Opposites Detract: Leonard Welch, a New York...

Opposites Detract: Leonard Welch, a New York construction worker, and Franklin Swift, a character in a novel by Terry McMillan, have a great deal in common. Race, hair, weight, height, education, a love of carpentry. But a New York court said Tuesday that Welch was not libeled by the author when she gave Swift negative habits that the real person did not have. Welch had argued that he was recognizable as the model for Swift, described as “hostile and lazy,” someone who “drinks on the job,” a “rapist” and “drug user” in the novel “Disappearing Acts.” But the court ruled the differences were “readily apparent to any reader who knows the plaintiff.” “I am elated,” said McMillan, who feared a “chilling effect” if the court ruled that Welch had been damaged. McMillan and Welch were once lovers.

No Space: Ex-astronaut Michael Collins has a space problem. “Enough interpersonal problems will develop among a totally heterosexual crew, and introducing an element of homosexuality could only serve to make matters worse,” Collins wrote in his new book, “Mission to Mars.” Said a spokeswoman for a union of homosexual scientists: “One’s sexual orientation has no bearing (on) your merit.”

Loves Her Work: Sydney Biddle Barrows, 39, doesn’t mind that she’ll go down in history as the Mayflower Madam. She told a group of businesswomen Tuesday in Fresno that running her $175-per-hour call-girl service, for which she was arrested in 1984, was like running “just another business. . . . It’s still the best job I ever had.” Barrows traces her ancestors to the Mayflower.