Since I'm the resident thought-tormented Ron Paul fan on staff, I've taken a special interest in the Paul supporters who are objecting to the attention we've paid to the white-supremacist past of Paul-connected judicial candidate Bill Johnson.

Thanks, everybody, for commenting. Some clarifications are in order:

Commenter "Tracey," declares that Johnson is not the author of the so-called Pace Amendment. This is incorrect. Johnson confirmed in a phone call with our own Robert Greene that he is indeed the author of the Pace amendment and of the "James O. Pace" book Amendment to the Constitution.

Commenter "blakmira" calls us "lower than scum" for the "smear" on Paul in our editorial about the Johnson campaign, which noted that Johnson had affiliated himself with the Paul-for-president campaign; apparently our mentioning that was clear evidence of counter-rEVOLutionary tendencies. In any event, Paul himself appears to be taking the matter seriously enough that he has renounced his end of the affiliation. Here is an email we just received from Paul's congressional chief of staff Tom Lizardo:

Over the past several weeks, I have also been involved in assisting Dr Paul with the consideration of candidates who are seeking his endorsement for their campaigns.  We have gone through the process of setting up a method by which candidates are to be considered for such endorsements.  During that period, we have also received and reviewed requests from dozens of candidates.

Although Bill Johnson's name ended up on the endorsement list, he did not go through this process.  In light of this fact, and in light of the revelations regarding his past statements and associations, Dr Paul has retracted the endorsement and hopes that, in the future, the process that has been put into place will mitigate the likelihood of similar errors.

Several commenters claim that they know Bill Johnson and he couldn't possibly be a racist. We make no judgments on what Johnson believes in his heart, only on what he has publicly advocated. But Paul, whose attentiveness to such matters has not always been impressive, deserves credit for taking quick action in this case. The claim by another commenter that Johnson is part Japanese is also incorrect, though Johnson does speak fluent Japanese as a by-product of his LDS mission in the land of the Rising Sun. We can confirm that "Turning Japanese" by the Vapours remains one of the finest works of rock orientalism ever recorded.

Finally, a commenter at dailypaul.com claims that our staffer is the same Robert Greene who writes self-help books on "How to crush your competitor," "How to secure the corner office," "How to take over your supervisor's position" and "The 48 Laws of Power." I can confirm that Greene is not that person and that if he ever wrote a self-help book it would be about how you can become a better person by scrupulously reading the fine print of voter information packets in obscure municipal elections. Nor is he the Robert Greene who denounced Shakespeare in his "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a million of Repentaunce." Moreover, Robert Greene confirms that he is a Stratfordian in good standing, though if pressed he would put Pericles, Prince of Tyre in the "disputed authorship" category.

Hope that clears things up.

Mayoral candidate Walter Moore said Thursday he has begun a drive to put "Jamiel's Law" on the March 2009 Los Angeles city ballot — the same one in which he is trying to unseat Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

If adopted, the law would permit Los Angeles police officers to arrest gang members for breaking U.S. immigration law. It would supersede Special Order 40, a 29-year-old LAPD policy that bars officers from arresting or questioning people solely on suspicion of being in the country illegally. Moore told a crowd of about 200 people — gathered at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre to hear about his proposal — that he decided on an initiative after hearing no response from City Council members to his request for an ordinance.

Jamiel's Law is named for Jamiel Shaw II, 17, who was shot to death by suspected gang members on March 2 close to his Arlington Heights home. Police arrested Pedro Espinoza, 19, who reportedly entered the U.S. illegally at age 4. Police say Espinoza is a member of the 18th Street Gang. He was released from jail, where he was being held on a weapons charge, a day before the killing.

Espinoza had been arrested by Culver City police and jailed and released by the Sheriff's Department, so the LAPD and Special Order 40 did not come into play. But Moore has dismissed that point, saying, in effect, that if his law had been in place, LAPD officers at some point prior to his weapons arrest would have seen Espinoza, identified him as a gang member, and arrested him on immigration charges.

The killing of Jamiel Shaw II, and Moore's advocacy for the change in the law, has united some black and white illegal immigration opponents, threatened to widen a gulf between African Americans and Latino immigrants, and forced city officials to refocus on Special Order 40. At least some LAPD officers appear to believe, incorrectly, that the policy prevents them from cooperating or even communicating with immigration authorities. A senior lead officer who misquoted Special Order 40 in a March newsletter, adding in anti-cooperation language, acknowledged that he got the wording not from the LAPD manual but from the American Patrol anti-illegal-immigration web site.

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said he would clarify the policy for his officers. He also told the Times editorial board that he would make no changes to the order.

Moore repeated his assertion that the Times caters to Latino illegal immigrants because its parent company, Tribune, also owns the Spanish-language paper Hoy.

"The mayor, the City Council, and L.A. Times/Hoy won't take action," Moore said. "It's up to you."

Also speaking at the event were KRLA radio personality Kevin James and the young victim's father, Jamiel Shaw Sr.

James called for audience members to support Moore's campaign financially. "It's really expensive to run for mayor of Los Angeles against a former gang member who is the incumbent," James said.

Villaraigosa was not a gang member, but the claim that he was has become popular among illegal immigration opponents.

Shaw criticized the deputy district attorney prosecuting Espinoza, saying he worried she would try to portray his son as a gang member because he was carrying a red Spiderman backpack. "I want everybody to know," he said, "the fix is in."

Lest we think the Special Order 40 controversy is just an L.A. thang, the Arizona state legislature has voted overwhelmingly to prohibit local police departments from instituting similar rules. According to AP:

The bill also would prohibit county and city governments from having policies that prevent or restrict them from receiving or exchanging information about people's immigration status in certain instances. Those cases include determining the eligibility of people for public benefits that are off-limits to illegal immigrants and confirming the identity of arrested people.

The bill also encourages local cops to get federal training in immigration enforcement. Here's the full text.

In Maricopa County, America's Toughest Blowhard Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, isn't waiting for the governor's signature to begin his own campaign of immigration raids.

Pope Benedict XVI’s  comment on his flight to the United States that “we are deeply ashamed” of pedophile priests may not appease Catholics in Boston who are upset that his American tour will bypass their archdiocese.

But the pope’s full remarks also may  discomfit conservative Catholics who argue that a supposed tolerance of gays  by the “liberal” post-Vatican II church somehow played a role in the scandal.  (The preferred liberal Catholic meta-explanation is that the celibacy requirement contributed to priestly abuse.)

