<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Pity the Poor Sap That Gets in the Way of These Guys

However inviting its name for “Doonesbury” mockery, the Pine Pitch Canker Task Force has a solemn charge: coping with the tree fungus that threatens to obliterate the three remaining stands of native Monterey pines that once were dense as dog hair along the California coast.

In a decade’s time, the pine pitch canker has spread from Santa Cruz and Alameda counties to 17 others, San Diego to Mendocino. Ironically, the native California tree is cultivated in the Southern Hemisphere for pulp and high-grade wood, allowing countries to grow it as a cash crop and thus preserve their own tropical forests.

Environmentalists are using the canker as leverage to lobby to reduce the scale of plans by a Pebble Beach company that wants to cut down 40,000 Monterey pines to put up 350 houses and the area’s eighth golf course.

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Not unsuitable: The official name of what was once the nation’s best-known official swimsuit-optional beach is “Torrey Pines City Beach.” But the world, clothed and un, still knows it as it has for decades--as Black’s Beach.

It bears the name of a La Jolla landowner whose son, William F. Black, once the assistant chief of protocol to President George Bush, is now California’s chief of protocol, the unpaid arbiter of what is proper and improper.

Since the 1940s, when Black’s father owned a thoroughbred horse farm atop the cliffs, surfers and locals called the unnamed beach below “old man Black’s.”

“Wherever I’ve traveled in the world,” says the younger Black, “people recognize the name.”

But by the late 1970s, protocol chief Black’s mother couldn’t bear it any longer, and endorsed a measure that changed the beach’s name and its dress code. “She said, ‘I can’t stand the stigma of my grandchildren growing up with that,’ ” said her son.

Still, little energy is expended enforcing either the official name or the official cover-up policy. It all moves William Black to say of his mother, “She won the battle but lost the war.”

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To boldly grow: It has its own Internet fan club, but it doesn’t have a North American manufacturer anymore.

The trademarked chia--the holiday gift of last and desperate resort, a curious cultural tchotchke, the creature-shaped terra cotta figures that grow grass to mimic fur or hair--is no longer to be made in Tecate, but in China.

The head of the San Francisco firm that owns the trademark Chia Pet name and markets the item--as useless as a cardboard crowbar but as irresistible as a car wreck--says they had “pricing, servicing and quality problems” with the Mexican firm.

The Mexican firm still makes chia pets to sell under another name; its president hints that the Chinese-made chia could come up short in the quality department . . .

Next season: the Chia Lawyer.

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Barb wear: Updating our last report: The sale of alternative Barbies practically reached holiday meltdown. Not only did San Francisco’s In-Jean-ious shop sell out of Trailer Trash, Drag Queen and Hooker Barbies, but Barbie haters nationwide came out of that overstocked miniature closet with their own custom Barbie proposals, such as a Mormon Ken with four Barbie wives, and a Homeless Barbie accessorized by nothing at all. (Also out there somewhere: a demand for A-cup Barbie.)

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Traffic Collisions by Driver Age

Drivers in their early ‘20s were involved in the highest percentage of fatal or injury-causing traffic collisions in 1995. Here are the percentages by age for all streets and highways.

Driver Age: % of Fatal Collisions

0-14: 0.2%

15-19: 8.7%

20-24: 14.5%

25-29: 12.4%

30-34: 12.5%

35-39: 11.4%

40-44: 8.7%

45-49: 6.9%

50-54: 5.0%

55-59: 3.6%

60-64: 2.9%

65-69: 2.2%

70-74: 2.6%

75-79: 1.8%

80-84: 1.6%

85-89: 0.7%

90+: 0.1%

Age not stated: 4.2%

Source: California Highway Patrol Public Affairs Office

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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One offs: San Francisco’s health department campaign to derail the trend of cigar chic is focusing on the aesthetic, with signs like “Cigars! They look like what they smell like. Don’t put them in your mouth!” . . . A PR man for moribund Air 21 may have signaled the end of the Fresno-based commuter airline when he faxed his resume to reporters covering the airline’s woes. . . . “Disgruntled,” the Berkeley online business mag “For People Who Work For a Living,” has named as employee of the year Clinton political consultant Dick Morris, who engineered the Clinton recovery only to be booted out because of his off-duty doings with a call woman. . . . Bakersfield judge upheld his own order allowing everyone except news reporters to attend a pretrial hearing in a torture-murder case. . . . More than 70 mud hens were found dead, apparently poisoned, at a La Costa golf course where a tournament is set for next week. . . . A church-based Berkeley group helping the homeless is sticking official-looking parking “tickets” on the windshields of pricey cars to persuade at least 100 drivers to donate about a month’s car payment to its program.

EXIT LINE

“If you put ‘train’ on something, it can sell better than if you put ‘bus’ or ‘transit.’ ”

--Insight into California character by Davis transportation planner Kirk Schneider, editor of “California by Train, Bus and Ferry,’ a new book about getting around the state on public wheels.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.