TUES OCT 27 The California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women, or Women’s Conference—“Skipper” to its close friends—continues at the convention center to wild success. Hosted by First Lady and serial scofflaw Maria Shriver, the convention once again draws big crowds and heavyweight speakers such as Madeleine Albright, Annie Lebovitz, Ashton Kutcher, Alicia Keys, Jane Goodall and Danica Patrick’s dad talking about the challenges of being a woman (in Kutcher’s case, a beautiful one). The conference has become so successful it’s now being called the “Super Bowl of Women,” though I was under the impression that name was the rightful property of the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament. Steve Goodling—a man—who heads the city’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, estimates the conference brings in about $5 million in added revenue to Long Beach, about half of which is traffic and parking violations incurred by Shriver. Yes indeed, the Women’s Conference has been a rousing success that promises to be a great resource and point of pride for our city for many years to come.

WED OCT 28 And by “many years” we mean “next year,” because apparently the Women’s Conference could skip town after 2010. Goodling tells the Press-Telegram that, though the Women’s Conference is scheduled to be held here next year, where it takes place after that depends on who becomes the state’s next governor. So, say, if current San Francisco Mayor/dreamboat Gavin Newsom wins, it figures the conference would move upstate. And if Jerry Brown is elected, it figures to be held in the vertical plane of the fourth dimension . . . downtown!

THURS OCT 29 A Congressional ethics committee will look into the real-estate dealings of our own Laura Richardson. At the heart of the matter is a Sacramento home once owned by Richardson that was foreclosed on by a bank and sold to another person, after which the bank then gave the house back to Richardson. Richardson, who can apparently play hardball with the best of them, said she’s just “like 4.3 million Americans in the last year who faced financial problems . . . But unlike other Americans, I have been subjected to premature judgments, speculation and baseless distractions that will finally be addressed in a fair, unbiased, bipartisan evaluation of the facts.” Yeah, you know, like those other 4.3 million members of Congress who, just like her, defaulted on a home loan—she’s done that thrice—had the home sold to another person (who fixed it up) and then had it given back to them. Happens all the time.

FRI OCT 30 Um, that bit about Gavin Newsom moving the Women’s Conference to San Francisco? I wouldn’t worry about that anymore.

SAT OCT 31 Saw two Billy Mayses, one Balloon Boy and an Octomom, along with a lot of slutty nurses, slutty maids and slutty firefighters. I really have to stop going to Saturday evening mass.

SUN NOV 1 Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga announced this week she will run for re-election as a write-in candidate. Under Long Beach’s ridiculous term-limit election rules, Uranga isn’t allowed to appear on the ballot but is allowed to run for office. If she is involved in a run-off election, suddenly she is allowed to have her name on the ballot, which makes no sense. Not that I’m against Uranga running. Truth is, I think term limits are horribly un-American. But here’s the deal: if you’re going to have term limits, have term limits and not this game-show approach. Now, some have told me forcing a candidate to run a write-in campaign is tantamount to term limits. That may have been true 10 years ago, but not anymore. The number-one problem in running a write-in campaign is simply getting the word out that you want people to write your name in. That’s not big deal in a local election, where politicians can target virtually every one of their constituents via the Internet. By Thursday, Uranga had already received a major endorsement from the Machinist and Aerospace Workers Union, which will get the word out to all of their people and certainly provide the organization to get the word out to many others. Again, I have no problem with this—it’s just such a stupid way of governing. And whenever I run into something this dumb in government, I know exactly who to blame: YOU. Yes, the term-limit laws were approved by you, providing yet another example of the initiative process screwing things up. From Prop. 13 to Prop. 8, this business of having ordinary citizens in charge of writing laws has become a joke, literally—witness the current proposed initiative that would allow people to vote on making divorce illegal. Look, we do not live in democracy; we live in a democratic republic, where we elect people to write the laws. If we’re unhappy with the job they do, we elect someone else. That’s how it works. The notion that a person who wouldn’t dream of telling a car mechanic how to do his job is somehow magically endowed with the ability to navigate the incredibly complex world of governance is ridiculous—scratch that; dangerous. The Founding Fathers did not go around asking the general population what they wanted to see in the Constitution. If they had, I can guarantee you the First Amendment would have a lot more references to “gettin’ some.”

MON NOV 2 Long may it wave.

Tags: gavin newsom, gettin some, jerry brown, Long Beach, Maria Shriver, term limits, Tonia Reyes Uranga, women's conference