Another County Design Has a Cross to Bear
Perhaps because of all the controversy over the L.A. County seal, one department now is obscuring its own logo. At least that’s the way it seems, judging from some forms printed up by the folks at Public Works (see accompanying).
Oddly enough, I couldn’t spot anything that the ACLU would find objectionable in the scene of palm trees, buildings and streets -- once I’d figured out how to view it. You have to hold it upside down to a mirror.
A magnifying glass would help too. If Public Works isn’t trying to hide anything, its logo should come with directions.
Sooey! In this uncertain economy, hotels are competing fiercely for tourist business. Kate Karp even noticed one in Long Beach that has facilities for farm animals (see photo).
Trashing the Lakers? Henk Friezer chanced upon evidence that someone was disenchanted with his rain gear, or Kobe Bryant’s team,or both (see photo).
It’s a strange world: Some of the emergency calls received by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, as published in the department’s Star News:
* A man was seen “cooking tuna fish in one of the dryers” at a Laundromat.
* A mother was fighting with her daughter, who was wearing a shirt that read, “Do U Mind, I’m Trying to Ignore U.”
* A customer was demanding the return of a counterfeit $20 bill that a clerk had rejected.
* A father was upset that his teenage daughter had “left wet items in the washer.”
* A wife was refusing to let her husband go out the door until he talked “to her about his 25 years of lying.”
* A woman was “talking to passersby about vampires.”
* A driver had a corpse in the back of his SUV and “was attempting to rent a backhoe for burial,” another customer at the rental agency noticed. (It turned out that the corpse carrier worked for a funeral home and had the proper paperwork.)
License plate recall: After I wondered if a weathercaster was driving a car with the vanity plate DRKSKYZ, Susan Lindley of Claremont wrote: “You were tailing an astronomer. The holy grail of optical observing is a dark sky -- in very short supply in California due to the ambient light of civilization.” Then again, the driver could have been a mystery novelist.
miscelLAny: Obviously feeling the need to reassure fans shaken by the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, USA Today ran an article showing there are “long-lived A-list unions.” No. 1 was Paul Newman-Joanne Woodward, married for 47 years.
But the newspaper neglected to mention the all-time leaders in this category: Bob and Dolores Hope (69 years).
The shortest? Well, there’s no official record holder. But tennis pro Svetozar Marinkovic told reporters that his marriage to actress Robin Givens was over after seven minutes.
Game, set, no match!
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.