AND ANOTHER THING …

With lots of serious reasons for worrying about gambling, former Gov. Angus King employs one of the more irrelevant against the pending racino in Bangor when he observes that its temporary site is the old Miller’s restaurant, “where you can’t even see the raceway or smell a horse.” True, and yet the distinct odor of bull fills the air.

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Scarborough’s school superintendent, William Michaud, wasn’t exactly leading the cuisine cheering squad recently when he lamented, “As much as I support the idea of good nutrition, I don’t know that people are going to buy hummus at a football game.” But that may just be because he hasn’t gotten into the spirit of the thing by, say, renaming his school team the Scarborough High Fighting Chick Peas.

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A Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., woman with an extravagant sense in gifts recently had the winning bid of $25,100 on eBay to secure the right to name a character in Stephen King’s new novel, which is titled “Cell.” The name she has chosen reportedly is Huizenga, after her brother Ray Huizenga, a serious King fan. The auction’s proceeds will go to the First Amendment Project, which defends the free speech rights of writers and artists, certainly a noble cause, but we can’t help thinking of all the names we have placed in print without remuneration. So let’s try this: Huizenga. Please send a check to the address at the top of the page.

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Four women arrested recently in rural New York for going topless say they are covered by a 1992 state Court of Appeals decision that allows women to be shirtless anywhere a man can. The four were arrested outside a grocery store in a village of Moravia, 40 miles southwest of Syracuse. We’re all for equality of exposure, but would be so much happier if both sexes kept their shirts on at the grocery store. Especially in the fruit section.

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In the latest issue of the journal American Psychologist, Janet Shibley Hyde, of the University of Wisconsin, concludes, after reviewing 46 meta-analyses of sex differences, that men and women are much more alike than different. Psychological differences were slight, though there were a few physical differences, such as throwing and some aspects of sexuality, according to a news report. She argues that, “It is time to consider the costs of overinflated claims of gender differences.” OK by us, just as long as we don’t have to do it at a grocery store in Moravia, N.Y.