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 Neither columnist Rosa Brooks nor The Times' editorial board is too impressed with the military commission conviction Wednesday of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who confessed to being Osama bin Laden's driver. Brooks wonders if regular federal courts could do a better job of putting the really bad guys (as opposed to those who chauffeur the bad guys) in prison for good:
But are these guys really the worst of the worst, evil terrorist masterminds who so threaten "the continuity of the operations of the United States government" that they couldn't possibly be tried in U.S. civilian courts?
After 6 1/2 years -- after detaining hundreds of people at Guantanamo, after trying interrogation techniques adapted from the Chinese and the KGB, after countless protests from the International Committee for the Red Cross, after alienating close allies and creating a cause celebre for our enemies -- have the military commissions really been worth it? ....
Odds are, if the administration had stuck to the tried and true federal court system, it'd be home now -- and most of the Guantanamo detainees suspected of serious crimes would have been tried and convicted by now too.
The editorial board laments that Hamdan's military trial "fell short of the highest traditions of American justice," given that he wouldn't be set free even if his appeals are successful: As an enemy combatant, the Pentagon has said, Hamdan and others so designated can be incarcerated until the end of the so-called war on terror. (Hamdan can appeal the verdict under the Military Commissions Act and might also benefit from a Supreme Court decision in June granting habeas corpus rights to detainees, though that decision involved prisoners who had not received a trial.)
This page has argued repeatedly that, given the length of the confinement of detainees at Guantanamo and the open-endedness of the war on terrorism, it would be preferable to try accused terrorists in the civilian judicial system, where an expeditious trial is guaranteed. That system, it should be remembered, produced the conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik" accused of plotting to bomb the United Nations, and a life sentence for Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. But if Congress and the administration insist on maintaining a separate judicial system to try alleged terrorists, it needs to be fairer and more transparent, and an acquittal must mean more than a return trip to a prison cell.
Also on the editorial page, the board assails John McCain for his nuclear-based energy plan (which it calls "an insult to voters' intelligence") and offers cautious praise for a new state law that requires convicted taggers to scrub away their mess: Judges must be careful. In the upside-down culture of the street, removing graffiti can be deemed a sign of disrespect and draw deadly retaliation from criminal gangs. Taggers can and should be punished -- but not with their lives.
Read on »
The Recession Chimera continues its slow, painful slouch toward the Potomac. It's prompting government to protect institutions that are as big, dumb and incompetent as itself. It's an economic meltdown. (A "seemingly endless" one at that.) It's causing Americans to turn against the free market. It's literally taking candy from the mouths of babes!
Take that, former Sen. Phil Gramm. As Paul Thornton noted recently, Gramm diagnosed our national malaise as a form of "mental recession" and the bellyaching nation as a bunch of "whiners." How could a man affiliated with a presidential campaign say something so heartless, unpatriotic and downright mean? As it turned out, he couldn't. But what could prompt such possibly unconstitutional hate speech? Maybe it's that...
Wells Fargo has reported a phenomenal quarter. Oil prices are plummeting. Business is strong in industries ranging from online auctions to junk food to personal computers. And Dish Network is in the air!
Does this mean the economy is turning the corner, or that it's booming? Of course not. It means the economy is too varied, complex and (no pun intended) rich to be described in the kind of inane, pro-or-con flapdoodle that politicians and great media organs employ. A vain, wealth-destroying politican makes a statement and people panic. Hysterical reporters seize on an interesting but not essential statistic, only to drop it when it no longer supports their dire theories. Meanwhile, people chug along doing business, and whenever one door closes (as Vanessa Williams taught us all), another one opens. Many of the good-news tidbits above, for example, are at least in part functions of the weak dollar. But who wants a weak dollar? That's un-American.
Thornton largely concurred with Gramm's analysis, as does the Union Trib's Ruben Navarrette here. I would concur except for one thing: It's not the people who are to blame. The public is ambivalent-to-hostile to the bailouts and interventions that are now taking place on an almost daily basis. We in the media are to blame for dumb reporting about complicated matters, and to a much greater extent the socialist politicians denounced yesterday by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) are to blame for doing the one thing guaranteed to produce a bad result: trying to ensure a particular outcome. (And without, as Peter Viles notes, giving a lot of thought to the essentials of customer service.)
Our old friend Matt Welch is wondering whether all this panic may show lack of faith in "an economy that, despite its many flaws, has consistently outpaced the doomsayers for what, a quarter century now?" I'd note that in my neighborhood, the tour buses are full for the first time since I moved to Hollywood; gas prices at the cluster of cheaper stations on the lousy end of Melrose have raced each other down every day for the last two weeks. Two apartments have opened up in my building (and no, I didn't call ICE on my neighbors), and there have been lookies steadily; I'm sure both will be rented by the end of this week. And we're living in a $1.1 trillion county. Again, that doesn't prove that the U.S. economy is good, bad or indifferent. It does prove that there are more things in heaven and earth than can be figured into a silly "economic downturn even hurts chocolatiers" headline.
Los Angeles Downtown News:
City Readies a Beautiful 'Vista'
Park on Long-Troubled Belmont Learning Center Site to Open This Week
by Anna Scott
Jewelry District Loses Its Gleam
Price Hikes for Precious Metals, Economic Woes Lead to Industry Slowdown
by Anna Scott
The Wall Street Journal:
Europe's Economy Takes a Hit
U.S. turmoil raises odds of slump; bankruptcy rocks spain
By Marcus Walker in Berlin, Joellen Perry in Frankfurt and Jonathan House in Madrid
Beetle Bailey's Long March:
Classic cartoons search for a home
Strip's creator, 84, had comics collection worth $20 million, and no place to show it
By Mary Pilon
Financial Times:
GM suspends dividend payment and looks at selling more assets
Carmaker outlines cuts aimed at raising $15 bn
By Bernard Simon in Toronto
Gloomy warning from Fed
Bernanke points to 'numerous difficulties'
Asian and Europe markets fall sharply
By Krishna Guha and James Politi in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York
Metromix:
Some like it HARD
N*E*R*D brings star power to downton's renegade cultural mash-up
By Scott T. Sterling
Art attack: Rozi Demant's 'Lovebirds'
Drippy, sexy work hits L.A. from down under
By Alie Ward
Los Angeles Times:
Confusion at IndyMac fuels customers' anger
Some wait in line for hours, then find they can't get all the money out of their accounts.
By Andrea Chang, E. Scott Reckard and Kathy M. Kristof
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE:
Citizens in cross hairs of drug war mayhem
A girl's death violent death strikes a nerve in a chaotic border town
By Tracy Wikinson
Los Tiempos de Nueva York:
Homes at risk, more owners consider taking in boarders
By John Leland
Poll finds Obama candidacy isn't closing divide on race
By Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee
Orange County Register:
Home hunters spear deals
Buyers find bargains — and headaches — picking up foreclosed properties which make up a fourth of all Orange County home sales.
By Jeff Collins
Pensions could go to voters
A supervisor wants increases on the ballot.
By Peggy Lowe
[Not found online]
La Opinión:
Panorama económico aún más sombrío
No se ha sentido del alza de precios, dice Ben Bernanke
Róger Lindo
Amplían facilidades para el pago de agua y energía
DWP aumenta margen para familias de bajos ingresos e incrementa porcentaje de descuentos
Eileen Truax
Daily News:
Valley landmark Sportsmen's Lodge to close
History: Clark Gable, John Wayne and Bette Davis were among its many patrons
By Dana Bartholomew
Study: Trade, tech, tourism bolster L.A.
Economy: Other areas make quiet slide into recession
By Gregory J. Wilcox
USA Today:
'Payback' for debt-fueled growth?
By David J. Lynch
FAA to require fuel-tank changes
Rule comes 12 years after 747 exploded
By Alan Levin
Long Beach Press-Telegram:
ExpressJet will leave L.B.
By Joe Stevens
L.B. mayor to seek $570 million bond
By Paul Eakins
Los Angeles Times:
Aerial tanker deal is voided
In a blow to Northrop and the state, Gates calls for new bids and takes the matter out of the Air Force's hands.
By Peter Spiegel
Allstate is ordered to cut homeowner rates 28.5%
California's insurance chief rejects the firm's request for an increase. Instead, policyholders will save about $250.
By Marc Lifsher
Calculating a new age for algebra
California mandates testing of every eight-grader. Critics say the plan's time fram is unrealistic.
By Howard Blume
Bonus: Editorial board on algebra
The Onion:
Bill Clinton Sadly Folds First Lady Dress Back Into Box
Special Ops Veteran Slips Back Into Family Undetected
Metromix:
Gaming Geekdom!
Street Fighter IV Resident Evil 5 Final Fantasy XIII
...and more new game previews
Los Tiempos de Nueva York:
Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers
The Senate approved a bill expanding the government’s surveillance powers, and granted immunity for phone companies that cooperated in the wiretapping program.
By Eric Lichtblau
OUR TOWNS
Build a Wiffle Ball Field and Lawyers Will Come
In Greenwich, Conn., a lot that teenagers cleared for Wiffle ball brought out angry neighbors and police.
By Peter Applebome
Daily News:
Hahn says unaware of kickbacks
'Pay to play': Ex-mayor testifies in scandal case involving former commissioner
By Beth Barrett
Anti-gang tax taking its hits
Provision for yearly increases dropped when reaction is swift, strong
By Rick Orlov
Financial Times:
Total steps back from Iran
Victory for US efforts to isolate Tehran
Retaliation warning as missiles are test-fired
By Carola Hoyos in London and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Wachovia names Steel as chief as it reveals surprise $2.8bn loss
Appointment may revive sale speculation
By Francesco Guerrera, Henny Sender and Ben White in New York and James Politi in Washington
USA Today:
This year, 6 types of voters will decide the election
Obama is dominating the most energized segment of the electorate. McCain's backers are less excited — but they're more reliable in showing up at the polls.
By Susan Page
Salmonella warnings shift focus to hot peppers
By Elizabeth Weise
La Opinión:
Se puede reclamar dinero 'perdido'
Contolaŕia estatal dispone de sitio en la internet para reclamar reembolsos
Iván Mejía
Y también prefieren Metrolink
Es utilizado cada vez más por pasajeros afectados por los precios de la gasolina
Alejandro Cano
The Orange County Register:
What Haidl revealed to FBI
Brief says former partner partner described Carona as greedy, paranoid and egotistical
By Larry Welborn
CUTTING WEDGE
Cheese is the word as OC Fair looks to innovate
A dizzy new ride, photography fun and action sports — oh, and cheese — are highlights.
By Niyaz Pirani
Sorry for the daylateness...
Los Angeles Times:
Accused abductor is struck and killed by bus in Mexico:
The O.C. man reportedly stepped in front of the vehicle.
His son, left at a church, returns home.
By David Reyes and Paloma Esquivel Page B3
La Opinión:
Ryan Ramos vuelve a casa:
Confirman la muerte en Ciudad Juárez de su padre que lo había plagiado en Orange
Agustín Durán, La Opinión Pág. A3
Daily News L.A.:
[Boy found online, but new mystery emerges: Where is Cathy Franklin? Her story vanished in paper-to-e transer]
Not online:
Boy reunited with mom; fugitive dad killed by bus
By Cathy Franklin, City News Service page A5
Online:
Missing OC boy found in Mexico in Mormon church building
Father who abducted him killed by bus
By Gillian Flaccus The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 07/07/2008 10:31:37 PM PDT
Orange County Register:
BACK HOME SAFE AFTER ORDEAL:
Ryan Ramos, 9, is reunited with his mother as his father is reported dead Page A1
IN DEPTH NEWS 3:
TEARS ARE SHED AS BOY AND MOTHER REUNITE
Ryan Ramos, 9, returns safe to Orange County, as his father is reported dead
By Erika I. Ritchie, Greg Hardesty and Salvador Hernandez Page A3
[Spotted in this story: Change from leapt to leaped in paper-to-e transfer]
And Rightly So:
Attaboy Karma!
Posted by Duncan on July 8th, 2008
Copyright © 2008 And Rightly So!
LoneWacko:
[Brick]
The New York Times:
[AP copy linked above.]
State's budget no role model: California's fiscal crisis is worse than most. Much of the fault lies not with the economy but with bad policies. By Evan Halper
ON CALIFORNIA: A workaday road that cuts through the state's back story: Two-lane Highway 33 isn't a fabled route, but it's rugged and real. By Peter H. King
Zimbabwe sex slave confides her ordeal: The 21-year-old says she is forced to go to a militia base daily: 'If I run away, my mother will be killed.' From a Times Staff Writer
Not merely tennis, this was a match made in heaven By Bill Dwyre
Calling the shots on war movies: The Army, scathed by 'the crazy Nam vet,' tries to shape a new era of films by trading access for influence. By Julian E. Barnes
Backfire is right and wrong: Two brothers use the tactic to keep the Big Sur blaze from their compound. But one is arrested for doing so. By Eric Bailey and Deborah Schoch
Inside Today's Times:
In the spotlight at the economic summit: Japan, host of this year's G-8 talks, is in a strong position to talk about the environment. World, A4
An L.A. boxing legend dies: Mando Ramos won a title at 20 but lost his career to alcohol and drugs. He was 59. Obituaries, B7
Weather: Get ready for it to heat up this week. Downtown: 85/65. B8
U.S. Spies on Iraqi army, officials say: Satellites track troop movements as part of expanded surveillence after breakdowns in trust and coordination. By Greg Miller
COLUMN ONE: Interrogation, then revenge: Police told a gang member a girl he knew had identified him as a killer. Soon she was dead. By Joel Rubin and Ari B. Bloomenkatz
Migrant snafus bedevil S.F. : The 'sanctuary city' can no longer escort juvenile immigrants back home — or ship them to Inland Empire: By Maria L. LaGanga, David Kelly and Anna Gorman
Headed for a showdown: Venus Williams and her sister Serena advanced to the semifinals at Wimbledon and could face each other in Saturday's final. Sports, D1
CAMPAIGN '08: Obama focuses on faith: He says he'd expand Bush's program to aid religious charities. By Peter Wallstein and Peter Nicholas
Little avatars behaving badly: Parents find it takes a village to keep kids from preying on one another in virtual worlds: By Alana Semuels
Soaring gas prices put auto sales in the ditch: By Ken Bensinger
Inside the Times
Magazine pioneer Felker dead at 82: The founding editor of New York magazine was a key figure in the birth of New Journalism. Obituaris, B6
600 Starbucks stores to close: People aren't buying fancy coffee like they used to. About 12,000 jobs will be lost in the move. Business, C1
A top-notch twisty thriller: Be glad "Tell No One" is here, says Kenneth Turan. Calendar, E1
Weather: Mostly sunny and warmer. Downtown: 85/66. Page B10
Death row report sees failed system: A sharply divided California panel says delays undermine the process and reforms could be costly. By Maura Dolan
CAMPAIGN '08: McCain energy record is on/off: He's flip-flopped on nuclear power, ethanol and offshore drilling. By Noam N. Levey
Phone rangers: Rule enforcement will vary. By Hector Becerra and David Pierson
COLUMN ONE: Keeping the ball in play: In a dim Vegas arcade, a man's love for a faded pastime is alive and pinging. Behold the Pinball Hall of Fame. By Ashley Powers
Surprise video puts an end to drug trial By Jack Leonard
China plays hardball on pre-Games visas: As the Olympics near, foreigners are less welcom. Big losers are business and tourism. By Barbara Demick.
