“Nearly one-third of U.S. heads of households ages 55 and older have no pension or retirement savings and a median annual income of about $19,000. A growing proportion of the nation’s elderly are like Westfall: too poor to retire and too young to die.” The Los Angeles Times has a sad a sensitive profile of 79-year-old…
L.A. Times: Dennis Hastert Was Paying to Conceal His 'Sexual Misconduct'

When it was announced Thursday that former House speaker Dennis J. Hastert has been indicted on blackmail charges, nobody had any idea what the hell was going on. The plot has thickened rapidly: Hastert is accused of paying roughly $1.7 million in hush money since 2010, and the L.A. Times is reporting it was to cover…
Actresses in Old Hollywood Labored Over Their Brow Game, Too
It's Friday, which means that—once again—it's time to marvel at the marvelous Hollywood PR machine of yore and its seemingly endless ability to find new ways to make actresses pose while doing their makeup. This time we've got an actress from the heady days of transition from silent to sound, darkening her eyebrows.
'A What Ho!' 1920s Article on Racy Swimwear Is a Must-Read
L.A. Times Past, a Tumblr that archives L.A. Times articles dating back to the 1880s, has shared a wildly entertaining article from July of 1920, a tumultuous time for the risqué female bather who — thanks to the "Puritan pool edict" — were suddenly expected to cover up the scandalous bit of upper knee with a swim…
Los Angeles Times Was Wrong to Retract Article on Rape at Occidental
On March 14, 2014, The Los Angeles Times issued a retraction of an article in which reporter Jason Felch stated that Occidental College failed to disclose 27 sexual assaults in its 2012 Annual Security Report (ASR). The retraction states that "Occidental representatives approached the Times early this month to seek a…
Life On the Streets Is Tough. Being Homeless At 97 Is Tougher.
How do you envision your life at 97? For one woman, life is lived in the front seat of 1973 Chevrolet Suburban with her two sons, spending the days panhandling and scrounging for social services. Bessie Mae Berger is homeless.
False Modesty
Apparently the LA Times (in 1971!) wanted to shield readers from the moral degradation brought on by gazing upon the naked chest. Solution: draw a shirt! But clearly the "artist" was on a tight deadline. [Sociological Images]
Making Headlines: Jennifer Love Hewitt Tries Another Tactic
[Los Angeles, March 15. Image via Bauer-Griffin]
Where Are The Project Runway Season 5 Reviews?
Hey, did you hear? Project Runway's fifth season is premiering tonight on Bravo! We wouldn't be surprised if you had no clue about it, seeing that Bravo has done almost zero publicity for the upcoming season and we didn't even realize that there was a new season coming up until last week (apparently Bravo is too busy…
Chelsea Clinton, And Lessons In Media (Mis) Management
The LA Times is starting to specialize in profiles of the non-Hillary women on the campaign trail, if this week's Cindy McCain profile and today's Chelsea Clinton profile are anything to go by. Although the paper managed to get a nice photo and plenty of ass-kissery into the Cindy story, its Chelsea profile (with…
Susan Carpenter, the "Throttle Jockey" at the LA Times, finds that riding motorcycles is a great way to get attention from guys, but up to a point. She says that when a woman rides a large bike (above 1,600 cc) men no longer perceive the female rider as being "sexy". While testing a Suzuki C109R (which weighs 787…
Are You Sick Of Ladies On TV Looking Jacked Up?
In a piece for Sunday's L.A. Times, Mary McNamara wrote about all the Botox, face-lifts and cosmetic surgery on TV right now. For instance: Priscilla Presley. "At once puffy and yanked, her face, and its odd relationship to her neck, often takes on the dimensions of a Picasso painting." Or Barbara Walters, whose face…
Duck Tales
Here's some Friday cuteness: animal control officers in Garden Grove, CA made a rare rescue mission to save a group of 14 ducklings that had fallen into a storm drain. The article comes with a video, complete with peeps and worried quacks from the mother duck who was "frantically pacing around the drain opening" when…
The Critics Speak: 'Georgia Rule' Is A Hot Mess
So you might've heard that Lindsay Lohan made a lil' movie with Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman called Georgia Rule. And it totally comes out today! But what do the critics have to say? While The New York Times gets oddly sentimental about Lohan — "The surprise is that she does it with such poise and…