<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Political Heavyweights Hit L.A. to See What’s Shaking

A little theater, from the vast theater of the earthquake:

In an airport hangar, at the panoramic table that seated President Clinton and an array of dressed-down officialdom, Gov. Pete Wilson was squeezed between Mayor Richard Riordan and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the woman he defeated to get his job.

Riordan played host with an affable intensity, several times scolding the audience, “Can we keep the noise down, please!” He contributed only one line to the trove of Riordanisms: that the federal government’s action was “an unprecedented response that has never happened before.”

That “unprecedented response” twice upstaged the governor this week. On Monday, Wilson was at center court at an L.A. news conference when Feinstein walked in unexpectedly early and attracted virtually every camera lens.

And the next day, at the mangled intersection of the 5 and 14 freeways, Wilson had just ended an hourlong live television hookup when a sleek federal government helicopter kicked up clouds of dust, landed smack on the freeway and out stepped Transportation Secretary Federico Pena.

Sen. Barbara Boxer finally caught the wave and attended the Wednesday conference; she had called a crime summit in Sacramento the day before, when just about the only killer on anyone’s mind was the killer quake.

And how soon they forget: The sign in front of the director of the Office of Management and Budget--longtime former California congressman Leon Panetta--identified him as “Director Penetta.”

Other U.S. Quakes

California ranked second in the nation, after Alaska, in the greatest number of earthquakes from 1980 through 1991. Here are the top five states, ranked by the number of quakes measuring 2.5 magnitude and above, as well as the largest magnitude quake to hit each of those states in that period.

NUMBER OF EARTHQUAKES LARGEST STATE 1980-1991 MAGNITUDE Alaska 10,253 7.9 California 6,732 7.2 Washington 615 5.5 Idaho 536 7.3 Nevada 398 5.6

Sources: U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center, Golden, Colo.

Compiled by researcher TRACY THOMAS

*

Time warp: It was big news in the Bear Valley Voice when the business cards for the new assistant to the city manager of Big Bear Lake were duly printed up and delivered. What made it front page news was that KIDS--a local youth-oriented television facility that investigated the matter--had found that the cards were ordered nearly two weeks before applicants for the job opening were interviewed. And the new assistant was . . . the woman who was already the city manager’s executive secretary.

*

Under funding: San Francisco’s round-the-clock women’s shelter, the St. Paulus, has sold short--shorts, in fact, hawking celebrity boxer shorts at a fund-raising auction. Grateful Deadster Jerry Garcia’s briefly worn pair topped the offerings at $280, and ex-Police Chief Richard Hongisto’s pair of unmentionables were auctioned off for $150 to Mayor Frank Jordan. Hongisto had already taken it in the shorts from Jordan before--Jordan was the one who fired him.

*

No ifs, ands and especially no butts: For months, Gov. Wilson’s oratory has teetered toward the B-word--but he’s never quite come out and said it. When a Democratic TV spot accused Wilson of flip-flopping on illegal immigration, Wilson retorted, “They can kiss my rear end if they can leap that high from the low road where they are dwelling habitually.” When the issue was crime, Wilson said Democratic Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi should “get off his duff and persuade some of his friends in the Legislature, if he has any, to--however belatedly--support the kind of changes he is now espousing for the first time in his career.”

Someone should pass the “E-word”--euphemism--on to Dean Dunphy, Wilson’s new transportation, business and housing secretary. This week, Dunphy pledged to whip the 5 and 14 freeways into shape, and (gasp) “bust our butts” to do it.

*

Mint condition: Here’s hoping travel agents didn’t erase it from their computer disks too hastily. A week after it was closed, the Old Mint Museum in San Francisco was mysteriously reopened. The 120-year-old national landmark, a sturdy survivor of the 1906 earthquake and fire, had dodged another bullet.

The feds who locked its doors said it was losing money. Local officials have their doubts about that, but in one way, the feds were right: the mint did lose money. Its 10,000 ounces of gold on display were whisked away as a “significant security risk” just before the museum was closed. The mint is back--but the gold isn’t.

EXIT LINE

” . . . When they came to my door and told me to shut my toilets, it came real close to home.” --Michael Timar of Santa Rosa, where townspeople were put on “snake alert” and advised to keep toilet-seat lids down after a six-foot-long pet python named Tiny escaped into the sewer system.