Today's memorial service for Michael Jackson at the privately owned Staples Center reminds The Times editorial board of a sad fact of life in Los Angeles: It's a city without a public square. Though the backers of LA Live once promised that the downtown entertainment mall would become L.A.'s version of Times Square, the fact remains that it's a private space whose owners can bar the public anytime they choose.

We also weigh in on President Obama's trip to Russia, which isn't expected to accomplish much -- but even a small thaw in relations between the two countries, and the modest improvement represented by the nuclear weapons pact concluded Monday, is better than the chilly status quo.

And we ponder the lessons to be learned from the example of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died Monday at 93. Though many see parallels between the mistakes made in Iraq and the mistakes made by McNamara in Vietnam, we think the larger lesson is that using yesterday's solutions to today's problems is often the pathway to failure.

Over on the opposite page, columnist Jonah Goldberg thinks all the sturm und drang over the canceled "salons" by the Washington Post, in which lobbyists were invited to pay heavily to attend get-togethers with the newspaper's journalists and top politicians, amounts to little more than posing. After all, many publications offer similar meet-and-greet opportunities, Goldberg says.

The hand-wringing over genetically modified foods, meanwhile, reminds author Tom Standage of another food-related hysteria from a few centuries ago -- over the potato. When the tubers were first discovered in the New World, Europeans feared they were a dangerous, unholy poison. They got over it, just as they'll probably eventually get over their irrational fears about improved crops.

And psychiatry professor Sander L. Gilman cautions against jumping to conclusions about Michael Jackson's cosmetic surgery. True, the King of Pop clearly was fond of surgical reshaping, but that doesn't necessarily indicate self-loathing.

* Illustration by Bob Daly / For the Times

The Wall Street Journal today reveals yet another reasonwhy federal legislation is needed to beef up food safety in this country: the Nestle USA plant in Virginia had a history over the past five years of refusing to let Food and Drug Administration inspectors view their records on consumer complaints, pest control and other safety issues.

That would be the same plant that produced the Toll House cookie dough implicated in an outbreak of illness cause by E. coli. Food companies aren't obliged to show their records to inspectors. Some do, others don't.

The so-overdue bill to give the FDA the authority it should have had from the start -- as well as step up inspections and allow the FDA to issue recalls -- recently won the unanimous support of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but Republicans (heeding the complaints of the food and agribusiness industries) have been weakening it all along the way.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Move over, marijuana. A new study finds that adding ginger to food in the days surrounding chemotherapy treatments reduces nausea and vomiting.

My grandmother could have told them that. Ginger ale was her remedy for all abdominal ills. And ginger has been touted by the alternative-health community in recent years as well.

Will this wipe out the whole debate around use of that other herbal remedy for chemotherapy discomfort? It's hard to imagine "medical ginger clinics" having quite the same ring -- or popularity. Besides, ginger can't possibly do as much to stimulate the appetite.

Photograph of cannabis plant by Richard Pedroncelli / AP

Today's Editorial Page weighs in on a Los Angeles billboard ordinance being considered today by a City Council committee, offering The Times' prescription for how the city could best fashion enforceable and effective sign restrictions. But we'd have more faith that the council could pull off such a feat if it hadn't failed so dismally in the past:

Before the city permits any new billboards or draws any new districts, it must demonstrate its ability and its will to enforce current law, cite and dismantle illegal signs and complete and publicly post its sign inventory. Absent that showing of good faith, over the course of a year or two, no Angeleno can be expected to see any new law as anything other than further concessions to the billboard industry.

We also discuss the Screen Actors Guild's tentative deal with the Hollywood studios, pointing out that SAG's efforts to negotiate a better deal in new media was undermined by the willingness of other unions to accept less. Next time around, the union might want to increase its leverage by negotiating jointly with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America, whose contracts will expire at about the same time as SAG's.

Over on the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the Environmental Protection Agency's decision last week to regulate greenhouse gases should be disturbing to "people who believe in democratic, constitutional government." That's because the agency is taking on sweeping powers to regulate nearly every sphere of economic activity, powers that were never put before the voters.

Neal Bascomb, author of a recent book on the hunt for Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, points out that the fledgling nation of Israel's pursuit and prosecution of the notorious operational manager of the "Final Solution" exposed his crimes to the world and served justice against a man who might otherwise have gone free. That's worth noting as the world works on systems, like the International Criminal Court, for trying others who have committed crimes against humanity.

And Dean Florez, chairman of the state Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture, points out the folly of some California pistachio growers, who thought the nuts' thick shells and the methods used to process them would protect them from bacteria. That mistake was exposed when about 3 million pounds of pistachios from a Terra Bella plant had to be recalled because of salmonella contamination. Florez has introduced a bill that he says will reduce the risks.

