LOS ANGELES -- Greater Los Angeles seemed to come to a silent halt for two hours Monday, folks pausing long enough to clear the fog of mourning and gaze at TV screens set to different channels but showing the same program.
The Kobe Channel. Once again, perhaps for the last time, Kobe Bryant was uniting a region infamous for its divisions and cliques.
For a ceremony billed “A Celebration of Life,” speakers lined up to address 20,000 people inside Staples Center, along with millions of viewers in Southern California, across the country and around the world. It became apparent over the last four weeks and on this day that Kobe’s tragic death at 41 had stripped away many of his sharp edges.