Tues | Feb 26 The trial of Beachcomber publisher Jay Beeler begins. Beeler is up on charges of obstructing a police officer and disobeying the order of a police officer—prosecutors did drop other charges of looking a police officer directly in the eye and failure to genuflect. Beeler got popped the night of March 28, 2007, as he was trying to cover a fire at the Galaxy Towers condo complex. Police claim that Beeler ignored orders to stay behind yellow crime scene tape; Beeler countered that, as a journalist, he has a right to cover a story. The cops said that Beeler spoke with “slurred speech,” and they could smell “the odor of an alcoholic beverage from [Beeler’s] breath and body.” I say, who doesn’t reek of alcohol in George Bush’s America? You think Dan Rather sounds like he’s sober? I mean, I’m drunk right now, which reminds me, you’re great. No I mean it. You. Great. Now, I’m not saying Beeler was drunk or not, all I’m saying is it’s really hot in here. Are you hot? I’m hot.

Wed | Feb 27 Speaking of George Bush’s America, pretty much everything sucks. The economy? Oil is more than $100 a barrel—how long until it’s $100 a gallon?—and home foreclosures are expected to hit two million this year—650,000 is normal. Not surprisingly, the stock market is set to implode. Then there’s this stunning stat that came out today: 1 in 99 adults in America are currently in prison. One in 99! Tragic? No. China? Yes. And, oh yeah, we’re still stuck in a little bit of heaven known as Iraq. So, what’s Bush have to say about all of this? Well, today they asked him about the price of gas possibly going to $4 this summer and he says, “That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.” Then, he goes on to assure everyone that “We’ll make it through this period just like we made it through other periods of uncertainty during my presidency.” Uh, dude, the only uncertainty during your presidency has been whether we’d survive your presidency. A lot of us haven’t. You know, everyone agrees that the guy is stupid, but I think we have to seriously consider whether the man is delusional, you know, mentally ill. You get the feeling that he really does think he’s doing a great job. As if the whole nation—Democrats and Republicans—isn’t waiting for the day when he leaves office with all the giddiness with which one anticipates losing their virginity on Christmas morning.

Thurs | Feb 28 Geez, could somebody open a window, get a breeze goin’?

Fri | Feb 29 The Press-Telegram no longer exists. Not as a truly local paper. No, today MediaNews, the company that runs the paper—and they’ve run it right into the ground—gets rid of the paper’s top management and cedes control of its content to the management of the Daily Breeze, who will determine what Long Beachers read from their offices in freeway-close Torrance. The P-T now has just 10 reporters to cover the 19 cities of Greater Long Beach, not that MediaNews has ever been interested in covering Long Beach. But it does seem odd that they would have a smaller paper (the Breeze has a circulation of 66,000, the P-T is 83,000) covering a smaller city (Torrance is about a third the size of Long Beach) put in charge of its big brother. This may speak to MediaNews’s total lack of confidence in the P-T’s management, but, more likely, has something to do with the P-T being a union paper and the Breeze not.

Sat | Mar 1 Dominguez!

Sun | Mar 2 Very sad story. I’m in La Verne. Wait, it gets worse. I’m in La Verne and I get a call from colleague Dave Wielenga, who asks, “Have you seen [Tom] Hennessy’s column today?” The way he asks, I know it isn’t good, and I assume it’s because Hennessy is attempting to put a happy face on the dismantling of the P-T. Wait, it gets worse. Hennessy was writing about tough times . . . for Chicago Cubs fans. As Dave writes, rather incredulously, on thedistrictweekly.com: “two mornings after Long Beach lost the Press-Telegram—a community asset and pillar of local journalism for more than a century—the most-prominent voice in Long Beach journalism wrote a column bemoaning the fact that Wrigley Field—a baseball diamond in Chicago—may be selling its name to a corporate sponsor.” Wait, it gets worse. Hennessey actually wrote this: “What does any of that have to do with Long Beach? Well, strange as it may seem, there are Cub fans right here in town. Two, maybe even three of them. One is the P-T’s executive editor, Rich Archbold. His baseball joys and sorrows, mostly sorrows, fluctuate endlessly with the fortunes of the city and team he left several decades and 2,000 miles ago. This is a tough time for Archbold, for all Cubbie stalwarts.” To which Dave wrote this: “A tough time for Rich Archbold. Really? Archbold wasn’t among Friday’s body count, which killed off a significant portion of the already-skeletal Press-Telegram staff, including publisher Dave Kuta and managing editor John Futch, along with nine designers and copyeditors, a photographer, a web editor and two reporters who resigned. Archbold gets to keep his job as executive editor of the Press-Telegram—gets to keep the paycheck, anyway, even if he’s just a puffed-up title at a name-alone newspaper.”

Mon | Mar 3 Class.