Zero Culture: An Arnold Schwarzenegger film and...

Zero Culture: An Arnold Schwarzenegger film and automated telephone pitches were among things awarded big fat “zeros” late last week by a consumer group targeting “the most obnoxious . . . excesses of our commercial culture.” The Center for the Study of Commercialism skewered Schwarzenegger’s “Total Recall” for displaying 28 brand-name products a total of 55 times. The group said the recorded phone pitches “represent marketers’ continuing invasion” of private life.

Space Kids: If Vice President Dan Quayle ever gets a chance to orbit the Earth, he apparently won’t take it. Quayle was asked in a magazine interview if he wanted to be the first vice president to go into orbit: “I would think that it would be rather fitting to have the vice president’s children at some time take a trip to space . . . . They are space enthusiasts. . . . They would be good candidates.”

Another Hunt: Two attorneys said in Dallas late last week that they plan to sue 46 members of the Hunt family to recover more than $100 million in missing assets from the bankrupt financial empires of Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt. The attorneys, court-appointed trustees, claim the two former billionaires shuffled trusts, insurance policies and partnerships to relatives in an 11th-hour attempt to shield them from creditors. Said trustee Carter Pate: “It’s sad that (family members) had to be dragged into this.”

Banned: Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Paul Celluci has been banned from his Catholic high school alma mater because he supports abortion rights. Celluci was the choice of the 1991 graduating class of Hudson, Mass., Catholic High School to speak at its commencement, an especially sweet honor since his goddaughter is graduating, but the invitation was unilaterally withdrawn by Bishop Roberto O. Gonzales. The ban has been applauded by the local Catholic League lay group, but it prompted many parents of the graduating students to call local newspapers to express outrage.