Grass. We mow it, water it and (usually) forget it. But the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy reminds us that wild grasses are worth their weight in green. The backbone of the global ecosystem, grasslands help support indigenous human populations and a vast array of wildlife.

 The Upper Las Virgenes Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains is a major grassland preserve and vital natural habitat for both native animals and migrating birds traversing the Pacific Flyway.

Learn more about this overlooked and underappreciated natural resource in a special two-hour education hike on Saturday, February 26, at 4 p.m. It’s presented by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Meet at the Victory Trailhead; information and directions are here.

Love the idea of splashing in frigid water for charity but hate traveling to an icy destination to do it? You’re in luck. Chill out at the Polar Plunge, jumping off this Saturday, Feb. 26, from two SoCal locations: Zuma Beach and Lake Castaic.

The Plunge benefits Special Olympics Southern California, whose programs help local children and adults with intellectual disabilities improve their self esteem and physical fitness. Sponsors include the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the Department of Beaches and Harbors, and county Lifeguards. Sheriff’s deputies and lifeguards will be on hand to participate and keep plungers safe.

You can register individually or as part of a team, and family and friends are welcome to cheer the plungers on. A minimum donation of $50 per individual is required to participate, which entitles you to a T-shirt, a chance at prizes, plenty of hot coffee and the knowledge that you have contributed to a good cause. If you want to show support without taking the plunge, simply donate to one of the teams.

Registration for the Zuma Beach Plunge begins at 8:30 a.m., and the plunge itself is at 10 a.m. A light breakfast will be served before the event, which will be hosted by Miss Malibu 2011. Lifeguards will perform a mock helicopter rescue, and KTLA anchor Glen Walter will announce the start of the plunge. UCLA’s Anderson School of Business and USC’s Marshall School of Business are bringing large groups. You can park for free on the west side of Pacific Coast Highway, or for $4.75 in the Zuma Beach lot.

Registration for the Castaic Lake Plunge begins at 8 a.m., and the plunge is at 10 a.m. (Be forewarned: Snow is forecast for the day of the event!) The Castaic Lions Club will provide a pancake breakfast from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Parking is free on Castaic Lake Road at the West Ramp entrance.

Veteran plungers recommend wearing something to protect your feet from the cold sand, and bringing towels and warm clothing for the chilly aftermath. You can plunge as deep and long as you want (within lifeguard safety guidelines), but keep your head above water so you can be spotted. Wacky costumes are welcome, and an award will be given at each location for the best one.

And if you decide to brave the February waters this weekend, why not share your photos on our website? Those who took part can savor the memory, and those who didn’t can shiver in solidarity.

Posted 2/24/11

In a historic choice, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday announced that it has selected Daryl Osby as the next chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, making him the first African American to hold that position in an agency that had been slow to integrate.

Osby, a 27-year veteran of the department—and the son of a career firefighter who led fire departments in Inglewood, San Jose, San Diego and Oceanside—will assume the top job next month after the retirement of long-serving chief P. Michael Freeman.

Most recently, Osby, 49, has been in charge of the department’s business operations. He also has worked as the top commander of fire operations for a number of major incidents in recent years, including the massive fire siege in 2003, the 2005 Topanga Fire and the 2008 Wildland Fires. He also spent 18 days in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina helping to manage recovery efforts there.

“I’m shocked but excited,” Osby said when reached in a meeting moments after the announcement of his appointment. “It’s emotional. It’s awesome to think that the board has the confidence in me to replace Chief Freeman, who has led this department for more than two decades.”

He said he was profoundly aware of the milestone his appointment represented.

“I think it’s important to understand the sacrifices not just of African Americans, but of all people who pave the way,” Osby said. “I’m excited to be the first African American, but above and beyond that, I think the board chose me because they felt I was the best candidate for the position. First and foremost, I’ve just tried to be the best individual and the best member of the fire service that I could be.”

Osby was chosen from a short list of finalists comprised entirely of department veterans. Freeman—who worked for 24 years in the Dallas Fire Department before coming to Los Angeles—has said in interviews that one of his biggest challenges was the “steep learning curve” he faced as an outsider. He suggested that the county might do well to hire its next chief from within to oversee the department, which has a budget of some $923 million and a service area roughly the size of Delaware.

Osby’s elevation is significant for a department in which diversity issues—including the recruitment and treatment of women—has been a concern.

Although the city of Los Angeles’ fire department has had black firefighters since the late 1800s, the county didn’t hire its first African American firefighter until 1953, and didn’t promote a black until the mid-1970s, after a discrimination lawsuit began to progress toward the U.S. Supreme Court. The hiring rendered the case moot by the time the high court heard it.

Today, diversity advocates within the department note that while the department has hired more than 1,000 firefighters during the past decade, only about 50 of them have been African American.

His appointment also represents a kind of continuity, however.

Born in the San Diego County community of National City, Osby is the son of a veteran fire chief. His father, Robert, was in the fire service for more than four decades before retiring as Oceanside’s first black fire chief in 2005.

The younger Osby joined the Los Angeles County Fire Department at the age of 23 in 1984 as a firefighter and paramedic. He rose steadily through the ranks, gaining experience in virtually every aspect of the department’s firefighting and internal operations.

By 2000, he was an assistant fire chief in charge of community services, public information and executive planning. The following year, he was promoted again to oversee emergency service, personnel, training and budget issues for 76 fire stations in more than 30 unincorporated areas. In 2008, he became chief deputy, initially oveseeing the county’s emergency operations and later taking responsibility for the department’s business operations, including employee relations and financial management.