In response to a question about the scandal, the pope said: "I would not speak in this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia, [which] is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry, this is absolutely incompatible. And who is really guilty of being a pedophile cannot be a priest.”

The pope’s common-sense refusal to equate pedophilia with homosexuality raises the question of why he would support restrictions on even chaste gays becoming priests. Yet it was during his pontificate that the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education issued a directive saying that seminaries should not accept candidates with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” even if they don’t act on them.
In justifying the directive, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski offered this out-of-this-world analogy: "It's not discrimination, for example, if one does not admit a person who suffers from vertigo to a school for astronauts." But wouldn't celibacy be just as dizzying an experience for priests with heterosexual "tendencies"?

Both liberal and conservative Catholics are spinning Pope Benedict XVI’s  visit to America and he hasn’t even landed.

The website of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good offers a pre-visit briefing for journalists (listen for my question) featuring several liberal Catholic luminaries, including Father Thomas Reese, the deposed editor of the Jesuit magazine America. Commonweal magazine on its Website recycles a golden oldie, an analysis of Joseph Ratzinger's theological evolution.

On the right side of the nave, the conservative  Cardinal Newman Society — "dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity at America’s 224 Catholic colleges and universities" — offers a series of essays looking forward to the pope’s speech on Catholic education, which, depending on whom you believe, will either be an anathema against Catholic colleges that play host to pro-choice speakers and "The Vagina Monologues" or a gentle reminder that colleges should retain their Catholic identity.

A non-ideological but indispensable source for followers of the pope’s visit is Rocco Palmo’s Whispers in the Loggia. And  those who share my eccentric  interest in the pope as a fashion trend-setter can keep up with the pope’s wardrobe at the site of the New Liturgical Movement, which also offers (with disapproval) a snippet from a song you’re not likely to hear the U.S. Marine Corps Band play when the pope visits President Bush:

Long live the Pope His praises sound again and yet again
His rule is over space and time His throne the hearts of men
All hail the Shepherd King of Rome The theme of loving song
Let all the earth in glory sing And heav’n the strain prolong.

I think even the pope would prefer "Kumbaya."

This just in: The White House website has provided the textof the Vatican National Anthem.

In more than 20 years as a journalist in Pittsburgh, I used to listen with fascination to strange tales from the political subculture of Pennsylvania’s other metropolis: Philadelphia. Candidates for statewide office from the western part of the state would confide in our editorial board that “it’s like another world over there.”

One feature of that world was the practice of providing campaign workers with copious amounts of “street money” to boost voter turnout. Cash sometimes changed hands on Election Day in Pittsburgh, too, but, as with murder rates, the Steel City was a piker compared to the City of Brotherly Love.

Now the cost of doing political business in Philly is tripping up Sen. Barack Obama. According to a Times report, Obama is balking at disbursing dollars to party faithful, a decision that could save the Obama campaign as much as $500,000 on April 22, the day of the atypically important Pennsylvania primary, while costing him an undetermined number of votes.

Obama’s priggishness about street money contrasts with the situation ethics he has displayed on the question of accepting public financing –- and spending limits –- if he is the Democratic nominee. As the Times pointed out in an editorial last month, Obama promised to accept public financing if the Republican nominee did. After John McCain agreed to that deal, the Obama campaign began to waffle.

Now Obama is arguing that his campaign has created “a parallel public financing system where the American people decide if they want to support a campaign they can get on the Internet and finance it, and they will have as much access and influence over the course and direction of our campaign that has traditionally been reserved for the wealthy and the powerful.” Parallel universe is more like it.

If private Internet fundraising can be repackaged as public financing, so can street money for mercenary campaign “loyalists.” As George Costanza might say, it’s financing and it’s handed out in public ... so it’s public financing.

The November ballot just got bigger. Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified an initiative measure on humane treatment of farm animals. Here's the title and summary from the attorney general's office:

Treatment of Farm Animals. Statute. Requires that an enclosure or tether confining specified farm animals allow the animals for the majority of every day to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around. Specified animals include calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs. Exceptions made for transportation, rodeos, fairs, 4-H programs, lawful slaughter, research and veterinary purposes. Provides misdemeanor penalties, including a fine not to exceed $1,000 and/or imprisonment in jail for up to 180 days. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Probably minor local and state enforcement and prosecution costs, partly offset by increased fine revenue.

For the full text, go to the attorney general's site here. Check out the proponents here.

Unlike the June 3 stealth election ballot, the November 4 election is expected to draw a huge turnout because, of course, it is the presidential election. The conventional wisdom calculates lots of liberal Democrats voting, which could bode well for an animal rights measure.

So far there are two ballot measures in November. The other one is a bond for a high-speed passenger train system.

The kingmaking Kennedys may be the most high-profile family whose allegiance has split along Clinton-Obama lines, but the Murdochs offer their own intriguing form of political discord.

If you think they're dealing with a red-blue divide (as when Republican presidential hopeless Rudy Giuliani's daughter endorsed Obama — ouch), think again: The infamously conservative media mogul responsible for FOX News' impeccable journalism has actually put his money on Hillary Clinton. The International Herald Tribune explains:

Rupert Murdoch is a well-known conservative, and his New York Post newspaper was a longtime foe of former President Clinton and Hillary Clinton during his two terms in the White House and her first run for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000.

Since then, the couple have worked to reach a detente with the paper and its owner. The Post endorsed Hillary Clinton's re-election bid in 2006, and Rupert Murdoch hosted a fundraiser for her senatorial campaign.

In January, however, the Post endorsed Clinton's rival, Obama, for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

The Post may have broken away from Murdoch, but his daughter Lis, a TV tycoon in her own right, has upped the ante by hosting a fundraiser for Obama at her London digs. Further proof that, no matter what commenter Michael says about Jane Fonda over at Top of the Ticket, no endorsement (however weird) is a bad one. Unless it's from President Bush.

In short, politics makes for fascinating family drama — and the whole epic "the future is at stake" angle is a crowd pleaser. Seriously, when are we getting the reality TV show about celebrity campaigners? CNN can't have all the fun. Besides, straight news is beginning to sound like it's in reruns: Obama! Hillary! Race! Gender! Scandal? ... Repeat.

