Now that’s what we call a diverse...

Now that’s what we call a diverse student body!

“The stats are in,” says the fall issue of Occidental Magazine. And they are intriguing. “The Class of 1999,” the magazine reveals, “breaks down as follows--41% men and 51% women.” Perhaps the other 8% are Perot backers.

WE THOUGHT USC VS. UCLA WAS VICIOUS: By coincidence, Phil Frankenfeld offered a thought about Occidental in our ongoing discussion of redundancies and oxymorons. He wrote that, to an alumnus of Pomona College (a rival of Oxy), “the very term oxymoron is a redundancy.”

Occidental, of course, needs no defense. For a while, it looked as though an Oxy grad had a chance of becoming the second L.A.-born presidential candidate. We’re referring to Jack Kemp, the Hall of Fame pro quarterback who was subsequently a Cabinet official in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

The only Angeleno to make a try for the White House was Adlai Stevenson, a loser for the Democrats in the 1952 and 1956 elections. Stevenson was born near the corner of Adams Boulevard and Hoover Street in 1900, less than a mile from USC.

MUST BE THE SHOW BIZ CONNECTION: Two young acquaintances of a colleague of ours visited Johnny Carson Park in Burbank--you knew there was a Johnny Carson Park, right?--and went wading into the little creek there. After a few moments, they jumped out of the water yelping. “Something’s biting my feet,” said one little girl. An examination revealed that each had a dozen or so leeches.

FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE DIRECTIONS: Kerry Walsh of Manhattan Beach noticed that the instruction sticker on a VCR cassette adapter said: “Keep slowly and completely when push close and pull open.”

We believe those instructions also work equally well for removing leeches.

DUELING SIGNS UPDATE: After we published a photo of the sign and marquee at a Holiday Inn-to-be, the hotel issued a reply to us on the marquee.

Well, Mom always said our name would be in lights. Today, the City of Commerce. Tomorrow, Irwindale!

miscelLAny:

We presume football scouts took note of the recent birth of the largest baby in the history of Arcadia’s Methodist Hospital of Southern California. Sidney Adam Albarran went home Monday--all 14 pounds, 9 ounces of him.