Inside Today's Times
IndyMac says it's not failing: Depositors have been pulling money from the thrift.
Put to the test: Two schools that are part of the mayor's reform plan open today.
Even costlier gas predicted: Analysts say Californians may soon be paying $5 a gallon.
Now they just want to sing: The female finalists of "American Idol" are going on tour.
Fuel prices squeeze cities: Safety patrols, school bus routes, even mowing services are cut as governments struggle with budgets. By Nicholas Riccardi
Hospital mistakes go public: Hundreds of patients are being harmed in preventable incidents, filings required by a new state law show. By Jordan Rau
COLUMN ONE: Kicking aside a social taboo: Women in soccer are frowned upon in Guatemala. But here, three hardworking sisters find freedom on the field. By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Mugabe's foes brace for fallout: As Zimbabwe's leader is inaugurated, analysts say his opponents are in danger. Observers reject the election. From a Times Staff Writer
Plot twist in union talks: stars vs. stars: SAG urges members to vote down a rival group's contract. By Richard Verrier
CAMPAIGN 'O8: Long and short of VP lists: What strategists say Obama and McCain are looking for. By Doyle McManus
Inside Today's Times
Drivers, hold all calls please: Cellphone use, even hands-free, is too big a distraction, research shows.
Earvin Johnson has Magic touch: The former Laker has built a business empire by investing in long-ignored urban areas.
Spain reigns at Euro 2008 soccer final
Paul Leonard goes toe to toe with Christopher Thornberg on forcing lenders to renegotiate with defaulters. More to come later today.
You don't believe FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and LAPD Chief Edward M. Davis were uncredited script doctors on the All In the Family pilot? We've got evidence!
Robert Ellis laments what the ruling party is doing to Turkey.
In our most recent installment of the inaptly named Opinion Daily, Jon Healey lays odds on Jango's race to survive in an imploding market for webcasting.
Here's one for the "Who Knew?" files: the news media's attention to the
sub-prime fiasco rises and falls in step with its fascination with
Britney Spears. Coincidence? I think not! I would not have noticed this linkage had it not been for Trendrr,
a fascinating site that recently went live. An offshoot of Wiredset, a
New York agency that specializes in promoting media through the Web,
social networks and mobile carriers, Trendrr lets users assemble and
compare data from a dozen sources (more to come soon), including Google
News, Bit Torrent, eBay and YouTube. It also invites users to request
new sources or submit their own. For example, you might want to gauge
interest in a particular band by seeing how often people were posting videos
of that act on YouTube. Or, if you were a studio, you could graf how
often the trailer for your summer blockbuster was being played on
MySpace.com vs. YouTube vs. DailyMotion. My examples don't do Trendrr
justice, so click here
to check out the site's most popular trend-mapping exercises. Then try
creating some of your own.
Read on »
With the news that Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, the late alleged murderer of two police officers and three city officials in Kirkwood, Missori, was a well known city-council gadfly, we set the wayback machine to 2003, for a Los Angeles Times story by Hugo Martin, explaining some of the tensions involved in giving broad leeway to public blowhards. Here it is in full print-spec glory: Los Angeles Times
Wednesday September 24, 2003
THE STATE
COLUMN ONE
Freedom's Test, or Just a Pest?
* Gadflies deemed out of order are arrested or ejected from some public meetings. The 1st Amendment and decorum are at odds.
Home Edition, Main News, Page A-1
Metro Desk
53 inches; 1834 words
Type of Material: Column
By Hugo Martin, Times Staff Writer
After greeting the San Bernardino County supervisors with a mock Nazi salute, Jeff Wright, a homeless Air Force veteran, stepped to the public microphone to complain about being arrested at a regional transportation meeting a few months earlier.
Board Chairman Dennis Hansberger told him to stay on the topic under discussion, which was the salaries of county attorneys. Wright then threatened to seal the supervisor's mouth with duct tape, which he had brought with him.
Hansberger responded by ordering sheriff's deputies to eject Wright, who was led out of the building in handcuffs, screaming about police brutality.
It was nothing new -- for Wright or for the board of supervisors.
The March incident was among the more than 100 arrests or ejections deputies have carried out at meetings of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors since 1989, according to an unofficial tally by one local activist.
Although law enforcement officials say they cannot confirm the exact number, they put the tally in the dozens.
In 2000, reports of those arrests earned the Board of Supervisors the "Black Hole" award, a dubious distinction given by the California First Amendment Coalition to public agencies and officials that the group says show disregard for open government and 1st Amendment rights.
In the past year, the pace of arrests and removals at San Bernardino County supervisors' meetings has increased to about one per month, with most speakers being removed for failing to stick to the agenda and then refusing to surrender the lectern.
Read on »
What does a fall movie season rich in high-profile movies with antiwar messages say about modern Hollywood politics? Not much, writes David Ehrenstein in the opening shot of this week's Dust-Up debate between him and fellow new-media maven and author Andrew Breitbart. This fall's political movies are more about genre than politics, using the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as subtext, Ehrenstein writes. More: What the fall season tells us is that Hollywood is a lot faster on the uptake with this war than it was with Vietnam. Back then the first blip of the cinematic radar came in 1967 with Roger Corman's "The Trip," when a stoned Peter Fonda broke into a neighbor's home where the TV was playing actual news footage. Just a reference, but it really counted for something. The following year John Wayne's 21-gun salute, "The Green Berets," premiered and was a big hit. After that audio-visual silence reigned until 1978, long after Vienam had ended. The pro-war "The Deer Hunter" won an Oscar for best picture, while the antiwar "Coming Home" won "Hanoi Jane" (as the right loves to call her) her second statuette. The country was indeed "split" about Vietnam, and so was Hollywood (about 60% against and 40% for). But if the latest polling figures are to be believed (and I for one have every reason to give them credence), the Iraq war is about as popular as AIDS.
Looking at the slate of current and upcoming releases, Hollywood is staying true to cautious form, with "criticism" of the war couched in familiar genre terms. "In the Valley of Elah" is a melodrama about a war vet gone missing after returning stateside, and how it affects his family. "Grace is Gone" concerns a road trip taken by a man (John Cusack) whose wife has been killed in Iraq. In light of the right's brass-knuckles treatment of antiwar mom Cindy Sheehan, I expect no end of jokes will be made at the expense of this film by the ever-sensitive Ann Coulter and her ultra-scrupulous confederates.
Breitbart counters that the '07 fall movie season is in line with Hollywood's "40-year streak of working against the United States' strategic objectives at a time of war." More from Breitbart: To the Hollywood defeat set the Iraq War is painted as Abu Ghraib and a soldier raping an Iraqi 14-year-old girl and killing her family. Anomalous hideous behavior for which the perpetrators are rightfully prosecuted is used to slander the majority in the pursuit of political propaganda intended to demoralize a nation in the pursuit of ending the war. Brian De Palma admitted as much. Shameful. Predictable . . .
For those who see the world through art, my side -- which strongly sees radical Islam as a growing anti-democratic, anti-liberal global threat -- is not represented because our dissent is deemed "hate speech." (War was so much easier when the Nazis were white.) Hollywood acquiesces when CAIR and other pro-Islamist interest groups demand that Muslim extremists not appear in film portrayed as terrorists. If only the Pentagon had the same sway! Sure, my side has talk radio, best-selling books, top-rated cable news shows, blogs, Op-Ed columns and even the presidency to make our points. But we do not have even a minority position to tell the most important stories of our time because of the politically correct architecture of the creative process in Hollywood.
Be sure to check back all this week, in which Ehrenstein and Breitbart will discuss studios' role in the national discourse, "Hollywood values," and whether the movie industry even matters politically.
As measured by visits to the website, between Aug. 24-30 (with the measurement stopping on Friday morning):
1) Bush's next invasion: Vietnam?, by Rosa Brooks.
2) Get government out of the bathroom, by Nick Gillespie.
3) Our (not so) private Idahos, by David Ehrenstein.
4) Obama's right on Cuba, Editorial.
5) California without a Mexican, by Tamar Jacoby.
6) A not-so-secret mission, by David Wise.
7) College credit that fails students, by Alan Collinge.
8) It was always all about Al, by Jonah Goldberg.
9) Vietnam's real lessons, by Andrew J. Bacevich.
10) Letters to the editor.
What were they saying about our chart-topper, Rosa Brooks' modest proposal for President Bush to follow the logic of his rhetoric and reinvade Vietnam?
Pissed on Politics: I was wondering on which side of Bush's Vietnam analogy that the media would come down on. Turns out that facts and history do trump propaganda. I can only think that Bush is not familiar with history so when his speech writer went over the Vietnam parts Bush probably thought it was all true and a brilliant point to make. Either that or Bush and his writers think Americans are so dumb and uneducated that they'll believe anything.
Diane of Cab Drollery: Rosa Brooks is back, and in great form. Her column in today's Los Angeles Times would make Molly Ivins proud. [...]
I'm thinking of emailing the entire column to every member of the California delegation, just in case any of them were impressed by Mr. Bush's erudite speech yesterday.
Roger Fraley: Rosa 'Luxemburg' Brooks, lefty law professor somewhere and weekly columnist for the rapidly sinking L.A. Times, is usually unreadable and silly, but today she was spectacularly so.
John Caruso: [T]here's a little problem there, Rosa: many argued, and many would argue to this day, that Vietnam was a deeply necessary war--and there will always be someone to make that argument in almost any instance. So "don't fight needless wars" would seem to be relative to the point of meaninglessness.
Rural Nevada Democratic Caucus Blog: Brooks sees the fractured logic that the unfettered by knowledge, Bush brain produces. What really scares me is that ignorant people take what he says at face value. I charitably call those people staunch Republicans.
Last week's Top 10 list here.
As measured by visits to the website, between Aug. 17-23:
1) Death by numbers, by Meghan Daum.
2) Not so fast, Christian soldiers, by Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan.
3) The journalism that bloggers actually do, by Jay Rosen.
4) The misleading Vietnam analogy; Editorial.
5) Stonehenges all around us, by Craig Childs (from Feb. 16, 2007).
6) Blogs: All the noise that fits, by Michael Skube.
7) Debates that say something, by Newt Gingrich.
8) 'Sanctuary' as battleground, by Ronald Brownstein.
9) Drunk on ethanol; Editorial.
10) The lost Padilla verdict, by Stephen Vladeck.
What were they saying about last week's #1, Meghan Daum's meditation on the hierarchy of death? A selection from the reaction.
Stan Larson: "The recent mining accident provides a great segway for my second beef with cable news. I'm so fed up with local tragedies absorbing all of the national news airtime. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I know there are thousands of tragedies unfolding around the world every day, many with much greater human consequences than the events the media chooses for us. Why do we allow the media to pick a tragedy for us, and then beat it into the ground until ratings start to drop, before serving us a new tragedy. Do they use focus groups to select the most interesting calamity? Better yet, why don't we point the media spotlight on looming tragedies that can be avoided or mitigated."
Prince Lackadasia: "In every American city I've ever lived, a murdered white suburbanite is worth more in column inches and air time than any three black inner city bodies. And the disparity between our interest in the fate of Americans and the nameless hordes of dark-skinned suffering others is simply obscene. Roughly 3000 children die every day of malaria in the developing world, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, with hardly a flicker of attention in the news."
noahnoah: "I want to end this blog entry with a simple calculation: In the last 5 days, more American citizens have died of cancer than the amount of Americans killed on 9/11 and in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars combined."
John Daly (not the famous golfer): "[People] are likely to overestimate the problem with mine safety and underestimate that with road safety, to overestimate the danger of terrorist attack and underestimate the risks of eating too much!"
John Daley (also not the famous golfer): "With my luck an asteroid would hit me while I was crossing one of those structurally deficient bridges."
Jan-Willem de Lange: "De LA Times zet ook in op perspectief. Volgens de krant stierven vorige maand in de Verenigde Staten 3500 mensen door een auto-ongeluk, en overlijden iedere maand 42.000 mensen aan kanker. Aan hartkwalen gaat iedere 36 seconden een Amerikaan dood."
Whether you're an Amerikaan dood or non-American dudette, now's the time to comment on Daum's deathwatch, or any of our other chart-toppers. Perhaps someone can answer the eternal question, Why the Stonehenge??
Thanks to many readers for informing us that the [Republican Rep. Ron Paul] link in Ronald Brownstein's Friday Opinion Daily column "YouWho?" was actually a repeat-link to the Obama Girl video. The fault is entirely mine, both for incautious pasting and for the crush on Obama Girl my typing slip revealed. Ron had no part in the snafu, but he still takes a shellacking from readers. Read the results: Nay, nay Mr. Brownstein. The "uninformed voter" doesn't exist. He's the one who has been ass-kickin' liberal extemism to death ... including that of the L.A. Times. He is the one of common sense thought, but why do I continue; you wouldn't understand.
