Opinion: In today’s pages: Superbug and sub-prime woes
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Gregory Rodriguez pulls out his ruler and tries to measure the politics of ‘authenticity’:
Authenticity ... is generally best discerned in its absence. We like to think we know a phony when we see one (Mitt Romney perhaps?). But without any hard and fast rules about what constitutes the authentic, we generally consider it to be that which we most recognize in our own lives as being ‘real.’ We think authentic people are the ones who seem to be like us.
Also on the Op-Ed page, legal counsel Al Meyerhoff argues that Enron, Tyco and the sub-prime collapse are the work of one culprit: poor government oversight. Former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving snarks at the not-quite-generosity of art collectors and philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. Cartoonist Joel Pett weighs in on the 2008 election.
The editorial page diagnoses the staph scare and prescribes some solutions, and warns Hollywood not to underestimate Internet users’ ability to self-entertain. Finally, it asks voters to hold off just a little longer in casting their mail-in vote: ‘There are debates still to be held, endorsements to be rentered, momentum to gauge.’
Readers react to a column on California’s mental healthcare policies. Writes Louise Marquis:
I disagree with Patt Morrison’s view that psychiatric treatment is nicer than it was 50 years ago. Instead of straitjackets, chemical straitjackets are new used: debilitating and addictive drugs. And such barbaric treatments as shock are still being used.