Please visit us there and share any questions or comments you have about Times coverage.

--Deirdre Edgar

"I'm concerned about one of the comics in today's paper, '9 Chickweed Lane,' and the depiction of a male lying between a woman's legs. They were both dressed, but I think it's inappropriate for a comic strip that children could be reading."

"The '9 Chickweed Lane' strip today is porn!! What's up with your standards that you allow visual sexual situations on the Comics page? My granddaughter reads this section, and it is unsuitable today."

"I don't consider myself a prude, but I think this cartoon is very inappropriate for a family newspaper. I'm quite surprised. I've never felt compelled to call about a cartoon in The Times."

... So went a handful of calls and emails this week regarding the story line in "9 Chickweed Lane.

The story continued from last week, when the bespectacled Amos clambered onto the stage at the finale of dancer Edda's performance. He sprawled across her in Saturday's strip, and asked, "Is this a bad time?" The story picked up Monday, with the two, as one reader complained, "in the missionary position."

Assistant Managing Editor Alice Short, who oversees the features sections including the Comics page, said she didn't think the strip meant to be racy.

"I'm not sure how this current story line will end, but it started a couple of weeks ago," Short said. "It's pretty clear that the musician wants to propose to the ballerina. I see it as a story about love, and I don't believe anything untoward was intended."

John Glynn, vice president and editorial director of Universal Uclick, which distributes "9 Chickweed Lane," said the syndicate had received no other complaints.

The Times does not normally remove or replace comic strips based on story line -- though editors did do that in March with a "Doonesbury" series that took on Texas' abortion law. For that week, "Doonesbury" was moved to the Op-Ed page and "Doonesbury" reruns were published on the Comics page.The decision drew more than 100 calls and emails. 

Comics may be part of the "funny pages," but they're serious business to readers.  

-- Deirdre Edgar

Images, from top: "9 Chickweed Lane" from Sept. 3, Sept. 4 and Sept. 5. Credit: Universal Uclick

A similar profile of President Obama is scheduled for this coming Sunday, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

But some readers thought another article should have been the main story of the day -- the obituary of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

The comments ran along these lines:

"As a registered Republican and a 60+ year reader of the Los Angeles Times I am offended and outraged that a picture of Mitt Romney (a politician!) should be the front main story this morning rather than Neil Armstrong," wrote Carolyn Zwirn of Los Angeles. "Neil Armstrong was a hero in every sense of the word: a brave, courageous and honorable man over whom you chose a politician."

"The world lost a hero in Neil Armstrong. That one small step for man he took  43 years ago just took a step backward when you choose to feature a presidential candidate above someone who reached for the stars, achieved it and then came home," emailed Maureen Hilt of Granada Hills.

"I was frankly appalled, but not surprised, to see the front page of the L.A. Times today with the main story not about a man who actually accomplished a lot for us in his lifetime, Neil Armstrong, but instead, a large image of a politician," said Paul J. Burke of Palmdale.

"What poor judgment to put a political candidate so prominently on the front page above Neil Armstrong, a national hero for all times to come! What were you thinking?" emailed Jorg and Anke Raue of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin explained:

"On Saturday afternoon, word of the unexpected death of astronaut Neil Armstrong added another story to the mix.

"Designers redrew the page to display an Armstrong obituary on the right-hand side, accompanied by a photograph of a jubilant Armstrong in the Apollo 11 lunar module and an image of The Times’ front page of July 21, 1969, reporting on the moon landing.

"The obituary was positioned lower on the page than the Romney profile. Some readers took this as a slap at Armstrong or a sign that we deemed his accomplishments to be lesser than Romney's. No such judgment was intended.

"The obituary, which ran 2,400 words, was a comprehensive account of Armstrong's life and achievements, generously illustrated with historic photos. The article was rigorously researched and written in advance by the late Times staff writer Eric Malnic, an aviation expert. Times staff writer Valerie J. Nelson updated and expanded on the original article on deadline Saturday.

"In its entirety, the Armstrong package did justice to a historic figure."

-- Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Front page of Aug. 26, 2012. Credit: Los Angeles Times

We're pleased to announce that Scott Kraft will become a deputy managing editor overseeing the front page, Column One and projects.

Scott's experience and skills make him a natural choice for this assignment. He will ensure that the Los Angeles Times remains committed to elegant storytelling, powerful investigations and distinctive journalism.