Reg Laite
Read on »
Sound off about recent web-only content from the folks at Opinion L.A.:
Opinion Daily: "Foreclosure heaven" Sometime house hunter Paul Thornton looks at all those defaulting borrowers and longs to give them a Rupert Pupkinesque "Tough luck, suckers; better luck next time." But will Democratic busybodies ruin his only chance to afford a home?
Dust-Up: "Golden state, gay marriage" Lorri L. Jean and Ron Prentice lock horns over same-sex nuptials.
Opinion Daily: "Was Ted Kennedy right about Scotus?" Michael McGough reviews the Roberts-Alito court's record and finds both more and less reason for concern than originally advertised.
Dust-Up: "Rumor romp" Luke Ford and Eric Spillman get to wrasslin' over blogs, ethics, gossip and the fall of the destination media.
Opinion Daily: "Torrent trackers get RAMmed" Jon Healey tracks the indexers, indexes the trackers, and finds a world of confusion in efforts to crack down on online copyright infringement.
Dust-Up: "Subprime players" Should the government bail out bad loans? How many people will lose their homes? Can Paul Thornton ever afford to buy a house? Robert Camerota and Paul Leonard to duke it out on these issues and more.
There's plenty more where those came from, and more coming every day. So make your opinion known in the comments, or email us at opinionla@latimes.com.
On Sunday, the Editorial Board devoted its entire space to a heave on U.S. troops in Iraq, entitled "Bring Them Home." So, how'd that go over, then?
Matthew Yglesias: "Well-put."
Say Anything: "[A] rather predictable editorial (coming as it does from one of the most liberal newspapers in America)."
Later On: on March 12, 2007, the LA Times took one editorial position, including a harsh indictment of "Gen. Pelosi" (their phrase) and her efforts to get through a bill that includes timelines for withdrawal.
Now, today, May 7, 2007—less than two months later (specifically, 56 days)—they have an editorial taking the completely opposite position. That's fine. But what's not so good is apparently they have no recognition whatsoever that they have switched positions, and no acknowledgment that they need to eat some crow and apologize to Speaker Pelosi, who saw the situation more clearly than did the editors of the Times.
Flopping Aces: "Good grief! Read their Sunday editorial and tell me that they are not subscribing on to the Harry Reid-brand of defeatism naïveté."
Todd Beeton: "Don't ya love when the Times issues these strong declarative statements about what the U.S. SHOULD do in times of war as though a. they're the first to even consider such a thing and b. they have any credibility left?"
Penraker: "I suspect that Democrats had suggested that such an editorial be written. You see, if the U.S. wins this war, the Democrats are dead meat. They may not recover for years."
Ron Beasley: "Along with the American people the LA Times editorial board has seen the light."
"Meteor Blades" at The Daily Kos: "But hey, who am I to refuse my old employers a welcome to the reality-based world, even if they've only arrived at the outskirts?"
Another ex-LATer, Ken Reich: "[T]he L.A. Times joins those who pray for American defeat."
The floor is open to further comment.
The Los Angeles County budget is balanced and in on time. Shouldn't that be enough to satisfy the editorial board? It isn't: In most organizations, a well-crafted budget reflects a rational structure, skilled management and careful oversight. But L.A. County's fiscal achievements are instead paired with dysfunctional, and sometimes deadly, programs.
Read the rest here. The board also weighs in on the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a whistle-blower's hostile workplace suit and the U.S.'s trade complaints against China.
On the opposite page screenwriter Wesley Strick wonders exactly when actress and murder victim Lana Clarkson went from making B-movies to living them, and how, as a Southern California girl, she didn't learn from the cautionary tale of Sharon Tate. Edward Taehan Chang asks if the Virginia Tech gunman's Korean ethnicity really matters, while columnist Ronald Brownstein reflects on the Tech tragedy, President Bush's role, and prevention.
Outbound east coast editor Michael Newman, recently tarred as "one of the many mid-level editors at the Times from Away who are so keen to tell Angelenos how crappy their city is," has a new column today that begins like this: I'm familiar with all the usual complaints: It has no center. It's artificial. It's bad for your health. It can be stale, or rough around the edges, or too sprawling. It epitomizes the excess and emptiness of American culture.
Still, I will defend the doughnut. Even better: I will celebrate the L.A. donut. Whole thing here; Opinion Daily archive here; directions to Martha's Donuts in Lakewood here.
In today's Opinion offerings, Jonah Goldberg makes a point about the McCain-Feingold Act: Campaign finance reform doesn't keep money out of politics, as the price inflation demonstrates. It merely skews the market, making it harder for rookies and amateurs to get in and easier for the pros and incumbents to game the system.
Indeed, it's a lot like government tuition aid intended to keep costs low, which has had the effect of causing college tuitions to explode by skewing the market and allowing schools to shift costs onto government. The richest kids can afford to go to college without government help or big loans (and they can afford to pay for tutors and consultants in order to get into their preferred school), but few others can.
Similarly, the richest candidates or the candidates with the biggest war chests -- surprise! they tend to be officeholders — love campaign finance reform because it puts burdens on the competition.
In other Op-Eds, Sandra Tsing Loh describes the live-blogging of Cathy Seipp's death, and LAPD Capt. Andrew Smith -- chief cop for skid row -- rails against the local head of the ACLU: I was sorely disappointed by Ramona Ripston's complete distortion -- in a column on this page -- of our efforts to stem the lawlessness, suffering and human misery that was commonplace on skid row just a few months ago.
I am outraged that Ripston, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, implied that our officers are violating the very Constitution they are sworn to uphold and protect. The officers in skid row, who all volunteer for the assignment, have one of the lowest rates for the use of force in the city. And I am even more appalled by her views because she walked skid row streets with our officers and rode around in a black-and-white last year and was shocked then at the horrific conditions under which our most vulnerable citizens survived. How quickly she forgot!
Our Opinion Daily of the day comes from Sonni Efron, who war-games Iraq's economic mess, and how the country might go about enlisting various foreign factions in bringing home the bacon. Also, in our newish Blowback feature, Judea Pearl rebuts Saree Makdisi's Outside the Tent feature criticizing the Times' coverage of Israel's "right to exist."
Our three editorials include a blast at the one-party nature of Los Angeles politics, which is compared to the "Politburo."
And the Letters section includes this contribution from a certain Andres Martinez of Santa Monica. Excerpt: As to the "scandal" that caused my integrity to be questioned, I can assure readers that I had no knowledge that any friend of mine did publicity work for Hollywood producer Brian Grazer when he was asked to guest-edit Current, a decision taken by three editors in our department and approved by the publisher. And I never dreamed that any friend of mine or any firm employing a friend would be asked by Grazer to help publicize his involvement with Current. When that turned out to be the case, I flagged the apparent conflict to the publisher and our in-house publicist.
Finally, and on a related note, the news pages inform us that "guest editing" is a dead letter in the Trib-Times, and that Publisher David Hiller appointed The Times' reader's representative, Jamie Gold, to determine whether personal or professional connections improperly influenced previous content in the editorial pages. [...]
Reader's representative Gold said she would begin her review of past opinion-editorial decisions immediately. She said she was not sure how long her investigation would take.
Hiller said Gold would try to discern whether any undue influence had taken place.
"She will report to me and ultimately, if appropriate, to the readers, who are first and foremost our concern," he said.
Martinez said in an e-mail response to a question that there was ample evidence the editorial pages leveled tough scrutiny at Hollywood and played no favorites.
"The suggestion that I was currying favor with friends on the editorial pages is silly to anyone who knows me," Martinez wrote, "but I can understand the need to find some justification retroactively for a terrible overreaction that has undermined the autonomy of the paper's opinion pages and stained the newspaper's reputation."
Your Opinion diet from today includes former Marine Corps war-gamer Gary Anderson telling us to think outside the cultural box when fighting the next war; former Clinton treasury secretary Lawrence Summers telling economic decision-makers to think outside the over-reaction box when addressing the sub-prime meltdown; and columnist Meghan Daum dreaming that her house had more room for boxes. In Editorials we urged revision of the Patriot Act, regionalism around Iraq, and realism about Manhattan Beach's racist past.
What did you miss over the weekend? Bylined highlights include Ron Brownstein assessing Barack Obama's blue collar problem, Daniel Hernandez assessing the immigrants' rights movement one year after the protest, the LAPD's Will Beall arguing that blacks and Latinos unite over crime, Jon Chait tweaking Republicans for digging in against Global Warming, Gregory Rodriguez observing El Paso's conflicts over its colonial history, and Arianna Huffington lamenting that the War on Drugs is a war on minorities. Meanwhile, the Editorial Board argued for letting Arnold be Arnold, and keeping senior city officials higher above the fray of union-hotel disputes.
Our former editor's Daffy Duck routine has brought with it one benefit: We've been getting some better-than-usual traffic on this blog. So while we still have some eyeballs on us, I'd like to let all-y'all know about the many fabtrabulous new features we've been introducing at Opinion L.A. We have rolled out a variety of new online-only features, which we hope will begin to bridge the gap between "print" stuff and "online" stuff as the newsprint medium continues to wither and these here internets allow for even more and better news coverage.
You can start with our few-months-old Opinion Daily, a column that comes out each weekday, written by alternating members of the editorial board. Recent dailies of interest include Michael McGough's disambiguation of the political bedfellows in the Bong Hits For Jesus case; Andrés Martinez' moving tribute to Hal Rothman; Robert Greene's fascinating study of the future of direct democracy in the cellphone-voting age; and Sonni Efron's defense of economic sanctions.
Straight outta 1995, we've also brought online chat roaring back to life. Dig our recent chats with columnist Rosa Brooks and assistant editor Matt Welch, as well as the SRO blowout with columnist Jonah Goldberg. Look for more of the Opinion L.A. Chat in the weeks to come.
Dust-up is our almost-newest feature, a weeklong debate between experts, wonks, politicians, blowhards and other luminaries, on topics in the news and/or in our region. This week's dust-up focused on best ways to solve L.A.'s traffic crisis. In recent weeks, we've had debaters go at it on performance-enhancing drugs in sports; the Scooter Libby trial; and Gov. Schwarzenegger's health care initiative.
That health-care debate, by the way, brought a spirited rejoinder from Pacific Research Institute's John R. Graham, which we were happy to run. This brings us to yet another exciting new feature: Blowback, an opportunity for concerned readers to publish oped-length rebuttals to features that have appeared in the Times. Recent responses have come from the Venezuelan ambassador, a senior State Department official, and others. (Sorry, I just realized as I'm typing this that we don't have a Blowback archive: Will get to that asap!)
In old-fashioned "push" media, we'll be rolling out a daily email newsletter, within the next week I hope, that will keep you informed of what new stuff we've got going on at Opinion L.A.—including old media stuff, new media stuff, and an exciting blend of the two. Signup instructions will show up in this blog and at the Opinion front page, but if you'd like to get in early, email us at opinionla@latimes.com, and we'll set you up.
And of course, we still have all the old print stalwarts: editorials (those unsigned thingees that run on the left page of the print version and speak—more or less—for the board as an institution); opeds (signed columns written by people from oustide the Times opinion section); letters from our readers; the Sunday Current section; and our murderers' row of regular columnists.
I'd like to thank Andrés Martinez for his steadfast and enthusiastic support in guiding our new features and innovations through a work environment where change is frequently less than welcome. If not for Andrés, you would be looking at a much smaller catalogue of new features. I wish him the best, and hope that we can continue his ambition of making maximum use of new media to produce a better and more exciting Los Angeles Times. *
* I made a change to this last graf to eliminate some accurate but stylistically extraneous material. For the original version, see L.A. Observed and Patterico.
Speaking of congestion, the Reason Foundation's Ted Balaker and Sam Staley have an Op-Ed in the paper today about how they'd untangle your gridlock -- tunnels, double-decker freeways, toll roads and private financing all play a role. Monorails and people-movers are conspicuously absent.
"Very strange."
"Excuse me, but this seems to be a crudely veiled use of the power of the press in the cause of vigilantism and should not be tolerated."
"If you don't trust me, give me the same information — and two third-graders who can count to 10 — and they can do it."
"Someone needs to tell Goldberg that the war in Iraq was lost long ago."
"I am a physician who cares for hundreds of patients who have severe and chronic cough."
"If you're Christian, Muslim or a member of a minority and things aren't going your way, it's becoming common to blame everything on people who supposedly conspired against you because of your race or religion."
"Again Steve Lopez has all the questions and none of the answers."
"Can one dissolve something that doesn't exist?"
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and the British prime minister are all apologizing for England's role in the crime of New World slavery. Adam Hochschild says Live for today.
Go right to the source: The ex-president commits political "suicide" by standing up for the Palestinians.
"It brutalizes the occupying armed forces, who cannot admit to themselves that the people they repress by force are human beings like themselves."
"I know not the original source, but I heard it just this week as we were lamenting the behavior of adolescence."
"Why not just say 'my fee'?"
"A good compromise might be to revise the City Charter or pass an ordinance mandating that the City Council and the mayor each hire an attorney."
"Although it is true that various Islamic governments did wage wars of conquest, they often left their non-Christian minorities in a better state than they had been under the Western European and Byzantine Christian powers."
"When it was time to work on next-generation systems, Sony and Microsoft were playing the same old 'better graphics, more media'" tune, whereas Nintendo decided to be experimental as far as actual game play is concerned."
"Niall Ferguson makes sense until he starts looking for rational leadership in Iran."
"When pharmaceutical companies find a way to make a profit from marijuana, it will become legal."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Antonia Juhasz reads the Iraq Study Group's report, and finds a blueprint for American control.
Arianna Huffington explains how the Empire State's junior senator calculated everything to the last focus-group decimal point, but still ended up getting Obama'd.
"It is obvious that the Republicans' drumbeat denouncement of judicial activism depends on whether or not they have the majority on the court."
"In no way did the state Franchise Tax Board's vote to approve a voluntary program designed to make tax filing easier for low-income taxpayers constitute "defying" the Legislature."
"To solve these problems by giving more money to these same elites is not only wrong but mind-numbingly foolish as well."
"The very last thing anyone needs in medicine is some goofy cult religion getting in the way of sound medical practices."
"Japan requires all chefs to be licensed, so a safe dining experience is almost guaranteed, but I have seen questionable food handling at Japanese restaurants here."
