Brickbats

Los Angeles paramedics found two things in the Cadillac parked on Piru Street: a corpse slumped over the dashboard and a parking ticket that had been issued an hour earlier. They didn't understand how the parking officer had missed the dead man. "He had to reach in the window right past the body," said one paramedic. "He put the ticket on the inside of the dash and drove off, and here this guy has been dead in the driver's seat for 10 or 12 hours."

Members of the San Francisco chapter of the Green Party of California recently defeated a motion to end "male dominance" party meetings by alternating male and female speakers and cutting off additional male speakers after all the women had finished. Said one Green, "Some women felt that if there were no women left to say anything, maybe there was nothing left to say and men were just making hot air."

The office of the House of Representatives' majority whip spent $3,162 in 1991 on muffins from the Cookie Cafe.

Smithsonian Institution Associate Director Robert Sullivan has a mission: to make the Museum of Natural History politically correct. Soon to go, for example, is a popular exhibit of Captain John Smith trading with the Powhatan Indians on the banks of the James River. Why? The Powhatan women are barebreasted, and that's sexist. Another popular exhibit that will get the ax is a leaping Indian tiger. Why? Many men like to have their photos taken with the tiger. That irks Sullivan because it makes the tiger seem like a hunting trophy.

Some conservatives have lauded the Fox network's Cops for its positive portrayal of policemen. But we wonder what they would think if they saw what Cops doesn't show us. Namely, any bad bust recorded by its cameras. For example, the show went along on a Kent, Washington, raid on a crack house, but the police got the wrong building. The cameras recorded a troop of well-armed police kicking down the doors of the Carver home in the middle of the night and wrestling the parents and their four children to the floor. The mother, who was naked, was not even allowed to put on any clothes. Fortunately for her, the embarrassing episode wasn't aired.

The always-progressive city of Santa Cruz, California, has made it illegal to discriminate against anyone in housing or employment on the basis of obesity, toothlessness, or any "physical characteristic."

In Burlington, Vermont, about 300 people showed up to protest the visit of a Playboy photographer. Many women showed their disapproval of the magazine's portrayal of women as sex objects by baring their breasts.

In Las Vegas, two men accosted the driver of a Vegas Chips delivery truck at knifepoint and forced him to drive to a remote area and "turn over the chips." But the two men became irate and pummeled the driver when they learned that the chips were not gaming chips but potato chips. Dick Falk, vice president of Vegas Chips, notes that the truck was clearly identified as carrying potato chips. The company logo, which shows a bag with potato chips coming out of it, was even painted on the sides of the truck.

If you're traveling into Toronto, Canada, your flight may be delayed. A herd of deer has taken up residence near the airport, and they often mosey onto the runways, stopping traffic. Of course, environmentalists are fighting efforts to move the herd.

Finally, USA Today reports that members of the House of Representatives are getting around rules against nepotism by having other members hire their relatives. The paper found at least 54 relatives of members are employed in the House.