In an act of uncharacteristic moderation for...

In an act of uncharacteristic moderation for politicians, the Los Angeles City Council voted in February to cut the speaking time of members on issues from five minutes to three.

Today, the council will consider a motion by members Zev Yaroslavsky and Mike Woo to extend the yapping limit back to five minutes.

An unexpected re-evaluation?

Not really. After all, the council will soon begin televising its meetings.

You may remember keye/donna/pearlstein as the West Los Angeles firm that lampooned the myriad sponsorships of the 1984 Olympics by hanging a banner that proclaimed: “Official Advertising Agency of Olympic Boulevard.”

Now the company has a comment on another matter: Outside its headquarters, the city has ripped up a small patch of grass and trees so that it can install a right-hand turn lane.

“We were pretty upset about it so we asked our people to come up with some entries (for the banner),” said Paul Keye, chairman of the agency.

The suggestions included: “There Used To Be a Tree Here,” “Welcome to Life in the Turn Lane,” and “Another Urban Uglification Project.”

The agency settled on: “Asphalt 1. Trees 0.”

Owing to the presence of the ocean a few hundred feet away, jury candidates in the assembly room of the Long Beach Courthouse receive some unusual instructions.

“Do not bring your beach wear, jurors,” one recent group was told. “Do not wear your swimming suits. This is not a beach resort. This is a court. You cannot wear shorts. I have had jurors wear shorts and claim they were not shorts. We all know what shorts are.”

You might feel a few pains in your stomach just from reading this, but Pi Sigma Epsilon fraternity of Cal Poly Pomona intends to build the world’s largest burrito Thursday, a projected 185-footer. That’s around 200,000 calories or so (assuming you don’t use guacamole).

Once the beef and beans and lettuce and tomatoes and salsa monster is put together, it will be cut into six-inch slices to raise funds for charitable causes.

After the diners have finished, some of them might feel like taking a snooze in the world’s largest bed, which was recently constructed by the Acme Mattress Factory of Long Beach.

Acme just learned that its 25-by-40-foot work of art will be cited in the 1990 edition of the Bible of crazies, the Guinness Book of World Records.

But the honored piece of furniture isn’t on display in the Acme showroom.

“Oh, we dismantled it,” said co-owner Ellen Boles. “It took up too much space.”