Many readers were surprised to open their Friday paper and see what appeared to be a movie ad obscuring the front page. In actuality, a four-page advertising section for the movie “Alice in Wonderland” was wrapped around the paper, with a front page designed to look like the real Los Angeles Times, nameplate and all.

The page was marked “Advertisement” in the spot where the date would normally appear. But two articles on either side of a large photo of Johnny Depp used fonts similar to The Times’, and they appeared to be about Afghanistan and healthcare -- two news subjects that are often front-page articles.

As of Friday evening, The Times’ newsroom had received nearly 100 e-mails and about 75 calls from readers regarding the ad, the majority of them unhappy about it. The circulation department had received 101 calls.

Some readers tried to read what looked like legitimate news articles and were frustrated to find them blocked by the ad and not continuing later in the paper:

C. Richard Ryan wrote: WOW Today's front page is sickening to me. ESPECIALLY bad is the fact that one CAN'T EVEN READ ALL THE WORDS in the headlines of the REAL NEWS. "Major Afghan WHAT Caught?" I am furious about this.

From William Inhelder: I cannot believe that The Times would deliberately put that Mad Hatter advertisement on the front page on the main section making most of the front page non-readable. If it was intended , it has to be the most bone-headed decision ever foisted upon its readers in my 50 years as a Times subscriber. If it was unintended, then there is no excuse for delivering such a bad copy.

From Bella Villeza of Los Angeles: You must have gotten a fortune advertising "Alice in Wonderland".  The whole front page is spoiled;  the advertisement covering several paragraphs of two important news items:  "To Take Reins on Health Proposal" and "Major Afghan...ure Caught".  I'm very disappointed that you put "money" before "news."

Other readers recognized that the section was an advertisement but were unhappy with its content:

William Anawalt of Pasadena wrote: It makes sense that the goal of an advertisement is to grab attention, but it makes no sense whatsoever that a business would undermine its integrity by usurping its core. Creating a false "front page" to wrap around the important work that the journalists and editors of the Los Times Times dedicate their lives to denigrates the mission and purpose of our city's newspaper. I give up.  After 30 years of receiving the L.A. Times, today I called to cancel my subscription. I give up.  

And from Jim Hergenrather of Los Angeles: The use of a legitimate image of the front page of The Times as the background for a movie ad is an insult to journalism. It derides the value of news and simply suggests you have adopted the position that a newspaper's editorial content is now nothing more than a vehicle for marketing. The insult is compounded by the actual front page behind it carrying a story about reality TV shows crossing ethical boundaries. 

The subject of the ad inspired some “Alice in Wonderland”- themed comments:

From Joan Martin of Woodland Hills: Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people. The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. The L.A. Times is mad.

From Kate Nelson of Manhattan Beach: I've gradually gotten used to the brutal cuts at the sadly declining Times, but this front-page movie ad says it all: You've fallen down the rabbit hole. 

And Ryan Krebs of Moorpark wrote: In a world of double-digit unemployment, recession, and dysfunctional state government, the "Mad Hatter" gets on the front page. How appropriate!

The ad did have its fans, however:

Richard Vallens of Irvine wrote: The Alice in Wonderland (false) front page is absolutely, positively the cleverest idea EVER. It totally tricked me, in the most delightful way. Brilliantly executed. Brilliantly! I'll bet there was a lot of discussion at The Times about allowing that -- a full-page, front-page ad. Here's the verdict: It would ONLY be proper and allowable in narrow circumstances and only if executed elegantly. IT WORKED! 

And from Pete Howard of San Luis Obispo: Wow. Groundbreaking, and really faked me out. Cool. Sell one every day, and be prosperous. That's what this reader of 40 years says. Do what you have to do; having fun doing it, like this one, is a bonus.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

The Times regularly hears from readers about issues of language in its articles. Sometimes the problem is an incorrect word (stationery vs. stationary) or a misspelling (metastisize vs. metastasize), to cite two from the last week.  Other times, it’s subject-verb agreement, verb tenses or usage. 