He joined The Times as a national correspondent in Chicago and went on to serve as a bureau chief in Nairobi, Johannesburg and Paris. He covered the end of apartheid, the ill-fated U.S. military mission in Somalia and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, among other major stories. His piece for the Los Angeles Times magazine on the AIDS epidemic in Africa won the SPJ Distinguished Service Award for Foreign Correspondence.

Scott was known then, as now, as a writer with an affinity for words and storytelling. Of his 1,100 bylines in the Times over the years, more than 120 were Column Ones.

After a decade abroad, Scott moved to Los Angeles and became deputy foreign editor. A year later, he was named National Editor. During his 11 years overseeing our national correspondents and the Washington bureau, he directed coverage of many major stories, including 9/11, the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 Florida recount and Hurricane Katrina. Reporters on the National staff won four Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure.

Scott returned to writing in 2008 and helped anchor our coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. He became the Page One editor last year and has served with distinction in that role, helping to elevate story-telling and encouraging creativity and risk-taking in the selection and presentation of stories.

In his new position, Scott will report to the managing editor.

Photo: Scott Kraft. Credit: Los Angeles Times

I’m delighted to announce the appointment of Megan Garvey as assistant managing editor for digital, overseeing the home page, the data team and the presentation of our projects on the web.

She will be responsible for the selection and display of news and features on latimes.com. More broadly, she will work with journalists across the newsroom to find the most effective ways to present our journalism and connect with readers online.

With Megan’s new assignment, Tenny Tatusian will become mobile editor, overseeing the presentation of our content on portable devices, an increasingly important aspect of our operation.  With the proliferation of mobile devices, Tenny will make sure our great reporting is accessible to all our readers.
Megan and Tenny will both report to Jimmy Orr, managing editor/digital.

Megan started at The Times in the San Fernando Valley in 1998. Her first byline was on a story about too much rain: “Roofer madness.” Later that year, she transferred to Orange County, where she covered transportation. In 2000, she helped cover the Bush-Gore presidential campaign before moving to the Washington bureau.

She returned to Los Angeles in late 2001. As a general assignment reporter in Metro, Megan helped cover wildfires, train crashes and the gubernatorial recall. Her work on homicides in Compton and the early release of inmates from L.A. County jails triggered an interest in data reporting.

Megan has been a pioneer of our digital journalism. As morning assignment editor, she worked on the California War Dead database, eventually splitting her time between data projects and supervising health and county government reporters. She went on to manage a series of innovative online projects, including Mapping L.A., Crime L.A., the Homicide Report and the Los Angeles Times Teacher Ratings database.

Megan is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she studied American history.

We’re very happy to announce that Marla Dickerson is the new Business editor of the Los Angeles Times.

A career financial journalist who has served as a deputy Business editor for the past three years, Marla is a natural to lead one of the hardest-working staffs in the industry.

During her 16 years at The Times, she has covered a variety of beats key to the region’s dynamism, including the California economy, small business, manufacturing, tourism and renewable energy.

A former business correspondent in Mexico City, Marla has a deep understanding of the trade and immigration ties that bind Los Angeles to Latin America. As editor of our China business coverage for the past few years, she has helped give readers a window into the world’s second-largest economy. She and colleague Evelyn Iritani won the Malcolm Forbes Award from the Overseas Press Club of America in 2002 for their series “China: the Giant Awakes.”

Marla’s clear thinking and sixth sense for story have turned eye-glazing data into compelling reads. In Costa Rica, she walked a mail route to tell the story of the colorful but chaotic address system that’s hindering that nation’s development. A grimy South Gate recycling yard was the backdrop for her story about America’s hottest export -- used cardboard.

Before joining The Times, Marla was a reporter for the Detroit News and the Rochester, N.Y., Times. She has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern. She’s on the board of governors of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Please join us in wishing her the best in her new job.

I’m pleased to announce that Marc Duvoisin is the new managing editor of the Los Angeles Times.

As you know, this announcement is a long time coming. It reflects months of thought about how we position The Times to succeed in the digital era while maintaining the values and traditions of great journalism that brought us here in the first place. I’m immensely proud of how the newsroom continues to adapt and tackle each new challenge. Our commanding Web audience and unwavering commitment to the best enterprise journalism are a tribute to your focus and creativity. The new managing editor must help us push change even further, while also putting out the world-class newspaper our readers have come to expect.

Marc is that person.

In his 10-plus years at Spring Street, Marc has had a guiding hand in some of the finest journalism we’ve published. He’s shown an ability to bring together diverse newsroom disciplines to make our most ambitious work shine.

