Our doughty L.A. County board of supervisors have released the proposed new L.A. County seal. The AP reports:

A proposed new seal for Los Angeles County has been unveiled_ minus a controversial gold cross, oil derricks and a goddess.
County supervisors voted in June to remove a tiny cross, which has been part of the seal since 1957. This, after the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California threatened to sue on grounds that the symbol was a government endorsement of Christianity...

The new seal also replaces the central image of the goddess Pomona with an American Indian woman holding a bowl and swaps out oil derricks representing Signal Hill for an illustration of the San Gabriel Mission.

The cross atop the mission is not depicted.

I believe the last sentence is what we in the media refer to as a "zinger."

The L.A. Times' report has a before and after picture, as well as this:

"This is not going to end," vowed Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a fierce proponent of keeping the cross. "If you look at any drawings of the San Gabriel Mission, it's got a cross on top. I mean, you could put a picture [and the proposed seal] side by side, and go, 'Hello?' "

Others liked the design. At the ACLU, attorney Ben Wizner praised the new images as more inclusive and even "pretty."

"As far as we were concerned, they could have satisfied their legal obligation by simply removing the cross," he said. "But they went a step further and tried to devise a symbol that would really reflect the diversity of the county."

Crikey!