The idea seems revolutionary in a city...

The idea seems revolutionary in a city where some cars proudly wear bumper stickers that say, “So many pedestrians, so little time”:

A civic “Pedestrian Advocate” to offer advice on issues affecting people who like to move about on all twos.

The idea of a Pedestrian Advocate was conceived by City Council members Marvin Braude and Mike Woo, and perhaps it is too revolutionary.

The proposal, which must be initially approved by the council’s Planning and Environment Committee, has been “tabled a bunch of times,” one council aide said, the most recent of which was Tuesday, when Woo was absent.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Murphy had to admit that the paw prints were persuasive evidence.

They’ve been detected on cars in the parking lot near the Burbank courthouse, where Murphy feeds a pack of two to eight cats every morning, including Saturday and Sunday.

“I can’t blame them,” Murphy said of the cats. “When it gets cold, they want to get up on something warmer.”

The judge vowed that he will keep on leaving food for the animals, although some building personnel have complained about the courthouse cats. “There are always a few complainers,” he said.

Murphy, a colorful judge who occasionally lashes a lion-tamer’s whip in his office to loosen up settlement conferences, said he’s been feeding the tabby-variety of cat for about 15 years.

The felines are not permitted inside the courthouse, he pointed out. In other words, his case isn’t analogous to that of former Municipal Judge Noel Cannon, who occasionally sat in the courtroom with a Chihuahua in her lap.

Anyway, the neighbors sympathize with him, Murphy said.

“When I got sick--I had a triple bypass operation--the ladies in the (nearby) apartments put stuff out for them,” he said.

First, the Glasnost Bowl. Now, a Glasnost float?

That’s the suggestion of publicist Frank Hotchkiss, who has written to the Tournament of Roses and to the Soviet Union suggesting that the USSR enter a float in the 1990 parade as a symbol of the improvement of relations between the two nations.

After all, Hotchkiss, pointed out, the Soviet Union recently announced it would host a football game next year between USC and the University of Illinois.

“I do not believe there is another single event that could have such a powerful positive influence upon the Western nations,” Hotchkiss said in a letter suggesting the parade float to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, noting that several hundred million people watch the event on television.

Hotchkiss said Tuesday that he could think of another reason, aside from the good-will gesture, why the Russians might want to participate:

Roses are red.

A Los Angeles-versus-New York feature in Spy magazine compared suburban neighborhoods in such area codes as 818 (the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys), 718 (Queens-Staten Island), 914 (Westchester County, north of New York City) and 201 (northern New Jersey).

It prompted a Los Angeles resident to write Spy: “From one who has lived in the 212, 718, 516, 213 and 714 area codes, I can attest that 818 is more equivalent to 914 or, while admittedly a long shot, the 201 area code.”

Ten-four?

December will mark the 48th anniversary of the dedication of the West’s first freeway, the Pasadena, and those decades have produced various concrete tributes from singers.

Dionne Warwick: “L.A’s one big freeway . . . “

Jerry Jeff Walker: “If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway without getting killed or caught . . . “

Aretha Franklin: “We’re going riding on the freeway of love . . . “

Shelly West: “Santa Monica Freeway sometimes makes a country girl blue-ooh-ooh . . . “

And one offering for an alternate route:

Randy Newman: “Victory Boulevard--We love it!”