Snapshots of life in the Golden State. : Making Political Currency Out of Three-Strikes Battle

Those weren’t business cards that GOP Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle was handing out.

The yellow cards were a takeoff on the cardboard carte from the venerable “Monopoly” game: “Get out of jail free . . . courtesy of Sen. Bill Lockyer and Senate Democrats,” who rejected a bill to limit judges’ sentencing discretion under three strikes.

The flip side points out that the card is a political symbol--lest anyone try to redeem it, pass Go or collect $200.

AIDS Overview

California’s incidence of AIDS has dropped from 38.6 cases per 100,000 residents in 1994 to 35.2 last year. California has the 10th-highest incidence of AIDS in the country.

STATE: RATE PER 100,000

1. Dist. of Columbia: 185.7

2. Puerto Rico: 70.3

3. New York: 68.4

4. Florida: 56.9

5. New Jersey: 55.5

6. Maryland: 51.1

7. Connecticut: 50.4

8. Delaware: 44.1

9. Virgin Islands: 37.4

10. California: 35.2

Note: Data released for 53 places included rates for Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Researched by TRACY THOMAS/Los Angeles Times

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Toeing the line: From the Assembly Republican caucus comes such election-year guidelines as: “Never solicit or take campaign contributions in your Capitol or district office.

“Now that it is getting closer to the election season, it’s worth going over some vital guidelines over what government staff can and cannot do . . . the Caucus recommends that you follow the L.A. Times Test: If you or your Member would not want to read about it in the L.A. Times the next morning, don’t do it!”

This is not a partisan standard. A Carter administration official practiced the “big toe test” every morning. He used his big toe to flip open the paper on his front lawn, and if his name wasn’t in a headline on the top half of the front page, he could get on with his day.

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Screening room: Across from Concord’s Solano Drive-In, talk isn’t just cheap--it’s free. The pictures, too. Those who fancy movies but not the $5.50-per-carload fee have been parking across the street, watching the film and picking up the dialogue on FM frequencies.

Century Theatres calls it out-and-out stealing. Russell Cohen, a 30-year-old construction worker and minister who used to sit in almost the same spot and make out with his girlfriend, now brings his family to barbecue, listen to music and watch the films, and says it’s “just a good old redneck way of doing things.”

When drive-ins were more plentiful, people did the same thing--but made up their own dialogue to the action on the screen.

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Relative matters: A quarter-century-old Look magazine article that libeled San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto for alleged Mafia ties is back . . . in his granddaughter’s campaign for Congress.

Human Events, a Washington-based conservative magazine, endorsed Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor) in a May 24 article--displayed in Riggs’ campaign office window and in a mailer--which also recalls the public hanging of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the election of his granddaughter to the Italian parliament 50 years later. And it cites the 1970 Look article accusing Joseph Alioto of Mafia ties, but does not mention Alioto’s libel judgment against the magazine.

“Yes,” the article says, “skipping a generation can sometimes do wonders for a famous yet controversial name, since many voters often recall a name but do not know precisely why it’s memorable or controversial. So it is in Northern California.”

Riggs apologized last week and said the Mussolini comparison was “unfortunate.” It was “not my intent,” Riggs added, “to insult or offend” Italian Americans. To make any more of the matter “given my clear and unequivocal apology herein,” Riggs wrote to Democratic challenger Michela Alioto, “will smack of exploitation on your part.”

For her part, Alioto rejected the apology as insufficient and called on Riggs to apologize to voters.

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One-offs: Turlock police have cited for child endangerment the parents of an 8-year-old boy found with a bowling ball chained to his ankle to keep him from wandering off. . . . So many Contra Costa County Jail inmates have been making gratuitous visits to the jail dentist--reportedly from boredom, or to talk to a woman dentist or nurse--that the department has started charging a $5 co-payment to discourage them. . . . A free parking incentive for California jurors would have included bicycling jurors until one Judicial Council member objected to the cost, noting, “If I want to run to my jury duty, will you provide me with showers and a locker for my sneakers?”

EXIT LINE

“They are falling out of favor as the pet of choice. So I expect to see more of this. I hate to sound jaded, but you’d be surprised what people will do to animals.”

--Moreno Valley Police Sgt. Joseph Cleary, speaking of two men who allegedly sledgehammered a potbellied pig to cook for dinner.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.