Academy Award-winning actor Julie Andrews pens a spirited defense of the Los Angeles Public Library's funding, and Patt Morrison pickets in front of the June 3 ballot for better voting conditions. Cartoonist Ed Rall slips some snide commentary by the airline industry, and Rosa Brooks tells overbearing parents to give their kids a little independence. Pollster Douglas E. Schoen figures the recent controversies surrounding Obama's campaign may be "the best things that could have happened to his candidacy":

The last six weeks have been a great benefit to Obama -- and may emerge as the most important period of his quest for the presidency.

The poll evidence is unambiguous: He's suffered no short-term damage. A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama leading McCain in a hypothetical matchup by six points; in February, he was trailing by two. The Rasmussen Reports' estimate of electoral college strength has him leading McCain, 260 to 240. And a recent CBS/New York Times poll reveals that over the last few weeks, Obama's favorability rating actually increased by five points.

The editorial board wonders if the governor's revised budget plan is too clever by half, and calls the House-approved farm bill a lost opportunity for reform. The board also gives a chilly nod to the federal government's half-hearted move to list the polar bear as an endangered species:

Under legal pressure, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne officially -- and historically -- added the polar bear to the threatened-species list, the first time a species has made the list because of global warming. His action Wednesday was extraordinary. Even more remarkable was Kempthorne's blatant undercutting of his own decision with regulatory shenanigans that will almost certainly mean no new restrictions on carbon emissions and no need to scale back on drilling for Alaskan oil....

What we have here is a newly protected polar bear with virtually no new protections.

Readers react to Hillary Clinton's primary win in West Virginia. Anna Shaff asks:

If the next few weeks afford Clinton a single moment of introspection, she should ask herself the following question: Has the fighter become a piranha?

Columnist Tim Rutten puts bluntly his opinion of the Los Angeles Unified School District:

Every day, the Los Angeles Unified School District fails its tens of thousands of ambitious students, dedicated teachers and hardworking principals in so many ways that it's difficult to imagine how its elephantine bureaucracy could shamble into some new outrage.

Difficult, but not impossible, because the LAUSD runs this city's schools about like the generals run Myanmar.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has a proposal for reviving King-Harbor Hospital. Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell discusses the demographic tricks behind political polling. And 27-year-old Erica Sackin says tax rebates won't help her in-the-red generation.

The editorial board encourages Bush to veto a bill that would stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and wonders why Congress is allowing the banning of all flavored cigarettes except the most popular kind, menthols. The board also says environmentalists have more work to do to prevent sprawl on Tejon Ranch.

On the letters page, readers question Nick Turse's Op-Ed linking the purchase of consumer products like Krispy Kreme and Pepsi to supporting Iraq war profits. Thomas J. Weiss of Ft. Hood, Texas, says, "Nick Turse's Op-Ed article has to be one of the most ridiculously alarmist articles I've ever read."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg explains what Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common:

Well, there's the obvious stuff. Both have Spanish names. Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government.

Oh, and both are essential tools in wars a lot of people claim they want to win.

Boston University's Andrew J. Bacevich argues that Iraq has illustrated the limits of U.S. power and new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) wants an independent review of the state's revenue. And freelance writer Mary Kolesnikova says KMN (that's "kill me now") in response to a Pew report finding that teens let Internet chat speak into their homework.

The editorial board notes a new study finding that many Iraq veterans suffer from untreated brain injuries, and supports a state bill that would create CalPERS-managed portable retirement plans for private employees. The board also laments the sad state of the Southern California bookstore and the latest one to fall into financial dire straits, Libreria Martinez:

...Libreria Martinez, Santa Ana's nationally honored Latino-themed bookstore, is now threatened. After all, how many booksellers win a MacArthur Foundation genius grant? (Though Rueben Martinez was forced to use some of that $500,000 to pay his store's bills.) For that matter, how odd is it that the landlord forcing the store to move is a charter school for the arts with a well-regarded creative writing program?

On the letters page, readers react to the notion that Barack Obama's biggest problem is his elitism, not his race. Long Beach's Charles Q. Clay III says, "Hogwash! Obama has exactly half as many Ivy League degrees as our current president, who, you might recall, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was not raised by a single mother on food stamps."

What were people in the mood for last week? Not bromides about good government, public service or political commitment, that's for sure. P.J. O'Rourke's chainsaw tour of liberal platitudes brought in more than four times the traffic of the next-most-popular item — which was itself another bit of PC iconoclasm: Gregory Rodriguez' skeptical piece on the value of "dialogue." Is it time for the candidates to do something about all this cynicism? I hope not, and I thank you for reading Opinion L.A.