This post was updated at 11:48 am Thursday. See below:

From that great city to the north comes news that some art is so shocking even San Francisco hipsters will censor it. An exhibition by the French artist Adel Abdessemed at the spectacularly located S.F. Art Institute has been shut down following an outcry and threats from pro-animal activists. Kenneth Baker's review in the Chronicle describes the show and notes that complaints also were lodged by folks who in other circumstances might be the ones looking to épater le bourgeois:

The animal rights protesters were inflamed by Abdessemed's six very brief video loops, played on separate monitors, each showing an animal - a horse, a pig, a goat, an ox, a deer and a sheep - being killed, apparently without bloodshed, by a quick hammer blow to the head. Abdessemed shot the videos himself in rural Mexico, merely documenting passages in the town's customary food production.

But text accompanying the videos' presentation at SFAI left Abdessemed's role ambiguous.* A viewer had to wonder whether his hand wielded the hammer rather than the camera, whether he shot the video or merely commissioned it, and whether he commissioned the animals' execution.

The shock of the protest lies not only in its vehemence but also in the fact that it involves the rare spectacle of artists, including many SFAI faculty members, advocating censorship.

You could argue that censorship isn't the proper word here, since the objection raised by Eagle Rock's own Diana Thater and apparently others was to the killing of the animals, not necessarily to the art itself. But Thater herself gives that game away by denouncing the show as a "sick exhibit" that "represents the very worst impulses of the human imagination," fails to "raise people's consciousness"  and "will encourage them to accept animal abuse." Those are objections to expression of ideas, not to the acts themselves. (Whether the strict argument against killing the animals holds up is also open to question, since by general agreement these were all feed animals that were going to be done in whether there was a hoity-toity conceptual artist present or not.) *

Anyway, this is just a roundabout way of teasing my long-ago piece "Artists for censorship." Sez me, artists are no more or less censorious than anybody else. Writers and musicians have always believed some ideas needed to be suppressed. The urge to censor is particularly strong when the objectionable ideas show up in a medium other than your own (surprise, surprise). And there may even be some value in the impulse to "take seriously the idea that there may actually be dangerous ideas, and dangerous artistic vehicles for communicating them."

* According to an SFAI representative, the ambiguity Baker refers to is at most a red herring: the artist merely documented an existing procedure. "These pictures were taken by him in an abattoir and not staged," she says, "and he did not participate in slaughtering the animals." If true, this would eliminate the argument over the welfare of the animals (though you might be able to craft a case that the individual animal has a death-with-dignity right that would protect it from non-consensual documentation of the killing), and leave us only with the argument over expression. It may be helpful at this time to reiterate that the show was closed due to threats of violence against the institute, not due to the objections we've been discussing.

A reader takes exception to my comment in an earlier post that California's constitution lacks the equivalent of a 2nd Amendment "right to keep and bear arms."

But even 2nd Amendment enthusiasts admit (and lament) that California is lacking a guarantee for either a collective or an individual right to keep and bear arms. Commenter Tom points to Article I Section 1 of the state constitution declaring: "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty..." Tom concludes, "I  seem to have the inalienable right to defend my life."

But Pennsylvania's constitution, which does have a robust (or wacky, depending on your point of view)  right to keep and bear arms also includes boilerplate similar to California's: "All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness." So, if Tom is right, Section 21 of Pennsylvania's Declaration of Rights — "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned" — is, as Chief Justice Marshall would say, mere surplusage.

Our sister LAT blog “Babylon & Beyond” has an affecting article (with a fantastic photo) about the mourning in Iraq for Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic prelate who died after being kidnapped near Mosul. The death of the archbishop is another blow to Iraq’s Christian community, including the Chaldean Catholic Church, an ancient community in communion with Rome. The exodus of Christians from Iraq in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein goes a long way toward explaining why the Vatican was opposed to the American invasion. It also explains why Chaldean Christians in America resent Bush’s war.

Aside from the carnage unleashed by the invasion, which appalled Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the invasion and the subsequent creation of an Islamist-friendly regime have made life hazardous for Iraq’s Christian minority. Saddam Hussein may have been a ruthless dictator, but, like the equally autocratic Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he was better for Christians than the alternative. (During a visit to Cairo several years ago, I noticed portraits of Mubarak in the vestibules of Coptic Orthodox churches and was told that Christians considered the dictator a bulwark against persecution by Islamic extremists.)

The effect of the invasion on Christians in Iraq is only one of the unforeseen consequences of the neocons’ cocky campaign to transform the Middle East. But it is an especially painful one for Christians including the pope, who last year appointed the Chaldean patriarch to the College of Cardinals as a gesture of solidarity with Iraqi Christians.

The hemorrhage of Christians from Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East — including Palestine — is traumatic for Christianity because the religion began there.  Chaldean Catholics, and their cousins the Assyrian Christians, traditionally celebrate the Eucharist in Syriac, a language similar to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his disciples. They are in a sense living fossils who remind Western Christians of their faith’s Semitic origins. It would be ironic if a military operation likened by Muslims to the Crusades succeeded in depopulating Iraq of its Christians.

What a two-week punch it's been for New Jersey. First Wall native Ashley Alexandra Dupré, a.k.a. Kristen, proved to be the only sensible character in the Empire State's Spitzer farce. Now the ashes of Dina Matos McGreevey's divorce from former N.J. Gov. James McGreevey have returned to blue, hot life with revelations from an actual graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

By way of both praise for truth-seeking and caution about evaluating claims made by adultery correspondents, please take a look at Andrew Strickler's piece highlighting the sharp dissonance between Kristen's unflattering description of the Jersey Shore and the awesome, awesome awesomeness of the actual Jersey Shore. I don't believe Dupré should feel compelled to deflect or soften or in any way defend her personal reputation, and I wish her hard work and success in whatever path she chooses to take. But just because the bluenoses are ganging up on you is no excuse for dumping on the Garden State.

Theodore Pedersen, the Scarlet Knight now at the center of the toothache-probingly annoying-but-compelling McGreevey saga, emerges as a 29-year-old philosopher. As he tells America's finest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger:

"[Dina Matos McGreevey]'s trying to make this a payday for herself. She should have told the truth about the three of us." Pedersen did not say if he was gay or bisexual and only described having contact with Matos McGreevey during the trysts. He also said he never knew for sure if McGreevey was gay.

"I had heard the rumors in circles outside of work," he said. "In hindsight, there might have been light interest (in me), but it didn't seem like he was gay. It did enhance their sexual relationship having me be a part of it."

