It’s Out With the Old, In With the Who Knows

When it comes to filling the hundreds of appointed state posts, the soundest advice that new governor Gray Davis said he got was to make haste slowly.

So: Davis axed 134 names from the midnight-hour appointments made by outgoing Gov. Pete Wilson. Among them was the name of Barbara George, heading for another term on the California Arts Council. Barbara George’s husband is California’s chief justice, Ronald George--who had just sworn in Davis as governor the day before his wife’s name was snipped from the list.

This may not, however, be the unkindest cut. Davis will be taking another, longer look at the 134 names, along with hundreds of others submitted recently for the positions, and he may OK some more Wilson appointees after all. And then Ronald George won’t have to consider revoking the oath of office . . . just kidding.

And Davis, who says he is making education his first, second and third priorities as governor, could brush up on his pronouns; in his inaugural address, he thanked outgoing Gov. Wilson and his wife, Gayle, “for the cooperation they showed Sharon and I during the transition.”

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Halt or halter top? He hardly even needed that red sign he carried in his hand; the way he looked was enough to stop traffic.

The students at Lincoln Elementary School in Newark held up their end of the bargain, collecting 1,400 more cans of food for a homeless Vietnam veterans charity than they had the year before. So Scott Pace honored his pledge, and showed up to work as a crossing guard in the promised cross-dressing ensemble: high heels and frock.

Other charity-challenges have prompted Pace to shave his head and let students toss pies at his puss. This couture commitment left his 10-year-old son, Willie, dodging his dad’s hug in front of his friends, and one parent hollering, “Nice legs, Scott.”

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Money talks, Doris walks: The biggest yardage racked up on New Year’s Day in Pasadena wasn’t in the Rose Bowl; it was set by Doris Haddock, an 89-year-old New Hampshire woman who has resolved to walk cross-country, Pasadena to D.C., to rally support for campaign finance reform.

Her home state’s early primary has long put her on the front lines of campaigning, and the weekly political discussions with her “bunch of old ladies” compelled her to take a trail of her own, crossing the nation on foot, collecting support and signatures to deliver to Washington, D.C., by next New Year’s Day to demand “meaningful campaign finance reform.”

Her Kerouac road trip is paced at 10 miles a day, a quest that has caught the public fancy. So many volunteers have already offered spare bedrooms and home-cooked meals that she hasn’t had to use her bedroll; on Monday, West Virginia’s secretary of state, a former congressman, kept her company on her trek.

On old Highway 62 near Twentynine Palms, she acknowledged that the west-to-east route was for more reasons than the D.C. destination. “The weather is divine, the mountains are a wonder, rising out of nowhere, and the blue sky is always with you here.”

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Preparing for the ‘Killer Bees’

Africanized honey bees have established themselves in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as the eastern portion of San Diego county. A colony was also found and destroyed in Lawndale last month. The state Department of Food and Agriculture suggests these precautions:

* Fill in potential nesting sites including tree cavities and holes in outside walls.

* Screen off other sites, including water meter boxes, culverts and pipes, and the tops of rain spouts.

* Get rid of old tires, empty paint cans and other containers, piles of lumber, trash and abandoned cars that might become good sites for a nest.

* Avoid using industrial lawn mowers and use care with other heavy equipment because the vibrations or any motion close to the nest disturbs the bees.

* If a nest is discovered, keep children and pets away, and call county agricultural officials. Do not spray attacking bees with insecticides because this may intensify the attack.

* If attacked: use clothes to cover face, run quickly and far, seek shelter where bees cannot enter: a car, house or other building. Do not jump in water; the bees will hover until you surface.

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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One-offs: Because the land has been undeveloped and virtually untouched for more than 50 years, the World Wildlife Fund has listed the 125,000 acres of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base as one of the continent’s “Top 10 Coolest Places You’ve Never Seen,” home to many critically endangered species and possessing the greatest diversity of bees in the nation. . . . The first woman elected sheriff in California is Yuba County’s Virginia Black, but the first woman actually to take office as elected sheriff was Santa Clara’s Laurie Smith, elected after Black but sworn in some days earlier. . . . San Bernardino’s Democratic congressman, George E. Brown Jr., is at age 78 the oldest member of the House--but still a stripling compared to the Senate’s oldest member, GOPster Strom Thurmond, a doughty 96. . . . More than 100 robins and cedar waxwings found dead under maple trees around a Santa Rosa school were not poisoned by humans, as was feared; their purple-stained beaks showed that they overdosed on fermented privet berries and likely died of alcohol poisoning.

EXIT LINE

“There’ll be a decent meal. . . . I know that’s something that’s not normal for you. We’ll also use knives and forks. I know that’s also foreign to you in Atlanta.”

--Wagering words from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell before their football teams met in a weekend playoff game. Brown may be eating those words, inasmuch as Campbell’s Falcons beat Brown’s 49ers.

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.