1. Fairness, idealism and other atrocities, by P.J. O'Rourke
2. Dialogue isn't the last word, by Gregory Rodriguez
3. Hillary's 'right' isn't the right thing, Rosa Brooks
4. Does your brain have a mind of its own? by Gary Marcus
5. Give voters a clue, by Jonah Goldberg
6. Government in secret, by Russ Feingold
7. Dust-Up: The new scarcity, by Gregory Clark and Gary Gardner
8. California wine? Down the drain, by Alice Feiring
9. Grand Old Party animal, by Joel Stein
10. China's next-generation nationalists, by Joshua Kurlantzick

Tomdispatch.com associate editor Nick Turse shows how consumer firms like Apple and Krispy Kreme profit from Iraq, and columnist Joel Stein scores some (prescription) marijuana:

Sometimes I can't believe how Californian California is. Women walk around half-naked, waiters call patrons "dude," and medical marijuana is legal. But I wondered just how legal. Could anyone buy it? Even me, who doesn't have cancer, AIDS, arthritis, glaucoma or even any previous pot-smoking experience?

Medical marijuana isn't really legal -- in 2005, the Supreme Court said federal anti-drug laws trump state laws -- but California and 11 other hippie states have been flipping off Washington for years.

The editorial board criticizes President Bush for failing to hold the Reading First program accountable, and says California's misuse of the recall process may be one reason the state is in such bad shape.

Readers discuss the election, and whether Hillary Clinton should quit. Palm Springs' Eleanor Jackson wonders, "It's difficult to understand how anyone, particularly a Democrat or independent voter, can dislike Clinton (or for that matter, Obama) so much that they would be willing to not vote or vote for John McCain. Do they not realize the consequences of a Republican victory this November?"

Is North Carolina the fat lady that sang for Hillary Clinton? The editorial board suggested that it's finally over for her, and L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks called it way back in March. The Hill reports that backs are turning on her. What are the other papers saying?

The Washington Post editorial board focuses on Barack Obama even as it comes to the same conclusion on Clinton:

Hillary Clinton may, as she promised yesterday, fight on through the next few weeks of primaries, but after her disappointing showing Tuesday she has no plausible route to victory. So Mr. Obama was sounding themes for the coming battle against John McCain.... These are familiar phrases by now, appealing but also insubstantial.

Its columnists Harold Meyerson and George F. Will agree...

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:

Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....

Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.

Don't fall for it.

The editorial board agrees that it's over for Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.

The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.

On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."

European policy experts John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell look to 'The Godfather' for diplomatic pointers:

[Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"] is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

Freelance writer Lionel Beehner has another proposal for smoother diplomacy: pronouncing foreign dignitaries' names properly. Columnist Tim Rutten tells an L.A. version of "A Tale of Two Cities," and contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan explores why poet and long-time Watts resident Eric Priestley is fighting City Hall to keep his home.

The editorial board praises a California Supreme Court decision voiding the death sentence of Adam Miranda, presses for a shield law, and says now isn't the time to scold Myanmar's leaders:

It has been clear for more than a decade -- and especially since last year's suppression of the would-be Saffron Revolution -- that Myanmar's odious junta cannot be shamed into reform. It is too isolated and xenophobic to worry about its image, too paranoid to learn from outsiders and too blood-drenched to believe it can survive any loosening of control over its hapless people. The contradictory combination of U.S. sanctions and an engagement strategy adopted by its neighbors has failed to produce any improvement. Attempts to use the catastrophe of Tropical Cyclone Nargis as leverage to pry open the country will almost surely fail as well.

So we've had all this back-and-forth about the effect of immigrants (legal and otherwise) on the economy, dwindling natural resources and societal well-being, as if it were a one-way street. But what about the economy's effect on immigrants? From NPR:

Fewer immigrants living in the United States are sending money back to their home countries. A survey by the Inter-American Development Bank shows remittances by Hispanic immigrants are flat. But the percentage of immigrants sending money home to Latin America is down dramatically in just two years. The report cites the U.S. economic slowdown and a tougher line on illegal immigrants.

Anti-immigration advocates need not gloat: This isn't doing the home front's economy any good. One undocumented construction worker told NPR he's only saving out of fear that he'll be rounded up: "We're not spending money. What we earn, we save, because we may need it."

So, no silver lining for the U.S. — though there is a catch-22: Restriction of immigration may be fueling the drop in remittances, but if that money doesn't keep supporting families abroad, more people may try to cross into the U.S. to find work. Let's hope Tom Tancredo needs some remodeling done.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg says issues that may seem irrelevant actually give us clues about the candidates:

Whatever the true import of Obama's relationship with Wright may be, or whatever the proper weight voters should give to his view that poor whites "cling" to guns and religion because they've suffered under bad economic policies, or, for that matter, what Clinton's "sniper fire" story says about her, it strikes me as absurd to argue that these data are meaningless but their stance on a gas-tax holiday is of enduring importance.

Pacific Council on International Policy adjunct fellow Joshua Kurlantzick profiles China's educated, wealthy next-generation nationalists who aren't afraid to be aggressive toward the West. And USC's Sara Catania has an idea for the Silver Lake Reservoir: a new kind of urban park.

The editorial board thinks a tax on services might work for California if done right and explains why Yahoo and Google's teaming up on advertising would be bad for consumers. The board also responds to the death of racehorse Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby last weekend:

As we explore the limits of physical performance, sports trend toward the more extreme, even if it harms rather than enhances the athlete's health. Steroids in baseball, eating disorders in prepubescent gymnasts, whatever it takes to win, until there's a public pushback that threatens the sport. Without industry reform in the near future, it's easy to imagine such a pushback against the biggest athlete of all -- the racehorse.

