Anti-Pledge Pupil Wins Right to Remain Silent

Don’t tell President-elect Bush, but a sophomore at Torrey Pines High School in Del Mar has been granted the right not to say the Pledge of Allegiance each morning in chemistry class. And the ACLU played a key role.

It began at the beginning of the fall semester--just as the presidential campaign was focusing on the pledge and the ACLU.

Bobby Wilde, 15, a quiet and studious youth who already takes advanced math classes at UC San Diego, decided it was not right that he was being required to say the pledge. He further resisted the idea that not saying the pledge was a punishable offense, akin to failing to take proper safety precautions in the chem lab.

Wilde’s teacher, relying on a strict interpretation of the state Education Code, said Wilde could only be excused from the pledge if he professed a religious objection, not just a stance in favor of personal liberty. Three times in the same week Wilde was sent to the principal’s office.

Wilde and his father, a sociologist, refused to supply a letter to the principal explaining why the youth opposes making the pledge compulsory. To do so, they reasoned, would allow the administration to keep files on a student’s political views.

The ACLU armed Wilde with a letter asserting that he is well within his First Amendment rights declining to say the pledge.

The principal relented and now Wilde, who lives in Del Mar and hopes to major in physics in college, sits silently as his peers open each day by saluting the flag. His desk has been moved away from the flag.

“My friends still say the pledge, but they agree that I have my rights,” Wilde said. “One of them said, ‘I’m glad to see you’re sitting down for what you believe in.’ ”

Getting a Pizza the Action

What happens when a certified public accountant, a high-ranking federal official and an actor (soon to be seen on TV’s “General Hospital”) want to invest some venture capital?

They join some other limited partners, naturally, and marry up two of the latest consumer crazes--video rentals and home-delivery pizza--to start Video Pizza on Mission Gorge Road in San Carlos. The goal is to turn a profit by allowing harried suburbanites to order both their dinner (or lunch) and entertainment by phone.

Just say “E.T. and pepperoni-with-cheese,” and both are on their way via courier. A drop slot is provided for returning the videos. (You keep the pizzas.)

William Pentz, the accountant, Victor Contreras, the actor, and Allan J. Rappoport, San Diego district director of the U.S. Customs Service, are bullish on their enterprise. Rappoport whirls pizza dough as a stress-reduction device.

“This is the test market,” said Pentz, the general partner. “If it goes good, we’ll have 10 locations by next year.”

Mail-Dominated Business

As a deputy in the district attorney’s fraud unit, Tony Lovett knows a good deal about boiler-room operations--the high-pressure telephone solicitations that seem to be sweeping the Sun Belt.

A favorite technique is to send unrequested merchandise to a large office in hopes that someone will figure someone else must have ordered it. If the shipment is followed by a bill demanding payment, that’s against the law in California.

When Lovett got a call at his office from a mail-order, office-supply house on Shady Lane in Dallas, he was offered a “great deal” on a load of oversized envelopes--a case, a lot, a few dozen, whatever amount he wanted. No, he said.

Several days later six boxes of envelopes arrived in the mail, followed by a bill for $243.80, a markup of several hundred percent.

“I wrote the guy in Dallas to thank him for the unsolicited gift,” Lovett said. “I told him that if he doesn’t come get the stuff, we’re going to destroy it, and I informed him I make a living prosecuting people like him.”

To soften up Lovett, the Dallas firm also sent a dozen golf balls, allegedly blessed by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Alas, the scamster struck out there, too.

Lovett doesn’t play golf.