Look, we’re old salts when it comes to journalists changing gigs. We were there for what we call the ’08-’09 blood bath. Tens of thousands of journalists laid off. It was like blogging at a morgue.

Anyway, the post-Apocalypse LAT Calendar section is still losing talent. Today’s exit: one of the last remaining senior television writers Maria Elena Fernandez. That makes three senior writers whom have left Calendar in the past month (music critic Ann Powers and reporter Chris Lee being the other two).

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Paps Feel The Pinch: Bad economic times are hitting everyone. Even the guys who follow Britney Spears around: “The prices that photos fetch are often overstated, but … an exclusive photo of Spears today would only bring a 10th of what it did during her most erratic times.” Soon paps will start sounding like laid off coal miners. Hot, angry, Brazilian coal miners.

It’s What The Kids Want: Dawn Chmielewski reports that ESPN will launch an online network dedicated to action sports — surfing, skateboarding and the like — to expand their fan base beyond, you know, your dad.

Late-Bird Special: Rachel Abramowitz notices that many of today’s blockbuster’s stars are over 40. That’s such an astute observation… that most entertainment journalists made it, like, a year ago.

Huh? We’re not entirely sure, but we think Rachel Abramowitz just compared Barack Obama to a superhero, a la Hancock or The Hulk. If this makes sense to anyone, please explain it to us.

Lawsuit Resolved: “NBC Universal has ‘amicably resolved‘ a $105-million lawsuit filed by a woman whose brother committed suicide during a taping of its controversial Dateline NBC series To Catch a Predator, both parties said today.”

Fandango Capitalizes on Disney’s Good Name: From Dawn Chmielewski: “Fandango Inc., the nation’s leading movie-ticketing site, on Monday acquired a similar but smaller website from Walt Disney Co. that sports an attractive address: Movies.com. Fandango hopes the acquisition of Movies.com, with its generic name, will give it broader reach for people seeking movie information online.”

How to Be Successful: It seemed to us when He’s Just Not That Into You author Liz Tuccillo eschewed the chance to be a dating pundit that she was throwing away a shot at fame, fortune and permanent job security. Not so.

News to Her: The lede of Rachel Abramowitz‘s story today: “Here’s a news flash: The Rock is no more. It’s not even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson but merely Dwayne Johnson, plain vanilla, regular guy, would-be action-hero for the text-message set.” Um, Rachel. That hasn’t been news for, like, the better part of a year. Someone get this woman a subscription to Entertainment Weekly.

Seriously? Tim Rutten says he thinks it would be a mistake to indict George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes, saying trials “would be a profound — even tragic — mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we’ve never criminalized differences over policy. Since Andrew Jackson‘s time, our electoral victors celebrate by throwing the losers out of work — not into jail cells.” Interestingly, this paragraph comes nine graphs into a story that list many of the administration’s crimes.

The Answer to L.A. Traffic? According to (a slightly skewed reading of) the LAT ongoing traffic series, the answer to lightening our roads seems to be more Jewish holidays. We’ll consult our rabbis and get back to you.

We Know One Hollywood Blogger Who Will Eat You For Breakfast: And yet, here we are congratulating you, Rachel Abramowitz, for your new column, Hollywood Brief. As the intro goes: “What you see on the screen, big or little, is only part of the story. Rachel Abramowitz’s new column, Hollywood Brief, gives the town’s culture, personalities and power players the close-up they deserve — but may not always want.” Hope, at least, it’s what your bosses want.

How Do White Folks Loath Michelle Obama? Robin Abcarian counts the ways.

‘YouTube Is Becoming the World’s Biggest Focus Group’: Just when you thought the democratic sandbox of lowest-common-denominator entertainment was safe from the prying eyes of marketers and information-seekers, comes this. Oh well.

Most Unexpected Paragraph(s) of the Day: In her op-ed piece about the Rob Lowe case, Rachel Abramowitz raises the specter of Anthony Pellicano: “…where’s Anthony Pellicano when you need him? … he definitely had a well-defined spot in the Hollywood food chain — fixer, interlocutor between celebrities and the populace, the man to call when your one-night stand, your nanny, your personal assistant, your housekeeper, yoga instructor, chakra cleanser, what-have-you decides to sue for slights real and imagined. … Obviously Pellicano was a bully, ready to smear the less powerful with impunity. But there could be a cool efficiency to how he operated.”

Is This Photo An Editorial Statement? Elizabeth Snead dishes about how American Idol creator Nigel Lythgoe didn’t want George Bush to appear on the Idol Gives Back show — which is all fine and good, but what’s with the photo choice of Nigel as a clown?

Andrew Blankstein Is Our Batman: Is Andrew Blankstein on the outrageous vandalism beat? First he tackles the case of the cruel criminals who capped the knees of the Bronze Miner in Carthay Circle. Now, he’s on to Buket, the graffiti artist who is way too old to be tagging buses in broad daylight. If someone starts knocking over mailboxes in your neighborhood, give Blankstein a call.

Miley Cyrus’ Tongue Is Worth More Than Your Car: Pap agencies are prepared to pay upward of $150,000 for a shot of Miley Cyrus‘ “first kiss,” which we’re assuming means first public kiss. Disturbing piece, but we have one question for Rachel Abramowitz: Why all this talk of Miley’s wholesomeness without ever mentioning the green bra debacle?

French Dip: Elizabeth Snead serves up some foreign dish today with a look at the Nice-Matin, the hometown paper of Cannes, France, which gave out some snarky awards to America’s best imports (e.g. Mike Tyson got the “Absurd Award” for simply being Mike Tyson). Ah, the French.

Remember Brad Refro? In all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro’s death has been almost an afterthought (E! couldn’t even get his name right). But in this astute culture/profile piece, Rachel Abramowitz makes you remember that another actor suffered a tragic death recently — and that, likely, there are more to come.

There Goes The Neighborhood: In light of a legal tussle Leonardo DiCaprio is having with his neighbors over a backyard basketball court, the LAT Picture Book Team put together an amuse-bouche of celebs you don’t want to live next to. (They should ask a copy editor to move in next door, though. Their captions claim Paris Hilton is still in jail, and we think the Steven Spielberg item is missing a few words.)

Stuff You Already Knew About The Writers’ Strike: The WGA is meeting at The Shrine Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow to brief the writers.

The Future Of Reporting: The LAT’s fire blog is exactly what newspapers will be doing with all breaking news coverage some day. And that’s not a bad thing.

Under Pressure: The air thick with anxiety. Harried people rushing about to salvage whatever they can before its too late. Fires? What fires? Rachel Abramowitz and Robert W. Welkos are describing Hollywood as a possible strike looms.

First-Hand Account: Reporter Janet Wilson returned from her wedding to find her neighborhood threatened by flames. In her words: “It was an eerie experience as a reporter because you’re trained to observe and are often thrown into areas you don’t know. But I knew every inch of what I saw today. I know the hills and the houses.”

Mexican Hat Trick: Never mind the longstanding partnership between Univision Communications Inc. Mexico’s Grupo Televisa, Mexico’s largest media conglomerate signed a partnership agreement last week with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. to make movies and television shows and expand its reach in the U.S.

Do Audiences Want To See Celebrities Who Get It On? Nope. In fact, Rachel Abramowitz has to stretch further than a Hollywood prenup to think of examples in which audiences didn’t punish cuckolding couples: Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Not so much.

Feeling Lucky? Conservative pundits have their panties in a bunch over Google’s choice to dress up its homepage logo to honor the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, while never once altering its logo to honor Veterans Day or Memorial Day. ‘Cuz those holidays are fun.