Correctness Gone Wrong (Very Very Wrong)

How else to explain the bizarre behavior of a majority of the town's (Provincetown, MA) selectmen at a meeting earlier this month?

To wit, Selectwoman Sarah Peake spun her chair around near the end of the Nov. 14 meeting, gazed up at an oversized oil painting depicting the Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact when they first landed in Provincetown, and declared that she wanted it removed.

Mind you, it's not that she didn't like the look or the colors or the style. It's not that she thought it was too big or too small for the Judge Welsh Hearing Room. It's not that it clashed with anything around it.

No, what Peake didn't like was that the painting didn't include any women. That and the fact that the painting's only Indian -- Native American, I'd better call him -- wasn't holding a ballot like everyone else.

If you don't believe me, let's go straight to Cheryl Andrews, the chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen. She also happened to cast the only vote against the painting's removal, making her a rare voice of sanity on the board.

"There's this lovely oil painting," she said yesterday. ''The thing is huge. It's been up there since forever. It was painted by Max Bohm, who's considered quite something in local art circles.

G*d forbid, the Pilgrims were Patriarchal. These board members, save one, give new meaning to the word "petty"