Uke’s Rebuke: Out $90,000 and Out of the Running

Why did they like Ike but rebuke Uke? Alan Uke had already spent nearly $90,000 on his campaign for Assembly--yet his name won’t be on the ballot.

Of the 60 signatures on Uke’s nominating papers, a judge found that only 34 were from GOP voters registered in north San Diego’s 74th Assembly District--and Uke needed 40 to qualify.

Six other candidates are on the June primary ballot (precisely the number of names Uke came up short).

Growing Older

Californians’ median age was 32 last year, according to the Census Bureau--younger than the median age of 33.7 for the nation’s 258 million residents. That makes the nation about a year older than the 32.8 median age at the last national head count in 1990. Here is a sampling of median ages and populations, by state, including the youngest and the oldest, as of July 1:

MEDIAN STATE POPULATION AGE *Utah 1,860,000 26.3 *Alaska 599,000 30.5 *Louisiana 4,295,000 31.8 *California 31,211,000 32.0 *Kansas 2,531,000 33.8 *New York 18,197,000 34.5 *Pennsylvania 12,048,000 36.0 *Florida 13,679,000 37.2

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Compiled by Times researcher TRACY THOMAS

*

The rite stuff: The dearth of science teachers is not news, but we had no idea they were down to just one . A press announcement touted an appearance by Mercury and Gemini astronauts during this weekend’s “National Science Teacher’s Assn.” get-together in Anaheim. Perhaps the writer should make the acquaintance of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Ditto the writer who, in a four-paragraph DMV press release, committed these to fax paper: “The number of vehicles registered in California resumed their rise in 1993” . . . and “Los Angeles County still leads the state in the number of vehicles on it’s roads. . . .”

*

Head trip: JFK created a stir by going bare-headed at his inaugural. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised a fuss when she did wear a hat at her husband’s inaugural. And Chelsea Clinton flouted the state children’s helmet law this week, two-wheeling bare-headed in Coronado.

Some bikers hoped this meant the President would lend an ear to no-helmet-law pleas. (It didn’t.) GOP cyclists called for a special counsel. (Not really, but it’s April Fool’s Day.) A spokesman said the Clintons were unaware of the law. The Coronado Visitor Information Bureau gave them helmets and the First Lady wore one Thursday.

*

Leg hold trap: At California’s newest Graybar Hotel, the Centinela State Prison in Imperial County, a search is a search. When defense attorney Charles L. Lindner, who drove from L.A. to see a client, refused to unhitch his artificial left leg, the prison cited state rules: no leg inspection, no client consultation.

Although Lindner says he’s submitted to other security scrutiny in state and federal prisons, no one has ever before demanded that he detach the prosthesis to pass through a metal detector. The leg contains metal, Lindner said he told a prison officer, “because biomechanics (has) progressed somewhat since . . . Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island.’ ”

Lindner, who’s heard all the jokes and made a few himself, believes they don’t have a leg to stand on.

*

Second chances A $2,000 check--a contribution from the California League of Savings Institution to Gov. Pete Wilson’s reelection campaign--bounced.

It was a brief bounce, says a league spokeswoman; it was honored in short order. “It was a bookkeeping error that the deposit didn’t get in on time,” she said.

It happens to us all once in a while. Question is, did the Wilson campaign charge them a $10 returned-check fee?

*

No jokes please, we’re Californian: Brace yourselves for another round of wacky California stories from the national pulps. Last month it was sand-dune breasts, two miles of them, sculpted as low-tide conceptual art along Stinson Beach. Now the “Dignity of Human Form” initiative begins circulating to qualify for the November ballot. Submitted by UCLA art student Eurica Califorrniaa (“Eureka,” the state motto, means “I have found it”), “Dignity” would amend the constitution to treat men’s and women’s bared pectorals equally when displayed in “areas of natural recreation.”

Exposing any part of any human chest shall be “anatomically equivalent,” and therefore lawful, except under “reasonable circumstances.”

EXIT LINE

“Once, I attended 14 dinners in one night. A world record.”

--State Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco), speaking in the San Francisco Chronicle of the weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs and testimonial dinners he has attended in 27 years in office. Under Proposition 140, Marks is serving his last term, which may be a difficult psychological adjustment but a boon for his digestion.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.