Zahniser in the LA Weekly explores how Mayor Villaraigosa came to take sides in the Democratic primary race in his old 45th Assembly district.
♦ Bratton says: The LAPD chief argues in a Times op-ed that the department has changed and should be out from under federal supervision.
♦ Changing the rules: Dodger Stadium and other venues that hire off-duty but uniformed LAPD officers will now pay the city, not the officers. Never fear: the white-haired, retired motorcycle cops will still cover filming locations.
♦ Defrocked: The African Methodist Episcopal Church has removed the pastor of Ward AME after concluding that he sexually molested two underage males.
♦ Next on the tour: John Broder, the New York Times bureau chief here, weighs in with his report on the renovation work at Griffith Observatory.
♦ Of bitchen summers past: CityBeat's summer guide includes Natalie Nichols' memories of twenty summers In L.A. surrounded by a lot of rock and roll. Sample entry:
1992 A late night. Cool at last. I drive my pony convertible home from the Valley through Laurel Canyon, dropping south of Mulholland into that steep, curvy slalom that never fails to thrill. The eucalyptus smell refreshes my brain. I whip around the bends; I could take this road on autopilot. So familiar, I don’t even see it. Except when I zip past this one little house, all by itself on the street’s west side. It’s charming. White porch. Fuchsia bougainvillea. I always wonder who lives there. Someday it will be me.
♦ Customer relations: The blogger at Independent Sources has a good exchange with a newspaper—but not his hometown LAT.
♦ Dating games: Two hours after she left the dentist's office, Lori MacBlogger got a call from the hygienist asking her out. She's peeved, considering that he dug her phone number out of the files and...
"The fact that he's probably ten years older than me, has a child, and that I was ignoring him all morning [plus] there's the slight ick factor which is that HE IS MY DENTAL HYGIENIST....Now I may have to see him again in six months. And I'll have to trust him with sharp dental objects and also to not look up my shirt when I am negative 45 degrees in the reclining chair. The whole thing just makes me very uncomfortable.
♦ Playoff report: Clippers win big and tie the series at 1-1.
♦ Sidelined: Add Jason Repko to the list of injured Dodgers.
♦ Retired NYT executive editor: A.M. (Abe) Rosenthal died in New York at age 84. His former paper's obituary.