The Wall Street Journal

Kellogg's Recalls Special K Due to Glass Pieces

Special K comes in flavors including blueberries, red berries, "chocolatey delight," "chocolately strawberry," cinnamon pecan, fruit & yogurt, oats & honey, and vanilla almond. And now you can add a new ingredient to the mix -- glass fragments. Coming right on the heels of Nestle's recall last week ... More >>

Eli Broad: A Conversation With the L.A. Billionaire Philanthropist About His Critics and His Legacy

When the Museum of Contemporary Art shocked the art world last month by firing highly respected curator Paul Schimmel after 22 years on the job, Eli Broad, the billionaire philanthropist and MOCA board member, personally gave Schimmel the bad news. Broad, who founded two Fortune 500 companies b ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

You can't replace the feeling of lounging on the couch with a scrunched-up newspaper. But with the web, at least you don't need to worry about getting ink on your hands and bagel. Here's a roundup of some food-related stories from our country's newspapers this week. Lucky for us, it's mostly free. F ... More >>

Dan Barber and Huffington Post Push Back Against Ethical Vegetarianism

As animal rights groups celebrate a victory this week with the beginning of California's foie gras ban, a couple of voices are questioning the tactics, arguments and ethical highground of vegetarianism. In The Wall Street Journal, New York chef Dan Barber presents an ethical argument for meat eatin ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

You can't replace the feeling of lounging on the couch with a scrunched-up newspaper. But with the web, at least you don't need to worry about getting ink on your hands and bagel. Here's a roundup of some food-related stories from our country's newspapers this week. Lucky for us, it's mostly free. F ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

You can't replace the feeling of lounging on the couch with a scrunched-up newspaper. But with the web, at least you don't need to worry about getting ink on your hands and bagel. Here's a roundup of some food-related stories from our country's newspapers this week. Lucky for us, it's mostly free. F ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

You can't replace the feeling of lounging on the couch with a scrunched-up newspaper. But with the web, at least you don't need to worry about getting ink on your hands and bagel. Here's a roundup of some food-related stories from our country's newspapers this week. Lucky for us, it's mostly free. F ... More >>

5 Stages of Grief: The Jonathan Gold Model

A. ScattergoodJitlada's tom yum soup​5. Denial: In which you refuse to read news blogs and Twitter feeds, and instead have lunch at Jitlada, preferring the comfort of ghost chiles to anything looming on the horizon. Windstorms. Sigalerts. More Republican debates. You feel fine. You like anesth ... More >>

Academy Awards at Theater With No Name? Kodak, Seeking Bankruptcy Protection, Wants Out

Rajiv Patel​This year's Academy Awards are loaded with controversy, and they haven't even been handed out yet. Brett Ratner pulled out of producing the show after uttering anti-gay slur. Then onetime friend-of-the-tranny Eddie Murphy followed him out the door (irony?). Now it looks like The H ... More >>

Bison Grass-Flavored Vodka: The John Deere Cocktail Fun The Illegal (Pot) Side Effects

Ah, the fun things you spot in the liquor aisle on otherwise rather dry (martini) weekly grocery store runs. Spirits like Żubrówka (pronounced zhu-BROOF-ka), a Polish addition to the U.S. market that Remy Cointreau now imports. According to the label, it is "the original bison grass-flavored vodka ... More >>

Maker of Twinkies to File for Chapter 11: More Food News for Hoarders

​If you've been stockpiling Twinkies since childhood, it's time to load up even more. And no, not because they're having a Hoarders casting call. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies (and Wonder Bread, if you fetishize that too) is preparing to ... More >>

Aim High, the First Facebook 'Social Series,' and Why Web Shows Still Fly Below the Radar

Jackson Rathbone takes charge as Nick Green: a high school student/CIA assassin in Aim High​Have you heard of the new WB/Facebook web series Aim High? You know, the show about a high school student/CIA operative that actually allows you to incorporate your own pictures and data into the story? ... More >>

Dippin' Dots Bankrupt: Files Chapter 11

newwavegurly/Flickr​Dippin' Dots, those frozen ice cream pellets that pop up at the county fair every summer, might not be around much longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company filed for Chapter 11 today in U.S. Bankruptcy court in Paducah, Kentucky. The company has struggled to pa ... More >>

