This week, a balance of commentary and images - five detailed analyses of the major news events of week just gone by, and five pages of unusual images of Los Angeles and Hollywood. 

The commentary covers the major events that swirled around the State of the Union speech, and the war of the t-shirts, and then there was the war of the cartoons, as Danish embassies around the world are now being torched.  And there were a few other things where the inflexible meet the puzzled, and no one is happy.  Dive in and you'll see.

The images?  Old Hollywood in all its seedy glory, the secular oddball movie location next to the Catholic church where Bing Crosby got married, the park where Ricky Nelson wrote fifties rock songs under the bust of Rudolph Valentino, the giant factory built to look like a thirties ocean liner, and some startling botanical shots.

Bob Patterson is back, showing how the past informs the present in very odd ways, and, as the Book Wrangler, offering incredibly practical advice to writers who are serious about getting published.

There are three new photo albums on the Links and Recommendations page, supplementing this week's regular collection.

The quotes this week?  What does keep us from thinking clearly?

Note: The International Desk is dark this week.  Ric Erickson, Our Man is Paris, is deep in the rebuilding of his own website, MetropoleParis, and Our Man in London, Mike McCahill, is busy writing for The Scotsman.  Our man in Tel-Aviv may check in one of these weeks.