”No offense, but I hate Texas,” said Dale Adams, longing for his native Ohio after release from a Texas prison. Adams, the subject of the movie, ”The Thin Blue Line,” enjoyed the first blush of freedom after 12 years behind bars Wednesday by drinking a beer on a plane trip from Dallas to Houston to visit his lawyer.
FOLLOWING AN ODOR Remember that California ”resisting arrest” story-the one secretly filmed and showing a Long Beach cop manhandling a peaceful suspect who happened to be a black cop from another town? At the request of prosecutors, charges against Don Jackson were dismissed after arresting officer Mark Dickey admitted ”errors” in his report. (One ”error” might have been pushing Jackson`s head through a store window, an act filmed by an NBC camera crew that had agreed to follow Jackson after hearing reports of racism and police brutality.) Next? What else? Jackson`s lawyer predicts suing Long Beach for
”tons of money.”
DO-GOODERS DOING NO GOOD About that campaign to rid high schools of Indian names? Don`t bother-they`re inoffensive, say Chippewa Indian leaders in Minnesota who surveyed their 3,000 members and discovered that the ”vast majority” don`t support educational movements to eradicate such names as Chiefs, Indians and Warriors in American schools. ”We view the use of Indian names as a point of pride if they are used respectfully and in good taste,” said tribal spokesman Myron Ellis, wondering why so many non-Indians are so overly sensitive in their behalf.
ALDA: A NEW SERIES Update for star-gazers: Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann is ”resting comfortably” after a Tuesday appendectomy at Massachusetts General Hospital. Meanwhile, ”M+A+S+H” old-timer Alan Alda has agreed with NBC to star in a new TV series next year; subject unknown. And Michael (”Miami Vice”) Mann is developing a six-hour NBC miniseries based on Elaine Shannon`s book,
”Desperadoes,” about undercover drug agent Enrique ”Kiki” Camarena, who was murdered in Guadalajara in 1985.
ROYALTY, SCHMOYALTY! Egalitarianism indeed lives in Britain. So Derrick Gibbs pushed his point home when Princess Diana visited Uppingham for a wedding and local constables declared the street outside Gibbs` house a no-parking zone. Irritated, Gibbs violated the royal accommodation. Then he refused to pay the parking ticket, arguing that a man`s home is his castle, even among workmen. ” . . . a point of principle!” cheered neighbor Olivia Pope as Gibbs was led away to jail. A little fanfare for the common man, please-he`ll need 5 days` worth.
HE`S NUMB IN NOME For 17 days Boy Hoyte led a dog`s life. It ended Tuesday night, as Hoyte officially rear-ended the annual 1,168-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Yes, he was the very last of 38 hardy mushers to cross the finish line. Finishing 6 days behind the winner and well out of the money, Hoyte nonetheless took his loss in stride: ”It feels good to be in Nome.”
A BUNDLE OF TROUBLE? Finishing a 2,700-mile run from western Canada, Jim Thunder trotted into New York to claim for his Cree Indian tribe a ”sacred bundle” long held by the American Museum of Natural History.
”This is a sacred bundle that was a gift from the spirit world to the Indian people,” said Thunder, who asked museum anthropologists to yield the 150-year-old artifact from its nonpublic research collection.
In 1934, a son of a Cree chief, Big Bear, gave the artifact-a sacred calico bag holding bear claws, a clump of sweet grass and a plug of tobacco-to a museum researcher for safekeeping.
Thunder said Big Bear instructed him in a vision to retrieve it. About 100 Indians from various tribes greeted Thunder on Tuesday on completion of his journey, which began last September in Edmonton, Alberta. The museum responded noncommittally.