Hanging

Phil Jackson never liked to compare Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Believe me, I tried everything. Sometimes I'd ask him after random Lakers practices or before games against Charlotte, the team Jordan owned. Or after games in Chicago, where nostalgia hopefully would add to the mix. There would be a little nugget here, a tiny nibble there, but nothing that mattered. It's coming out now, though, in Jackson's 339-page memoir co-written with Hugh Delehanty and available Tuesday: "Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.

David Beckham is retiring. ... Again. Only this time, after a couple of false starts with the Galaxy over the last three years, the former captain of England's national team says he's really, truly hanging up his boots for good, drawing to a close a playing career both eventful and spectacular. "Now is the right time to finish," Beckham said Thursday. "Nothing will ever completely replace playing the game I love. However, I feel like I'm starting a new adventure, and I'm genuinely excited about what lies ahead.

A 50-year-old patient at Patton State Hospital has died after hanging himself in his bedroom, officials say, the eighth suicide at the San Bernardino psychiatric facility since the federal government began investigating potential violations of patients' civil rights at state-run mental hospitals in 2002. The Jan. 4 death of Marc Biron, who was described by one fellow patient as "friendly and kind to people," is the third since a consent judgment mandating a wide array of changes was imposed on the hospital in May 2006.

Balloons in the Clippers' colors were hanging on Laker legend statues before the Clippers played the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday. When the news hit Twitter that the likenesses of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West and Chick Hearn had red and blue balloons attached to their limbs, Lakers fans were not pleased. The balloon prank wasn't the only jab that Clippers Nation took at the Lakers. Before the Clippers game, Coach Vinny Del Negro was asked if the Lakers have a chance against the Spurs in another first-round series.

As a longtime admirer of Judy Stabile's work, I was appalled that she was not mentioned in Calendar's article on Hal's restaurant. There are only four artists hanging at Hal's. Halliburton mentioned three of them by name, referring to them as the "local big boys," and completely ignored Stabile's work. Since Stabile's work is not just represented at Hal's, (true, it's hip), but in the private collections of such prominent collectors as Marcia Weissman, Elizabeth Keck, Dan Melnick, etc. (even more hip)

Last week's cover story on John Bertram and Ann Magnuson's Los Angeles house included the photo at right of the couple with an Alexander Girard wall hanging in the background -- a piece that Magnuson picked up at Skank World in L.A. An Internet search revealed that a similar wall hanging sold at auction for more than $400 this year, but we found a less expensive alternative: a $68 version selling at Urban Outfitters, above. At 24 inches square, it's smaller than the one in Magnuson and Bertram's house.

Whether you work in a cubicle farm or at your desk at home, the inspiration for crafty holiday decorating is all around you. Pushpins, rubber bands, staples and even padded shipping envelopes can be twisted, cut and trimmed with creativity and minimal time and effort. Here are five simple projects to brighten your world. How you acquire the materials is your own business. 90Taking note: Taking note: It's the easiest garland we've ever strung. Find a "super sticky" Post-it note pad -- the kind for pop-up dispensers -- and pull.

A life-sized likeness of Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree with a noose around its neck at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. University President Lee Todd said he planned to apologize to the Obama family. George Fox University in Oregon punished four students who confessed to hanging an effigy of Obama from a tree in September.

Regarding Bob Pool's story (Metro, Aug. 30) on the British teen who spends his vacations hanging around airports--it just goes to show that some people are plane-crazy. ELYSE VERSE Los Angeles

The longtime campus newspaper at UC Irvine may be forced to cease printing in the next year if students fail to approved a quarterly fee to help sustain the weekly publication. Like newspapers across the country, rising printing costs have forced UCI's weekly New University to cut back, according to the paper's student editor. Once a robust 60-page newspaper, the paper has shrunk to 24 pages in the last six years and editors  have had their compensation chopped in half, now earning between $24 and $50 a week.

John Shirreffs should not depart the Southern California thoroughbred racing scene without a salute. So cup your right hand to your forehead and read on. There will be no brass bands playing when Shirreffs leaves. That's partly because it will be early Monday morning, when racing bustles and everybody else sleeps. Moving vans will pull up to Barn 55 South and load boxes of racing equipment accumulated over three decades at Hollywood Park. That done, the quiet man in the baseball cap will head to LAX and fly east.

There may be no more famous stunt in all of silent film than Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a huge clock overlooking downtown Los Angeles in 1923's "Safety Last!" Though his star has eclipsed a bit, Lloyd has always been considered one of the great silent clown triumvirate along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. On April 18, in honor of the film's 90th anniversary, it will be possible to see a brand-new digital transfer of that celebrated film at 7:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, part of Film Independent's screening series there.

The night began like many at Boorda Hall, a five-story barracks at Naval Station Great Lakes, the Navy's premier training base on the shore of Lake Michigan in Illinois. Somebody announced a party, and the hard drinking and beer pong began. A 21-year-old Marine lance corporal, so drunk on rum and Mountain Dew she was slurring her words, went to look for Kyle Antonacci, a Navy seaman she'd been dating off and on. Antonacci soon texted his friend Mike Pineda to help him deal with her. Both men had sex with her that night.

A man whose body was found hanging from a downtown Sacramento building Monday, nine stories up, appears to be a tagger who was attempting the vandalize the property, authorities say. The man had used rope to tie himself in a seated position like a rappeller, authorities said. The rope was tied off with a window washing anchor, and fire officials believe that that anchor could have held his weight. But they don't think he was a window washer. The Sacramento Bee reported that the man had two pieces of rope looped around his body in a style used by rock climbers.

The can of spray paint sat on the ledge of a downtown Sacramento office tower. A tool for etching glass lay below. The body of Craig Fugate was tangled in some ropes about nine stories up the tower. Authorities on Tuesday were trying to piece together the bizarre death. They believe Fugate was somehow killed Monday while trying to vandalize the office building. "They found the spray paint where he climbed down" but no actual tags, Officer Doug Morse said. The Sacramento coroner's office is still trying to determine a cause of death.

Natasha Bedingfield: A profile of singer Natasha Bedingfield in The Guide on Thursday rendered the title of Kim Wilde's 1987 hit as "U Keep Me Hanging' On." Wilde topped the charts that year with her cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On."

Actor Ernest Borgnine, appearing in Spokane to promote teacher-training to help students avoid drugs, said such a program is only one part of a battle he believes society must fight on all fronts. "The whole mess is getting the dealers. I'd say let's start hanging them."

Wednesday morning, hours before the Bulls applied the brakes to the Heat's run at history, Chicago Coach Tom Thibodeau was asked if he had mentioned Miami's 27-game winning streak. "What streak?" Thibodeau said. Indeed, on a night in which the only Derrick Rose appearance came via a bobblehead doll and Joakim Noah, Richard Hamilton and Marco Belinelli also sat with injuries, the Bulls made history disappear. The second-longest winning streak in North American major professional sports league history is over thanks to a 101-97 victory that, out of nowhere, rekindled talk of a lengthy Bulls' postseason run. Heat, meet grit.