In honor of National Grammar Day, here are a few recent grammar-related e-mails from the Readers’ Rep inbox:

Leonard Fenton, whose subject line read “Regularizing irregular past tense verb forms,” wrote:

I’ve been a daily reader of The Times for 40 years or so, and I am a little concerned to have noticed that grammatical standards have become gradually less rigorous at The Times in the past few years.  Most obviously, irregular past tense and past participles, those quirky and lovely holdovers from our language's youth, are being unnecessarily regularized.

In the Feb. 27 article on Page A10, “The shows will go on,” the author uses the word “sneaked,” instead of “snuck.”  Times usage also often has “he dived,” instead of “ he dove,” and many other examples or regularizing irregular past participles.

We have already lost many lovely and interesting irregular past participles over the centuries, and having a major American newspaper contribute to the demise of proper usage is a shame.  Beautiful, fun, interesting words like slept, bitten, leapt, and wrung should keep their place in our complex and diverse language.

The Times relies on a standard dictionary for usage, and that is Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. That is also the dictionary used by Associated Press for its AP Stylebook, which is very widely used in the newspaper industry. 

In Webster’s New World, “sneaked” is the past tense of “sneak.” Likewise, “dived” is the past tense of “dive.” And the 2009 AP Stylebook’s entry reads: “ ‘Sneaked.’ Preferred as past tense of ‘sneak.’ Do not use the colloquial ‘snuck.’ ”

However, Webster’s New World does give “slept” as the past tense of “sleep.” Hopefully we won’t be seeing “sleeped” anytime soon!

The opening paragraph of last week’s article reporting the arrest of Claude Edward Foulk, the top official at Napa State Hospital, read:

The executive director of Napa State Hospital, a Northern California mental institution that houses mentally ill criminals, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of molesting his adopted son for more than a decade, authorities said.

Why distinguish that the alleged victim was adopted? That's what one reader wondered when she called The Times:

"I notice that you refer to his son as being adopted.  That he molested his adopted son.  I don’t understand why you put the word ‘adopted’ in there.  He is legally his son.  If that were his biological son, would you say he molested his biological son?" 

Obviously the answer to her question is no. But the reporters’ decision to use the term "adopted" to describe the accuser was not reached as easily.

Richard Winton, one of three reporters on the first article and the author of a second one Saturday, pointed out that there are as many as 13 suspected victims in the case, many of whom were foster children in Foulk's care. The son also was placed in Foulk's home as a foster child and was later adopted. Thus far, Foulk is charged only in the molestation of his son because the statute of limitations had expired in at least four other cases.

To differentiate from the other foster children, Winton and his editors opted to refer to this man as Foulk's "adopted son."

"I suggested 'foster son who was adopted,' " Winton said, but editors thought it was too wordy.

However, a description along those lines would have been more helpful to readers. A headline and story that said the hospital director was accused of molesting a foster child he later adopted makes clear why the adoption is relevant. This wasn't the case of a boy who was adopted in infancy and raised just as a biological son would be. This was a household where foster children were coming and going for decades. As Winton wrote, court records allege that Foulk molested a foster child in his care from 1973 to 1985, and authorities are investigating cases that date to 1965.

Henry Fuhrmann, the assistant managing editor who oversees The Times' copy desks, says he agrees with the reader and affirms that the newsroom's stylebook listing on "adopt" is still in force. It reads:

Unless it is germane to the story, there is no reason to refer to children as "adopted" or parents as "adoptive." When adoption is a relevant issue and it is necessary to distinguish non-adopted children, "biological" is the preferred term. Do not use "natural" or "normal."

"Here," Fuhrmann said, "we didn’t do enough to question the use of 'adoption.' It’s good to have this further background about the case of Foulk's son. Working with the reporters and their editors, we’ll try to be more diligent in future stories."

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

P.J. Huffstutter discusses her Monday front-page story "Manure power raises a stink" and the unlikely controversy over methane power in an audio interview on the Money & Company blog. 