On the letters page, readers discuss May Day. Chino's Raul Perez asks, "How is it that I have to have a passport to enter the country in which I was born, raised and served in the armed forces while others come and go as they please?"

Journalist and food critic Alice Feiring explores why California wines aren't what they used to be:

Forget "Eureka," the new state motto can well be: "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Today's California wines are overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated.

When I first stopped drinking the Left Coast, it was because I was offended by the overuse of wood, boring flavors and lack of structure. The wines, many of which had plenty of edge and personality, seemed neutered to me. I soon learned that the other part of the story was that an arsenal of technology was deployed to make them that way: yeast, enzymes, tannin, oak and acid, as well as over-extracting techniques, micro-oxygenation, dialysis and reverse osmosis.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez calls out Barack Obama for flip-flopping on Rev. Jeremiah A Wright Jr. And Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System trustee Kelly Candaele says CalPERS should stick to being an "activist" investor.

The editorial board warns Angelenos that a racial separatist running for judge could win if they don't get out the vote. The board also checks in on trouble in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia and thinks California should bring fairness to its school spending.

The best, the brightest, the movers, the shakers and the thinkers came out, but it was a New Jersey high school student who took the Number 1 spot in the week's most popular Opinion stories. But fear not, James Q. Wilson fans: the Pepperdine professor whose textbook Matthew LaClair attacked gave as good as he got, and made the list at Number 9. And the rest of the week's winners? A mishmash of drugs, China, and Jeremiah Wright. See you next week, and thanks for reading Opinion L.A.

1. Give me the lesson without the spin, by Matthew LaClair 
2. Looking for Mr. Wright, by Jonah Goldberg
3. China's powerful weakness, by Francis Fukuyama
4. A commitment problem, by Norman Ornstein
5. The U.S. and China are over a barrel, by Michael T. Klare
6. Dust-up: America on drugs, by Jacob Sullum and Charles "Cully" Stimson
7. Men who explain things, by Rebecca Solnit
8. Rev. Wright deserves some attention, by Rosa Brooks
9. Quit twisting my words, by James Q. Wilson
10. Contrarian McCain, by the editorial board

Big Sunday founder David T. Levinson reflects on the idiosyncrasies of pop volunteerism, and Ronald Brownstein picks apart John McCain's true views on the U.S. military's future in Iraq. Merrick J. Bob, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, investigates better ways to track racial profiling by LAPD officers, and cartoonist Rob Rogers snarks at Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's problem relationships. Joel Stein finds out that a new citizen's vote is worth $6 and a cookie:

There's an emotional ceremony every month in which 3,500 newly naturalized citizens pledge their loyalty to the United States, and it really feels like they've joined a community of shared values, goals and purpose. Then, as soon as they pass through the gates of the L.A. County fairgrounds and enter the parking lot, they are charged from the right by Republicans and from the left by Democrats, begging them to register to vote. It is a bit like kissing the bride and being told your new father-in-law is a Capulet and your mother-in-law's a Montague and they've each registered you for a Glock.

The editorial board calls for the Supreme Court to let a murder victim's posthumous testimony stand, and wonders how to turn the beleaguered Santa Barbara Plaza project around. The board also whips out its pen to defend taco trucks against a new L.A. County ordinance:

Supervisors may have expected the new law to attract little controversy; after all, it was backed by Eastside restaurateurs and developers, a group with considerably more money and political power than the largely immigrant entrepreneurs who own taco trucks. But it has raised the ire of a far larger group: the thousands of Angelenos who have long gathered at taco trucks, in many cases since childhood, for quick carnitas burritos or mouthwatering cemitas, central Mexican sandwiches filled with avocado, cheese, fried meat and other gut-busting goodness. An Internet-driven movement started by a pair of Highland Park residents has already produced 2,200 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. Sign us up too.

Readers also react to the LAPD's dismissal of all complaints of racial profiling from last year. Leni Fleming writes:

"Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit" is, bar none, the most hilarious sentence I have ever read in The Times.

And I'm white!

The American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein pities the uncommitted superdelegate, while columnist Patt Morrison laments the possible loss of local Channel 36. And columnist Rosa Brooks takes a more generous stance than most on Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s latest shenanigans:

Something about our collective willingness to throw Wright under the nearest subway train strikes me as a bit too easy.

Sure, Wright's a self-centered jerk, but he's unfortunately not the only man in the United States who believes the conspiracy theories he's been spouting....

We can dismiss Wright as bitter and twisted -- but are we prepared to also write off somewhere between a quarter and half of all African Americans? If not, we'd better ask why do so many ordinary people give credence to such wrongheaded theories?

The editorial board offers its take on Wright, too:

Obama countered Wright's angry oratory with graceful rhetoric once, but it didn't keep his erstwhile pastor quiet. So rather than giving another thoughtful critique of Americans' attitudes about race, Obama was right to denounce, clearly and specifically, Wright's most objectionable statements. It may have been a capitulation to his fiercest critics, but it was the repudiation that circumstances -- and Wright's latest pronouncements -- demanded.

