Remember John Cunningham‘s LA public access TV show Driveways of the Rich and Famous? We do, lovingly.

Nevertheless, the migration of such programming to YouTube and a gazillion other online streaming outlets is going to make it that much more difficult for a new coalition featuring the likes of Ed Asner, Vin Di Bona and former LA Daily News editor Ron Kaye to be successful in their effort to restore LA’s public access TV channels, dialed down in 2006.

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Oh the humanity! Humane-ity.

Anyway, KTLA reports:

Seven days of torrential rains have caused the roof of the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society to cave in.

Hundreds of kittens have been relocated to other rooms inside the shelter that have not been damaged.

Go here to make a donation. And yes this is all a ploy to post kitten pics during a slow news week.

Witness LA‘s Celeste Fremon has just published the third part in the three-part “Follow the Gang Money” series, investing LA’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program. The piece, co-produced through a partnership with Spot.us, offers a series of recommendations for how Los Angeles can clean up its act when it comes to gang reduction.

Writes Fremon:

Those of you who read the two Follow the Gang Money stories know that, in both cases, we were critical of GRYD.

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After 70 years in journalism, trailblazing comic strip character Brenda Starr is retiring. The red haired reporter got her start in the pages of the Chicago Tribune back in 1940, when female reporters of the flesh and blood persuasion were few and far between. Starr leaves the profession far more inclusive than she found it – according to the American Society of News Editors, women now make up about 37% of American newsrooms.

NPR has details on the girl reporter’s retirement:

Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman said they’ve decided it was time to end their work on the seven-day-a-week strip which appears in about three dozen newspapers. The final episode of the soap opera cartoon created by the late Dale Messick will be published Jan. 2.

“It’s been an incredible privilege to be able to live life through this medium all these years,” said Schmich, who has written the comic for 25 years. “I’m a reporter, above all, so I always use Brenda in a funny way to report things.”

Here’s hoping for a generous severance package.

It must be strange working as a headline writer for one of LA’s legal news wire services.

Case in point: This week’s sensational, inspiring story of an LA County Sheriff’s deputy appealing his dismissal from the force over having consorted with and later married a known prostitute and recovering heroin addict.

We’re talking here about a cop, Emir Bautista, with a heart of gold,  who essentially rescued a woman off the streets of Gardena and helped her kick both the hard drugs and hard life (the two are still together). In other reporting environments, such banner words as “Sheriff’s Zero Still a Homefront Hero” or “By Hook or by Shawn Crook” might be bandied about.

But in the court docket news world, it was simply:

“No Reinstatement for Cop Who Befriended Hooker”

“Sheriff Can Fire Deputy Who Married Prostitute”

Despite the encroachment of frozen yogurt and designer cupcakes, LA’s Larchmont Village has managed to retain an old world charm. Nowhere is that spirit more evident these days than in the front window of the Larchmont Barber Shop, where the post-October 20th surgery status of owner Jerry Cottone (pictured) is being updated on a weekly basis by his family.

The large font, landscape-oriented single page bulletins – dated October 23rd, 26th, 30th, November 7th and 13th – are anachronistic throwbacks to a pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook era, on a street where it was once possible to catch a streetcar to Huntington Beach for a dime. The Halloween weekend missive for example reveals the undeniable male nature of the recovering patient.

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This antique rejection letter from a movie studio in the 1920s probably should have been sent to any number of story ideas green lit by Hollywood in recent years. We can start with The Karate Kid and count backwards.

Via Neatorama.

“She looks ready for Goth Day at the Sherman Oaks Galleria,” writes Nikki Finke of Wonder Woman’s new costume. In addition to a new look. DC Comics are giving her a re-written storyline and porn star boobs. And while both are ridiculous, let’s get back to her clothes. Wonder Woman’s costume is iconic. Don’t screw up a classic. And if you’re going to, don’t let comic book artists play fashion designer. Because you might end up with something like this:

Art by Don Kramer, copyright DC Comics

Have you seen Newsies? It’s a 1992 Disney musical about the good old days when newspapers used underpaid child labor. Hey, at least publishing turned a profit back then.

Underpaid child labor also do a mean rendition of Lady Gaga‘s “Bad Romance.” Check out little Christian Bale!

This map was made in 1927 by Paramount to show investors nearby filming locations that would appear to be far away lands.

Found via Boing Boing.