"One hundred and eighty thousand employees spread across the nation are impossible to police properly, especially when they are wearing the badges."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Tennie Pierce's lawyer explains why her client is still seeking a $2.7 million settlement.
Tony Badran follows the long, strange trip of Michel Aoun, the Party of God's new front man.
"Calderon must act, not just posture."
"The demise of the municipal court system took the courts further away from the people."
"The sooner that dour, smug, spiritless face of his is out of the public eye, the better."
"Despite our different positions on the proposition, we likely agree that some of the measure's provisions could have been more clearly drafted."
"And for opposing the Iraq war they are known as 'pragmatists' instead of 'radicals.'"
"Is Schwarzenegger looking for an inauguration or coronation?"
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Trey Ellis reports from the front in the battle between the rich and the superrich.
"They should be challenged incessantly until their voices are stifled by the words of true patriots who believe in our founding principles."
"When all the peace-loving countries unite to fight collectively against this greatest evil of our times, which has no boundaries, makes no distinction but only creates fear and intimidation and has no respect for life and the right to live, then the scourge of international terrorism could be exterminated and eradicated for good from the face of the globe."
"If the previous $25 billion we did send down there is any guide, Mexico will actually pay the money back ahead of schedule."
"It's about time for some new movies."
"Once again, the Los Angeles City Council and other assorted bureaucrats are falling all over themselves to appease a defrocked celebrity (recall Peter Graves and Julie Newmar in the great leaf blower debacle of 1997)."
"The simple truth is there is little hope for creating sustainable environments if educated people cannot see or understand the dangers before their eyes."
"The brunt of the 'compromising' is once again to be borne by the Palestinians."
What does it all mean? What else are people talking about? Find out in Letters.
Paula L. Ettelbrick shows how far behind the United States has fallen in the gay marriage race.
Rosa Brooks would run away from the village in order to save it.
A largely Latino crew called the Colonists thrills to the musical stylings of Al Jolson and beats the stuffing out of white boys. Some kind of Minutemen take on Warriors 3? No, just a story of football redemption in Anaheim by Gustavo Arellano.
Mexico's new day: Incoming President Felipe Calderon can make his mark by taking on entrenched business elites.
Raiding your inbox: The Bush administration's assault on privacy rights soon could reach e-mail messages stored on the Web.
Lockyer's Prop. 83 folly: The attorney general's change of position makes a bad law even worse.
Jesse Jackson wants people to hold their tongues. John Ridley gives him an earful.
Kevin E. Fry says the settlement in the Regency Outdoor Advertising suit is a sham that will leave the city with more billboards than ever.
"Dehumanized inmates and dehumanized jailers are a threat to everyone when they walk the streets."
"Shake up the silly behavior in the Fire Department and fire some pranksters."
"Now I'm through in one swallow."
"If the so-called Islamo-fascists want to cannibalize themselves in endless civil strife, well then, God is great, isn't he?"
"The fewer quitters we have around, the better."
"Nowhere is there precedent for requiring a copyright owner to forbid unauthorized use of a work in order to prevent such exploitation."
"Otherwise, this will be a case of fool me twice, shame on me."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Get out of Harman's way: Pelosi avoided the wrong decision but has yet to make the right one on a crucial committee appointment.
LAFD goes to the dogs: If the Tennie Pierce case goes to court, it could be good for the city -- but not because it will be cheap.
Amen to fighting AIDS: Bush and the evangelical movement have done more than they get credit for in efforts to stem the disease.
Robert Pastor proposes a North American Investment Fund to get the continent on the same economic level.
Barry Lando looks at the statistics and concludes that Iraq's conflict is in the same league with the American and Lebanese civil wars.
"So why don't we work out mutually beneficial deals with the world's communist, fascist and religious dictators?"
"When McCain's voting record shows he is indeed a conservative Republican, when he backs down from habeas corpus and kisses up to right-wing ideologues, he loses his "maverick" standing."
"Perhaps the U.S. should consider buying out the Israeli settlements and giving the land back to Palestinians."
"At last, a high-profile politician is willing to go on record with support for the entertainment industry."
"Both sides can now find irony in the fact that the Getty Bronze is actually Greek and sank while being borne to Italy as the spoils of Roman power."
"Yes, L.A.'s finest get away with it again."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out, in Letters.
Folly and faux pas: Between political gaffes, the French talk a good game—but words in wartime are cheap.
Why is movie attendance up? Maybe because there are more movies that suck less.
The pope and the eastern church: Benedict XVI must mend fences with Orthodox Christians as well as Muslims.
Amos Oz repeats the list of painful ingredients that will have to go into a real Israeli-Palestinian peace.
As state funding for stem cell research fails to materialize, Sigrid Fry-Revere argues that the private sector is a better source.
"In dealing intelligently with seniors, don't make a religion of choice."
"And tint it green for old times' sake."
"Or are we all stuck in the medieval religious conflicts?"
"That Benedict shares many of the same reactionary, divisive and intolerant social and religious attitudes that characterize fundamentalist Islam is hardly reassuring to the rest of us."
"It was an ongoing joke that the road we were building was for the NVA to use as soon as we were gone."
"Each adult American above the poverty line who supported the administration's decision to invade Iraq should send $100 to $1,000, depending on wealth, to the appropriate nongovernmental agency set up to help the Iraqi people."
"Indeed, the conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis mirrors conflicts that black and Latino residents have with many Korean shop owners."
"I will keep this tucked away for a rainy day."
"Attempts to limit growth will result in overcrowding and less affordable housing."
"But then, when I listen to Mencia or Chappelle, I'm similarly stunned."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Throw Olmert a bone: Israel's olive branch is an opportunity for the Palestinians—if they can accept the facts of life in the Mideast.
A high point for Nepal: Its people have managed to nullify a tyrannical king and push insurgents toward peace.
Which way, California Republicans? Governor Schwarzenegger's policies won the state, but will his party get the message?
Getty Museum director Michael Brand details the museum's painful negotiations with the Italian government over "Victorious Youth" and other works.
"Jonah Goldberg proves again that he is to journalism what George Bush is to the presidency.
"He too is right."
"Ruby deserves to live her golden years as a free elephant would, with access to a herd she can bond with, and land she can roam for hours and hours each day.
"Granted, the machines are noisy, but you are restricted on the speed and the trails you can take in the park, and animals are not afraid of the snowmobiles.
"And our treatment of them there is just plain shameful."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Expedite the AGOA: Congress should avoid the political entanglements and extend trade legislation vital to the poorest continent.
The Ethan question: A child's senseless death raises concerns about the priorities of federal crime policies.
Keroack is wack: Bush made a poor choice in selecting who will oversee how millions are spent on family planning.
Dr. Susan Love and Sue Rochman count up just a few of the many things we don't know about breast cancer.
Lebanon on the brink: A political murder could spark a disastrous chain of events. The U.S. must help protect its fragile regime.
Clean up the Navajos' poisoned land: Uranium mining has wreaked havoc on the Navajo people. The country owes it to them to clean up the mess.
Another try for L.A. ballet: Los Angeles Ballet is the latest company to attempt success against long odds. We wish it well.
All the reporters' character flaws: Alicia C. Shepard reviews the late Alan J. Pakula's notes to see how Woodward and Bernstein complemented, and hated, each other.
You can't beat us; join us: David Eun says stop worrying and learn to love Google.
The pope and the Muslims' common enemy—your freedom: As Pope Benedict XVI talks Turkey, John L. Allen Jr. looks to the anti-modern fanatic Sayyid Qutb and finds the Holy Father's spiritual brother.
Poison and the KGB, perfect together: David Wise takes a toxic tour of Russian espionage history.
West Bank bamboozlement: Gershom Gorenberg surveys the not-quite-legal shenanigans on Palestinian-owned settlement land.
Komedy Korner: Barbara Garson proposes defending America with killing jokes.
Fundies out of nappies: Michael Bywater says fundamentalism is not as infantile as originally advertised.
With even the Times arguing against the intrusive Live Free Or Die Hard location filming, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa says we need to keep movie shoots from defecting to Canada.
"This is a rough description of a libertarian outlook, which I also have noted and approve."
"Surely the MTA would not put such devices on its rail lines and besiege its more affluent ridership with debt consolidation advertisements and the weather conditions in Dallas."
"To truly go native in the area between downtown and the beaches, the city would have to get rid of all the trees and even shrubs."
"The answer to the educational problem is not paying top teachers more."
"Presumably this will be the first American courthouse in our history to be built without jury boxes or a place for the public to view open proceedings."
"It is hard to get people to cooperate while bombing their nation."
"So I'm exercising a certain amount of maternalism."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Alexander Litvinenko gets a deadly dose of polonium-210, and it's hard to take Vladimir Putin's denials seriously.
Tender the one-buck coin, buck the one-dollar bill.
What do the vintners buy half so precious as the thing they sell? A slimming dose of resveratrol, apparently.
David Drucker, a liberal who headed to Canada after the 2004 election, pulls over his Volvo, turns down NPR, takes a sip of latte, and rolls up his Utne Reader to announce that even a Democratic congress can't bring him back from the Great White North.
"One question to the White House and the New Age generation: What have you learned from history?"
"I hope we are being lied to about this war on terror."
"That Pelosi's other consideration in this essential matter is meeting racial quotas for blacks and Latinos makes her posture all the more egregious."
"If the waitress is required to pay taxes on her income, shouldn't the billionaire be required to pay taxes on his?"
"To continue arguing that Jewish settlements are an obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is to ignore the overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Remembering Robert Altman, Garrison Keillor dreams, among other things, of Lindsay Lohan reclining on a couch.
125 years of L.A. Times Thanksgiving editorials. For ones that didn't make the cut, see item just below.
Change the school calendar: Why should so many public schools be half-empty today?
Affiliates show their juice: What the O.J. cancellation tells us about outdated FCC rules.
The Puritans weren't all that: The Pilgrims were more fun than you think.
Victor Navasky gets hisself a preachin' license to get his young'un hitched.
Diplomacy derailed: Get the locals around the table in Iraq.
Kadafi flapping his gums: The Libyan leader's post-colonial boilerplate just makes Sudan worse.
Red Line to the sea! Make transit decisions based on the numbers, not political warm and fuzzies.
Robert Gates used to be a politicizin', intelligence-cookin' ideologue, writes Jennifer Glaudemans. Has he learned his lesson?
"Maybe the 'protectionists' are right, and until other nations are prepared to trade on a level that is not so detrimental to us, we shouldn't be concerned about cheap goods and labor."
"The toll road would devastate a state park and one of the most famous surfing spots on the planet at an enormous cost to the taxpayer with a guaranteed yield of zip, much like our current fiasco in the Middle East."
"What a lot of sturm und drang about nothing!"
"The best-qualified person, a West Point graduate, is a trained soldier, not a detective."
"Milton Friedman's opposition to the war on drugs had considerably more influence than your obituary suggests."
"Is this a case of Boot trying to obfuscate, by distancing the think tank from the perception of foul-ups and mistakes in planning and prosecuting the war in Iraq?"
"Vernon is not like any other city."
"Democracy might be a very good form of government if it weren't for our political parties and politicians."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Flatter, simpler, better: How fundamental tax reform could give President Bush something to brag about.
L.A. flunks science: Wake up, teachers unions; the National Assessment of Educational Progress ranks us dead last among major American cities.
Bus-see TV: Transit television boxes the ears of L.A. bus riders.
After running around with Palestinian farmers, Bernard Avishai gives a tentative thumbs up to James Baker's return.
Speaking of Sirhan Sirhan, legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin describes holding the shooter's legs on the night Bobby died.
"Once again, Brewer is perpetuating his foot-in-the-mouth disease."
"How despicable these two are."
"Cuba fights to keep its citizens, but Mexico fights to get rid of its citizens."
"This is one of the poorest excuses for an article I have read in The Times."
"How much did the late president's supporters agree to pay UCLA to have it named for him, when its estimated cost was "only" about $800 million?"
"For the drug war, there is a simple and relatively easy solution to end the violence caused by it: legalization."
"This is a no-brainer."
"That is if they don't buy into Kaplan's perpetual blacks-as-victims mantra."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Geoffrey Nunberg tracks the decline and fall of the Bush era's great phrases, and wonders if the Democrats can do better than describing themselves as the Uncola.
Bring the Olympics Back to L.A.: The city of the angels should host the 2016 games.
The dictator next door? How does a $60,000-a-year government functionary afford a $35 million home in Malibu? Ask Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangu, son of Equatorial Guinea's brutal dictator—and Cher's newest neighbor.
Caveman write editorial: They're the heroes of bestselling books; they're offended by those Geico ads; they partied with Ringo Starr: Is it any surprise that Neanderthals share 99.5% of our genetic material?
Burt Neuborne, an attorney who secured a $1.25 billion settlement for Holocaust survivors in the Swiss banks case, now wants to get paid $4.75 million.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft says this kind of thing is the reason everybody hates lawyers.
But Burt Neuborne himself says he's already waived $10 million in fees and deserves to get paid.
Bomb them, says the American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik.
Don't bomb them, says the Council on Foreign Relations' Ray Takeyh.
Constance L. Rice compares the LAPD video brouhaha with the reality of crime in South L.A.
Michael Woo and Christian Peralta look to the Colombian capital for inspiration about the Metro Rapid bus plan.
Richard Weinstein proposes a better process for Los Angeles architectural competitions.
"Loyalty is understanding that America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent and became great through experimentation..."
"I've heard Argentine Americans first describe themselves as European before Hispanic or Latino..."
"If their editor had the common sense not to publish secret material (highly unlikely), these so-called courageous reporters would still be guilty of abetting a criminal but in a lot less trouble..."
"I will continue to tell everyone I know to avoid Time Warner Cable at all costs..."
"Thanks to reporter Dan Weikel for actually riding in a wheelchair to discover the impediments that disabled people endure every day..."
"Instead of having the 405 or 101 freeways fixed and widened, we'll purchase 17,000 new trucks and give them away to local guys who drive junkers..."
"We need this type of bravery in the military today for an immediate end to this bloodshed..."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out in Letters.
Maliki barge: Somebody needs to keep the Iraqi coalition from breaking up.
Holland unveiled: A Dutch ban on burkas will foster extremism, not fight it.
