• DEPRESSION DESERT: “Alexander Pantages, the Greek tycoon, moved from Seattle to Los Angeles and gave Walt Disney a start in the animated-film business. But Pantages had other interests, and as Wall Street collapsed in 1929, he was tried and convicted for the rape of a 17-year-old dancer.” [LA CityBeat]

THIS ONE IS HAPPY, AND IT’S ABOUT CRITTERS! You all get so bummed out by your editor’s gloomy desert apocalypse columns. But this one has comical mountain sheep! [LA CityBeat]

LEHMAN BROS. WAS HERE: “One sad stretch of dusty road has seven vacant houses in a row, nobody around for a mile on either side. Where did they go? Who even owns the mortgages, if the mortgages could even be pieced together from the ‘collaterized debt instruments’ that brought down everything from mighty Wall Street investment houses to chickenshit little construction firms in the grandly named Inland Empire?” [LA CityBeat]

DESERTED: “Now we’re bored of silence, scared of bugs, terrified of snakes, and only understand wildlife in lurid teevee terms. Toddler eaten by hungry coyote five years ago; fat mom was inside stripping for Web-Cam.” [LA CityBeat: Desert Rattler]

NEW MOJAVE DESERT COLUMN: From your editor, for the Los Angeles City Beat paper, and also for viewers like you. And do not forget your Weekette collection, so go read the paper, if you are in Southern California today. [LA CityBeat]

WEEKETTE: Do not forsake your Weekette, which is a wonderful weekly collection of your Wonkette items, in the LA CITYBEAT newspaper. Also, oh lord, what is your editor doing now? [LA CITYBEAT]