A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

RACE OF CAKES: Combining a few of our favorite topics around here--namely culinary pursuits and odd child names--is this tale of how the ShopRite grocery store in Greenwich Township, N.J., refused to decorate a birthday cake for three-year-old Adolph Hitler Campbell, forcing the Campbells, whose two other children are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie, to get their cake from a local Wal-Mart.

Some choice nuggets that are perhaps lost in the story:

• The Campbells said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn't expect the names to cause problems. Despite the cake refusal, the Campbells said they don't expect the names to cause problems later, such as when the children start school
• Disabilities, the couple says, have left both out of work: [35-year-old] Heath Campbell can't landscape or pump gas because he has emphysema, and [25-year-old] Deborah can't waitress because she has a bad back. They live on Social Security payments.
• There are swastikas on walls, on jackets, on the freezer and on a pillow. The family car had swastikas, Heath Campbell said, until New Jersey's Department of Children and Families told him they could endanger the children. The swastikas, Heath Campbell said, are symbols of peace and balance. He considers them art.
• A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said the store won't put anything illegal or profane on a cake but thinks it's important to respect the views of customers and employees. "Our No. 1 priority in decorating cakes is to serve the customer to the best of our ability," Anna Taylor, the spokeswoman, said from Bentonville, Ark.