Ex-gay or ex-cathedra?: Half a hosanna for the U.S. Catholic bishops' mixed message to gays and lesbians.
Michael Moore details a 12-step program for peace with conservatives.
Tamar Jacoby investigates how immigrant-bashing Republicans managed to destroy President Bush's effort to woo the Latino vote.
"Real prison reform will come when the monopoly power of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. is broken..."
"A combative suspect spits what could be disease-loaded saliva at the arresting officer..."
"'Everyone that believes that, stand on his head.'"
"Do you think that the insurgents don't read our newspapers and look at your website on the Internet?"
"Who knew?"
"I had to flip every page over to get to the English version..."
"Shame on him..."
"I'm sure the folks there are fine engineers, but it makes as much sense to have an earthquake engineering center in Buffalo as it would to have the nation's snow-removal research headquarters in L.A...."
What does it all mean? What else are people saying? Find out, in Letters.
What's it all about, Alcee? Nancy Pelosi should learn from the Murtha debacle, and put Jane Harman in charge of the House Intelligence Committee.
Detroit power trio's farewell tour: Ford, GM, Chrysler GmbH get an hour with the prez—and that's about 59 minutes more than they're worth.
Yahoos sue Borat: High five—lawsuit can make benefit even if cultural learnings do not.
Michael Rubin explains why we should stop giving money to Nouri Maliki and start giving it to just plain folks.
Back to hacks: Slick party insiders come in to replace inside party slicksters.
Delta dawn: In the airline-bankruptcy turkey shoot, US Airways' bid for Delta is a turn in the right direction.
South African promise: The former icon of injustice recognizes gay marriage as a matter of rights.
Andrew Lam explains why Vietnamese like the concept of America, regardless of what they think of the country.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld contained multitudes, and Max Boot tries to piece together some of his many contradictions.
Erin Aubry Kaplan examines the politics in the effort to unionize security guards.
Next time hold the pork: City Council gives political heavyweights a $21-millon "flavor" of your tax dollars.
Hooverite House's Nam nincompoopery: Congress' vote against trade normalization with Vietnam will help us win the peace almost as well as we won the war.
Bring the Cuban terrorist to justice: The United States can see that Luis Posada Carriles gets tried for terrorism without handing him over to Hugo Chavez or the Castro Brothers.
Joel Stein unbamboozles lazy reporters who are falling for Borat.
Dov S. Zakheim advises the next Secretary of Defense on which parts of the Rummy legacy to fix, and which parts to expand.
Here's what's up in today's Los Angeles Times editorials:
Don't be lame, Ducks. Clean up the loose ends in this congressional session and leave the big stuff, such as NSA eavesdropping, for the next Congress.
Give 'em hell, Seoul. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun can help the "Sunshine policy" by standing up to the Dear Leader.
Pinch, punch, middle of the month. The William Cardenas video and the strange new Blow-Up world of video analysis.
Andrew J. Bacevich: Fighting over who lost Iraq
As with Vietnam, the ugly argument over the war will ultimately have a cleansing effect on the U.S.
Joel Stein: Angelides' sad, sad celebration
Phil and his minions plan to fiddle tonight, even as their campaign burns.
Denise Hamilton: L.A.'s fall scent: Crap
You can tell it's November in Southern California by the smell of manure on people's lawns.
David Helvarg: Too few fish in the sea
How governments can prevent a complete wipeout of seafood species by curbing the number of fishing boats.
Editorials
Iraq's rough justice
The trial of Saddam Hussein was not exactly a triumph for the rule of law, but it achieved a just result.
Touch-screen test
Electronic voting machines will get a nationwide workout today. But will they work as advertised?
Our election guide
The Times' views on statewide and local issues and candidates.
Dispatches from Friday’s opinion page:
Rosa Brooks:No Escaping Sexualization of Young Girls
With JonBenet back in the headlines, it's hard for a parent to avoid paranoia.
William Ratliff: Chavez Does China
Venezuela's loudmouth whispers to Beijing, but it's not likely Mao's heirs will go for his anti-American policies.
Hart Seely: Whatever Happened to Rumsfeld the Poet?
Defense secretary has gone from folksy press-conference hero to J.D. Salinger figure.
Shakeel Syed: The Governor's Cold Shoulder to Muslims
Rebuffing California's Islamic leaders sends a message of intolerance.
Editorials
Let Companies Buy and Sell News
The FCC should relax unreasonable ownership restrictions on the media.
Release the Prop. 63 Funds
State should disburse to counties the $1-billion surplus for mental health services.
France Finally Steps Up
Chirac now backs Gallic words with 2,000 soldiers. But that still lags Italy and misses a historic opportunity.
Thursday’s musings:
James Traub:The Bosnia Excuse
France is using the U.N. debacle to shirk its peacekeeping duty in Lebanon.
Patt Morrison: We can all just get along without this
Why a satire about the 1992 riot crashed and burned at the box office.
Eve Conant: Yoga Goes to War
Sailors and soldiers are seeking enlightenment in uniform. Are tow-truck drivers and Wall Street traders next?
Jonah Goldberg: Wal-Mart Drives Democrats Batty
The left's dunderheaded broadsides at the nation's biggest employer.
Editorials
Never Enough on Stem Cells
Scientists should stop trying to appease religious conservatives about research those critics will never support.
Shocking Honesty vs. Tom Cruise
Megastar receives that rarest of Hollywood artifacts — a very public dismissal.
Muddling Mullahs
Trying to decode Iran's puzzling response to the nuclear ultimatum.
Today’s thoughtful opinion pieces:
Max Boot:Israel Should Hit Syria First
A preemptive-war policy keeps the enemy from fighting on its own terms.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Ambassador Young's Wal-Mart Mistake
Before Civil Rights icon Andrew Young disparaged Jewish, Korean and Arab grocers, he made a bigger error: Taking a job at Wal-Mart.
A. Yasmine Rassam: Iran Hostage Crisis, Take 2
If the U.S. backs down in Iraq, Tehran's mullahs will move in and take the Middle East captive.
Noah Zatz: Re-Reforming Welfare
Ten years later, get-tough work rules get the credit for slashing welfare rolls. But incentives are the untold success story
Editorials
Democrats' Shameful Wal-Mart Demonization
Presidential hopefuls only hurt themselves when pandering to unions by bashing the country's largest employer.
A Congo Comeback
Despite violence, a presidential election offers tenuous hope that democracy has a chance in the ravaged nation.
Airbrushing Cartoon History
Today, Tom and Jerry lose their smokes. Tomorrow, Bogart and Bette Davis?
Today’s exciting ideas:
Ezra Klein:The Job Sen. Clinton Should Want
Skip the presidential rat race and whip the Senate Democrats into shape.
Joel Stein: Eat Yer Heart Out, Woodstein!
Groundbreaking investigative journalism from the state GOP convention.
David G. Myers: Bush Needs a Fact-Check, Not a Gut Check
Sure, intuition can develop with experience. But trusting your hunches has perils, too.
Heather Dundas: Baby, It's Cold Back East
A SoCal mom explains winter and the other facts of life to her college-bound daughter.
Editorials
Finish What Job?
President Bush's simplistic rhetoric could be used to justify open-ended commitment in Iraq.
Terminal Gas Problem
There's one smart way to choose a site for California's much-needed liquified natural gas terminal, so why is Sacramento dithering?
Mayor Is Right to Cross Picket Line
City architects and engineers should go to work today, and accept a raise the rest of us would enjoy.
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
Andrew J. Bacevich: Slam-Dunk Wars Don't Equal Wins
Middle East shows that victory that defeats the enemy but leaves issues intact is hollow.
Niall Ferguson: The Myopia of Hindsight
Two tragic stories of war show the problems of coming to terms with the past by using today's standards.
Jack Williams: Who Owns the Back of a Baseball Card?
A legal ruling hits it out of the park.
Editorials
Lethal Injection -- Still Lethal
Fighting the death penalty by calling lethal injection "cruel" misses the crucial objection.
Time to Jettison Pluto
As scientists discover more orbiting things, it's better to lose the ninth planet than gain a bunch of new ones.
The Un-American Senator
George Allen disgraces himself with a racist slur.
Sunday Feature: Katrina: A Year Later:
Editorial: Not Too Late for New Orleans
City can still get moving on reconstruction, but time's running out.
Joel Kotkin: Where Did the Gulf Coasters Go?
Hurricane Katrina's refugees might never go home, and that's good news for Houston, Atlanta and Dallas.
Christine Wiltz: New Orleans' Soul Survival
The hurricane shattered the city, but it hasn't rattled its spirit.
George Penick and K. Jack Riley: Mississippi Comeback
Out of the spotlight, the state is making all the right rebuilding moves.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Peter Skerry: Give Illegal Immigrants Licenses -- and Obligations
Tying eligibility for driver's licenses to learning English or staying out of jail could help stem the anti-immigration backlash.
Paul Kennedy: United Nations: The World's Scapegoat
Middle East cease-fire will evaporate if great powers hide their failures behind the U.N.
Meghan Daum: FM May Be Annoying, But Jill's an Airhead
A radio station for women says it's for bad girls, but really it's just bad.
John Yoo: Anti-Terror Weapons We're Afraid to Use
The old-fashioned approach to catching terrorists isn't enough.
P.W. Singer: Them's fighting names
History can be quite capricious when it comes to naming wars.
Friday’s opinion:
Nick Schou: The CIA-Contra-Crack Connection, 10 Years Later
Reporter Gary Webb was the victim of his own hyperbole, but he never got credit for what he got right.
Rosa Brooks: Get Happy the White House Way
Bummed out by the Middle East? Turn that frown upside down!
Priti Patel: The CIA Torture Loophole
A contractor was found guilty in the death of a detainee, but the potential for more abuses is high.
John W. Handy: Save the C-17
We need the winged workhorse for hurricanes, tsunamis and the war on terror, says a retired general.
Editorials
Bush: Unconstitutional, Again
The president and Congress should spend more time following the law and less trying to find creative ways to break it.
Defining Victory in Lebanon
Talking about who "won" the war is premature as long as Hezbollah remains armed.
Fighting Cancer in School
LAUSD vaccinations represent a health-policy breakthrough.
Today’s stupendous opinions:
Jonah Goldberg:The Swastika and the Scimitar
Anti-Semitic paranoia is alive and well among Muslims.
Kelly Candaele: Unions Should Organize, Not Politicize
More collective bargaining, not government action, is what workers need most.
Patt Morrison: It's Not Stealing, It's an iPod Intervention
An L.A. crime wave is claiming thousands of iPods. Kids, you're better off without 'em.
Geoffrey Nunberg: 'Islamo-Creeps' Would Be More Accurate
President Bush refers to Muslim terrorists as 'fascists.' Does he know what he's talking about?
Editorials
School Reform's Coalition of the Unenthused
The mayor was so successful at building support for his plan, you almost wouldn't know that his backers are blase.
Iran's Newest Blogger
Take President Ahmadinejad's poll!
Out of Control at LAX
Four glitches in a month suggest something's seriously wrong with the airport.
Today’s wonderful opinions:
Julia E.Sweig:Why They Hate Us
No, it's not our freedoms. Anti-Americanism isn't going away until the U.S. puts some fairness in its foreign policy.
Talya Rachel Meyers: The Horror of Renting in Santa Barbara
Grad student discovers the joys of apartment hunting in the nation's 7th-most expensive zip code.
Joel Stein: Elmo Is an Evildoer
The self-obsessed Sesame Street Muppet is destroying all that is holy on children's TV.
Timothy Garton Ash: Cash for Grades
A Santa Ana school trades the green stuff for good algebra scores.
Editorials
No "Timeout" for Property Rights
Moratorium proposal on condo conversions is another troubling sign that City Hall wants to keep housing affordable by handcuffing landlords.
Pre-election Terrorizing
The Republicans, again, play unseemly politics with terrorism.
Cash Out on Boardwalk
What does it mean when Monopoly goes plastic?
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
Niall Ferguson: Testing the Limits of the U.N.
Who seriously expects Kofi Annan to stop Al Qaeda terror attacks?
Richard K. Betts: How Superpowers Become Impotent
In Lebanon and Iraq, guerrilla tactics turn clean, mean fighting machines into wimps.
Carole King: Idaho's Off-Road Uproar
A bill promises to preserve the wilderness -- for gearheads.
Tom Standage: It's Tea Time in America
How about some Earl Grey with your apple pie?
Editorials
Bending Prop. 13
California voters have been restoring taxes, including on property, bit by bit.
Where AIDS Drugs Work
A higher percentage of sub-Saharans take their HIV medication as directed than do Americans.
Plugging in to the Neighborhood
Power outage creates a little old-fashioned street bonding.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Jenny Price: Targeted by Gun Nuts
After she wrote a gun-control op-ed, the writer got threats and worse: a blogosphere hit job on her murdered brother.
Jorge G. Castañeda: Fidel Fatigue
Long live the revolution? That's the last thing Latin America needs.
Edward Gonzalez: Castro's Deal With the Soviet Devil
Communist money and military might fed his ego and sank his nation.
Abraham Cooper: Outside the Tent: Times Coverage of Israel Is Full of Holes
When it comes to local Jews' relationship with Israel, this paper just doesn't get it, says a rabbi.
Salam Al-Marayati and Edina Lekovic: Outside the Tent: What The Times Isn't Telling You About Hezbollah
Why does this paper take Israel's side? asks a Muslim leader.
Joe Robinson: BlackBerrys Don't Fit in Bikinis
Laboring on your vacation actually hurts American productivity.
Caleb Carr: A War of Escalating Errors
Israelis and their foes are swinging wildly -- and missing their targets.
Meghan Daum: The Upside of Marrying Down
That sanitation worker sounds like a catch. Am I crazy?
Your final fill of opinion for the week:
Rosa Brooks:Antiwar Wackadoos Are Winning
Opposing the war in Iraq is no longer fringe -- it's American.
Michael D’Antonio: Big Science Loses a Problem-Solver
In his nine decades, James Van Allen confronted many problems. Solving them was the passion of his life.
Denise Hamilton: Just Hold Your Nose and Read
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get kids into books -- such as the grossly funny 'Captain Underpants.'
Susan Trento and Joseph Trento: The 10-Year-Old Terrorist Plot
Security experts knew of this kind of plan, and have been urging carry-on restrictions, since before 9/11. Why is TSA so late?