Even casual Savage Love readers will recognize that the tripartite alignment alluded to here does not dispose of the question of any participant's permanent sexual orientation, if permanent sexual orientation does in fact exist. The Star-Ledger quotes a four-sentence passage from Matos McGreevey's book which is equally nebulous on the matter:

In her memoir, Matos McGreevey says little about the sex life she had with her husband, except to say that it never gave her any reason to doubt he was straight.

"The sex was good," Matos McGreevey wrote.

It's worth noting that both Matos McGreevey and Pedersen could both be telling the truth (at least as quoted here; I have not read Silent Partner, so I don't know if she makes any falsifiable claims about specific romantic activities). In fact, more credit to Matos McGreevey if it is true, for trying to make the most of her mate's special interests — though others may take a less tolerant view than I do, particularly when full custody of a child is at issue. At Matos McGreevey's request, Pedersen has given a sealed deposition in the McGreeveys' divorce case, reports the Star Ledger, which also quotes Pedersen's useful seduction tips:

"The more we spend time with each other, the more we begin to trust each other with non-professional things," he said. "That relationship starts to progress, to transform into subtle hints, flirts."

Yes, Pedersen is fine! But how will this affect James McGreevey's efforts to become an Episcopal priest?

Because the news out of South L.A. often is of crime and poverty, it's easy for those who don't live there to forget that these are neighborhoods, and often beloved neighborhoods. Nothing brings that home faster or more painfully than seeing residents pleading not to have a new school built at a certain location because, through eminent domain, it would displace so many of them. That was the scene at part of Tuesday's school board meeting for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The message, delivered by a parade of older African American residents with strong ties to the neighborhood, was unwavering: We love schools, we support schools, but many of these people are elderly, we are all friends, we are connected, please don't disrupt our lives. The story of one 72-year-old woman, especially, made listeners wince with sympathy. She had been a longtime teacher in LAUSD and had lived in her home for 30 years. Her community was there. Her friends were there. Everyone she interacted with on a day-to-day basis was there.

The change confronting this community was made all the more obvious by the sole speaker in favor of the school — a young Latino woman, holding a preschooler and speaking through an interpreter. The school was necessary, she said. Nearby elementaries couldn't follow normal two-semester schedules because of overcrowding.

There wasn't much the board could do for the first group. It already had delayed its decision to see if there were options. There were no options; no one had been able to locate another suitable piece of land in the neighborhood. If overcrowding weren't reason enough, the district is under a consent decree to restore normal academic calendars to all its schools. The school would be built.

Neighborhoods of older, settled people give way to the future. But then there's that 72-year-old woman. She was probably certain that at this point in her life, after having given years of service to young people in the city, she was settled down to quiet golden years in her neighborhood, with everyone familiar.  Chances are it won't be that way, and it's not easy to chase away imagined images of her in a disorienting new setting, searching for familiar faces.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's meteoric fall from power after being linked to a prostitution ring has come to a pretty spectacular crash — but instead of focusing on his smoldering career, the media's gaze is lingering on his wife, Silda. From today's Times:

It was the way she stood there, enduring.

Silda Wall Spitzer did not say a word as her husband, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, brusquely apologized to his family and the public after he was allegedly caught on a wiretap doing business with a high-priced prostitution ring. Her face was drawn. But she took her husband's hand as they left the room.

And of course, the question everyone seems to be asking is, why? What point is there in standing by your man?

Patt Morrison wanted Silda to "let him twist in the wind alone," and I'm not going to lie, I was kind of hoping she would leave him hanging at his resignation speech. Nevertheless, the bipolarity of the discussion is tiresome. Commentators either attack her integrity or demote her to Stepford status. Top of the Ticket says many women consider this "a hard-to-fathom decision" even as other news sources sympathize with "The awful life of a political wife" (though the New York Daily News objects heartily to that characterization). You'd think, with such a venerable American tradition of political sex scandals, we'd have some new angle to take.

The thing is, Spitzer's standing by her husband may not be an admission of helplessness or a statement on self-respect. It could just be a big fat middle finger in the face of the media and her critics, since keeping her emotions to herself makes it harder for commentators to perform gleeful autopsies of her emotional state.

One person who isn't holding back any tears, though, is "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer. A longtime friend of the Spitzers, he had defended the governor when the story first surfaced, and seemed genuinely heartbroken over the sad affair. After watching an interview on the Today Show, I felt more sorry for him than I did for Silda:

Cramer was close to tears as he spoke about Silda Spitzer and the marriage he had observed as a close friend of both spouses.

“I think she loves Eliot. I know he’s always worshipped her,” he said. “I don’t want to make any excuses for what he did. I can’t believe it. But she loved him. I feel bad for them. I feel bad for the girls. That’s what I said to him. I said, ‘Let me speak to Silda.’ It’s Silda that you feel bad for.” ...

Cramer didn’t say he felt betrayed by his friend, but that was the implication as he struggled before the cameras to make sense of it all.

“Look, I’ve just known them for a long time,” he concluded, his voice starting to choke. “I obviously didn’t know him as well as I thought.”

Sounds like it's time for couples counseling.

Whatever you've got to say about the murder of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw or the arrest of 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza for the crime, start your engines. Please keep it clean: no threats, bullying, bogarting or unamusing ad hominems will be accepted. I'll approve as fast as I can. Some scenes from Shaw's funeral may give the conversation a little focus.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has resigned.

"I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been," Spitzer lamented.

On behalf of all who sigh in relief that what might have been wasn't, I wish the family the best. Spitzer showed no quarter to his enemies and should expect none now, but for what it's worth I oppose demand-side as well as supply-side applications of force in regulating prostitution. And I hope this vast shame will prove instructive to the parties involved and to the voters of the Empire State.

Will the entire ed board weigh in? Reply hazy, try again.

On a reread, I think I may have made the case that Thomas P.M. Barnett is an insufferable windbag a bit too strongly a few years ago. Nevertheless, Thomas P.M. Barnett is an insufferable windbag, and it's disconcerting to see the global-strategy seer so centrally located in the downfall of Adm. William Fallon.

Barnett is not addressing the news at his site yet — though he is recounting his Fallon interview in a self-dramatizing play-by-play that features Chuck Norris-type factoids like the following:

I drove the 160 miles nonstop, changing my suit to travel clothes as I drove.

