Tues | Aug 21 Long Beach holds a special election—“special election” being another way of saying, “What, there’s an election?”—and chooses Laura Richardson to represent the 37th District in Congress. Richardson wins with 67 percent of the vote, which sounds like a lot until you consider that only 8 percent of eligible voters actually voted, which is low by even Major League Soccer standards. So Richardson is in, and everyone acknowledges that she is now there for life because that’s the way the electoral process works in America. And North Korea. Like everyone else elected to Congress, Richardson will enjoy overwhelming victory after overwhelming victory as long as she doesn’t do anything stupid like send inappropriate e-mails to congressional pages referencing calisthenics or anything disgusting like agitate for real election reform that might even the playing field and lessen the chances of overwhelming victory after overwhelming victory, whether it involves the LA County Board of Supervisors, who regularly run unopposed, or the White House, which has been controlled by either the Bush or Clinton family since 1992 and could very well remain that way until 2012. At least. You know, before we go strutting about bringing democracy to the rest of the world, perhaps we should try it out here first.

Wed | Aug 22 Pat West is named Long Beach’s new city manager. This isn’t a huge surprise, but it is a change in direction, since the last few city managers came from within the city manager’s office. People started to think that it was time to change things up a bit, get a fresh perspective, and West was kind of the perfect mix of an outside-insider. He came to Long Beach several years ago after serving as the city manager of Paramount, where he helped turn that city around. So he was in Long Beach long enough to figure out how things work—e.g., the members of Long Beach’s shadow government like their finger sandwiches served without the crust—but not so long as to be stale. So, congratulations, Pat! OK, now that we have that out of the way, could you do something about getting rid of the Breakwater and saving Acres of Books and unclogging the sinks in the bathrooms at Bixby Park and fixing the potholes outside Portfolio coffehouse and doing something about the sidewalks on Third Street and the 4 a.m. street-sweeping and the lack of mailboxes and the demolition derby that is parking lot at the Market Place and howsabout putting some bonfire pits on the damn beach and installing some air conditioning at the arcade at Shoreline Village and howsabout a rational permit system for event promoters and public schools that look a little less like prison yards and get moving on the greenbelt and tell the neighbor that we can hear him having sex and would he please shut his girlfriend up every once in a while? OK, that’s enough for this week. We’ll get back to you. Real soon.

Thurs | Aug 23 The District staff took part in the Stroll and Savor event on Second Street, where we were displayed like animals for you to gawk at and throw peanuts upon. While meeting with the great unwashed, it became clear that some of you “don’t get” Vector Control. The main source of your non-gettingness being threefold: “What does Vector Control mean?” “What’s the deal with the dates?” “Why do you bold the words?” OK, first, we call the column “Vector Control” because we were sitting around trying to think of names, and I said that since the name of the magazine had a very municipal sound, we should name the column after some municipal agency—preferably one that deals in going after and neutralizing vermin and pests, as this column will consider that its sacred duty. But no one liked that idea, so we named it after my uncle, Ronald Vector Control. As for the dates, since we are a weekly, we thought we should have something in the paper that would recap what had happened the previous week—and so we do, day by day. I then take that information and turn it into jokes sure to piss off cyclists. Finally, the bolded words. Yeah, I dunno. Tested well in Lakewood.

Fri | Aug 24 The writer Grace Paley died a few days ago. If you haven’t, you really should read something by her. I suggest the short story “Goodbye and Good Luck.”

Sat | Aug 25 Um, Pat West? Yeah, you might also want to see who has the keys to City Hall, because sometime last night or early this morning somebody got in there and made an awful mess. Police said that burglars went to the 14th floor and top floor and took some items from the offices of the mayor and the city council. We’re guessing the probably went for the Faberge eggplant, jewel-encrusted hole-punch, and strawberry-maned Fantasmaunicorn. Also, Bob Foster’s nunchucks.

Sun | Aug 26 Joke’s on the burglars: Fantasmaunicorn is a total prick.

Mon | Aug 27 Michael Vick pleads guilty to charges related to dog fighting. Remember six years ago when the San Diego Chargers traded the rights to Vick to Atlanta and ended up getting LaDanian Tomlinson instead? Remember people saying that we’d have to wait and see who got the best of the deal? I think we can all stop waiting.

Tags: fantasmaunicorn, laura richardson, pat west