Innovators

It took a core group of hardy public safety officers six years of grueling running and swimming events to raise enough money for one brown pelican to fly over the city's beach. The bird, an 8-foot-tall, solid bronze statue of the endangered California brown pelican in flight, was finally dedicated in a sunset ceremony this past weekend. The $20,000 statue was crafted to honor one of the most important figures in the history of ocean safety: Vincent Grigsby Moorhouse, who died in 1992.

That Phil Ramone was a musical force in the recording studio is undeniable, and the evidence lies in the range of his accomplishments. For example, within one three-year period in the early 1960s, Ramone mixed Lesley Gore's smash hit "It's My Party," recorded Marilyn Monroe seducing President John F. Kennedy in song on his birthday and engineered essential double-quartet recordings by jazz innovators Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Ramone, who died Saturday in his late 70s or early 80s, depending on sources, would have been only around 30 at the time.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is on a hunting trip in California. And the prey is Golden State businesses - and jobs. Perry kicked off his in-your-face campaign to woo companies to the Lone Star State this month with radio ads declaring that "building a business in California is next to impossible. " Now the governor is on a whirlwind trip through the state courting companies in person. "You fish where the fish are," Perry said Tuesday during an interview in Beverly Hills, his slow drawl emphasizing each point.

Re "Apple bites back," Opinion, Aug. 30 Brian J. Love, an assistant professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law, did some math involving 250,000 "potentially applicable patents" to prove the legal system got it wrong in the Apple-Samsung infringement case, but he completely misses the point. This case was not about esoteric technical patents, but rather creative design and interface innovation that made smartphones easy for people to use - innovation so desirable that it actually did "change the world" (or at least the world of smartphones)

Slipping out early from the office last month, more than 300 of the city's most prestigious stockbrokers descended on the VIP room of Rick's Cabaret, a swank "gentlemen's club" that has heralded a nationwide boom in upscale adult entertainment. Dressed in pin stripes and gray flannel, they sucked down free cocktails and gorged on a buffet of stuffed crab.

Governments want business to spend more on research and development. But even if, through tax breaks and other inducements, the amount of investment in R&D is stepped up, it will not necessarily lead to more innovation. What matters is how well companies manage the innovation process, how they organize and motivate their scientists, how they decide which ideas to pursue and which to discard. In a new book, "The Architecture of Innovation: The Economics of Creative Organizations," Harvard professor Josh Lerner provides an authoritative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the American system.

Cuban percussionist Miguel "Anga" Diaz, an acclaimed conga master who perfected a dazzling five-drum technique with a versatility that allowed him to span genres from progressive jazz to traditional Afro-Cuban standards, has died. He was 45. Diaz, who was also a composer and arranger, suffered a heart attack Wednesday at his home in San Sadurni d'Anoia, a small town east of Barcelona, where he had recently moved in search of a more serene lifestyle.

An attention-piquing item on today's agenda for the Los Angeles Unified school board: a resolution to allow the operation of 50 newly built schools over the next four years by assorted groups, inside and outside the district. Charters, organized labor, parent organizations and community associations could submit plans to run the schools, with the district picking from among competing proposals.