The board looks ahead to "a new May Day," without the violence that marred last year's protests, and explores the dangers of overusing antibiotics in livestock.

Readers discuss Wright on the letters page. Saugus' Art Saginian says: "Wright is a radical. So what? Americans are as well-known for their brutal savagery as they are for their compassionate philanthropy."

Tim Rutten marvels at the questionable artistic value of "Grand Theft Auto IV," and writer Gary Ferguson laments the senseless violence that hunters are unleashing on the gray wolf, just released from the endangered species list. New York University professor Stephen F. Cohen says hold the baloney: It's the U.S., not Russia, that's responsible for the heightened tensions of late:

During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised U.S. view of how the Cold War ended. In that new, triumphalist narrative, the U.S. won the 40-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan -- a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad.

The editorial board also worries about the gray wolf, and calls on Mexico's politicians not to fuel the debate over the future of the nation's oil industry with hot air. The board also gives Obama a thumbs-up for not falling victim to easy political gimmicks as gas prices rise:

High gas prices can prompt political hysteria in the best of times, but when they soar during an election year, the fumes rising from candidate stump speeches can make a person sick. Of the three candidates and the president they're out to replace, only one is telling the truth about oil -- and he may suffer for his political courage.

Readers rip into an editorial commending McCain for not indulging in political pandering. Fred Sokolow asks:

In your editorial, you characterize McCain as boldly preaching an unpopular message, but it's the same old, tired, free-market deregulation dogma.

There's nothing contrarian about it -- it's the Bush line, which has put America in the terrible spot we're in today.

Won't you begin to assess this guy for what he really is? He's no maverick; he's a throwback, and more of the same poison that's been killing America (and Americans, and Iraqis) for seven years.

... and soars on hot air from the blogosphere.

After more than a month of studied silence, the reverend has stepped into the public spotlight to defend his controversial remarks on race in America -- and make veiled criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama in the process. On Obama's repudiation of his incendiary statements, the minister had this to say: "He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician."

Obama reacted angrily to his former pastor's comments, calling them "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth." Jonah Goldberg gleefully celebrated Wright's coming-out as "every bit as radical as his detractors claimed."

They're not the only ones with choice words about Wright's recent performances:

The Times' own Top of the Ticket blog asks, "Was Jeremiah Wright's speech set up by a Clinton supporter?"

... we should have been paying a little less attention to Wright's speech and the histrionics of his ensuing news conference and taken a peek at ... who was sitting next to him at the head table for the National Press Club event.

It was the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds ... an ardent longtime booster of Obama's sole remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.

Jeffrey Weiss over at the Dallas Morning News' religion blog wonders why pundits can't take Obama out of the equation:

After the NAACP speech, the all-news networks talking heads were mostly falling all over themselves to do political analysis about whether or not the speech would help or hurt Barack Obama, rather than attempt even a moment of thought about the meaning of what Wright actually said.

The Caucus over at the NY Times does a roundup of its own, observing:

Voices around the blogosphere say they’re tired of the media kerfuffle surrounding Barack Obama and his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., but they certainly keep writing about it.

They also say they’re sick of the expression “thrown under the bus,” but they keep using it.

For some Wright-Obama commentary with both local and international flavor, Ha'aretz's Shmuel Rosner invokes the "Bradley Effect," but also snarks at the minister's comments about Israel:

At moments he came off as mocking and somewhat vain, but made an effort to soften the hardliner perception his speech had left behind. He was also asked about his views on Israel. "Apartheid?" he asked, adding that Jimmy Carter used this term, not him.

Israel, Wright said, "has a right to exist". His only desire was that the Israelis and Palestinians live in peace. He made no reference to the sermon in which he connected the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the September 11th attacks, but he did make sure to emphasize his "Jewish friends". As it turns out, Jeremiah Wright also has a couple of those.

Daniel Nichanian at the Huffington Post compares Wright's position to one of the 2000 presidential election's most beleaguered political players:

Wright has no obligation to put Obama's interest above his own; dragged through the mud for news, the pastor has an opening to make people listen to him and hear the full context of his theology. Those who today profess themselves appalled that Wright would throw Obama under the bus miss the point that Wright does not think of himself as having any allegiance to Obama or to his election, just as Ralph Nader had no any allegiance to the Democratic Party making it hard to understand why 2004 was "a betrayal."

Wonkette agrees, in an offbeat sort of way:

He's blowing open the racial politics that Obama wants to close and claiming that Obama is insincere when he rejects Wright's "extreme sermons"; he's trying to balance a deserved self-defense with the collateral damage that that brings on Obama. He has an ego. Most importantly, he's just some old preacher and not Obama's surrogate father. He can say whatever he wants and Barry will just have to deal with it. Individual people have a right to defend themselves, and politicians have a right to disown them. That's all, goodnight.

While Sen. McCain had the plug pulled on the North Carolina Republican Party's ad highlighting the Obama-Wright connection, it seems the state party leaders will be getting the airtime they wanted for free.

