"San Diego Zoo Unveils Severed Rhino Head Attached To Steel Frame As Part Of New Conceptual Wildlife Exhibit"

"Transforming a traditional animal park into a postmodern critique of biology was no simple task, zoo officials said, revealing that it took workers more than three months to demolish the 'Discovery Outpost' and replace it with the 20 acres of empty desert across which they have strewn the skeletal remains of a solitary blue whale. Meanwhile, the park's petting zoo reportedly required $30 million of upgrades to render its former collection of domesticated animals as three-dimensional holograms."

From The Onion.

"Caution Watch for People Crossing Road"

"'There's only a handful of really iconic images that have been successfully mobilized for the purposes of immigration politics,' said Everard Meade, director of the Trans Border Institute at the University of San Diego. "The thing with these symbols is that the response is 50-50.
"'Some people see that sign and think, "My God, this is a sign that represents how our immigration policy has just failed, and we've put people in this vulnerable position such that we have to have a road sign so people don't run them over on the highway,"' Meade added."

Kate Morrissey at the Los Angeles Times notes the end of the "immigrant crossing" caution signs.

"Speed, in Everything We Do, Is Not Always a Sign of Progress"

"'I always felt as if I had to retain my connection to the empirical record, even as I retained my admiration for the participants. My attitude toward the people shifted from a more uncritical admiration to one of great respect.'"

Robert L. Pincus in The San Diego Union-Tribune interviews Daniel Widener, UC San Diego history professor and author of the new book Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles. (And The Late Adopter's long-ago roommate.)

Stay Classy, UC San Diego

"History professor Danny Widener, who directs the university's African American studies program, said he was outraged but not surprised by the party. He said African American students comprise less than 2% of undergraduates at UC San Diego, which he described as inhospitable to them.
"'The campus climate is one in which you are constantly regarded as a statistical anomaly at best,' he said."

Larry Gordon in the Los Angeles Times reports on anger over a racist party near the University of California, San Diego.

Addendum:
Two years later, Tony Perry in the Los Angeles Times discusses the end of a federal investigation at the university.

"Think or Swim?"

"One of these cities gives you reliable sun, a world-class zoo and kid-friendliness, accompanied by the occasional reminder that the 1982 film 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' was based on a true story.
"The other city doesn't seem to care as much about your kids, but it will feed, entertain and edify you with such verve and sophistication that you'll barely notice the arctic breezes."

In the Los Angeles Times, Chris Reynolds asks whether Sans Francisco or Diego makes for a better weekend destination.

The Devil's Wind

In the Los Angeles Times, Bettina Boxall, Meghan Daum, and Christopher Hawthorne try to make sense of last week's destructive wildfires in Southern California.


"More recently, on the very eve of the new firestorms, county supervisors endorsed a so-called 'shelter in place' strategy that will permit developers to build in the rugged, high-fire-risk backcountry without having to provide the secondary roads needed to ensure safe evacuation. Instead residents would be encouraged to stay in their 'fire resistant' homes while fire-fighters defended the perimeter of their cul-de-sac. As scores of fire experts and survivors have pointed out in angry op-ed columns and blogs, this is a lunatic, if not homicidal, scheme that elevates developers' bottom-lines over human life. Those who have actually confronted 100-foot-high firestorms, driven by hurricane-velocity winds, know that the developer slogan--'It's not where you build, but how you build'--is a deadly deception.
"Meanwhile, the new fire cataclysm seems to be rewarding the very insiders most responsible for the uncontrolled building and underfunded fire protection that helped give the Santa Ana winds their real tinder. While conservative ideologues now celebrate San Diego's most recent tragedy as a 'triumph' of middle-class values and suburban solidarity, the business community openly gloats over the coming reconstruction boom and the revival of a building industry badly shaken by the mortgage crisis."

And Mike Davis at TomDispatch.com sums it all up.