Photo: P.J. Huffstutter.

A memo from Henry Fuhrmann, assistant managing editor for copy desks:

The copy desk department is pleased to announce three new members of the staff: Jim Coleman, Ken Olsen and Jay Wang. Here is a bit of background about each:

Jim Coleman should be familiar to most of you as a Times veteran who left in July 2007 to become a schoolteacher. Jim has shaken off the chalkboard dust and has been back with us on the Sports copy desk since the start of February. In many ways Jim is coming full circle -- not just by picking up his Times career but also by returning to sports journalism. His long, impressive resume starts with sports reporting and editing in Nevada, including a stint at the Las Vegas Sun. Jim has worked mostly in metro news since, including his 23 years here in L.A., during which he was a stalwart copy editor and slot on the Valley and Metro crews.

Ken Olsen joins the National copy desk from our sister paper, the Sun Sentinel in South Florida, where he had worked since 2002 as assistant news editor and news editor in charge of the night copy desk. Ken spent almost 20 years in Central Europe and Russia as a freelance reporter and editor for various publications and wire services, mainly the Associated Press and Time. In the late 1990s, he was managing editor of the Moscow Times, the Russian capital’s English-language daily. Ken owes much of his European odyssey to his wife, Carol J. Williams, The Times’ legal affairs writer and former bureau chief in Vienna, Moscow, Berlin and the Caribbean. Ken, a native of Seattle, has a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University; he holds a master’s in journalism from Ohio State University.

Jay Wang has joined the Sports copy desk from USA Today, where he had worked as a copy editor and slot since 2007. He previously worked at ESPN.com in Bristol, Conn., and before that at the Oregonian in Portland. Jay grew up in Ithaca, N.Y., and stayed in town to attend Cornell University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. Jay describes himself as a big fan of Sports That Nobody Cares About, which he says includes college hockey and college lacrosse. Our hiring of Jay may represent something of a Times recruiting first in that he and I met on Twitter before meeting in person. We do, indeed, expect to tap Jay’s skills in social media and Web work generally after he gets settled on the desk.

Ever wondered what it's like to be a news photographer? Times photojournalist Robert Gauthier, who has been in Vancouver, Canada, for the last two weeks covering the Winter Olympics, gives an inside look at his day Wednesday on the Photography page of latimes.com. (There's a lot of sitting, and not much eating or sleeping.)

Photo: Kevork Djansezian of Getty Images, left, Robert Gauthier, center, and Jean Levac of Canwest News Service. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Closing arguments were Tuesday in the trial of Rodney James Alcala, who was convicted Thursday afternoon of killing a Huntington Beach girl and four L.A. County women.

Paloma Esquivel reported on those closing statements in an article in Wednesday’s print edition, which quoted Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy as calling Alcala a “predatory monster.” As Esquivel wrote, Murphy told jurors that Alcala had tortured his victims before killing them and probably had photographed them after death.

Gruesome stuff.

However, a couple of readers were put off by the photo that accompanied the article, which showed Alcala and Murphy apparently sharing a laugh in the courtroom.

“Readers are left to wonder what’s so funny,” Brent Pierson wrote to Esquivel. “There is absolutely no explanation of this incongruous photo in your article or the caption. Here you've written a story about a serial killer, but you'd never know it by looking at the photo.”

Steve Donell of Los Angeles had a similar view. “I am sickened at the disgusting photo you chose to use of Alcala laughing,” he wrote. “It was a very disturbing choice given the crimes this person may have committed.”

According to Jeremiah Bogert, a photo editor for local news, one reason this photo was selected was that it showed both parties who gave closing statements -- the prosecutor, Murphy, and Alcala, who was acting as his own attorney in his defense.

As Andrew Blankstein reports on L.A. Now, four robbery suspects were arrested early Wednesday morning at The Times' main printing plant after being pursued by sheriff's deputies.

The presses were well into printing the paper when deputies asked supervisors to shut them down and evacuate the building. The suspects had apparently entered the plant through the packaging department as trucks were being loaded with papers.

