Initial Thoughts: Next, We’ll Be Told Al Gore’s First Name Is ‘Alphabet’

A is for . . . : It has been said that people who don’t learn from history are doomed to . . . um, well, actually we don’t remember the rest of the quote and, frankly, we don’t care what some idiot from the past said because it’s probably irrelevant anyway.

Still, we felt vaguely uneasy after spotting a Wall Street Journal article that said Al Gore’s middle name, as listed on his birth certificate, is just the letter A.

After all, everybody knows what happened the last time America had a president whose middle name was just a single letter, Harry S Truman. He dropped the Bomb.

Don’t get us wrong. We’re not foreign-policy wimps or anything. We fully support the use of nuclear weapons if the target is, say, the headquarters of Aaron Spelling Productions. But we’re wary of entrusting the button to someone with an ego as massive as Gore’s--whose official campaign resume now lists him as the inventor of not only the Internet but also the Veg-o-Matic, the Clapper and fire.

On the other hand, it seems unfair to disqualify the vice president simply because he lacks a middle name when--judging by more traditional standards of hypocrisy and phoniness--he’s perfectly fit for the job.

So we’ve created a task force to find him a suitable middle name that starts with the letter A. Maybe Android or Airbag or AC/DC (to bring in the heavy metal vote). We’ll consider all suggestions, but please, no donkey-related names.Tipper already sent us several of those.

Alarming Trends Bureau: Mayor Richard Riordan plans to issue a proclamation today honoring Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon rodent from “American Tail,” for “promotion of cultural understanding and diversity.”

Riordan may be a lame duck, but he’ll obviously leave an impressive legacy.

Woofie’s Choice: According to a survey by USA Network.com, 41% of dog owners say they’d ditch their spouse for their pooch if forced to choose between the two.

In other important polling news:

* 58% of male CEOs say tulips make them feel inspired, according to a survey by Calyx & Corolla.

* 14% of women say reading Business Week puts them in the mood for romance, according to a survey by AdOutlet.com.

Quote of the Day: From Paolo Lion, managing director of Genuflex, an Italian company that recently debuted a state-of-the-art confessional with black leather seats, hygienic filters for the confessional screen and a console that enables visitors to control the temperature, dim the lights and even adjust the soundproofing: “You can scream to your heart’s content--even kill the priest--and no one outside will be the wiser.”

Off-Kilter Encyclopedia: When the world’s first telephone switchboard opened in 1878 in New Haven, Conn., operators answered the phone by saying: “Ahoy-ahoy” instead of “Hello.”

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Space Aliens Helped Feed Moses’ People in the Desert! Famed Ark of the Covenant was Really a Nuclear Reactor!” (Weekly World News)

In fact, if Moses’ middle name had only been a single letter, Israel could have had the bomb a lot sooner.

Unpaid Informants: Baird Jones, Wireless Flash News Service, https://www.ship-of-fools.com, U.S. Catholic magazine, Reuters, Thad Whitley. E-mail Off-Kilter at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Off-Kilter’s middle name is “-.”