UC Santa Barbara professor Brian Fagan warns that our future survival in a drier world depends on our ability to adapt to our environment, and writer Francis Fukuyama blames the Chinese government's weakness, not strength, for domestic human rights violations. Economist Korinna Horta and attorney Delphine Djiraibe argue that Darfur cannot be saved without fixing Chad first, and Jonah Goldberg thanks the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for revealing how radical he really is:

Asked whether he stood by his assertion that the U.S. government created HIV as part of a genocidal program to wipe out the black race, Wright mostly dodged but ultimately offered this nondenial denial: "I believe our government is capable of doing anything." He also offered a zesty defense of Louis Farrakhan -- "one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century" -- and dismissed criticism of Farrakhan as an anti-Semite.

To cap it off, Wright threw Obama under the bus. First, the pastor explained, Obama himself had taken Wright out of context. Moreover, Obama neither denounced nor distanced himself from Wright. And, besides, anything that Obama says on such matters is just stuff "politicians say." They "do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls." So much for Obama's new politics.

The editorial board warns parents that avoiding vaccinations for fear of autism could result in a future epidemic, and gives a reluctant green light to MTA's decision to turn some carpool lanes into toll lanes. The board also condemns the Supreme Court for upholding Indiana's voter ID law:

Indiana has a right to safeguard the integrity of its elections, but its identification requirement imposes sufficiently burdensome rules that it raises the question of whether the state is actually trying to discourage certain types of people -- the poor, the elderly, the infirm -- from exercising their right to vote. It's one thing to deter fraud; it's another to deter voting, particularly by certain classes of voters.

Readers react to the Dodger Stadium makeover. Ken Chane writes:

The Dodgers' new stadium plan sounds and looks wonderful. But before it attracts larger crowds, the current chaotic parking situation should be corrected. Management keeps touting the "wonderful fan experience." No matter how great it may be, it dissipates quickly when it's time to go home.

Stupidity, Manichaeism, self-loathing, pedantry and self-absorption: You folks must have been feeling some serious mid-spring irritation this week, because those were the themes in the five Opinion stories you liked the most. And the second five, a wretched den of dupes, liars and weasels brightened by our 40-on-40 All Stars, looked only slightly better. Whatever you're drinking, I'll have something else.

Thanks for reading Opinion L.A. and we hope you're feeling better next week:

1. Still with stupid? by Meghan Daum
2. Meet John Dubya McCain, J. Peter Scoblic
3. Sleeping with the enemy, by Arianna Huffington
4. Men who explain things, by Rebecca Solnit
5. Talking to ourselves, Susan Jacoby
6. My winning strategy, by Rosa Brooks
7. The GOP's bait-and-switch tax strategy, by Bruce Bartlett
8. Gods and earthlings, by Richard Dawkins
9. Pennsylvania's bitter bloc, by Shawn Hubler 
10. 40 on 40, by various 

Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore explains why China sees Tibet quite differently than the West:

Chinese history records dominion over Tibet as far back as the 13th century. China's control has ebbed and flowed -- but this is equally true in many other parts of China. Central control by the capital has never been consistent, shifting with the strength of the central government. But this much is certain: China has been in control of most of its territories longer than some Western nations have existed.

More important, the Chinese recall that the latest efforts to separate Tibet from China came as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, when British and U.S. agents were seen to be encouraging Tibetan independence while the new People's Republic was still weak.... Virtually no Chinese believe that Western governments have a strictly moral interest in Tibet. They are convinced that their efforts are only the latest efforts to dismember or derail China.

Author Carolyn See navigates Santa Monica sans car, and columnist Joel Stein finds a place for thoughts that aren't even well-formed enough to be blogposts: the tumble and the twitter.

The editorial board encourages Congress to extend unemployment benefits, urges California to fight proposed federal fuel emissions rules, and says there are small signs of a thaw in Turkey-Armenia relations.

Readers discuss McCain's disability pension and whether it raises questions about his ability to serve as president. L.A.'s Anthony Filosa says, "I'd like to remind The Times that Franklin D. Roosevelt's significant disabilities did not affect his ability to successfully lead this country through some of our most tumultuous times and be remembered as one of our greatest presidents."

And Long Beach's Barbara Hubbs hopes that "McCain is donating that money to the disabled veterans who were not able to put their lives back together."

Right-wing Dutch politicos-turned-producers watch out — free speech cuts both ways. From NPR:

A video portraying aggressive behavior by Christians matched with verses from the Bible is gaining traction on the Internet.

Raed al-Saeed, a young businessman from Saudi Arabia, is the creator of Schism, a six-minute video response to Fitna — a short film released last month that portrays Islam as a violent, fascist-like ideology. "Fitna" provoked anger in many parts of the Muslim world.

In case you don't remember, Fitna (a word meaning "ordeal" in Arabic) overlaid verses from the Quran over acts of violence — suicide bombings, beheadings, planes crashing into the World Trade Center. It was produced by Geert Wilder, a Dutch politician who happens to be unabashedly anti-Islam. Some found the film to be an act of bravery — Jonah Goldberg compared it to the Darwin fish — while Dutch Muslims greeted it with disgusted silence.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see a response to Wilder's celluloid screed — the point being that you can find nasty bits in many different religious texts, including Christianity. Unfortunately, Saeed didn't find footage of many nasty people saying those verses out loud — and his substitution of the political for the religious (such as images of the bombing of Baghdad and the beating of prisoners) detracts from his point.

