County CAO has had enough
David E. Janssen tells the Board of Supervisors that he will
retire at the end of the year.
Today in Pellicano
Greg Krikorian reports in the LAT that government agents
delayed checking Anthony Pellicano's audio collection and lab for two months at the start of the investigation.
Antonio back to Sacramento
Mayor Villaraigosa testifies on his LAUSD deal in the Assembly Education Committee today.
Follows on Hooters
Controller Laura Chick was one of the city officials who urged Animal Services chief Ed Boks to drop the Hooters fundraiser, say
the Times and
Daily Breeze. Here's the LA Observed post from
yesterday afternoon reporting that Deputy Mayor Jimmy Blackman intervened to let Boks know he should bail.
New Bratton assistant
The chief said he will
promote Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger to assistant chief and
give him the Operations Bureau.
Stock buy
Tribune completed the
buyback of 45 million shares as promised and says it will purchase 30 million more.
New lineup in LAT front section
Today's A section of the Los Angeles Times will look a bit different inside. Foreign news—just moved to the back in March when pages A2 and A3 were devoted to news summaries—is returning to the front, beginning on A4. National news will line up behind. Assistant Managing Editor John Arthur says the net effect is that the top foreign and national news is now closer to the front.
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Manohla Dargis
reviews the documentary that played at the Los Angeles Film Festival and opens today here and in New York. At least you know where she is coming from:
A murder mystery, a call to arms and an effective inducement to rage, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is the latest and one of the more successful additions to the growing ranks of issue-oriented documentaries. Like Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" and the better nonfiction inquiries into the war in Iraq, this information-packed history about the effort to introduce — and keep — electric vehicles on the road wasn't made to soothe your brow. For the film's director, Chris Paine, the evidence is too appalling and our air too dirty for palliatives.
Fast and furious, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is, in brief, the sad tale of yet one more attempt by a heroic group of civic-minded souls to save the browning, warming planet.
Tote up another Daily News blog
The Night Shift by online content producer Greg Sidor has been up awhile, but I just got around to checking the RSS feed from that particular sector of the net. His colleague Steve Rosenberg makes an
introduction.
FishbowlLA looking
The sorta Hollywood, sorta media blog owned by Mediabistro has been using the veiled "guess blogger" credit on posts since Claude Brodesser left a couple of weeks ago for a higher-paying
gig at TMZ. Now an email from MB's editorial director, Dorian Benkoil, has gone out to an online-journalism list seeking bloggers in L.A. and D.C. I don't know what he means that both blogs are about Los Angeles.
Folks, we're looking for bloggers to contribute to two of our blogs:
FishbowlDC, FishbowlLA
Both blogs are by, for and about the media in Los Angeles. Paying but not fulltime gigs, requiring an insider's view, some wit, and the ability to break a little news.
DC description is here:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/about/jump_in_the_fishbowl_39165.asp
LA, just look at FishbowlLA.com, and get in touch with me.
db
Autry vs Southwest Museum in NYT
Edward Wyatt observes on the
cultural clash over the future of the Southwest and its historic home in Highland Park.
When one of the country's premier collections of American Indian artifacts joined forces three years ago with the collectibles of the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, the move was officially billed as a merger of equals.
This being Hollywood, however, the storyline was reduced to something simpler: the cowboys were once again battling the Indians.
Guess which side won.
Instead of celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding next year, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian will lock its doors here on June 30. Over the next three years, the 240,000 objects in its collection, many of which have not been out of storage for decades, will be cleaned, cataloged and prepared for a move to a proposed new building next to Autry's Museum of the American West, in Griffith Park.
We have liftoff
Last night's Delta 4 launch was uneventful from my vantage point—clearly visible if lacking in spectacular displays—but the rocket geeks
loved it. Here are some photos on
Flickr from blogger Doc Searls and others.
New and b-o-l-d-e-r
Found him
Eurochow may have folded up its tent in Westwood Village, but Michael Chow has a new outpost
in Tribeca.
Good one down
Baseball writer and author Peter Gammons suffered a brain aneurysm at home on Cape Cod and was airlifted to a Boston hospital for surgery.
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