Personal Dork Assistant

News from the Southland

With mom and I going away, dad almost cancelled the newspaper subscriptioni but changed his mind at the last minute. I didn't care either way since I could always look it up online, and I mainly read it for the sports pages anyway. They don't even have Frys ads, which was the main reason I got the paper in San Diego. I needed some reading material for the long flight, and I wanted to see the local reaction to the Lakers' gag job in San Antonio, so I picked up a copy of the LA Times (along with Guns, Germs, and Steel, but that'll probably have to wait until the return flight). Boy it's nice to see some real journalism in action, without the whiff of East Coast pretention that comes with the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, and minus the Beltway navel-gazing of the Washington Post.

Starting on the front page, I love Column One's series of feature articles. Cool to see some investigative writing on original topics featured at the top. Makes the paper stand out as something more than barely-modified AP stories on spoon-fed talking points. Today's article wasn't one of the best, though. Just another beautiful natural spot being choked to death by nearby suburban development. The twist is that the oxygen-sucking plankton blooms and the resulting fish kills are mostly invisible from the shore. The home-owners still have their breath-taking views even as their leaking septic tanks feed the deadly plankton. They have to do something before it's too late, but there have to be studies, and the counties are broke, blah blah blah. Booooring. Lots of coverage on the Iraqi prisoner-abuse. "In effect, we produced a commercial against ourselves." That about sums it up.

A cool little piece about E-Loan's offer to loan applicants: Have their home-equity loan processed in the US in 12 days, or have it done in India in 10? So far, 85.6% of 14,329 applicants want the paperwork done two days faster. No cost difference, just a shorter path to hocking their houses for some quick cash. BTW, the reason why outsourced applications go faster is because the Indian and US workers can work around the clock, thanks to the time difference. The sad story is at the bottom, about a middle-class African-American family who stuck it out in South Central for twenty years in the face of a deteriorating neighborhood. They'd finally given up and had decided to move out after their daughter graduated from high school, only to have their innocent son killed in some random gang-banging crossfire.

"African Americans in my opinion are going to be marginalized, and that will be a horrible thing," Rodney Murray said. "They will be pushed further and further out, pushed into the margins, pushed into prisons and all the places people don't want to see."

He said he still believes in the same ideals, but "you get tired of being the only ones to fight."

"It is over," he said. "We have lost."

Entertainment news dominate the Business section. An article about the end of Friends and its effect on movie advertising, Sony-MGM buyout speculations, and coverage of the Studios-versus-Writers' Guild negotiations. My favorite bit is the story about Toyota outselling long-time leaders Ford and Chevy among Latinos in the first quarter. In fact, its 15.5% share among Latinos exceeded its overall market share. Not surprising that Toyota does the best out of the foreign brands, since it has the best truck lineup, which is a huge-seller to Latinos. Good to see them achieving the American Dream. Save money to buy a house, and ditching American cars.

Plenty of ink spilled excoriating the Lakers for their lackluster play vs. the Spurs. From the opening paragraph you could tell it's not some cub reporter phoning it in.

After 12 months spent untangling their profound heartache from their boundless hope, the Lakers trudged from the same locker room, in the same playoff series, lugging the same deficit.

Nearing the end of a year in which they clung to Kobe Bryant and propped him up, in which they turned to Karl Malone and Gary Payton and now have half turned away, the Lakers changed everything, and then nothing.

That's was even before the columnists got started. Yikes. The baseball beat writers were not so poetic. Hey, you gotta pace yourself over a long season. Sucks that Weaver pitched seven strong innings and didn't get a W, but he's helping to dig us out of the ERA/WHIP hole, which is just as valuable in the standings. And it just wouldn't be summer without a Dave Roberts hamstring injury, and just as we were about to break away into the stolen base lead, too.

The Weekend Calendar section really shows off the manic and diverse energy that makes LA actually seem attractive once in a while. There's lots of cool-sounding rock acts, nutty gay theater ("So is Varla's phenomenal vocal endowment, which merges Dame Joan Sutherland, Jayne Mansfield, Jo Stafford, and a demented oboe."), and a photo exhibition featuring middle-aged men who live with their mothers. A short little interview itht he Dodger Stadium organist ("Ever get sick of Take Me Out To The Ballgame?" "You'd think I would. But actually I don't"), and the cover story is about the rise of video game music, highlighted by the LA Philharmonic concert featuring the music of Nobuo Uematsu, i.e. music from the Final Fantasy series. The show sold out Disney Hall in a day (2256 seats), and damn it if I wouldn't have minded checking it out, even though I never got into Final Fantasy (never had the patience). Maybe I'll pick up cheap but legally questionable soundtrack CDs while in Taiwan.