But, to my utter surprise, Saeed did strike darkly comic gold with some unassuming Christians whose rhetoric runs pretty close to that of radical Islamists. One woman — who looks like she could have run my preschool daycare — explains , "I wanna see [young people] as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are in over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, because we have — excuse me, but we have the truth!"

And later, at the center of a roomful of kids, upper arms jiggling with righteousness: "Take these prophecies ... and make war with them .... This means war! This means war!"

But Saeed is quick to point out that this video isn't an attack on Christianity or any other religion. The final text of the video reads,

It is easy to take parts of any Holy book that are out of content and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written. This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology. To create schism.

A fair observation, spelling errors aside — and yet, according to NPR,

A day after Saeed posted his video on YouTube, it was taken down for having "inappropriate content." He immediately reposted it with a message arguing that if his video was inappropriate, then Wilders' Fitna also should be removed. For now, both videos are available on the site.

And it still is. Go check it out — there are a few versions up, but the most-watched one has racked up more than 350,000 views so far, and more than 4,000 comments. Looking through what people had to say about Islam and Christianity made me wonder: How many viewers who made generalizations about Islam based on 'Fitna' were fully prepared to give Bible-lady's comments a pass?

And while the film means to make a point about not judging a religion by radicalism, I have to say, those angelic-looking children dancing around with what looks like warpaint on their faces is a little too Lord-of-the-Flies for me to handle.

Columnist Rosa Brooks plays Hillary Clinton:

Thank you, Pennsylvania! What an incredible margin of victory you gave me! Ten percentage points over Barack Obama. Count 'em! Ten!

All right, 9.2 points if you insist on actually counting. But they said I had to win by double digits to keep my campaign alive, and I think 9.2 points counts as double digits. And I am alive! And kicking! And punching and biting and kneeing my opponent in the groin!

Contributing editor Arianna Huffington says only a media filled with self-loathing could hire the likes of former Bush rep Tony Snow. USC emeritus professor Robert E. Tranquada argues for an independent authority to oversea L.A. county health services. And columnist Patt Morrison reveals what she and other Angelenos would do with the city budget if they had their way. (Coffee poured by the mayor at the Getty House Bed and Breakfast, anyone?)

The editorial board praises three African countries that stopped a Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe, looks to a 1983 report on education for present-day advice, and looks beyond the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania:

The Democratic race only seems interminable; there will be a winner, and he or she will reconcile with the loser and call for party unity. If Republicans can withstand the abrupt alliance of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, why shouldn't Democrats be united by an enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton by Obama, or vice versa? After all, for all the attacks, the two Democrats aren't far apart on policy.

On the letters page, readers take on the race, as well. Valley Village's Larry Margo has this to say to Clinton-bashers: "Quick! Stop her! Force her out before she wins again!"

New Republic executive editor J. Peter Scoblic says if you like George W. Bush's foreign policy, you'll love John McCain's:

Weaned by a military family on the lessons of that most classically Manichaean of modern conflicts, World War II, and psychologically defined by his own maverick streak, McCain's worldview may be more instinctual than intellectual. But it doesn't matter. Like Cold War conservatives, McCain has taken a moral observation that the United States is a force for good battling the forces of evil and turned it into a strategic guide.

Thus, he rejects negotiation with our enemies in favor of "rogue state rollback," repeatedly deriding as "appeasement" the 1994 deal that froze North Korea's plutonium program and mocking calls for unconditional talks with Iran....

Columnist Tim Rutten argues that immigrant bashers weren't right to rough up the pope. And author John M. Barry thinks paying for New Orleans should be the federal government's responsibility.

The editorial board urges Congress to pass a bill that would make it easier to assert pay discrimination in the work place, and analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's new budget. Finally, the board tells the Writers Guild of America to stop chastising the few members who broke ranks.

On the letters page readers discuss Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas. San Francisco's Joanne Minsky says, "I proudly voted for him twice, but his failure of memory and judgment calls into question the value of his forays into international politics. It is time to retire, Mr. President."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg asks how neo the neocons are, economist Bruce Bartlett reveals the truth about GOP tax cuts, and attorney Zachary Bookman says that secrecy is back in style in the Mexican government. Finally, former Times staffer and rural Pennsylvania native Shawn Hubler profiles her home state's bitter bloc:

Had they heard much talk about Barack Obama describing rural Pennsylvanians as "bitter"? Not too much, but thinking about it made my mother laugh.

"Bitter?" she asked. "Well, yes, of course we're bitter. Who wouldn't be?" She giggled until she started to cough.

Here's what I've thought as I've watched my hometown -- and so many others like it -- materialize so improbably at the forefront of this election: As much as the truth may hurt, Obama was right. Maybe he overdid it a bit, but generally, people don't feel secure when you leave them behind.

