His favorite year

"Without a doubt, this was the best year of my life," writes citizen-blogger Ron Kaye, as he marks the one-year anniversary of his getting fired as editor of the Los Angeles Daily News:

Only now, after a year without the armor of a job, a year as just another ordinary citizen fighting City Hall, am I getting a glimmer of what LA is really about.

It's as simple as happiness.

All the struggles and handwringing, all the lawsuits and protests, are about the failure of our city leaders to provide the environment we need to find our own happiness.

The rejuvenated Kaye sees big changes coming to LA, but he doesn't think his old paper will survive long enough to see them:

The newsroom I left behind is now barely half the size it was when I was fired. I don't see how it can survive and that breaks my heart because of the pain it causes my colleagues and for the loss it means to the community.

Read his complete post here.