My favorite article of the week was in today's LA Times called "Where 'A' Is Not on the Menu". It was a fascinating column about a woman named Siu-Man Chiu who is an LA County health officer and it goes over her job around Los Angeles. She is responsible for the letter grade on the windows of the restaurants around LA. What is fascinating is how poorly Chinese restaurants score. 80% of Los Angeles's restaurants are an A, while virtually no chinese restaurants are. This stat fascinated me most because a C grade allows for absolutely disgusting conditions, yet the business of the restaurant is not in the least bit affected by these scores. All other restaurants have higher likelihood of A's, and have declines in business when they score Cs. Chinese restaurants on the other hand are uneffected. I thought this was very interesting, and it makes me reconsider eating at back-alley type Chinese restaurants.

Hockey Returns to Los Angeles

While certainly not the biggest news of the week, this article hit home the hardest for me. Hockey has been a major part of my life for all of my life, and last years lockout was truly devastating for me. The lockout ended on paper a few months ago, but that was only on paper. This Saturday, the Los Angeles Kings took the ice for the first time in about a year and a half. The articles author, Chris Foster, does a wonderful job describing the atmosphere. The first dropped puck. The first glove save. The first goal. The first fight. The screaming fans. I can feel the cold air on my skin, and it gives me goosebumps. Hockey isn't just "back" in the corporate sense. It is finally being played once again.

My favorite article of the week was a particularly uplifting one in today's issue of the Los Angeles Times. It was titled "Donations at $500 Million and Climbing", and it gave details on the Katrina relief effort. It turns out that we as a unified country are shattering the fundraising efforts of the tsunami and of 9/11. As of Tuesday evening, the US has raised in the first 10 days over two times more than 9/11 ($239 million) and over three times more than the tsunami ($163 million). In these dark times where most of the articles on Hurricane Katrina we read are stories of anguish and death, it is a breath of fresh air to read something uplifting. While Americans often get the bad reputation of being cold-hearted, this clearly is not always the case, and I commend any and all that are doing their part to help.