Editorials
Terror in the Air
London arrests are grim reminder we can't let our guard down from Islamic terrorists.
BP's 'Big Problem'
The world's most self-congratulatory conscientious oil company pounds Alaska through careless neglect.
A Trial Lawyer by Any Other Name
The Assn. of Trial Lawyers Consults Orwell on Re-branding.
Thursday’s musings:
T. Christian Miller:Marshall Plan, Minus the Plan
$30 billion later, Iraq's reconstruction is more distant than ever, a Times reporter says.
Jonah Goldberg: The Last Hawkish Democrat Leaves the Building
Democrats trade the 21st-century Scoop Jackson for the ghost of McGovernism past.
Mark Kendall: L.A.'s Landlocked Minor League
Angels-Dodgers rivalry divides the Inland Empire. Low-stakes baseball unites us.
Editorials
Learning From Boston: A Bad School Made Good
Richard J. Murphy School shows how mayoral control and accountability can get results.
Fourth of four parts
No Such Thing as a Free Search
AOL fiasco shows that online privacy remains elusive.
Wednesday’s page:
Rajan Menon:Kiss Iraq Goodbye if Shiites Align With Hezbollah
How fallout from Lebanon could choke a fragile U.S.-Muslim alliance.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: South L.A. Hungry For a Supermarket
Retail pullouts are creating a community crisis.
Max Boot: Radical Ideas for Iraq
The current strategy isn't working. We either need more troops or a lot fewer.
Bill Stall: A Big Fat Boot Print on Paradise
When a hiking magazine spotlights unspoiled wilderness, how long will it stay that way?
Editorials
Learning From Boston: A School Board That Clicks
When school boards aren't elected, they actually get things done.
Third of four parts
What's in a Drug's Name?
What's bad for Bristol-Myers Squibb could be good for the rest of us.
They are all part of your daily dispatch from the LA Times opinion page:
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen:Israel's Way Out
Hezbollah and Hamas attacks have backed it into a corner. Escalation against Iran and Syria might be the best hope.
William G. Ouchi: Wrong School Bill, Right Idea
Let's get real mayoral control of LAUSD.
David Ehrenstein: Gay Marriage Gets Even
Keep the confetti handy, because the tide has turned on same-sex unions.
Joel Stein: David Hasselhoff, Up Close and Personal
Watching the former 'Baywatch' star fall apart isn't so funny.
Editorials
Tantrum South of the Border
Lopez Obrador's defiance continues, but thankfully even his own allies are getting tired of the act.
Bush's Change of Heart on the Middle East
His support for a cease-fire was slow in coming, but the proposal reclaims the moral high ground.
Dogsledder Was a True Champion
Susan Butcher taught us all a valuable lesson about sporting candor and integrity.
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
Lee Terry: Stephen Colbert for Congress!
Getting skewered by the TV comic is one of the best things a legislator can do.
Niall Ferguson: The Coming Tsunami of Trash
How will we solve the latest ocean-borne tragedy?
Thomas P. Sullivan: Safeguards for the Innocent
California should reform recording rules for eyewitnesses and suspects.
David L. Ulin: Having Sex? Use Plan B
The 'morning-after' birth control pill has become its own odd beachhead in the war over reproductive rights.
Editorials
Learning From Boston: How a Mayor Can Reform Schools
Menino took authority, raised private money and achieved revolutionary results.
Second of four parts
Trading With the (Former) Enemy
It's time to make nice with Vietnam.
From Sunday:Learning From Boston: School Reform Done Right
L.A. in 2006 is where Boston was in 1991.
First of four parts
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Joe Domanick: Prison Fix: Call in the Feds
California's dysfunctional prisons need a judicial jump-start.
Jeanne S. Woodford: Why I Quit the Prison System
California's last corrections chief on what the state needs to do next.
Aaron David Miller: A New, Messier Mideast
A bolder Iran, empowered Hamas and Hezbollah, and defensive Israel mean a troubled future.
Tom Engelhardt: Barbarians With Wings
Air power was supposed to make warfare civilized. It hasn't worked out that way
Gregory Rodriguez: Cuba Libre!
Cuban Americans will have to craft a new identity if the island turns democratic.
Gregory Rodruigez: Resilence Among the Ruins
How do people cope with life in a war zone? Through a delicate balance of memory and denial.
Larry Crowder: Healthcare for the Oceans
There's only one way to save the seas -- a scaled up, big-picture effort.
Meghan Daum: Bigger Breasts, More Testosterone
Is it possible to compete in any arena without an artificial boost?
Rounding Out the Week of Opinion:
Imad Moustapha:Syria Wants to Talk, But Bush Won't Answer the Phone
Damascus has effectively cooperated with Washington on terrorism, says Syria's ambassador.
Paul Slansky: Mel's No Tom, Hugh or Woody
Apologies aren't Hollywood standard issue, but neither was Gibson's hate-fueled rant.
George Weigel: No Tears for Fidel, Please
The murderous dictator put revolution ahead of country, so shed them for the people and way of life he repressed.
Editorials
Justice After Guantanamo
The White House still thinks the ends justifies the means in trying suspected terrorists.
Turkey's Balancing Act
Despite some worrying recent developments in NATO's only Muslim country, the Lebanon tragedy may provide an opportunity.
Does California Really Need a Hall of Fame?
Maria Shriver's shrine feels like the expression of an insecure state.
Today’s thrilling opinion pieces:
Max Boot: Messed Up Are the Peacemakers
Nowhere is the dismal record of peace processes clearer than in Israel's case.
Daryl F. Gates: In L.A., We Can't Always Just Get Along
former police chief puts recent dustups among city leaders in perspective.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Where Have You Gone, Ralph Bunche?
Rice and Powell have twisted the ideals that the statesman brought to diplomacy.
Frida Ghitis: War, the Small Screen, and the Big Picture
TV cameras are drawn to human drama, for good and bad.
Editorials
Welcome Hot Air from Arnold and Blair
Global-warming pact between the California governor and British prime minister may not amount to much, but it's a welcome sign.
Fiddling While Iran Arms
Russia and China delay meaningful U.N. pressure on Tehran.
Our So-Cal Life: WiFi Mission to Burbank by Michelle Keller
Beautiful downtown Burbank is supposed to have free WiFi for the masses. But does it work?
Wednesday’s dispatches from the editorial pages:
Michael B. Oren:Israel: One Nation Under Attack
In 1982, many Israelis protested their military's involvement in Lebanon. This time they're united.
Max Boot: Bush Didn't Start the Mideast Fire
Forget the pundits. You can't blame every conflagration on Washington.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Fed Up With Ghettotainment
Blacks and Hollywood need a fresh vision.
Mike Armstrong: These Plots Weren't Revealed
Newspapers can keep a secret. Remember "The Crying Game"?
Editorials
Nobody Wants Free Trade
WTO collapse shows that there is no leadership on -- or constituency for -- erasing trade barriers.
DWP Overheats
Power company needs to do a better job avoiding transformer meltdowns.
When Immigrants Become Humans
Cable documentary shows that illegal immigrants and Minutemen are people, too.
Tuesday’s musings:
Joel Stein:Secret Bible Verse Foretells Housing Crash, Spawns New Diet Craze and Scares a Porn Star Straight
This column is made for the web. Come on, you know you want to e-mail it to your mom.
Reza Aslan: Hezbollah Is Nobody's Puppet
If the Bush administration thinks this is a proxy war, it's making a tragic mistake.
Richard J. Riordan: Don't Give Exit Exam a Pass
Letting California high schoolers off the hook sets them up for failure, says L.A.'s former mayor.
Anne Taylor Fleming: Sex With the Boss? Honey, You Know Better
A 19-year-old's high-profile affair with the husband of model Christie Brinkley is typical, and so is her kiss-and-tell approach.
Editorials
Rice's High-Wire Diplomacy
Secretary of State should act, but not just for action's sake.
Do City Politicos Understand Shame?
Campaign violations should be treated as serious business, not as another excuse to raise money.
Evading the Exit Exam
Neither court case nor community college end-arounds should be allowed to weaken the exit exam.
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
Naomi Oreskes: Global Warming -- Signed, Sealed and Delivered
Scientists agree: The Earth is warming, and human activities are the principal cause.
Niall Ferguson: It's Not World War III, but It Could Be Almost as Bad
Nations may not face off, but embittered ethnic groups probably will.
Bernard Haisch: Why Wiki Can Drive You Wacky
When free-form information gets it wrong, watch out.
Editorials
The Worst Deadbeat Dad
California takes belated steps to fix its broken foster care system.
High Skill, Low Priority
Though it's making fewer headlines, reform of high-skilled immigration is also urgently needed.
Global Warming on Trial
The Supreme Court is right to weigh in on the globe's hottest issue.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
David Bosco: Could This Be the Start of World War III?
As the Middle East erupts, there are plenty of scenarios for global conflagration.
Zev Chafets: I Want Falwell in My Foxhole
At the end of the day -- or at the End of Days -- Israel has plenty of time for anybody who wants to help the Jews.
Heather MacDonald: LAPD's Gangster Cops Are Gone
The city's police have changed. Why haven't its critics?
Joel Stein: Back Off, Buddy, Beirut's My Sister
Angelenos, let's step in and break up the fight between our sister cities in Lebanon and Israel. We're all family.
Mark P. Petracca: Term Limits Work Just Fine, Thank You
Experience isn't squandered just because politicians have to do the elected-office shuffle.
Gregory Rodruigez: Korea's Cross-Border Romance Curdles
South Koreans are rethinking their "sunshine" policy with the north, thanks to Kim Jong Il's bluster.
Jonathan Chait: Who Says War Has to Be Proportional?
No country meets agression with an equal amount of force.
Meghan Daum: Can't Get Enough Baby Talk
From Presidents to Celebrities, Toddlers Prove Adorable and Useful.
Alan Dershowitz: 'Civilian Casualty'? It Depends
Those who supports terrorists are not entirely innocent.
Friday’s page:
Rosa Brooks:Bush's Burned Bridges
The Middle East cataclysm is the last gasp of America's wasted post-9/11 opportunity.
Jennifer Washburn: Universities for Sale
Academics are exploiting weak conflict-of-interest policies and cashing in on their research.
Chris Ayres: The Area-Code Plot to Kill L.A.'s Housing Market
The Fed's interest-rate hikes couldn't do it, but three little digits might. Would you pay L.A. prices to live in the 424?
Irshad Manji: Moderate Islam on the March
Intolerance is grabbing the Middle East spotlight, but there's good news from Muslim reformers too.
Editorials
Keep Hetch Hetchy Underwater
Price is too high to restore Yosemite valley to its 19th-century state.
Bush Makes Nice With the NAACP
If that's all he had to say, what took so long?
Googling the Feds
Make the federal bureaucracy searchable and transparent.
Wednesday’s thoughts:
Max Boot:Let Israel Take Off the Gloves
The true sources of terrorism need to be confronted; Syria would be a good start.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Like the Police, Not the Cops
The Rampart report is an incentive to bridge L.A.'s divided view of law enforcement.
Saree Makdisi: Israel's Outrageous Attacks
Its blanket bombardment of Lebanon amounts to collective guilt.
Quang X. Pham: Stranded Americans Face a Second Saigon
Bungled evacuation from Lebanon brings back bad memories.
Amos Oz: Hezbollah Attacks Unite Israelis
The usual domestic divide dissolves in the face of rockets.
Editorials
Why They Fight
Israel isn't the only state that might benefit from escalating violence.
Sticks and Stones and L.A. Politics
Everyone comes off looking childish in the Bratton-Parks tiff.
Tuesday’s thoughts and commentary:
David Grossman:Middle East: Shaken Awake by War
Israel is fighting two-headed enemies, one preaching moderation, the other hate.
Joel Stein: The Terrorists Hate Our Baby Animals
Why are the evildoers targeting America's petting zoos?
Duncan Black: Why the Left Is Furious at Lieberman
A blogger's blast at the embattled Connecticut senator. Hint: It's not just Iraq.
Editorials
Building a Better School Board
If it must continue existing as is, at least give board members a raise.
An Unsatisfying G-8 Summit
The world's poor come away disappointed yet again.
Science, Not Politics, for Stem Cells
Senate has a chance to right the right's wrong.
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
W. Hodding Carter: Why we're flush with success
It's difficult to plumb the depths of the debt the civilized world owes to the brains behind our drains.
Niall Ferguson: Young, Desperate and Hot -- It's a Volatile Mix
Forget the '60s and 'Make Love, Not War.' Today's world is facing a Summer of Rage, especially in the Middle East.
David P. Barash: When Man Mated Monkey
Icky as it sounds, we mingled across species in the past, which could help us win evolution wars in the future.
Dave Fratello: Jail Won't Cure Drug Users
Proposition 36 mandated treatment to overcome addiction. A new law turns that notion on its head.
Editorials
Middle East: Response and Responsibility
Hezbollah, along with its Syrian and Iranian backers, bear the blame for the Israel-Lebanon crisis.
Hooray for Media Consolidation
It might sound counterintuitive, but Time Warner controlling 98% of L.A.'s cable market is good for consumers.
Doha's Hope for Africa
Lowering tariffs on medicine could save millions.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
William Powers: Breaking news
Shrinking circulation! Fact-checking goofs! Partisan reporting! Despite the scare headlines, journalism's sob story may still have a happy ending.
Kyle Pope: The Critics Hated 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' So What?
In movies, books, TV and theater, audiences know what they like, no matter what mainstream critics say.
Constance L. Rice: The LAPD: Back From Scandal
Police and city leaders are on the right track to changing the department's image.
Charles L. Linder: Arrest Immigrants, Flood the Courts
Congress is blind to what a border crackdown would do to the overworked judiciary.
Morton H. Halperin: Bush: Worse Than Nixon
The writer was on Richard Nixon's "enemies list," but Bush's power grab has him really worried.
Michael Skube: We're Not Soccer Suckers
Media scolds want Americans to join the global party, but we're not buying it.
Gary Hufbauer: Confronting the 'Dear Leader'
Economic sanctions coupled with offers of aid aren't much, but they're all we have in our standoff with North Korea.