MySpace, Virtual Ghost Town, to be Sold For Fraction of its Cost This Week

​Update: Justin Timberlake signs on as a co-owner and creative director. Earlier: It's a done deal, with the Wall Street Journal reporting today that Specific Media made the purchase for between $30 and $40 million and that it plans to cut the 500 person MySpace workforce in half. What becom ... More >>

Marijuana Market Targeted by Scotts Miracle-Gro Fertilizers And Pesticides

DEAIt's a miracle.​Marijuana might still be a federal outlaw. But it's so mainstream that one of the country's biggest gardening concerns, Scotts Miracle-Gro, wants in on the action. Scotts CEO Jim Hagedorn told the Wall Street Journal that he wants a piece of the medical marijuana cultivatio ... More >>

Good Riddance, Ray Irani

Chief of Occidental Oil, stepping down, seen by many as greediest of all

Star Wars Street Art: Free Humanity Talks Barack Obama, Akira Kurosawa and Mr. Brainwash

Keith Plocek​See more posters at "Star Wars Street Art: The Works of Free Humanity."​Jabba the Hutt and Salacious Crumb, stenciled on top a page of the Wall Street Journal with the words "Greed is good." Boba Fett, standing alone with "I'm sorry for the deaths of the innocent but that happen ... More >>

Food Memoir(s) Review: A Tiger In The Kitchen And The Problematic Food Memoir Genre

​Memoirs have never been easy to pull off. For starters, no matter how interesting we may personally find our own Pinot Noir-enlivened nights, publishers have long gravitated to those authors who are famous enough to keep those Williams-Sonoma book signing lines out the front door. Even if tho ... More >>

Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Time to Reconsider the Safety (And Sanity) of Atomic Energy in the U.S?

FoxA d'oh in the real world can mean hundreds of thousands displaced.​Nuclear power has had a good run in the last 20 years or so. With 9/11 inspiring Americans to think more about how to ween the nation off Middle Eastern oil, atomic energy maybe even had a hey day in recent times. After all ... More >>

McDonald's Going Big in Japan

​ Last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported on what it may have perceived to be a case of irony: In Japan, where citizens traditionally eat a healthier diet, live longer, and weigh less than their American counterparts, McDonald's has launched Big America 2, a marketing campaign featuri ... More >>

Cookbook Review: Men'sHealth Magazine Takes On Your New Year's Resolution

​If 2009 was the year of the baking books, 2010 was the year of the media cookbook. Sunset magazine, Bon Appétit and The New York Times (review coming later this week) all published their decades-thick reflections on the molten chocolate cakes of the 1990s and the bulgar pilafs of the millenn ... More >>

George Soros Places Million-Dollar Bet That Marijuana Legalization Will Pass In California

George Soros put a mil on it.​Billionaire George Soros stuffed $1 million into California's pot-legalization bowl -- for an effort that has been hurting in the polls. California Secretary of State campaign-finance data shows that the Soros made the contribution Tuesday to the Drug Policy Act ... More >>

Lakers' Ron Artest Stopped By CHP While Driving What Appears To Be Full-On Race Car

Wall Street Journal​The big news in Lakers-land was the arrest of Matt Barnes on suspicion of domestic violence in Sacramento. But we couldn't resist the story of Ron Artest, who was stopped by the California Highway Patrol as he was driving what appeared to be a full-on, Indy-style race car o ... More >>

We Are All Hoarders

Worst movie year ever? Or is Hollywood just feeding our addiction to garbage?

Brand-Name Bud? Gold Rush To Patent Marijuana Strains Gets Snuffed By U.S. Patent Office

Brand-name bud?​A gold rush to obtain federal patents on strains of marijuana such as Acapulco Gold, Maui Wowie and even straight-up "Chronic" was snuffed out last week by the federal patent office, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal. The move came following inquiries by th ... More >>

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Says It's L.A.'s Turn To Host World Cup

​You put away your vuvuzelas. Your favorite team lost. The late-morning hangovers have worn off. But that soccer high remains. Channel your energy here: It's a long shot, but Los Angeles could be in the running to host the 2018 World Cup. Last year the City Council voted to submit a bid to h ... More >>

