Sunset Billboard Brings Out the Activist in Therapist

Writer, therapist and lecturer Laura Huxley never considered herself an activist. But when the 82-year-old widow of author Aldous Huxley saw an advertising sign for a jeans company on Sunset Boulevard, she decided to take action.

The coincidence of the sign’s message, “A child is the ultimate pet,” with the theme of her upcoming conference, “Children, Our Ultimate Investment,” compelled her to gather a few friends and stage a protest last week. And the Joop Jeans sign, showing a baby with a leash around its neck, came down.

“Working for children doesn’t always bring as quick a result. It’s usually about the future,” she said. “Even if the sign didn’t come down, it was right to show the outrage. The sign coming down is a real extra.”

But for advertising executive Heiner Maasjost, it was business as usual.

“This is our usual rotation. It was up for two weeks and now we have another sign up,” he said from his New York office.

The new sign pictures a man and a woman, blindfolded, wearing fins on their feet, underwater. The message is, “In the uterus of life, we are all blind cave fish.”

Maasjost said he does not understand the problem with picturing children as pets. “It’s just a thought, a surrealistic, artistic thought,” he said.

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AUX ARMES, LES CITOYENS: A French flotilla is about to form off Santa Monica!

Actually, it’s a joint U.S.-French operation, so there’s nothing to get up in arms about.

In fact, it’s a dramatic way of saying “merci “ for the Allied invasion of Normandy 50 years ago, including a symbolic re-enactment of the amphibious landings on D-Day--June 6, 1944.

Plans call for the French Navy frigate Prairial, based in Tahiti, and the Navy frigate Copeland to anchor offshore, together with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, on June 1. On the beach, there will be a display of World War II armaments including a landing barge, a tank, Jeeps and trucks. There will be speeches, an outdoor showing of D-Day footage from the “Victory at Sea” television series, and patriotic music by a U.S. Navy band.

Vintage warplanes will fly overhead.

Organized by the French consulate in Los Angeles, the event is scheduled to be part of a weeklong commemoration of the invasion that led to the liberation of France from German occupation and helped turn the tide of World War II.

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PEROTISTA CANDIDATE: A group of former Ross Perot supporters has found a 24th Congressional District candidate to back as an independent in the fall campaign.

The Thousand Oaks chapter of United We Stand America has decided to throw its support behind Rhett Wooden, a Thousand Oaks film cameraman and grip, in a district represented by veteran Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills). The group must collect at least 10,000 signatures this summer to get Wooden on the ballot for the November election.

“What I tell people most often is that they keep looking for hope from the Democratic and Republican parties,” said Wooden, 43.

“How can they get hope from something that is the problem? So new leadership has to come from outside,” said Wooden, who was active in Perot’s presidential campaign.

The district includes portions of Malibu.