Barnett did address part of the controversy a few days ago, and in fairness, the idea that Barnett's Fallon profile in Esquire is what drove the Centcom commander to resign strains believability; there must be bigger disagreements at stake — which is the central point Barnett was making in his article. Here's how Barnett, in happier times, described Fallon in a breathless lead paragraph:

If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him "Fox," which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. Forty years into a military career that has seen this admiral rule over America's two most important combatant commands, Pacific Command and now United States Central Command, it's impossible to make this guy--as he likes to say--"nervous in the service."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Fallon's departure does not portend a change in Iran policy. Kevin Drum notes that Fallon's mellower course on Iran was clear back in September. Lawrence J. Korb sends along the following:

Admiral Fallon's abrupt retirement as the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East is the latest sign that the Pentagon's top brass do not agree with the direction in which the administration is heading in regard to the war in Iraq and the global war on terror.

Hopefully Fallon's resignation will force the administration to listen to his position on Iran and prevent them from ignoring the advice of their respected military advisors as they did with General Colin Powell and General Erik Shinseki when it came to waging the war in Iraq.

Danger Room has more reactions.

I'd refer you directly to Top of the Ticket's coverage of the primary results but I insist you read Andrew Malcolm's very gracious tribute to the Pauline Order of Ron first. As Dave Weigel anticipated eight days ago, Rep. Paul (R-Texas) easily defended his House seat in a primary. (Was I the only one who nursed a small mad hope that Paul might lose the primary and become motivated to pursue a third party presidential run?)

After you've read that, mosey on over to the results, Demican and Republocrat. There's no way around it: We have been denied our escape from the ninth circle of liberal self-regard. Speaking strictly for myself, I much prefer to get the Obama-McCain bloodletting underway, but as previously noted I would fight on too if I were Hillary Clinton. Mock on, Mock on, Obama, Clinton...

I will not be live-blogging the primary results (you're welcome), but as of this moment it's looking like the Democratic contest will be dragging its slow length along for another few weeks (months?). Here are the returns so far, courtesy of the obscure "Yahoo" blog:

Texas Primary Totals
Democrats
Obama 54%
Clinton 45%
Republicans 
McCain 56%
Huckabee  32%
Paul 5%

» 3% of precincts reporting

Ohio Totals
Democrats
Clinton 60%
Obama 38%
Republicans 
McCain 58%
Huckabee  32%
Paul 5%

» 6% of precincts reporting

Tuesday's Winners
Democrats
Clinton RI
Obama VT
Republicans
McCain OH, VT

We'll see how it actually shakes out tomorrow, but pace Jonathan Chait, if I were Hillary Clinton I'd keep fighting.

Three cheers for Prince Harry, who is now serving with the British army in Afghanistan; and four cheers for British authorities, who managed to keep the world in the dark about the younger prince's December deployment until now. Early last year, Harry was supposedly on his way to Iraq, a move that the editorial board applauded:

Nearly every British war features a version of this drama, in which cautious elders try to dissuade a young noble from putting himself in harm's way but the young noble insists on serving his country without special treatment or advantage. This supposedly private drama of stoic courage inevitably receives extensive press coverage, and Harry's case is no exception. But, in the end, it's hard to gainsay the physical courage required to deploy to Iraq at all.

Replace "Iraq" with "Afghanistan" and remove references to extensive press coverage and you have our position. Last May, when it was announced that the Iraq deployment was off, I  backed away from the earlier praise in a disappointed blog post. Thanks to Tribune's idiotic and suicidal policy of deleting the older stories that make up the overwhelming majority of our traffic (for the umpteenth time, I apologize; supposedly it's going to change soon), you can still read the post but not the original editorial. Anyway, props to the prince.

And no, he's not running for president, people. But! He still has plenty to say about partisanship, rhetoric and business as usual. From today's NY Times:

Over the past year, I have been working to raise issues that are important to New Yorkers and all Americans — and to speak plainly about common sense solutions. Some of these solutions have traditionally been seen as Republican, while others have been seen as Democratic. As a businessman, I never believed that either party had all the answers and, as mayor, I have seen just how true that is....

More of the same won’t do, on the economy or any other issue. We need innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership. That’s not just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream. In New York, working with leaders from both parties and mayors and governors from across the country, we’ve demonstrated that an independent approach really can produce progress on the most critical issues, including the economy, education, the environment, energy, infrastructure and crime.

I agree with Bloomberg, but it's a little anticlimatic. The title of his Op-Ed kind of says it all: "I'm Not Running for President, but ..." But what, yeronner? But we should still listen to what you have to say?

Granted, a Bloomberg presidential campaign wouldn't have garnered much support from either end of the political spectrum. Besides, there are plenty of people out there who aren't running (and some who aren't superdelegates, even) whose voices still seem to matter in the race. And since the independent mayor of New York has reserved the right to throw his support behind one the the candidates in the future, he could still play a role moving those key unaffiliated voters.

And perhaps removing himself from the contest does take the showboat factor out of the whole endeavor, so people (unlike me, apparently) may actually listen to what he has to say.

Not that he has any problem with third-party candidates, as he told AP a couple days ago:

This business of Ralph Nader being a spoiler — you know, in any three-way race, two of the three are going to be spoilers. Come on. Everybody's got a right to do it — you're not spoiling anything ... If people want to vote for you, let them vote for you, and why shouldn't they?

You tell 'em, Mike.

Last Thursday's primary debate in Texas between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was supposed to provide Clinton a chance to find a chink in Obama's armor. Unfortunately for Clinton, she never really succeeded. And maybe that's why her campaign seems to have grown more aggressive, tossing strategy out the door in favor of shooting blind and hoping something makes a dent. (So far, it's mostly resulted in friendly fire.)

The New York Times calls it a "five-point attack." Politico calls it "highly improvisational". A Clinton aide christened it the "kitchen sink" method. If you want to judge for yourself, here are some gems from the past few days:

The xerox zinger: In the debate, Clinton defended her accusation that Obama plagiarized Massachussetts Gov. Deval Patrick. "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox," quipped the junior senator from the Empire State, who has never lifted a phrase in her life. That didn't go over so well with the audience, judging from all the boos.

Kiss and make up: Later in the same debate, Clinton practically sang an ode to Obama. "I am honored -- I am honored -- to be here with Barack Obama," she said, offering her hand to her opponent. Awww... But wait, there's more:

Whatever happens, we're going to be fine ... I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people. And that's what this election should be about.

A gesture of concession? Hardly. More likely it was a move to undo the damage wrought by the Xerox quote -- and to woo back key demographics, especially white women. That sugarcoated moment earned her a standing ovation.

