Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
Watching Antonio squirm—Dowie and Stodder too, and Dodgers fans, and the art experts at Cal State Northridge who OK'd some suspect Chinese antiquities. Plus a big win for the Mighty Ducks, some blogger news and a couple of noteworthy obits, all after the jump.
♦ Dancing with immigration: David Zahniser in the LA Weekly analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's moves this week concerning the May 1 marches—and the awkwardness of being an ambitious Latino mayor while the streets are filled with brown faces.
When [Villaraigosa] grabbed an oversize American flag and waved it exuberantly at the thousands of immigrants who completed their march down Wilshire Boulevard, it looked like the most spontaneous of acts....Yet Villaraigosa’s journey to the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue had been far more circuitous than the one traveled by the marchers, and much less of a certainty than it appeared during the live feed of the Great American Boycott of 2006....[Immigration is] a mine field, one so treacherous that Villaraigosa has stayed almost robotically on message with his support for — we can all say it together by now — “fair and sensible, comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform.” In other words, Villaraigosa spent 48 hours looking like he was running toward the issue and away from it at the same time."
♦ Dowie-Stodder trial: Closing arguments are set for today. The Times sums up the trial.
♦ Good and bad: The Mighty Ducks won their first-round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs and will have home-ice advantage against the Colorado Avalanche. But the Dodgers were ugg-ly. They fall into last place after the bullpen inherited a tie game and gave up ten runs in three innings.
♦ Hmmm: The Daily Sundial at Cal State Northridge runs pieces today citing serious questions of authenticity regarding Chinese artifacts donated to the school by Roland Tseng, whose name has been added to a wing of the university library.
♦ Talk talk talk: Calendar Weekend surveys the gamut of lecture series running in Los Angeles these days. There are a lot of them.
♦ Yeah clap clap clap: Harlan Ellison picks up the title of Grand Master at the Nebula Awards to be handed out this weekend in Tempe by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
♦ Know that voice: Is that Nic Harcourt of KCRW doing the voice-over on TV commercials for Range Rover?
♦ Speaking of KCRW: Frazier Moore joins the lineup of afternoon commentators. His segment "Watching Television” airs Mondays at 4:44 pm.
♦ Roll tape: Dateline Hollywood has added video to the spoof mix, running film reviews from faux critic Woody Wittman.
♦ Change of address: Writer, producer and political communications advisor Greg Dewar has migrated his blogging to, oddly enough, GregDewar.com. He's also based now in San Francisco, but still writes about Los Angeles some.
♦ In case you wondered: The Susan Kitchens of Forbes magazine who was named a Knight-Bagehot fellow is not the Susan A. Kitchens who blogs at 2020 Hindsight.
♦ Ethics spat: Staffers at the Ventura County Star are upset that unpopular managing editor Richard Luna used press credentials to attend the NCAA Final Four games. He has been disciplined by the paper.
♦ Labor writer: Harry Bernstein, who retired in 1993 as the Los Angeles Times labor writer, died of pneumonia at age 83. Hired in 1962, he was the first Times staffer to report labor's side of strikes and disputes.
♦ L.A. area obituary: Earl Woods, the father of golfer Tiger Woods, died at age 74 of cancer. He lived in Cypress.
♦ I have a date: I'm speaking tonight at 6:30 pm to the Friends of Mar Vista Library at the LAPL branch located at Venice and Inglewood boulevards.