Column One: Go into a Starbucks today. Any Starbucks. Count the number of people hunched over their laptops, typing furiously. Notice the front page next to them? Ninety percent of those writers are working on a script about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, the subject of Larry Gordon’s Column One and an 83-year-old retired Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera animator who survived the Holocaust by painting portraits of doomed prisoners for Josef Mengele himself. Babbitt is now battling the Auschwitz museum for ownership of her paintings. But the battle to watch will be the studio bidding war.

What A Way To Go: When we die, we hope our LAT obit includes something as cool in the deck as: “Known for Huge Beer Orgies,” too.

What’s In a Name? Former CBS 60 Minutes producer Barry Lando weighs in on NBC and the LAT’s decisions to use “civil war” to describe the Iraqi civil war, saying, Simply compare the grisly statistics in Iraq with figures from other conflicts that already have been certified as genuine, full-scale civil wars. Then try to argue that this isn’t one. It’s a difficult case to make.” We’d love to see a news organization that is still bending to the administration’s whims write a rebuttal.

Eater LA, the restaurant sibling to Curbed LA’s real estate blog, has cleverly nabbed Lesley Balla as foodie-in-chief. FBLA grilled her, pun gleefully intended.

Doing something called Eater is a perfect fit for me, since that’s what I am. I’m an eater, I love food, I love to cook, I love restaurants. Although I’m not a restaurant critic, I will critique every damn thing about a restaurant. I was in that business for more than 10 years, so I think I learned a thing or two. I just love the business, but I’m glad not to be standing on my feet 14 hours a day.

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As DVD sales fall, Hollywood studios are concerned about download piracy, according to the Financial Times, and 4 studios are pressuring Steven Jobs at Apple to rework iTunes accordingly. Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. want limit the number of video iPods that can be used by iTunes on a particular computer, making things more difficult for content-napping pros. And Karl Lagerfeld.

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Wired is taking nominations for the Sexiest Geek of the Year.

Nina, the Slack Mistress, is actively seeking votes.

Mike Shermer of the Skeptic Society should also get a nomination.

FBLA feels called upon to mention that LonelyGirl15 is not eligible.

Finally, the good guys win one. Stuart Frankel has been battling the prince of darkness (pictured above) and his lawyers for four long years. Frankel dared to put up a website poking fun at Barney, the PBS cash dinosaur. Lawyers for the owner–Lyons Partnership–sent at least four cease-and-desist orders to Frankel, accusing him of violating the company’s copyright. One e-mail, dated Feb. 11, 2002, accused him of using copyrighted images to describe

the use and threat of violence towards Barney.

Threats of violence towards the fictional? Where did these people get their J.D.?

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Fabio has never really gone away, he’s just been hanging out in places other than the covers of romance paperbacks. The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter people have him, (FBLA thinks the Last Tango clips must have been too expensive), he was on ANTM, and now he’s on mobile phones, if you want to download Seductive Recipes, ringtones, and video Fabiograms.

Via the Washington Post: Tribune is not ready to consider bids for individual properities.

The company will make its mind up about how, when and whether to sell by the end of the year. At which point, nobody will care anymore.

CBS seems to think so. After three weddings and four months of marriage the white trashiest of white trash couples called it quits. Apparently Kid Rock lost his mind when he saw the Borat movie — which puts him in the rarefied company of tight-asses, Universal and the country of Romania.

What Do We Want? Freedom (of the press)! When Do We Want It? Eventually! Following the LAT lead, NBC News has started using “civil war” to describe the, well, civil war going on in Iraq. Use of the phrase will likely anger Bush, who has resisted referring to the civil war as a civil war. The fact that a news organization is using the term, means its editors are starting to use their heads. The fact that use of an accurate phrase makes the news depresses the hell out of us.

Victorious Youth Makes Loser Out of Getty? Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum writes an Op/Ed about the ongoing problems the museum is having with the Italian government over the museum’s 26 stolen pieces. Apparently, it all comes down to politics and one statue — a Greek statue the Italians, according to Brand, never owned. The Italians see it differently.

Look Who’s Not Talking: The WGA is refusing to begin early contract negotiations, a move that suggests we can expect a strike — and more abhorrent reality TV — down the road.
Earlier:
Writers? Who Needs ‘Em? Not ANTM!

Tucked away in a wee, small corner of a story on the Tennie Pierce hazing scandal and two time-servers in City Hall calling for the head of Fire Chief William Bamattre, is this intriguing statement:

On Monday, The Times was anonymously provided with a transcript of a June 21 closed session in which the council discussed the pending Pierce litigation. In that transcript, Deputy City Atty. Vibiana Andrade said that Pierce was a known prankster and that there were photos.

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