Marc has credentials to spare. He’s been a reporter, a foreign correspondent, a city editor, a projects editor. I’ve long valued his advice and admired his surgeon’s touch with copy, his exacting standards and his passion for the work we do. As managing editor, he will work with section editors to generate our daily news report. The national, foreign, California, business and sports departments will report to him.

In 2001, John Carroll asked Marc to move to L.A. He became an assistant managing editor at The Times, overseeing Column One and, later, projects as well.

Marc is a lover of classical music, the New York Yankees and espresso concoctions, on which he cheerfully spends obscene sums of money. Anyone who follows him on Twitter knows his fascination with the Higgs boson and other arcane subjects.

I’ve been immersed with Kathy as well as Marc, Jimmy and others over the past months mapping out new digital initiatives. The membership program is just the beginning of many changes that will strengthen The Times and better serve our readers. These will require all of us to think differently about what we do. But they will not change the principles that guide us. Marc represents our highest values and ambitions, as the population series, the “Big Burn” series, the community college series and countless others attest. His painstaking commitment to quality is an essential ingredient in our future.

Please join me in congratulating Marc and supporting him in his new role.

Photo: Marc Duvoisin. Credit: Los Angeles Times

If we can land a rover on Mars, surely we can identify the city where NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is located. Right?

When it came to The Times' recent coverage of Mars rover Curiosity, reader Sabrina Peck of Pasadena wasn't so sure.

"My husband has been a JPL engineer in Pasadena since 1979. Yes, Pasadena: Zip 91109," she wrote in an email. "Why do your writers assert that JPL is in La Cañada Flintridge?"

The short answer: Because it is.

But it wasn't always, and that's where the confusion comes in.

The story starts in 1936 with three scientists experimenting with rockets. That led to the establishment of a center for rocket science on the Caltech campus, in Pasadena. In 1940, when the explosions became a bit too loud and dangerous for the middle of the city, a facility was built in the foothills above Pasadena. And in 1943, the site was dubbed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

From 1943 forward, JPL was, for all intents and purposes, in Pasadena, and it had a Pasadena mailing address.

Then in 1976, residents of JPL's neighboring community voted to incorporate and became La Cañada Flintridge. The city limits included JPL's campus.

But  JPL kept its Pasadena mailing address -- which suits the La Cañada post office just fine. The Pasadena post office, which serves a city of 140,000 residents, is better equipped to manage the facility's mail than La Cañada, which serves a city of 20,000.

(In 2010, a postal carrier wrote and implored The Times to stop reporting that JPL was in La Cañada because it resulted in a flood to the city's lone post office.)

JPL's website notes the dichotomy. The mailing address is listed as 4800 Oak Grove Drive,
Pasadena, CA 91109. But this is what it says under "Directions": Street address for use in online map searches: 4800 Oak Grove Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011

The issue seems to come up each time JPL makes national news. A 1997 article by Times staff writer Bob Pool carries the wonderful headline, "We've Found Mars, but Where is JPL?"

Presumably, the mailing address is what guides national media, which have focused attention on JPL amid Curiosity's mission to Mars. A headline Wednesday declared: "Curiosity's Martian Playground is Technically Located in Pasadena"

No. Technically, it's in La Cañada Flintridge.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Photo: JPL's campus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

We are delighted to announce that Joy Press, who has had a distinguished career as a writer and editor on a variety of cultural and entertainment topics, is our new books and culture editor. Her presence will allow us to expand our coverage of publishing and literary culture, with a special emphasis on ramping up our digital content.

Joy has been Calendar’s pop culture and deputy television editor for 2-1/2 years. During her tenure, she developed a Sunday TV page and played a major role in growing our successful Show Tracker blog, which doubled its readership and has become a key site for television news and series recaps.

As an editor she expanded our television coverage, with stories on topics including the rise of Web television, the profusion of female TV creators, the suicide of a “Real Housewives” husband and the afterlife of a reality TV star.

In addition to her editing duties, Joy has written about some of the talked-about shows on TV, including “Girls” and “Game of Thrones.” She has profiled Chloe Sevigny, Mindy Kaling and "Enlightened" creator Mike White, and recently reported on the art activities that preceded the London Olympics.

Joy brings a wealth of experience to the job.

She worked at the Village Voice as arts and culture editor, overseeing all of the weekly's coverage in those areas. She had previous assignments there as television critic, book critic and editor of the Voice Literary Supplement (VLS). While at VLS, she oversaw the section's transformation into a stand-alone national supplement. She created the annual Writers on the Verge issue, spotlighting authors at the start of their literary lives, names such as Aimee Bender, Colson Whitehead, Steven Johnson, Alice Sebold and Aleksandar Hemon

Before she came to The Times, Joy was culture editor at Salon, where she edited the book section along with culture and lifestyle coverage. She supervised  a staff of 10 and developed a variety of blogs, reviews and features for the website.