The plant's operations director, Greg Malcolm, said in an e-mail sent at 1:28 a.m. that "through further discussions the police agreed to let us continue printing the paper. However no trucks were allowed to leave the property, thus delaying deliveries to the field."

Deputies eventually were persuaded to allow the trucks to leave after each was searched.

Malcolm added, "Everyone is safe, no one was threatened through this ordeal, however everyone is a buzz of excitement and tension.

"We currently expect to get the papers out but could be hours late."

If yours was late this morning, now you know why.

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Times Sports columnist Bill Plaschke is in Vancouver, covering the Winter Olympics. Opening ceremonies after a luger's tragic death? Plaschke was there. U.S. hockey win over Canada? Plaschke was there. First North American gold medal in ice dancing. Yes, Plaschke was there, too.

Chatting with readers? Plaschke was here. You can read the transcript of his chat by clicking "replay" below. 

Photo: Bill Plaschke at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Times Sports columnist Bill Plaschke is in Vancouver, covering the Winter Games. In his Monday column, after the big U.S. hockey win over Canada, he declared that the U.S. owns the Canadians' sport.

He'll be chatting with readers at 11 a.m. Wednesday about his experiences there and those of Team USA. Come back to latimes.com/readers to share your questions and comments about the coverage of the Olympics.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Richard Nelson as National copy desk chief. Rich has worked as a copy editor and slot on the National and Foreign desks since joining The Times in 2003.  Rich, who was named Times copy editor of the year for 2004, also distinguished himself as one of the original editors on the Morning Copy Desk in 2007. Rich previously worked at the San Diego Union-Tribune as Page 1 editor and news editor and before that at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat as a copy editor, news editor and section editor. He graduated from Humboldt State University.

Times reporter Duke Helfand chatted with readers about Anthem Blue Cross and the health insurance industry. You can still view the chat by clicking "replay" in the gray box. And please feel free to continue the conversation in the comments section of this post.

The Times’ Matea Gold reports on the Show Tracker blog about an uproar over Twitter users sending out Olympic “spoilers,” reporting the results of events as they happen, often hours before they’re broadcast on TV.

This is especially true on the West Coast, where NBC is tape-delaying its already delayed telecast.

The Times has been receiving the same type of criticism over its coverage of the Olympics, which is being reported on latimes.com, in breaking news alert e-mails and via Twitter.

The Olympics Blog has received comments such as these:

From LA Woman: “Dear LA Times: There are some of us who like to be surprised while watching the tape-delayed Olympics broadcast. Can't you just post a headline that says "For Olympics Results, Click Here" instead of spoiling it for everyone on your homepage? I'm pretty sure you don't want to alienate any more readers than you already have....”

From CTNM: “I've decided to remove LA Times as my homepage since they spoil the results of EVERY Olympic event.”

Meanwhile, a reader named Beth e-mailed:

“I love getting your breaking news alerts, however, I have unsubscribed because I keep getting breaking news alerts about Americans winning and not winning medals in Vancouver! You are ruining it for me! There is no way I can delete the e-mail without seeing the subject line which ruins it for me! I just found out that Lindsay Vonn won the Gold, and I really wanted to watch it and root for her tonight. “

And Twitter user @chauche replied to a tweet from The Times:

“STOP ruining our nights!  You have to understand that we want to watch the results tonight on TV.  STOP, LA TIMES!!!”

Managing Editor Sean Gallagher, who oversees latimes.com, said The Times is simply doing its job:

“The Times has also been receiving complaints about the tweets we are sharing -- and not just about the Olympics. In most cases our policy is simple: We report news as it happens.

“To do otherwise would clearly damage our credibility as impartial observers of events. Worse, it would make us an agent of the NBC Olympics marketing machine.

“Direct your ire at NBC. That firm made the decision to repackage marquee events in prime time. The Times reports news.”

The Times is certainly not the only news organization reporting on Olympic events as they happen. The New York Times and Washington Post are also tweeting results and posting stories on their websites. Even NBC is revealing the results on both its Olympics page and its Los Angeles site.

