Posting here is (largely) suspended as I make my way around China.

Languages I heard today on my trip into Los Angeles:

1. American English - at the train station.
2. Spanish - on the train into LA.
3. Korean - Koreatown, next to the Chinese embassy.
4. Mandarin Chinese - visa pick-up line.
5. Tagalog - on the subway.
6. A southeast-Asian language I didn't recognize - walking through Chinatown.
7. Cantonese - in the music shop in Chinatown.
8. Vietnamese - in Vietnam Plaza, an outdoor market on the edge of Chinatown.
9. Australian English - at Union Station, in the Amtrak line.

Picts: Los Angeles Visa Trip.

As regular as clockwork, the 9:30 PM Disneyland fireworks are popping on the aural horizon.

Kevin Sites may get all the attention (and BBC spots) because he is a great self-promoter and willing to make broad generalizations about Iraqis and the conflict in their country, but Dave Enders and Tarek Lubani know (and communicate) that reality is much more complicated, and thus are relegated to the backseat of history.

Pasadena photos.