The clowns at LAUSD

There's an old "Far Side" cartoon that shows a lecture hall filled with seated dinosaurs. Diagrams fill the blackboard, and a huge reptile is speaking into the microphone at the podium. "The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen," he says. "The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut." It's an image of doomed and clueless gigantism that will resonate with anyone who read Times staff writer Joel Rubin's recent reconstruction of the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District's great payroll fiasco.

Tim Rutten

February 13, 2008