LABJ’s LA Stories
Keep Off the Grass
Los Angeles keeps breaking new ground in the art world. This month an exhibit that consists primarily of a floating lawn will debut at the SCI-Arc gallery.
“Basically it’s an investigation of our cultural relationship with sod,” said Margaret Griffin, a partner with Griffin Enright Architects, which designed the display.
The 1,000-square-foot undulating carpet can be viewed from above, using a suspended bridge, and below, where a pool of water reflects light on the roots.
“The idea is to raise our consciousness of grass,” Griffin said. “More chemicals are used on lawns than any other agriculture. Lawnmowers make more pollution than cars, and grass clippings make up 15 percent of our landfills.”
That’s not to mention water consumption.
“We are not saying that lawns are bad,” said Griffin. “We are just trying to make a comment on the way we live in L.A.”
Daniela Drake
Dog Days
UCLA has a message for all Chihuahuas: No quiero Taco Bell.
The diminutive canine in Taco Bell commercials (now retired) was wildly popular, but one student group is not pleased with some of Taco Bell’s practices.
The Social Justice Alliance, a campus student organization, has launched a campaign to remove the Mexican fast-food restaurant from campus because of allegations that its tomato suppliers do not pay workers a living wage. The company has disputed the claims.
According to the Daily Bruin, Associated Students of UCLA has voted to recommend the removal of Taco Bell, a unit of Yum Brands, from campus.
“Los Angeles as a whole has a much higher awareness of (these kinds of) issues,” said Sarah Church, a Social Justice Alliance program coordinator. “A lot of students here are children of immigrant farm workers and are very receptive.”
Across the country, 17 additional student groups have taken up the “Boycott the Bell” cause, including Cal State Los Angeles.
Janna Braun
Big Bang
While parents worry about their kids playing violent video games, will anyone complain about the latest uber-violent offering from Santa Monica videogame producer Black Ops Entertainment?
Its “Fugitive Hunter,” released in late November in time to stuff stockings, closely resembles the multitude of other first-person shooter games that let gamers blow away terrorists. But the Black Ops game is the first to incorporate actual names and faces of 11 of the world’s most wanted real-life terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.
While some first-person shooter games incite accusations of racism for featuring Middle Eastern bad guys, Karen Sternheimer, a USC lecturer in sociology, said featuring actual terrorists is more politically correct.
“This game is a very literal interpretation of current events,” she said. “It picks up on very widespread values and beliefs. After all, we have a bounty on this guy’s (Bin Laden’s) head.”
Matt Myerhoff
Wait Up!
As if it’s not challenging enough, organizers of the Los Angeles Marathon have added a new dimension to next year’s race. Along with $25,000 prizes to the first man and woman elite runner, next year’s marathon will award $50,000 to the first person overall to finish the race.
The L.A. Marathon has never been won by a woman, so to level the playing field the elite women are getting a head start of 19 minutes and 11 seconds, the average time during the marathon’s 18 years in which the first place woman has finished behind the first place man.
The rules only apply to about 40 runners in a field of at least 20,000 anticipated for the March 7 race, said William Burke, founder and president of the L.A. Marathon. The competition, called “The Challenge,” is the first of its kind for any marathon, he said.
“When I first got into this business, I always thought there would become a day men and women would run equally fast,” he said. “This absolutely equals it out. In golf you have a handicap, so why wouldn’t you have it in running?”
Amanda Bronstad
The Roving Eye
Star Wars
So is the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel a five-diamond or three-star hotel?
Well, both.
The hotel recently touted its 18th consecutive five-diamond award from AAA. But it was a little quieter when the more prestigious Mobil Travel Guide snatched away a star for its 2004 rating.
The resort was downgraded to three stars; the Ritz-Carlton had received four stars since 1998, which followed a 10-year run on Mobil’s five-star list.
“The bar has been raised locally and nationally in the four-star and five-star category,” said Shane O’Flaherty, vice president of business development at Park Ridge, Ill.-based Mobil Travel Guide. “We look at the overall guest experience, which is a combination of the facility and service, with more emphasis on service. If the front desk person is rude, (guests) will remember that more than the marble.”
O’Flaherty declined to talk specifically about the Ritz-Carlton, except to say it has stiff competition from new high-end hotels, like the neighboring St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort and Spa and the Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna.
Ritz-Carlton General Manager John Dravinski said he was “profoundly disappointed” in Mobil’s three-star rating. He said the resort follows the guidebooks’ checklists “like our morning bible,” and said the hotel scores high on its own guest and employee surveys.
For 2004, Mobil gave out 30 five-star awards to hotels in the U.S. and Canada. Four stars were given to 138 hotels. The auto club gave its top five-diamond award to 137 hotels in North America. A final tally isn’t in for the auto club’s 2004 four-diamond ratings.
Jennifer Bellantonio
