'The Great Quake of 1952' trailer

Here's the trailer The Bakersfield Californian's Louis Amestoy created to promote Steven Mayer's upcoming package on the 1952 earthquakes that inflicted major damage on Tehachapi and Bakersfield. 

The package looking back to the mayhem 60 years ago will publish in The Californian on July 21, and we'll follow up quickly with e-book versions containing video and photo galleries.

Pinch-hitting on Sound Off

I've returned to my roots this past week in The Californian newsroom, playing daily editor in backstopping the vacationing John Arthur. 

With that editor role comes the privilege of publicly responding to reader complaints, compliments and other feedback in our Sunday Sound Off column. I used to write Sound Off regularly when I was The Californian's managing editor, but these days it's a gig that comes around just a few times a year. 

This edition of Sound Off is typical, responding to two readers' completely different takes on our recent series on foreign doctors, questions about our priorities in sports, and suggestions on our sourcing on healthcare coverage. 

RIP: The Word

I'm still numb two days after learning The Word magazine is closing shop. 

As I tweeted on Friday, "I am heartbroken."

I had just gotten a letter in the mail a few days ago from Word editor Mark Ellen thanking me "for renewing my subscription and, obviously, congratulations on your impeccable taste." Like a lot of things in The Word, the use of the word "obviously" was not only clever but understood. 

I've been through this kind of magazine death before with Trouser Press and later Musician, but it's been decades since both those magazines closed. This is a fresh wound. 

I read a lot of music publications, but I guarantee I won't feel the same if Rolling

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