She started her own writing life as a rock critic at Melody Maker and as a contributing editor at Spin Magazine. Joy is the coauthor, with her husband, Simon Reynolds, a British rock critic, of “The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll,” and edited the anthology “War of the Words: 20 Years of Contemporary Writing in the VLS.”

With a smartphone and the right app, any of us can take retro-looking photos.

But Times photojournalist Jay L. Clendenin took retro to a new level with his photographs of U.S. Olympians. And, he said, it was a "creatively rejuvenating experience."

Clendenin took black-and-white images on film to juxtapose with his digital color portraits. But that wasn't all. As he explains in a post on The Times' Framework blog, he used a 4-by-5-inch field camera outfitted with a 100-year-old lens. He then developed the black-and-white images in a makeshift darkroom in his bathroom.

The darkroom setup wasn't ideal; Clendenin noted that some of the photos ended up with fingerprints on them, while others had fixer stains. But, "it was a fun process."

Some of the images, such as those of fencer Alexander Massialas or the Men's Four rowing team (at right), look as though they could be from another era. In others, corporate swooshes on the athletes' clothing give away the modern time element. 

Clendenin said the process forced him to slow down and think about each frame. He wrote on Framework:

"The process was cumbersome and filled with experimentation. ... But shooting the large-format film was a relaxing and, most important, creatively rejuvenating experience."

"I was reminded of the creative serendipity that comes with shooting film: I couldn't look at the back of the camera and see what had just happened when I took that picture! ... Though there are obvious downsides to not seeing if your timing and composition were precise, I enjoyed the challenge and reveled in the 'mistakes' that happened along the way."

The black-and-white photos were published in the center spread of the initial London 2012 section, on July 27. The images with their corresponding color shots are on Framework.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Scott Gault, left, Charlie Cole, Henrik Rummel and Glenn Ochal make up the U.S. Men's Four rowing team. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

I’m excited to announce the hiring of three new reporters, who will play key roles in ramping up our coverage of the film and television industries and giving our readers the best entertainment report in the business.

These new staff writers will help us expand The Envelope’s coverage of the awards season and enable us to put a sharper focus on the important indie film scene.

What’s more, we’ll once again have an entertainment reporter in New York City, giving us a crucial perch and time advantage to cover news and features coming from the East Coast.

Please join me in welcoming:

Glenn Whipp. A frequent contributor who has covered Hollywood for two decades, Glenn is joining the staff full time as the anchor reporter for The Envelope -- with the special mission of making the online version as compelling as the print edition. With his frequent posts, Glenn will ensure readers are up-to-date on all awards-related news and developments, while also contributing first-rate analysis and events coverage. He’ll also serve as front man for The Envelope, conducting videotaped interviews with the key contenders. Glenn will work closely with Envelope editor Elena Howe in adding an array of new features. Glenn starts work today.

A journalism graduate of Biola University, Glenn is a longtime member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and has written and reviewed for publications including Variety, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Daily News and MSN Movies.

Meredith Blake. Another Times contributor, Meredith is joining the team as a New York-based entertainment writer. Meredith has built a strong fan base with her smart and witty recaps of the late-night TV talk shows and “Mad Men” episodes on our Show Tracker blog. As a full-time staff writer, Meredith will help us bolster our coverage of the television and media industries.

Meredith has a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown and a master’s from NYU. She previously worked as a freelance Web producer for abcnews.com, providing Web content for “Nightline,” “20/20” and “Good Morning America.” She has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker’s literary blog, and has written for publications including Rolling Stone, the Atlantic and the Paris Review. Meredith, who starts Aug. 6, will report to television editor Martin Miller.

Mark Olsen. Few people know the independent film scene like Mark Olsen. For the past three years, he’s written the Indie Focus film feature for Sunday Calendar and The Envelope, along with contributing to our coverage of the Sundance, SXSW and Toronto film festivals. As a full-time staff writer, Mark will be able to report other news and features on this important aspect of the movie business, and help bolster our coverage of documentaries and foreign films.

Mark has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and a master’s in cinema studies from NYU.  He has been a contributing editor to Film Comment, and has written on film for publications including the New York Times, Vanityfair.com and L.A. Weekly. He starts Aug. 20 and will report to film editor Julie Makinen.