Wags

A year ago, the big Hollywood hip-hop story was that Snoop Dogg, a one-time murder suspect, had successfully recast himself as a sly but safe mainstream brand-name: As a movie star, an in-demand corporate pitchman and even as a celebrity coach for local youth football, the old gangsta scowl was gone and Snoop seemed almost, well, cuddly. This just in: Snoop still has hard edges.

We, the many tabloid readers of Britain, devour the antics of the WAGs in Germany. You don't know the WAGs? Well, "WAG" is high-brow proper English for Wives And Girlfriends of famous English soccer players, a word probably worthy of newfound qualification in the dictionary. If we're to believe the tabloids, and some of us even do, the WAGs have savored Germany, lounging and cavorting while not even once being ripped for lack of any coherent offensive structure.

Suddenly, they stopped. The often distracted, sometimes disaffected and occasionally downright rude members of the Los Angeles City Council swung in their chairs until all eyes were on the man strutting to the lectern. "Our next speaker is Zuma Dogg," council President Eric Garcetti said. Standing before them was a man in his mid-30s, wearing a black wool cap and dark sunglasses. He immediately burst into a manic tirade punctuated by hip-hop slang: "We don't need no legislation.

In 2003's "Dogville," the first installment in Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's United States trilogy, the town philosopher Tom Edison tries to explain his penchant for inflicting long public lectures on his fellow citizens. "I think there's a lot this country's forgotten," he says. "I just try to refresh folks' memories by way of illustration."

WITH Oscar buzz in Tinseltown nearing a crescendo, owners of the Puppies and Babies pet boutique say devising their Valentine's Day-themed window display was a no-brainer. " 'Brokeback Mountain' is one of the great love stories of all time, so of course 'Barkback Mountain' just came out," says Hannah Brand, who with husband Robert Moritz crafted a cheeky homage to the Heath Ledger-Jake Gyllenhaal film about two cowboys' epic romance.

KINDER-HEARTED people than me have been fretting lately about the impending loss of 85 editorial jobs at the Los Angeles Times. But I'd up the number to include anyone who had anything to do with the unbelievably lame cover story on the L.A. blogosphere in the Dec. 1 Calendar Weekend, including the editors responsible for it. If you missed that piece, allow me to summarize. An article called "Blogging L.A." included neither the much-hyped L.A.

In the greater animal kingdom, the plight of the little goldfish is especially harsh. The tiny creatures are scooped into plastic bags and awarded at carnivals and fairs. They are confined to bowls where they can do nothing but swim around and around. Some (it has been claimed) go blind. No more. The municipal government of Rome has entered waters where few city halls dare tread.

Paint me a picture They pull away from their ocean-view homes and, while they wait for the traffic light to change, the residents of Sunset Mesa watch dolphins frolic in Santa Monica Bay -- it's just another day in paradise. Sunset Mesa has a milelong list of attributes that drew people 40 years ago, when the homes were built. That list endures, and it still draws house-hunters moving up from a starter home or condo in West L.A.

Re "New SAT: Write Long, Badly and Prosper," May 29: Les Perelman makes sound recommendations, such as discarding the five-paragraph formula and emphasizing quality over quantity of prose, for changing how the new essay portion of the SAT is scored. But I don't think it's any accident that SAT scores are such reliable indicators of parents' income levels, and would be surprised if there were any genuine will to tamper with the standards that have produced that state of affairs. A lucrative industry has formed around the process of applying to college, private ones especially.