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- Mayoral adviser Ace Smith has close ties to new Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Plus, Chick v. Delgadillo and Nick Patsaouras asks to write the ballot argument against the city's solar initiative. Orlov/DN
- As Skid Row violent crime has gone down, attacks on police officers have gone up. Downtown News
- The Montage in Beverly Hills adds 25% more high-end hotel rooms to the L.A. market. LABJ (free)
- Howard Hughes Center plans to add a lot of new commercial space — and residential — beside the 405 freeway. Breeze
- Did you know that when your international flight lands at LAX with someone ill aboard, you better hope he's not contagious? LAT
- Fox plans to program two hours of infomercials on Saturday mornings starting in January, "believed to be the first time a major network has slated full-blown, program-length advertisements on its schedule." Variety
- In his activist hat, Ron Kaye takes a swipe at Councilman Jack Weiss (running for City Attorney and blogs, "if we let Antonio's political machine control the offices of Mayor, City Attorney and Controller and the City Council we might as well turn out the lights and start packing."
- Supervisor-elect Mark Ridley-Thomas will take the oath of office on Monday at noon in the Hall of Administration.
- Josh Getlin remembers the day 30 years ago when ex-San Francisco Supervisor Dan White showed up at his desk at S.F. City Hall, then murdered mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. LAT
- Greeko's Sandals, called the last hippie bastion of Hermosa Beach, is closing down. Breeze
- Patterico says some letters sent to a Pelicano witness show pro-defense bias by former LAT reporter Chuck Philips. Patterico
- I don't know about you, but I never get tired of watching that video on the fire dangers of deep-fried Thanksgiving turkeys. LAFD blog
- D.J. Waldie, who hasn't driven a car since 1966, muses on his "status as a permanent guest in your country of wheels" to be "dispassionate about you who are drivers, about the insults you take and give to one another, about the imperfect infrastructure that sustains your forward motion (always at risk), and the pleasures, also, of your momentum, your command and your wheels’ response." KCET blog
- "American Lightning," the story of the backstory around the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing, lacks "both a feeling for the pulse of everyday life in Los Angeles in 1910 and an understanding of the enormous industrial, technological and demographic changes that had ignited the violent impasse between labor and capital in California, and beyond." NYT
Plus: All the posts from the weekend, in shortened form.