Only in L.A.--Griffin’s Home

I was enraged and sickened at the piece in (“Only in L.A.,” Metro, Oct. 28) relating the story of Merv Griffin’s construction of a marble and limestone mansion on a hilltop in Benedict Canyon. Griffin is listed as one of the nation’s 400 richest people!

One of the disgusting aspects of this affluence lies in the fact that Griffin already owns three other homes in three posh communities of California.

The aforementioned article quotes Griffin thusly: “Real estate is a nice complement to show business.” How gross and hard-boiled can you get?

The obscenity of all this amassing of such wealth, properties and other excessive acquisitions, I feel, provides some clues as to the reasons we are so messed up in so many areas of our existence. We encourage it, we condone it, we emulate it.

When will it ever be enough? And what will it take to make us stop and think? Wars, holocausts, depressions, stock market upheavals, earthquakes? We’ve learned little--or more likely nothing.

REBECCA SCHULMAN

Los Angeles