(LA) Observing A Blog War

Joseph Mailander takes on his favorite target, among others, in an Angeleno rant on Martini Republic. This time, Mailander's egging good old Kevin Roderick on for posting on his blog, LA Observed, that he links to the Spanish language daily, La Opinion, but isn't sure his readers are looking for Spanish language news. He then lumps that in with slams on blogger Mickey Kaus' recent Halloween fantasy of gang violence in Brentwood and Councilman Jack Weiss' alleged giving into "Westside xenophobia." All in all leading to Mailander's conclusion that self-doubt may never emerge on the Westside. May all be valid points, but Joe, I think you need to not stay up so late.

Mailander points out that Roderick is especially sensitive to criticism, which we have experienced ourself. Roderick gets especially testy when its implied that he suffers from anti-Latino or anti-Black racism. And no doubt, that's understandable.

Now, on the heels of lumping Roderick, Kaus and Weiss under the banner of "Westside Latino Myopia," Mailander goes after Roderick for Roderick's "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" post about departing African-American Dodger Milton Bradley.

To be sure, Bradley is one of the bad boys of baseball, and like he does with the LA Times, Roderick's had a hard on for good old Milt. But leave it to Mailander to posit that with only one other Black in the starting line-up, could Kevin be looking forward to Dodger White?

When the dust flies between Roderick and Mailander it no doubt raises traffic for everyone.