NO POGS ALLOWED: They’re stackable. They’re whackable....

NO POGS ALLOWED: They’re stackable. They’re whackable. But they’re no longer welcome on school grounds at Park Oaks elementary in Thousand Oaks. . . . Teachers and administrators banned Pogs after too many students complained about losing them during Pogs games--sort of a hybrid of shooting marbles and flipping coins. “It is just like banning gambling,” Principal Rachelle Morga said. . . . Sixth-grader Ryan Hansen has little patience for the whiners who brought on the ban. “If they put their money in,” he said, “they have to be ready to lose.”

SEEING RED: Taxpayer advocate H. Jere Robings has blistered county supervisors for their handsome salaries and an array of other matters. . . . Now, he’s taking issue with how they halt long-winded public speakers who exceed their five-minute allotment at the lectern. “Such an interruption for the uninitiated is disconcerting,” Robings wrote to the board. His recommendation: install a speaker’s timer that flashes yellow when time runs short and red when time’s up. . . . Next time Robings rises to speak, says one county wag, “it’ll be red light, red light!”

FICUS FRACAS: Mushroom trees have lined California Street in Ventura for a quarter of a century. But they soon could be reduced to mulch because city leaders say the ficus topiary doesn’t fit in with changes planned for downtown (B1). . . . Instead, they want to put in palm trees, similar to the ones that stalk around Ventura City Hall.

CYBER COLLEGE: Cal Lutheran is wired for the leap into cyberspace. . . . Over the summer, work crews laid 58 miles of fiber-optic cable connecting classrooms and dorm rooms alike (B4). Beginning next month, the Thousand Oaks university will bring all 3,500 students, faculty and staff on line to CLUnet. Soon they’ll be firing off e-mail and surfing the Internet.