People and Events

Well, if James Brown’s wife can claim diplomatic immunity from drug charges because her singer husband is the “Ambassador of Soul,” why not this?: Norma Jean Almodovar, a civilian traffic officer turned prostitute, has appplied to Amnesty International to declare her a Prisoner of Conscience.

Almodovar, serving a three-year term in state prison for felony pandering, contends that she is actually being persecuted for writing “Cop to Call Girl,” a still-unpublished book in which she claims she exposes corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department.

No word yet from Amnesty International.

“Smile--Speed Enforced with Photo Radar,” say the street signs advertising Pasadena’s new photo-traffic-radar car. They even carry happy faces. But the wording isn’t making the city’s police smile.

“The traffic engineers designed that,” Police Lt. Robert Huff said of the sign, adding that he would have omitted the “smile,” not to mention the face.

“I can see where some people might think we’re saying, ‘Smile, we’re going to give you a ticket,’ which would be a slap in the face,” Huff said. “What it’s supposed to mean is, the citizens can smile because the system’s going to make people slow down within the city.”

Actually, the photo-radar car did draw some smiles from ticketed motorists before it was painted white. A Municipal Court commissioner dismissed more than 1,200 speeding violations in the wake of a ruling last week that the vehicle’s original white-and-gold design was in violation of state law.

Heeeere’ssss Alexei!

With glasnost in the air, it was inevitable that the two radio KIEVs would meet. Glendale’s KIEV says, with a straight face, that the dialogue came about when a letter from a listener was accidentally delivered to a radio station in the Soviet Ukrainian city of the same name. (The zip codes must be similar.)

Whatever, KIEV disc jockey Dick Whittington phoned the Ukrainian station, which has English- and German-speaking divisions because its broadcasts can be picked up in Europe. A satellite telephone hookup was arranged for Whittington’s all-night talk show, with Alexei Golyenko handling the Soviet end.

“I guess they figured I wasn’t dangerous,” Whittington said.

Obviously, Soviet authorities were unaware of the fact that “Sweet Dick” is the man who once dropped a giant Alka-Seltzer tablet into the Atlantic after a nerve-gas spill, dropped human hairs on Mount Baldy and who led an invasion of Catalina featuring soldiers dressed “in the uniform of your favorite war.”

Sweet Dick behaved himself, even refraining from making Chicken Kiev jokes.

The dialogue, featuring in-studio guests in each city, was held on Wednesday morning’s show. “Nothing of great substance was settled, but we had fun,” said KIEV general manager Fred Beaton, who paid the bill for the hookup (about $7,000).

“We hope to do it again,” Whittington said.

Some disc jockeys’ll do anything to increase their audience by 25 million.

The claims involving the various propositions on the November ballot are confusing enough without this one from Mickey Kantor, attorney for a group that calls itself the Los Angeles Public and Coastal Protection Committee.

Kantor sent out a press release in an effort to demonstrate that the committee, which backs oil drilling in Pacific Palisades, is not a puppet of Occidental Petroleum. Oxy has given $395,000 of the $445,000 raised to push Proposition P, which would allow the drilling.

“Our campaign has received 139 separate financial contributions,” Kantor wrote. “140 of them were not from Occidental Petroleum.”

What an election campaign. Even the press releases need recounts.