
LA Observed archive
for October 2011
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.


Tonight's radio commentary: a quick take on the media infatuation with the color and authenticity of Occupy L.A., and the challenge for the politicians inside City Hall.

Former Press-Telegram executive editor has died, plus more news items.
Baca's staff warned of jail brutality, Occupy LA and SFV, a new editor for Company Town, pressure on Village Voice Media over sex ads, plus more.


Man in Smurf costume shot leaving Halloween party.
Making ready for the coming week, with Jim Ladd, Zev Yaroslavsky, Steve Lopez, Dawn Hudson and more.

James Rainey will no longer write a media column for the Los Angeles Times, but will continue to cover the media as a reporter for the arts and entertainment desk. Read the memo.
The cherry-red Porsche 930 Turbo reported stolen in Las Vegas in 1988 was headed to the Netherlands.
Democratic Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi of Castro Valley was charged with felony grand theft after being caught on video surveillance allegedly shoplifting more than $2,000 worth of merchandise.

Weed is the divisive issue, says Natasha Vargas-Cooper at The Awl.

The Pasadena Star-News has posted two disturbing videos of children receiving "treatment" at a so-called boot camp in Pasadena.
Brown's pension reform, John & Ken at Occupy L.A., Occupy SFV is next, the City Maven Radio Hour and more.


The familiar names keep falling in L.A. radio.
Patrick Kevin Day, the deputy editor of The Hollywood Reporter's website, is leaving after just two months to return to the Los Angeles Times as a senior web producer. A...


McCourt and baseball talking about him selling the Dodgers, how Oakland weighs on city officials hoping to move Occupy L.A., redistricting challenges rejected, dumb burglars and get this: Big Fur is actually based in West Hollywood, the first city to ban fur sales.





Current and former employees of Tribune have agreed to accept $32 million to settle a class-action suit over their Employee Stock Ownership Program funds that became part of Sam Zell's takeover of the Tribune Company.

Stephen Colbert offers up alternatives to the campaign ad showing Herman Cain's campaign manager smoking.

Supes OK more Newhall Ranch homes, city spreads out pension costs, car wash workers unionize, one paper adds a book section and honoring Wanda Coleman.



Before leaving the Beverly Wilshire this morning, President Obama had a meeting with "some of the entertainment industry's high-level executives, as well as talent representatives with access to the industry's top stars and musical acts," THR says.
The White House and NBC have released excerpts of President Obama's sit-down with Jay Leno, taped this morning in Burbank for tonight's show.
A black bear was spotted on the grounds of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory early this morning.
Roger L. Simon's mostly politics and media operation is morphing from the L.A.-based Pajamas brand into PJ Media, as he explains.


Some linguists believe that aspects of the pronunciation and usage heard on L.A.'s Eastside for generations can be traced to Nahuatl, a group of indigenous tongues still spoken in parts...
Rob Adams' video of the scene at the Oct. 9 CicLAvia on L.A. streets.
Villaraigosa on pensions and taxes, where in Asia he's going, Obamajammers tweet, what Steve Jobs said about the New York Times and more.
KCET producer Karen Foshay Kolesnikow and friends made this video as a school fundraiser.
Editor David Houston's latest memo nforms DJ reporters they will now be evaluated in writing every month, on the quantity and quality of their output.
Every day a whole bunch of people queue up outside the Criminal Courts building for the 7:30 a.m. lottery to hand out seats at the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray.


Heikes announced to the staff and his freelance writers today that he is stepping down as editor of the LA Weekly.
Chinese carmaker BYD opens but where are the jobs, Hollywood heavies schedule Elizabeth Warren funder, Villaraigosa planning trip to Asia, Harold and Belle's sweet deal, urging a bigger mall in Woodland Hills and tiring of Occupy L.A. Plus more.






First a fake referee stops play and takes off his clothes, then UCLA and Arizona players brawl on the field.
Barbara Kent, a 1925 graduate of Hollywood High School, is being called the last living actress to have achieved stardom in silent films.
Carolina Garcia, the editor of the Daily News, will now be the executive editor for the Daily Breeze and the Press-Telegram in Long Beach as well.
HuffPo, Lohan, CareNow, LAPD's tweeting detective, apron parking and more.

The creators of three successful local nonprofits received the 2011 Presidential Citizens Medal from President Obama during a ceremony today in the White House East Room.


President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive at LAX on board Air Force One between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on Monday, the White House just announced.
Exactly as you'd suspect, New York is first (7,720) and Los Angeles ranks second with 4,350 "ultra high net worth" residents.


