Opinion: 2011 wish list continued: Opinion readers weigh in with more requests
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Alexandra Le Tellier already posted a roundup of online reader comments written in reaction to our New Year’s Day wish list. Given the generous expanse of print real estate afforded by our letters to the editor page, I was able to fit three (edited) reader submissions in today’s paper: One reader took issue with the editorial board’s judgment that ‘2010 wasn’t such a bad year,’ another added his own three wishes, and the third writer shamed the editorial board for what he viewed as trivial wants.
Naturally, we received far more submissions than we can print; many were just as worthy of publication as those that made the cut. Several readers added wishes of their own (two even hoped for more financial heft for the Los Angeles Times), one accused us of not being able to tell the difference between Fox News and MSNBC, and others took issue with our quips on radiation. Click on the jump to read a selection of submissions, edited for only -- I promise -- punctuation and spelling.
-- Paul Thornton
On The Times:
The Times wishes for single-digit unemployment, even as it has cut loose terrific reporters and other staff, many now scrambling all the time to freelance their talents. My wish for 2011 is for as many as possible to be re-hired as full-time staff. If The Times can wish, so can I.Damiana ChavezLos Angeles I want my L.A. Times back, with more staff, a California Section, a Food Section that isn’t predominately restaurant reviews, a stand-alone Sunday Book Section, and a return to the Sunday Magazine of the past that doesn’t look like a glossy ad for some high end mall. Jennifer LeeGlendale
More wishes:
ONCE AGAIN NO PEACE.........Sadly, I searched for the word peace in your 2011 wish list and, as with 2010, found it not. Perhaps you feel peace is an overused word during the holidays and doesn’t warrant the dignity of your wishes for the future.Fair enough. How’s this: For the citizens of Israel and Palestine (the majority of whom want peace) to bypass the conventional deadlock of first tier diplomacy and come up with an ‘accord’ that both sides can live with and which can finally begin an era of neighborly cooperation and fruitful co-existence. Wishful thinking? Indeed. But witness the Gordian Knot that the ‘pros’ have wound for us.Dean James LoomosVenice
Radiation (and Fox News):
As awful and unpleasant as airport scans are, I can only assume that you have never undergone either a mammogram of a colonoscopy or you would make no such comparison. Further, I can also only assume that you have never watched Keith Olbermann or probably Bill O’Reilly either or you would know that the difference is LIES. O’Reilly is a part of the ‘All Lies All the Time’ FOX organization, while I have never heard any lies from Olbermann, and in fact, any incorrect statements are immediately corrected, usually within the same program. It is important for American voters to know, many of whom seem to get their ‘news’ from FOX, that so much of what is ‘reported’ is not factual (death panels! 250 million per day for Obama’s India trip! Obama wasn’t born here! ad infinitum), and so, to have commentators like Olbermann pointing out the factual misstatements, not only on Fox, but by numerous politicians too, is critically important for anyone who actually wants to be informed rather than deluded. I can only hope that Olbermann, Rachel d and others keep deflating the Washington windbags and keeping it real on their respective programs. Jaycie IngersollBeverly Hills In your list of desirable things for 2011, you list, under ‘Radiation,’ ‘Requires hospitals to disclose radiation overdoses during CT scans and to record the dose of each scan.’ How about requiring the same thing for the X-ray backscatter inspections given to airline travelers by TSA?Jay M. PasachoffPasadena
And finally, a question:
Was your editorial a sophomore class writing assignment?Tom RaycraftLa Quinta
