NATIONAL ZOO DIRECTOR QUITS OVER ANIMAL DEATHS

Finally, Lucy Spelman has taken responsibility for the absurd and cruel deaths of animals at the National Zoo that have occurred on her watch. After a report from the National Research Council pinned the blame for these needless deaths on bad management, Spelman stepped up to the plate and resigned - as of the end of the year. In typical public-resignation rhetoric, the zoo director complained that she'd become "a lightning rod for too much attention" without directly admitting that the attention was warranted. But her implication, at least, is right: Removing her doesn't remove the problem, which is a huge population of exotic wild animals being kept in close confinement in the middle of a city. The problem, in other words, is spelled Z-O-O.