Oh, oh, do the one of Barack, that's my favorite: The warm fuzzy feeling soon wore off, though -- instead of sticking to her "ready on day one" pitch at a Sunday rally in Rhode Island, Clinton did her best Obama impression (gesticulation included) for an appreciative crowd:

I could just stand up here and say ‘Let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified.’ The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.

Straight out of "Karl Rove's playbook": At a rally in Ohio, a supporter handed Clinton pamphlets the Obama campaign was distributing on her healthcare plans -- information she called misleading. "Shame on you, Barack Obama," she scolded afterward, brandishing the offending fliers at reporters. (Who wants to bet that supporter was prompted?)

My best constituents are black! In a more passive-aggressive show of strength, Clinton was the only candidate to appear at the annual State of the Black Union in Louisiana last weekend (Obama offered to send his wife Michelle instead). There's nothing better than courting a reluctant demographic and kicking your rival under the table at the same time.

What's in a turban? Obama staffers wigged out at a Drudge report that Clinton campaign members had been circulating photos of the Illinois senator donning local dress in Kenya. It's not like he's the first public figure to don the local garb -- check out Calvin Coolidge in a Native American headdress. The campaign took hours to deny any role in their distribution, but given the long leash Clinton has given to overenthusiastic staffers (up until she fires them) it's hard to take them at their word.

How many kitchen appliances do you think she's got left for tonight's showdown? Post your thoughts below.

I'd say this beats the "post-9/11 world" hands-down: the post-Fidel world. Add to the list another foreign policy item that will doubtless be a major focus of the next administration. So what are the candidates saying?

John McCain plays the tough guy and lays out an action list for Fidel Castro's brother Raul. Excerpt:

Yet freedom for the Cuban people is not yet at hand, and the Castro brothers clearly intend to maintain their grip on power. That is why we must press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections.

Hillary Clinton touts her (what else) experience and promises to engage Cuba with other Latin American and European countries. By far, her tone is the most diplomatic. Excerpt:

As President, I will engage our partners in Latin America and Europe who have a strong stake in seeing a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, and who want very much for the United States to play a constructive role to that end. The United States must pursue an active policy that does everything possible to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and opportunity in Cuba.

The events of the past three days, including elections in Pakistan and Kosovo's declaration of independence, are a vivid illustration of people around the world yearning for democracy and opportunity. We need a President with the experience to recognize and seize these opportunities to advance America’s values and interests around the world. I will be that President.

Barack Obama sounds every bit as tough as McCain and hopes to see U.S.-Cuba relations normalize. Excerpt:

Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released.

If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.

And out in right field, Mike Huckabee doesn't see anything changing until El Jefe is six feet under. So much for a culture of life. Complete statement (it's the shortest of the four):

The Cuban people deserve nothing less than free and fair elections which would provide the only hope for a prosperous and democratic Cuba. Until Fidel Castro is dead there can be no significant movement towards reform in Cuba.  Raul Castro has proven that he's as much a tyrant and dictator as his brother Fidel.  Simply providing more power to another dictator does nothing to promote freedom and democracy to the Cuban people.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the post-Fidel world by leaving a comment.

Ron Paul is scaling back his presidential campaign, conceding the impossibility of having an impact at the GOP convention. His announcement is several shades less absurd, and orders of magnitude more candid, than Mitt Romney's war-is-too-important-to-be-left-to-the-shape-shifting-ex-governors announcement earlier this week.

But it's still disheartening: A month or so of straight-up campaigning between Paul and John McCain would have been hopeless from Paul's perspective, but it would have clarified in stark terms how far the Republicans have drifted from the libertarian core that Ronald Reagan once called "the very heart and soul of conservatism." But as I noted before, one of the particular features of the Paul campaign was that it wasn't conceived, and certainly wasn't executed, as a message-sending effort. For better or worse, the campaign ended up turning on Paul himself, not the broader range of libertarian appeals that overlapped with his platform. Here's what the ten-term congressman from the Lone Star State's 14th district had to say:

With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

Best of luck to Rep. Paul in retaining his congressional seat. The House would be an even poorer place without him.

Another Pauloid tidbit at Top of the Ticket. And for more of what it all meant, check out frequent L.A. Times contributor Brian Doherty's "Scenes from the Ron Paul Revolution." 

With the news that Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, the late alleged murderer of two police officers and three city officials in Kirkwood, Missori, was a well known city-council gadfly, we set the wayback machine to 2003, for a Los Angeles Times story by Hugo Martin, explaining some of the tensions involved in giving broad leeway to public blowhards. Here it is in full print-spec glory:

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday September 24, 2003

THE STATE
COLUMN ONE
Freedom's Test, or Just a Pest?
* Gadflies deemed out of order are arrested or ejected from some public meetings. The 1st Amendment and decorum are at odds.

Home Edition, Main News, Page A-1
Metro Desk
53 inches; 1834 words
Type of Material: Column

By Hugo Martin, Times Staff Writer

After greeting the San Bernardino County supervisors with a mock Nazi salute, Jeff Wright, a homeless Air Force veteran, stepped to the public microphone to complain about being arrested at a regional transportation meeting a few months earlier.

Board Chairman Dennis Hansberger told him to stay on the topic under discussion, which was the salaries of county attorneys. Wright then threatened to seal the supervisor's mouth with duct tape, which he had brought with him.

Hansberger responded by ordering sheriff's deputies to eject Wright, who was led out of the building in handcuffs, screaming about police brutality.

It was nothing new -- for Wright or for the board of supervisors.

The March incident was among the more than 100 arrests or ejections deputies have carried out at meetings of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors since 1989, according to an unofficial tally by one local activist.

Although law enforcement officials say they cannot confirm the exact number, they put the tally in the dozens.

In 2000, reports of those arrests earned the Board of Supervisors the "Black Hole" award, a dubious distinction given by the California First Amendment Coalition to public agencies and officials that the group says show disregard for open government and 1st Amendment rights.

In the past year, the pace of arrests and removals at San Bernardino County supervisors' meetings has increased to about one per month, with most speakers being removed for failing to stick to the agenda and then refusing to surrender the lectern.

