Opinion: In today’s pages: Shaming McCain, taming tourism, closing loopholes
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Writer Kishore Mahbubani hails the the rise of Asia as the dominant global force, and Ernest Freeberg criticizes the Oscar-nominated ‘No Country for Old Men’ for straying from its sociopolitical roots. Travel and business writer Eric Lucas sniffs at the ugly American behavior toward international tourists:
Overseas arrivals to the U.S. have declined 11% this decade, to 23 million in 2007 from 26 million in 2000. Travel is the world’s largest industry, currently worth $5 trillion, and it is growing 6% a year. It employs almost a quarter of a billion people. And yet the U.S. is missing out on this wonderful human commerce....Why? American arrogance. The United States is a crass, greedy and rude host.To start, we treat foreigners as criminals until proved otherwise.
The editorial board slams Sen. McCain for voting against a ban on ‘enhanced’ interrogation, and raises the alarm over Los Angeles County’s proposals to shutter many of its clinics. The board also sinks state legislators for not closing the ‘sloophole’:
Like the characters in some hippie-era pop song, many Republican lawmakers in Sacramento have decided to let this troubled world fend for itself while they sail away to some imaginary shore. On yachts. After dodging their taxes.
Readers weigh in on the mayor’s plan to make parts of Pico and Olympic boulevards one-way. Terry Snyder writes:
The plan is flawed because anyone with an IQ higher than a rutabaga knows what happens when traffic corridors, be they freeways or surface streets, increase capacity -- improvement is nullified.