From the Los Angeles Times

Letters to the editor

May 6, 2008

Don't touch that dial

Re "The cancellation of Channel 36," Opinion, May 1

Patt Morrison's column highlights plans to eliminate funding for L.A.'s Channel 36, a subject that would have received little attention otherwise.

Cable TV subscribers in Los Angeles pay millions in taxes known as franchise fees to City Hall. The system was set up to ensure that the public had access to important programming covering government, education and other community organizations.

For years, politicians in City Hall have used franchise fees to fund their vanity channel -- Channel 35 -- which is designed to highlight all the good things the city does for its residents. In contrast, the already paltry funding for the channel that solicits and produces programming from local colleges, universities and other community organizations -- Channel 36 -- is on the chopping block.

It would be a total betrayal to taxpayers if City Hall moves ahead with this rip-off of franchise funds. Instead, Los Angeles should follow the model set by Pasadena and contract with the nonprofit public access channel to provide coverage of City Hall at a fraction of the $3 million that it is spending on Channel 35.

Geoffrey Baum

Los Angeles

The writer is the managing director of the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership.

Morrison hits the nail on the head. The League of Women Voters of Los Angeles is one of many organizations that distributes information through Channel 36. Tens of thousands more people receive this information than would be likely to attend a live meeting.

The Los Angeles County league most recently sponsored a candidates' forum on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors 2nd District race, a debate that perhaps 100 attended but that will be broadcast on Channel 36 many times. The league has contracted with Channel 36 to tape forums exploring issues that can be broadcast to thousands and streamed on the Internet.

What other media venue has the communities' interests at heart?

Liza White

President, League of

Women Voters

of Los Angeles

Different views of May Day

Re "March smaller, but festive," May 2

The May Day protests were not about immigration reform. They were about people who entered the country illegally and want to be rewarded with citizenship, plain and simple. The only immigration reform they seek is that they shouldn't have to follow the rules.

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?

The only true reform needed is for the government to enforce the existing immigration and labor laws.

Americans are willing to do the jobs that supposedly only illegal immigrants will do; just pay us realistic wages, not what businesses want to pay.

Raul Perez

Chino

What are we to think of protesters with "Che" Guevara flags and shirts demonstrating in the streets of Los Angeles or any other American city?

Guevara hated America, freedom, private enterprise, democracy, religious expression and everything else this country stands for. His hands were drenched with the blood of thousands in Cuba and South America. Americans who fought with Fidel Castro and him to overthrow Gen. Fulgencio Batista in Cuba were rewarded with firing squads.

As a person who fought communists in a foreign war, I am greatly offended by anyone who holds Guevara up as a symbol of anything of value in this country. These people should go home, and take Che with them.

Paul M. Sewell

Los Angeles

Propositions and property rights

Re "Inside Props. 98, 99," column, May 1

This is one renter who is voting for Proposition 98 (and against Proposition 99, which deliberately subverts the effort to protect property rights).

At first, it seems the rent control provision also undermines Proposition 98's key purpose, but there is consistency here, as both rent control and eminent domain abuse are inconsistent with America's libertarian principles. Both propositions are about subsidies. New renters subsidize me, more so the longer I've stayed put. And the longer I stay, the more trapped I become. Moving would be economic idiocy.

Meanwhile, eminent domain is often invoked for corporate welfare. It is a weapon used to threaten small-business people and property owners.

Those currently abusing this governmental power are behind Proposition 99. George Skelton is wrong. If you vote no on 98, please vote no on 99 too. Maybe we'll get it right next time, or the Legislature could do its job and save us the trouble of writing the perfect proposition.

Edward Bowers

Sherman Oaks

Skelton does a fine job explaining the issues in Propositions 98 and 99, but he doesn't go far enough in explaining the subterfuges behind Proposition 98.

He writes correctly that Proposition 90 was narrowly defeated two years ago because local governments and environmentalists complained that it went too far. But as important to its defeat was the exposure of developers who were using the popular eminent domain issue as a cover for their unrelated attack on rezoning.

Similarly, the Apartment Owners Assn. of California now is using the eminent domain issue as a cover for its attack on rent control. This device of bait-and-add-on (the basic strategy of pork-barrel legislation) is shamefully devious and must be rejected on June 3.

We must not let businessmen pretend to advocate for the public good while they sneak through measures for their own profit at the public's expense. Vote no on 98.

Jane Goldblatt

Los Angeles

Escape as rehabilitation

Re "Mom's secret past catches up with her," May 1

It is with sardonic amusement that I read of the plight of Susan Lefevre, found after years of living an exemplary life and now threatened with a return to prison -- and to be given extra years for escaping. After all, is not her story the best possible outcome for a criminal: to return to society and live an exemplary life?

To drag Lefevre back into prison seems totally senseless. Let's hope that attorneys make a persuasive case for release or probation at home.

R.B. Anderson

Riverside

Our jails are full of drug offenders and are sucking up tax dollars that would be much better used for schools and medical care. Lefevre and others in jail for similar offenses should be pardoned immediately. Our ridiculous drug laws should be repealed, as they have proved to be very expensive and not effective at all.

Thanks to our drug laws, our southern border is becoming a war zone, and the U.S. military has anti-drug operations throughout the world. It's time for a total overhaul of U.S. drug laws.

Bob Stothart

Park City, Utah

In defense of Lefevre's impending extradition from California after three decades as a model citizen here, Russ Marlan of the Michigan Department of Corrections asks what kind of message letting her go would send to the other 50,000 inmates in Michigan: "If you escape and live clean, you can have your sentence dropped if you're caught?"

Sounds good to me. Would that all inmates could do the same.

Cathy Von der Ahe

San Juan Capistrano

The wear and tear on the Democrats

Re "Key defection to Obama," May 2

How many more embarrassing defections does Hillary Rodham Clinton have to suffer before she sees the handwriting on the wall?

My husband and I, like many of our friends, have reluctantly decided that if she wins the nomination, we will simply give up -- and either not vote or hand our votes over to John McCain.

Her proven untruths notwithstanding, Clinton's tenacious clinging to a candidacy that is supported by less than half of her party is an unpleasant hearkening to the actions of our current president, who remains insular and arrogant, persistently refusing to change his stance on any number of issues, even though the majority of the country vociferously and vigorously demonstrates its opposition.

Joe Andrew is right: The negativity of the Democratic campaign is rapidly becoming a catastrophe, in which America can only lose.

Rebecca S.

Hertsgaard

Palm Desert

It is clear that the Democratic hierarchy wants this primary battle to end and wants to give the nomination to Barack Obama. But every time one of these "leaders" makes such a pronouncement, Clinton wins the next primary. Democratic voters seem to want to have their say.

I have an idea for the leaders of the Democratic Party. Just allow the process to work its way out. You might discover that the voters are smarter than you.

Ralph S. Brax

West Lancaster, Calif.