The editorial board checks in on how Texas is deciding where to place kids removed from a polygamist compound earlier this month, and recaps the pope's trip to the U.S. The board also remembers Ruben Salazar, a one-time Times staffer and columnist killed during the East L.A. riots:

Journalism, by its nature, tends to focus on the immediate. Only a few of any generation leave a bold enough mark to be visible over generations. One such journalist was Ruben Salazar, whom we honor today as the United States Postal Service issues a stamp to commemorate his life and work.

On the letters page, readers react to Richard Dawkins' Op-Ed on intelligent design. Apple Valley's William S. LaSor says, "In the end, he, like everyone else, must confront one of two choices: Either the universe has always existed, or it was created by someone who has always existed. If the latter is improbable, as he claims, then why is not the former also?"

UCLA graduate student and Chow Digest senior editor C. Thi Nguyen bemoans L.A. County's requirement that taco trucks move after one hour, and New York attorney Scott Horton analyzes UC Berkeley professor John Yoo's role in the Bush administration's stance on torture. Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan hopes LAUSD will repair its relationship with charter schools, and Gregory Rodriguez scratches his head at Americans' insistence that politicians act like the average Joe:

Sure, high-ranking politicians of humble origins can lay at least some claim to being "common." But that's really a ruse. Because the best politicians wouldn't get as far as they do if they hadn't already successfully convinced large numbers of people that they were distinct from -- read: better than -- the rest of us.

And therein lies our dilemma. We hold to the belief that we are all equal, yet we yearn for distinctiveness for ourselves and those we choose to represent us. In a nation whose form of government exalts the illusion of uniformity among its citizens, we are collectively engaged in a struggle to be recognized as unique by our peers.

The editorial board publishes its endorsements for 17 seats on the Los Angeles Superior Court, and puts its money behind a House bill to force 401(k) managers to clarify the fees they charge "Jack and Jill Cubicle":

Unfortunately, as this newspaper detailed in a series of articles in 2006, many employees aren't being told how much of their nest egg is being frittered away on fees paid to the companies managing their 401(k)s. Buried in the fine print of incomprehensible forms or not disclosed at all, those fees can consume thousands of dollars over time. To address that problem, several lawmakers have introduced bills that would require mutual funds, insurers and other providers of retirement plans to make complete disclosures of their fees to employers and workers. 

Readers react to the Supreme Court's decision finding legal injections humane. Writes Joy Buckley, "State-sanctioned killing is barbaric, cruel and should be highly unusual. We should join the civilized countries of the world in eliminating it."

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says the science of intelligent design is science fiction:

If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors....

But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense.

Columnist Joel Stein compares the cost of home cooking to restaurant dining.

The editorial board argues for food labels to include country of origin, says the Supreme Court's lethal injection ruling raises some questions, and wonders how much we should blame a candidate for his or her friends: 

We can learn about a candidate from the people who have had demonstrable influence on his or her thinking. Such people include personal and political mentors, business partners and major donors, lovers, spouses, close friends and, especially, advisors. It's certainly fair to judge politicians by who they've worked for, hired, appointed or fired.... But it's unfair and unwise to judge a candidate by family members (remember Roger Clinton?), or by constituents they're sure to rub shoulders with, or by casual associates who run in the same crowd.

On the letters page, readers discuss The Times' editorial on California's tax system. Valencia's Patrick Lewandowski says, "Why do The Times and many politicians feel a need to blame Proposition 13 for California's financial woes and to tinker or even eliminate it so that unaffordable, if not unwarranted, pet projects can continue?"

*Photo courtesy Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Psychologist Carol Tavris and oncologist Avrum Bluming put the latest breast cancer scare in perspective, and cartoonist J.D. Crowe comments on Hillary Clinton and John McCain's accusations of "elitism" against Barack Obama. Web editor Tim Cavanaugh wonders if the Vermont/Manchester project can survive the gentrification wars, and Patt Morrison searches between California's seat cushions for some spare change:

From Yreka to San Ysidro, official California is busted flat. We're so broke that Fabian Nuñez is probably drinking Two-Buck Chuck.

The temptations to make ends meet with corporate/civic deals are enormous. Budget Helper recipes can be a blessing for cities and states through the lean years, or they can become desperate sellouts that elected bodies can't scrape off their shoes once times turn good again.

The editorial board slams the state Legislature for neglecting the inmate medical system — and leaving California with a $7-billion bill — and sounds the alarm on world hunger as one of the greatest threats to international stability. The board also rolls its eyes at the New York Yankees' quest to dig a Red Sox jersey out of its new stadium:

... when somebody in the Yankees' front office ordered construction workers on Sunday to drill chunks out of the foundation — a five-hour job that cost a reported $50,000 — in order to remove the voodoo Fan Merchandise of Doom, it became clear that this incident was more than just a harmless sports prank. It was a reminder that for all of humanity's pretensions to modernity and reason, we are essentially just bald monkeys who wear shoes.

Readers provide some perspective on closing U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo. Maria Matan writes:

Having just watched the better part of the "John Adams" series on HBO, and having a basic knowledge of the Constitution, it seems to me unlikely that our founding fathers would have stood behind the Bush administration's assumption that offshore detentions at Guantanamo can be justified without sufficient evidence to bring charges.