Ex L.A. Mayor Riordan Says City Will Go Bankrupt

Former Mayor Richard Riordan.​Happy Cinco de Mayo, L.A! In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece dated May 5, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and co-writer Alexander Rubalcava state that " ... between now and 2014 the city will likely declare bankruptcy." They cite city forecasts that ... More >>

Are Scheduled Flight Times In And Out Of LAX Getting Longer? (Yes)

​The Wall Street Journal on Thursday takes a look at ever-expanding flight times on airlines' schedules and notes that one Delta Air Lines trip from New York to L.A. that used to be advertised at six hours is now slated for seven. What's happening, are airline schedules consuming too many carb ... More >>

Deputy LAPD Chief Acknowledges Rival Gangs Now Might Be Collaborators

myspace.com/world_wide_eighteen_st​Deputy Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore told La Opinion newspaper that the department is aware of possible collaboration among gangs in Los Angeles. LA Weekly was the first to report a certain quietude and possible business alliances on streets once bloo ... More >>

Gangs Cooperating With Each Other For Better Business, Report States

​As we told you last summer ("Gangs Lay Low, Rake in Dough") some neighborhoods that used to represent bloody fault lines in decades-old gang grudges have been eerily quiet, with some experts theorizing that the sets are working together to comprise a more-efficient money-making machine on the ... More >>

Same-Sex Marriage Advocates Have Uphill Battle For 2010 Ballot Initiative

​Backers of a state proposition that would overturn the Prop. 8 same-sex-marriage ban are facing some serious obstacles, not the least of which is collecting about a million signatures in support of putting the initiative in front of state voters by April 12. The million signatures should be ... More >>

Why Is Billionaire Ron Burkle Borrowing $56 Million?

When members of the Pittsburgh Penguins visited billionaire Ron Burkle at his mansion in Beverly Hills last week, they were reportedly quite impressed.Billionaire Ron Burkle (left) with former president Bill Clinton.​"Oh, my, it was mind-blowing," goalie Marc-Andre Fleury told the Pittsburgh Tribu ... More >>

Food Fight at Condé Nast: The Sketchy Future of Bon Appétit and Gourmet

Gordon Ramsay does a cooking demo​Readers of food magazines often like to pit Condé Nast's two culinary powerhouses, Gourmet and Bon Appétit, against each other. Like Letterman and Leno, one is based in New York (Gourmet), the other here in Los Angeles (Bon Appétit). Gourmet has historicall ... More >>

Stealing MySpace: An Interview with Julia Angwin at SxSW

One of our favorite parts of SXSW thus far is that we got to meet and interact with the people that shaped our careers, hearts and minds (I'm talking to you Bill Wasik and Lawrence Lessig). Continuing in the same vein, we were thrilled at the chance to talk shop with tech ambassador and longtime Wal ... More >>

Obama Taps East L.A. Congresswoman Hilda Solis for Labor Post

The Wall Street Journal reported that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen California Democratic Rep. Hilda Solis as his Labor Secretary. "Like most Democrats, she is pro-labor," says political consultant Bill Carrick. "You would have a hell of a story if Barack Obama appointed someone anti-labor ... More >>

Radiohead Has Cake, Eats it Too, Thinks About Seconds...

There are quite a few twists to the story of the new Radiohead album that broke on the band's website last night . One that is getting very little attention is the terrible name of the album: In Rainbows. But here are a couple others: 1. Journalists won't get advance copies or early access. The ... More >>

Small Things Considered

A Mighty Heart: Pearl Harbor

A Mighty Heart does justice to Mariane and Daniel Pearl

A Goldwater Moment

It’s 1964 all over again, but this time for the Democrats

The Boston Braying Party

The Democratic Convention misses the point

Get Carter?

L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, Wall Street Journal investigating Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter; LAT probing whether Carter made deals with Hollywood moguls & companies

The Wal-Mart Equation

It all adds up to a supermarket strike

The Good, the Bad, and the God-awful

Thoughts on Gigli and late-summer truffle hunting

Rebellion in the Backlands

Protest coverage, Brazil's elections and Bush's scary policy paper

Crime Wave

Rank and Yank at Enron

Or, the fine art of bankruptcy

The Back Story

Reading List: Week 7

The Parent Trap

It’s the Oil

For all of punditry’s hot air, the root cause remains the same

L.A. Times Who Knew? Department