This Time It’ll Be Fast Food That Kills the Dinosaurs

The Cabazon dinosaur site has been one of my favorite Southern California landmarks for many years, and I’m dismayed at what Gary Kanter and the Kanter Family Trust have already done there (“Hold the Pterodactyls,” by Tim Harrison, So SoCal, Sept. 27). The sight of the huge dinosaurs framed by the stark backdrop of the desert--which com- bined to create an odd, uniquely Californian work of public art--has been severely compromised.

Allowing the construction of a garish Burger King suggests what disrespect Kanter has for the monument he owns. It’s a good thing that plans for a dinosaur-themed amusement park, which would have been an even worse blight on Claude K. Bell’s singular masterpiece, haven’t yet been acted on.

Let’s hope Kanter develops some feeling and respect for both the dinosaurs and the special geography they inhabit.

David Strother

Montrose

*

When I first noticed a Burger King rising like a corporate blemish in front of the Cabazon dinosaurs, I wished that Dinney and Rex could come to life and stomp right through the faux adobe roof. Our landscape has become blanketed with Special Sauce--standardized, watered-down goo that doesn’t let us see what is truly cool and funky about our country anymore. Regional flavor, local color, a deep sense of, and pride in, place--all are being steamrollered to make way for the newest Wal-Mart or the billionth fast-food franchise.

I, for one, I am boycotting the Whopper. I will follow the “EAT” sign to the Wheel Inn, sit under the garish colored lights and raise a forkful of peanut butter cream pie in tribute to Dinney and Rex.

Gayle Brandeis

Riverside