As the debate over spoilers raged on Twitter, Robert Niles, technical editor of the American Statistical Assn., tweeted:

“Posting the results of a public event seen by millions around the world isn't a ‘spoiler.’ It's ‘news.’ You know, what journalists post.”

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

A three-part series this week by Times reporter Sam Quinones described the spread of black tar heroin from Mexico across the United States. The drug, once limited to the West Coast, was suddenly causing deadly overdoses in a small town in West Virginia. Quinones wondered why.

In this audio interview with Times multimedia producer Michelle Maltais, he talks about how he got the story:

Story Behind the Story-Quinones

[Updated 2/19]:

And here's a link to a video of Quinones discussing the series.

Times staff writer Duke Helfand has been reporting on a proposal by health insurer Anthem Blue Cross to raise rates as much as 39%, a story that has drawn the attention of the Obama administration. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called on the company to give a “detailed justification” for the rate increase, which the insurer has since delayed.

Helfand will chat with readers about the story at 11 a.m. Friday. Come back to latimes.com/readers to ask him your questions.

Twitter follower Dave Hersam asks: Why do the writers’ names on blogs come at the end of the post instead of at the beginning, like on an article in the print edition? 

“Most blog posts are by same author, but within Hero Complex or ShowTracker (two I often read),  there are several writers.”

Times blog editor Tony Pierce explains that it’s primarily because of Google:

“Its summaries only pull in the first two lines. We'd rather those lines be the lede, not the author. We do, however, plan on having an improved template around late spring which will either elevate the author's name or move it to a different part of the blog. … The writers want their names higher too.”

--Deirdre Edgar

An announcement from Kerry Luft, chief of the Tribune Washington bureau:

David Cloud, one of the country’s premier reporters on national security issues, is joining the Washington bureau. For more than a decade, David’s byline has appeared atop some of the most interesting stories to come out of the diplomatic/security/Pentagon beat. He worked in the Chicago Tribune’s bureau from 1996 to 1998, then moved to the Wall Street Journal, where he covered terrorism, intelligence and the FBI and was part of the team that won the breaking news Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks. He then moved on to the New York Times as Pentagon correspondent. He is the co-author of “The Fourth Star,” about the four U.S. Army generals who served in Iraq. The book came out in October and made the NYT bestseller list.  He has also worked for Politico and has spent the last several months working at the U.S. embassy in Kabul as a civil employee reporting on stability in that country. David will start March 1. He will report to Bob Ourlian as part of our national security team.

It is I, addressing a grammar question. Or should that be “it is me”?

Reader Paula Mochel of Studio City would argue that the first sentence is correct. She complained that the headline on Saturday’s Column One article by Robyn Dixon, which read “Now it’s just him and the refugees,” was ungrammatical:

“I would have failed my sixth grade grammar test, if I had written that headline. That it appeared on the front page, above the fold of a major newspaper is a dagger in the heart of everyone who values beautiful English. The rules are not hard compared to many languages. Can't one count on the Los Angeles Times to conform to the most basic rules of our language?”

According to Mochel, the headline should have read “Now it’s just he and the refugees.”

However, the language is evolving. And those hard and fast rules that were taught in school sometimes become a little squishy.

Most grammarians agree that this is one of those rules.

In “A Dictionary of Modern American Usage,” author Bryan A. Garner writes:

Generally, of course, the nominative pronoun is the complement of a linking verb: "This is she," "It was he." But "it is me" and "it’s me" are fully acceptable, especially in informal contexts.

To make his point, Garner quotes Norman Lewis’ “Better English”: “Both forms, ‘It is I’ and ‘It is me,’ are correct – one by virtue of grammatical rule, the other by virtue of common educated usage.”