All that, and Letters, too.

*Photo of Adolf Eichman by Associated Press

Just about everyone who lives in a house in an non-gated part of L.A., renter or owner, comes home to find business cards wedged into a crevice of the mailbox or the front door. Enterprising gardeners seeking work put them there before fire season, when you want to clean up your property for the inspectors. They put them there before the rains come, when you want to see your garden green and blooming a few months later.

This week, the card I found was different. It didn't mention flowerbeds. It was vividly illustrated with delectables like potatoes and artichokes and mushrooms, and it pledged to deliver "organic soil for you to grow your home organic vegetables."

It's the economy, and it's not stupid at all. Anyone with a digestive tract knows how much fresh produce is costing. And any urbanite or suburbanite with a patch of land -- even the minuscule L.A. lawn -- is feeling that temptation to live off the land a little, to preside over your own bumper crop of food instead of flora. The 21st-century victory garden sounds so enticing, so virtuous, so thrifty. The world's biggest seed company, Burpee, hasn't seen demand like this in decades.

For someone who grew up with the family farm, I know that the best use of our limited time and even more limited land isn't cultivating potatoes and mushrooms and even corn. Sometimes economies of scale really do work. You don't even need to read William Alexander's nifty book to learn a lesson about folly from its title: "The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden."

But a nice little patch for tomatoes and zucchini, though -- now you're talking. Agri-dustrial tomatoes run to the taste and texture of baseballs, and zucchini is the comically copious crop that keeps on giving -- to you, the neighbors, to people at work, to perfect strangers. I think I'll limit my home-grown edibles to those.

In the meantime, I'll be sure to put that pretty card, carefully, in the recycling bin.    

In today's Times editorial and opinion pages, editorial writer Karin Klein drops in on the op side with a reflection on mothering in the era of Online LunchBox, Aeries and other tools for Big Mother.

Who needs the maternal instinct? Today, the school's online data systems tell me everything I need to know about my children's classroom performance. From my desk at home, or work via Wi-Fi, I can find out whether they turned in their homework, whether they cut class, what grades they got on the tests they said they didn't need to study for -- and, in a twist, how many cookies they had for lunch.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez examines the millennial generation and wonders about their reaction to recession. Pepperdine faculty member Mark Nelson compares the Republicans of the New Deal era, like Federal Reserve chief Marriner Eccles -- who warned FDR he wasn't pumping enough money into the economy -- with the Bobby Jindals of today.

On the editorial page, the Times urges U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus on the bad guys.

We're not suggesting that ICE should look the other way when it finds illegal immigrants. Rather, we're arguing for a renewed emphasis on the most dangerous criminals.

The page also notes that the Obama administration has sent confusing signals on No Child Left Behind: Will it emphasize funding or accountability? Schools, and perhaps even the economy, could use federal funding, but "nothing will improve if the new money is spent in the same old ways."

We also recap our endorsements for Tuesday's Los Angeles city election.

Someone needs to spank Kellogg's on its sugar-frosted hiney. And If I bought Kellogg’s products I would join the call to boycott them. How does a company devoted to setting little kids on the path to Type 2 diabetes get all sanctimonious about Michael Phelps and a bong hit? His behavior is inconsistent with its image, the company says. Huh? How can that be? Tony the Tiger is generally the first pusher of addictive substances in a child's life. That's the American way.

Take Frosted Flakes. The company recommends a 3/4-cup serving, but come on that's like eating a handful of  sugary air. A real bowl is about two to three times that amount. That means kids can start the day with up to 36 grams of sugar, or about 9 teaspoons per bowl. Multiply that morning after morning.

Then there are Crack-its, or rather, Cheez-its. I don't care what the serving portion is, can anyone stop at anything under half a box? Anyway, the larger point is this: He's a 23-year-old young man who got caught doing what 23-year-old young men do. Phelps has apologized. He can still be president. And most of his other sponsors, like Speedo, seem to be sticking with him.

Why is Kellogg's hyperventilating over this? Frankly, I think the company is shooting itself in its frosted foot. It will never find a better pitch man. The message was streamlined and simple: eat this food and you too will have to swim 17 hours a day.

Anyway, over on Huffingont Post, Lee Stranahan takes a different tack. He argues that Kellogg's is alienating its most devoted adult client base, the stoner crowd. Here are snippets from his petition calling for boycott:

1) Kellogg's is a major manufacturer of cereal and junk food products including but not limited to Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts, Cheez-Its, Froot Loops, Keebler's Cookies, Rice Krispies, Eggo Frozen Waffles, Famous Amos Cookies and many other products known to be a part of the diet of many marijuana using Americans

2) Kellogg's has profited for decades on the food tastes of marijuana using Americans with the munchies. In fact, we believe that most people over the age of twelve would not eat Kellogg's products were they not wicked high.

