Opinion: In today’s pages: Actors, music snobs, polygamists
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Columnist Joel Stein learns how to be a classical music snob:
[I]f people applaud between movements during a concert, I should stare, loudly shush and shake my head in disapproval. The musicians don’t mind the clapping, but snotty audience members love to assert their knowledge of classical music etiquette. When I’m old enough to have really gotten the hang of this, I’m sure I’ll be able to use my phone to excoriate the clappers on an online social network inhabited only by the snotty, old and self-obsessed. It would still be called Facebook.
Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel says Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger’s plan to borrow against lottery earnings relies on Californians’ financial recklessness. And CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp. Ronald D. Sugar argues that there’s no reason to dispute his company’s selection over Boeing for an Air Force contract.
The editorial board chides Republican members of Congress for pushing tax breaks for the rich over tax credits for renewable energy, and wonders if a Texas court acted too fast in allowing kids to be taken from a polygamist compound. The board also says actors should see online film clips as potential revenue, not as threats to their livelihood.
Readers react to the police union’s practice of paying punished LAPD officers. Burbank’s William Rogers says, ‘The patently absurd program neutralizes even the minimal enforcement action available.’ But Marco Rodriguez of Glendale counters, ‘The LAPD complaint system is shortsighted and broken. Officers from other cities laugh at what we get suspended for.’