Obviously, some California public services will have to be cut, the editorial board observes, but what sense does it make to eliminate CalWorks, a program funded mostly by the federal dollars that enables people to get jobs and pay the rent? The board also notes that this is the big day for switching to digital TV, and it calls on the Federal Communications Commission to define the broadcasters' public-service obligations for digital channels.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta might be right in saying that he can't possibly make public a single paragraph within 65 documents describing his agency's interrogation techniques, the board says, but that doesn't mean the federal judge in the case should take his word for it. The judge should review the documents personally before making a decision, the board advises.

 On the other side of the fold. a teacher of history and education says the use of the term "Hispanic" to denote an ethnic group is a relatively recent phenomenon in the nation's history, and one that has served to make those of Latin American descent feel more "other" than they used to. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor should be seen as the first person of Puerto Rican descent who might be appointed to the high court, Jonathan Zimmerman argues, rather than as Hispanic. And Bill Maher has had enough with the puppies and the hamburgers; he wishes President Obama were less visible and barking more orders over the phone. The man is in serious danger of cute media overexposure, Maher huffs:

We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

Illustration: Pedro X. Molina

In Tuesday's letters, The Times features more on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from pirates off the coast of Africa and thoughts on immigration, taxes and police pursuits, too. 

Readers also react to this story about older job-seekers, wondering if The Times isn't itself perhaps a little ageist in its approach to the topic.  Writes Ventura's Anthony Lewis:

I enjoyed reading the article regarding the difficulties in obtaining meaningful work for those of us over 50. However, the piece reinforced many of the stereotypes that the younger generation holds regarding baby boomers.

We older workers too could write an article stereotyping the younger generation workforce, with generalizations regarding their lack of social and interviewing skills (unless they are on a cellphone), their inability to write a coherent memo using fully constructed sentences (not texting), and their loyalty to a workplace seldom lasting longer than two years. However, I would refrain from such over-generalizations....

I started using a computer 25 years ago. I don't consider myself "technologically challenged."

Mark O'Connell, of Irvine, makes a similar point:

Your "helpful hints" counsel older job seekers to be coy about their age. Where is there any mention of our wonderful age-discrimination laws that protect older workers so they don't have to obfuscate to apply for a job?

How about The Times showing a little leadership in pushing for enforcement of discrimination laws or beefing up existing laws so they actually are enforceable?

Photo: A boomer job hunt at Kinko's.  Credit: Los Angeles Times.

The Times opinion pages prepare you for tax day on Wednesday with this cheerful thought: You probably owe use taxes on goods you bought last year over the Internet. From the Editorial Page:

Every book or appliance bought through Amazon.com, every autographed Manny Ramirez jersey or Hannah Montana lunch box bought from a vendor on EBay, carries the same tax obligation as if the item were purchased in a brick-and-mortar shop down the street from the buyer's desktop.

The page also grapples with the U.S. Supreme Court, which in turn is grappling with the question of punitive damages. The court has ruled that juries can't award grossly excessive punitive damages, but what constitutes grossly excessive?

In advance of President Obama's visit to Mexico, newspaper columnist and university professor John M. Ackerman urges the president to cement ties not just with his counterpart and with the national elite, but with other insitutions, including the opposition.

A meeting between Obama and like-minded leaders on the political left in Mexico would send a much-needed message that the U.S. president is interested in the future prosperity of all Mexicans, not just the wealthy and powerful linked to the present administration.

CBS News Chief Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen envisions a Supreme Court that pays for itself through advertising. And Columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes on the effort by Bangladeshi Angelenos to create a Little Bangladesh - out of a portion of Koreatown.

Last week conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh not only dominated the airwaves, he conquered our mail.  (We'll run some of the letters about him next week.)

During the week ending April 4, The Times received a larger-than-usual 857 usable letters, 432 of which were in our Top Five Topics.

• Limbaugh challenge: 260 letters, reacting to this op-ed by Andrew Klavan daring liberals to listen to Rush's show;
• Trouble in Detroit: 49 letters, discussing the latest developments in the auto industry bailout;
• Mexico: 48 letters, reacting to news over (and about) the border;
• Steve Lopez on teachers and the teachers' union: 38 letters, responding to this column about teacher seniority; and
• Vaccines: 37 letters, commenting on this front page report about families who choose not to vaccinate their children and the schools they attend.

How the Top Five is tabulated: Each week, your letters maven receives thousands of e-mails, dozens of letters through the good old U.S. postal service, and even a few faxes here and there.

After she cuts out spam, obscene mail, letters addressed to more than one recipient, letters that seem to be the fruit of letter-writing campaigns and letters with attachments (which gum up our computer systems,) she is usually left with several hundred eligible items, represented in the Letters Top Five tally. From these, she selects the somewhere around 100 that get published in the newspaper. Faxes and snail mail are not reflected in the chart.

For a second week, American International Group's woes had the most letter writers buzzing.