3)That Kellogg's has decided to end their relationship with Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps after pictures of him surfaced doing exactly what most Kellogg's customers do right before enjoying a bowl of Rice Krispies mixed with Keebler Cookies with an Eggo on top.

The rest is pretty funny and worth a read.

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.

Now that the egg farmers in California have to work on keeping their hens out of battery cages, who's going to work on having financially beset consumers buy the cage-free eggs?

The Humane Society of the United States, the force behind Proposition 2, says it will. If you're one of the vast majority of voters who supported the measure, you'll remember that it gave California farmers several years to get rid of their battery cages, where chickens were packed in so tightly they couldn't turn around. What the measure didn't do was require anyone to actually buy all those cage-free eggs. Now the Humane Society says it will "work with consumers and retailers to promote a robust market for compliant California egg producers."

It's an interesting time for such a sales scheme. Families that already have given up most of their discretionary expenditures because of their shrinking wallets--gardeners, house cleaners, dinners out--find that one of the few areas where they can still cut is food. The mortgage is the mortgage, it's not coming down in size. Neither is the life-insurance premium or, unless you live in the dark, the utility bill. The food budget has more flexibility--less meat, more mac and cheese--so fewer people are reaching for the $3.25-a-dozen organic, cage-free eggs, and more are waiting for the supermarket to have the regular ones, produced from the misery of hens, on sale for 99 cents a dozen. Eggs keep fairly well, so you can even stock up.

One possibility under consideration is legislation that would require that all eggs sold in California be cage-free. That would have been a fairer way to write the proposition. The vote might have gone differently if voters realized they were actually going to have to pay for their decision, and if they were willing to pay the extra money, fine. It also would have encouraged egg producers from outside the state to treat their chickens differently, to get a piece of the California market. But is this a time for jacking up the price of one of the cheapest sources of high-quality protein?

Meanwhile, the California farmers have time to switch to a different way of keeping their chickens, but they do have to get moving on new barns or larger, more humane cages if they want to meet the deadline. That means new investment, which usually means loans for money to invest, in a tight credit market.

I am looking at a Yes-on-Proposition 2 campaign mailer with a picture of a piglet and the line, ‘’you are their only voice.’’

But I am thinking of other piglets, and a hideous story out of an Iowa pig farm, an undercover video of farm hands slamming little pigs down on a concrete floor and beating the piglets’ mothers with iron rods –- abusing pigs, creatures who sometimes live with humans as pets, and who some credit with the intelligence and emotional capacity of a two-year-old human.

There are other hideous stories, some right out of California, like the undercover video of the appalling abuse of sick and lame "downer" cows being shoved and beaten into the butchering maw our food system.... Veal calves being imprisoned in tiny crates for all of their short lives.... California’s egg "ranches," where four, five, six hens spend their lives crammed in the same small wire cage, their feet never touching ground, the living and the dead sometimes stuffed together, the filth falling on them from the hens in the cages above them. Now multiply this times millions of hens and millions of eggs in the same "ranch."

You really want to eat this? Proposition 2 ...

The Opinion Manufacturing Division steers well left of center today as it takes on voting rights, the Cuban embargo, food regulation, research earmarks and next week's election, among other topics. On the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten declares that the GOP has lost its grip on the Catholic vote, largely because Catholics' views on abortion now mirror the average voter's:

National polls have shown for some time that, although Catholics are personally opposed to abortion, they believe it ought to be legal in nearly identical percentages to the rest of America. Moreover, as a survey by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found earlier this year, only 18% of Catholics "strongly" agree with the statement: "In deciding what is morally acceptable, I look to the church teachings and statements by the pope and bishops to form my conscience."

Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, novelist Susan Straight pens a moving tribute to the recently deceased father of her ex-husband, General Roscoe Conklin Sims Jr. Lawrence M. Krauss, director of an Oregon State University research institute, defends three earmarks for scientific projects that John McCain and Sarah Palin have attacked on the campaign trail. And Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey offers a portrait of his state's embattled "senator for life" and sugar daddy (with Uncle Sugar's money), Ted Stevens.

In the editorial stack, the Times board endorses a bill to let ex-cons vote in federal elections, and urges states to follow suit. It rails against the U.S. embargo against Cuba, whose sanctions "worsen poverty and its attendant ills but only strengthen the Castro regime." And in light of the spreading problem of melamine-tainted Chinese goods, the board calls on the U.S. to hold Chinese food imports for testing before it reaches supermarkets and restaurants.

Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images