Freeway Sign Is Certainly an Academic Issue at University

From the beginning, the freeway sign beside San Diego State caused a stink among those with finely attuned sensibilities.

Faculty members complained that the electronic message board defiles the noble purpose of the university. Alumni were furious. Homeowners thought the sign garish.

The administration stood firm: The sign, erected last October, is a good marketing tool to tell passing motorists along Interstate 8 about sports and other entertainment events on campus.

At 70 feet tall and 30 feet by 40 feet, the sign can hardly be missed.

Still, the professoriate has treated the sign as a monstrosity to be shunned.

No faculty member was more incensed than psychology professor R.M. Yaremko. He wrote a letter calling the sign an abomination that “defines this campus not as an educational institution . . . but as a base consumer destination whose primary mission is to provide for the community’s entertainment needs.”

Yaremko died two weeks ago at age 55 of cancer. One of his dying wishes was for the sign that he hated so much to be turned off for an hour in his honor.

And so, after a bit of bureaucratic hesitation, the sign went dark Saturday afternoon for 60 minutes.

“We turned off the sign as a sign of respect,” explained a campus spokesman.

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Say it with flowers: A Petaluma woman got six months in jail for stabbing her husband in the back for bringing home two bouquets of flowers. She thought the flowers were a waste of money.

The two have since enrolled together in an anger awareness class.

* Aides to San Diego Mayor Susan Golding report that letters, calls and e-mails are running 8 to 1 in her favor since the grand jury last week called for her ouster over back-room politicking in favor of a downtown ballpark.

The mayor also has received eight bouquets of flowers. Unlike casseroles, a gift of flowers is being interpreted as an upbeat sign.

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Frog alert: If you’re out there, female red-legged frog at Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve west of Murrieta in Riverside County: Please come home. All is lost without you!

The sole remaining female in the dwindling population of red-legged frogs is MIA. Scientists are scrambling to keep the reserve’s population of the threatened species from going extinct.

Three males survive but are, well, useless without a female. A red-legged colony in Ventura County is not a genetic match.

So the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is thinking of importing females or a fertilized egg mass from San Felipe in Baja California for a reproduction program at the Los Angeles Zoo.

The missing female may have been swept away by a flood. Or maybe eaten by a raccoon, coyote, blue heron or bullfrog.

Wildlife biologist Doug Krofta fears the worst: “I think she’s gone forever.”

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Fireworks Injuries

Injuries from fireworks sent at least 161 people to emergency rooms between June 17 and July 16 last year, according to California hospitals.* Most of the injuries were to hands and feet. Data gathered by the state fire marshal show that illegal fireworks almost always account for more of the reported injuries than do legal ones.

Here is a breakout of the number of people injured, and the type of fireworks involved, during the fireworks season over the past 10 years.

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Year Legal Illegal Unknown Total People Injured 1989 143 112 47 302 1990 88 76 49 213 1991 57 75 34 166 1992 82 97 70 249 1993 55 114 53 222 1994 81 130 61 272 1995 100 150 79 329 1996 85 96 40 221 1997 82 99 38 219 1998 56 72 33 161

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*Hospital reporting of fireworks injuries is voluntary and varies from year to year, 36% reported last year. Acute-care and medical clinics are not included.

Source: California Fire Incident Reporting System, Sacramento.

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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One-offs: Mendocino County, deep in the heart of the state’s marijuana belt, has become one of the first counties to comply with Proposition 215 by creating a medicinal marijuana authorization program. The county health director will screen applicants. “This is not legalizing marijuana in Mendocino County,” says Assistant D.A. Myron Sawicki. As proof, he notes that a week ago a local got three years in prison for growing his own, without authorization . . . San Diego cops have a second case in two weeks of an assault in which the weapon was a large frozen fish. A fishing boat worker was arrested after allegedly whacking a customer with a 20-pounder. Prosecutors want to see if it was premeditated or just a crime of oppor-tuna-ty . . . Texas Gov. George W. Bush brings his campaign for the GOP presidential bid to the Del Mar Fair today. On schedule are stops at Plaza de Mexico (Latino vote), the livestock weigh-in (farm vote) and the cinnamon roll stand (calories-be-damned vote).

EXIT LINE

“I read a column by R. Michael Walters in your May issue. You failed to state which planet Mr. Walters is from.”

--Letter to the editor of Rancho Bernardo Sun, “the voice of Rancho Bernardo and north Poway.”

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.