Birds

WASHINGTON - President Obama continued the White House tradition of pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey, but for the first time, the public decided which bird would get the honor by voting on the White House Facebook page. The winner? Cobbler, of the blue state of Virginia. On an unusually warm Thanksgiving eve in Washington, more than 150 reporters and photographers gathered to witness the annual event, along with about 50 White House staffers. Cobbler and Gobbler (the runner-up) were born on the same day on a farm in Rockingham County, Va., but according to the White House, that's where the similarities end. Cobbler craves cranberries and enjoys Carly Simon music.

The Yellow Birds A Novel Kevin Powers Little Brown: 230 pp., $24.99 Pvt. John Bartle, the narrator of Kevin Powers' sorrowful war novel "The Yellow Birds," is a man of reason caught between the uncontrolled emotions of two men. The first is his sergeant, a severe gunslinger and molder of warriors named Sterling. Sgt. Sterling's discipline and his rage against the enemy are keeping his squad of men alive as they patrol an eerie, death-filled Iraqi landscape. Pvt. Bartle loves and hates him for this.

The starring attractions will be pretty evident at the Celebration for the Turkeys on Sunday in Acton. The event, held at the animal rescue organization Farm Sanctuary's 26-acre site just south of Palmdale, aims to get the classic holiday bird into the hearts, not the stomachs, of children and adults. This is the first year that the New York-based Farm Sanctuary, the country's largest farm animal rescue and protection organization, will hold the pre-holiday event in Southern California.

You get sales alerts, Twitter alerts, sports alerts and Facebook alerts. Now you can also get an alert when the International Space Station is visible overhead thanks to NASA's new Web app Spot the Station. The International Space Station's orbit 200 miles above Earth makes it visible to more than 90% of the Earth's population, NASA said. The trick is knowing when to look for it. NASA's Johnson Space Center already calculates the sighting information several times a week for more than 4,600 locations worldwide.

The beloved "Sesame Street" character Big Bird has become a surprising political issue in the presidential election.  The American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre is paying homage to the big yellow bird Sunday afternoon -- just two days before the election -- with a screening of the 1985 feature film, "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. " The comedy finds a social worker sending Big Bird to live with a family of Dodos in Illinois, so it's up to the Sesame Street game to bring him back home.  Chevy Chase and John Candy make cameos.

There were so many people standing and taking photos with their phones, I couldn't see the Lakers warming up. There were so many people cheering the procession of All-Stars hopping and dancing on to the floor, I couldn't hear the Lakers introductions. But then Tuesday night's opening game against the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center began, and there was no hiding behind the hype. The great team is a confused team. The collection of All-Stars is all over the map. The Princeton offense is slower than ivy. The Brown defense is red-faced.

I am a conservative Republican and first vice chairman emeritus of the GOP in one of the nation's famously Republican counties, Orange County. I will vote for Mitt Romney and will encourage others to do so. However, if he becomes our next president, I will join hands with millions of others to vigorously oppose his goal to eliminate federal funding for PBS. The reasons for keeping funding are simple, if not readily apparent to Romney. Let me explain. Our nation's economic and social prosperity depends on a highly literate population.

David Myers plans to open Hinoki & the Bird in Century City in late December, with Kuniko Yagi as chef. Yagi also helmed the kitchen at Myers' erstwhile La Cienega restaurant Sona, and she returns with her and Myers' mutual California-Asian aesthetic, focusing on the flavors of Southeast Asia and Japan . Yagi, who will appear as a contestant on the next season of "Top Chef" debuting Nov. 7, says, " Hinoki is 'cedar tree' in Japanese, a...

Turkey may be the centerpiece of Thanksgiving Day, but consumers who want to get home for the holiday should focus first on a different kind of fowl: early-bird airfare. With a little more than five weeks before Turkey Day, experts say now is the best time to book for many travelers. Fares during the week of Thanksgiving are already up 6% compared with last year, reports CheapAir.com. "The No. 1 factor that determines how expensive a flight will be is how full it is, and most Thanksgiving-week flights are already reasonably booked," said Jeff Klee, chief executive of CheapAir.

After the coffee. Before making a counter offer for Variety. The Skinny: I'm almost through the Pete Townshend autobiography, so look for my review in the days ahead. Wednesday's headlines include a look at Jay Penske, the new owner of Variety; a debate over the use of split-screens during the debates; and Big Bird saying: Don't use me in your political ads. Daily Dose: The Pac-12 Network was originally only going to carry one USC football game this season (against Cal a few weeks ago)