During the week ending March 28, The Times received 496 usable letters, 207 of which were in our Top Five Topics.

• AIG: 104 letters, reacting to Times coverage of bonuses at the company (including this column by Tim Rutten);

• Obama: 34 letters, responding to the president's trip to California and to this editorial about his campaign promises;

• Mexico: 30 letters, reacting to news about drug wars and the border;

• Oakland shootings: 25 letters, lamenting the murders of four police officers in Oakland; and

• Dementia drugs: 14 letters, reacting to this Op-Ed by psychologist Ira Rosofsky, who argues that Americans depend too much on drugs when treating dementia.

How the Top Five is tabulated: Each week, your letters maven receives thousands of e-mails, dozens of letters through the good old U.S. postal service, and even a few faxes here and there.

After she cuts out spam, obscene mail, letters addressed to more than one recipient, letters that seem to be the fruit of letter-writing campaigns and letters with attachments (which gum up our computer systems,) she is usually left with several hundred eligible items, represented in the Letters Top Five tally. From these, she selects the somewhere around 100 that get published in the newspaper. Faxes and snail mail are not reflected in the chart.

Isn't it enough that this country built about 700 miles of fencing along a 2,000-mile border with Mexico -- the previous administration's stunt gesture toward "border control" that ranks up there with the TSA yanking grannies out of line at the airport to show that it's protecting us from hijackers, and discrimination suits?

That infuriating fence despoiled hundreds of square miles of precious habitat and endangered thousands of species of flora and fauna while likely doing precious little to stop illegal immigration. (Funnily enough, what's slowed the northward flow most effectively is the crummy economy north of the border.)

Yet now this administration's Customs and Border Protection wants to Vietnamize the border. It wants to defoliate miles and miles of brush along the banks of the Rio Grande so that no one can hide in the canebrakes.

What, has some government contractor taken out a patent on some new chemical -- Agent Naranja?

More than 30 years after that fabled last helicopter left Vietnam, and this is what ranks as a big idea? The idea's on hold at the moment, mostly, I gather, to mollify the Mexicans. Americans living along the border have already had their property despoiled; the border law passed by Congress allows the fence to be no respecter of environmental concerns or property rights, all in the name of that unassailable imperative, homeland security.

I hope that the Obama administration will come to its senses, both about poisoning the banks of a vital river and about continuing the building of this ridiculous fence. Where is the Janet Napolitano who, as governor of Arizona, famously said: Show me a 50-foot-tall fence and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder? Has Homeland Security bamboozled her out of that?

You want to patrol the border and keep the habitat poison-free at the same time? I hear there are a lot of Americans out of work. Maybe some of them would like to put on a Border Patrol uniform. Maybe others of them would like to make topiary out of those bushes. And if we still can't persuade them to do the job, there's a labor hiring hall right across the border.

Should teachers be immune from the prospect of layoffs even in a dire economy? That's the question tackled by two writers at the top of the Op-Ed page today. David Tokofsky, a consultant with Associated Administrators Los Angeles and former Los Angeles school board member, says the district should, "fire people up, not fire them."  Larry Sand, a veteran Los Angeles teacher, takes issue with that position:

In Los Angeles, we have some of the highest-paid teachers in the U.S. -- most of whom have a world-class health plan in a state whose economy is falling apart, where the unemployment rate tops 10% and whose citizens are already among the most taxed in the country -- whining about the possibility that a few jobs may be lost.

Timothy Garton Ash notes that when President Obama attends the G-20 meeting next week, he'll be in Europe. But Europe, a poor partner in solving the global economic crisis, will be missing on the leadership front:

Europe's response to the biggest financial and economic crisis in 50 years has been weak and divided. China and the U.S. have launched massive stimulus packages. By comparison, Europe has brought peanuts to the table.

Rounding out the page is a tongue-in-cheek piece by New York writer John Kennedy that posits a novel question: why not give bonuses and exceptional reviews to workers who have destroyed their companies and the economy too? Really, why not?

Over in the Editorial stack, the board applauds Obama's online Q & A , noting that the public's questions may be as significant as the president's answers when it comes to gauging America's mood. The board also support's Obama's move to beef up border security to prevent Mexico's drug war from spilling into the U.S. It's a good first step, but other initiatives and reforms -- particularly ones relating to drug addiction here in the U.S. -- need to follow. Lastly, the Times takes aim at the hypocritical partisanship of Republicans who voted against the superbly qualified Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, for position as solicitor general.

Photo: Members of United Teachers Los Angeles protest budget cuts.

Credit: Getty Photos/David McNew

The Times' Op-Ed page introduces a new opinion writer with an impressive resume today: President Barack Obama, who lays out his vision for next week's G-20 summit in London. Obama aims to convince other countries to launch government-sponsored bailouts of their own financial systems in line with those in the United States; he also calls for boosting the International Monetary Fund, resisting protectionism and cracking down on offshore tax havens.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg, meanwhile, takes aim at the union-backed "card check" proposal being considered by congressional Democrats -- if it passes, he says, it would enable unions to shanghai workers much like British press gangs seized sailors in the 19th century. And economists Simon Johnson and James Kwak weigh in on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's proposal to manage $1 trillion in troubled bank assets.

