MEDIA DARLING: Earlier this week, Rep. Elton...

MEDIA DARLING: Earlier this week, Rep. Elton Gallegly was on “60 Minutes,� talking about his colleague Maxine Waters. Last month, he joined Larry Hagman on the “Montel Williams Show� to protest a weather tower. Today, Gallegly does “Donahue.� Ventura County’s Republican congressman debates three immigrant-rights advocates on the show, which airs at 2 p.m. on KNBC. . . . Why the sudden stardom? “It has to be my good looks, there is no other logical explanation,� Gallegly mused. “Seriously, it’s more coincidental than anything else. I may not get another minute of air time for 10 years.�

SLIPPERY SEARCH: Pumpkin the sea lion continues to elude his trainers in the Navy who taught him to recover dummy underwater explosives (B1). . . . And the slippery sea mammal has wriggled out of his Navy-issued harness. So unless Pumpkin comes when the Navy whistles, there’ll be no way to tell him from any other sea lion. . . . “The chances are pretty slim of ever finding him again,� said Ventura marine biologist Gary Davis. About 60,000 sea lions frolic near the Channel Islands where Pumpkin went AWOL.

PUBLIC NOTICE: Cluttered with 3-by-5 cards and plastered with notices, community bulletin boards tell plenty about particular neighborhoods. . . . Sure, most boards at the local market or Laundromat offer get-rich-quick ads and lost-dog notices. But Ojai boards have more spiritual and health-conscious ads, while notices posted in Thousands Oak are far more practical. (Ventura County Life, Page 24).

GETTING SMOGGED: With a stroke of a pen, Gov. Wilson has overhauled the state’s smog check program (A3). . . The new smog-busting plan takes effect in Ventura County next year, with the biggest changes reserved for the worst polluters. That’s about 15% of the area’s vehicles. If the state suspects your car belches too much smog, you will have to go first to a special smog-testing station, then to a different shop for repairs.