Meghan Daum: Behind Batwoman's Gayness
Today's women are pigeonholed as either girly girls or lesbians.
Tuesday’s interesting opinions and ideas:
Sonni Efron:The twisted saga of Chechnya's Che
Shamil Basayev started out as a rebel but turned into a monster in his desperate struggle against Moscow.
Joel Stein: Doped-up cyclers don't bug me
What's so wrong with performance-enhancing drugs if everyone's doing them?
Ricardo Pollack: Deadly homeboys make a new home in El Salvador
The country once again becomes a killing field thanks to U.S. deportees.
Editorials
New rules for Gitmo
The Supreme Court's Hamdan ruling gives Congress an opportunity to do its job on military tribunals.
How clean do we want politics to be?
Publicly financed elections sound nice, but political campaigns usually find ways to evade the rules.
You can't cut the sex and violence
A Colorado judge rightly rules that companies can't sell or rent sanitized versions of movies.
Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:
Tyler Green: The Air and Space Museum is falling
Why is Congress ignoring neglect at the Smithsonian Institution?
Kenneth S. Baer and Andrei Cherny: Wake up, Democrats: Ideas and vision do matter
Just waiting for the Republicans to self-destruct is a losing strategy.
Niall Ferguson: When will China pull the plug on North Korea?
The communist empire has the goods on its saber-rattling tin-pot neighbor.
Richard M. Mosk: Americans could use a Muslim pen pal
An old tradition could help bridge the cultural divide.
Editorials
We aren't all pirates
Anti-piracy proposals before Congress could limit innovation and legal uses of technology.
Setback for marriage justice
New York and Georgia courts will be on the wrong side of history of gay marriage.
DWP drips cash
Utility rate hike could be worse. But that doesn't mean we're pleased.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Robert Bruegmann: Gridlock, schmidlock
L.A. traffic isn't as bad as you think. Try driving 60 mph through the center of Paris.
Joel Kotkin: Don't feed downtown L.A.'s white elephant
Convention Center giveaways line developers' pockets at the expense of the rest of the city.
Douglas Rogers: Where a beer costs $150,000
Inflation is strangling Zimbabwe.
Gregory Rodriguez When populism goes too far
Mexican presidential loser's attacks on the nation's electoral system threatens its fledgling democracy.
Jonathan Turley: Bush: 60 and still a ramblin' man
A journey inside the birthday boy's mind.
Meghan Daum: I'm with Google
Search engines are seeing our inner shopper, but are we selling ourselves short?
Douglas W. Kmiec: Who really rules the Supreme Court?
In Kennedy's swing vote vs. Roberts' consensus-building, the chief justice holds sway.
Robert A. Pastor: Mexico's election lesson to U.S.
The country's democracy looks messy on the outside, but its transparent system could teach us a few things.
Friday’s wonderful opinion:
John Yoo:The high court's Hamdan power grab
The justices are hampering the president's ability to fight terrorists, says an architect of Bush's legal strategy.
Edward N. Luttwak: North Korea's clown provocateur
Kim Jong Il uses crises to maintain power. We should not rise to the latest bait.
Michael S. Dukakis and Arthur H. Purcell: L.A.-S.F. train is a quick traffic fix
High-speed rail can crack the two cities' desperate congestion cycle, says Michael Dukakis.
Rosa Brooks: That's the GOP's big gun?
Republicans running on their anti-terror exploits are just plain nutty.
Editorials
Mexico, the day after
Lopez Obrador is right to challenge the vote but wrong to impugn a system that's working.
Laguna's lost day-labor politics
Closing down a worker center may hurt the problem it aims to fix.
Sexual history now fair game
California's Supreme Court rightly decides that high-risk partners have disease-transmission liability before they know they're infected.
Today’s opinon:
Mona Elfarra:In Gaza's rocket rain
A Palestinian blogger on life in the blast zone.
Patt Morrison: Dude, where's Bandit's car?
High gas prices would have grounded our famous road warriors.
Jonah Goldberg: Superman vs. the Lone Ranger
Why are cosmopolitans embarrassed by the American way?
Alan Kaufman: Hamas can't let Israel go
Ten months after the Gaza withdrawal, the terror group still devours Israeli soldiers to fuel its hate.
Editorials
Give us your poor, but not your sick
Schwarzenegger and Democrats put budget-compromising over insuring 3-year-old immigrants.
North Korea's impotent blast
Kim Jong Il's missile test is worrisome, but might succeed in rallying international opposition to his madness.
Purging antiwar Democrats
Activists are trying to make a smaller party tent by targeting Joe Lieberman, as the Connecticut senator lives down to their expectations.
Thursday's editorial and op-ed pages:
Jonah Goldberg:We're all Progressives now
Conservatives and liberals are shifting. Both are finding faith in the power of the state.
Bill Stall: Draw the line on redistricting mischief
Take the legislative map out of the politicians' hands and give it to an independent panel.
Arianna Huffington: Don't be a hack, Hillary
Sen. Clinton's calculations on Iraq and flag burning leave Americans cold.
Julie F. Kay: Ideology won't prevent cancer
A vaccine that would reduce the risk of cervical cancer faces a challenge from the religious right.
Editorials
Abort this space shuttle mission
Why NASA should keep Discovery grounded on Saturday.
Union bosses today, school bosses tomorrow
In the muddled deal for authority over L.A. schools, one thing is clear: The teachers union would win.
Use restraint, Israel
Gaza incursion risks marginalizing Palestinian moderates.
Tuesday's dispatches from the opinion page:
Dean Baquet: Why We Ran the Bank Story
The Times editor on the paper's decision to expose U.S. money monitoring.
Please remember you can comment on Baqet's explanation here, or below.
Joel Stein: Misguided at Universal
A tour of the real Hollywood.
Kerry Madden: Surviving Senior Year
A parent copes with a terminal high-schooler.
Jerry Ellig: Politicians Shake Down the Net
Fights over issues such as 'Net neutrality' bring loads of campaign cash.
Editorials
Reactionary Train Wreck
Legislation inspired by the Glendale train tragedy would be costly without improving safety.
Buffett Spreads the Wealth
Astonishing $30-billion gift could spark a revolution in philanthropy.
The Case for Flag-Burning
An amendment banning it would make America less free.
Wednesday's opinion and editorials:
Alan Hirsch:Overzealous Prosecutors, Cross-Examine Yourselves
Hunger for convictions leads many prosecutors to hide evidence that could prove innocence.
Max Boot: NATO's Afghanistan Challenge
Alliance faces its greatest threat in the same place the Red Army foundered.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: UCLA's Do-Nothing Admissions Solution
Only 96 black students are entering in the fall, but underrepresentation isn't a new problem.
Karen Klein: One Year of Classroom Torture Will Do
L.A. proposal to assign students the same teacher for four years ignores that some teachers are, well, bad.
Editorials
The GOP's Immigration Shame
Republicans choose divisive campaign politics over urgently needed policy.
Tested by North Korea
Kim Jong Il's missile madness reinforces need for a multilateral approach.
An Unpopular Export
How a reviled Bush might begin to woo the grumpy Europeans.
Niall Ferguson: Gordon Brown's Voodoo Economics
Britain's economy is just like America's, minus the entrepreneurs and growth.
Catherine Seipp: Two Cheers for Public Service Announcements
When your daughter survives an SUV rollover on prom night without a scratch, the nanny state doesn't seem so bad.
Shira Boss: Potemkin Portfolios
Keeping up with the Joneses is sinking Americans further into debt.
Editorials
Housing Homeless Families
The most heartbreaking homeless problem has some of the freshest solutions.
If we build it, they will ride
The Red Line could be expanded to Fairfax without local money, but only if county leaders show guts.
What's That on the Telly?
We welcome our BBC overlords. Just don't bother us with bloody cricket.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Daniel Ellsberg: Iraq's Pentagon Papers
This unjustified war is waiting for its whistle-blower, says the leaker of Vietnam's secret history.
Geoffrey Nunberg: Democrats' Loser Linguistics
Republicans aren't winning because they have the best buzzwords, but because they're fluent in politics' ground-level language.
Gregory Rodriguez: Change Fuels America's Faithful
We are the most churchgoing Western nation because we are the least traditional.
Jonathan Chait: Your Silence Is Deafening, Conservatives
Research shows tax cuts produce more government spending. Why won't right-wingers respond?
Patrick Moore: The Crystal Meth Myth
Media's methamphetamine fixation feeds users' glorification of the drug, says a former addict.
Virginia Postrel: Cash for Kidneys
Legalizing incentives could encourage transplant donations, says a healthy donor.
Meghan Daum: Eyesores of L.A.
Why does good art die while scumbag billboards thrive?
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When sludge collides: This is what democracy looks like |
Last-minute dispatches from a primary-campaign race Times reporters say nobody seems to be watching (Click here to get the Times editorial pages' printable picks for tomorrow):
Mark Z. Barabak posed the big question facing tuned-out, turned-off voters: "Do I bother?" Despite a nail-biter between Democrats Phil Angelides and Steve Westly for the governor spot, "the state is in a sour mood." ...
Michael Finnegan popped the big question facing the Democratic gubernatorial candidate: "Would a liberal or a moderate stand the best chance in the fall?" ...
Eric Bailey said the top-cop race is bringing out the tough in Jerry Brown and Rocky Delgadillo: "The Democratic attorney general wannabes are performing like so many political peers hefting a full set of X and Y chromosomes, strutting their tough-guy stuff on the campaign trail." ...
Robert Salladay and Seema Metha covered "Democrat-on-Democrat clashes" over a Westly ad that dredged up Tahoe sludge-dumping allegations ...
Columnist George Skelton dredged up DiFi recall-race regrets ("If Feinstein had run for governor three years ago in the Gray Davis recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger would not have dared. That's my guess.") ...
Columnist Steve Lopez surveyed the sludgy scene in a column about the "clean money initiative" campaign ("California's Democratic primary for governor ... is an affair so sleazy and vicious it would inspire revolt, except that no one is paying attention.") Last week Lopez deliciously baited recall loser Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, now shedding pounds in his quest to become the Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner.
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Ready for some futbol? Brazil's Ronaldo last week (Getty Images) |
With soccer's World Cup just days away, Times staffers looked at the sport's global reach in Sunday's Current. Editorial pages editor Andres Martinez checked out the heavyweight fight in China between basketball and soccer and what it means for the fortunes of U.S. professional sports elsewhere: According to independent marketing surveys cited by Fischer, 33% of the Chinese population are "avid" World Cup fans and 30% are "avid" NBA fans. But among those ages 15 to 24, the NBA counts more avid fans by a similarly narrow margin. As Fischer points out, it isn't even a fair contest because the NBA is a regular sports league and the World Cup brings together national all-star teams only once every four years.
China is a bright spot in a largely anemic colonialist record for American sports. U.S. pop culture may reign supreme around the world, but the troika of our games — basketball, baseball and "American" football — hardly reigns supreme anywhere else, which is why we console ourselves by calling the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago White Sox "world champions."
Mexico City correspondent Reed Johnson explores the political futbol of how Mexico's World Cup soccer fortunes will affect the upcoming presidential election: In World Cups past, the Mexican team, cursed with repeated bad luck, has performed in valiant but underachieving fashion. But this year's team has aroused high hopes. Its controversial Argentine coach, Ricardo La Volpe, has practically guaranteed that his squad will advance at least to the tournament's quarterfinal round, just a couple of days before the presidential election. This is where the theorizing gets fun.
Paris staffer Sebastian Rotella profiles Zinedine Zidane, the hard-working, soccer-playing son of an Algerian immigrant who could "help decide the survival of a French government endangered by unrest, scandal and political and economic crises": Like a reluctant gunslinger accepting a last showdown, a beloved statesman returning from exile, he will play in this World Cup before he retires for good.
Once again, the story will be bigger than sports. Until 1998, the French middle class tended to snub soccer in favor of such genteel pastimes as tennis. The immigrant working class often rooted for teams from family homelands.
But Les Bleus, as the blue-shirted national squad is known, have united both worlds with the kind of passion that can topple rulers and start wars in wilder, less Cartesian countries.
Tokyo bureau chief Bruce Wallace tracks the cleat-marks the Croatian team planted in a small Japanese town at the last World Cup.
Sports-page provocateur T.J. Simers scoffs at soccer's claim to world domination: Unless it's the Yankees against Boston in June, there's not much to get excited about. And as I understand it, only seven countries have won the World Cup Championship since 1930, so unless it's Brazil versus Germany, what's the point?
Editor's note: Boston will play four games against the Yankees in New York starting Monday. The World Cup starts Friday. Fans of both sports will be spared a Solomonic choice.
Niall Ferguson: World Markets' Wild Ride
Economic volatility is back with a vengeance.
George S. McGovern: The End of 'More'
A Democratic stalwart warns that labor's old strategy can't win against a new competitive reality.
Gershom Gorenberg: Paying for Israel's Makeover
U.S. funds for a controversial settlement pullback could help advance a peace agreement.
Editorials
Gitmo, Get Gone
Running out of excuses for not removing a national blight.
If we build it, they will ride
The Red Line could be expanded to Fairfax without local money, but only if county leaders show guts.
End Ethanol Subsidies Now
There's no reason to artificially prop up energy prices.
Selected Weekend Commentary:
Tom Blanton: The Lie Behind the Secrets
The government's secrets claim crushes the rights of whistle-blowers and mistaken detainees.
Michael Skube: Get out, But Leave the Quesadilla
Why Americans get clingy about carne asada but are ready to give Spanish-speaking immigrants the boot.
Peter Dreier: The Condo That Ate My Rental
Converting apartment buildings into condominiums is killing affordable housing.
Jonathan Chait: The Right Discovers Bush's 'Honesty'
Conservatives are finally getting a taste of his misleading rhetoric.
Selected Weekend Editorials:
No on Proposition 82
Universal preschool is too expensive, too bureuacratic, and could harm K-12.
No Más in the Senate
'National language' amendment illustrates how immigration debate brings out the worst in Washington.
Act Before Midnight Nov. 7!
Desperate senators peddle the Constitution to the lowest common denominator.
Today's rich Opinionny goodness:
Steve Olson: We're All Jesus' Children
'Da Vinci Code' got its genealogy wrong. If anyone is descended from Jesus, it's all of us.
