Opinion: Barack Obama’s in Mexico, but the real news is in Riverside

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On a day when the American president was piddling around Mexico talking of trivialities like drugs, guns and neighborly inter-American alliances, the U.S. media once again showed its bias against him.

Word leaked locally today that a University of California-Riverside scientist named Kerry Knudsen has named a newly discovered species of lichen after Barack Obama.

No, really. Lichen.

And, excuse us, but where was the fawning blanket news coverage?

Nowhere but, predictably, on the ubiquitous LA Now blog, where our colleague Jia-Rui Chong has a very interesting item on the find, the distinction and the intriguing history of naming new natural stuff for real people. (Hint: It’s not always an appreciated honor.)

Read the whole thing over here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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