Too soon. It was way too soon. After completing a three-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies eight days ago, outfielder Yasiel Puig predicted the Dodgers would win the National League West for a sixth consecutive season and a prominent Los Angeles columnist wrote: “It’s over” — that the Dodgers had their mojo back and would […]

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France is the biggest country in western Europe, in terms of area, which is nothing to sneeze at, considering it is nearly as big as Texas. A person can visit here many times, or live here for a year or two, without getting around to setting foot in even half the country’s wide array of […]

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And another mascot bites the dust. The Forty-Niner mascot sometimes known as Prospector Pete was 86’d yesterday by the president of the California university most commonly known as Long Beach State. Activists from the school’s faculty and student body had agitated for the ousting of the Forty-Niner mascot on the grounds of genocide perpetrated on […]

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The inspiration for this comes from a dictionary.com gallery of “the saddest phrases in the English language”. It ranges from single words (heartbroken, lonely, melancholy) to actual phrases (time for bed, if only, back to school). It struck me that we might be able to put together a saddest list that would resonate with journalists. […]

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One of the sops thrown out at print journalism reporters at the dawn of the digital age was this one: “You can write as long as you want!” That was supposed to allay the fears of reporters and other writers who were alarmed at the shrinking newspaper. The print product. Less space all the time, […]

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The bells rang on the hour, as they always do, here in “our” French village. And then a few minutes later the bells at the 300-year-old church rang out again, and this was a gusher of clanging and banging that could mean only one thing at 4 p.m. on a Saturday: A wedding! And the […]

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The Rams offense this summer did something that has never happened in National Football League history: Ten of their 11 starters on offense did not play a single minute of preseason football, according to The Orange County Register. Players have been complaining for years about the four-game exhibition season, and so have some coaches. And […]

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We tried for six years to get a reservation at Tickets, the well-known (and Michelin-starred) Barcelona tapas restaurant based on molecular gastronomy. We have tended to stay in the Barcelona neighborhood named Poble Sec, where Tickets is located, and when we discovered that … the building seemed to sort of taunt us whenever we walked […]

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So, back in Barcelona. Hard to avoid the place when it remains one of the world’s great cities … and when visiting friends and family (from the U.S.) stage through the Spanish town on visits to Europe. But it also has that one major problem that has not been resolved. And this is not about […]

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Media outlets are suggesting Los Angeles Angels fans are excited that Japanese rookie Shohei Ohtani will return to the pitcher’s mound tomorrow night. I am filled with foreboding. Ohtani, the most prominent pitcher-hitter since Babe Ruth, has not pitched since June 6, when he exited a game with elbow stiffness — later described as a […]

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