Category: Links

I returned to LAX’s International Terminal tonight. A visitor from Malaysia was flying home. I wonder what she thought as she entered this decrepit terminal and chaotic, frantic, jam-packed scene. 5 years and 5 months after 9/11, I still cannot believe what passes for airport security and organization at one of our nation’s gateways.

One enters the terminal, which is packed with travellers and their luggage, in utmost confusion. There is not a single sign directing people where to go. The rule is that you must FIRST DRAG YOUR LUGGAGE THROUGH SECURITY and then a security agent will bring you and your luggage to the airline check-in. But try to find any sign to explain this!

Several TSA personnel DID NOT EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH! I asked them where we should go and they answered in Spanish. Spanish for the Chinese traveller! We somehow figured out that the luggage needed to be checked and then after an hour we economy class passengers passed through and ended up in the WRONG LINE for “First Class” Malaysian Airlines. We had erroneously been directed by another TSA official to stand and wait there.

The terminal handles huge crowds for Mexicana, Malaysian Airlines, Quantas and Singapore Airlines. Security lines to check baggage for airlines other than Malaysian Airlines are grouped in another area. But there is not a single sign to indicate what or where one should go FIRST!

People who are unfit, who need a place to sit or rest, will get run over by the hordes of people pushing luggage carts in a mad scramble to get into the wrong line that they only discover is wrong after they stand there for half an hour!

My Malaysian friend said the security procedures in Kuala Lumpur are easy and well laid out. Malaysia, a predominately Muslim nation, handles airport security with more dignity and logic than the US.

We spend billions in Iraq only to see our own airport procedures resemble the New Orleans Superdome during Hurricane Katrina.

To the unfortunate Angelenos who find themselves in the midst of Beverly Hills, specifically in the “tony” shopping area around Rodeo Drive, might be interested to know that the city wants to rip out the concrete sidewalks and replace them with granite. Granite?

A friend of mine works down there. He describes a daily assault of rudeness, horn honkers and double parking. Beverly Hills has long ceased to be a fashionable destination, and its retail stores lack both class and imagination. The recent makeover of the lamposts and streets has only shown how clueless the city fathers are.

Cold, steel, antiseptic lighting and skin cancer inviting palm trees are a disincentive to come walk the sun baked streets of Beverly Hills. Comparing the lack of shoppers here to the crowds who swarm to the young and breezy 3rd Street Promenade or stroller filled Montana Avenue, might it dawn on the dimwits to provide shade, benches, or anything humane to Rodeo?

Once again, aging Beverly Hills looks to the surface for a makeover, but it should look into its rotten, jaded soul first. The entire area is in need of a human, not material upgrade.