Opinion: Death, Eucharist and the comics: Readers respond to Opinion L.A.

Regarding Tim Cavanaugh’s bitter, cynical ‘Funny-book funk briefly brightens’ on July 17: Mr. Cavanaugh regards comic books, newspapers, movies and bound books as all breathing their last gasp. Are there any media that AREN’T dying in his grim estimation? David MoranShakespeare & Co. BooksellersNYC

So the president of the Mortgage Banker’s Association wants to assure us that they are committed to homeowners and eliminating mortgage fraud... it’s rather like asking the wolf to monitor the hen house. The fact is, since the Association lobbied nationwide realtors to help repeal the 10% government rate ceiling on mortgage interest rates in 1979, they have been gouging the public willfully. First, was the complete decimation of the market with home loans sporting interest rates in the high teens and early 20s in 1980. Anyone remember that? I do. Then came the elimination of the fully assumable loan so if you wanted to buy a home, you would have to pay the new rates. Wait, it gets better... Realtors, that ever creative breed of commission paid enterpreneurs, begins to find the loop holes, so we get AITDs and contracts, even the swapping of properties and use of promissory notes for down payments. The Assoication fires back, now they want proof of money down and they filed documents to ensure that if there was an AITD or a Contract, they’d be notified so they could call the loan. By the time the reality would strike home that the market had killed itself- 1983, the rates came slowly back down; short term gains were no replacement for steady commissions. The industry gets back on it’s feet and dusts itself off and the realtors, like sharks smelling blood in the water after the stagnation, start selling at ever inflated values requesting that apprasiers meet the price - 1985. They do. The market inflates irrationally and by 1990, the market again bottoms out - time ot pay the piper. After all, what goes up artificially must come down. No sales, no commissions; everyone suffers. Updisde down borrowers walk away from the black hole that is sucking the life out them: home ownership. By the time the correction starts again, there needs to be new product and a way to qualify those that can no longer afford the American dream: enter the mortgage industry with a solution. Their solution once again amounts to lining their own pockets at the expense of the average home owner. Now they’re asking for another opportunity to fix it. It wasn’t broken in 1979. Their fixes have made owning a home almost impossible to the average American. How do I know all this? I worked in the industry. I quit when it became apparent that although lawyers could be abhorrant, realtors/mortgage bokers were a sleaze that I couldn’t wash off.

The amount of people who profit from Sub-prime loans is relatively small. The amount of people who will be hurt if the Sub-prime mortgages fail is very large. It is more then just the borrower and lender. Sub-prime lenders practice risk mitigation by utilizing Wall Street investment money in which loans are bought by Wall Street and then peddled to investors, i.e. the public. Maybe even your company’s retirement fund. Sub-prime mortgages business is simply a legalized ponzi scheme. It is one of the reasons Corporate America had to have the Bankruptcy laws changed to mitigate risk. Many of the organization are institutions with taking in federally insured money. If the ripple effect falls that far back all America pays. As it is now only those with homes will pay when the housing mark collapse and your equity value fads away. Few winner and lots of losers, it doesn’t make sense to operate the way even if it makes a few people very rich. Pete AlberiniLa Mirada CA

Very interesting. I haven’t read much about this issue, but I do recall a few years ago reading about a reporter in Iraq that was gunned down point blank, and that was all we heard. I wish these types of stories would come to the front pages more. Also, I think people need to understand the basics of what media consolidation has done to our country. How people have fallen under the spell of false news. It is more important than ever to try to get people to realize that what they believe is true news- is actually propaganda. It is what the mega media wants them to believe, so that they can continue to control the direction of this country! We need more diversified ownership of the news outlets. Thank God for the internet, but so long as we have a ‘brainwashed’ or ‘groupthink’ portion of our population taking Fox News and MSNBC, CNN , etc as truthful- we will always have corruption in our government. We need to get back to basics and teach civics in elementary school. It is outragious how many adults do not understand the basic structure of our government!

To the editor: Personally, I was delighted that you immediately pointed out that Jeff Astrof is a comedy writer in the subheading of his piece ‘HA mas.’ Otherwise, I might have been really flabbergasted to see that nowhere in his piece are any Israeli transgressions detailed, nor are they ever held accountable for anything. Never is his position as a paid funny man clearer than when he writes of Israeli children sleeping in bomb shelters and of Palestinians used as human shields by their own government, but conveniently forgets to mention the untold numbers of Palestinian innocents whose lives have been disrupted, destroyed or ended by the Israelis. Surely an oversight such as this is purely for comedic effect. Because if it were serious, people such as myself might be tempted to point out that this sort of sin of omission, with its obvious desire to gloss over the unnameable suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel and thus remove it as a motivation for resistance and revolution in the eyes of the West, is precisely the kind of thing that will ensure that the conflict in Israel - along with our own ‘Global War on Terror’ - will go on for a long, long time. If not forever. As someone who is in show business, he must have heard this at least once: ‘Don’t quit your day job.’ Sincerely, Sean Gallagher

Dear Mr. McGough, I read your article in today’s paper and noted your reference to my church, St. Thomas the Apostle. Thank you for your kind and touching words. It’s very refreshing to see something in a newspaper about the Episcopal church that isn’t about politics. You made my day. Most Sincerely, Mrs. Bronwyn Schrecker JamrokCulver City

So, Catholics used to pray in a ‘foreign language’, huh ? Well, Jews STILL do this every day. It’s called HEBREW !!!

Thank you California! Thank you for loaning us your governor to speak at Florida’s Climate Change Summit on July 13. Admittedly, Florida helped get the country stumble into its current national climate change policy vacuum by botching the 2000 presidential election under the leadership of our previous governor, Jeb Bush. But we’re now trying to make up for it with a new governor, Charlie Crist. While he’s still a Republican (and I’m definitely not) all environmentalists in Florida must tip their hats to Gov. Crist for fundamentally changing how Florida is approaching the climate change issue. Florida has a long way to go to catch up with your more progressive policies, but at least your governor has helped our governor start down a better path. You can see a video of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s summit speech (and others by Gov. Crist and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) at www.MyFloridaClimate.com . Thanks again!