The newly-laid-out LA Times has some pretty good stuff on the editorial pages this morning (registration required, use ‘laexaminer’/’laexminer’):
First, a great article by David Friedman on the changing job climate in California, and some of the longer term implications.

Few Californians seem aware of the state’s disturbing economic circumstances. The economy is losing well-paying blue-collar and middle-class jobs at an astounding rate, especially in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, growth is increasingly concentrated in a handful of outlying counties. As a result, California’s economy is fragmenting as never before between slow-growth, politically powerful population centers and pro-growth, politically marginal counties that surround urban cores. And California’s leaders seem indifferent.

Next, a great column by the sometimes infuriating, sometimes enlightening John Balzar on the ways our perception of terror are driven by the media:

A while back, Americans could wring their hands because their nation had become too callous. Now, if we’d only take a deep breath we would see that we’re too callous and too fearful at the same time.
Terrorism in its many forms, whether school shootings, shopping-center shootings, far-off truck bombings or poison-by-mail, is not just a physical danger but also a rising threat to our mental composure. Lately, I’ve found myself in any number of macabre conversations in which people seem to have slipped their moorings entirely.

Finally, a column by my personal muse, Jill Stewart on the role and demise of the New Times, and the role of media in Los Angeles…

Some hated us, prayed for us to disappear. Others, although certainly not happy with our coverage of them, came to like New Times because it skewered their enemies, too. We were equal-opportunity lambasters. We just wanted to force crucial issues into the open, to keep our massive region from devolving into a West Coast urban nightmare a la Detroit.

…an honorable goal, and one that we should all share.