That experience is expected to be crucial as the department—like the rest of county government—grapples with massive cuts in the state budget and a proposed “realignment” of responsibility and funding.

“Budget-wise, our priority is going to be that we have a sound financial plan and not have our spending exceed our revenues,” said Osby. “We’ve worked hard here to find efficiencies and work smarter, and we’ll continue that.” Among the department’s challenges, he added, would be the need to update the its infrastructure and address a number of pressing construction issues “while trying to maintain efficiencies and not have it impact public service.”

And, said Osby, the father of two daughters, diversity would continue to be a priority, in gender as well as ethnicity. Only about 1 percent of the department’s firefighters are women, for example, and Osby said one of his first jobs will be to “sit down with all our stakeholders and come up with a strategic approach.”

“We need to look at strategies to ensure we have proper outreach to let people know that this is a career for everyone,” he said. “Some people still don’t see that. And we need to break down those barriers.”

Posted 2/8/11

Here they go again.

Los Angeles County’s disaster rescue-and-recovery team was mobilizing today to head to New Zealand, where a 6.3 magnitude earthquake crushed buildings and killed at least 65 people—a toll that is expected to rise as the search for the dead and injured continues around Christchurch.

The 74-member unit, known as “California Task Force 2,” was expected to leave at 2 a.m. Wednesday.

The team, made up of Los Angeles County firefighters, paramedics, emergency room doctors and other specialists, earned high marks for its work after the earthquake in Haiti. The urban search and rescue squad also has seen action in previous emergencies including Hurricane Katrina and the Oklahoma City bombing.

They’re traveling to New Zealand at the request of the U.S. Agency for

International Development and U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said in a letter to the Board of Supervisors.

“It is a source of great pride for our organization to not only have this highly specialized response capability, but to be called into duty by USAID to help save lives and property beyond our borders,” Osby said.

A fire department official is also heading to Washington, D.C., to help coordinate the team’s efforts in New Zealand.

The task force will be commanded by Battalion Chief Tom Ewald, a 19-year county fire department veteran who heads up county fire’s Battalion 3, serving East L.A., Bell and nearby communities. He worked as the team’s Pacoima-based deployment coordinator during the Haiti operation, and took part in disaster response operations after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

When his day started Tuesday, Ewald had been preparing for another kind of trip. “I thought I was going home to get ready to take my family skiing,” Ewald said. “That all changed around 7 a.m.”

By early afternoon, the final arrangements were underway to transport staff and equipment to New Zealand. Ewald said the team will be ready to work as soon as they land.

“Once our equipment is off the aircraft, we can be operational within an hour,” Ewald said. “They have work sites already identified for us.”

It’s a high pressure assignment in a dangerous setting far from home. But for the Los Angeles County team, Ewald said, it’s nothing they haven’t seen before.

“It’s what we do as professional rescuers, day in and day out. We’re just plying our skills in somebody else’s backyard.”

Posted 2/22/11

From swimming pools to court houses, art is thriving on the walls and in the buildings of Los Angeles County-owned facilities. Our growing Civic Art collection includes works that have been donated to the county, commissioned under the auspices of the Board of Supervisors and various county departments and pilot projects managed by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. The collection also includes artworks created since the 2004 launch of a new Civic Art Program, requiring that 1% of the design and construction costs on new county capital projects be set aside in a Civic Art fund. Here’s a sample from across the county.

The civil rights struggle had its sit-ins. The anti-war movement had its teach-ins. Hippies had their love-ins. And in 1968, network television made light of it all with “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” a phenomenally successful pop-culture cocktail blending satire, slapstick and psychedelia.

“Laugh-In” only ran for five years, but it set a standard for popularly palatable hip anarchy that still resonates throughout the comedy world. There’s not a comic working today who doesn’t owe something to its style and influence.

Robin Williams—yeah, he too owes them big-time—claims that if you can remember the sixties, you couldn’t have been there. So for those old enough to forget—and those too young to remember—The Paley Center for Media hosts a special program at 7 p.m. this Tuesday, February 22, paying tribute to “Laugh-In” and its cast with a sneak-preview of a new PBS documentary, “The Best of Laugh-In.”

Following, stick around and join Larry King in a panel discussion with “Laugh-In” creator George Schlatter and cast members Gary Owens, Arte Johnson and Joanne Worley.

The Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) is located at 465 North Beverly Drive, at Santa Monica Boulevard, in Beverly Hills. Tickets are going fast, but they’re available here.

Posted 2/17/11

Marshall “Free” Gunther is a floater—blessed, or cursed, with the ability to defy gravity. For him, it’s an effort to stay grounded. But is this a skill he can exploit, or a shameful affliction he must hide? Would the world be better off with or without him?

It’s your last chance to find out, when Barbara Lindsay’s “Free,” mounted by the Neo Ensemble Theatre, concludes its five-week L.A. premiere at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre next week. The final show is a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, February 27, and there are a number of opportunities to see it before that.

Call (323) 461-3673 for more information, and buy your tickets on-line here.

Posted 2/17/11

Check out tomorrow’s orchestral stars today—for free—at LACMA’S Sundays Live concert series.

This week’s program features the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra performing Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite for string quartet, Arnold Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

Since 1955, the Young Musicians Foundation has dedicated itself to recruiting and training future generations of classical musicians, working with performers aged 8-25. The heart of the foundation’s programs is the Debut Orchestra, made up of 70 of our region’s most talented young musicians. Many go on to become members of major orchestras throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Sundays Live concerts take place at LACMA’s Bing Theater. They can also be heard on LACMA’s live streaming audio and are archived as KUSC podcasts.

LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile; here’s everything you need to know to plan your next visit.

Posted 2/17/11