I was 14 years old when the verdict came down that the four cops who had beaten Rodney King on live television had been pronounced not guilty. I wasn’t a news nerd just yet, but that didn’t keep me from being glued to the news footage of rioting in L.A. that night.
Not too many people know that I worked a few months on the cops desk at City News Service, before I became a reporter at the Glendale News-Press. The cops desk was located at Parker Center. It was a grungy room, more like a closet, with a few scanners and a couple of small TV sets that barely had color and a pretty disgusting phone. But it was good experience, and I think about it every time someone tells me to take City News Service stories with a grain of salt because their information is almost always inaccurate.
Well, the City News Service reporters proved those naysayers wrong. It turns out it was a City News Service reporter who broke the story about LAPD officers going undercover inside the Occupy LA camp. From Fishbowl LA:
Duchon’s dispatch was quickly picked up yesterday evening by MyFOXLA and the LA Times, and since then by all manner of local, national and international media.
Well, there you go.
I’ve had a spike in traffic from people searching for pictures of Elita Loresca’s baby. Folks, I’ve only blogged about Elita Loresca once. Now, this makes twice. Seeing my traffic spike, I went to her Twitter page to see if there were any clues whether she had had her baby yet. Yep, looks like she had her baby in September. So I went to her Facebook page, as her Twitter suggested fans should do. Aha! Pictures of her little cutie pie. I’m not posting any pictures of her baby, since they’re not mine to post. But congratulations to Elita and here’s to getting our little bundles of joy on a sleep schedule quick!
Borrowed from the Caltech Celebration Win gallery
Were they ever known as lovable losers? I don’t know. What I do know is that I love the story of Caltech’s men’s basketball team finally putting their 26-year losing streak to bed. I remember finding a press release about this back in, I think, November and writing a story about it….which got overwritten. Sigh. They had had a chance at ending their losing streak then, but lost the game. This time, they finally did it, and with the media fanfare, you’d think they won a championship! LOL, I love it.
But what everyone seems to forget is that Caltech men’s basketball inspired a storyline on one of my favorite — albeit now-canceled — TV shows.
That’s not really what happened, but there was a story today that had me in giggles for most of the morning. Basically, at a health care reform vigil and counter-protest, in Thousand Oaks of all places, a pro-health care reform guy approached an opponent, the opponent felt threatened and threw a punch, a fight ensued, and a finger was bitten off. The pro-health care reform dude, reportedly from MoveOn.org, bit off a piece of a 65-year-old man’s pinky. How gross is that? And….ironic. And…funny! I couldn’t help making jokes for at least 20 minutes, which I posted on Twitter.