"The most reliable friend you can have in American politics [is] ready money." So spoke Republican presidential hopeful Phil Gramm in 1995, and he wasn't kidding. Greenbacks have long been the barometer of the health of a campaign, and recent revelations — that Mitt Romney is "suspending" his campaign, and Hillary Clinton just gave her own bid a $5-million shot in the arm — only serve to emphasize that. Here's a quick round-up on former and current hopefuls, and how the money talked:

THE DEMOCRATS

Barack Obama: Obama is breaking all kinds of records — his campaign just announced that it collected $7.2 million in just the two days following Super Tuesday. That’s partly because while the Obama campaign brings in the big donors to rival Clinton’s, he also taps a vast reservoir of people who give in smaller amounts. It’s an interesting indication of the demographics the candidates attract, and a clue as to where the popular momentum is headed.

Hillary Clinton: The erstwhile frontrunner racked up some major wins on Tsunami Tuesday, California included — but not enough to secure a decisive victory. Having to dig into her own pockets makes her campaign look less promising. On the other hand, the Clinton campaign just released numbers that put its post-Tuesday fundraising at $7.5 million. 

John Edwards: Poor Edwards. He took the high road, committed to public financing and ran on a fraction of what his main rivals had in the bank. But in the end, the public let this populist presidential hopeful down.

THE REPUBLICANS

Mitt Romney: If using your own cash to beef up your campaign is a bad sign, Romney doomed his presidential bid from the start. The former governor of Massachussetts has poured around $50 million of his personal fortune into his now “suspended” campaign. If I were one of his grandkids, I’d be pretty pissed.

Winding up for the winddown

Yesterday at 8:30 a.m., I canvassed the four picketers then on line outside CBS on Beverly. Do they think the Writers Guild is close to a deal? Resonses:

1 qualified yea
1 wait and see
1 I dunno
1 I'm not on the negotiating committee

Same question same place same time same number of writers, this morning:

2 hope we're close
1 I'm on the staff so I don't want to be quoted in any way
1 Yes!

What did writers do online?

What will I miss most about the strike? I'll miss being able to nurse that mad hope that the big, steaming pile of creativity allegedly centered in Los Angeles might start to ooze into these here interwebs — that the experience of total fiscal drought might drive the writers to hustle and do it themselves, proving that they could master this whole online thingee without suckling from the massive studio apparatus.

Preliminarily, I'm saying the strike appears to be winding down with no important developments on the web. Speechless? Zero out of five stars. Why we fight? The entertainment equivalent of that nice boy who liked you way back when. Strike TV? As noted here previously, this effort to raise money and make work for jobless writers spent time in development hell and doesn't seem to have generated actual content (though the Strike TV myspace page did lead me to this, and who wouldn't like a less-challenging version of The Spot?). I'm waiting to hear back from a Strike TV spokeswoman about whether that group, or any other striking writers, did anything worth checking out online; I'll update if or when evidence comes in.

I also canvassed the editorial board for interesting filmmaking writers did online during the strike, with "interesting" defined as "anything more than one micron above the 'Speechless' series in terms of quality and compellingness." That search returned this and this, neither of which peel my banana — your mileage may vary. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskowitz' experiment in beautiful-people Dada Quarterlife came right out of fantastically-successful-and-connected-award-winner left field to land a spot in NBC's February lineup. But I was kind of thinking of people at a lower level of attainment than master of the message Zwick, the show was shooting or shot before the strike even began and in any event I fully concur with Aaron Barnhart's ruling that it's "a show that old people might make about young people."

If you have other examples of good independent webshows made during the strike, send them my way.

Update: Strike TV press liaison Julie Rayhanabad (who's OK in my book because her one IMDB credit is for a Garret Morris movie) gets back with the following:

Strike TV: Hollywood Unplugged is ongoing.  There are a number of productions currently working towards completing material for the online channel - a few are still in preproduction, while others are in active production.  We haven't released anything yet. We will be doing an announcement closer to the release date, with information about the slates that are being released and the talent behind them. 

The beauty of the Strike TV: Hollywood Unplugged fundraiser is that its about writers doing what they do best, creating, while being proactive during the strike and gaining more experience in creating for the Internet. It's not really about competing with the networks or the studios, because it's not about those parts of the industry. It's about Hollywood being unplugged and seeing what writers can accomplish and what they can experiment with - it's coming straight from the creative people behind film and television production. Further, it helps raise money for the Writer's Guild Foundation's Industry Support Fund, raising money for non-WGA members that have been seriously affected by the strike... 

There have been a number of online pieces created by members that have been in support of the strike - including Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), members of the writing staff from The Colbert Report and the Jon Stewart Show, members of the Samantha Who writing staff - just off the top of my head.   There's also the "Speechless" pieces and the "Voices4Action" pieces that are available. Those are all strike-related. Non-strike related, recently, a few series have been purchased that were originally webseries and are now going to be aired on network television.  The SCIFI Channel bought a web-series called Sanctuary that they're now planning on making into a series for the network.  Also, I'm sure you already have the information about Quarterlife, which was recently purchased for air on NBC (actually airing this february).

During our own Republican endorsement campaign, I lobbied first for Rudy Giuliani and then for Mitt Romney, not merely hoping to kill the market for Matt Welch's book, but because I believe opposing The New York Times in all things takes precedence over all other concerns. So I'm the one who should be forthright, gracious and magnanimous and admit that the other Times just beat the pants off us in endorsement power in our own state.

Final score: Times east, two for two; Times west, one for two.

For what it's worth, we removed the candidates' collective and individual probabilities of winning as a factor in determining 2008's semi-finalists, and I call that a wise decision. Nor did my dream race (Richardson-Paul to Obama-Paul to Obama-Giuliani to Obama-Romney, which I think is a song by The Who) differ substantially from that of the board. Why did your dream race change if electability was not a factor? you may ask. I can reply only that we do not live in dreams.

We also attempted to be as forthright, gracious and magnanimous in building our endorsement cases, to think through the meaning of our words and to try to get your input, as well as or better than any paper published on any of the terran planets. We look forward to continuing to serve you in the exciting election year we expect. Thanks for tuning in to Opinion L.A. and the L.A. Times, and we welcome your thoughts.

If you enjoyed John Mueller's recent Rambo charticle, which tracked the pneumatic commando's varied career along a rising death-per-minute axis, you were not alone. The United Kingdom tabloid The Sun got enough of a kick out of the Ohio State professor's math that it decided the most sincere form of flattery would be to make up some fake quotes and attribute them to Mueller. According to The Sun's story on the Rambo chart:

Mr Mueller said the movie, out next month, showed “the most depraved level of man’s inhumanity to man”.

