MONTEZUMA’S REVENGE? Just when we had vowed never to use the term “political correctness” again…Last week, reports AP, “Monty Montezuma,” the San Diego State mascot, got demoted by university officials “who want a more dignified portrayal of the Aztec leader.” This, despite overwhelming support from the student body for retaining the loin-cloth wearing cheerleader, who heaves a flaming spear into the turf before the school’s football games. According to the AP account, president Stephen Weber is a particularly earnest enforcer of political correctness. “If we are to employ the symbols of another culture, and portray a particular historical figure within that culture,” said Weber at the anti-Monty news conference, “we have an obligation to do so in an accurate and respectful way.” What’s particularly ludicrous is that Monty will be redesigned to serve as a multicultural “ambassador.” Weber continued: “The Aztecs considered fire sacred. In a broad sense, I think what well-intended people inadvertently did was drift a little bit north toward Hollywood. And I think we’re going to drift back down to Mesoamerica, where we belong.” Ah, yes. Let’s drift back down to Mesoamerica, and let’s do so in an accurate way. Perhaps the new Monty can kick off the football season more authentically. We suggest a live sacrifice of one of the opposing team’s cheerleaders, provided they can find one who’s a virgin. _ VIRTUAL REALITY On the Wednesday, May 9, episode of NBC’s The West Wing, the character played by actor Martin Sheen, “President Bartlet,” went into mourning when his secretary, “Mrs. Landingham,” played by actress Kathryn Joosten, was struck and killed by a drunk driver. During the Thursday, May 10, episode of the California State Assembly, that real-life legislature’s real-life majority leader, a character played by San Francisco Democrat Kevin Shelley, also went into mourning for “Mrs. Landingham” — and actually adjourned the day’s session in her honor. NBC’s deceased fictional character, Shelley announced to the legislature, was a “great American” whose “contributions to the nation were too numerous to count.” Then he gaveled the day’s business to a close. At the end of this week, of course, the Japanese will be attacking Pearl Harbor in movie theaters across the North American continent. Memo to Californians of Japanese descent: Kevin Shelley may soon wish to undertake planning for your relocation from coastal areas. Memo to President Bartlet: What did you know, and when did you know it? _ BRADLEY FELLOWS Supporters of Compton, Calif., mayor Omar Bradley believe he and his allies are particularly well qualified to improve that city’s schools. “We will have four doctorates on the five-member City Council if we win,” Bradley spokesman Frank Wheaton tells the Los Angeles Times, referring to a June 5 runoff. “I don’t know of any city in [Los Angeles County] that can say that.” Lessee: There’s Mayor Bradley himself, who likes to be called “Dr. Bradley,” and whose campaign literature points out that “when you’re running a city the size of Compton, you must have an adequate education to make the best informed decisions on behalf of our citizens.” Then there’s Bradley’s candidate in Compton’s second Council district, Melanie Andrews. Dr. Andrews, too, thinks her doctorate an impressive qualification for public office: “It demonstrates education and commitment,” she says. “If you don’t have the education to understand [the] issues, how can you make good decisions?” Then there’s Amen Rahh — sorry, “Dr. Rahh” — who already represents the city’s fourth Council district, and makes frequent references to his Ph.D. in newspaper ads praising Bradley and Andrews. “We have the highest academic credentials of any council around,” Rahh proclaims. Which must mean that municipal governments elsewhere in the Los Angeles area are being run by elementary school students. Because it turns out that the doctorates Bradley, Andrews, and Rahh have been bragging about are honorary degrees awarded by Yuin University, an unaccredited local acupuncture school that has been battling California state regulators for most of the past decade. How is it that Bradley, Andrews, and Rahh would make four Ph.Ds on the city council? According to the Times, the Bradley flack who issued this boast only has a law degree. THE SCRAPBOOK suggests he seek an honorary doctorate in mathematics from Yuin U. _ HUSTLER HAYDEN Meanwhile, over in the race for the fifth district seat on the Los Angeles city council, candidate Tom Hayden — yes, that Tom Hayden — is accusing opponent Jack Weiss of insensitivity to the concerns of women. Last month, it seems, Weiss declined to complete a questionnaire submitted to his campaign by the local chapter of the National Organization for Women. Parts of it were “confusing,” Weiss complained at the time, and he would need more information before he could say he favors an Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution. Which is apparently a key issue in Tinseltown municipal affairs. Weiss has since confirmed his support for the ERA. But Hayden has remained unrelenting in his denunciation of Weiss’s too-feeble feminism. Nothing can distract the ex-Mr. Jane Fonda from this theme, in fact. Not the $250 campaign contribution he’s been forced to return to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Enterprises. And not the $500-a-plate fund-raiser Hayden last week decided to cancel at the offices of Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine. Not that there’d have been anything wrong with the event. “I respect what [Flynt] has gone through,” Hayden insists, “particularly his battle against censorship.” Besides: “If my feminist allies had objected,” a Hustler fund-raiser “would have been another matter.” Instead, “they have said it is acceptable.” Shelley Mandel, president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, confirms as much. “Regardless of who gives money to Tom or hosts a fund-raiser for him,” Mandel argues, “Tom Hayden’s commitment to women has been proven time and time again.” SCRAPBOOK sources report that during commencement activities later this spring, Hayden and Mandel will receive honorary doctorates from the Yuin University School of Hypocrisy. _ COPYCATS Buried inside a recent Washington Post article (“The Man Inside China’s Bomb Labs,” by Steve Coll, May 16) about American nuclear scientist Danny B. Stillman’s memoir of his nine trips to China is an intriguing admission. According to Stillman, China’s scientists were irritated by the Cox Committee report’s assertion that China had stolen American nuclear weapons design secrets that helped them miniaturize their own weapons for use on their ICBMs. Clearly indignant over their scientific competence being challenged, they claimed they had been working on miniaturizing nuclear weapons since the 1970s but were unable to finish the research because “they lacked the computing power to carry out massive calculations. When the Chinese physicists got access to supercomputers,” Stillman reports, “they pulled out their old research, ran the numbers and designed the new devices.” Leaving aside the issue of whether the Chinese claim is actually true, the obvious question is: Where did the Chinese get their hands on the supercomputers? Do the initials U and S help? Coll quotes Hu Side, a leading Chinese nuclear weapons designer, as saying: “We did not need you.” Yeah, right. And the U.S. invented gunpowder.
