California’s Sign: Mercury Rising

The state’s motto is “Eureka,� meaning “I have found it,� the word Greek mathematician Archimedes shouted as he leaped from his bath, having observed that his body weight displacement made the bathwater level rise, thus creating the study of hydrostatics.

In California, the word meant the Gold Rush of 1849. Yet 150 years on, long after the richest ore has been panned out, what is also being found is another, less felicitous metallic chemical element--mercury.

Most of the Gold Rush’s early yields came by using environmentally devastating quantities of mercury to winnow the gold from other material, says USGS scientist Roger Ashley--mercury which he says could still have “significant environmental impacts on some watersheds.�

The lesson, again, and eternally, is that all that glitters is not gold; it may be quicksilver.

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Hirsute route: Who needs science in your corner when you’ve got the government?

The Times-Standard in Eureka reports that regional chambers of commerce want 80 miles of California 96 between Happy Camp and Willow Creek to be designated the “Bigfoot Scenic Byway.� The newspaper says the request may be submitted to the U.S. Forest Service as early as this month.

Never mind that a Bigfoot fancier studying the legendary 1967 footage of a few seconds of strolling Sasquatch has found evidence of a hoax, in the shape of fasteners evidently holding together the pieces of a Bigfoot suit.

Unlike signs for deer crossings and falling rocks, the name would have nothing to do with the likelihood of spotting Bigfoot. Rather, it’s a flat-out tourism tantalizer, one being supported by boards of supervisors in Siskiyou and Humboldt counties.

The designation could lure visitors off I-5 to meander through local towns, spend money and search for Bigfoot vista points.

After all, look what a new name has done for Nevada’s Highway 375 near the notorious Area 51; it’s now Extraterrestrial Highway. And nobody drives that expecting to see aliens landing in the passing lane.

Do they?

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California Health Plans

California continues to be the nation’s largest market for managed care health plans, with more than 20 million residents enrolled as of September 1998. That’s a 128% increase over the number enrolled just nine years earlier. Here are the state’s top 10 health plans, ranked by number of members, according to the California Association of Health Plans annual report:

HEALTH PLAN: ENROLLMENT

Kaiser: 5,659,679

Blue Shield: 3,836,744

Blue Cross: 3,375,058

PacifiCare: 2,244,090

Health Net: 2,115,506

CIGNA: 975,732

Prudential: 583,228

Aetna: 484,138

Maxicare: 300,230

Lifeguard, Inc.: 232,378

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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Denim quorum: An Italian appellate court’s rape case ruling that a woman could not have been raped because she was wearing jeans has provoked outrage from the Spanish Steps to . . . Sacramento.

The court overturned a rape conviction, declaring: “It is common knowledge . . . that jeans cannot even be partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing them . . . and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with all her might.�

In solidarity with women members of Italy’s parliament who have vowed to wear jeans until the matter is resolved, a score of women members of the state Assembly and Senate wore jeans for a day on the Assembly floor.

Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) missed the jeans-in because her flight was late, but lauded the bipartisan and bi-gender support of Assembly GOP leader Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino), who likewise showed up in jeans and declared that “clothing and fashion have nothing to do with rape.�

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One-offs: For the second time this month, a rescue had to be launched for a Yosemite ski instructor who got lost while snowboarding. On Feb. 1, he was rescued by helicopter from a ledge; this week, he and a friend were found after losing their way snowboarding down a wilderness mountain . . . Her parents, who weren’t wearing seat belts, were thrown from their car and killed, but an 18-month-old girl strapped into her infant seat survived the 450-foot plunge down a steep coastal cliff in Big Sur.

EXIT LINE

“I’m not of the opinion that overweight people are being discriminated against in any way, but I’d be happy to study it.�

--Mark Mastrov, CEO of a chain of gyms whose billboards showing a hungry space alien read: “When they come, they’ll eat the fat ones first.� Prompted by protests from about 30 fat folk, San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano--whose routines as a part-time stand-up comic have included avoirdupois humor--says he wants the city to consider extending anti-discrimination legislation to the hefty.

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.