PARTY ON: Los Angeles is planning a...

PARTY ON: Los Angeles is planning a party to celebrate World Cup soccer (B9), and Oxnard wants to come. Oxnard College is in the running to become an official World Cup training site. “This is probably the biggest athletic event in the world, and it would bring a lot of tourism to the area,” Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said. . . . World Cup officials announced Monday a monthlong festival that will culminate with the World Cup Final in July.

NOVEL APPROACH: Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the library, another east Ventura County school book controversy has erupted. At the urging of trustee Tom Baldwin, Moorpark school officials considered a proposal to ban a book with sexually explicit passages (B5). . . . A similar controversy in Simi Valley over a novel derided for the way it depicts blacks apparently has quieted. “If we’ve had any complaints, they haven’t come through my department,” declared administrator Ann Eklund.

CLASSIC VISITOR: Donald O’Connor is known for musical classics like “Singin’ in the Rain,” but on Wednesday he’ll be at the Ojai Playhouse to introduce a Hitchcock masterpiece, “Strangers on a Train.”. . . O’Connor is a host on American Movie Classics, and his appearance marks AMC’s debut on Ventura County Cablevision. . . . In the 1951 film, a man is drawn into a plot to exchange murders. Most chilling line: “What is a life or two, Guy? Some people are better off dead--like your wife and my father, for instance.”

BLACK GOLD: Scrappy, independent oil companies are showing renewed interest in Ventura County’s wells, snatching them up from major oil companies and squeezing hundreds of barrels from the ground. Irvine-based Saba Petroleum Co. is making its second acquisition in a field north of Oxnard (Valley Business, Page 14). . . . “For various reasons, these fields may no longer be attractive to the majors,” said Saba President William L. Wineland. “But we feel we can operate them profitably.”