Only in California: The city of Anaheim now boasts four different nude juice bars. . . . The animal rights group peta declared a National Fish Amnesty Day in September. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that San Francisco seafood restaurants have recently been hit by pro-lobster grafitti carried out by the "Crustacean Liberation Front."   1   The California state Democratic party, guided by the Democratic National Committee, has set down a few "goals" for selecting delegates to its next national convention: 26 percent Latino, 16 percent black, 10 percent homosexual, 9 percent "Asian-American islander," and 1 percent American Indian. . . . Some "diversity consultants" now specialize in dousing the flames of ethnic tension that their predecessors have wrought in schools and workplaces. One such consultant confesses, "diversity professionals… have been rather careless and reckless" and sometimes "outrageous." . . . A new curfew law was supported by 70 percent of black D.C. kids, compared to 55 percent of white D.C. kids, according to a Washington Post poll. . . . Most charter schools serve "a cross section of all students," and one-third of charter-school students are racial minorities, a national survey by the Education Commission of the States reports. . . . A little-noticed comment by Colin Powell to the New Yorker: "I’m sort of a liberal guy, up to a point, but here’s where I become a Republican": When kids finish school they need a "capitalistic entrepreneurial system" to create jobs for them. "And therefore you’ve got to get the tax burden off business. You’ve got to lower the capital-gains tax."   1   The National Taxpayers Union Foundation says the 104th Congress introduced less than half as many bills to boost spending in its first six months as the two Congresses before it did. . . . What a Relief: An official at one Department of Energy cleanup site admitted that it wastes one in every three dollars spent but said that by 1996 the waste should be "cut in half."   1   At a recent aei conference, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) said he hoped the "sunlight" of increased scrutiny would disinfect the popular culture, but if it continues to "degrade," then "we may have to consider more restrictions on the ways entertainment products are distributed." . . . Decrying the "densensitizing effect" of violent and sleazy TV shows, female leaders of the Mormon church have written the Federal Communications Commission in support of efforts to clean up TV. . . . Columbia’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that 67 percent of adults and 76 percent of teens say pop culture encourages illegal drug use. . . . TV Nation: A national poll found that half of all Americans watch television over dinner at least three nights a week. When leaving home, 15 percent keep the set on for their pets. . . . The Buffalo News quoted mtv president Tom Freston admitting "I have prevented my kids from watching mtv at home. It’s not safe for kids."

‘For 35 years now, liberal predictions about the aftermath of welfare reform have been consistently wrong, and conservative predictions have been consistently right," writes welfare scholar Charles Murray in the New York Times. . . . American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker is unimpressed with the afl-cio’s much-ballyhooed new leadership: "If they had a new idea, I would have heard it."

¥  A fascinating power struggle between competing liberationists broke out at the annual Gay Rodeo in Maryland when an animal rights activist complained, "they don’t need to force panties on a goat."  

¥  Catholic Republican voters now roughly equal Democratic ones. Three in five in call themselves conservatives, a Tarrance Group polls reveals. . . . In 1994, baby boomers preferred the Republican party for the first time, says U.S. News & World Report. . . . The magazine adds that in Massachusetts, independents now outnumber Democrats, while at liberal Harvard young Republicans outnumber Democrats 3 to 1. . . . Boston’s Ritz-Carlton says only baby boomers support lowered dress standards there; older guests and those under 30 prefer the traditional coat-and-tie code. . . . A new Beatles book quotes John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi, who raised him but had no patience for his left-wing politics: "I know that boy…. If there were a revolution, John would be first in the queue to run."

¥   In a November 17 speech, Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers noted that contemporary Japan suffers a lesser version of the same disease that brought down the Soviet Union: excessive "government control and intervention." . . . Brazil’s government plans to privatize the railway system; 18,000 workers are eventually expected to lose their jobs.

¥   Money has eliminated 150 schools from its annual college-rating issue because they were "too religious."

¥  Green Hugs: Miriam Kennet, an engineer and member of Britain’s Green Party, recently unveiled a new "non-threatening hug" to replace the standard frontal embrace, now deemed too menacing and sexually predatory. Party members participated in a workshop on the technique.

Brigid Schulte of the Philadelphia Inquirer observes that today "Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is being dismantled" and the "people are silent," while the far more modest cuts proposed by the Reagan administration brought "outraged" Americans "to the streets." . . . Rush Limbaugh told George magazine that if he were president, "neon signs would be posted in every government office reading: IT’S NOT YOUR MONEY."