The Times editorial board, too, has Geithner's proposal at top of mind (and the top of the page), welcoming the effort to have the prices for troubled assets set by the market, not the government. We also examine reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of an official finding that global warming endangers public health and welfare, a significant ruling that could eventually lead to widescale national regulation of greenhouse gases -- though not as wide nor as quickly implemented as alarmist critics claim. And we urge California's congressional delegation to restore a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to travel north of the border, which was killed last month. Mexican retaliation for the protectionist measure would be economically devastating to the Golden State.

All that, and Letters too.

In today's opinion pages, the Times editorial board calls on lawmakers in Sacramento to quickly accept federal unemployment aid.

The main sticking point over ABX3 23 was the possibility that the state - or rather, employers located here - might be left holding the bag for $900 million in extended unemployment benefits after the federal aid runs out in June 2010. Backers of the bill disagreed, but its sponsor, Assemblyman Joe Coto (D-San Jose), has been working with state officials to eliminate any potential ambiguity. With the state's unemployment insurance fund on the edge of insolvency, the concern about the cutoff date makes sense. But that's no excuse to stall this crucial bill, not when so many people need the help.

The ed board also notes that Buick - Buick! - has scored at the top of J.D. Power's dependability survey. Now why is that a surprise? Detroit apparently has been turning itself around, but still has some serious image retooling to do - and that may play an important role in efforts by General Motors and Chrysler to get a favorable bailout deal from Washington. Plus, the board scowls at the Final Exit Network, which is giving legitimate efforts to help the terminally ill die with dignity.

On the Op-Ed side, Denise Dresser keeps an eye on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip to Mexico this week, and calls for her to bring with her a "clear, unified message from the Obama administration regarding the sort of relationship it wants with Mexico."

Historian Joyce Appleby sees parallels between President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first mid-term election, in which he secured his hold on his New Deal reforms, and the 2010 mid-terms that Barack Obama will face.

The two men share a lot. As president, both face the awesome task of reviving the economy. Obama's personal popularity outstrips support for his party, as did FDR's. Of necessity, Obama's hope for matching Roosevelt's successful record of reform and recovery is going to rest on his pulling off an electoral victory in 2010 like FDR's 76 years ago.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez examines what happened to Thomas Saenz, the former lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who became counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Saenz was believed to be headed toward nomination to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, but someone else got the job. Was it because Saenz was an effective campaigner for immigrant rights?

The positive spin from Obama supporters is that the White House wanted to keep its powder dry for a future full-on fight over immigration reform. And perhaps that's true. But to think that anti-immigrant extremists could kill the nomination of a man most would describe as a mainstream liberal, not to mention someone who is on the record as being opposed to the idea of open borders, is bothersome.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner knows plenty about the world of finance, but not nearly enough about the world of politics, the editorial board observes today. He'll have to wise up about how traditional practices in the financial industry -- particularly eye-opening bonuses -- play to the public that's shelling out the money for bailouts.

The predictable result, in addition to the calls for Geithner's ouster, was the bill now rocketing through Congress to impose confiscatory tax rates on many of the individuals who've collected bonuses from rescued firms. To the financial industry, it's yet another switchback by Washington, which has spent the last year plunging in new directions and then quickly reversing course. The shifts have made investors wary just when the administration is trying to persuade them to be its partners in restoring credit to consumers and small businesses, disposing of illiquid bank assets and averting foreclosures. Geithner's initiatives in those areas hold promise, but they won't get far unless he hones his political skills -- fast.

The board wholeheartedly applauds the legislature of New Mexico and Gov. Bill Richardson for abolishing the death penalty, a significant move for a state that lies outside the liberal heartland. And it sees encouraging signs in federal response to the drug-related violence in Mexico -- especially conversations with Mexican leaders about border control -- but not if some border states succeed in their calls for using the National Guard to beef up patrols at the border.

Fingerprints are indeed unique -- but the science of analyzing them in crime cases is far from perfect, Jason Felch writes on the op-ed page, and it's time more judges and criminal experts recognized this:

In 2007, a Maryland judge threw out fingerprint evidence in a death penalty case, calling it "a subjective, untested, unverifiable identification procedure that purports to be infallible."

The ruling sided with the scientists, law professors and defense lawyers who for a decade had been noting the dearth of research into the reliability of fingerprinting. Their lonely crusade for sound science in the courtroom has often been ignored by the courts, but last month it was endorsed by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

Joel Stein finds childbirth class more interesting than he might have bargained on.

And in Letters, readers ponder the relationship between compassionate medicine and religion.

Photo illustration: Los Angeles Times