Author David K. Shipler explores how candidates' words can strike a nerve:

Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps.... But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn't belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

Columnist Tim Rutten analyzes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's State of the City address. Internist Albert Fuchs says the only way for a doctor to do a good job and make a living is to reject insurers. And contributing editor Gustavo Arellano notes that Fullerton's efforts to paint over murals is par for the Orange County course.

The editorial board maintains its anti-execution stance as the Supreme Court considers whether to allow the death penalty for rapists, and comments on the start of SAG negotiations. Editorial writer Lisa Richardson writes in from San Francisco, where Chevron Corp. faced off against a couple Ecuadorean environmentalists.

Readers discuss Irvine's Great Park. L.A.'s Danila Oder says, "The American 20th century experience was an anomaly and should be treated by governments and builders as such. The environmental factors that are assumed to underpin bonds for the Great Park project are no longer operative."

Men reading fashion magazines, oh what a world it seems we live in, where stories about straight men who wear skirts and a holy man who wears flowing gowns dominate our most popular stories of the week. Here are the Top 10:

1. The Scots show their true colors, by Sean Connery
2. The prophetic anger of MLK, by Michael Eric Dyson
3. Papal dress code, by Michael McGough
4. The day the beer flowed again, by Maureen Ogle
5. 'Allah' vs. 'God' by Rabih Alameddine
6. Resist the urge to leave Iraq, by Max Boot
7. The GOP, a casualty of war, by Rosa Brooks
8. Disney, we are not amused, by the editorial board
9. The genocide loophole, by Jonah Goldberg
10. Washington s $4-billion land grab, by Paul Thornton

As always, thanks for reading Opinion L.A.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg has Barack Obama pegged -- he's the yuppie candidate:

For those too young to remember, "yuppie" was shorthand for young urban professionals...who allegedly represented the collapse of '60s values and the triumph of '80s greed. Yuppies sold their souls for a BMW and a condo.

Ironically, the biggest complaints about yuppie materialism came from self-loathing liberal yuppies -- like the Obamas.

The Obamas still seem stuck in that time warp, clinging to '80s-style resentments and political assumptions. Michelle Obama is never so eloquent as when she's complaining about the burden of student loans for her two Ivy League law degrees and covering the high cost of summer camp and piano lessons for her kids on her family's half-million-dollars-a-year income.

UC Berkeley's Jerome Karabel says Obama's newly-mobilizing young supporters could get alienated just as easily. Author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson discusses whether the black community suffers because of illegal immigration. And Steve Martin plans a bad-neighborly day.

The editorial board explores why Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez unjustly targeted MTA's Richard Snoble over the region being shortchanged on bond funds. The board also says the pope will need all his diplomatic skills for his U.S. visit, and launches a new series exploring changes for California's tax system:

Who pays too much now and sees too little in return? Who enjoys unearned subsidies? What level of taxation promotes business, and what level drives it out? Did Proposition 13 ruin everything? Nonsense. Is Proposition 13 sacrosanct? Not necessarily. Is the golden California of another era an irrecoverable ideal?

Let's find out.

On the letters page, readers discuss the cost of healthcare for prison inmates. Pacific Palisades' Pepper Edmiston has an idea: "Here's what I'm going to do if I develop a catastrophic illness: rob a bank and leave my card."

Italian columnist Massimo Franco heralds the Vatican's first official visit to the U.S. by explaining what took them so long, and cartoonist Rob Rogers wonders if the people running American Airlines into the ground are flying the Iraq war, too. Former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy calls on the U.S., North Korea and South Korea to repair their damaged relationships, and Gregory Rodriguez considers boycotting Absolut vodka for its ads that raised Americans' "reconquista" paranoia:

Last week I was in Las Vegas, and I found myself having a depressing chat with a Croatian maid at the Mandalay Bay hotel. "Your name is Rodriguez, are you Spanish?" she asked. "No," I told her, "I'm Mexican American." To which she responded glumly, "then pretty soon, this land will be yours. You are taking over."

The editorial board looks into public workers' immunity from traffic tickets and tolls, and finds a "disturbing recalibration of public accountability." The board also approves of President Bush's call for the government to guarantee loans for sub-prime borrowers, and expects Mayor Villaraigosa to prove in his State of the City address that he has a "firm grip" on the budget and gang violence:

The issues are intertwined. Villaraigosa has adopted as his own the priority his predecessors placed on increasing the number of Los Angeles Police Department officers ready to serve. The LAPD of today is larger -- and the city safer -- in part because the mayor insisted on increasing the fees that residents pay to get their trash picked up. Those higher fees aren't earmarked for more officers, and they still don't cover the cost of garbage collection, but the new revenue has given the mayor and the City Council the flexibility they needed to increase police hiring.

Readers size up Army Gen. David Petraeus' "ribbon creep" against other military icons. Eric Johnson points out:

Ike went on to lead this country ably, if quietly, warning us against the military-industrial complex gaining so much power, and Marsdhall earned the gratitude of an entire generation of Europeans, including those we defeated. Where are the generals of that caliber now?

Columnist Joel Stein makes New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson work for the money:

Impressed by his confidence, his integrity and this vague threat of being around "possibly nationally," I offered Richardson $20 if he'd record my outgoing answering machine m