The Probation Chief for Stanislaus County has been tapped to take over Los Angeles County’s troubled Department of Probation.
The note to the staff from Daily News editor Carolina Garcia doesn't make clear if this is downsizing, but it's being taken that way.
The magazine posts a 2009 interview with its former columnist and an appreciation from editor John Lehrer.

An unfamiliar lull in California elections, jail visitor beaten while cuffed, sewer bills go up, L.A. to consider making homeowners responsible for sidewalk damage, Maxine Waters and controversy, and a quake drill this morning.


Mary Grady, the LAPD spokesperson for ten years until this past June, has been named Director of Public and Media Relations at Los Angeles World Airports.
A judge has revoked Lindsay Lohan's probation again.

Audio interview with Norman Corwin, initiative targets illegal immigrants, Hiltzik on 9-9-9, city cool to Occupy L.A. on banks, John & Ken apologize, and former Rep. Marty Martinez dies.


Plunging earnings and a stream of executive defections "have set tongues wagging."
The new Citizens Commission on Jail Violence, created on a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors, will have seven members yet to be named.
Gregory Powell, convicted and originally sentenced to death for the 1963 murder of LAPD officer Ian James Campbell, was turned down today as a candidate for parole.


Robert Redford romps on the roof and inside the Village movie theatre in Westwood in a 1965 clip shot by actor Roddy McDowall.

Shalit freed, Supes take up jail oversight, campaign fund losses, girding for Berman-Sherman, part 2 of the LAT vs. Kabbalah and more.
New spoof from Funny or Die.



Rancic, the longtime host of various E! Entertainment shows and recently the co-host of the Style Network reality series "Giuliana and Bill," went on NBC's Today this morning to talk about her treatment for breast cancer.


Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News wrote, after talking to Dan Wheldon, "So how much is it really worth for last May's Indianapolis 500 winner to risk his neck maneuvering from the last spot of a 34-car field to win this 200-lap, season-ending race?"

Frank and Jamie McCourt have reportedly reached a divorce settlement under which she would get about $130 million and relinquish any claim to the Dodgers.
LAT goes after Kabbalah, LAPD loses a bunch of submachine guns, Baca tries a few steps of the mea culpa on jails, state politics crave L.A. city jobs and lots more inside for a Monday.
Former president Bill Clinton was the final speaker at Friday evening's memorial service for Edie Wasserman at UCLA’s Royce Hall.


The Los Angeles Kings began the NHL season with two games in Europe, which meant a first time overseas for Rich Hammond, the traveling beat writer who the Kings employ.
Mengers' death was announced by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who posted this afternoon on his blog that she died last night "at her home, a short walk from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and surrounded by three of her close friends, Ali MacGraw, Joanna Poitier, and Boaty Boatwright."

I guess there are many variations of the Laurel and Hardy dance meme on YouTube, but this was new to me until Facebook this morning.


McCourt's big gamble, FPPC and Kinde Durkee, deputies' code of silence, killing the lawn at City Hall and Politico loses reporter over plagiarism. Plus more.
No official word yet from Bob Stern or Tracy Westen, but the board's chair has sent an email and former board member Art Agnos confirmed the news.


Here's a story of frustrating government bureaucracy — and it could affect dozens of promising media startups.
Korean broadcaster TVK24 did a feature story on Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman's garden and cooking for the Sukkot holiday.
Citizens commission will be asked to “conduct a review of the nature, depth and cause of the problem of inappropriate deputy use of force in the jails, and to recommend corrective action as necessary.”
President Obama will be the featured guest at a second Hancock Park-area fundraiser on Oct. 24, this one at the home of producer James Lassiter.

Lorraine Ali is the new pop music editor for the Los Angeles Times, where she began writing for the longtime pop music editor Robert Hilburn.




When President Obama returns to Los Angeles Oct. 24, the Futuro Fund event will be held at the Hancock Park area home of actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas.
Margaret Tante Burk, a publicist and businesswoman here, co-founded Round Table West with Marylin Hudson at the Ambassador Hotel in 1977. The forum for authors grew into one of the...
Worst mass killing in OC history, new sheriff abuse report, feds to target media in pot war, Art Walk tonight and KCSN gets rock star support.
Shot at Cognoscenti Coffee at Proof Bakery in Atwater, apparently.


