Wednesday shorts *

• Longtime Channel 7 weatherman Johnny Mountain joins the rival Channel 2 news on May 8. He will work the news at 5, 6 and 11 p.m. He left KABC in January after 27 years. RonFineman.com predicted the move back then.
• Remember when the French "philosopher, author, journalist, filmmaker, diplomatic envoy, world traveler, political activist and all-around celebrity intellectual" Bernard-Henri Levy swooped into L.A.to dine, schmooze and tour the sights? BHL's piece is in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly. Fishbowl LA gives it a quick read.
• Erik Himmelsbach is hanging up his Valley Boy persona. Tomorrow's column will be his last in CityBeat. Last week he wrote about the impending birth of his second child....But at LA Weekly, another column debuts: Libby Molyneaux on events around town.
• Rip Rense got hold of a little internal exchange at the Times over Monday's obituary of George Molchan, who used to travel the U.S. in the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. Obit writer Myrna Oliver and the copy desk mulled over the difference between midget and dwarf, and in the end let the matter drop. Rense also is a finalist for an L.A. Press Club award in online commentary. [* Sorry Rip: The Press Club posted last year's finalists. They say they've now corrected it.]
• Mark Z. Barabak, the LAT political writer, opines in the May issue of Washington Monthly that Gov. Schwarzenegger is looking less like Reagan and more like Ventura. Marc Cooper and Bill Bradley also evaluate Arnold in the new LA Weekly.
• Boing Boing sweeps up another award, this time a Webby for Best Blog.
• LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold picked up a James Beard Award for his food writing. Also via LAist: Tony Pierce blogs that he was laid off from his job at E!.
• Longtime L.A. journalism figure Dick Adler has sold Poisoned Pen Press a collection of his essays and crime reviews called Dreams of Justice: Mysteries As Social Documents. Publication in December.
• The Santa Monica High School student newspaper compared media coverage of last month's post-fight lockdown and found the facts varied widely. The special issue shows a girl in a t-shirt that reads I Survived the Samohi Riot of '05.
• Latest KFI stunt: Channel 5's Sam Rubin debased himself Wednesday by showing up on John and Ken to apologize after the shouters threatened to sue for remarks he made on the "KTLA Morning News." Rubin even let John Kobylt's wife get in on the act.
• Friends of Marla Ruzicka, the 28-year-old activist killed April 16 by a bomb in Iraq, held a memorial service for her in Pasadena.

Updated here and there