Red Menace Still Lives for California Lawmakers

Last week, the state Senate dispensed with the Unread Menace.

It sealed up and locked away some 80 cartons of rumor, gossip, innuendo and tattletales collected over nearly 40 years about thousands of Californians by the state’s version of the U.S. Senate’s notorious Un-American Activities Committee.

This week, though, the same body decided that the Red Menace is still among us. In a vote Monday, it failed to repeal a half-century-old statute allowing the state to pink-slip Reds--firing any state or local employee who belongs to the Communist Party.

Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) had wanted to tidy up the lawbooks, pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Indiana 24 years ago, and a year later, California’s attorney general declared the state law unconstitutional.

Not so fast, said Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside). The Iron Curtain may have rung down in Europe, but there’s still the little matter of the People’s Republic of China. “We know,” he claimed, “that the Chinese Communist government is exchanging money for influence in areas of our government. We cannot tolerate that.”

So, what is the price of liberty, anyway? A) Eternal vigilance or B) $10,000, payable to “Californians for . . .

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Goodbye, Dalai? An American aviator who disappeared six decades ago, or the exiled Tibetan leader of one of the world’s major religions? Now who would be more recognizable in Asia? Hmm . . . gee . . . that’s a tough one.

The South China Morning Post reported that Apple Computer Inc. dropped the Dalai Lama from its “think different” Asian ad campaign, instead using Amelia Earhart’s image. The newspaper quoted Apple’s Asia-Pacific marketing director, Vincent Lum, as saying that the Buddhist leader was not being used because the firm wanted “easily recognized figures in the region” and was “sticking to those who are well-known.”

Pro-Tibetan activities have been banned in Hong Kong since China took over there last year, and the Buddhist leader’s spokesman countered that “I think that Apple Computer does not want to offend the Chinese.”

Back at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, a spokeswoman says there was “a little translation issue”; the Dalai Lama wasn’t dropped, says Rhona Hamilton, because he was never a part of the original famous faces in the campaign in Asia.

Apple execs in “each country can pick which one they want,” says Hamilton, from among a group including Gandhi, Einstein, Ted Turner, Alfred Hitchcock and Jim Henson. Not putting the Dalai Lama in ads, she says, was “just the determination” the Asia-Pacific office made, and had nothing to do with politics.

Maybe, maybe not. But geography? Hamilton says the Dalai Lama did appear in ads in Japan, which at last check was still in Asia.

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Blaming maimings: Mindful of the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer got his start torturing and decapitating neighborhood pets, and the confessed Boston Strangler shot arrows into dogs trapped in boxes, a state senator is pushing a bill requiring that anyone convicted of animal abuse who wants probation instead of jail time must go through a course of counseling.

Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) pointed to studies showing that maiming or hurting animals can be an indicator of future violence against humans; an FBI analysis names animal abuse as one of three consistent factors in serial killers’ profiles.

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Taxes by Income

California taxpayers file more than 12 million personal income tax returns a year. The range of incomes varies widely. Here are tax returns by adjusted gross income for 1995, the latest tax year available:

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Income Number of returns Under $5,000 1.3 million $5,000 to $9,999 1.4 million $10,000 to $14,999 1.4 million $15,000 to $19,999 1.2 million $20,000 to $24,999 998,804 $25,000 to $29,999 831,253 $30,000 to $39,999 1.3 million $40,000 to $49,999 955,096 $50,000 to $99,999 2 million $100,000 and over 680,174

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Source: California Franchise Tax Board; Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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One-offs: Headline on a press release from the state’s pesticide regulators: “Spring is sprung, El Nino’s quit; Don’t let pests give you a fit”. . . . San Francisco drivers won’t know whether cameras set up to catch red-light runners at more than 100 intersections are the real thing, at $30,000 each, or one of many fakes, at $6,000 per. . . . Filmmakers of “Lethal Weapon 4” who wanted to shut down three miles of I-805 near the Mexican border throughout April took their chases and explosions to Las Vegas because they said officials here took too long to rule on their request. . . . Stanford canceled plans for a campus bingo game with $22,000 in tuition as the top prize after officials said it was illegal. . . . After a homeless Monterey man, Forest Long, found $200 outside a post office, he told police to donate the money to the needy if the owner is not found.

EXIT LINE

“As they say around here, ‘You have to wipe your feet leaving this place as well as when coming in.’ ”

--Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), leaving the Assembly floor in disgust after a strident and partisan debate on an assault weapons bill.

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California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.