Rosa Brooks: 'Girlie States' vs. Knuckle-Draggers
Is sexual inequality dividing the world into nice nations and bruisers?
Bernardo Alvarez Herrera: In Defense of Venezuela
Ambassador to U.S. says his country is democratic, not terroristic.
Richard Rodriguez: America's Impure Genius
A new, yet ancient Latin American sensibility is being born in the U.S.
Editorials
Shame in San Pedro
Homeless agency flips donated Navy land for real estate profit.
Enron Arrogance on Trial
A jury is set to rule on the energy raider's dubious duo.
Sacrilege as MacGuffin
'Da Vinci' portrays gospel according to Hitchcock.
Laura K. Donohue: Battlefield: U.S.
Pentagon spies are treating the homeland like a war zone.
Michael H. Schill: UC Profs Aren't Overpaid
Top teachers require market prices, says UCLA's law dean.
Patt Morrison: Public Art Follies
A great L.A. mural is hidden by hokum on Olvera Street.
Jonah Goldberg: It's Iraq, Stupid
Why isn't Bush getting credit for economic growth on his watch?
Editorials
Murky Transparency
Bush cares more about confirming Hayden than about coming clean on the NSA.
A Tale of Two Mayors
Villaraigosa makes lemonade out of Hahn's lemons.
D.C. in the House
The nation's capitol deserves a House seat, but not at the expense of giving one to Utah.
Our offerings in today's Opinion Section:
Karl Fleming: Looking Back at Being Stomped in Watts
Forty years after being beaten senseless by an angry black mob, a white reporter recalls the civil rights struggle between nonviolence and rage.
Max Boot: Forget Privacy, We Need to Spy More
Electronic surveillance is a key weapon in the war on terror. Don't handcuff the president and the NSA.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Good Riddance, Exit Exam
Underdog high-schoolers won the battle against the test, but the fight for racial justice has just begun.
Pico Iyer: How Can a Botox Nation Boo Barry Bonds?
It's not the baseball player who needs an asterisk, it's the rest of us.
Editorials
No Drilling Off Our Coast
The House should reject needless calls to lift the ban on offshore gas drilling.
For Public Instruction Chief
The position shouldn't exist, but incumbent Jack O'Connell should be re-elected.
The EBay Effect
Supreme Court ruling on auction pioneer could usher in long-overdue patent reform.
Mae M. Ngai: How Grandma Got Legal
Illegal-immigration foes say today's migrants are different from their own forebears. They don't know U.S. history.
Daniel Cohen: Kadafi Killed My Child
The U.S. has forgiven him, but we'll never forget who bombed Pan Am Flight 103.
Diane Ravitch: PC Textbooks Full of Flawed History
California has tinkered with the past in a foolish attempt to make students feel good about themselves.
Joel Stein: Angels With Ammo
The Bible gets fully automatic in a new video game offering a dress rehearsal for the apocalypse.
Editorials
The Right Words
President Bush talked a good game, but will Congress listen?
A Church-State Rescue Mission
Earthquake-damaged Mission San Miguel Arcangel needs an engineer, not an ugly 1st Amendment fight.
Letting Libya up
The nation's atonement for its terrorist past shows that tough U.S. diplomacy can work in the Arab world.
In today's Opinion section....
Tyler Cowen and Daniel M. Rothschild: Hey, Don't Bad-mouth Unskilled Immigrants
You don't have to be a computer genius to be good for the U.S.
Catherine Price: M&M Math for Fat Kids
Candy-counting books are teaching our children to pack on the pounds.
Martin Dugard: Was Columbus Really Italian?
A DNA discovery could rewrite 500 years of history.
Niall Ferguson: The Cold Wars Are Coming
The U.S.-Soviet nuclear rivalry was scary enough. Now imagine a world with multiple atomic antagonists.
Editorials
Soft on Sleaze?
Lobby reform efforts on Capitol Hill are falling short.
Yes on Prop. 81
Why Californians should approve a bond to build more libraries.
Affordability Through Coercion
The City Council is wrong to address the housing crunch by restricting property rights.
And some selected commentary from the weekend you might have missed:
Jonathan Chait: Bankrupted by Voodoo Economics
While Republicans tax-cut and spend, research shows increases lead to reduced government.
Ross A. Baker: A Bull's-eye on Pelosi
While Republicans tax-cut and spend, research shows increases lead to reduced government.
Joel Kotkin: Why Perth Is Booming
Cities with low taxes and big oil deposits are the new boomtowns.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra: Journalism vs. Security
Leaking classified information puts American lives at risk, says Republican congressman.
Columns
Chief William Bratton: We've Changed
Crime is down, compassion is up. There's no need to extend the Rampart consent decree.
Patt Morrison: Sex Doesn't Always Sell
The Erotic Museum was just too classy for sleazed-out Hollywood.
Jonah Goldberg: Of Course Guns Rile Men up
Anti-gun nuts are using weird science to show gats are scarier than board games.
Nancy Lord: Alaska's Great White Whale-out
Beleaguered belugas are going belly up, and it's our fault.
Editorials
Bernanke vs. Frist
Reasonable Fed chief has to deal with irresponsible Senate leader.
Losing Faith With China
Beijing's tangle with the Vatican illustrates the sorry state of Chinese religious freedom.
Havens for Hard-ups
Nonjudgmental services can be crucial for the chronically homeless.
Columns:
Satoru Iwata: Video Games: All Gore and Bore
Like big-budget movies, today's games look great, but they're failing to connect with players, says Nintendo's president.
Joel Stein: Welcome to the Dollhouse
A power lunch at the American Girl store.
Seth Faison: A Communist-Catholic Clash
China and the Vatican are back on familiar unfriendly ground.
Jorge G. Castaneda: Mexico: Up for Grabs
The radical left is holding its presidential candidate hostage, while Vicente Fox flourishes.
Editorials
The Wrong Spy Chief
Nominee Michael Hayden has a worrying track record on civil liberties and executive power.
Police After Hours
Even squeaky-clean cops shouldn't be able to moonlight as private investigators.
Cool it, Sheila
Assemblywoman Kuehl is going too far by trying to force textbooks to celebrate historical contributions of gay and transgendered Americans.
Gustavo Arellano: Why the O.C. Hates Mexicans
The land of Mickey is the Mexican-bashing capital of the U.S.
Niall Ferguson: Leftism Is a Stealth Disaster
Forget Iranian nukes and avian flu. The political swing to the left should have you running for the hills.
Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini: L.A. Art Peddlers' NYC Connection
The Getty's problems started at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Editorial
Vote Moonbeam
Times endorsement for attorney general.
Napster's New Target
Radio stations are the latest to feel the heat from the groundbreaking music service.
Chartered Territory
The LAUSD needs to figure out its approach toward charter schools.
In case you missed it...
Op-ed: Andrew Klavan orders George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn into battle. Richard Parker salutes superstar economist John Kenneth Galbraith. NEA chairman Dana Gioia lives it up in literary L.A. Matthew Cobb dispels the fear factor over maggots.
Columns: Gregory Rodriguez pooh-poohs Latinos' political clout, praises their bootstrap beliefs. Jonathan Chait told liberals to lay off Lieberman. Meghan Daum took Freud on a first date.
Editorials: Praising Santa Monica's program for the chronically homeless. Bashing Bolivia's oil-field takeover. Warning against spying overreach.
Columns:
Arthur J. Magida: Disco Doomsayer
Geologist M. King Hubbert saw our energy future in the swinging '70s, but no one listened.
Rosa Brooks: Battered Congress Syndrome
The president's slapping the legislative branch silly.
Lester Grinspoon: Marijuana: Better When You Inhale
Why make cannabis in oral form when smoking's where it's at?
Ezra Klein: Rising Tide Lifts Only Yachts
The economy is growing, but it doesn't feel that way to most Americans.
Editorials
Someone to Watch Over Blue
The LAPD has come a long way, but it still needs federal oversight.
The Right to Point Fingers
Supreme Court affirms an important right, while reminding us DNA evidence isn't bulletproof.
Taking the Fizz Out of School
Cola companies are right to withdraw from campus.
Columns:
William E. Odom: Just Pull Out
Invading Iraq was not in our national interest, says Reagan's NSA chief.
Jonah Goldberg: Stupid Gas Tricks
Democrats are pumping out bile, but Congressional GOP are the real boneheads.
Leslie Sanchez: May Day Was More Watts Than Selma
Boycott and protests were a radical-left provocation.
Patt Morrison: The Immigration-Oil Connection
America's hooked on cheap gas and cheap labor.
Editorials
America, We Won
Sentencing Zacarias Moussaoui to life was the right decision.
Rare Kudos for the LAUSD
Troubled district had a good week. Bravo.
Not in Their Backyard
How NIMBYs keep the homeless centralized on dangerous Skid Row.
Columns:
James Mann: Rummy vs. Rummy
How do you undermine Defense chief Rumsfeld? Just ask chief of staff Rumsfeld.
Erin Aubry Kaplan: Immigrants Don't Need Blacks
African Americans got lost in the May Day crowd.
Max Boot: Can We Stop Fueling Our Enemies?
When oil is king, dictators rule.
Erwin Chemerinsky: The LAPD Still Needs Policing
Police aren't ready to graduate from Rampart consent decree.
Editorials
Last Chance for a Nuke-Free Iran
It might be too late to stop Iran's nuclear program, but the U.S. still needs to try.
Still Exploiting the Elderly
Abuses remain in the state's unregulated conservatorship industry. Let's fix them.
The Two Faces of Antonio
Immigration movement pits charismatic rabble-rouser against cautious establishmentarian.
Op-ed
Ralph Shaffer and Walter P. Coombs: The 'Star-Spangled Banner' Was Made to Be Mangled
There's nothing sacred about the national anthem's past.
John Kenney: A Marching Manhattanite
In my country, we march all the time. We call it "walking."
Eliseo Medina: Immigrants Awake
A march to citizenship, not prosecution, has begun, says a union leader.
Joel Stein: Rick Springfield Is a Dork
The life of a soap-opera star can be really annoying.
Editorial
The Human Face of Immigration Reform
Demonstrators again refused to live down to expectations.
Kick Sudan's Door Down
U.S. and its allies need to end the dithering over Darfur.
'United 93': A Movie for All of Us
Victims' families don't own 9/11 tragedy's meaning.
Op-Eds
Brooke Allen: Hey, Patriot Fascist Tax-and-Spender!
Political language's weird evolution.
Niall Ferguson: Pour Some Sugar in Your Tank
Petrol pimps and gashogs, take a sip of sweet ethanol.
Tom Campbell: Free Taxes
Did you know California will fill out your tax return for you? Let's keep it that way.
Editorials
May Day: Pass comprehensive immigration reform now.
Times Endorsements for State Assembly: Democratic primary endorsements in four crucial districts.
Wesley Strick: From Hollywood Hack to Novelist Nobody
It's a weird trip trying to be a screenwriter and an author.
Jonathan Freedland: The Power of the Pen Name
Why do writers park their egos at the door?
Andres Martinez: Cuba, Where Libre Is in Limbo
The country is waiting for Castro to die. Then what?
Dave Zirin: Beisbol Has Been Very, Very Good to Us
A boycott by Pedro Martinez, Albert Pujols, and other Latino stars would cripple Major League Baseball.
Gregory Rodriguez: It's not Racism, It's Frenchism
How France's egalitarian idea died.
Jack Dunphy: LAPD Needs Strong Leaders, not Wimpy Computers
Real cops want a department with guts, not a database.
David Wise: Read the News, Go to Jail
Most Americans possess classified information, whether they know it or not.
William Easterly: Why Foreign Aid Fails
Nebbish bureaucrats, corrupt dictators, and the fallacy of "ending" poverty.
Columns:
Ben Ehrenreich: Novelist Anonymous
L.A.'s literary ignorance is a gift to writers.
Meghan Daum: Plagiarism Totally Blows
Hey, MySpacers: Literary theft is so not OK.
Jonathan Williams: Big Oil Pays Big Taxes
A windfall profits tariff would stunt domestic production and cost consumers at the pump.
Bruce G. Bodaken: Healthcare for Everyone
Californians can share the burden and keep prices low, says Blue Shield's chairman.
Editorials
The Car of the Future
For better gas mileage, and lower emissions, all signs point to the hybrid plug-in.
Mileage: Worse Than We Think
The EPA is finally updating its inaccurate, distorting system for measuring fuel efficiency.
Another Reason to Worry About Nigeria
The African country's woes are helping drive up oil prices.
To reiterate what we said below, welcome to our new Opinion L.A. weblog, complete with new url -- opinion.latimes.com. Those of you looking for our immigration blog, go here.
Rosa Brooks: The Iran-Israel War Is Coming
Russia's Middle East meddling is pushing the two countries closer to the brink.
Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin: My Bad
A catalog of famous apologies from Bill O'Reilly, Pete Rose, Jimmy Swaggart and others.
Marc Cooper: May Day Without a Mexican
Monday's immigrant boycott may backfire.
Editorial
Gaseous Politics
Just about every proposal you'll hear this week to "fix" high gas prices will be terrible.
Knowing Thy Crime
The Supreme Court should affirm the insanity defense.
Our So-Cal Life: Extreme Makeover, Irvine Edition
Most parks offer baseball. Irvine's provides manicures and facials.
Patt Morrison: The NFL's Fake Pass at L.A.
I can't bear another bad football breakup.
Jonah Goldberg: Bin Laden's Loser Crusade
The truth about radical Islam's desperate appeal to globalization nobodies.
Robert M. Hertzberg: A Smaller, Better L.A. Unified
The mayor’s plan for the school district doesn’t fix its biggest problem: runaway bureaucracy.
Editorial
The iLobby
The joy of giving iPods as lobbying gifts.
Let the Science Begin
Stem cell ruling clears the way for California research. Almost. Welcome to 1960, Vatican!
The Church finally endorses condoms as "lesser evil."
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Neither columnist Rosa Brooks nor The Times' editorial board is too impressed with the military commission conviction Wednesday of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who confessed to being Osama bin Laden's driver. Brooks wonders if regular federal courts could do a better job of putting the really bad guys (as opposed to those who chauffeur the bad guys) in prison for good:
