All Tommy Trojan, all the time:The home...

All Tommy Trojan, all the time:

The home page of USC’s Web site on the Internet displays a photo of the statue of Tommy Trojan--a photo that is updated every two minutes. A camera known as the “Tommy Cam” snaps the pictures from a nearby building.

An inspiring bit of school spirit, we can all agree. But it raises a question. When football season arrives, will the surveillance discourage UCLA fans from their tradition of painting the noble warrior Bruin blue?

Or encourage them?

THE NOT-SO-STRAIGHT AND NARROW: Tourists who have been warned about wild L.A. driving conditions won’t be reassured by the layout of traffic lanes we spotted the other day (see photo). And where are these erratic guidelines? On Spring Street, adjacent to City Hall. Maybe they were painted during--or in anticipation of--a quake.

SO THAT’S WHERE KATO KAELIN IS! Ed Conklin found a “for sale” notice in a South Bay real estate newsletter for a house whose features apparently include an inhabitant (see excerpt).

REASON NO. 5,512 TO GIVE UP SMOKING: Paramount’s City Talk, our favorite municipal publication, carried an item about an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy who was stopped at a red light when “a lit cigarette from an adjacent vehicle landed on his vehicle.”

The deputy decided to “lecture the lone driver on the hazards of tossing lit cigarettes” on gasoline-powered machines. When the deputy approached, he “noticed a strong herbal odor. . . . After receiving permission from the driver to search the car, the deputy found over six kilos of marijuana.”

The litterbug “was arrested for drug trafficking and possession for sale. The vehicle was impounded for being used in the commission of a crime.”

RESTORING BALANCE TO THE UNIVERSE: Paul Newman of Beverly Hills noticed that the same day this column published a photo of a Whittier College sign that had one “h” too many (PURCHASHING), The Times also carried a photo of a teenager’s tattoo that was one “h” short (WISPERS).

WHERE THERE’S NEVER A MOTHER’S DAY: One thing about “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”: it continues the trend of animated Disney movies in which the mother of the main character is ill-fated, evil, nonexistent or a minor figure compared to Dad. The grim rundown:

“Hunchback”: Mom trampled, dies.

“Bambi”: Mom bagged by hunter; largely absentee father portrayed as hero.

“Dumbo”: Mom thrown into slammer for assaulting verbal harassers of her big-eared offspring.

“Cinderella” and “Snow White”: An evil stepmother and a wicked queen are the respective mother figures.

“Pinocchio”: A stepfather does the parenting (a kindly stepfather).

“Jungle Book”: Parentless boy reared by animals (male animals).

“Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Mermaid,” “Pocahontas”: Not a Mom to be found.

“Lion King”: Perhaps cruelest portrait of all, Mom is so insignificant she doesn’t even get to sing.

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The Learning Annex is offering a class titled “Dare to Go Bare!” that reveals where one can sunbathe nude in L.A. County. In this June Gloom?