Mignon Fogarty, author of “Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing,” addresses the issue on her blog:

The traditional grammar rule states when a pronoun follows a linking verb, such as is, it should be in the subject case. That means it is correct to say, "It is I," and "It was he who dropped the phone in shock when Jodie answered, 'This is she.' "

That is the traditional rule, but fortunately most grammarians forgive you for not following the rule. … Unless you're answering the phone for the English department at the University of Chicago or responding to a Supreme Court judge, it's OK to use what sounds right and therefore, "That's me" is an acceptable answer.

Patricia T. O’Conner, author of “Woe Is I,” includes this rule in a list of grammar myths on her blog, Grammarphobia:

Rule:  Use "It is I," not "It is me."

Here's another ordinance that's out of date. It's OK to use It is me, That's him, It's her, and similar constructions, instead of using the grammatically correct but more stuffy It is I, That's he, and It's she.

And as she says in “Woe Is I”:

Next time you identify the perp in a police lineup, feel free to point dramatically and say, "That’s him, Officer!"

Or in this case, the newspaper may point to a South African minister and say “It is him.”

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Six days ago, a torrent of floodwater and mud crashed down Manistee Drive in La Cañada Flintridge, severely damaging several homes. Tom Curwen’s gripping Column One article in Friday’s paper describes the harrowing escapes by the Laguna family and their neighbor Pat Anderson.

Accompanying the article online are three 360-degree panoramic photos by Bryan Chan, which include audio interviews with Henry Laguna and Anderson. The panoramas -- of the Lagunas’ home, the yard where the family fled, and the overall scene on Manistee Drive -- give the feeling of being there. A viewer is practically standing alongside Henry Laguna in his ruined dining room as Laguna describes how his family fled the wall of mud.

Chan had seen photos of the Laguna home taken by fellow photographer Allen J. Schaben and thought the scene might work well for a panoramic image. When he arrived at the house Wednesday, he found Laguna digging through the mud with the help of his son and friends.

“He was gracious and said to come on in and look around,” Chan said. “Laguna gave me a quick interview where I recorded audio of him describing the night of the mudslide. His account was pretty compelling.”

Then, Chan said, “I found the spot I wanted to shoot from and waited for him to walk by to give a sense of scale to the scene.”

Chan described how he created the 360-degree panoramas:

“Many of the panoramas I do are done with four to five photos shot with a fish-eye lens on a special tripod head. The fish-eye lens was modified to give more than a 180-degree view. I shoot a front, left, right, back and down photo. The images have overlap, and special software is used to merge them. The software looks for common points in adjacent photos and stretches the pixels to match. The resulting image is inserted into a viewing software that allows it to be viewed 360 degrees.

“We are careful to indicate that the panorama is the result of several images combined. So readers know that the panorama does not represent a moment in time, as in traditional photojournalism, but a span of time.”

Curwen’s fine article paints a picture of the night mud slammed into the Laguna and Anderson homes. Chan’s panoramas take the experience a step further.

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Q (Bud): Hi... I was wondering...  Do you think the recent episodes of Toyota bashing is somewhat linked to Toyota closing down all US plants? I'm not saying that Toyota's recent Quality Assurance is great, but I haven't heard of any Honda bashing after its recall.
A (Ken Bensinger): Toyota has not closed down all U.S. plants. The automaker has manufacturing facilities in eight states. It is, however, planning to close its assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., next month. The plant, called New United Motor Mfg., is Toyota’s only unionized plant in the U.S. While it is true that the United Auto Workers union has used the Toyota recalls as a rallying cry in an attempt to reverse that decision, I have seen no evidence that these recalls were the action of union pressure. As to the Honda recall, that was a relatively minor action in terms of numbers of vehicles and number of people injured by the defect.

Q (Francisco): Do you know why they choose to install a piece of steel at the accelerator when it is supposed to be an electronic throttle system? My intuition would be to replace the electronic device which controls the throttle.
A (Ken Bensinger): Toyota has denied that the problem is in the electronic throttle system. The automaker says that sudden acceleration is caused by floor mat interference and sticking gas pedals, which it is remedying with a series of modifications to pedals and the foot well around the pedal. However, there are a number of safety experts who believe that electronics do play a role in the problem.