Only in L.A.

OK, plans for a DisneySea theme park in Long Beach have been abandoned. But that’s no reason why the company has to choose Orange County for the location of its next amusement attraction. L.A. County is the home of a huge stretch of land that officials have been trying desperately to put to use for years:

The L.A. River.

Disney should consider the advantages. One of the problems in Long Beach was the company’s plan to cart in thousands and thousands of tons of dirt as landfill. For the L.A. River, a few shovels full will do.

And think of the attractions that could be offered:

* “Pavement of the Caribbean.”

* “Shopping Cart Mountain.”

* “Submarine Cruise Through Suburbia.”

On second thought, scratch the submarine ride. A theme park built on the L.A. River would have no water rides.

List of the Day:

Some local eateries whose cuisines don’t match their names:

1--A Touch of France (Sierra Madre): a Mexican restaurant at night (a French restaurant during the day).

2--Vikings Table (West L.A.): a Chinese restaurant.

3--Versailles (West L.A.): a Cuban restaurant.

4--Cafe Bistro (Long Beach): Mexican food served at night.

5--Cafe Rampart (L.A.): serves vending-machine sandwiches and cans of soda (it’s the lunch room for the LAPD division of the same name).

6--Gondola (Long Beach): Persian food can be ordered from the adjacent Star Kebab restaurant, which is under same management.

One feature of Thursday’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights was the swearing-in of about 100 new U.S. residents at the Music Center. Since the building was considered a federal courthouse for the occasion, members of the media weren’t allowed to take pictures of the ceremony.

For photographers, then, it was a celebration of the nine of first 10 Amendments.

With all the drivers in L.A., it’s no wonder that publicist Ellen Girardeau reports that “What Bird Did That?” is among the top sellers in the bookstore of the county Natural History Museum. “People have been known to laugh out loud” when they see it, she said.

That strikes us as strange because, as the book jacket states, it is a sober, “comprehensive field guide to the dejecta of America’s most common birds, prepared specially for the motorist. The full color-illustrations . . . will enable ornithologists (and) serious bird-watchers . . . to quickly identify which species created which splay.”

The authors even detail where they were driving when they collected each sample (30 m.p.h. in Santa Monica, for instance, in the case of the feral pigeon).

The book’s inspiring message is: Next time you have a windshield encounter of the avian kind on the freeway, think of yourself not as a victim, but as a scientist.

miscelLAny:

There is an Ozone Park in Santa Monica, off Ozone Avenue.