♦ Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will preview a gathering of the National Council of La Raza—"the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization"—tomorrow at the Convention Center. Monica Lozano, publisher of La Opinión, is the group's president.
♦ Villaraigosa met this morning with the group pushing Los Angeles as an Olympic city for 2016 and says he'll help. But he has competition: Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco is about to start sweet-talking the USOC on behalf of his city, writes Bill Bradley. He adds that Rob Reiner has pumped another million into the Proposition 82 pre-school tax campaign.
♦ Republican consultant Dan Schnur notes mischievously at Capitol Weekly that there are only 211 weeks until the big Democratic primary showdown for governor between Villaraigosa and Newsom. Ba-dump
♦ Perhaps working on a little source development, Nikki Finke asks Daily Journal reporter John Hanusz who he is—and why he keeps breaking Pellicano stories. She finds out he's a 33-year-old lawyer-turned-federal courthouse reporter who came west from Atlanta last year.
♦ Yes, another book on the Laurel Canyon music scene: Hotel California: The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends. That publisher is guilty of sub-title abuse. The U.K. version does less name dropping. Via Theresa Duncan.
♦ Gossip: A boa constrictor-like snake was wrapped around a Porsche Boxster in the L.A. Times parking garage. Official word: A gopher snake was found in a driveway of the garage and collected by Animal Services.
♦ Tonight at the Press Club, journalist Evan Wright (Generation Kill) will moderate a discussion with Allan MacDonell (Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine and Jason Leopold (News Junkie).
♦ Oops, I left off the link to this morning's CityBeat cover on the Brentwood dog park.