Hey, the little Twitter counter thingie says LA Observed is about to go over 10,000 followers. Who will push us over?
As of 1:43 p.m., Blackberries in L.A. are texting and beeping again. But it was tense there for awhile.
California Watch says federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.
Bust in Hollywood cellphone hacking, Jerry Brown and labor, L.A. County is hiring, woman defends LAFD over naked pictures and we now know the schedule for Farmers Field environmental review.


That recent Rand study finding that crime went up after the city cracked down on marijuana dispensaries is going back for more work.


Jerry Brown's unpredictability, sheriff's culture, the L.A. River, the Boston Globe and Whitey Bulger and more.
The line of California nerd-dom remains unbroken from Howard Hughes and hotrodders to Steve Jobs and the aerospace engineers who made surfing culture possible.

USC professor and Asymptotia blogger Cllifford V. Johnson rode from Heliotrope and Melrose, the western end of Sunday's CicLAvia route, to the eastern end at Hollenbeck Park.
Columbus Day closures, plus Gov. Jerry Brown bans open carry of handguns and more, why Sheriff Baca should not step down, more local candidates file and more.


A roundup from the news and the email in-box.






President Obama will be jetting back into Los Angeles this month for a political fundraiser aimed this time at Latinos.
The Los Angeles Kings opened their regular season a long ways from L.A., with games Friday in Stockholm (they beat the New York Rangers) and today in Berlin (they lost...
Gov. Jerrry Brown has been busy disposing of the bills sent to his desk by the Legislature.



Requiring drivers to slow to 15 miles an hour while passing a bicyclist closer than three feet is not going to fly.
Sheriff Lee Baca should step down, "at least temporarily," Times columnist Steve Lopez says in a column.
I invite you to check out Mark Lacter's Friday morning headlines at LA Biz Observed.
Forget that stuff about only low-level offenders being part of the state's transfer of cases back to Los Angeles County.
Another turn in the stories of alleged abuse by sheriff's deputies assigned to the Los Angeles County jails.
Tony Ortega, the editor of the Village Voice, is speaking today at his alma mater, Cal State Fullerton
Prince Frederic von Anhalt, better known to the world (if at all) as Mr. Zsa Zsa Gabor, puts up a billboard on Sunset Strip.

Lawsuits by LAPD officers piling up, City Hall and Occupy L.A., Michael Ovitz, Hank Williams Jr., Gregg Miller, Ed Ruscha and drinks with Mexico's consul general in L.A.
On life and death, among other topics.

Here are the new top sellers for the week at Southern California independent bookstores.

In her last story before leaving the Daily Journal for Warren Olney's team at KCRW, staff writer Anna Scott details lucrative outside consulting by Michael Gennaco's county-funded Office of Independent Review.

Rainy day short stack of headlines and links.

The Board of Supervisors has the votes to dump Don Blevins as head of the county's troubled Probation Department, but Celeste Fremon says it appears he will get the chance to resign.


Warning Obama about Solyndra, warning victims about clemency, Villaraigosa wrong on prisoners, new book from Jim Newton, Red Line turnstiles and remembering Gregg Miller and Amy Pressman.
Q: Did you really take batting practice naked when you were with the Astros?
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Starbucks and the Los Angeles Urban League are announcing a new partnership. Guess where.
Old police cars and other emergency vehicles, many from TV shows and movies, will be on parade Tuesday starting at 11:30 a.m.
On Monday, the Register's general manager, Michael E. Henry, was named interim publisher.
This week's Monday commentary on KCRW: the man whose children rescued him from his crashed car off a mountain road, and the man who wasn't as fortunate.
The Dodgers finally announced their deal to move games to Fox Sports station 570 next season and to enter into an "integrated marketing and broadcasting agreement" with Clear Channel Communications.
Linda Immediato, the editor-in-chief at Pasadena magazine and former deputy at Angeleno, is moving over to Los Angeles as senior editor.
Mother Jones has a story questioning statements about bisphenol A, or BPA, by leading breast cancer fundraiser Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
The suit on behalf of plastics manufacturer Hilex-Poly relies on the state's Proposition 26, which says fees levied on Californians should only cover the cost of a service.
Brian Alexik goes free, Kinde Durkee's lifestyle, Baca listens in the jail, Jerry Brown and running again, plus more HuffPost announcements and a local media death. And: is Henry's Tacos worthy of historic status?



The LAPD says the officers were working undercover near Vermont Avenue and Leeward about 9:15 p.m. when they saw a gang-related shooting and intervened.
Clinton fundraises in LA

Brown declares disaster area

Performing arts with cheer
