Sly Poster Maker Takes Aim at Columnist Insurgency

--Poster creator Lee Bellinger says he was only trying to “poke some fun” at syndicated columnist Carl T. Rowan, who faces arraignment today on gun charges resulting from an incident in which he shot a teen-age intruder at his Washington home. Bellinger, head of Action for America, a conservative activist group, showed his color poster of Rowan as the well-muscled Rambo, holding a Chinese rocket launcher, to patrons at a few Capitol Hill bars over the weekend. He said he was shocked at the demand for the $5 poster. “I had read an ad for ‘Rambo,’ the movie, and for some reason it just popped into my mind that Carl Rowan’s head belonged on that torso (of Sylvester Stallone),” Bellinger said. Rowan, 62, has been a strong advocate of strict gun-control laws. “I totally support Rowan defending his home,” Bellinger said. “But he’s guilty on the hypocrisy charge.”

--The one-time French “sex kitten” is showing her claws--all because a magazine article suggests that cats can get AIDS. Former movie actress Brigitte Bardot, who has become a leading defender of animal rights, has filed suit against VSD over what she says is a spreading panic among cat owners. “In the last 24 hours more than 150 cats have been abandoned by their owners,” Roland Coutas of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation told French radio Sunday. Bardot, 53, is demanding that copies of the publication be removed from book stands, and a court ruling is expected today. Ironically, the story is not at all about acquired immune deficiency syndrome. It is about another fatal viral disease contracted only by cats and nicknamed “AIDS” by veterinarians.

--Now, here’s an AIDS story free of controversy. More than 200 celebrities, including pop music star Boy George and singer Eartha Kitt, over the weekend worked in stores and shops in Covent Garden, a plaza and shopping complex in central London, to raise money for AIDS charities. Shop owners have agreed to donate a percentage of their profits. Boy George sold clothing, and Kitt turned hairdresser. “I was a window dresser, and I used to have my own shop, so I’m used to selling things,” Boy George said. Kitt, waving a hair dryer, said: “You never know when I’m going to be doing this for a living.”