Mueller has a different story. In an email to us, he states, "I just want to say that I never made the statement quoted — to the Sun or to anybody else." In addition to being concerned that the invented quote might allow an inference that he was reviewing the film rather than subjecting it to rigorous scientific testing, Mueller says he's troubled because "the words put in my mouth are so prissy and sanctimonious they make my skin crawl."

In case there's any doubt, Mueller adds, "I  hope I am not overly naive about the journalistic standards of the British tabloids... I have sometimes been misquoted in other papers — but in those the reporter at least actually  talked to me and was clearly TRYING to get it right. Total fabrication is new to me..."

Original charticle here.

Christopher Hitchens remembers Fleet Street in all its squalor here.

Robert Burns laments man's inhumanity to man (a phrase I always thought was invented by Mad magazine) here.

After having heard from scores of Democratic and decline-to-state Democratic voters about their soul-searching quandaries over which bubble to Inka-Vote come Tuesday, I've ginned up a shorthand assessment of their primary dilemma:

They'll hold their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton.

Or they'll cross their fingers and vote for Barack Obama.

Seven pickets in a row: Survey finds 100% opposition to L.A. Times

Seven picketers on the line outside CBS this morning. I stopped to chat them up. To the following question...

Do you think the L.A. Times' coverage of the strike has been horrible?

...I got seven affirmative responses.

Optimism unbound

Nikki Finki, who has actually covered world issues as a foreign correspondent, hears optimism coming from the labor side of strike negotiations. And more optimism. Nothing but optimism for five days or so. Even the Oscars may go forward.

Who's the only loser in this? I am, the guy who wants the strike to continue for at least one full calendar year.

Columnist Joel Stein's Golden Globes invite lands him in a loud suit and a moral quandary:

[E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic] was concerned because at rehearsals a few hours earlier, the producers told her to ad lib an intro and she didn't know what to say. She was thinking of expressing support for the striking writers but was unsure.

This presented the greatest moral dilemma I had ever faced. I could help her -- and get a pro-union message broadcast on the three networks -- but I would have to violate the union's strike rules to do it.

Sometimes a man has to risk everything for what he believes is right. I wrote for Rancic. And I don't regret it. Though I do regret it wasn't funnier.

In another writers strike subplot, Directors Guild President Michael Apted issues an apologia for the union's deal with the studios. Former Housing and Urban Development secretary Jack Kemp throws his weight behind a bill that would save some homeowners from bankruptcy and foreclosure. Ronald Brownstein gives a rundown of the Republican race, and cartoonist Jeff Danziger sizes up the Democrats' high-stakes game in Nevada.

The editorial board hopes the striking writers will take their cues from the Directors Guild deal, and it cheers on billionaire Eli Broad's latest donation to charter schools. The board grows apprehensive at the unveiling of the affordable but pollutive Nano by Tata Motors, worried that "the vehicle's tiny price tag -- about $2,500 -- will make car ownership possible for millions of Indians, which could well render the rest of the world's efforts to combat global warming moot."

Readers run through options for the city's transportation problems. Writes Nihar Patel:

In truth, Los Angeles has only one hope to promote transit use among all income groups: increasing options with buses and trains. We need a grid where a day pass gets you off a train to a bus, or vice versa, as in London.

Until that day, from Hollywood, a 20-minute train ride downtown sure beats a never-ending rush-hour bus ride. Join me sometime if you disagree.

DGA and AMPTP settle

Contract negotiations between the directors and producers have concluded. Details from the DGA site:

Increases both wages and residual bases for each year of the contract. 
Establishes DGA jurisdiction over programs produced for distribution on the Internet. 
Establishes new residuals formula for paid Internet downloads (electronic sell-through) that essentially doubles the rate currently paid by employers. 
Establishes residual rates for ad-supported streaming and use of clips on the Internet.

Pickets' charge

Only eight picketers on the line at Paramount when I went by at 8:30 this morning. I didn't stop to say hello. As Dean Martin says in some movie: "I don't go into Hollywood anymore. Too depressing." It looks to me like the picket schedule is getting leaner too, but I don't have much historical data to go on.

Then again, don't believe any numbers coming out of me...

It's the 74th day of the strike, right? Not the 84th or 85th. I don't know what's more discouraging: that I keep getting this simple figure wrong or that nobody bothers correcting me.

Shield honcho: They're all against us!

Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield and dead ringer for Michael Chiklis, believes the L.A. Times, Variety and the rest of the MSM are all against the Writers Guild, strongly implying that it's that ol' consolidated media at its shadowy work. Interestingly, he and his interlocutur in this interviewer both seem to think Nikke Finke, whom I would have characterized as pretty much a pushover for the writers' view, is a studio stalking horse. Nikki vants to be alone right now, so in the absence of a response I'm chalking this up to the writers' engorged sense of embattlement.

More persuasively, Ryan makes an interesting point about how the importance of secondary and international markets means American Idol's success doesn't count for as much as it might seem. As it happens, The Shield frequently films around the the L.A. Times building, and I am always impressed by the huge amount of waste that can be supported by a cable show: Double-digit numbers of large vehicles, scores of idle cast and crew members ambling around, and most importantly the catered breakfasts — and I'm talking about real breakfasts, with sausage and eggs and pancakes. Can a spot in the FX lineup, just a click or two away from a Deep Space Nine rerun on Spike, really generate such a vast economy? Apparently it can, thanks to secondary markets — though I had thought the point of this whole long-tail thing was that it didn't depend on blockbusters with big up-front costs.

More economic ignorance partially corrected

Boy do I not know how many people are entitled to catered meals in this town! Devoted Opinion L.A. readers, if such people exist, remember that I tried to dope out the average salary of late-night gabfest staffs back in December, by doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations from Bill Carter's claim that the hosts were paying figures "from about $150,000 a week to as high as $250,000 a week" to keep their non-writing staffs off the dole. This is now old news, but a quote from Jay Leno in an L.A. Times business story earlier this month makes a mockery of my confidence that you could pull off one of these shows with no more than 50 people. Said Jay: "We had to come back because we have essentially 19 people putting 160 people out of work." So that means the average Jay Leno non-writer is making anywhere from $48,750 and $81,250 per year. Much smaller ranges than I had guesstimated, but with a much, much larger staff.

So there you have it: 160 people, plus 19 writers, plus Jay, plus Mavis, to put out The Tonight Show. I repeat my earlier question about the lean, mean agility of this dynamic and rapidly changing industry.